32 THE CORAL LANDS OF THE PACIFIC. 



at the assumption of sovereignty by Her Majesty, a satisfaction 

 which he thought that the majority of the chiefs shared with 

 himself, although they did not see so clearly the advantages of 

 the change. He denounced by name, and more than once, 

 two or three of the great chiefs who led drunken and irregular 

 lives, and insisted on the necessity of religion, morality, and 

 sobriety in anyone placed in command, in a style which, his 

 past history considered, was sufficiently surprising, but was, I 

 believe, thoroughly true and real. 



' Before I left he asked permission to send the criers through 

 the town, announcing the ceremony of the next day, and they 

 were so engaged until far into the night. 



'The following morning the Vuni Valu assembled all the 

 high chiefs, and lectured them on their duties under the new 

 state of things, their ignorance, shortcomings, and foolish 

 anticipations, after a fashion which those who heard it describe 

 as in the highest degree striking and effective. 



' In the afternoon the great chiefs, to the number of about 

 200, took their seats in a double row in a circle on the ground, 

 under the shelter of a great awning of mat-sails, erected in the 

 ram or public square of Bau. Outside the awning were the 

 townspeople and my native guard, and at a little distance, on 

 a small rise of ground, Cacobau's wife, Adi Litia, with her 

 family, ladies, and servants. 



' The angona, having been made to the accompaniment of the 

 usual chanting, was brought in a small bowl to Cacobau by a 

 young chief of high rank, and by Cacobau handed to me, amid 

 the profoundest silence. As I began to drink, at Cacobau's 

 signal and himself leading, the assembly raised the hand- 

 clapping and shouts which imply acknowledgment of superior 

 rank and position ; and on their cessation, as I ceased to drink, 

 I was much struck by the sudden momentary buzz of sup- 



