72 THE CORAL LANDS OF THE PACIFIC. 



four and five thousand. Among them were those represent- 

 ing the unfortunate Na Lotu people, who were the first 

 mountaineers to accept (and suffer for) Christianity. All the 

 hill tribes foimed an offensive alliance, and attacked the 

 Na Lotu stronghold on the range of that name, but without 

 success, for they occupied a position impregnable in native 

 warfare. Then the attacking allies sent word to them that 

 they would relinquish the attempt as useless, and asked them 

 to attend a feast to cement the reconciliation and amity. The 

 poor wretches went, and, when utterly unprepared, were 

 massacred almost to a man, the few who escaped doing so by 

 lying still among the heap of dead bodies until nightfall 

 enabled them to creep away unobserved. This done, the 

 heathens, at their ease, slaughtered the unprotected women 

 and children. During the Governmental wars were seen 

 houses in every town decorated in the way described, with 

 ' cannibal reeds ;' and to this fact, in association with the sadly 

 common infanticide and enforced celibacy among the lower 

 Jcaisis, seems mainly attributable the startling contrast between 

 the present number of inhabitants and the many evidences of 

 the interior having been at a former period far more populously 

 occupied than now. 



On another occasion Mr. Harding asked his cannibal acquaint- 

 ances why they used forks for human flesh only. 



They replied that human flesh when cooked emitted in the 

 dark a peculiar halo which, according to their description, 

 resembles a phosphorescent lustre or magnetic flame. The 

 utensils or saturated wrappers containing it, or the hands 

 of anyone manipulating it, present the same appearance ; 

 and therefore it is that, being much afraid of this, they used 

 the well-known ' cannibal forks.' 



These cannibal forks are made of hard wood, and have 



