loz THE CORAL LANDS OF THE PACIFIC. 



Fijian has a very effective substitute in his angona root, the 

 raw material of the ' Fiji cider,' which I tasted on arrival at 

 Kandavu. A friend of mine who stayed a few weeks in the 

 group, thus described his experience of ceremonial kava drink-ing. 

 Quant & moi, I seem to have gone in for it from the commence- 

 ment ; and though I cannot say I like it, still I learned not to 

 dislike it. 



' Late in the evening we learned that Sir Arthur Gordon 

 had arrived, and on the following morning we had the honour 

 of an interview with him at the Bure. Here also we had a 

 second interview with Cacobau, who had called to pay his 

 respects to his Excellency. The occasion was interesting in 

 many respects, but for strangers like us, who wanted to see 

 as much of native life as possible, no small part of the interest 

 consisted in the opportunity afforded us of witnessing "kavu 

 drink," a ceremony which appears to be a great social institu- 

 tion in Fiji. Kava is the name given to a liquor produced by 

 chewing the root of a shrub called angona, and the ceremonious 

 part of the preparation consists in chewing the root The 

 process is wearisome, and to one who witnesses it for the first 

 time it cannot but be disgusting. A score or two of Cacobau's 

 men squatted down on the floor, one of them with a large 

 wooden bowl before him, and the dry root of the angona cut 

 into small pieces. Putting a piece into his mouth, and reduc- 

 ing it by chewing to a soft pulpy state, he squirted the juice 

 into the bowl ; and so with piece after piece, until the bowl 

 was nearly full. Pouring water into the bowl, he stirred the 

 liquor about, and strained it with a fibrous sort of wisp tiH it 

 was clear. While this chewing, squirting, and straining was 

 going on, the fellows squatted around the chief performer, 

 chanted an invocation, or something of that sort, in a droning 



