A GLIMPSE OF TONGAN HISTORY. 297 



Tongan hospitality is as thorough as their other national 

 characteristics. Some 70 or 80 years ago, when they first 

 made the acquaintance of white men, they were intensely 

 puzzled by what they considered the selfishness of the white 

 man's way of living in procuring everything for himself and 

 family by purchase, and only allowing his friends to partake of 

 his good things by invitation. They used to remark that the 

 Tongan custom was far better ; that they had nothing to do 

 when they felt hungry or thirsty, but to go into any house 

 where eating and drinking was going forward, sit down with the 

 company without invitation, and partake of what they had. 

 The selfish isolation of the papalagis has passed into a Tongan 

 proverb, and when any stranger comes into their houses to eat 

 with them, they will sometimes say jocosely : 



' No ! Ave shall treat you after the white man's manner : go 

 home and eat what you have got, and we shall eat what v,e 

 have got.' 



England at one time was almost Tongan in this matter of 

 open-hearted hospitality, even if it was confined to the 

 monasteries. When we became ' reformed,' however, we did 

 away with the monasteries and built workhouses to the 

 great satisfaction of the hungry poor, and complete abolition, 

 as AVC all know, of uncalled-for voluntary charity. 



Mariner tells us that when Captain Cook visited the 

 Tongans cannibalism was scarcely thought of among them, 

 but that their interference in Fijian affairs soon taught it to 

 them. A famine Avhich happened some time after the Fiji 

 invasion rendered the innovation in the matter of diet almost 

 necessary, and about seventy years ago there can be no doubt 

 they did occasionally eat their prisoners. But the new-fangled 

 Fijian ideas Avere never permanently established as Tongan 

 habits. In this regard they seem to have been a race standing 



