1 62 Cruise of the "Alert" 



were being vigorously sounded to summon the people to the feast. 

 Subsequently the old king shook himself together, came out from 

 the hut, and standing in the open surrounded by a large and 

 picturesque assemblage of his subjects, and assisted by his three 

 big sons, distributed large rolls of " tapa " (native cloth made from 

 the inner bark of the paper mulberry) to several leading person- 

 ages of the strange tribe. These presents were valuable, for some 

 of these pieces of " tapa " measured eighty yards in length by 

 about one yard in width. 



About two months before the time of our visit, there had been 

 a great fire at Bau, which destroyed and reduced to ashes about 

 one-third of the town, and compelled some of the inhabitants to 

 move over to the main island of Viti Levu. Among the buildings 

 destroyed by this fire was the great Bure Kalou, or native temple, 

 where even so recently as thirty years ago the great cannibal 

 feasts used to take place. Close to one angle of the square mass 

 of earthwork on which the temple was raised, we saw a stone slab 

 projecting from the ground in a nearly upright position. This 

 was one of the famous stones — incorrectly styled " sacrificial " 

 against which the unfortunate people who were to be cooked for 

 " bakola " (human meat) had their brains dashed out. This inter- 

 esting relic of cannibalism has not escaped the ravages of modern 

 vandalism, numerous fragments having been chipped off as curios. 

 Indeed, we were told that quite recently one of the white traders 

 of Levuka had been endeavouring to carry off this stone alto- 

 gether, with a view to making money by exhibiting it at Sydney 

 and such places. 



We saw another and somewhat similar stone near the water 

 side, and close to the remains of the Bure Kalou of the tribe of 

 fishermen, where the bodies of prisoners of war, brought in by 

 the " Lasikaus," or fishermen, were landed and mutilated. The 

 upright slab was worn quite smooth on one side, presumably by 

 the friction of human heads. 



Certain honeycombed slabs of coral here formed a pavement 



