EASY VICTORY. 31 



fine man, about twenty years of age, and more than six 

 feet high, with intelligent features, and as melodious a 

 voice as I ever heard. Like most of his fighting-men, 

 his face was blacked with charcoal obtained from the 

 Qumu-tree (Acacia Michei, A. Gray). Over his luxuriant 

 head of hair he wore the sala, made of a very fine piece 

 of white native cloth, and looking somewhat like a 

 turban. Around his loins he wore a narrow strip of 

 bark-cloth, done up in the T-bandage fashion. Arms 

 and legs were decorated with bands made of the bleached 

 leaves of the Voivoi, a species of screw-pine ; whilst a 

 boar's tooth, nearly circular, was suspended around his 

 neck. Golea, flushed with victory, gave us a rather 

 circumstantial account of his recent exploits, the first 

 I believe he had ever been engaged in on his own ac- 

 count, and, being a young man, he made the most of 

 them. His object had been to punish some district of 

 Vanua Levu for having, three years ago, killed his bro- 

 ther. He had taken nine towns, which he assured us 

 had been a great achievement. Soon afterwards we 

 heard another version of the affair, according to which 

 the inhabitants, not appreciating the idea of being 

 clubbed, had adopted the maxim of running away in 

 order to live to fight another day. This fully accounted 

 for only two killed, one an old woman, the other a child ; 

 and malice, as venomous in Fiji as elsewhere, added that 

 even these two had only been knocked down and would 

 probably recover. We may rejoice that no more serious 

 calamities attended Golea's expeditions, which may be 

 said to have closed a long line of murders. Golea's 

 father, Tui Kilakila, in February 1854, was murdered, 



