LIFE IN THE BUKES. Ill 



chewers, comely-looking youngsters, carrying the large 

 wooden bowl, a cocoa-nut shell for drinking the bever- 

 age, the bamboo water- vessel, a handful of fibre for 

 straining the kava, and the root of the South Sea pep- 

 per from which it is prepared. No sooner have they 

 taken their seat, and commenced chewing, taking care 

 to throw the rope affixed to the kava-bowl toward the 

 person highest in rank, than a leading man, perhaps a 

 heathen priest, begins chanting a song, in which the 

 whole assembly joins; and two young fellows beat time 

 with little sticks, applied on a bamboo or any other 

 sounding wood that happens to be handy. The leader 

 of the chant does not sit motionless, but waves his body, 

 arms, and hands in such a variety of ways, and with 

 such extreme ease, that you fancy you can imitate him 

 as readily as the whole assembly does. But the very first 

 time you fail, to the great delight of your native spec- 

 tators. His motions are not difficult, but you never 

 know what they are going to be until it is too late to 

 imitate, and he has already passed on to something else. 

 The interest of this bye-play is thus well kept up, and 

 the Fijians deserve full credit of having obtained hold 

 of one of the great secrets of fixing the attention on an 

 object, or making it, in other words, interesting. They 

 know the art of concealing the end as long as possible. 

 What would our novelists do without the use of this 

 machinery ( How dull would life itself be if the future 

 was unveiled to us ! 



The lads, having chewed a sufficient quantity of the 

 root, place the masticated mass into the bowl. Now 

 water is poured on, the whole yellowish-looking fluid 



