144 A MISSION TO VITI. 



The meeting with the chiefs and principal landholders 

 of Kadavu was held at Tavuki, and passed off as satis- 

 factorily as that at Ban and Rew r a, the natives expressing 

 their eagerness to become British subjects. We pur- 

 chased from the natives a good many curiosities, such as 

 clubs, fans, spears, etc., for our ethnological collections, 

 some of which were remarkable specimens of carving, 

 and evidently very old. The great size and heaviness of 

 these things made them very inconvenient objects to 

 carry and stow away on board, crammed as we were for 

 space. One afternoon all the children of the town and 

 neighbourhood, wishing to show their goodwill, came 

 in full procession, and singing, up to the mission-house, 

 each carrying a present. Some had bundles of sugar- 

 cane, some bunches of taro, some struggled under the 

 weight of an enormous yam. All the presents were 

 piled in a heap at our feet, and it was intimated that 

 they were meant for the special gratification of Mrs. 

 Smythe. Then all the children sat down in rows on the 

 ground, and sang a number of songs, accompanied by 

 grotesque gestures, and movements of body and arms, 

 but at the same time not without meaning. One of 

 these songs, or " mekes," described the horror of the 

 natives when seeing for the first time a horse and a 

 man on its back, how they fled in wild terror, and took 

 refuge on high rocks and trees, so that the monster 

 might not hurt them. 



Both ' Pegasus ' and ' Paul Jones ' left Tavuki Bay 

 on the morning of the 17th of August, and after a few 

 hours' sail arrived at Qalira, where we hoped to ascend 

 Buke Levu, but the sea was so high that we found it 



