NAGADI. 151 



corpses laid on their back, with the head towards the 

 west. A small species of bamboo, of which the natives 

 make pan-flutes, was here most common, as indeed all 

 along these rocky shores, and greatly added by its grace- 

 ful feathery habit to the beauty of the scenery. 



Sunset was close at hand when we reached Nagadi, 

 a town built on the top of a high steep hill, composed 

 of rich clayey soil. For the night, we took up our 

 quarters at the Bure ni sa, or strangers' house, invari- 

 ably found at every Fijian town or village, and remind- 

 ing one of the Tambo or Tambu of South America, 

 between which and the strangers' house of Polynesia 

 there appears to be a connection which ethnologists 

 do not seem to have appreciated sufficiently. Both are 

 public establishments, where travellers have the right 

 to pass the night, and where they obtain meat and 

 drink.* This Bure proved extremely dirty, and was 

 much too small for all the people assembled to welcome 

 our party. By spreading clean mats over a portion of 

 the floor, and putting out most of the smoking fires 

 kindled between each of the sleeping-places, we suc- 

 ceeded in making ourselves comfortable. Pigs, yams, 

 and taro, all baked on hot stones in true Polynesian 

 style, as Captain Cook described it one hundred years 

 ago, and a quantity of pudding, consisting of ripe ba- 

 nanas boiled in cocoa-nut milk, and sweetened with 



* One of the meanings of the Polynesian word tabu, or, as the Fijians 

 pronounce it, tambu, is " set apart," " reserved," etc. ; and I often won- 

 dered that is all I could do with my slight philological knowledge 

 whether the name of the houses " set apart " or " reserved " for travellers 

 in the Andes, the Tambos or Tambus, was in any way connected with this 

 word. 



