178 A MISSION TO VITI. 



after leaf unfolded, the tubers increased in size and sub- 

 stance, how their hearts must have trembled, their cou- 

 rage forsaken them ! And when at last the foliage began 

 to turn yellow, and the taro was ripe, what agonies they 

 must have undergone ! what torture could have equalled 

 theirs ? 



How many dead bodies have been eaten at Namosi, it 

 is impossible to guess ; but as for every corpse brought 

 into the town a stone was placed near one of the bures, 

 you get some faint idea of the number. I counted no 

 less than four hundred around the Great Bure alone, 

 and the natives said a lot of these stones of which 

 the larger ones indicated chiefs had been washed 

 away, when, some time ago, the river overflowed its 

 banks. 



On some of the T&vola(Terminalia) trees standing about 

 the Great Bure, I noticed certain incisions, and as Mac- 

 donald, on ascending the Rewa river, had noticed similar 

 ones at the town at Naitasiri, and was told that they 

 were " a register of the number of dead bodies (bokolas) 

 brought to the spot to be offered up at the bure before 

 they were cooked and eaten," I inquired repeatedly 

 after their meaning, and was assured by various persons 

 that, at Namosi at least, they were entirely the work of 

 children. As the bark of the Tavola-trees is as smooth 

 as our beech, I carved my name on the largest of them ; 

 a much condemned habit of our race, but which, in re- 

 mote corners of the earth, I have not always been able 

 to resist. 



There are ovens in the public square for baking dead 

 bodies, and the pots in which human flesh is boiled or 



