184 A MISSION TO VITI. 



then alive, would never have agreed to it ; but our visit 

 happened just at the right time in order to crown our 

 endeavours with success. 



When in August we saw the cauldron again, it was 

 quite rusty, and had evidently not been used. Weeds 

 were growing around it, and a creeper was trying to 

 cover by its foliage this remnant of past errors and 

 crimes. Kuruduadua had evidently kept the promise 

 made us, caused presents of human flesh sent to him 

 to be buried, and given strict orders that even in the 

 fight impending the bodies of the slain enemies should 

 be left to be buried by their friends, and on no consi- 

 deration be removed by his own people. 



Batinisavu, who succeeded the cannibal Naulumatua as 

 governor of Namosi, belonged to the party always op- 

 posed to anthropophagism. He was quite a young man ; 

 had, according to all accounts, never tasted human flesh ; 

 and there is every reason to believe, great friends as he 

 was with Danford, that as long as he holds the post no 

 boJcola will be seen at Namosi. The widows of the late 

 governor paid me repeated visits, and said there would 

 be no more cannibalism at Namosi, since Kuruduadua's 

 orders were very strict. Soromato, the young chief who 

 had attached himself to me, asked Danford one day 

 whether he remembered a conversation they had years 

 ago, when he was a very young boy, and in which he 

 told him of a vow he had made never to kill a woman 

 when able to wield a club, or eat human flesh, when old 

 enough to do so. Danford said he well remembered it, 

 as it struck him as very singular that a mere child should 

 feel so strongly on these subjects as to make a solemn 



