192 A MISSION TO VITI. 



one of the crimes generally punished with death ; and 

 Kuruduadua himself had not long ago one of his ne- 

 phews clubbed for taking undue liberties with one of 

 his wives. What is called amongst us the " social 

 evil," and thought to be an unnatural excrescence of 

 our artificial state of society, is not unknown amongst 

 these barbarous races. There being no streets, nymphs 

 of a certain description waylay travellers on the high 

 roads a direct refutation of the Mormon argument, 

 that " polygamy is the only cure for this corruption of 

 our great cities." 



Fijians have been charged with want of natural affec- 

 tion ; and the strangulation of widows on the death of 

 their husbands, and the killing of parents when beset 

 with the infirmities of old-age by the hands of their 

 own children, have been advanced as proofs thereof. 

 Yet these facts are perhaps the best arguments that 

 human nature is not different in the Fijis than else- 

 where. Affection for the departed of course, mis- 

 taken affection prompted their relatives or friends to 

 dispatch widows at the time of their husbands' burial ; 

 and the widows themselves have been known to seek 

 death by their own hands, if their relatives refused 

 to fulfil that duty which custom imposed upon them. 

 Even widowers, in the depth of their grief, have fre- 

 quently terminated their existence, when deprived of a 

 dearly beloved wife. On the death of a near relative 

 people will cut off joints of their fingers in order to 

 demonstrate their grief, and they will mourn for a long 

 time for their lost ones. The sentiment of friendship is 

 strongly developed, and there is scarcely a man who has 



