200 Tllli: TROPICAL WORLD. 



With the aid of an interpreter, Captain Beechey learned many 

 interesting particulars about these islanders during his four 

 days' sojourn among them. They had, as they said, given up 

 cannibalism some time ago ; but, to judge by the diabolical 

 animation which spread over the chief's brutal countenance as 

 he described the excellent flavour of human flesh, there is every 

 reason to believe that they were in great danger of a relapse. 

 These savages preferred eating their victuals raw, and were thus 

 in fact but one degree removed from that horrid custom. A 

 canoe full of fish having landed in the neighbourhood of the 

 village, they immediately devoured the whole cargo, leaving 

 nothing but the bones and fins. Their marriage ceremonies 

 were as simple as possible : a man had only to say to a woman 

 ' Thou shalt be my wife ! ' and, provided she was not pre- 

 engaged, no further ceremony was required. The children 

 seemed to be the only objects for which the men showed any 

 affection ; the women at least came in for no share of it. 

 While the men stretched their lazy limbs in the shade, these 

 unfortunate creatures were obliged to gather shell-fish on the 

 pointed coral reefs, or to seek for pandanus nuts in the woods. 

 They went to this work at break of day, and on returning from 

 their morning's labour had no time to rest, but were obliged to 

 serve their hungry masters, who first devoured the best part of 

 the fleshy substance inclosed in the rind of the nuts and then 

 threw the rest to the women as we should throw a bone to a dog. 

 After this, the women cracked the nuts with a heavy stone in 

 order to extract the four or five small kernels about the size of 

 an almond which they contain, and which- were laid aside for 

 the men. As a great number of nuts was necessary to satisfy 

 their voracious appetite, the women were in fact occupied all 

 day long in gathering mussels, sea-urchins, and pandanus nuts, 

 and cracking the latter. 



The supremacy of the stronger sex was asserted with the 

 utmost severity, and nowhere did the tyranny of man show 

 itself in a more contemptible light. Once a poor woman, 

 fancying herself unobserved, ventured to eat a few kernels of 

 the nuts she had fetched from a great distance, but unfortu- 

 nately did not escape the vigilant eye of her brutal husband, 

 who immediately rose and knocked her down. Thus over- 

 worked and debased by ill-treatment, we cannot wonder if the 



