496 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



interest in everything, and put question after question, whereas it seemed impossible to 

 interest King George in any subject ; he said nothing at all during our interview. 

 Both are warriors of renown, and have fought their way to their positions. Eatu David, 

 the eldest son of Thackombau, was very hospitable, and invited us to drink kaava with 

 him in the evening, when he produced a bottle of brandy also. We wished to see a 

 dance, but this was impossible, because it was Saturday evening, which is by order of the 

 missionaries kept in a certain way sacred, as a preparation for Sunday. For the same 

 reason Ratu David dared not allow his retinue to sing a chant used during kaava drinking, 

 which we were anxious to hear. 



" We pitched a sort of tent on a very small islet about forty yards off Mbau, and slept 

 there. Ratu David sent us off a young pig and a couple of fowls all alive, a most 

 welcome present. They were killed and consumed within an hour of their arrival. The 

 islet on which we slept is made up of blocks of coral, weathered and bored by various 

 animals, piled up by the waves. The blocks near tide mark are so blackened by exposure, 

 that I took them at first for vesicular lava. 



" Around Mbau are extensive shallow mud flats, the mud being brought down by the 

 Wai Levu. Across these flats we sailed next morning, with scarcely a breath of wind, 

 though our pilot, whom we christened ' Joe,' kept constantly calling for a breeze, using 

 an old Fijian pilot's chant, ' Come down, come down, my friend, from the mountains.' 

 As we drifted slowly away over the glassy water, the view behind us was beautiful. 

 Far away, blue in the distance, was a long range of the lofty peaked mountains of Viti 

 Levu, the abode of the Kaivolos, who are a long-haired race of mountaineers, and still 

 cannibals. Nearer lay a streak of dark green, undulating, low country, bounded seawards 

 by low cliffs, and showing near the coast the numerous cultivated clearings of the natives. 

 Just off the cliffs of Vitu Levu lay the small island of Viwa. In the foreground was the 

 island of Mbau, with its crowded reed houses, its strange stone parapets, and its green 

 hill topped by the missionaries' white house. From the centre of the village came the 

 sound of what was the old cannibal death drum, beating now for morning prayers. 

 There were two of these drums in front of the strangers' house ; they are simply logs 

 of wood, hollowed out above into troughs, and supported horizontally on posts about 

 3 feet above the ground, looking like horse-troughs. One was larger than the other, 

 and they were beaten with two wooden billets alternately, and gave out different low bass 

 booming notes. Very similar drums are used amongst the Melanesians, as at Efate in 

 the New Hebrides, 1 and at the Admiralty Islands, where, however, they are stuck uprigh t 

 in the ground, and the mouths of the trough-like cavities are contracted to narrow slit- 

 openings, the trunks being hollowed out through these. The Japanese wooden bell, or 

 narrow-mouthed wooden drum, seems to be merely a more perfect development of these 

 drums, and no doubt the actual bell was derived from the copying of some such wooden 

 1 F. A. Campbell, A Year in the New Hebrides, p. Ill, Melbourne, 1873. 



