104 A MISSION TO VITL 
the slave, and holding in his uplifted hands an immense 
club or gun, the priests invoke their gods, and commit 
the future warrior to their especial protection, praying 
he may kill all the enemies of the tribe, and never 
be beaten in battle; a cheer and a shout from the as- 
sembled multitude concluding the prayer. Two uncles 
of the boy were then to ascend the human pile, and to 
invest him with the malo, or girdle of snow-white tapa ; 
the multitude again calling on their deities to make 
him a great conqueror, and a terror to all who breathe 
enmity to Navua. The malo for the occasion would be 
perhaps two hundred yards long, and six or eight inches 
wide. When wound round the body, the lad would 
hardly be perceivable, and no one but an uncle can 
divest him of it. 
We proposed to the chief that we should be allowed 
to invest his son with the malo, which he at first re- 
fused, but to which he consented after deliberation 
with his people. At the appointed hour, the multitude 
collected in the great strangers’ house, or dure ni sa. 
The lad stood upright in the midst of the assembly, 
guiltless of clothing, and holding a gun over his head. 
The Consul and I approached, and in due form wrapped 
him up in thirty yards of Manchester print, the priest 
and people chanting songs, and invoking the protec- 
tion of their gods. <A short address from the Consul 
succeeded, stirring the lad to nobler efforts for his 
tribe than his ancestors had known, and pointing to the 
path to fame that civilization opened to him. The cere- 
mony concluded by drinking kava, and chanting histo- 
rical reminiscences of the lad’s ancestors,—and thus we 
