110 A MISSION TO VITI. 
vessels filled with spring-water, seem to be the only 
utensils admitted. In buildings or bures like these, all 
the male population, married and unmarried, sleeps. 
The boys, until they have come of age, erect a bure of 
their own, often built on raised stages over the water, 
and approachable only by a long, narrow trunk of a 
tree. The women and girls sleep at home; and it is 
quite against Fijian etiquette for a husband to take his 
night’s repose anywhere except at one of the public 
bures of his town or village, though he will go to his 
family soon after dawn. In the daytime the bures are 
generally deserted. Towards four o’clock people begin 
to pour in, and if any strangers arrive they will inva- 
riably take up their quarters at these places. Here po- 
litics and all events of the day are discussed, and when 
talking, the men, even high chiefs, will be plaiting cocoa- 
nut fibre into s’nnet, so much used in the construction of 
houses, canoes, and arms. And a great deal these people 
have to talk about: the politics of the groups, inde- 
pendent of the new element introduced by the cession 
of the country to England, the never-ending intrigues 
of the Tonguese immigration, the endeavour of mission- 
aries, consuls, and traders to spread Christianity and 
civilization, are rather complicated, and give rise to a 
good deal of discussion and speculation. 
When evening is coming on, the bure is beginning to 
fill; most of the fires between the sleeping-places are 
lit, and the natives are leisurely stretched on the mats, 
their legs cocked up the stages, like Yankees in a ta- 
vern—all smoking their cigarettos, made of self-grown 
tobacco and dry banana leaves. Now come the kava- 
