144 A MISSION TO VITI. 
The meeting with the chiefs and principal landholders 
of Kadavu was held at Tavuki, and passed off as satis- 
factorily as that at Bau and Rewa, the natives expressing 
their eagerness to become British subjects. We pur- 
chased from the natives a good many curiosities, such as 
clubs, fans, spears, etc., for our ethnological collections, 
some of which were remarkable specimens of carving, 
and evidently very old. The great size and heaviness of 
these things made them very inconvenient objects to 
carry and stow away on board, crammed as we were for 
space. One afternoon all the children of the town and 
neighbourhood, wishing to show their goodwill, came 
in full procession, and singing, up to the mission-house, 
each carrying a present. Some had bundles of sugar- 
cane, some bunches of taro, some struggled under the 
weight of an enormous yam. All the presents were 
piled in a heap at our feet, and it was intimated that 
they were meant for the special gratification of Mrs. 
Smythe. Then all the children sat down in rows on the 
ground, and sang a number of songs, accompanied by 
grotesque gestures, and movements of body and arms, 
but at the same time not without meaning. One of 
these songs, or “mekes,” described the horror of the 
natives when seeing for the first time a horse and a 
man on its back,—how they fled in wild terror, and took 
refuge on high rocks and trees, so that the monster 
might not hurt them. 
Both ‘ Pegasus’ and ‘ Paul Jones’ left Tavuki Bay 
on the morning of the 17th of August, and after a few 
hours’ sail arrived at Qalira, where we hoped to ascend 
Buke Levu, but the sea was so high that we found it 
