NAGADI. * Tl 
corpses laid on their back, with the head towards the 
west. A small species of bamboo, of which the natives 
make pan-flutes, was here most common, as indeed all 
along these rocky shores, and greatly added by its grace- 
ful feathery habit to the beauty of the scenery. 
Sunset was close at hand when we reached Nagadi, 
a town built on the top of a high steep hill, composed 
of rich clayey soil. For the night, we took up our 
quarters at the Bure ni sa, or strangers’ house, invari- 
ably found at every Fijian town or village, and remind- 
ing one of the Tambo or Tambu of South America, 
between which and the strangers’ house of Polynesia 
there appears to be a connection which ethnologists 
do not seem to have appreciated sufficiently. Both are 
public establishments, where travellers have the right 
to pass the night, and where they obtain meat and 
drink.* This Bure proved extremely dirty, and was 
much too small for all the people assembled to welcome 
our party. By spreading clean mats over a portion of 
the floor, and putting out most of the smoking fires 
kindled between each of the sleeping-places, we suc- 
ceeded in making ourselves comfortable. Pigs, yams, 
and taro, all baked on hot stones in true Polynesian 
style, as Captain Cook described it one hundred years 
ago, and a quantity of pudding, consisting of ripe ba- 
nanas boiled in cocoa-nut milk, and sweetened with 
* One of the meanings of the Polynesian word tabu, or, as the Fijians 
pronounce it, tambu, is “set apart,” “reserved,” etc.; and I often won- 
dered—that is all I could do with my slight philological knowledge— 
whether the name of the houses “ set apart” or “reserved” for travellers 
in the Andes, the Tambos or Tambus, was in any way connected witk this 
word. 
