MAAFU. 241 
asked to assist in the feuds in which chiefs friendly 
to them were engaged, receiving canoes and other pro- 
perty in return for their services. From being mere 
mercenaries, they gradually began to act on their own 
responsibility, readily avenging every outrage from time 
to time committed against any of their countrymen on 
the smaller islands of the eastern group, where they 
could calculate the exact number of their possible op- 
ponents. * 
With the constantly increasing influx of Tongan 
immigration, chiefs came over, who undertook the ma- 
nagement of their countrymen, and among them Tui 
Hala Fatai, mentioned by Mariner, and Tuboi Tutai, 
spoken of as Tuboi Totai by Wilkes. About 1848, 
Maafu, another of their chiefs, and destined to exer- 
cise a vast influence on Fijian affairs, made his ap- 
pearance. Married to one of the highest ladies of his 
native country, descended from the ancient royal line 
(Finau), gifted with great personal advantages, and 
possessing as comprehensive and ambitious a mind as 
rarely falls to the lot of a Polynesian, Maafu began to 
prove a dangerous rival to King George, the chief 
seated on the throne of his ancestors. He had already 
shown his disposition in a sandal-wood expedition to 
the New Hebrides, which originated with Messrs. Henry 
and Scott. 
“* About December, 1842, two vessels under British colours, 
the ‘Sophia’ and ‘ Sultana,’ and a third which was said to have 
carried the flag of Tahiti, arrived [at Tonga] to raise a party 
for the purpose of forcibly cutting sandal-wood at the New 
* Compare Mariner’s ‘Tonga,’ vol. i. p. 72-76. 
R 
