132 LAKEMBA AND S A V U - S A V U. 



stud it. The town is on. the south side, and contains about two-thirds 

 of the population of the island, (one thousand people.) 



Lieutenant-Commandant Ringgold, with his officers, again visited 

 the king, Tui Neau, at his house, which is really very little better 

 than a large pig-pen : it is about one hundred feet long by thirty 

 wide, and has in it, after the example of the king of Rewa, two old 

 rusty nine-pounders, moxinted on damaged carriages. There were 

 a great number of women about the kins', and some chiefs. He 

 appeared to be too fat to be able to exert himself. He is about the 

 middle size as to height, slovenly in his person and habits, with a 

 dull-looking countenance, childish in his behaviour, and has been 

 found to be mean and niggardly in his disposition. In proof of this 

 character, a few circumstances will be given, which I have from the 

 missionaries, and which happened while they resided there. 



On the occasion of some thefts having been committed on the mis- 

 sionaries at Lakemba, they made complaint in a formal manner to the 

 king. They were shortly afterwards surprised by a visit from a mes- 

 senger, with many apologies, and the presentation of five small sticks, 

 on which were stuck five little fingers that had been cut off from those 

 who had committed the thefts, as a propitiation for their losses ! 



A poor man happening to offend a high chief by the name of Togi, 

 one of the brothers of Tui Neau, king of Lakemba, the chief, in 

 revenge, took his wife from him ; but the woman was so unhappy, 

 that she told the chief that she would rather die than live to be his 

 slave. He said she should have her desire, she should die ; but she 

 must wait a little while, as he had some great work doing, and, when 

 it was finished, she should be cooked at the feast, and then eaten. 

 She was accordingly kept and fed for that purpose, and when the 

 time came a man was sent to kill her. He, however, was afraid, and, 

 while he was contending with his fears, she effected her escape. The 

 chief, contrary to the usual custom, spared the man's life. 



Some instances of persons preserved from being buried alive have 

 occurred ; but they are few. The fear of disgrace, and the miseries 

 that are entailed upon the old and helpless by their friends and rela- 

 tives, induces many to undergo willingly this death. Nothing strikes 

 one more, among a crowd of natives, than the absence of the aged. 



An anecdote of one of these escapes was told me by a missionary. 

 A Tonga man had made it a constant practice to beat his wife, and, 

 to use his own words, he had " knocked almost all the teeth out of 



