THE FEEJEE CANNIBALS. 41 
mats, and beautiful chequered cloth, but spoke 
with disgust of their abominable repasts. He 
remarked that the inhabitants of Tongataboo, an 
island about three days' sail from the Feejees, 
hold this horrid custom in detestation ; but are 
induced by fear to cultivate the friendship of 
their terrible neighbours, and are accustomed to 
bend the body forward, and cover their faces 
with their hands, to express the sense of their 
own inferiority to the Feejee men. Cannibalism 
prevails everywhere in the Feejee Islands, ex- 
cept in the places in which Christianity has 
made progress. Captain Worth was informed 
by Mr. Hunt, of the Wesleyan Mission, that not 
fewer than five hundred persons had been eaten, 
within fifteen miles of his residence, during the 
five years previous. 
In August, 1855, Mr. Waterhouse, a Wesleyan 
Missionary to the Feejees, wrote from Bau, one 
of their cities, to say that he had, in the Decem- 
ber previous, prevailed upon the king to spare 
the life of a young man, an enemy, whom they 
had captured. " A Feejeean approached the king 
very respectfully, and begged his majesty to give 
him the young man to kill and eat that very 
day. With diabolical eloquence did he urge his 
suit, notwithstanding my presence. But the king 
adhered to his promise to me." Many of the 
Feejeeans acknowledge that they greatly prefer 
human flesh to any animal food whatever. 
But it is time to return to the band of men 
who had been so wonderfully preserved from 
threatening dangers. A small blank book, which 
