168 FIJI AlH) THE FIJIANS. English Lieutenant manifested a good deal of unbelief, until he found his head in pretty close contact with parts of several men which hung from a tree near the oven, where, a few days before, their bodies had been cooked. Whatever may have been the origin of man-eating in Fiji — whether famine or superstition — there is not the slightest excuse for its contin- uance. Food of every kind abounds, and, with a little effort, might be vastly increased. The land gives large supply spontaneously, and, un- doubtedly, is capable of supporting a hundred times the number of its present inhabitants. Li the foregoing details, all colouring has been avoided, and many facts, which might have been advanced, have been withheld. All the truth may not be told. But surely enough has been said to prove that the heathenism of Fiji has, by its own uninfluenced development, reached the most appalling depths of abomination. The picture, without exacffferatino;, mio;ht have been far darker : but it is dark enough to awaken sympathy for a people so deplorably fallen, and to quicken an earnest longing that their full deliverance may be at hand.*
- It is but jiTst to state, that nmch detail and illustrative incident furnished by the author
on this subject, have been withheld, and some of the more horrible features of the rest repressed or softened. — Editob.
