Our next halt was at Nasau, a very pretty village on the shore, beneath palms and other foliage, with a steep wooded hill just behind it, and a carefully kept burial-ground with red-leaved plants on the graves. But I think the night was the most unpleasant we have spent in Fiji. The house given to us was in the very middle of the village, and so small as to have only one door and one small window, both of which were continually blocked up by a crowd of gaping spectators, who, contrary to all Fijian manners, would not go away even when we were vainly attempting to sleep. Unfortunately for us, a child died in a large house next door to us, and the whole night was devoted to doing honour to the parents. So while the mother and other women wailed at the top of their voices, the young folk danced in a circle in front of the house, singing their usual songs. This went on the whole night. You can fancy we did not sleep much! In the morning I went to the door of the house, where the family appeared as cheerful as usual, and pleasantly invited me to enter. In so doing I narrowly escaped treading on a mat at the doorway, which I then discovered was thrown over the dead child, a five-year-old little one. School and church service being over, I walked along the shore with Mrs Langham. It is a lovely coast, shaded by grand old trees, with here and there rich masses of creepers, which climb all over them, so that a group of a dozen _eevie_ trees appears like one gigantic mass of lovely trailing foliage. We saw a whole valley clothed with the great white convolvulus, which is excellent food for cattle. The leaves take every shade of metallic green, yellow, and bronze, and this effect is wonderfully lustrous. Isaaki, the venerable grey-haired minister, came to meet and welcome us. He is a very fine-looking old man, dignified and gentle, a striking contrast to a large number of Kai Tholos—_i.e._, mountain people—who were sent here as prisoners by the late Government, and who do look most miserable objects now. They will soon be sent back to their own district. The women are much and hideously tattooed round the mouth and all over the lips and about the shoulders, and their only clothing is a fringe of dried grass. The women of the coast happily indulge in an exceedingly small display of tattooing. Some have slight patterns on the hands and arms, which are considered attractive, but the majority only submitted to so much as was compulsory.[30]