“One day I came to a long bridge formed of a single cocoanut tree, which was thrown across a rapid stream, the opposite bank of which was two or three feet lower, so that the declivity was too steep to be comfortable. The pole was also wet and slippery, and thus my crossing safely was very doubtful. Just as I commenced the experiment a heathen said, with much animation, ‘To-day I shall have a musket.’ I had, however, just then to heed my steps more than his words, and so succeeded in reaching the other side safely. When I asked him why he spoke of a musket, the man replied, ‘I felt certain you would fall in attempting to go over, and I should have fallen after you; and, as the bridge is high, the water rapid, and you a gentleman, you would not have thought of giving me less than a musket.’” The _tabu_ is one of the most curious habits of Pacific Islanders. Though it occurred in Fiji, it was Polynesian, rather than Melanesian. Tabu was forbidding persons to touch, or use, or make some object. Chiefs and priests set most of the tabus, but lesser people might sometimes do so. A man might tabu all the cocoanuts in a district, setting up some sign or mark to show that he had done so; no one might thereafter touch a nut there until the tabu had been removed. A chief might tabu a man’s working; he could not do work of any kind until the chief removed the tabu. A chief might tabu the building of canoes by the people of a certain village; the people thenceforth would need to secure canoes from others. Thousands of tabus were set, and they made much trouble and inconvenience. The man who broke a tabu was punished, sometimes by death. The Fijians were dreadful cannibals. England governed Fiji for many years, and it was believed that the practice had disappeared. A few old men were considered almost as curiosities because they had eaten flesh of men and were called “the last of the cannibals.” Then suddenly in 1889 the old custom broke out again. A party of Fijians killed some victims and ate them in a cave. A party in pursuit found evidence of the dreadful feast. Among these were some of the curious wooden forks used because it was not proper that the flesh should be touched with the fingers! XXX. POLYNESIANS. The Pacific Islands lying east from the Melanesian Islands, beginning with New Zealand and stretching to Easter Island, were occupied by Polynesians. The best known of their island groups were New Zealand, the Society Islands, Samoa, and the Hawaiian Islands. These islands are either volcanic islands or coral islands, and the natural animal and vegetable life occurring on them is less varied than on the great islands lying nearer to the Asiatic or Australian continents.