But _revenons à nos moutons_. The Rev. Messrs. Williams and Calvert, missionaries, for many long years, among the Fijians, state, in their recently published work, that those unsophisticated children of Nature eat "long pig,"--as they call, with graceful humor, roast-man, in contradistinction to "short-pig," by which they designate our squealing fellow-roasters,--from three different motives.--When a chief has a gala-day, or desires to signal his arrival by a right royal feast, it is considered befitting to slaughter some men, to let the blood run in the path of royalty, and to have on the table some _roast-homme_. Our Captain Wilkins told us, years ago, that, for this _roast-homme_, a plump Fijiana, of some twelve or thirteen years, is preferred. They know very well what is good!--The second motive is hatred. When a Fijian mortally hates a person, he endeavors to kill him; and having killed the enemy, why should the victim not be eaten?--Lastly, it would seem that affectionate regard, especially for a favorite wife, sometimes rises to a mordant passion and an unconquerable longing for material assimilation,--so much so, that the loving husband roasts his Penelope, and neighbors are invited to participate in his better fourth or fifth, as the polygamic case may be. Perhaps, years after, when with less demonstrative nations the memory of the beloved one would have passed away, the Fijian Fidelio may smack his lips, and exclaim, with Petrarch's fervor,-- "Perchè Morte fura Prima i migliori, e lascia star i rei: Questa aspettata al regno degli Dei Cosa bella mortal passa e non dura."