It sometimes happens that inferior combatants each pin their faith on the aid of a superior chief, while he, for his own interest, trims between the two, inclining to the weaker party in order to reduce the stronger, whom he reassures with flattering messages. In promising his aid he would, in ancient times, send a spear with a floating streamer; more recently the custom was to send a club with the message, "I have sent my club; soon I myself will follow." It was death for tributaries to _kanakanai yarau_ (_i.e._ eat with both sides). The other side were kept fully informed of these preliminary negotiations, and had made similar preparations. No formal declaration of war was therefore necessary, though there were instances of it. Usually the declaration took place in more practical fashion by the surprise and slaughter of an unarmed party of the enemy--women fishing on the reef, or a messenger returning home in his canoe. On the news of this exploit the war-drum was beaten and the _tangka_ was held. Thereafter no visitor, though he belonged properly to the opposing side, might depart. Custom required that he should fight on the side of his hosts. The _tangka_ was a review, held on the eve of leaving the chief village, and at every halting-place on the way to the battlefield. It was a ceremony that appealed to the Fijian temperament with peculiar force, since, to adapt the phrase of a classic in the literature of sport, it was "the image of war, with less than ten per cent. of its danger." The warriors, arrayed in all the majesty of their war-harness, met to defy a distant enemy, to boast of their exploits on a future day, not to the unsympathizing eyes of strangers, but to a gallery of applauding friends. The public square of the village was lined with the townsfolk and their women; at its further end sat the paramount chief and his warriors. Presently the approach of a party of allies is announced with a loud shout; led by their chief they file into the open, painted with black and white, armed and turbaned, their eyes and teeth gleaming white in terrifying contrast with their painted skins. The _tama_, the shout of respect, is exchanged, and a man, who is supposed to represent the enemy, stands forth and cries, "Sai tava! Sai tava! Ka yau mai ka yavia a mbure!"[37] Thereupon begins the _mbole_, or boasting. The leader first, then the warriors next in degree singly, after them companies of five, or ten, or twenty step forward into the open, brandishing their weapons before the presiding chief and boasting of their future exploits at the top of their voices. Williams records a few specimens of these _mbole_:-- [Pageheader: THE BOASTING CEREMONY] "Sir, do you know me? Your enemies soon will!" "See this hatchet, how clean! To-morrow it will be bathed in blood!" "This is my club, the club that never yet was false!" "The army moves to-morrow; then shall ye eat dead men till you are surfeited!"