For the two or three days preceding the feast, all the people are full of activity. They take a pride in the liberality of their chief, and each man brings as many pigs, yams, turtles, and other kinds of food as he can manage to put together. The king himself takes the direction of affairs, his orders being communicated to the people by his Matas, or aides-de-camp. Day and night go on the preparations, the pigs squealing as they are chased before being killed, the men hard at work digging the ovens, some loosening the earth with long pointed sticks, others carrying off the loosened soil in baskets, while the flames that blaze from the completed ovens enable the workmen to continue their labors throughout the night. On these occasions the Fijians dispense with their ordinary feelings respecting cooking. In Fiji, as in New Zealand, cooking is despised, and the word “cook” is used as a term of reproach and derision. In consequence of this feeling, all cooking is performed by the slaves. But on the eve of a great feast this feeling is laid aside, and every man helps to cook the food. Even the king himself assists in feeding the ovens with fuel, arranging the pigs, stirring the contents of the cooking pots, and performing offices which, on the following day, none but a slave will perform. By the time that the cooking is completed, the various tribes have assembled, and the ovens are then opened and the food taken out. It is then arranged in separate heaps, a layer of cocoa-nut leaves being placed on the ground by way of dish. On the leaves is placed a layer of cocoa-nuts, then come the yams and potatoes, then puddings, and at the top of all several pigs. The quantity of provisions thus brought together is enormous. Mr. Williams mentions that at one feast, at which he was present, two hundred men were employed for nearly six hours in piling up the food. There were six heaps of food, and among their contents were about fifty tons of cooked yams and potatoes, fifteen tons of pudding, seventy turtles, and about two hundred tons of uncooked yams. There was one pudding which measured twenty-one feet in circumference. Profusion is the rule upon these occasions, and the more food that a chief produces, the more honor he receives. One chief gained the honorable name of High Pork, because he once provided such vast quantities of food that before it could be finished decomposition had begun in the pork.