According to the accounts of some of the older chiefs, whom we may believe or not, as we like, there was once a time when cannibalism did not exist. Many years ago, some strangers from a distant land were blown upon the shores of Fiji, and received hospitably by the islanders, who incorporated them into their own tribes, and made much of them. But, in process of time, these people became too powerful, killed the Fijian chiefs, took their wives and property, and usurped their office. In this emergency the people consulted the priests, who said that the Fijians had brought their misfortunes upon themselves. They had allowed strangers to live, whereas “Fiji for the Fijians” was the golden rule, and from that time every male stranger was to be killed and eaten, and every woman taken as a wife. Only one people was free from this law. The Tongans, instead of being killed and eaten, were always welcomed, and their visits encouraged, as they passed backward and forward in their canoes, and brought with them fine mats and other articles for barter. So much have these people intermingled, that in the eastern islands, which are nearest to those of Tonga, there is a decided mixture of Tongan blood. With this exception, however, the Fijians went on the same principle as the Ephesians of Shakespeare-- “If any Syracusan born Come to the bay of Ephesus, he dies;” save that, instead of merely putting to death those who came from one country, they only excepted one country from the universal law. The reader may remember that a sort of respect is paid to a human body used for food. Educated people speak of it in the court language, and, instead of using any vulgar term, such as a human body, they employ the metaphorical language, and call it the “long pig.” As a general rule, the vessels in which human flesh is cooked are reserved expressly for that purpose, and both the vessel in which it is cooked and the dish from which it is eaten are held as tapu. So highly is “bakolo” honored, that it is eaten, not with fingers, but with a fork, and the implement in question is handed down from father to son, like the merais and tikis of the New Zealander. These forks are quite unlike those which are used in England. They mostly have four prongs, but these prongs, instead of being set in a line, are generally arranged in a circle or triangle as the case may be. They are carved out of some very hard wood, and, when they have become venerable by reason of age or of the rank of their proprietor, they receive names of honor. For example, the cannibal chief who ate nearly nine hundred human bodies had a fork which was named “Undro-undro,” the title signifying a small person carrying a great burden. The fork was a small object, but it had carried to the lips of its master the bodies of nearly nine hundred human beings.