in form. As a mortal and a reality, Gotama has given character to modern India. He was clearly an earnest man who sought to stay the tottering temple and bring back the sanctions of their ancient faith. As a reformer and philosopher he merits to stand by the side of Confucius and Zoroaster, and in the Christian Church his compeer is Loyola. We cannot rank him with Luther, for he took no Protestant stand against the corruptions of acknowledged authorities; he hoped only to revive the failing energies of the national religion, to develop the principles of the national theology, and exemplify the virtues of the national creed. As to the time when he flourished Oriental scholars differ quite widely. Hardy places him about six and a half centuries before the Christian era ; others still later, and so good an authority as Sir William Jones (Works, vol. i, p. 310) makes his birth at 1027 B. C. Koeppen says, (p. 118,) "if you allow him historic reality at all," that authorities differ not less than about two thousand years; but in that reckoning he must confound Buddhas of different ages-a confusion naturally resulting from that skepticism by which he rejects the traditions of a succession of supposed incarnations under that name, antecedent to "the present reigning Buddha."

ART. VI-CANNIBALISM AND CHRISTIANITY

Fiji and the Fijians. Vol. I. The Islands and their Inhabitants. By THOMAS WILLIAMS, late Missionary in Fiji.-Vol. II. Mission History. By JAMES CALVERT, late Missionary in Fiji. Edited by George Stringer Rowe. London: Alexander Heylin, 28 Paternoster Row. 1858.

LYING between the latitudes of 15° 30′ and 20° 30′ S., and the longitudes of 177° E. and 178° W., is a group of islands numbering two hundred and twenty-five, eighty of them inhabited, known as the Fiji Islands, They contain a population of about 150,000, and extend over 40,000 square miles of the South Pacific Ocean.

The group presents almost every possible variety of outline, from the simple form of the coral isle to the rugged and often majestic grandeur of volcanic structure. In the eastern part of the archipelago the islands are small, and have a general resemblance to each other. They are composed of sand and coral debris, covered with a soil of vegetable mold of great depth and richness, and are placed by geologists in a class that has long been in high favor as the fairy lands of the South Seas. Toward the west the islands are large and

diversified; Vanua Levu, or Great Land, being more than one hundred miles long, with an average breadth of twenty-five miles, and Na Viti Levu, or Great Fiji, measuring ninety miles from east to west by fifty from north to south. Vanua Levu contains a population of 31,000; Na Viti Levu 50,000.

For the past one hundred years the government has probably been patriarchal, or else has consisted of many independent states, each having little intercourse with the other and very little political connection, mutual dread tending to detach the various tribes; and keeping them asunder. Wars between kings and chiefs have been constantly kept up, and a feeling of personal insecurity thus attaching itself to almost every islander.

The Fijians are generally above the middle stature, six feet four inches not being an unusual height for many of the men; they have broad chests, and strong sinewy arms, with an almost universal stoutness of limb and shortness of neck. The face is oval; the mouth large, with regular teeth of ivory whiteness; the nose well shaped, with full nostrils, yet distinct from the negro type; the eyes black, quick, and restlessly active; the complexion a cross between the black and copper-colored races.

From the character of the climate and the quality of their skin, the dress of the natives is very scant. The men wear a sash of white, brown, or figured vegetable cloth called masi, of wonderful softness and durability of texture. The dress of the women is a simple cincture or broad band of beautiful, variegated braid work, fastened around the waist, made from the bark of the vau-tree, the fiber of a wild root, and a kind of grass, abundant on the islands. A fringe from three to ten inches deep usually depends from the cincture.

Face painting is universal. Sometimes the man rejoices in an expression wholly vermilion; then with one cheek yellow and the other black; then with the. forehead red and the cheeks and chin black or yellow; then with the forehead black and the nose red ; then with a vertical or horizontal stripe of black or red; then with dots of blue, black, yellow, red, or white, as the whim may take him.

Their house-building and furnishing show a considerable advance on all other savage nations; the frame is of excellent timber; the walls of reeds, curiously wrought, among the rich, with work of sinnet-wood; the roof, which is very steep, is of long grass or the leaves of the sugar-cane, which attains an unwonted growth on the islands. In the center of the dwelling is a hole for the fire, and at one end is a moderately elevated platform for sleeping, covered with dry grass or ferns, and having as pillows a small framework of the hardest

wood. Mosquitoes swarm in unnumbered legions, and bite with a more than American ferocity. Every bed, therefore, has its curtains; not such as ours, but of soft wooden cloth. Calabashes, checkered baskets, fans, dishes of wicker and wood, earthen pans, bone knives, glazed water-pots, ladles of cocoanut-shell, and sundry other articles, furnish an idea of their kitchen utensils.

A general kindness of manner is prevalent; but the free flow of the affections between members of the same family is almost wholly prevented, by the strict observance of national aud religious customs of a most unnatural character. Brothers and sisters, fathers and sons-in-law, mothers and daughters-in-law, and brothers and sistersin law, are severally forbidden to speak to each other, or to eat from the same dish. Husbands seldom speak to their wives, and this, taken in connection with the fact that most of them have quite a number, leads to a state of domestic life not overstocked with joy.

To fall sick is a calamity that words can scarcely describe. If among friends, the patient is nursed for a time, but on becoming in the least degree troublesome, is put out of the way by being thrown into a cave or else buried alive. On the death of men of rank, their wives are strangled, and sometimes their mothers, the victims being called "grass." They are then washed and oiled, and used for bedding to their husbands' graves. The murder of the aged of both sexes is universal, bald heads and grey hairs being objects of contempt. The extent of infanticide on some of the islands is appalling. Abominable as it is, it is reduced to a system, and professors of the art are found in almost every village. When, however, any difficulty is experienced in obtaining the services of a professed murderess, the mother does not hesitate to kill her own babe.

The treachery which exists among all classes has led to universal distrust. The club is carried by every one, and at no time or place does a man feel safe, being the victim, wherever he moves, of a horrible fear. There is no walking out alone after dusk, nor any composure or enjoyment in visiting a new place. The sudden fall of leaves, the slamming of a door by the wind, the wail of a strange child at a feast, are all signs, to them, of the falling of the club or the whizz of darts and javelins.

But the subject of most painful and revolting interest connected with the Fijians is their cannibalism. This is one of their institutions; it is interwoven in the elements of society; it forms one of their pursuits, and is regarded by the mass as a refinement. On building a temple, launching a canoe, or taking down the mast of one which has brought some chief on a visit, and even sometimes on tax-day, one or more human bodies must be baked and eaten. For

merly, on the finishing of a more than ordinary-sized canoe, several men were killed and used as rollers, then cooked and eaten. It was common also, before the arrival of missionaries, to murder men in order to wash the decks of new canoes with warm blood.

Every village has its "black list;" but when the list fails, the first common man is taken. Preference, however, is given to the flesh of women and girls, and a man who is dainty as to the flesh of war captives makes no scruple of clubbing his wife and devouring her. Mr. Jaggar, one of the missionaries residing on the island of Rewa, narrates that the king of the island became angry with one of his young female servants, and commanded that one of her arms should be cut off. The left was amputated, and she ordered to eat it or die by the club. Proceeding in the act, after it was baked, she became very sick, when the wretch relaxed somewhat, and she was permitted to live.

The first volume of the work named at the head of this article is devoted to the geography, origin and polity, industrial produce, religion, and manners and customs of the islanders; the second volume to the missionary work and triumphs among them. On pages 209, 210, of the first volume, Mr. Williams says:

"A woman taken from a town besieged by the chief Ra Undreundre, and where one of his friends had been killed, was placed in a large wooden dish and cut up alive, that none of the blood might be lost. In 1850 Chief Tuikilakila inflicted a severe blow on his old enemies the Natewans, when nearly one hundred of them were slain, among whom was found the body of Ratu Rakesa, the king's own cousin. The chiefs of the victorious side endeavored to obtain permission to bury him, since he held the high rank of Rakesa, and because there were plenty of other bodies. Bring him here,' said Tuikilakila, that I may see him.' He looked on the corpse with unfeigned delight. This.' said he, is a most fitting offering to Na Tavasara (the war-god). Present it to him: let it then be cooked and reserved for my own consumption. None shall share with me. Had I fallen into his hands he would have eaten me: now that he has fallen into my hands I will eat him.' And he fulfilled his word. The body was baked slightly at first, then rebaked several times, and at last consumed."

A few years since, Loti, a chief at Na Ruwai, killed his only wife and ate her. She went to the field with him to plant taro, and when the work was done she collected wood with which to heat the oven that was to bake her own body. Everything being ready, he dismembered her alive, cooked the parts as he needed them, and calling in some friends, the whole body within half an hour's time was consumed. The woman was his equal, one with whom he lived comfortably, and the only reason that he ever assigned for the act was that he wanted "some woman meat to eat."

Shipwrecked persons, by the laws of the islands, are universally

clubbed and eaten. Where a large canoe-full is washed ashore in a storm, and there is a surfeit of subjects, only the heart, the thigh, and the arm above the elbow, which are considered delicacies, are eaten.

In baking a human body, no other article, except the wild boar, is allowed to be placed in the oven at the same time, and in eating it, sacred forks are uniformly used.

Numbers of men can be found on the islands who, in the course of their lives, have alone eaten twenty, thirty, and fifty human bodies. Rev. R. B. Lyth narrates the case of Ra Undreundre, of Rakiraki, who, in the space of some sixteen or eighteen years, devoured, with very little assistance, nine hundred bodies. He was called by his friends and subjects the "Prince of man-eaters."

It has been claimed for the Fijians that their religion excluded idol-worship. In the main this is true; yet the priests of all grades describe the gods as delighting in human flesh. In extreme cases the blood of pigs and turtles has been acceptable in sacrifice, but "the most valued and choice is the blood of men and women."

In the Friendly Islands the dreadful state of Fiji was long known and mourned over; and in the great revival that occurred in Tonga in 1834, when thousands not only turned from their idolatry, but showed true signs of their conversion, and when the king and queen sought together and found the forgiveness of their sins through Jesus Christ, the Wesleyan missionaries laboring there determined on sending one or more of their number to labor among the Fijians. It was not, however, till October 8, 1835, that any could leave. On that day Rev. William Cross, who had been eight years in the Friendly Islands, and Rev. David Cargill, who had been there two, left with their families for Lakemba, the most eastward of the Fijian group.

King George, of Tonga, who had from the first manifested a sincere interest in the undertaking, sent an influential person with a present to Tui Nayau, king of Lakemba, and a message urging that the missionaries should be well received. Early in the morning of October 12th the schooner came in sight of Lakemba; but the captain lay off and refused to cast anchor. At last a boat was launched, and the two missionaries, with three or four sailors to row, started for the shore. Deafening shouts along the beach announced the approach of the boat, and drew together a vast crowd of wild-looking Tongans and Fijians, armed and blackened according to custom, to receive the strangers. Numerous Tongans were in the crowd, and many of the Fijians could talk Tonguese. At once, therefore, the missionaries began a conversation, and were