Spread Over It Was A Kind Of Gravel Of Bright Green
Stones Which He Had Had Brought From A Long Distance.
Little Moe and
Tersi were always very interested in watching me skin my birds, and
their exclamation of what sounded like "Esa!" ("Oh look!") showed their
enjoyment.
They were two of the prettiest little children I think I
have ever seen, but they did not know a word of English, and called me
"Misi Walk." They and their mother always took their meals sitting on
mats in the verandah. Ratu Lala had two grown-up daughters by other
wives, but they never came to the house, living in an adjoining hut
where I often joined them at a game of cards. They were both very
stately and beautiful young women, with a haughty bearing which made
me imagine that they were filled with a sense of their own importance.
As is well known all over Fiji, Ratu Lala, a few years before my stay
with him, had been deported in disgrace for a term of several months,
to the island of Viti Levu, where he would be under the paternal eye
of the government. This was because he had punished a woman, who had
offended him, by pegging her down on an ants' nest, first smearing
her all over with honey, so that the ants would the more readily eat
her.[4] She recovered afterwards, but was badly eaten. As regards
his punishment, he told me that he greatly enjoyed his exile, as he
had splendid fishing, and some of the white people sent him champagne.
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