THE WHALE TOOTH

It was in the early days in Fiji, when John Starhurst arose in the
mission house at Rewa Village and announced his intention of carrying
the gospel throughout all Viti Levu. Now Viti Levu means the "Great
Land," it being the largest island in a group composed of many large
islands, to say nothing of hundreds of small ones. Here and there on
the coasts, living by most precarious tenure, was a sprinkling of
missionaries, traders, bêche-de-mer fishers, and whaleship deserters.
The smoke of the hot ovens arose under their windows, and the bodies
of the slain were dragged by their doors on the way to the feasting.

The Lotu, or the Worship, was progressing slowly, and, often, in
crablike fashion. Chiefs, who announced themselves Christians and were
welcomed into the body of the chapel, had a distressing habit of
backsliding in order to partake of the flesh of some favorite enemy.
Eat or be eaten had been the law of the land; and eat or be eaten
promised to remain the law of the land for a long time to come. There
were chiefs, such as Tanoa, Tuiveikoso, and Tuikilakila, who had
literally eaten hundreds of their fellow men. But among these gluttons
Ra Undreundre ranked highest. Ra Undreundre lived at Takiraki. He kept
a register of his gustatory exploits. A row of stones outside his
house marked the bodies he had eaten. This row was two hundred and
thirty paces long, and the stones in it numbered eight hundred and
seventy-two. Each stone represented a body. The row of stones might
have been longer, had not Ra Undreundre unfortunately received a spear
in the small of his back in a bush skirmish on Somo Somo and been