The best produce of the gardens, the best animals, and the best fish are presented to the chiefs. Pay day of taxes is regarded as a high festival.Whale's teeth, women, and canoes are prominent articles of tribute. The criminality of an act is in inverse proportion to-the rank of the offender. Murder by a chief is less heinous than petty larceny by a man of low rank. The most serious offences are theft adultery, abduction, witchcraft, infringement of a taboo, disrespect to a chief, incendiarism, and treason. Theft is punished by a fine. repayment in kind, loss of a finger, or clubbing. The contumacious are punished by a fine, or loss of a finger, ear, or nose. The other crimes are punished by death, the instrument being the club, noose, or musket. Adultery is the crime most severely visited. The adulterer may be put to death, or he may be compelled to give up his own wife to the aggrieved man, or his property may be destroyed or taken away from him. The principle of vicarious atonement is acknowledged. A man sentenced to death will often surrender his father to suffer in his stead. There is also a species of pecuniary atonement called soro, of which there are five varieties; the soro with a whale's tooth, a mat, club, musket or other valuable, is the most common.

Society is divided into six recognized classes: 1, kings and queens; 2, chiefs of large districts or isl-ands; 3, chiefs of towns, priests, and ambassa-! dors; 4, distinguished warriors of low birth, chiefs of the carpenters, and chiefs of the turtle: catchers; 5, common people; 0, slaves by war. Rank is hereditary through the female line. The dignity of a pagan chief is estimated by the number of his wives. The rights of the rasu, or sister's son, constitute one of the peculiar institutions of Feejee. A vasu of rank can claim anything in his mother's land, excepting the wives, home, and land of a chief. In the moral and intellectual state of the Feejeeans there is a wide distinction between the pagan and Christian natives. As the majority are pagans, their customs, laws, and religion may still be regarded as the national standards of Feejee. Capt. Wilkes says of them:They are truly wretches in the strongest sense of the term, and degraded beyond the conception of civilized people." Strangulation of women, especially widows, infanticide, and other enormities prevail to a frightful extent. Foremost among their describable vices stands cannibalism; not only are prisoners taken in war consumed, but persons of the same tribe and village fall victims to the greed of their neighbors.

The cooked human body is termed in the Feejee language bakolo or "long pig." As an English gentleman may send a choice haunch of venison as a present to another, so one Feejee chief will send a stalwart subject roasted entire like an ox, carefully trussed, and escorted by a procession to the residence of an ally. The epicures of Feejee prefer the flesh of women to that of men, and deem the thick of the arm and the thigh the tit-bits of the bakolo. The women are seldom allowed to taste it. The flesh of white men is held in low repute; it is said to be comparatively insipid or tainted with tobacco. A Feejeean is always armed, and war is the normal condition. The mountain fastnesses are well fortified with strong palisades and stone breastworks, pierced with loopholes. The arms chiefly used are clubs, spears, battle axes, the bow, the sling, and the musket. A peculiar weapon is the missile club, which is worn in the girdle, sometimes in pairs. It is a short stick, with a knob at one end, is hurled with great precision, and is a favorite weapon with assassins. The sick and aged request their sons to strangle them, or, if they are too slow to make this request, their sons suggest to them that they have lived long enough.

To be strangled or buried alive by one's children is considered a most honorable death. They expect to be in the next world exactly as they were here, and affectionate children are unwilling to have their parents pass into the next world in an infirm state, and therefore strangle or bury them alive out of kindness. The relatives hold a wake over the intended victim while living and anointed for the sepulchre, and go into mourning after the entombment. The signs of mourning are the cropping of the hair and the joints of the small toe or little finger. Another remarkable custom is the loloku or strangling of the wives and next friends of the deceased. Abortion is practised to a great extent by medicated waters or mechanical means. Boys are circumcised when from seven to twelve years old. The native religions are local; each island has its own gods, traditions, and superstitions. All the systems belong to the lowest types of polytheism, and all are impregnated with the filth and savageness which characterize the actual existence of the people. The mythologies have some features in common; they retain the distinction between dii minores and dii majores, between gods and demigods. The latter class is made up chiefly of deceased chiefs and respected ancestors.

Monsters and other objects of wonder are admissible to this class. Most of the gods are supposed to have jurisdiction only over the tribes, islands, or districts where they are worshipped. Each trade has its tutelary deities. The Feejeeans have no idols, but reverence certain stones as shrines of the god, and hold certain birds and fishes as sacred. Every Feejeean considers himself under the protection of some special god, and refrains from eating the animal which is his symbol. Each chief has his ambati, or priest, who acts in concert with him, and helps him govern his clansmen. The priests are known by an oval frontlet of scarlet feathers, and a long-toothed comb made of several pieces of wood fastened together with much ingenuity. There are priestesses, but few of sufficient importance to have a temple. The priests are consulted as oracles; the responses are given after convulsions, supposed to be caused by the presence of the god. There are various modes of divination, all of the most childish character, such as by biting a leaf or pouring water down the arm. They have a strong belief in all sorts of apparitions, witches, ghosts, wizards, and the evil eye. They believe in a sort of fairies who dance on the hills by moonlight and sing songs.