Читать книгу Lolóma, or two years in cannibal-land. A story of old Fiji онлайн

62 страница из 65

“Up and down, up and down;

We will lead them up and down.

We are feared in field and town;

Goblin, lead them up and down.”^[4]

ssss1. Kava, or yangona, is the Fiji grog expressed from the masticated fibres of a root. Kava is an introduced Tongan word.

ssss1. The words of the Fijian poet are so near to those of Shakespeare, that I have preferred this quotation to my own translation.

“Suddenly a strange apparition appeared before me. Its form was that of a full-grown man, its aspect that of the ^[5]papalangis whom the minstrels fable. The creature looked kindly upon me, spoke a few words I could not understand, and vanished. Often have I visited the spot since, drawn by an irresistible fascination, but only once again did I catch a glimpse of the figure, which ascended a tree and disappeared.”

ssss1. Foreigners. Vavalangi is the Fijian word. Papalangi, the introduced Tongan word, is now more commonly known.

When the Princess had finished her recital there was hardly one of her superstitious auditory who did not believe that she had seen either the departed spirit of some mortal lingering about the scene of his earthly labours, as is the wont of Fijian spirits for some days before taking their flight to Hades, or else that the sprites had played her a trick and bewitched her senses.