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The fierce warrior Verani even listened to what the missionary had to say, and hopes were entertained that he too might lotu; but his friend Thakombau urged him to remain firm to the old faith, and to join him as before in his wars.
Twelve miles off, on the mainland, is Rewa; and on another small island two miles from Mbau, is Viwa, the residence of Namosimalua, who had become nominally Christian, or was at all events favourable to the Christians. Here Mr Cross took up his abode, when Thakombau refused him admission to Mbau. Thakombau was the son of Tanoa, the chief of Mbau.
He therefore offered to go in pursuit of the king, but secretly sent a messenger to warn him of his danger. When Thakombau restored his father to his possessions, Tanoa saved Namosi's life, though the former never forgave him his intentions towards him. "Among the greatest warriors and fiercest cannibals of Fiji was a nephew of Namosi's, called Verani, who was a firm friend of Thakombau's.
Has not his story of the "King of the Cannibal Islands," Hokee-pokee-winkee-wum, with his fifty wives as black as "sut," and all his belongings, just as Jack described them, actually "turned up" in reality, in the person of Thakombau and a long line of similar monsters inhabiting the Fiji Islands?
"I can with difficulty recollect the numerous events connected with missionary work as they occurred in the wide extending group of Fiji. Of the most important I have not yet spoken. It is necessary to remember the names of three important places: Mbau, though a small island, contains the capital of the powerful chief Thakombau, now called the king of all Fiji.
Perhaps he is a descendant of the last king the king with the difficult name whose memory is preserved by a notable monument of cut-stone which one sees in the enclosure in the middle of the town. Thakombau I remember, now; that is the name. It is easier to preserve it on a granite block than in your head. Fiji was ceded to England by this king in 1858.
He had been to the Fiji islands, where he had seen their king, Thakombau, a true descendant of the lineage of "Hokey-Pokey-Winkey-Wum," with other dignitaries of this man-eating nation.
One of the gentlemen present at the governor's quoted a remark made by the king at the time of the session a neat retort, and with a touch of pathos in it, too. The English Commissioner had offered a crumb of comfort to Thakombau by saying that the transfer of the kingdom to Great Britain was merely "a sort of hermit-crab formality, you know."
Namosimalua was looked upon as the Ulysses of those regions. He in conjunction with other chiefs, weary of the exactions of Tanoa, rebelled against him, and compelled him to fly, also advising that his young son Thakombau, whose talents he had discovered, should be put to death. This not having been done, he resolved to gain the friendship of Tanoa without committing himself.
There were numerous Christians in Samoa before Malietoa became one; and services had been, held in Tongatabu before any of the chief men turned to the faith; and already numerous churches had been established in Fiji before Thakombau, the most despotic and fierce of the rulers of the isles of the Pacific, bowed his knee in worship to the true God.
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