n out with mallets, and all who see the sinner bending under the
load jeer at him. Again, women who were not tattooed in their life are
chased by the female ghosts, who scratch and cut and tear them with
sharp shells, giving them no respite; or they scrape the flesh from
their bones and bake it into bread for the gods. And ghosts who have
done anything to displease the gods are laid flat on their faces in rows
and converted into taro beds. But the few who do find their way into the
Fijian Elysium are blest indeed. There the sky is always cloudless; the
groves are perfumed with delicious scents; the open glades in the forest
are pleasant; there is abundance of all that heart can desire. Language
fails to describe the ineffable bliss of the happy land. There the souls
of the truly good, who have murdered many of their fellows on earth and
fed on their roasted bodies, are lapped in joy for ever.[782]

[Sidenote: Fijian doctrine of transmigration.]

Nevertheless the souls of the dead were not universally believed to
depart by the Spirit Path to the other world or to stay there for ever.
To a certain extent the doctrines of transmigration found favour with
the Fijians. Some of them held that the spirits of the dead wandered
about the villages in various shapes and could make themselves visible
or invisible at pleasure. The places which these vagrant souls loved to
haunt were known to the people, who in passing by them were wont to make
propitiatory offerings of food or cloth. For that reason, too, they were
very loth to go abroad on a dark night lest they should come bolt upon a
ghost. Further, it was generally believed that the soul of a celebrated
chief might after death enter into some young man of the tribe and
animate him to deeds of valour. Persons so distinguished were pointed
out and regarded as highly favoured; great respect was paid to them,
they enjoyed many personal privileges, and their opinions were treated
with much consideration.[783]

[Sidenote: Few souls saved under the old Fijian dispensation.]

On the whole, when we survey the many perils which beset the way to the
Fijian heaven, and the many risks which the souls of the dead ran of
dying the second death in the other world or of being knocked on the
head by the living in this, we shall probably agree with the missionary
Mr. Williams in concluding that under the old Fijian dispensation there
were few indeed that were saved. "Few, comparatively," he says