I could not
repress, I again returned, and witnessed a scene of the most disgusting
cannibalism the mind could imagine. The bodies of the slain were baked,
and then cut up by the priest or butcher, and distributed among the
chiefs and principal men, none of the women or lower orders being
allowed to partake of the horrible banquet. What struck me was the
avidity with which the savages seized the fragments and devoured them.
I would have avoided giving the dreadful account, were it not to show
the depth of wickedness into which human nature, when left to itself,
will inevitably sink. Often have I seen parties of men set out for the
express purpose of capturing and murdering their fellow-creatures--
people of the same colour and race, and chiefly helpless women and
children--to satisfy their disgusting propensities--frequently to
furnish a banquet on the visit of some neighbouring and friendly chiefs.

Some people have pretended to doubt the existence of cannibalism as a
regular custom, though unable to deny that it has been resorted to under
the pressure of hunger; but the Feejee islands afford numberless
undoubted proofs that hundreds of people were yearly slaughtered to
gratify the unnatural taste of their ferocious chiefs. Wars were
undertaken for the express purpose of obtaining victims; all persons,
friends or strangers, thrown by the stormy ocean on their inhospitable
shores, were destroyed; their own slaves were often killed; and men,
women, and children among the lower orders, even of friendly tribes,
were frequently kidnapped and carried off for the same purpose.

But, praise be to God! heart-rending as are the scenes I have witnessed
and the accounts I have heard, all-powerful means exist to overcome this
and other horrible, though long established customs. The Christian
faith, when carried to those benighted lands by devoted men, who go
forth in love and obedience to Him who died for them, and in firm
confidence that He is all-powerful to preserve them, and to make His
name known among the heathen, is the sure and effectual means to conquer
the giant evil. Before its bright beams, the dark gloom of savage
barbarism and superstition has been put to flight, by the untiring
efforts of Christian missionaries; and I am told, that among even the
Feejee islands, wherever they have planted the Cross, numbers have
flocked round it, and in many places the whole character of the people
has been changed. I am desc