Many of the foreigners never left Oneata alive. A doubtful tradition ascribes their death to the pestilence; a more detailed says that they were slain by the men of Levuka. As the natives believed them to be the cause of the sickness, we may accept the more tragic of the two.
It was a year of terror. Here is a fragment of another poem of the same time:—
“Sleeping in the night I suddenly awake,
The voice of the pestilence is borne to me, uetau,
I go out and wander abroad, uetau,
It is near the breaking of the dawn, uetau,
Behold a forked star, uetau,
We whistle with astonishment as we gaze at it, uetau,
What can it portend? uetau,
Does it presage the doom of the chiefs? e e.”