Verata, which was only eight miles from Mbau, was then the strongest power in Fiji, dominating the villages for about ten miles along the shore of Viti Levu, but Mbau, aided by this base imitator of Champlain, soon stripped it of its dependencies, leaving to its chief only his native village. Savage caused the natives to construct an arrow proof sedan chair, within which he remained comfortably seated firing through an opening, and this contrivance was carried into battle while he terrified and slaughtered the impotent enemies of Mbau. For his share of the spoils of conquest Savage demanded women, and he is said to have acquired a hundred wives. Na-Ulivon heaped honors and titles upon him and gave him for his principal wife a chieftainess of the highest rank, but her children were strangled for reasons of state polity, so that after his death he was survived by but a single daughter.
For two years Mbau enjoyed a monopoly of firearms in Fiji, and
Ratu Bem Tanoa and his Wife Aui Cakabau in their House at Navuso. Viti Levu Island, Fiji, in 1899. They are cousins, both being members of the Royal Family of Fiji. The screen is a large piece of Taviuni tapa.
