IMPORTANT FROM FIJI.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 711, 15 September 1870, Page 3

IMPORTANT FROM FIJI.

FKIGHTFUL SLAUGHTEE AND CANNIBALISM. Terrible news comes from Levuka. Mr Norman, well known in Sandhurst, Victoria, was murdered, and his body cooked; while war has broken out on the North-west Coast, where a perfect massacre took place. For some time past the Ba people have been at war with the mountaineers, and. a few have been killed on both sides, bat a letter just in from the native minister informs us ("Fiji Times," July 23,) of a fearful massacre. The mountaineers came down toNalotu, an inland district, and put up a war fence. The Nalotu people were filled with fear, and presented peace offerings. The mountaineers then entered their towns and remained for a few days in apparent friendliness, but their number was being continually increased by new arrivals from the hills. They then turned round suddenly upon the Nalotu people, and slaughtered 370 of them. Many are still missing, who are hiding in the jungle, or have been taken prisoners of war to Navosa. Only 104 have escaped alive to Ba. The heathen say that the next town they will attack will be Sagunu, the chief town of the Ba district. Several whites were going to settle in the Ba district, but at present they could not settle in a more unsafe neighborhood. With regard to Mr Norman, Captain Field, of the Mary Ann Christina, states that on board the Colleen Bawn, at Tanna, he met with Jimmie Lasulasu, who has long since been reckoned with the dead. A boat which left Levuka for Nasavusavu about 12 months ago, with 17 New Hebrides laborers, their employer, Mr Norman, late of Sandhurst, and the aforesaid Jimmie, never reached its destination. The boat was thought to have been wrecked and all on board lost. Jimmie Lasulasu informed Captain Field that when on their way to Nasavusavu the natives took possession of the boat, compelling them to steer first one way and then another, and threatened to kill them if they did not land them on their own island. On the seventeenth day they murdered Mr Norman, split, ting his head open with a tomahawkThey cooked and ate the body, thrusting portions of his cooked companion

into the face of Jimmie. The journey was long, and with no food or water on board the hardships may be imagined. The natives died one after the other, till by a lucky chance the boat was cast upon the shore reef of an island only twenty miles from that to which they belonged. Jimmie has been living on that island for the last twelve months, and was perfectly nude when rescued by the Colleen Bawn a week or two since. Mr Norman was a highly respectable settler, who, besides his plantation at Fiji, had a grocery business at Sandhurst, in charge of which he left his wife, now his widow.