When I wakened next morning, wonderfully refreshed by sleep and the
purity of the air, I had some difficulty in remembering where I was and
how I came there in such a peculiar costume. But the voices of the
servants in the house, and the general stir of people going to and fro,
convinced me that I had better be up and ready to put my sickle into this
harvest of heathen darkness. Little did I think how soon the heathen
darkness would be trying to put the sickle into me! I made my way with
little difficulty, being guided by the sound of the running water, to the
bath-room, and thence into the gardens. These were large and remarkably
well arranged in beds and plots of flowers and fruit-trees. I
particularly admired a fountain in the middle, which watered the garden,
and supplied both the chief's house and the town. Returning by way of
the hall, I met the chief, who, saluting me gravely, motioned me to one
of many small tables on which was set a bowl of milk, some cakes, and
some roasted kid's flesh.

After I had done justice to this breakfast, he directed me to follow him,
and, walking before me with his gold-knobbed staff in his hand, passed
out of the shady court into the public square. Here we found a number of
aged men seated on unpleasantly smooth and cold polished stones in a
curious circle of masonry. They were surrounded by a crowd of younger
men, shouting, laughing, and behaving with all the thoughtless levity and
merriment of a Polynesian mob. They became silent as the chief
approached, and the old men rose from their places till he had taken a
kind of rude throne in the circle.

For my part, I was obliged to stand alone in their midst, and it seemed
that they were debating about myself and my future treatment. First the
old priest, whom I had seen on the night before, got up, and, as I