or coloured wools. They were all singing, and were led by a woman
carrying in her arms a mis-shapen wooden idol, not much unlike those
which are too frequent spectacles all over the Pacific. Behind the boys
I could now distinctly behold a man and woman of the Polynesian type,
naked to the waist, and staggering with bent backs beneath showers of
blows. The people behind them, who were almost as light in colour as
ourselves, were cruelly flogging them with cutting branches of trees.
Round the necks of the unfortunate victims--criminals I presumed--were
hung chains of white and black figs, and in their hands they held certain
herbs, figs, and cheese, for what purpose I was, and remain, unable to
conjecture. Whenever their cries were still for a moment, the woman who
carried the idol turned round, and lifted it in her arms with words which
I was unable to understand, urging on the tormentors to ply their
switches with more severity.

Naturally I was alarmed by the strangeness and ferocity of the natives,
so I concealed myself hastily in some brushwood behind a large tree. Much
to my horror I found that the screams, groans, and singing only drew
nearer and nearer. The procession then passed me so close that I could
see blood on the backs of the victims, and on their faces an awful dread
and apprehension. Finally, the crowd reached the mouth of the river, at
the very place where I had escaped from the sea. By aid of a small
pocket-glass I could make out that the men were piling great faggots of
green wood, which I had noticed that some of them carried, on a spot
beneath the wash of high tide. When the pile had reached a considerable
height, the two victims were placed in the middle. Then, by some means,
which I was too far off to detect, fire was produced, and applied to the
wild wood in which the unhappy man and woman were enveloped. Soon,
fortunately, a thick turbid smoke, in which but little flame appeared,
swept all over the beach. I endeavoured to stop my ears, and turned my