The high ground fell steeply away into a basin whose slopes were roughly
broken into rising tiers. These tiers commanded a sort of amphitheatre
two hundred yards in diameter, through which ran a small thread of water
cascading from the interior elevation. A quarter of a mile away began
the background of timber and tangle.

The bottom of the basin had been worn smooth by much treading. A boulder
some four feet tall and probably of an equal thickness rose, pulpit
like, at the center. Its top was hollowed out into a bowl and its sides
were inscribed with crude hieroglyphics. Near it were a half-dozen
upright poles, surmounted by what seemed to be cocoanuts. In a dozen
places under rude stone ovens were the ashes of dead fires. Scattering
piles of human bones--but nowhere a skull--told me that I had stumbled
on a _kai-kai_ temple--a place of cannibal observances and feasting. I
did not at once venture into the hollow for closer scrutiny. It was not
such an institution as one would care to invade carelessly. Over the
whole place hung a horrible stench. Flies buzzed about it in noisy,
filthy swarms. After a long interval of listening and reconnoitering I
became convinced that this place of special observance was to-day as
neglected as are many churches in Christian lands on week days.

I crept tremblingly down into the abominable pit and made my way toward
the stone altar prepared now for any atrocious sight. But the climax of
discovery came when I had crawled half way and the cocoanuts on the
poles resolved themselves into withered, human heads, sun dried and
yellow fringed.

These mummied skulls were for the most part trophies of old battles, but
lying at the top of the rock was another which must have surmounted its
living shoulders only a few days ago. The frizzled hair was tied into
dozens of kinky knots. The facial angle was low and slanting and the
coarse lips were hideously twisted in a snarl of death and defiance. On
the scalp, which a war club had crushed, sat a very beautiful head-dress
of gull feathers, brilliantly dyed in green and crimson and orange. The
victim had worn to his obsequies such a decoration as might have crowned
a princess of the Incas. He had been a warrior of rank and now, as
befitted his station, his head lay drying out on a mat of yellow and
brown wood pulp.

A stifling nausea assaulted the pit of my stomach. My retreating steps
reeled drunkenly, and when, near the rim of the basin, I tu