the New Caledonians in regard to the
dead bear a general resemblance to each other, whether they belong to
the north or to the south of the principal island, a special feature is
introduced into the mortuary customs of the natives of the Isle of Pines
by the natural caves and grottoes with which the outer rim of the
island, to the distance of several miles from the shore, is riddled; for
in these caverns the natives in the old heathen days were wont to
deposit the bones and skulls of their dead and to use the caves as
sanctuaries or chapels for the worship of the spirits of the departed.
Some of the caves are remarkable both in themselves and in their
situation. Most of those which the natives turned into charnel-houses
are hidden away, sometimes at great distances, in the rank luxuriance of
the tropical forests. Some of them open straight from the level of the
ground; to reach others you must clamber up the rocks; to explore others
you must descend into the bowels of the earth. A glimmering twilight
illumines some; thick darkness veils others, and it is only by
torchlight that you can explore their mysterious depths. Penetrating
into the interior by the flickering gleam of flambeaus held aloft by the
guides, and picking your steps among loose stones and pools of water,
you might fancy yourself now in the great hall of a ruined castle, now
in the vast nave of a gothic cathedral with its chapels opening off it
into the darkness on either hand. The illusion is strengthened by the
multitude of stalactites which hang from the roof of the cavern and,
glittering in the fitful glow of the torches, might be taken for burning
cressets kindled to light up the revels in a baronial hall, or for holy
lamps twinkling in the gloom of a dim cathedral aisle before holy
images, where solitary worshippers kneel in silent devotion. In the
shifting play of the light and shadow cast by the torches the fantastic
shapes of the incrustations which line the sides or rise from the floor
of the grotto appear to the imagination of the observer now as the
gnarled trunks of huge trees, now as statues or torsos of statues, now
as altars, on which perhaps a nearer approach reveals a row of blanched
and grinning skulls. No wonder if such places, chosen for the last
resting-places of the relics of mortality, have fed the imagination of
the natives with weird notions of a life after death, a life very
different from that which the living lead in the glowing