he ground, another head. A number of women were standing in
a row before it, screaming, wailing and quivering their hands about in
a most extraordinary manner, and cutting themselves dreadfully with
sharp flints and shells. One old woman, in the centre of the group, was
one clot of blood from head to feet, and large clots of coagulated
blood lay on the ground where she stood. The sight was absolutely
horrible, I thought at the time. She was singing or howling a
dirge-like wail. In her right hand she held a piece of _tuhua_, or
volcanic glass, as sharp as a razor: this she placed deliberately to
her left wrist, drawing it slowly upwards to her left shoulder, the
spouting blood following as it went, and from the left shoulder
downwards, across the breast to the short ribs on the right side; she
then shifted the rude but keen knife from the right hand to the left,
placed it to the right wrist, drawing it upwards to the right shoulder,
and so down across the breast to the left side, thus making a bloody
cross on the breast. And so the operation went on all the time I was
there; the old creature all the time howling in time and measure, and
keeping time, also with the knife, which at every cut was shifted from
one hand to the other, as I have described. She had scored her forehead
and cheeks before I came; her face and body were one mass of blood, and
a little stream was dropping from every finger: a more hideous object
could scarcely be conceived. I took notice that the younger women,
though they screamed as loud, did not cut near so deep as the old
woman; especially about the face.

This custom has been falling gradually out of use; and when practised
now, in these degenerate times, the cutting and maiming is a mere form:
slight scratching to draw enough blood to swear by; but, in "the good
old times," the thing used to be done properly. I often, of late years,
have felt quite indignant to see some degenerate hussy making believe
with a piece of flint in her hand, but who had no notion of cutting
herself up properly as she ought to do. It shows a want of natural
affection in the present generation, I think; they refuse to shed tears
of blood for their friends as their mothers used to do.

This head, I found on inquiry, was not the head of an enemy. A small
party of our friends had been surprised, and two brothers were flying
for their lives down a hill-side; a shot broke the leg of one of them
and he fell. The enemy were