savage,
marched in front of the others, who followed him with some degree of
order. From the crown of his head to his waist he was plastered with a
red pigment, his frizzled-out hair being ornamented with the plumes of
the bird of Paradise. His dress, composed of tapa cloth, shells, and
feathers, was more elaborate than any I had seen in the islands. In his
hand he carried a spear tipped with white quartz. His followers were
decked in similar fashion. Raising his right arm in token of
friendship, an overture to which I responded, the chief then addressed
me in the same dialect to that used at Cortes' island, which I had
little difficulty in understanding, although some of the words puzzled
me.

"Whence come you?" said he. "From the sun or the sea?"

"From the sea, O chief, whither I will return when my friends, the
white spirits, come for me," I answered.

This reply did not seem to surprise my interrogator, who now desired me
to follow him. After proceeding for some distance through a luxuriant
forest we came to what appeared to be the gates of a town. Two large
perpendicular stones rose to the height of fourteen feet above the
ground. These pillars must have been twelve feet through at the base,
and five feet on top, while a still larger stone, some sixteen feet
long and four feet thick, was mortised into the perpendicular columns.
It was difficult to understand how such huge stones could be quarried
and transported inland by a people possessing so few mechanical
appliances as these savages, but to my inquiry regarding this curious
gateway I was answered that the stones had been there as long as any
could remember, having been placed in position by supernatural agency.

At the gate of the city crouched some miserable specimens of humanity:
old men and women, haggard, shrivelled, and naked. These unfortunates,
I afterwards learned, were the aged and infirm, too feeble to perform
their share of the work of the tribe and condemned to remain at the
gateway, dependent for food upon such charity as might be given them.
On entering the town we passed a number of warriors, all fine, athletic
men, dressed in the same style as those who accompanied us, and painted
with stripes of red, yellow, and white pigment.

I was now received by a commanding figure, whom I took to be the king.
He was even more gorgeously dressed than the others, with strings of
bright stones round his neck and Paradise plumes in his hair, while
upon