aw them clinging
tightly round the posts. I concluded that they were to remain there to
hold the posts upright till the earth was shovelled in; but what was my
horror to find that they were to remain for ever in that position!
While they stood in all their health and strength, looking up with
longing eyes into the blue sky, others threw in the earth, and beat it
down with heavy mallets over their heads. I shuddered at the spectacle,
but heart-broken as I was I dared not interfere.

Our old chief had resolved to build a fleet of large double canoes, with
which to bring the inhabitants of another island under subjection. It
had been his chief care and attention for some years past. At length a
portion was finished and ready for launching. Before this ceremony
could be performed, it was necessary to attack a village at some
distance, to obtain victims to offer in sacrifice to the evil spirits
they worshipped, in order that success might attend their operations.
The young chief and his party set out with his warriors, and attacking a
village in the dead of night, carried off fifty of its unfortunate
inhabitants.

The next day, the shrieking wretches were brought to the dockyard. That
they might be kept in a proper position to serve as ways or rollers over
which the canoes might pass, each person was securely lashed to two
banana-trees, lengthways--one in front, and the other behind him. Thus
utterly unable to move, with their faces upwards, they were placed in
rows between the canoes and the water. Ropes were then attached to the
canoes, which, it must be understood, are very heavy, and numbers
hauling away on them, they were dragged over the yet breathing, living
mass of human beings, whose shrieks and groans of agony rent the air,
mingled with the wild shouts and songs of their inhuman murderers, till
the former were silenced in death. I need not say what became of the
bodies of the victims thus horribly immolated. The ceremony ended with
a great feast, at which all the chiefs and principal men assembled from
far and near, and which lasted several days.

With the young chief I was on intimate terms, and I believe that he had
formed an attachment to me, and was anxious to preserve me from injury.
In our excursions about the country, we visited one day a temple at the
end of a small pond, and I saw him throw into it some bread-fruit and
other provisions. Looking into the pond, and wondering what this was
for,