] Captain Cook, _Voyages_, v. 424.

[140] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 342 _sq._

Between the departure of Cook and the arrival of Mariner the first
Protestant missionaries were fortunate enough to witness the burial of
a king of Tonga, by name Moom[=o]oe. Their description of it and of the
royal tomb entirely bears out the observations and conclusions of
Captain Cook. The _fiatooka_ or burial-ground, they tell us, "is
situated on a spot of ground about four acres. A mount rises with a
gentle slope about seven feet, and is about one hundred and twenty yards
in circumference at the base; upon the top stands a house neatly made,
which is about thirty feet long, and half that in width. The roof is
thatched, and the sides and ends left open. In the middle of this house
is the grave, the sides, ends, and bottom of which are of coral stone,
with a cover of the same: the floor of the house is of small stones. The
_etoa_ and other trees grow round the _fiatooka_."[141] Into this grave,
or rather stone vault, the missionaries saw the king's body lowered. The
stone which covered the vault was eight feet long, four feet broad, and
one foot thick. This massive stone was first raised and held in suspense
by means of two great ropes, the ends of which were wound round two
strong piles driven into the ground at the end of the house. The ropes
were held by about two hundred men, who, when the king's body had been
deposited in the grave, slowly lowered the great stone and covered the
vault.[142] Some years later Mariner witnessed the funeral of another
king of Tonga, Finow the First; and he similarly describes how the tomb
was a large stone vault, sunk about ten feet deep in the ground, the
covering stone of which was hoisted by the main strength of a hundred
and fifty or two hundred men pulling at the two ends of a rope; when the
bodies of the king and his daughter had been laid side by side in the
vault the massive stone was lowered by the men with a great shout.[143]
The number of the men required to raise and lower these great stones
gives us some idea of their weight.

[141] Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern
Pacific Ocean_, pp. 240 _sq._

[142] Captain James Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 244.

[143] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 387 _sq._

Thus far we have been dealing only with the tombs of the civil kings of
Tonga. But far more stately and massive are the tombs of the sacred
kings o