issionary Voyage to the Southern
Pacific Ocean_, pp. 283-285. The description is accompanied by
an engraved plate, which illustrates the three types of tombs
mentioned in the text. In the foreground is the stepped pyramid,
a massive and lofty structure, its flat top surmounted by a hut.
To the right, in the distance, is seen the square walled
enclosure, with high stones standing upright at the corners of
the walls, and with a hut enclosed in the middle of the square.
In the background appears a mound enclosed by a wall and
surmounted by a hut. Thus a hut figures as an essential part
in each type of tomb. However, Mariner tells us that "they
have several _fytocas_ which have no houses on them" (_Tonga
Islands_, i. 392 note *).

Top.
____________
|
| 3 ft. 9 in.
|
5-1/2 feet. |
_____________|
|
| 3 ft. 9 in.
|
5-1/2 feet. |
_____________|
|
| 3 ft. 9 in.
|
5-1/2 feet. | PROFILE OF THE STEPS.
_____________|
|
| 4 feet.
|
|
|
|

Some thirty years later the tombs of the Tooitongas were visited and
described by the French explorer, J. Dumont d'Urville. His description
is worth quoting. He says: "I directed my steps to the splendid
_fai-tokas_ of the Fata-Fais. As these monuments are essentially taboo,
in the absence of the Tooi-tonga no one looks after their upkeep, and
they are now buried on every side among dark masses of trees and almost
impenetrable thickets. Hence we had some difficulty in approaching them,
and it was impossible for us to get a single general view of the whole
of these structures, which must have a somewhat solemn effect when the
ground is properly cleared.

"For the most part these mausoleums have the form of great rectangular
spaces surrounded by enormous blocks of stone, of which some are as much
as from fifteen to twenty feet long by six or eight broad and two feet
thick. The most sumptuous of these monuments have four or five rows of
steps, making up a