okas_, as these
burial-places are called, are artificial eminences, on the top of which,
in the form of a square, are three or four crosses of great granitic
blocks arranged as steps, of which each block may be four or five feet
high. If there is only a single step on the top of the mound, it is
because only a single Tooi-tonga sleeps there in the grave; if the bones
of a whole family are deposited in a common tomb, three or four steps,
one above the other, mark their union in death. Some of these monuments
which contain only a single body are arranged in an oval. I counted more
than twelve of these immense structures, and yet we left a great many
aside. I counted more than one stone between eight and fifteen feet
long; and I conceived a high idea of those men of ancient days who
erected over the remains of their kings these imperishable mausoleums,
in an island based on coral, where it would be difficult to find a stone
of two feet square. I imagined them to be very different from their
effeminate descendants, those men of old who went in their canoes more
than a hundred and fifty leagues to look for the enormous blocks of
which these tombs are built, who cut them without the help of iron, and
succeeded, by means unknown, in planting them on these hillocks, where
by their own weight they are fixed for ever, like the Druidical
monuments of Brittany, which one would say were dropped on earth rather
by the magic of talismans than by the power of man.

"The present inhabitants of Tonga contemplate with a pious awe the fruit
of the labours and patience of their forefathers, without dreaming for a
moment of imitating them in their noble enterprises. A distant voyage
affrights these degenerate scions of a hardy race, and the great canoes
which still survive, sheltered under sheds very skilfully built, are
little more than the useless encumbrance of chiefs grown languid in the
long peace which has infected the whole people with habits of indolence.

"The most recent tombs consist of a small house enclosed on all sides,
built on a rising ground, and shaded by a circle of mimosas, a tree
sacred to the dead. Most of the illustrious graves are clustered
together at Mafanga, a large village of which the whole territory is
sacred on account of the hallowed relics which it contains. Along with
the corpse they bury at the depth of a few inches small wooden effigies
representing persons of both sexes. I had occasion to unearth a few of