es of their chiefs, and even the bodies of
persons who had lately died, to the mountains and hid them in caverns
among the most inaccessible rocks and lofty precipices of these wild
solitudes.[208] Where the mountains advance to the coast, many of these
caves exist in the face of cliffs overhanging the sea; for the most part
they are situated in places which Europeans can reach only with the help
of ropes and ladders, though the natives, it is said, can clamber up the
steepest crags with ease. Few even of the islanders know the situation
of the caverns, and fewer still will consent to act as guides to the
curious stranger who may wish to explore their recesses; for the fear of
the ghosts, who are supposed to haunt these ancient depositories of the
dead, is yet deeply rooted in the native mind. Moreover, the mouths of
the caves are generally so low and overgrown with shrubs and creepers
that they may easily be overlooked by an observer standing in front of
them. Some of the grottos are said to be still full of skulls, or were
so down to the end of the nineteenth century.[209] The mummies as well
as the bones were liable to be captured by an invader, and were esteemed
trophies not less glorious than foemen slain in battle. Hence during an
invasion the mummies were generally the first things to be carried off
for safety to the mountains.[210]

[206] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 93 _sq._, 135 _sq._, 218, 219, vi.
47 _sq._; J. R. Forster, _Observations made during a Voyage
round the World_, pp. 561 _sq._; J. Wilson, _op. cit._ pp. 212
_sq._, 363 _sq._; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 400 _sq._, 404 _sq._,
405 _sq._; J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 554.

[207] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 272, who observes that the
survivors "considered the spirits of the proprietors of these
skulls as the guardian spirits of the family."

[208] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 405.

[209] A. Baessler, _Neue Suedsee-Bilder_ (Berlin, 1900), pp. 37
_sq._, 81 _sq._, 83.

[210] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 364.

A dangerous pollution was supposed to be contracted by all who had
handled a corpse. Hence the persons employed in embalming a body were
carefully shunned by every one else so long as the process lasted,
because the guilt of the crime for which the deceased had died was
supposed to attach in some degree to such as touched his mortal remains.
The embalmers did not feed themselves, lest the food, defiled by the
touch