d fish, and offering the companionship of the most
beautiful women imaginable. There the bread-fruit trees dropped their
ripe fruit every moment to the ground, and the supply of coco-nuts and
bananas never failed. There the souls reposed on mats much finer than
those of Nukahiva; and every day they bathed in rivers of coco-nut oil.
In that happy land there were plenty of plumes and feathers, and
boars'-tusks, and sperm-whale teeth far better than even white men can
boast of. The nether world, on the other hand, was peopled with deities
of the second class and by ordinary human beings, who had no pretensions
to gentility. But it was not a place of misery much less of punishment
or torture; on the contrary, we are told that both the upper and the
lower regions were happier than the earth which the living inhabit.[125]
The approach to the lower world, curiously enough, was by sea. The soul
sailed away in a coffin shaped like a canoe (_pahaa_). When it came
near the channel which divides the island Tahuata from the island
Hivaoa, it was met by two deities or two opposing influences, one of
which tried to push the soul into a narrow strait between Tahuata and a
certain rock in the sea, while the other deity or influence endeavoured
to contrive that the soul should keep the broad channel between the rock
and Hivaoa. The souls that were thrust into the narrow strait were
killed; whereas such as kept the open channel were conducted safe by a
merciful god to their destination.[126]

[124] Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p. 44.

[125] Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 220; Melville, _Typee_, p. 185.
Compare Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p. 40.

[126] Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp. 220 _sq._

Sometimes the land of the dead was identified with a happy island or
islands called Tiburones lying somewhere in the ocean to the west of
Nukahiva. Not uncommonly natives of the Marquesas sailed away in great
double canoes to seek and find these happy isles, but were never heard
of again. On one occasion, for example, forty men in the island of
Ua-pu, who had revolted against their chief and been defeated, embarked
secretly by night and put to sea, hoping to discover the Fortunate
Islands, where they would be beyond the reach of their offended lord,
and where they might pass the remainder of their days in liberty and
bliss. What became of them is unknown, for they were seen and heard of
no more in their native island.[127]

[127] Porter, _op.