ilt a big oven. Tui Namoliwai appeared
and signed to him to follow.

"Maybe you are fooling me, and will kill me," said Tui N'Kualita.

"What? Am I going to give you death in exchange for my life? Come!"

Tui N'Kualita obeyed, and walked on the lovu. The stones were cool
under his feet. He told Tui Namoliwai then that he was free to go,
and the latter promised him that he and his descendants should always
march upon the lovu with impunity.

When I returned to my bird cage at Tautira, I sat down and considered
at length all these facts and fancies. I believed in an all inclusive
nature; that the Will or Rule of God which made a star hundreds of
millions of times larger than the planet I had my body on, that took
care of billions of suns, worlds, planets, comets, and the beings upon
them, was not concerned in tricks of spiritism or materializations
at the whim of mediums or tahuas. But I had in my travels in many
countries seen inscrutable facts, and to me this was one. Nobody knew
what was the cause of the inaction of the fire in the lovu or umu. It
was not a secret held by anybody, or a deception.

One might believe that the stones arrive at a condition of heat
which the experienced sorcerers know to be harmless. One might
conceive that the emotion of the walkers produces a perspiration
sufficient to prevent injury during the brief time of exposure; or
that the sweat and oily secretions of the skin aided by dust picked
up during the journey on the oven was a shield; or that the walkers
were hypnotized by the tahua, or exalted by their daring experiment,
so that they did not feel the heat. Even this theory might not account
for the failure to find the faintest burn or scorch upon those who
fulfilled the injunction of the sorcerers.

The people of Tautira, from Ori-a-Ori to Matatini, had the fullest
confidence that Tufetufetu had shown them a miracle, and that it was
not evil; but to the American and European missionaries the Umuti
was deviltry, the magic of Simon Magus and his successors, This was
shown clearly in the statement of Deacon Taumihau of Raiatea, which
I give in Tahitian and English:

E parau teie te umu a Tupua.

Teie te huru a taua ohipa ra.

Tapuhia te vahie e toru etaeta i te aano. E fatahia taua umu ra i te
mahana matamua e faautahia i te ofai inia iho i taua umu ra, eiaha
ra te ofai no pia iho i te marae, no te mea te marae ra te faaea raa
no te varua ino oia te arii no te po.

E i te po ma