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[Illustration: BURIAL PLACE IN TONGATABU.]

This is another of Mr. Bennett's sketches made during his recent visit to
several of the Polynesian Islands. It represents the burial-place of the
Chiefs of Tongatabu: over this "earthly prison of their bones," we may say
with Titus Andronicus:

In pence and honour rest you here my sons:
(The) readiest champions, repose you here,
Secure from worldly chances and mishaps:
Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,
Here grow no damned grudges: here are no storms,
No noise, but silence and eternal sleep.

Mr. Bennett thus describes the spot, with some interesting circumstances:

"July 29th. I visited this morning a beautiful spot named Maofanga, at a
short distance from our anchorage; here was the burial-place of the chiefs.
The tranquillity of this secluded spot, and the drooping trees of the
casuarina equisetifolia, added to the mournful solemnity of the place.
Off this place, the Astrolabe French discovery ship lay when, some time
before, she fired on the natives. The circumstances respecting this affair,
as communicated to me, if correct, do not reflect much credit on the
commander of the vessel. They are as follow: During a gale the Astrolabe
drove on the reef, but was afterwards got off by the exertion of the
natives; some of the men deserting from the ship, the chiefs were accused
of enticing them away, and on the men not being given up the ship fired on
the village; the natives barricaded themselves on the beach by throwing up
sand heaps, and afterwards retired into the woods. The natives pointed out
the effects of the shot; on the trees, a large branch of a casuarina tree
in the sacred enclosure was shot off, several coco-nut trees were cut in
two, and the marks of several spent shots still remain on the trees: three
natives were killed in this attack. A great number of the flying-fox, or
vampire bat, hung from the casuarina trees in this enclosure, but the
natives interposed to prevent our firing at them, the place being tabued.
Mr. Turner had been witness to the interment here, not long previously, of
the wife of a chief, and allied to the royal family. The body, enveloped
in mats, was placed in a vault, in which some of her relations had been
before interred, and being covered up, several natives advanced with
baskets of sand, &c. and strewed it over the vault; others then approached
and cut themselves on t