arks were advertised by pennons of
white tapa; and the aged, the children, and the poorer-hearted of the
women of the district awaited there the issue of the battle. But the
true wives followed their lords into the field, and shared with them
their toil and danger.

The city had yet another function. There was in Hawaii a class apart,
comparable to the doomed families of Tahiti, whose special mission was
to supply the altar. It seems the victim fell usually on the holy day,
of which there were four in the month; between these, the man was not
only safe, but enjoyed, in virtue of his destiny, a singular licence of
behaviour. His immunities exceeded those of the mediaeval priest and
jester rolled in one; he might have donned the King's girdle (the height
of sacrilege and treason), and gone abroad with it, unpunished and
apparently unblamed; and with a little care and some acquaintance in
priests' families, he might prolong this life of licence to old age. But
the laws of human nature are implacable; their destiny of privilege and
peril turned the men's heads; even at dangerous seasons, they went
recklessly abroad upon their pleasures; were often sighted in the open,
and must run for the City of Refuge with the priestly murderers at their
heels. It is strange to think it was a priest also who stood in the door
to welcome and protect them.

The enclosure of the sanctuary was all paved with the lava; scattered
blocks encumbered it in places; everywhere tall cocoa-palms jutted from
the fissures and drew shadows on the floor; a loud continuous sound of
the near sea burthened the ear. These rude monumental ruins, and the
thought of that life and faith of which they stood memorial, threw me in
a muse. There are times and places where the past becomes more vivid
than the present, and the memory dominates the ear and eye. I have found
it so in the presence of the vestiges of Rome; I found it so again in
the City of Refuge at Honaunau; and the strange, busy, and perilous
existence of the old Hawaiian, the grinning idols of the Heiau, the
priestly murderers and the fleeing victim, rose before and mastered my
imagination.

Some dozen natives of Honaunau followed me about to show the boundaries;
and I was recalled from these scattering thoughts by one of my guides
laying his hand on a big block of lava.

"This stone is called Kaahumanu," said he. "It is here she lay hid with
her dog from Kamehameha."

And he told me an anecdote