produced
those outrageous sounds which had awakened me in the morning. Every few
minutes these musical performers hopped down from their elevation into
the crowd below, and their places were immediately supplied by fresh
recruits. Thus an incessant din was kept up that might have startled
Pandemonium.

Precisely in the middle of the quadrangle were placed perpendicularly
in the ground, a hundred or more slender, fresh-cut poles, stripped of
their bark, and decorated at the end with a floating pennon of white
tappa; the whole being fenced about with a little picket of canes. For
what purpose these angular ornaments were intended I in vain endeavoured
to discover.

Another most striking feature of the performance was exhibited by a
score of old men, who sat cross-legged in the little pulpits, which
encircled the trunks of the immense trees growing in the middle of the
enclosure. These venerable gentlemen, who I presume were the priests,
kept up an uninterrupted monotonous chant, which was partly drowned in
the roar of drums. In the right hand they held a finely woven grass fan,
with a heavy black wooden handle curiously chased: these fans they kept
in continual motion.

But no attention whatever seemed to be paid to the drummers or to the
old priests; the individuals who composed the vast crowd present being
entirely taken up in chanting and laughing with one another, smoking,
drinking 'arva', and eating. For all the observation it attracted,
or the good it achieved, the whole savage orchestra might with great
advantage to its own members and the company in general, have ceased the
prodigious uproar they were making.

In vain I questioned Kory-Kory and others of the natives, as to the
meaning of the strange things that were going on; all their explanations
were conveyed in such a mass of outlandish gibberish and gesticulation
that I gave up the attempt in despair. All that day the drums resounded,
the priests chanted, and the multitude feasted and roared till sunset,
when the throng dispersed, and the Taboo Groves were again abandoned to
quiet and repose. The next day the same scene was repeated until night,
when this singular festival terminated.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

IDEAS SUGGESTED BY THE FEAST OF CALABASHES--INACCURACY OF CERTAIN
PUBLISHED ACCOUNTS OF THE ISLANDS--A REASON--NEGLECTED STATE OF
HEATHENISM IN THE VALLEY--EFFIGY OF A DEAD WARRIOR--A SINGULAR
SUPERSTITION--THE PRIEST KOLORY AND THE GOD MOA ART