een consumed. Most
heartrending were the descriptions I received from persons who had
actually looked on the fearful scenes enacted there.

"Innocent children skipped joyfully along the pathway by the side of
their conductors and murderers,{*} deceived by the cruel lie that they
were to be spared, and were then on their way to bathe; when suddenly
the blazing pile (in the Pit of Noata) with the horrid sight of their
companions and friends being thrown alive into the midst, told them the
dreadful truth; whilst their terror was increased by the yells of savage
triumph of the murderers, or the fearful cries of the tortured victims
which reached their ears."

* I was told that the poor children were led away as they
thought to be given si mea ai vela--"something hot" (to
eat).--[L.B.]

When I first saw the dreadful Tito (pit) of Moata, it was at the close
of a calm, windless day. I had been pigeon-shooting in the mountain
forest, and was accompanied by a stalwart young Samoan warrior. As we
were returning to Fasito'otai, he asked me if I would come a little
out of the way and look at the "Tito," a place he said "that is to our
hearts, and is, holy ground". He spoke so reverently that I was much
impressed.

Following a winding path we suddenly came in view of the pit. The sides
were almost covered with many beautiful varieties of crotons, planted
there by loving hands, and it was very evident to me that the place was
indeed holy ground. At the bottom of the pit was a dreadful reminder of
the past--a large circle of black charcoal running round the sides,
and enclosing in the centre a large space which at first I thought was
snow-white sand, but on descending into the pit with uncovered head,
and looking closer, found it was composed of tiny white coral pebbles.
Hardly a single leaf or twig marred the purity of the whiteness of the
cover under which lay the ashes of nearly five hundred human beings.
Every Saturday the women and children of Fasito'otai and the adjacent
villages visited the place, and reverently removed every bit of
_debris_, and the layer of stones, carefully selected of an equal size,
was renewed two or three times a year as they became discoloured by
the action of the rain. Encompassing the wooded margin of the pit were
numbers of orange, lime and banana trees, all in full fruit. These were
never touched--to do so would have been sacrilege, for they were sacred
to the dead. All around us