sea, and utter some long incantations, each
priest holding in his hand a bunch of red feathers. Then they rise and
place the body of their victim parallel with the line of the sea beach,
and more incantations are uttered. The king, meantime, and his
principal chiefs have assembled, and take their stand near the temple.
Hair is now plucked from the head of the victim, and one eye is taken
out and wrapped in leaves, and presented to the king. With drums
beating slowly the body is now borne up by the attendants of the
priests, and placed on one of the altars. The tufts of red feathers are
at the feet, and rolls of cloth at the head. After this, for a quarter
of an hour or more the chief priest addresses it, and pretends to give
the message it is to convey to the world of spirits. The surrounding
populace look on with stupid amazement, no one knowing whose turn it may
be next to be slaughtered as a sacrifice to their blood-loving deity.

While the priests are chanting round the corpse the attendants dig a
shallow grave, into which it is thrown with little ceremony, and covered
up with stones and earth. Fires are now lighted, and dogs and pigs are
slaughtered and roasted, and these being placed on the altars, the Eatua
is invited to partake of the feast prepared for him. When we left the
spot, I shuddering with a horror I had never before felt, the provisions
remained on the altars. Taro tells us that the priests, if angered with
a person, avenge themselves by selecting him as a victim, and that for
fear of offending them no one ventures to interfere. The priests have
thus gained more real power than the chiefs themselves. They generally,
however, select some of the poorer people as their victims.

We see arranged near the morai a pile of sixty skulls, and that of the
youth just slain is now added to it. They appear but little changed by
the air, and Taro says that they are those of victims who have all been
offered up within the last few months. He tells us that whenever one of
the chiefs is about to commence an undertaking, he selects some unhappy
victim, who is forthwith slaughtered and sacrificed. We have undoubted
evidence, too, that they often eat their enemies, and they do this
without shame or compunction. We see many of the chiefs and warriors
going about with human jawbones hanging as ornaments round their necks,
and we learn that they are those of enemies slain in war.

Sick at heart I accompany my