ashing down whole trees at a blow.
I call them trees for the bigness, but in truth they were just big
weeds, and sappy to cut through like carrot. From all this crowd and
kind of vegetation, I was just thinking to myself, the place might have
once been cleared, when I came on my nose over a pile of stones, and saw
in a moment it was some kind of a work of man. The Lord knows when it
was made or when deserted, for this part of the island has lain
undisturbed since long before the whites came. A few steps beyond I hit
into the path I had been always looking for. It was narrow, but well
beaten, and I saw that Case had plenty of disciples. It seems, indeed,
it was a piece of fashionable boldness to venture up here with the
trader, and a young man scarce reckoned himself grown till he had got
his breech tattooed, for one thing, and seen Case's devils for another.
This is mighty like Kanakas; but, if you look at it another way, it's
mighty like white folks too.

A bit along the path I was brought to a clear stand, and had to rub my
eyes. There was a wall in front of me, the path passing it by a gap; it
was tumble-down, and plainly very old, but built of big stones very well
laid; and there is no native alive to-day upon that island that could
dream of such a piece of building. Along all the top of it was a line of
queer figures, idols or scarecrows, or what not. They had carved and
painted faces, ugly to view, their eyes and teeth were of shell, their
hair and their bright clothes blew in the wind, and some of them worked
with the tugging. There are islands up west where they make these kind
of figures till to-day; but if ever they were made in this island, the
practice and the very recollection of it are now long forgotten. And the
singular thing was that all these bogies were as fresh as toys out of a
shop.

Then it came in my mind that Case had let out to me the first day that
he was a good forger of island curiosities, a thing by which so many
traders turn an honest penny. And with that I saw the whole business,
and how this display served the man a double purpose, first of all, to
season his curiosities, and then to frighten those that came to visit
him.

But I should tell you (what made the thing more curious) that all the
time the Tyrolean harps were harping round me in the trees, and even
while I looked, a green-and-yellow bird (that, I suppose, was building)
began to tear the hair off the head of one of the figure