inable, the whiteness of the straight and slender rafters of peeled
hibiscus, contrasting well with the ceiling of shining brown leaves
which they sustained. The furniture of the house consisted of a number
of large sleeping-mats, five or six carved wooden stools, and two narrow
tables, or rather shelves, of wicker-work, fastened against the wall at
opposite sides of the room. Upon one of these were arranged a number of
calabashes, carved wooden dishes, cocoa-nut drinking-cups, and other
domestic utensils. Upon the other was a native drum, several clubs and
spears, a long vivo or native flute, and a hideous-looking wooden image
with four arms and a bunch of red feathers fastened to what was
doubtless meant for its head. The rafters were ornamented with braided
and coloured cords wound round them, the ends of which hung down several
feet, and sustained a number of weapons and various other articles
suspended by them.

"At the farther end of the room, a woman was pounding taro, or
bread-fruit, in a wooden mortar; another, apparently very old and
infirm, was sitting upon a low stool near the wall, swaying her body
slowly from side to side, and making a low, monotonous noise. I
observed that Olla frequently looked towards the latter, with a mournful
expression of countenance. When we first entered the house, she went
and sat down by her side, and talked with her in a low tone, and when
she turned away, her eyes were full of tears. The old woman did not
evince any corresponding emotion, but muttered something feebly and
indistinctly, as if replying to what Olla had said, of which I could
distinguish the words, `It is best, child; Malola is very old; she is
sick and weak; she cannot work; it is time she should be buried out of
the way.' I instantly suspected that this unhappy creature was to be
destroyed by her own friends, on account of her age and infirmities,
according to a most horrible and unnatural, but too prevalent custom. I
had once been present at a scene of this kind, without the slightest
possibility of successful interference, when a native woman had been
strangled; her own son, pulling at one end of the tappa which encircled
his mother's neck. In that case, the victim, instead of submitting
quietly and willingly to her fate, (as is most usual), suddenly lost her
courage at the moment of reaching the grave, beside which she was to be
strangled, and opposed a frantic and desperate resistance to her
murde