wind. Only the stones of the terrace endure; nor can any ruin,

cairn, or standing stone, or vitrified fort present a more stern

appearance of antiquity. We must have passed from six to eight of

these now houseless platforms. On the main road of the island,

where it crosses the valley of Taipi, Mr. Osbourne tells me they

are to be reckoned by the dozen; and as the roads have been made

long posterior to their erection, perhaps to their desertion, and

must simply be regarded as lines drawn at random through the bush,

the forest on either hand must be equally filled with these

survivals: the gravestones of whole families. Such ruins are tapu

in the strictest sense; no native must approach them; they have

become outposts of the kingdom of the grave. It might appear a

natural and pious custom in the hundreds who are left, the

rearguard of perished thousands, that their feet should leave

untrod these hearthstones of their fathers. I believe, in fact,

the custom rests on different and more grim conceptions. But the

house, the grave, and even the body of the dead, have been always

particularly honoured by Marquesans. Until recently the corpse was

sometimes kept in the family and daily oiled and sunned, until, by

gradual and revolting stages, it dried into a kind of mummy.

Offerings are still laid upon the grave. In Traitor's Bay, Mr.

Osbourne saw a man buy a looking-glass to lay upon his son's. And

the sentiment against the desecration of tombs, thoughtlessly

ruffled in the laying down of the new roads, is a chief ingredient

in the native hatred for the French.

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