Were I sure that all these songs of the Last Parting would have for others the same interest that they have had for me, I should be tempted to add a study dedicated solely to the dirges of savage nations and of those nations whose civilization has not followed the same course as ours. I must, at all events, indicate the wonderfully strange and wild Polynesian "Death-talks" and "Evas" (dirges proper) collected by the Rev. W. W. Gill. The South Pacific Islanders say of the dying, "he is passing over the sea." Their dead set out in a canoe on a long and perilous voyage to the regions of the sun-setting. When they get there, alas!--when they reach the mysterious spirit-land, a horrid doom awaits them: children and old men and women--all, in short, who have not died in battle, are devoured by a dreadful deity, and perish for ever. But this fate does not overtake them immediately; for a time they remain in a shadowy intermediate state till their turn comes. The spirit-journey is described in a dirge for two little children, composed by their father about the year 1796: "Thy god,[2] pet-child, is a bad one; For thy body is attenuated; This wasting sickness must end thy days. Thy form, once so plump, now how changed! Ah! that god, that bad god! Inexpressibly bad, my child! * * * * * Thou hast entered the expanse; And wilt visit 'the land of red parrot feathers,' Where O[=a]rangi was once a guest. Thou feedest now on ocean spray, And sippest fresh water out of the rocks, Travelling over rugged cliffs, To the music of murmuring billows. Thy exile spirit is overtaken By darkness at the ocean's edge. Fourapapa[3] there sleeps. All three[4] Stood awhile to gaze wistfully At the glories of the setting sun." There is much more, but this is perhaps sufficient to show the particular note struck. I will give, in its entirety, one more dirge--the death-chant of the tribe of Badagas, in the Neilgherry Hills--because it is unique, so far as I know, in reversing the rule _de mortius_, and in charging, instead, the dead man with every sin, to make sure that none are omitted of which he is actually guilty. It is accompanied by a singular ceremony. An unblemished buffalo-calf is led into the midst of the mourners, and as after each verse they catch up and repeat the refrain, "It is a sin!" the performer of the dirge lays his hand upon the calf, to which the guilt is transferred. At the end the calf is let loose; like the Jewish scape-goat, it must be used for no secular work; it bears the sins of a human being, and is sacred till death. The English version is by Mr C. E. Gover, who has done so much for the preservation of South-Indian folk-songs. INVOCATION. In the presence of the great Bassava, Who sprang from Banige the holy cow.