Statues of the gods were kept in walled enclosures, sometimes four or five acres in extent, within which stood the temples and altars of sacrifice, and there the people read the fates, as did the Greek and Roman soothsayers, in the shapes of clouds and the forms and colors of entrails of birds or of pigs killed on the altars. Human sacrifices were offered on important occasions, but always of men,--never of women or children. If no criminals or prisoners were available, the first gardener or fisherman was captured, knocked on the head, and his body left to decay on the altar. Oil and holy water were used to anoint the altar and sacred objects, and when a temple was newly finished its altar was piled with the dead. There is a striking universality among people in the brutal stage of development in this practice of pacifying their deities by murder. When a king or high priest offered a sacrifice of a foeman the butcher gouged the left eye from the body and gave it to his superior, who pretended to eat it. If a victim succeeded in escaping to a temple of refuge he was safe, even though he had killed a king or slapped the chops of a wooden god. All over the islands are natural monuments associated with instances that prove the faith of the people in gods, fiends, spirits, and heroes. At Mana Beach the "barking" or whistling of the sands under the tread is held to be the wailing of buried Hawaiians, complaining that they are disturbed. Here, too, dwells the ghost of the giant Kamalimaloa, rising through the earth with spear and helmet at certain seasons and seeking two beautiful girls who scorned him in life, and whom he is doomed never to meet in death. Holes and caves that abound in the lava--old craters, bubbles, and steam-vents--also have their stories. On Kauai they show a series called Pele's Jumps, because when the fire-goddess was driven from that island by the water-gods she made three long steps in the soft crust before undertaking the final leap that landed her on the slope of Kilauea. Each of these pits would hold a hotel. Another chasm was made by pulling a monster turtle out of his lair, while he slept, with the intent of eating him. This pit is thousands of cubic yards in extent, and the turtle may be seen on a neighboring mountain, turned to stone by the curses of the chief from whom he tried to sneak away when he noticed that preparations for cooking were forward. Near the famous Hanapepe Falls is the cave of Makaopihi, variously regarded as a chief, a devil, and a god, who took refuge here from his enemies, but every now and then showed his contempt for them by going down the long slope that is still called his slide,--a recreation that to an ordinary mortal would mean death.