We were received in the village with every demonstration of joy. In the evening of the same day, when I went out, I found that all the slain had been carried to the grove before the temple, and were placed in rows, with their bodies covered over with paint. The chiefs and all the principal men of the tribe were assembling from far and near. The priest of the town was standing near the temple, and the butcher, as he was called, a bloodthirsty monster, was ready with the implements of his horrid trade, while his assistants were employed in heating the ovens. I rushed from the spot; but, instigated by a curiosity I could not repress, I again returned, and witnessed a scene of the most disgusting cannibalism the mind could imagine. The bodies of the slain were baked, and then cut up by the priest or butcher, and distributed among the chiefs and principal men, none of the women or lower orders being allowed to partake of the horrible banquet. What struck me was the avidity with which the savages seized the fragments and devoured them. I would have avoided giving the dreadful account, were it not to show the depth of wickedness into which human nature, when left to itself, will inevitably sink. Often have I seen parties of men set out for the express purpose of capturing and murdering their fellow-creatures-- people of the same colour and race, and chiefly helpless women and children--to satisfy their disgusting propensities--frequently to furnish a banquet on the visit of some neighbouring and friendly chiefs. Some people have pretended to doubt the existence of cannibalism as a regular custom, though unable to deny that it has been resorted to under the pressure of hunger; but the Feejee islands afford numberless undoubted proofs that hundreds of people were yearly slaughtered to gratify the unnatural taste of their ferocious chiefs. Wars were undertaken for the express purpose of obtaining victims; all persons, friends or strangers, thrown by the stormy ocean on their inhospitable shores, were destroyed; their own slaves were often killed; and men, women, and children among the lower orders, even of friendly tribes, were frequently kidnapped and carried off for the same purpose.