Some months after my arrival, the chief's house was burned down--though the rolls of cloth, and much of his more valuable property, were saved. He at once issued his commands to the people of all the tributary villages to bring in materials for the erection of another on a much larger scale. Meantime we lived in huts, quickly erected on his property. When the day arrived to commence the building, I saw that four very deep and large holes had been dug to receive the corner posts. These posts were brought up with great ceremony to the spot. At the same time, four slaves, strong, muscular young men, were brought up, and when the posts were placed upright in the holes, a slave was made to descend into each of them, and as I looked in, I saw them clinging tightly round the posts. I concluded that they were to remain there to hold the posts upright till the earth was shovelled in; but what was my horror to find that they were to remain for ever in that position! While they stood in all their health and strength, looking up with longing eyes into the blue sky, others threw in the earth, and beat it down with heavy mallets over their heads. I shuddered at the spectacle, but heart-broken as I was I dared not interfere. Our old chief had resolved to build a fleet of large double canoes, with which to bring the inhabitants of another island under subjection. It had been his chief care and attention for some years past. At length a portion was finished and ready for launching. Before this ceremony could be performed, it was necessary to attack a village at some distance, to obtain victims to offer in sacrifice to the evil spirits they worshipped, in order that success might attend their operations. The young chief and his party set out with his warriors, and attacking a village in the dead of night, carried off fifty of its unfortunate inhabitants. The next day, the shrieking wretches were brought to the dockyard. That they might be kept in a proper position to serve as ways or rollers over which the canoes might pass, each person was securely lashed to two banana-trees, lengthways--one in front, and the other behind him. Thus utterly unable to move, with their faces upwards, they were placed in rows between the canoes and the water. Ropes were then attached to the canoes, which, it must be understood, are very heavy, and numbers hauling away on them, they were dragged over the yet breathing, living mass of human beings, whose shrieks and groans of agony rent the air, mingled with the wild shouts and songs of their inhuman murderers, till the former were silenced in death. I need not say what became of the bodies of the victims thus horribly immolated. The ceremony ended with a great feast, at which all the chiefs and principal men assembled from far and near, and which lasted several days.