From these few illustrations it will be observed that Samoa formed no exception to the remarkably widespread system of superstitious taboo; and the extent to which it preserved honesty and order among a heathen people will be readily imagined. At the present day the belief in the power of these rude hieroglyphics is not yet eradicated. In passing along you still see something with streamers flying, dangling from a tree in one place, a basket suspended in another, and some reeds erect in a third. The sickness, too, and dying hours of some hardened thief still bring out confessions of his guilt. Facts such as these which have just been enumerated still further show the cruelties of the reign of superstition, and exhibit, in striking contrast, the better spirit and the purer precepts taught by that blessed volume which is now received, read, and practised by many in Samoa. In days of heathenism there was no good rendered for evil there, and the only prayers for injurers and enemies were curses for their hurt and destruction. CHAPTER XVII. WARS. The murder of a chief, a disputed title, or a desire on the part of one, two, or more of the districts, to be considered stronger and of more importance than the rest, were frequent causes of war in Samoa. Hostilities were often prevented by such acts as giving up the culprit, paying a heavy fine, or by bowing down in abject submission, carrying firewood and small stones used in baking a pig, or, perhaps, a few bamboos. The firewood, stones, and leaves, were equivalent to their saying, "Here we are, your pigs, to be cooked if you please; and here are the materials with which to do it." Taking bamboos in the hand was as if they said, "We have come, and here are the knives to cut us up." A piece of split bamboo was, of old, the usual knife in Samoa. If, however, the chiefs of the district were determined to resist, they prepared accordingly. The boundary which separated one district from another was the usual battlefield; hence the villages next to that spot, on either side, were occupied at once by the troops. The women and children, the sick and the aged, were cleared off to some fortified place in the bush, or removed to some other district which was either neutral, or could be depended upon as an ally. Movable property was either buried, or taken off with the women and children. The wives of the chiefs and principal men generally followed their husbands wherever they might be encamped, to be ready to nurse them if sick or wounded. A heroine would even follow close upon the heels of her husband in actual conflict, carrying his club or some other part of his armour.