For my own part, although hardly a day passed while I remained upon the island that I did not witness some religious ceremony or other, it was very much like seeing a parcel of “Freemasons” making secret signs to each other: I saw everything, but could comprehend nothing. On the whole, I am inclined to believe that the islanders in the Pacific have no fixed and definite ideas whatever on the subject of religion. I am persuaded that Kolory himself would be effectually posed were he called upon to draw up the articles of his faith, and pronounce the creed by which he hoped to be saved. In truth, the Typees, so far as their actions evince, submitted to no laws, human or divine—always excepting the thrice mysterious Taboo. The “independent electors” of the valley were not to be browbeaten by chiefs, priests, idols, or devils. As for the luckless idols, they received more hard knocks than supplications. I do not wonder that some of them looked so grim, and stood so bolt upright, as if fearful of looking to the right or the left, lest they should give any one offence. The fact is, they had to carry themselves “_pretty straight_,” or suffer the consequences. Their worshippers were such a precious set of fickle-minded and irreverent heathens, that there was no telling when they might topple one of them over, break it to pieces, and making a fire with it on the very altar itself, fall to roasting the offerings of bread-fruit, and eat them in spite of its teeth. In how little reverence these unfortunate deities were held by the natives, was on one occasion most convincingly proved to me. Walking with Kory-Kory through the deepest recesses of the groves, I perceived a curious-looking image about six feet in height, which originally had been placed upright against a low pi-pi, surmounted by a ruinous bamboo temple, but having become fatigued and weak in the knees, was now carelessly leaning against it. The idol was partly concealed by the foliage of a tree which stood near, and whose leafy boughs drooped over the pile of stones, as if to protect the rude fane from the decay to which it was rapidly hastening. The image itself was nothing more than a grotesquely-shaped log, carved in the likeness of a portly naked man, with the arms clasped over the head, the jaws thrown wide apart, and its thick shapeless legs bowed into an arch. It was much decayed. The lower part was overgrown with a bright silky moss. Thin spears of grass sprouted from the distended mouth, and fringed the outline of the head and arms. His godship had literally attained a green old age. All its prominent points were bruised and battered or entirely rotted away. The nose had taken its departure, and from the general appearance of the head, it might have been supposed that the wooden divinity, in despair at the neglect of its worshippers, had been trying to beat its own brains out against the surrounding trees.