HOUSES. TEMPLES. RELIGION. 455 



two doorways on opposite sides, from three to four feet high 

 and four feet wide. The sides were made of posts about three 

 feet apart, and filled in with wicker-work. The roof had a 

 steep pitch; the rafters were generally of palm wood, thatched 

 with wild sugar-cane, under which they placed fern leaves. 

 A mat served as a door, and a few flat stones near the middle 

 of the house served as the fire-place. The houses were seldom 

 divided by partitions, but the two ends were raised about a 

 foot, and were covered with layers of mats on which the 

 natives slept. 



Their temples were pyramidal in form, and were often 

 erected on terraced mounds, like those of Central America.* 

 They also venerated certain upright stones,f resembling those 

 which we call Druidical. " The Feegeeans," says Mr. Hazle- 

 wood, "consider the gods as beings of like passions with them- 

 selves. They love and hate ; they are proud and revengeful, 

 and make war, and kill and eat each other ; and are, in fact, 

 savages and cannibals like themselves/' "Cruelty," says 

 Captain Erskine,| "a craving for blood, and especially for 

 human flesh as food, are characteristic of the gods." Yet the 

 Fijians looked upon the Samoans with horror, regarding them 

 as having no religion, because they had no belief in any such 

 deities, nor any of the sanguinary rites which prevailed in 

 other islands. 



The Fiji canoes were very well constructed. They were 

 generally double, of unequal size, the smaller one serving as 

 an outrigger. The larger ones were sometimes more than a 

 hundred feet in length. The two canoes were connected by 

 a platform, generally about fifteen feet wide, and projecting 

 two or three feet beyond the sides. The bottom of each con- 

 sisted of a single plank ; the sides were fitted by dovetailing, 



* B. Seemann, in the Vacation Tourist for 1861, p. 269. 



t Figi and the Figians, vol. i. p. 220. 



J Journal of a Cruise in the "Western Pacific, p. 247. 



