ARBOREAL CEMETERIES. 171 



singular customs, I shall have to speak more at 

 length in a future chapter. 



Near one of these arboreal cemeteries, I ob- 

 served a high pole, and dangling from it a head, 

 fresh, bloody, and ghastly; the scalp had been 

 removed, and a rope, passing through the under- 

 jaw, served to suspend it. Horribly revolting as 

 the face appeared, still I could not help going 

 close to it. Never had I seen so singular a 

 head; it looked in shape like a sugarloaf, the 

 apex of the skull terminating in a sharp point. 

 On returning to the fort, I inquired if they could 

 tell me anything about this mysterious head. 

 It appeared that, a day or so before our arrival, 

 a war-party of the Qua-kars had returned from 

 a raid on the mainland coast, and brought with 

 them a number of slaves. (Prisoners taken in 

 war, or in any other manner, are invariably used 

 as slaves, bought and sold, whipped or killed, 

 as best befits the whim or caprice of their 

 owner.) Amongst the wretched captives, was a 

 chief. Soon after landing, he was made fast 

 to a temporary cross erected on the beach, shot, 

 scalped, and beheaded, and it was his head I 

 had seen in my rambles. On hearing further 

 that the tribe to which he belonged was one 

 that elongate instead of flatten the head, I de- 



