THE FIRE WALK CEREMONY IN TAHITI. 541 



they did not burn my hand, hut as thoy approached the center the 

 stones were heaped up into a mound three or four hiyers deep, at 

 which point the lowest la^'ers seen between the upper ones were visibly 

 red-hot. That tliese hitter were, nevertheless, sending- out considerable 

 heat there ccnild be no question, though the topmost stones were cer- 

 taiidy not rod-hot, while those at the bottom were visibly so and were 

 occasionally splitting with loud reports, while the flames from the 

 burned wood near the center of the pile passed up in visible lambent 

 tongues, both circumstances contributing to the effect upon the excited 

 bystanders. 



The upper stones, I repeat, even where the topmost were presently 

 removed, did not show anj^ glow to the eye, but were unquestionabl}" 

 very hot and certainly looked unsafe for naked feet. Native feet, how- 

 ever, are not like European ones, and Mr. Richardson, the chief engi- 

 neer of the ship, mentioned that he had himself seen elsewhere natives 

 standing unconcerned with naked feet on the cover of pipes conveying 

 steam at about 300' F., where no European foot could even lightly 

 rest for a minute. The stones then were hot. Tlie crucial question 

 was. How hot was the upper part of this upper layer on which the feet 

 w^ere to rest an instant in passing^ I could think of no ready thermo- 

 metric method that could give an absolutely trustw^orthy answer, but 

 I could possibl}^ determine on the spot the thermal equivalent of one 

 of the hottest stones trodden on. (It was subsequently shown that the 

 stone might be much cooler at one part than another.) Most obvious!}", 

 even this was not an eas}" thing to do in the circumstances, but I 

 decided to try to get at least a trustworthy approximation. By the 

 aid of Chief Engineer Richardson, who attended with a stoker and one 

 of the quartermasters, kindly detailed at my request b}" the ship's 

 master, Captain Lawless,' I prepared for the rough but conclusive 

 experiment presently described. 



It was now nearly fort}^ minutes after 4, when six acolytes (natives), 

 wearing crowns of flowers, wreathed with garlands and ))earing poles 

 nearly 15 feet long, ostensibly to be used as levers in toppling over 

 the upper stones, appeared. They were supposed to need such long 

 poles because of the distance at "W'hich the}' must stand on accoimt of 

 the heat radiated from the pile, but I had walked close beside it a 

 moment before and satisfied myself that I could have manipulated the 

 stones with a lever of one-third the length, with some discomfort, but 

 with entire safety. Some of the uppermost stones only were turned 

 over, leaving a superior layer, the long poles being needlessly thrust 

 down between the stones to the bottom, where two of them caught fire 

 at their extremities, adding very much to the impression that the 

 exposed layer of stones was red hot, when in fact they were not, at 

 least to the eye. These long poles and the way they were handled 

 were, then, a part of the ingenious ""staging" of the whole spectacle. 



