220 TEB GBUISE OF THE ' GUBAQOA: 



Iclie paths appeared to be constantly I'eturning upon them- 

 selves, and we were always finding ourselves nearly at the 

 same spot ; so much so, that I began to think that it woidd 

 be extremely difficult for us to retrace our steps, had we 

 not the sun and mountains for our guiding points. We 

 found large banyan trees with their adventitious roots 

 hano;ino- down to the earth, and on which were hune: 

 quantities of yams, for the purpose, I conjecture, of saving 

 them from the ravages of the pigs which were running alDOut 

 everywhere in considerable numbers. There must also be 

 some of these animals in a wild state, if I may so judge 

 from some sixty lower jaws with long tusks, which I saw 

 arranged iipon a fence along with six jaws of porpoises, 

 and two skulls upon two points of the fence, which were no 

 doubt the relics of a cannibal feast. In one place I observed 

 some twenty posts, from ten to twelve feet high and about 

 fourteen inches in diameter, placed in a circle a foot distant 

 from each other. In the centi-e there was ouq larger than 

 the others, on which was rudely sculptured a man's face. 

 These posts were hollowed out from eighteen inches to two 

 feet in length, so as to be sonorous when they were struck ; 

 and this is the use they are put to by the natives, who 

 come and dance around them, of which the worn-out ap- 

 pearance of the turf about them was proof ^ 



' At Vafce, Erskine was received in a building 100 feet by 28, in which 

 the interior of the roof was concealed by the bunches of bones hanging 

 from the rafters : ' they were of all descriptions — verfcebrsa of pigs, 

 or points of their tails, clusters of merry-bones of fowls, bones of every 



