The Areois. 
57 
ordinary. In their journeyings to and fro 
among the islands they would sometimes 
locate themselves among a community who 
were totally unacquainted with them save by 
hearsay, and who regarded their advent with 
feelings of terror ; yet, before long, numbers 
of these same people would desire to, and did 
enter their ranks. “ In their pastimes, in their 
accompanying crimes, and the often-repeated 
practices of the most unrelenting, murderous 
cruelty, these wandering Areois passed their 
lives, esteemed by the people as a superior 
order of beings, closely allied to the gods, and 
deriving from them direct sanction, even for 
their heartless murders. Free from labour or 
care, they roved from island to island, supported 
by the priests and the chiefs ; and often feasted 
on plunder from the gardens of the industrious 
husbandman, while his own family was not in¬ 
frequently deprived thereby for a time of the 
means of existence. Such was their life of 
luxurious and licentious indolence and crime. 
And such was the character of their delusive 
system of superstition that for them too was 
reserved the Elysium which their fabulous 
mythology taught them to believe was provided 
