428 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
three, which are planted on the wall, one at each 
end, and the other in the centre, where they stand 
like sentinels amidst the guns, as if designed, by 
their frightful appearance, to terrify an enemy. 
On the 29th, I visited the ruins, and took a sketch 
of one of the idols, which stood sixteen feet above 
the wall, was upwards of three feet in breadth, and 
had been carved out of a single tree. 
The annexed figure may be considered as a fair 
specimen of the greater part of Hawaiian idols. The 
head has generally a most horrid appearance, the 
mouth being large, and usually extended wide, 
exhibiting a row of large teeth, resembling in no 
small degree the cogs in the wheel of an engine, 
and adapted to excite terror rather than inspire 
confidence in the beholder. Some of their idols 
were of stone, and many were constructed with a 
kind of wicker-work covered with red feathers. 
In the evening our conversation at the gover¬ 
nor’s turned on the origin of the people of Hawaii, 
and the other islands of the Pacific, a topic which 
often engaged our attention, and respecting which, 
in the various inquiries we made, we often had 
occasion to regret that the traditions of the natives 
furnished such scanty information, on a subject so 
interesting and important. This portion, however, 
though small, and surrounded by an incredible 
mass of fiction, is still worth preserving. 
The general opinions entertained by the natives 
themselves, relative to their origin, are, either that 
the first inhabitants were created on the islands, 
descended from the gods by whom they were first 
inhabited, or that they came from a country 
which they called Tahiti. Many, as was the case 
with the chiefs at Maui, and also the governor at 
this place, suppose that, according to the accounts 
