154 
MISSIONARY TOUR 
ten feet in height, and curiously carved. The principal 
idol stood in the centre, the others on either hand; the 
most powerful being placed nearest to him: he was 
not so large as some of the others, but distinguished 
by the variety and superior carvings of his body, and 
especially of his head. Once they had evidently been 
clothed, but now they appeared in the most indigent 
nakedness. A few tattered shreds round the neck of 
one that stood on the left hand side of the door, rotted 
by the rain and bleached by the sun, were all that 
remained of numerous and gaudy garments, with which 
their votaries had formerly arrayed them. A large pile 
of broken calabashes and cocoa-nut shells lay in the 
centre, and a considerable heap of dried, and partly 
rotten, wreaths of flowers, branches of shrubs and 
bushes, and fragments of tapa, (the accumulated offer¬ 
ings of former days,) formed an unsightly mound im¬ 
mediately before each of the images. The horrid stare 
of these idols, the tattered garments upon some of them, 
and the heaps of rotting offerings before them, seemed 
to us no improper emblems of the system they were 
designed to support; distinguished alike by its cruelty, 
folly, and wretchedness. 
We endeavoured to gain admission to the inside of 
the house, but were told it was tabu roa, (strictly pro¬ 
hibited,) and that nothing but a direct order from the 
king, or Karaimoku, could open the door. However, 
by pushing one of the boards across the door-way a 
little on one side, we looked in, and saw many large 
images, some of wood very much carved, others of red 
feathers, with distended mouths, large rows of sharks’ 
teeth, and pearl-shell eyes. We also saw several 
bundles, apparently of human bones, cleaned, carefully 
