At the fort we crossed the chasm on the stone debris of an ancient dam, when we began hunting for the man-eating rock. We searched in the grass, about four feet tall, and found it in about the center of the field, half buried in the earth.
It was chipped and defaced all over. Originally it must have measured about three by nine feet, and would weigh several tons. As far as I saw there were no other rocks on the surface of the island. It is roughly carved out to receive the head, arm, legs and body of a man. My guide informed me that his grandfather said that the ancient custom was for four men each, at an arm or leg, to hold the victim on the heated rock until dead, and then let him be cooked for dinner.
The citadel, or fort of the cannibal kings, is near the source of the Helamano River, under the Koolauloa Mountain. It is about three or four miles in circumference, protected by a perpendicular rock chasm nearly one hundred feet high. The gully surrounding it must once have served as an aqueduct, the water having been held back by the dam, which now, and probably for ages, has served as a passageway into the ancient rendezvous.
Standing there in the latter half of February looking west, the scene is lovely beyond description. The green palms on the Koolauloa Mountains serve as a background, while the Helamano River, with its fringe of trees all in blossom, winds its way like a ribbon of white roses away to the dreamy old Pacific Ocean, plain in view, but many miles away. Then to feel the spell of silence, where tumult once arose, we can but ask, "Is life a reality or a myth?" and a voice comes back from the voiceless realms of the dead, they were like us, simply passing through earth life.
SOUTH SEA ISLANDS AND AUSTRALIA
In a few weeks I found myself taking in the South Sea Islands, admiring the pretty lagoons, those tiny inner-ocean retreats, where the glistening sandy beach is strewn with miniature shells cozily protected by the surrounding palm groves, upon whose outer shore the mighty waves come pounding in only to recede without disturbing the finny tribes who never venture outside of these inland tiny lagoons.
At Apia, in the Samoa group, where lies the body of Robert L. Stevenson, I wondered not at his choice of selection for spending the last days of his life. Here among the South Sea Islands he could muse unmolested, far from the struggle for gain, and notoriety. There is a beautiful side to those so-called barbarian lives, and one is tempted to envy them their freedom as they laugh and sing in the bamboo shade, and bathe at ease in the soft waves of the grand old Pacific Ocean. One can but love them for their simplicity and confiding way as their wistful smile pleads for your generosity and sympathy.
The wonder-land in the Friendly or South Sea Island is Tongo-Taboo. Here one finds undoubted traces of a lost continent, in the way of an archway, or portal, through which a people must have passed before the dawn of Babylonian tradition. Two immense rectangular stone columns are seen tied together at the top by an enormous slab, on which rests a huge stone bowl, The entire structure must be nearly fifty feet high.