Page:A Lady's Cruise in a French Man-of-War.djvu/248

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This morning, after a pleasant breakfast with Mrs Brander, M. Vernier called for me in his pony-phaeton, and we drove to visit Queen Pomare's tomb, or rather the house in which the royal dead of Tahiti are laid, and left for a while, till only bones and dust remain. Then a specially appointed official goes at dead of night and secretly carries the remains to some place—probably a cave in the mountains—where they are safely buried; only a very few trusted old adherents being allowed to know where they are laid. The mausoleum is a hideous little house, standing on a bare grass lawn by the sea. Till recently it was surrounded by a fine old grove of sacred casuarina-trees; but one unlucky day Ariiaue was short of money (cruel report says of brandy!), and he actually sold the venerated trees to some Goth, who cut them for common timber.

I fancy that the jealous mystery which enshrouds the final burial of royal bones may be traced to lingering traditions of witchcraft, or some kindred superstition connected with the ancient system of taboo, which prevailed throughout Polynesia, and entailed divers diseases, and even death, on those who rashly tampered with things belonging to high chiefs. The other day a man walked past this door carrying a bunch of roses. Mrs Green was going to take one, when a half-caste Tahitian cried out, "Oh, take care! they were gathered in the garden of ——," naming some one related to the royal family. I then learnt that to take anything belonging to royalty, or to wear a garment that has been worn by any of them, or even to lie on their bed, or rest the head on their pillow, is supposed to produce king's evil. So implicit is this belief among the older generation, that Queen Pomare always made up bundles of her old clothes and sent them to sea to be sunk outside the reef.

The cure for any person supposed to have incurred danger in this manner savours of the celebrated prescription in hydrophobia, "Swallow a hair of the dog that bit you." The old queen was greatly attached to one of Mrs Green's little boys, whom, after the curious fashion of this country, she called her adopted son, giving