The following corroborative account is given in the Journal, from a source vaguely described as ’a pamphlet published in San Francisco, by Mr. Hastwell:’ 

’The natives of Raiatea have some performances so entirely out of the ordinary course of events as to institute (sic) inquiry relative to a proper solution.

’On September 20, 1885, I witnessed the wonderful, and to me inexplicable, performance of passing through the “fiery furnace.”

’The furnace that I saw was an excavation of three or four feet in the ground, in a circular form (sloping upwards), and about thirty feet across.  The excavation was filled with logs and wood, and then covered with large stones.  A fire was built underneath, and kept burning for a day.  When I witnessed it, on the second day, the flames were pouring up through the interstices of the rocks, which were heated to a red and white heat.  When everything was in readiness, and the furnace still pouring out its intense heat, the natives marched up with bare feet to the edge of the furnace, where they halted for a moment, and after a few passes of the wand made of the branches of the ti-plant by the leader, who repeated a few words in the native language, they stepped down on the rocks and walked leisurely across to the other side, stepping from stone to stone.  This was repeated five times, without any preparation whatever on their feet, and without injury or discomfort from the heated stones.  There was not even the smell of fire on their garments.’

* * * * *

Mr. N. J. Tone, in the same periodical (ii. 3,193), says that he arrived just too late to see the same rite at Bukit Mestajam, in Province Wellesley, Straits Settlements; he did see the pit and the fire, and examined the naked feet, quite uninjured, of the performers.  He publishes an extract to this effect from his diary.  The performers, I believe, were Klings.  Nothing is said to indicate any condition of trance, or other abnormal state, in the fire-walkers.

The Fire-walk in Trinidad.

Mr. Henry E. St. Clair, writing on September 14. 1896, says:  ’In Trinidad, British West Indies, the rite is performed annually about this time of the year among the Indian coolie immigrants resident in the small village of Peru, a mile or so from Port of Spain.  I have personally witnessed the passing, and the description given by Mr. Ponder tallies with what I saw, except that, so far as I can remember, the number of those who took part in the rite was greater than six.  In addition, there is this circumstance, which was not mentioned by that gentleman:  each of the “passers” carried one or two lemons, which they dropped into the fire as they went along.  These lemons were afterwards eagerly scrambled for by the bystanders, who, so far as I can recollect, attributed a healing influence to them.’

Bulgarian Fire-walk

As to the Bulgarian rite, Dr. Schischmanof writes to me: