Sometimes the race was kept up to the very gates of the temple, and the panting pair sped through long files of excited natives, who watched the contest with flashing eye and dilated nostril, encouraging the hunted refugee with sharp, inspiriting ejaculations, and sending up a ringing shout of exultation when the saving gates closed upon him and the cheated pursuer sank exhausted at the threshold.  But sometimes the flying criminal fell under the hand of the avenger at the very door, when one more brave stride, one more brief second of time would have brought his feet upon the sacred ground and barred him against all harm.  Where did these isolated pagans get this idea of a City of Refuge—­this ancient Oriental custom?

This old sanctuary was sacred to all—­even to rebels in arms and invading armies.  Once within its walls, and confession made to the priest and absolution obtained, the wretch with a price upon his head could go forth without fear and without danger—­he was tabu, and to harm him was death.  The routed rebels in the lost battle for idolatry fled to this place to claim sanctuary, and many were thus saved.

Close to the corner of the great inclosure is a round structure of stone, some six or eight feet high, with a level top about ten or twelve in diameter.  This was the place of execution.  A high palisade of cocoanut piles shut out the cruel scenes from the vulgar multitude.  Here criminals were killed, the flesh stripped from the bones and burned, and the bones secreted in holes in the body of the structure.  If the man had been guilty of a high crime, the entire corpse was burned.

The walls of the temple are a study.  The same food for speculation that is offered the visitor to the Pyramids of Egypt he will find here—­the mystery of how they were constructed by a people unacquainted with science and mechanics.  The natives have no invention of their own for hoisting heavy weights, they had no beasts of burden, and they have never even shown any knowledge of the properties of the lever.  Yet some of the lava blocks quarried out, brought over rough, broken ground, and built into this wall, six or seven feet from the ground, are of prodigious size and would weigh tons.  How did they transport and how raise them?

Both the inner and outer surfaces of the walls present a smooth front and are very creditable specimens of masonry.  The blocks are of all manner of shapes and sizes, but yet are fitted together with the neatest exactness.  The gradual narrowing of the wall from the base upward is accurately preserved.