’I walked thither alone, having heard that a feast was to be held there.  As I came close to the spot, I heard the hum of many voices, and the dull, booming sound of the native drum, which is nothing but a large hollow tree, of circular shape, struck by wooden mallets.  Some few people ran off as I appeared, but many of them had seen me before.  The women, about thirty in number, were sitting on the ground together, in front of one of the houses, which enclosed an open air circular space; in front of another house were many children and young people.  In the long narrow house which forms the general cooking and lounging room of the men of each village, and the sleeping room of the bachelors, were many people preparing large messes of grated yam and cocoa-nut in flat wooden dishes.  At the long oblong-shaped drum sat the performers, two young men, each with two short sticks to perform the kettledrum part of the business, and an older man in the centre, whose art consisted in bringing out deep, hollow tones from his wooden instrument.  Around them stood some thirty men, two of whom I noticed especially, decked out with red leaves, and feathers in their hair.  Near this party, and close to the long, narrow house in the end of which I stood, was a newly raised platform of earth, supported on stones.  On the corner stone were laid six or eight pigs’ jaws, with the large curling tusks left in them.  This was a sacred stone.  In front of the platform were three poles, covered with flowers, red leaves, &c.

’For about an hour and a half the men at or around the drum kept up an almost incessant shouting, screaming and whistling, moving their legs and arms in time, not with any wild gesticulations, but occasionally with some little violence, the drum all the time being struck incessantly.  About the middle of the ceremony, an old, tall, thin man, with a red handkerchief, our gift at some time, round his waist, began ambling round the space in the middle of the houses, carrying a boar’s skull in his hand.  This performance he repeated three times.  Then a man jumped up upon the platform, and, moving quickly about on it and gesticulating wildly, delivered a short speech, after which the drum was beat louder than ever; then came another speech from the same man; and then the rain evidently hastening matters to a conclusion to the whole thing, without any ceremony of consecrating the stone, as I had expected.

’In the long room afterwards I had the opportunity of saying quietly what I had said to those about me during the ceremony:  the same story of the love of God, especially manifested in Jesus Christ, to turn men from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.  With what power that verse speaks to one while witnessing such an exhibition of ignorance, or fear, or superstition as I have seen to-day!  And through it all I was constantly thinking upon the earnestness with which these poor souls follow out a mistaken notion of religion.