Chapter LXXIII - Page 2

minutes to
discover that the sun was blazing like a bonfire, and that the weather
was of a melting temperature. It had a drowsing effect, too.
In one place we came upon a large company of naked natives, of both sexes
and all ages, amusing themselves with the national pastime of surf-
bathing. Each heathen would paddle three or four hundred yards out to
sea, (taking a short board with him), then face the shore and wait for a
particularly prodigious billow to come along; at the right moment he
would fling his board upon its foamy crest and himself upon the board,
and here he would come whizzing by like a bombshell! It did not seem
that a lightning express train could shoot along at a more hair-lifting
speed. I tried surf-bathing once, subsequently, but made a failure of
it. I got the board placed right, and at the right moment, too; but
missed the connection myself.--The board struck the shore in three
quarters of a second, without any cargo, and I struck the bottom about
the same time, with a couple of barrels of water in me. None but natives
ever master the art of surf-bathing thoroughly.

At the end of an hour, we had made the four miles, and landed on a level
point of land, upon which was a wide extent of old ruins, with many a
tall cocoanut tree growing among them. Here was the ancient City of
Refuge--a vast inclosure, whose stone walls were twenty feet thick at the
base, and fifteen feet high; an oblong square, a thousand and forty feet
one way and a fraction under seven hundred the other. Within this
inclosure, in early times, has been three rude temples; each two hundred
and ten feet long by one hundred wide, and thirteen high.

In those days, if a man killed another anywhere on the island the
relatives were privileged to take the murderer's life; and then a chase
for life and liberty began--the outlawed criminal flying through pathless
forests and over mountain and plain, with his hopes fixed upon the
protecting walls of the City of Refuge, and the avenger of blood
following hotly after him!

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