4. The ulcer taboo.—­This was made by burying in the ground some pieces of clam-shell, and erecting at the spot three or four reeds, tied together at the top in a bunch like the head of a man.  This was to express the wish and prayer of the owner that any thief might be laid down with ulcerous sores all over his body.  If a thief transgressed, and had any subsequent swellings or sores, he confessed, sent a present to the owner of the land, and he, in return, sent back some native herb, as a medicine, and a pledge of forgiveness.

5. The tic-doloureux taboo.—­This was done by fixing a spear in the ground close by the trees which the owner wished to guard.  It was expressive of a wish that the thief might suffer from the face and head agonies of the disease just named.

6.  The death taboo.—­This was made by pouring some oil into a small calabash, and burying it near the tree.  The spot was marked by a little hillock of white sand.  The sight of one of these places was also effectual in scaring away a thief.

7. The rat taboo.—­This was a small cocoa-nut leaf basket, filled with ashes from the cooking-house, and two or three small stones, and suspended from the tree.  It signified a wish that rats might eat holes in the fine mats of the thief, and destroy any cloth, or other property which he might value.

8. The thunder taboo.—­If a man wished that lightning might strike any who should steal from his land, he would plait some cocoa-nut leaflets in the form of a small square mat, and suspend it from a tree, with the addition of some white streamers of native cloth flying.  A thief believed that if he trespassed he, or some of his children, might be struck with lightning, or, perhaps his own trees struck and blasted from the same cause.  They were not, however, in the habit of talking about the effects of lightning.  It was the thunder they thought did the mischief; hence they called that to which I have just referred, the thunder taboo.

From these few illustrations it will be observed that Samoa formed no exception to the remarkably widespread system of superstitious taboo; and the extent to which it preserved honesty and order among a heathen people will be readily imagined.  At the present day the belief in the power of these rude hieroglyphics is not yet eradicated.  In passing along you still see something with streamers flying, dangling from a tree in one place, a basket suspended in another, and some reeds erect in a third.  The sickness, too, and dying hours of some hardened thief still bring out confessions of his guilt.  Facts such as these which have just been enumerated still further show the cruelties of the reign of superstition, and exhibit, in striking contrast, the better spirit and the purer precepts taught by that blessed volume which is now received, read, and practised by many in Samoa.  In days of heathenism there was no good rendered for evil there, and the only prayers for injurers and enemies were curses for their hurt and destruction.