At regular intervals they were bound round by a species of sinnate of various colours, and strips of native cloth flattened upon them here and there.

Behind these instruments were built slight platforms, upon which stood a number of young men who, beating violently with the palms of their hands upon the drum-heads, produced those outrageous sounds which had awakened me in the morning.

Every few minutes these musical performers hopped down from their elevation into the crowd below, and their places were immediately supplied by fresh recruits.

Thus an incessant din was kept up that might have startled Pandemonium.
Precisely in the middle of the quadrangle were placed perpendicularly in the ground, a hundred or more slender, fresh-cut poles, stripped of their bark, and decorated at the end with a floating pennon of white tappa; the whole being fenced about with a little picket of canes.

For what purpose these angular ornaments were intended I in vain endeavoured to discover.
Another most striking feature of the performance was exhibited by a score of old men, who sat cross-legged in the little pulpits, which encircled the trunks of the immense trees growing in the middle of the enclosure.