shells of large turtles, skilfully put together, so as to form a very elegant coffin or casket. The funeral arrangements are made by a company of undertakers, by whom the body is conveyed on shore, attended by the friends of the deceased, who don large cloaks and hats made of palm-leaves, and form themselves into a procession which accompanies the body up the side of the volcanic hill, to where a large crater displays its yawning mouth, from which issues, at all times, a column of smoke, coming from unknown and unfathomed depths. Near this crater stands an immense crane, from the top of which depends a long chain, supporting a kind of scuttle, on which the corpse is laid. The chief mourners, at a given signal, launch the scuttle with its burden into the air; the undertaker's men, at the same moment, work the machinery of the crane, which swings round, and by the impetus thus given, the corpse is accurately projected into the yawning abyss. In a few minutes a bright flash of fire and a puff of dark smoke announce to the assembly that the combustion of the corpse is completed, and the friends of the deceased slowly descend the hill, and on attaining the water's edge, drop their cloaks and hats and plunge beneath the clear cool water. Sometimes a short speech is made at the crater's mouth, eulogistic of the departed friend; but the discomforts of the brief sojourn on land make them cut the ceremony as short as possible, in order to regain, with all speed, their more congenial element.
The ease-loving Colymbians found these funeral processions so irksome, that they had set to work to make a railway from the sea-side to the crater's mouth, and it was nearly finished when I left the country. It is on the atmospheric system, and is to be worked by one of
