United States or Laos ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Papara marae was made of coral, but the quarried mountain rock was laid at the foundation, and these ponderous, uneven stones being patched with coral, in time the blocks had become tightly cemented together. A lime-kiln was along the land side of this marae of Oberea, and for years had furnished the cement, plaster, and whitewash of the district.
Wrecked, battered by the surf, torn to pieces by pickaxes, undermined by the sea, and overgrown by the rank foliage of the tropics, the marae preserved for me and for Brooke, too, a solemnity and reminiscent grandeur that brought a vision of the beauty and might of the passionate Oberea, who had commanded it to be built.
Many Eastern species of Longicorns of the genus Oberea, when on the wing exactly resemble Tenthredinidæ, and many of the small species of Hesthesis run about on timber, and cannot be distinguished from ants. There is one genus of South American Longicorns that appears to mimic the shielded bugs of the genus Scutellera.
They never tortured as the English and French tortured Joan of Arc, and as the police of America torture thousands of Americans every day. I looked long at this ruined pagan tabernacle, this arc of the covenant for Oberea and Oamo, and for Tetuanui's fathers. The chief said that his grandfather had seen it in its palmy period.
Being disappointed, his suspicions increased, and thinking it not safe, when the night approached, to let the persons whom he had detained as hostages continue at the fort, he ordered Tubourai Tamaide, Oberea, and some others, to be taken on board the Endeavour; a circumstance which excited so general an alarm, that several of them, and especially the women, expressed their apprehensions with great emotion and many tears.
Omai lisped broken English, and made all the assembled musicians hold their ears by howling Otaheitean love-songs, such as those with which Oberea charmed her Opano. With the literary and fashionable society which occasionally met under Dr. Burney's roof, Frances can scarcely be said to have mingled. She was not a musician, and could therefore bear no part in the concerts.
In a neighboring island a circle of uplifted stones, covering an area of several hundred yards, reminds us of the cromlechs of Brittany. The so-called Burial-Mound of Oberea at Otaheite, if it really was constructed with stone tools, is yet more curious. Imagine a pyramid of which the base is a long square, two hundred and sixty feet long by eighty-seven wide. It is forty-three feet high.
Before the genius of Tahiti was smothered in the black and white of modernism, the falls and the valley in which they are, were the haunt of lovers who sought seclusion for their pledgings. A princess accompanied me to them. She was not a daughter of a king or queen, but she was near to royalty, and herself as aristocratic in carriage and manner as was Oberea, who loved Captain Cook.
On the 12th old Oberea, who had been supposed by Captain Wallis to be the queen of the island, came on board, and brought a present of pigs and fruit, and soon afterwards Otoo appeared with a retinue and a large quantity of provisions. Handsome presents were made in return, and the visitors were entertained in the evening with fireworks.
It was curious that among them all she seemed to value most a child's doll. On this, Tootahah, who was apparently at that time the principal chief on the island, jealous of the favours shown to Oberea, was not content till he also had a doll given to him.
Word Of The Day