The latter also supplied
the musicians; and the clanging of drums and cymbals, with the blast of
horns, replaced the sylvan melody of the aborigines.
Still there was every sign of festivity. The proceedings began with
dances in which the men, who posed as athletes and warriors, gave
representations of deeds of martial prowess. Then the girls were allowed
to foot their native dances in their own fashion. Dances for both sexes
followed, in which the native maidens found it difficult to conceal
their terror of the rough partners ever ready to become rougher wooers.
These preliminaries concluded, the business of the day began. Though
this wild race sacrificed human beings, they did not treat their victims
with the coldblooded cruelty of the Druids, who slaughtered them as if
they were oxen or sheep; their custom was to burn their captives; and it
is not for critics, whose pious forefathers kindled the fires of
Smithfield, to assert that their practice was wholly barbarous. In the
present case a pyre, some twelve feet high, was built at the foot of a
huge granite boulder, near the sea-coast: it was constructed of dry
wood, and was drenched with combustible materials.
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