Page 339 |
Joseph Banks's Descriptions of Places |
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Some account of Savu Index Search Contact us |
Some account of Savu (continued) polish on their uneven surfaces; those who can purchase such stones or who have them by inheritance from their ancestors place them round their houses where they serve as benches for their dependants, I suppose to polish still higher and higher. Every Radja during his life time sets up in his capital town or Nigrie a large stone which serves futurity as a testimony of his reign - in the Nigrie Seba where we lay were 13 such stones, besides many fragments the seeming remains of those which had been devourd by time. Many of these were very large, even so much so that it would be dificult to conceive how the strengh of man alone unassisted by engines had been able to transport them to the top of a hill where they now stand, were there not in Europe so many far grander instances of Perserverance as well as strengh of our own forefathers. These Stones serve for a very peculiar use. Upon the Death of a Radja a general feast is proclaimd throughout his dominions and in consequence all his subjects meet about these stones. Every living Creature that can be caught
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) 374, February 2004 Published by kind permission of the Library To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-339.html |