[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

VAO 9 3

On the other side of the altar are the drums,
hollow trunks, whose upper end is carved to represent
a human face with wide, grinning mouth, and deep,
round and hollow eyes. Rammed in aslant, leaning
in all directions, they stand like clumsy, malicious
demons, spiteful and brutal, as if holding their
bellies with rude, immoderate laughter at their own
hugeness and the puniness of mankind, at his
miserable humanity, compared to the solemn repose
of the great tree. ‘ In front of these are figures
‘ cut roughly out of logs, short-legged, with long
bodies and exaggeratedly long faces; often they are
nothing but a head, with the same smiling mouth,
a long nose and narrow, oblique eyes. They are
, painted red, White and blue, and are hardly discern-
ible in the dimness. On their forked heads they
carry giant birds with outstretched wings,——herons,
—floating as if they had just dropped through the
branches on to the square.

This is all we can see, but it is enough to make
a deep impression. Outside, the sun is glaring, the
leaves quiver, and the clouds are drifting across the
sky, but here it is dim and cool as in a cathedral,
not a breeze blows, everything is lapped in a holy
calm. Abandonment, repose, sublime thoughtless-
ness drOp down on us in the shadow of the giant
tree; as if in a dream we breathe the damp, soft,
mouldy air, feel the smooth earth and the green moss
that covers everything like a velvet pal], and gaze at
the altars, the drums and the ,statues.

In a small clearing behind the square, surrounded