In a word, our arrival furnished a fine pretext for renewing their games; though, we learned, that only ten days previous, upward of fifty combatants had been slain at one of these festivals.
Be that as it might, their joint majesties determined upon another one; and also upon our tarrying to behold it.

We objected, saying we must depart.
But we were kindly assured, that our canoes had been dragged out of the water, and buried in a wood; there to remain till the games were over.
The day fixed upon, was the third subsequent to our arrival; the interval being devoted to preparations; summoning from their villages and valleys the warriors of the land; and publishing the royal proclamations, whereby the unbounded hospitality of the kings' household was freely offered to all heroes whatsoever, who for the love of arms, and the honor of broken heads, desired to cross battle- clubs, hurl spears, or die game in the royal valley of Deddo.
Meantime, the whole island was in a state of uproarious commotion, and strangers were daily arriving.
The spot set apart for the festival, was a spacious down, mantled with white asters; which, waving in windrows, lay upon the land, like the cream-surf surging the milk of young heifers.

But that whiteness, here and there, was spotted with strawberries; tracking the plain, as if wounded creatures had been dragging themselves bleeding from some deadly encounter.

All round the down, waved scarlet thickets of sumach, moaning in the wind, like the gory ghosts environing Pharsalia the night after the battle; scaring away the peasants, who with bushel-baskets came to the jewel-harvest of the rings of Pompey's knights.
Beneath the heaped turf of this down, lay thousands of glorious corpses of anonymous heroes, who here had died glorious deaths.
Whence, in the florid language of Diranda, they called this field "The Field of Glory.".