Chapter 54 - Page 2

here and there, were sundry indefatigable worthies,
making a great show of imperious and indispensable business;

sedulously folding banana leaves into scrolls, and recklessly placing
them into the hands of little boys, in gay turbans and trim little
girdles, who thereupon fled as if with salvation for the dying.

It was a crowded scene; the dusky chiefs, here and there, grouped
together, and their fantastic tattooings showing like the carved work
on quaint old chimney-stacks, seen from afar. But one of their number
overtopped all the rest. As when, drawing nigh unto old Rome, amid the
crowd of sculptured columns and gables, St. Peter's grand dome soars
far aloft, serene in the upper air; so, showed one calm grand forehead
among those of this mob of chieftains. That head was Saturnina's. Gall
and Spurzheim! saw you ever such a brow?--poised like an avalanche,
under the shadow of a forest! woe betide the devoted valleys
below! Lavatar! behold those lips,--like mystic scrolls! Those eyes,--
like panthers' caves at the base of Popocatepetl!

"By my right hand, Saturnina," cried Babbalanja, "but thou wert made
in the image of thy Maker! Yet, have I beheld men, to the eye as
commanding as thou; and surmounted by heads globe-like as thine, who
never had thy caliber. We must measure brains, not heads, my lord; else,
the sperm whale, with his tun of an occiput, would transcend us all."

Near by, were arched ways, leading to subterranean places, whence
issued a savory steam, and an extraordinary clattering of calabashes,
and smacking of lips, as if something were being eaten down there by
the fattest of fat fellows, with the heartiest of appetites, and the
most irresistible of relishes. It was a quaffing, guzzling, gobbling
noise. Peeping down, we beheld a company, breasted up against a board,
groaning under numerous viands. In the middle of all, was a mighty
great gourd, yellow as gold, and jolly round like a pumpkin in
October, and so big it must have grown in the sun. Thence flowed a
tide of red wine. And before it, stood plenty of paunches being filled
therewith like portly stone jars at a fountain. Melancholy to tell,
before that fine flood of old wine, and among those portly old topers,
was a lean man; who occasionally ducked in his bill. He looked like an
ibis standing in the Nile at flood tide, among a tongue-lapping herd
of hippopotami.

They were jolly as the jolliest; and laughed so uproariously, that
their hemispheres all quivered and shook, like vast provinces in an
earthquake. Ha! ha! ha! how they laughed, and they roared. A deaf man
might have heard them; and no milk could have soured within a forty-
two-pounder ball shot of that place.

Now, the smell of