Chapter Twenty - Page 2

systematic smoking of four or five
pipefuls of tobacco in succession, as something quite wonderful.
When two or three pipes had circulated freely, the company
gradually broke up. Marheyo went to the little hut he was
forever building. Tinor began to inspect her rolls of tappa, or
employed her busy fingers in plaiting grass-mats. The girls
anointed themselves with their fragrant oils, dressed their hair,
or looked over their curious finery, and compared together their
ivory trinkets, fashioned out of boar's tusks or whale's teeth.
The young men and warriors produced their spears, paddles,
canoe-gear, battle-clubs, and war-conchs, and occupied themselves
in carving, all sorts of figures upon them with pointed bits of
shell or flint, and adorning them, especially the war-conchs,
with tassels of braided bark and tufts of human hair. Some,
immediately after eating, threw themselves once more upon the
inviting mats, and resumed the employment of the previous night,
sleeping as soundly as if they had not closed their eyes for a
week. Others sallied out into the groves, for the purpose of
gathering fruit or fibres of bark and leaves; the last two being
in constant requisition, and applied to a hundred uses. A few,
perhaps, among the girls, would slip into the woods after
flowers, or repair to the stream will; small calabashes and
cocoanut shells, in order to polish them by friction with a
smooth stone in the water. In truth these innocent people seemed
to be at no loss for something to occupy their time; and it would
be no light task to enumerate all their employments, or rather
pleasures.

My own mornings I spent in a variety of ways. Sometimes I
rambled about from house to house, sure of receiving a cordial
welcome wherever I went; or from grove to grove, and from one
shady place to another, in company with Kory-Kory and Fayaway,
and a rabble rout of merry young idlers. Sometimes I was too
indolent for exercise, and accepting one of the many invitations
I was continually receiving, stretched myself out on the mats of
some hospitable dwelling, and occupied myself pleasantly either
in watching the proceedings of those around me or taking part in
them myself. Whenever I chose to do the latter, the delight of
the islanders was boundless; and there was always a throng of
competitors for the honour of instructing me in any particular
craft. I soon became quite an accomplished hand at making
tappa--could braid a grass sling as well as the best of them--and
once, with my knife, carved the handle of a javelin so
exquisitely, that I have no doubt, to this day, Karnoonoo, its
owner, preserves it as a surprising specimen of my skill. As
noon approached, all those who had wandered forth from our