Chapter Twenty-eight - Page 2

district. The fish were under a strict Taboo,
until the distribution was completed, which seemed to be effected
in the most impartial manner. By the operation of this system
every man, woman, and child in the vale, were at one and the same
time partaking of this favourite article of food.

Once I remember the party arrived at midnight; but the
unseasonableness of the tour did not repress the impatience of
the islanders. The carriers dispatched from the Ti were to be
seen hurrying in all directions through the deep groves; each
individual preceded by a boy bearing a flaming torch of dried
cocoanut boughs, which from time to time was replenished from the
materials scattered along the path. The wild glare of these
enormous flambeaux, lighting up with a startling brilliancy the
innermost recesses of the vale, and seen moving rapidly along
beneath the canopy of leaves, the savage shout of the excited
messengers sounding the news of their approach, which was
answered on all sides, and the strange appearance of their naked
bodies, seen against the gloomy background, produced altogether
an effect upon my mind that I shall long remember.

It was on this same occasion that Kory-Kory awakened me at the
dead hour of night, and in a sort of transport communicated the
intelligence contained in the words 'pehee perni' (fish come).
As I happened to have been in a remarkably sound and refreshing
slumber, I could not imagine why the information had not been
deferred until morning, indeed, I felt very much inclined to fly
into a passion and box my valet's ears; but on second thoughts I
got quietly up, and on going outside the house was not a little
interested by the moving illumination which I beheld.

When old Marheyo received his share of the spoils, immediate
preparations were made for a midnight banquet; calabashes of
poee-poee were filled to the brim; green bread-fruit were
roasted; and a huge cake of 'amar' was cut up with a sliver of
bamboo and laid out on an immense banana-leaf.

At this supper we were lighted by several of the native tapers,
held in the hands of young girls. These tapers are most
ingeniously made. There is a nut abounding in the valley, called
by the Typees 'armor', closely resembling our common
horse-chestnut. The shell is broken, and the contents extracted
whole. Any number of these are strung at pleasure upon the long
elastic fibre that traverses the branches of the cocoanut tree.
Some of these tapers are eight or ten feet in length; but being
perfectly flexible, one end is held in a coil, while the other is
lighted. The nut burns with a fitful bluish flame, and the oil
that it contains is exhausted in about ten minutes. As one burns
down, the next becomes