iged to strike a light for the
occasion, and as the mode he adopted was entirely different from what I
had ever seen or heard of before I will describe it.

A straight, dry, and partly decayed stick of the Hibiscus, about six
feet in length, and half as many inches in diameter, with a small, bit
of wood not more than a foot long, and scarcely an inch wide, is as
invariably to be met with in every house in Typee as a box of lucifer
matches in the corner of a kitchen cupboard at home.

The islander, placing the larger stick obliquely against some object,
with one end elevated at an angle of forty-five degrees, mounts astride
of it like an urchin about to gallop off upon a cane, and then grasping
the smaller one firmly in both hands, he rubs its pointed end slowly
up and down the extent of a few inches on the principal stick, until at
last he makes a narrow groove in the wood, with an abrupt termination
at the point furthest from him, where all the dusty particles which the
friction creates are accumulated in a little heap.

At first Kory-Kory goes to work quite leisurely, but gradually quickens
his pace, and waxing warm in the employment, drives the stick furiously
along the smoking channel, plying his hands to and fro with amazing
rapidity, the perspiration starting from every pore. As he approaches
the climax of his effort, he pants and gasps for breath, and his eyes
almost start from their sockets with the violence of his exertions. This
is the critical stage of the operation; all his previous labours
are vain if he cannot sustain the rapidity of the movement until the
reluctant spark is produced. Suddenly he stops, becoming perfectly
motionless. His hands still retain their hold of the smaller stick,
which is pressed convulsively against the further end of the channel
among the fine powder there accumulated, as if he had just pierced
through and through some little viper that was wriggling and struggling
to escape from his clutches. The next moment a delicate wreath of smoke
curls spirally into the air, the heap of dusty particles glows with
fire, and Kory-Kory, almost breathless, dismounts from his steed.

This operation appeared to me to be the most laborious species of work
performed in Typee; and had I possessed a sufficient intimacy with the
language to have conveyed my ideas upon the subject, I should certainly
have suggested to the most influential of the natives the expediency of
establishing a college of v