the Sandwich islands has three
foreigners about his court--a Negro to beat the drum, a wooden-legged
Portuguese to play the fiddle, and Mordecai, a juggler, to amuse his
majesty with cups and balls and sleight of hand. On the Marquesan island
of Hivarhoo, they had found an English sailor who had attained to the
highest dignity in the country. He had deserted from a merchant ship,
and at once set up, on his own hook, as an independent sovereign,
without dominions, but by disposition most belligerent. A musket and a
store of cartridges were his whole possessions; but in a land where war
was rife, carried on with the primitive weapons of spear and javelin,
they were sufficiently important to make a native prince covet his
alliance. His first battle was a decisive victory, a perfect Waterloo,
and he became the Wellington of Hivarhoo, receiving, as reward for his
distinguished services, the hand of a princess, and a splendid dowry of
hogs, mats, and other produce. To conform to the prejudices of his new
family, he allowed himself to be tattooed, tabooed, and otherwise
paganized, becoming as big a savage as any in the island. A blue shark
adorned his forehead; a broad bar, of the same colour, traversed his
face. The tabooing was a less ornamental but more decidedly useful
formality, for by it his person was declared sacred and inviolable.
Typee and his medical friend had a strong prejudice against cerulean
sharks and the like embellishments; but if these could be dispensed
with, they felt no disinclination to form part of Pomaree's household.
They had not quite made up their minds what office would best suit them,
but their circumstances were unprosperous, and they resolved not to be
particular. They understood that the queen was mustering around her all
the foreigners she could recruit, to make head against the French. She
was then at Taloo, a village on the coast of Imeeo, and thither the two
adventurers betook themselves, hoping to be at once elevated to
important posts at court; but quite resigned, in case of disappointment,
to work as day-labourers in a sugar-plantation, or go to sea in a
whaler, then in the harbour for wood and water. Disgusted with their
desultory, hand-to-mouth existence, they yearned after respectability
and a prime-ministership. To their sanguine anticipations, both of these
seemed easy of attainment. Long Ghost, indeed, who, amongst his various
accomplishments, was a very Orpheus upon the violin, in