oft,
To look out for the life of poor Jack.

Birds--bright and beautiful birds--fly over the valley of Typee. You see
them perched aloft among the immovable boughs of the majestic bread-fruit
trees, or gently swaying on the elastic branches of the Omoo; skimming
over the palmetto-thatching of the bamboo huts; passing like spirits on
the wing through the shadows of the grove, and sometimes descending into
the bosom of the valley in gleaming flights from the mountains. Their
plumage is purple and azure, crimson and white, black and gold; with bills
of every tint;--bright bloody-red, jet black, and ivory white; and their
eyes are bright and sparkling; they go sailing through the air in starry
throngs; but, alas! the spell of dumbness is upon them all--there is not a
single warbler in the valley!

I know not why it was, but the sight of these birds, generally the
ministers of gladness, always oppressed me with melancholy. As in their
dumb beauty they hovered by me whilst I was walking, or looked down upon
me with steady curious eyes from out the foliage, I was almost inclined to
fancy that they knew they were gazing upon a stranger, and that they
commiserated his fate.

CHAPTER XXIX

A professor of the fine arts--His persecutions--Something about
tattooing and tabooing--Two anecdotes in illustration of the
latter--A few thoughts on the Typee dialect.

In one of my strolls with Kory-Kory, in passing along the border of a
thick growth of bushes, my attention was arrested by a singular noise. On
entering the thicket, I witnessed for the first time the operation of
tattooing as performed by these islanders.

I beheld a man extended flat upon his back, on the ground, and, despite
the forced composure of his countenance, it was evident that he was
suffering agony. His tormentor bent over him, working away for all the
world like a stone-cutter with mallet and chisel. In one hand he held a
short slender stick, pointed with a shark's tooth, on the upright end of
which he tapped with a small hammer-like piece of wood, thus puncturing
the skin, and charging it with the colouring matter in which the
instrument was dipped. A cocoa-nut shell containing this fluid was placed
upon the ground. It is prepared by mixing with a vegetable juice the ashes
of the "armor," or candle-nut, always preserved for the purpose. Beside
the savage, and spread out upon a piece of