roduce, I should certainly have taken out a
patent for the invention. The boy scampered away with it, half delirious
with ecstasy, and in twenty minutes afterwards I might have been seen
surrounded by a noisy crowd--venerable old graybeards--responsible
fathers of families--valiant warriors--matrons--young men--girls and
children, all holding in their hands bits of bamboo, and each clamouring
to be served first.

For three or four hours I was engaged in manufacturing pop-guns, but
at last made over my good-will and interest in the concern to a lad of
remarkably quick parts, whom I soon initiated into the art and mystery.

Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop, now resounded all over the valley. Duels,
skirmishes, pitched battles, and general engagements were to be seen
on every side. Here, as you walked along a path which led through a
thicket, you fell into a cunningly laid ambush, and became a target for
a body of musketeers whose tattooed limbs you could just see peeping
into view through the foliage. There you were assailed by the intrepid
garrison of a house, who levelled their bamboo rifles at you from
between the upright canes which composed its sides. Farther on you were
fired upon by a detachment of sharpshooters, mounted upon the top of a
pi-pi.

Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop! green guavas, seeds, and berries were flying about
in every direction, and during this dangerous state of affairs I was
half afraid that, like the man and his brazen bull, I should fall
a victim to my own ingenuity. Like everything else, however, the
excitement gradually wore away, though ever after occasionally pop-guns
might be heard at all hours of the day.

It was towards the close of the pop-gun war, that I was infinitely
diverted with a strange freak of Marheyo's.

I had worn, when I quitted the ship, a pair of thick pumps, which, from
the rough usage they had received in scaling precipices and sliding down
gorges, were so dilapidated as to be altogether unfit for use--so, at
least, would have thought the generality of people, and so they most
certainly were, when considered in the light of shoes. But things
unservicable in one way, may with advantage be applied in another,
that is, if one have genius enough for the purpose. This genius Marheyo
possessed in a superlative degree, as he abundantly evinced by the use
to which he put those sorely bruised and battered old shoes.

Every article, however trivial, which belonged to me, the natives
appeared to re