unding strangely to the ear from so great a height, and beheld him
peeping down upon me from out his leafy covert, he always recalled to my
mind Dibdin's lines--

'There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft,
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 THIRTY

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 cocoanut shell containing this fluid was placed
upon the ground. It is prepared by mixin