in a
neglected _taro_ patch, where the ground was moist and warm. Musquitoes
were the result. "When tormented by them, I found much relief in
coupling the word Coleman with another of one syllable, and pronouncing
them together energetically." The musquito chapter is very amusing,
showing the various comical and ingenious manoeuvres of the friends to
avoid their tormentors, and obtain a night's sleep. At last they entered
a fishing canoe, paddled some distance from shore, and dropped the
native anchor, a stone secured to a rope. They were awakened in the
morning by the motion of their boat. Zeke was wading in the shallow
water, and towing them from a reef towards which they had drifted. "The
water-sprites had rolled our stone out of its noose, and we had floated
away." This was a narrow escape, but nevertheless they stuck to their
floating bedstead as the only possible sleeping place. A day's
successful hunting, followed by a famous supper and jollification under
a banian-tree, put the doctor in good humour, and he made himself vastly
agreeable. The natives beheld his waggish pranks with infinite
admiration, and Zeke looked upon him with particular favour; so much so,
that when upon the following morning an order came from a ship at
Papeetee, for a supply of potatoes, he almost hesitated to tell funny
Peter to assist in digging them up. But the emergency pressed, and the
work must be done. So Peter and Paul were set to unearth the vegetables.
This was no very cruel task, for "the rich tawny soil seemed specially
adapted to the crop; the great yellow murphies rolling out of the hills
like eggs from a nest." But when they were dug up, they had to be
carried to the beach; and to this part of the business the lazy
adventurers had a special dislike, although Zeke kindly provided them,
to lighten their toil, with what he called the barrel machine--a sort of
rural sedan, in which the servants carried their loads with comparative
ease, whilst their employers sweated under shouldered hampers. But no
alleviation could reconcile the sailor and the physician to this novel
and unpleasant labour, and the potato-digging was the last piece of
work, deserving the name, that either of them did. A few days afterwards
they gave their masters warning, greatly to the vexation of Zeke,
although he received the notice--with true Yankee imperturbability. He
proposed that Long Ghost, who, after the hunt, had shown, considerable
culinary skill, s