feeling
themselves gentlemen every inch, they were not always able to convince
the world of their respectability. So they resolved to have a passport,
and pitched upon Zeke to manufacture it, he being well known and much
respected in Imeeo. Zeke was gratified by the compliment, and set to
work with a rooster's quill, and a piece of dirty paper. "Evidently he
was not accustomed to composition; for his literary throes were so
violent, that the doctor suggested that some sort of a Caesarian
operation might be necessary. The precious paper was at last finished;
and a great curiosity it was. We were much diverted with his reasons for
not dating it. 'In this here damned climate,' he observed, 'a feller
can't keep the run of the months, no how; 'cause there's no seasons, no
summer and winter to go by. One's etarnally thinking it's always July,
it's so pesky hot.' A passport provided, we cast about for some means of
getting to Taloo."

The decline of the Tahitian monarchy--the degradation of the regal house
of Pomaree, is painful to contemplate. The queen still wears a crown--a
tinsel one, received as a present from her sister-sovereign of
England,--she has also a court and a palace, such as they are; but her
power is little more than nominal, her exchequer seldom otherwise than
empty. Typee draws a touching contrast between times past and present.
"'I'm a greater man than King George,' said the incorrigible young Otoo,
to the first missionaries; 'he rides on a horse and I on a man.' Such
was the case. He travelled post through his dominions on the shoulders
of his subjects, and relays of immortal beings were provided in all the
valleys. But, alas! how times have changed! how transient human
greatness! Some years since, Pomaree Vahinee I., granddaughter of the
proud Otoo, went into the laundry business, publicly soliciting, by her
agents, the washing of the linen belonging to officers of ships touching
in her harbours." Into the court of this washerwoman-queen, Typee and
Long Ghost were exceedingly anxious to penetrate. Vague ideas of favour
and preferment haunted their brains. During their Polynesian cruise,
they had seen many instances of rapid advancement; vagabond foreigners,
of all nations, domesticated in the families of chiefs and kings, and
sometimes married to their daughters and sharing their power. At one of
the Tonga islands, a scamp of a Welshman officiated as cupbearer to the
king of the cannibals. The monarch of