 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 XXX

    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 soiled tappa, were a great
number of curious black-looking little implements of bone and wood, used in the
various divisions of his art. A few terminated in a single fine point, and, like
very delicate pencils, were employed in giving the finishing touches, or in
operating upon the more sensitive portions of the body, as was the case in the
present instance. Others presented several points distributed in a line,
somewhat resembling the teeth of a saw. These were employed in the coarser parts
of the work, and particularly in pricking in straight marks. Some presented
their points disposed in small figures, and being placed upon the body, were, by
a single blow of the hammer, made to leave their indelible impression. I
observed a few, the handles of which were mysteriously curved, as if intended to
be introduced into the orifice of the ear, with a view, perhaps, of beating the
tattoo upon the tympanum
