 and down the extent of a few
inches on the principal stick, until at last he makes a narrow groove in the
wood, with an abrupt termination at the point farthest from him, where all the
dusty particles which the friction creates are accumulated in a little heap.
    At first Kory-Kory goes to work quite leisurely, but gradually quickens his
pace, and, waxing warm in the employment, drives the stick furiously along the
smoking channel, plying his hands to and fro with amazing rapidity, the
perspiration starting from every pore. As he approaches the climax of his
effort, he pants and gasps for breath, and his eyes almost start from their
sockets with the violence of his exertions. This is the critical stage of the
operation; all his previous labours are vain if he cannot sustain the rapidity
of the movement until the reluctant spark is produced. Suddenly he stops,
becomes perfectly motionless. His hands still retain their hold of the smaller
stick, which is pressed convulsively against the farther end of the channel,
among the fine powder there accumulated, as if he had just pierced through and
through some little viper that was wriggling and struggling to escape from his
clutches. The next moment a delicate wreath of smoke curls spirally into the
air, the heap of dusty particles glows with fire, and Kory-Kory, almost
breathless, dismounts from his steed.
    This operation appeared to me to be the most laborious species of work
performed in Typee; and had I possessed a sufficient intimacy with the language
to have conveyed my ideas upon the subject, I should certainly have suggested to
the most influential of the natives the expediency of establishing a college of
vestals, to be centrally located in the valley, for the purpose of keeping alive
the indispensable article of fire, so as to supersede the necessity of such a
vast outlay of strength and good temper as were usually squandered on these
occasions. There might, however, be special difficulties in carrying this plan
into execution.
    What a striking evidence does this operation furnish of the wide difference
between the extreme of savage and civilised life! A gentleman of Typee can bring
up a numerous family of children, and give them all a highly respectable
cannibal education, with infinitely less toil and anxiety than he expends in the
simple process of striking a light; whilst a poor European artisan, who through
the instrumentality of a lucifer performs the same operation in one second, is
put to his wit's end to provide for his starving offspring that food which the
children of a Polynesian father, without troubling their parents, pluck from the
branches of every tree around them.
