 together
with little pins of bamboo, was now spread upon the ground, in which the body
being carefully rolled, it was borne to an oven previously prepared to receive
it. Here it was at once laid upon the heated stones at the bottom, and covered
with thick layers of leaves, the whole being quickly hidden from sight by a
mound of earth raised over it.
    Such is the summary style in which the Typees convert perverse-minded and
rebellious hogs into the most docile and amiable pork; a morsel of which placed
on the tongue melts like a soft smile from the lips of beauty.
    I commend their peculiar mode of proceeding to the consideration of all
butchers, cooks, and housewives. The hapless porker whose fate I have just
rehearsed, was not the only one who suffered on that memorable day. Many a
dismal grunt, many an imploring squeak, proclaimed what was going on throughout
the whole extent of the valley: and I verily believe the first-born of every
litter perished before the setting of that fatal sun.
    The scene around the Ti was now most animated. Hogs and poee-poee were
baking in numerous ovens, which, heaped up with fresh earth into slight
elevations, looked like so many ant-hills. Scores of the savages were vigorously
plying their stone pestles in preparing masses of poee-poee, and numbers were
gathering green bread-fruit and young cocoa-nuts in the surrounding groves;
while an exceeding great multitude, with a view of encouraging the rest in their
labours, stood still, and kept shouting most lustily without intermission.
    It is a peculiarity among these people, that when engaged in any employment
they always make a prodigious fuss about it. So seldom do they ever exert
themselves, that when they do work they seem determined that so meritorious an
action shall not escape the observation of those around. If, for example, they
have occasion to remove a stone to a little distance, which perhaps might be
carried by two able-bodied men, a whole swarm gather about it, and, after a vast
deal of palavering, lift it up among them, everyone struggling to get hold of
it, and bear it off yelling and panting as if accomplishing some mighty
achievement. Seeing them on these occasions, one is reminded of an infinity of
black ants clustering about and dragging away to some hole the leg of a deceased
fly.
    Having for some time attentively observed these demonstrations of good
cheer, I entered the Ti, where Mehevi sat complacently looking out upon the busy
scene, and occasionally issuing his orders. The chief appeared to be in an
