 admit the air,
scrupulously clean, and elevated above the dampness and impurities of the
ground.
    But now to sketch the inmates; and here I claim for my tried servitor and
faithful valet Kory-Kory the precedence of a first description. As his character
will be gradually unfolded in the course of my narrative, I shall for the
present content myself with delineating his personal appearance. Kory-Kory,
though the most devoted and best-natured serving-man in the world, was, alas! a
hideous object to look upon. He was some twenty-five years of age, and about six
feet in height, robust and well made, and of the most extraordinary aspect. His
head was carefully shaven, with the exception of two circular spots, about the
size of a dollar, near the top of the cranium, where the hair, permitted to grow
of an amazing length, was twisted up in two prominent knots, that gave him the
appearance of being decorated with a pair of horns. His beard, plucked out by
the root from every other part of his face, was suffered to droop in hairy
pendants, two of which garnished his upper lip, and an equal number hung from
the extremity of his chin.
    Kory-Kory, with the view of improving the handiwork of nature, and perhaps
prompted by a desire to add to the engaging expression of his countenance, had
seen fit to embellish his face with three broad longitudinal stripes of
tattooing, which, like those country roads that go straight forward in defiance
of all obstacles, crossed his nasal organ, descended into the hollow of his
eyes, and even skirted the borders of his mouth. Each completely spanned his
physiognomy; one extending in a line with his eyes, another crossing the face in
the vicinity of the nose, and the third sweeping along his lips from ear to ear.
His countenance thus triply hooped, as it were, with tattooing, always reminded
me of those unhappy wretches whom I have sometimes observed gazing out
sentimentally from behind the grated bars of a prison window; whilst the entire
body of my savage valet, covered all over with representations of birds and
fishes, and a variety of most unaccountable-looking creatures, suggested to me
the idea of a pictorial museum of natural history, or an illustrated copy of
Goldsmith's Animated Nature.
    But it seems really heartless in me to write thus of the poor islander, when
I owe perhaps to his unremitting attentions the very existence I now enjoy.
Kory-Kory, I mean thee no harm in what I say in regard to thy outward adornings;
