- end_line
- 975
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:15.149Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 923
- text
- comely, vivacious-looking youths, all gesture and exclamation; the red
feathers in their head-bands perpetually nodding. With them also came a
stranger, a renegade from Christendom and humanity—a white man, in the
South Sea girdle, and tattooed in the face. A broad blue band stretched
across his face from ear to ear, and on his forehead was the taper
figure of a blue shark, nothing but fins from head to tail.
Some of us gazed upon this man with a feeling akin to horror, no ways
abated when informed that he had voluntarily submitted to this
embellishment of his countenance. What an impress! Far worse than
Cain’s—his was perhaps a wrinkle, or a freckle, which some of our
modern cosmetics might have effaced; but the blue shark was a mark
indelible, which all the waters of Abana and Pharpar, rivers of
Damascus, could never wash out. He was an Englishman, Lem Hardy he
called himself, who had deserted from a trading brig touching at the
island for wood and water some ten years previous. He had gone ashore
as a sovereign power armed with a musket and a bag of ammunition, and
ready if need were, to prosecute war on his own account. The country
was divided by the hostile kings of several large valleys. With one of
them, from whom he first received overtures, he formed an alliance, and
became what he now was, the military leader of the tribe, and war-god
of the entire island.
His campaigns beat Napoleon’s. In one night attack, his invincible
musket, backed by the light infantry of spears and javelins, vanquished
two clans, and the next morning brought all the others to the feet of
his royal ally.
Nor was the rise of his domestic fortunes at all behind the Corsican’s:
three days after landing, the exquisitely tattooed hand of a princess
was his; receiving along with the damsel as her portion, one thousand
fathoms of fine tappa, fifty double-braided mats of split grass, four
hundred hogs, ten houses in different parts of her native valley, and
the sacred protection of an express edict of the Taboo, declaring his
person inviolable for ever.
Now, this man was settled for life, perfectly satisfied with his
circumstances, and feeling no desire to return to his friends.
“Friends,” indeed, he had none. He told me his history. Thrown upon the
world a foundling, his paternal origin was as much a mystery to him as
the genealogy of Odin; and, scorned by everybody, he fled the parish
workhouse when a boy, and launched upon the sea. He had followed it for
several years, a dog before the mast, and now he had thrown it up for
ever.
And for the most part, it is just this sort of men—so many of whom are
found among sailors—uncared for by a single soul, without ties,
reckless, and impatient of the restraints of civilization, who are
occasionally found quite at home upon the savage islands of the
Pacific. And, glancing at their hard lot in their own country, what
marvel at their choice?
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