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- 6576
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:25.203Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 6515
- text
- were capable of deriving the utmost delight from circumstances which
would have passed unnoticed in more intelligent communities. All their
enjoyment, indeed, seemed to be made up of the little trifling incidents
of the passing hour; but these diminutive items swelled altogether to an
amount of happiness seldom experienced by more enlightened individuals,
whose pleasures are drawn from more elevated but rarer sources.
What community, for instance, of refined and intellectual mortals
would derive the least satisfaction from shooting pop-guns? The
mere supposition of such a thing being possible would excite their
indignation, and yet the whole population of Typee did little else for
ten days but occupy themselves with that childish amusement, fairly
screaming, too, with the delight it afforded them.
One day I was frolicking with a little spirited urchin, some six years
old, who chased me with a piece of bamboo about three feet long, with
which he occasionally belaboured me. Seizing the stick from him, the
idea happened to suggest itself, that I might make for the youngster,
out of the slender tube, one of those nursery muskets with which I had
sometimes seen children playing.
Accordingly, with my knife I made two parallel slits in the cane several
inches in length, and cutting loose at one end the elastic strip between
them, bent it back and slipped the point into a little notch made for
the purse. Any small substance placed against this would be projected
with considerable force through the tube, by merely springing the bent
strip out of the notch.
Had I possessed the remotest idea of the sensation this piece of
ordnance was destined to produce, I should certainly have taken out a
patent for the invention. The boy scampered away with it, half delirious
with ecstasy, and in twenty minutes afterwards I might have been seen
surrounded by a noisy crowd--venerable old graybeards--responsible
fathers of families--valiant warriors--matrons--young men--girls and
children, all holding in their hands bits of bamboo, and each clamouring
to be served first.
For three or four hours I was engaged in manufacturing pop-guns, but
at last made over my good-will and interest in the concern to a lad of
remarkably quick parts, whom I soon initiated into the art and mystery.
Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop, now resounded all over the valley. Duels,
skirmishes, pitched battles, and general engagements were to be seen
on every side. Here, as you walked along a path which led through a
thicket, you fell into a cunningly laid ambush, and became a target for
a body of musketeers whose tattooed limbs you could just see peeping
into view through the foliage. There you were assailed by the intrepid
garrison of a house, who levelled their bamboo rifles at you from
between the upright canes which composed its sides. Farther on you were
fired upon by a detachment of sharpshooters, mounted upon the top of a
pi-pi.
Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop! green guavas, seeds, and berries were flying about
in every direction, and during this dangerous state of affairs I was
half afraid that, like the man and his brazen bull, I should fall
a victim to my own ingenuity. Like everything else, however, the
excitement gradually wore away, though ever after occasionally pop-guns
might be heard at all hours of the day.
It was towards the close of the pop-gun war, that I was infinitely
diverted with a strange freak of Marheyo’s.
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