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- 2026-01-30T20:48:25.203Z
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- 9275
- text
- ground, receiving the plaudits of their parents beneath, who clapped
their hands, and encouraged them to mount still higher.
What, thought I, on first witnessing one of these exhibitions, would
the nervous mothers of America and England say to a similar display of
hardihood in any of their children? The Lacedemonian nation might have
approved of it, but most modern dames would have gone into hysterics at
the sight.
At the top of the cocoanut tree the numerous branches, radiating on
all sides from a common centre, form a sort of green and waving
basket, between the leaflets of which you just discern the nuts thickly
clustering together, and on the loftier trees looking no bigger from
the ground than bunches of grapes. I remember one adventurous little
fellow--Too-Too was the rascal’s name--who had built himself a sort of
aerial baby-house in the picturesque tuft of a tree adjoining Marheyo’s
habitation. He used to spend hours there,--rustling among the branches,
and shouting with delight every time the strong gusts of wind rushing
down from the mountain side, swayed to and fro the tall and flexible
column on which he was perched. Whenever I heard Too-Too’s musical voice
sounding strangely to the ear from so great a height, and beheld him
peeping down upon me from out his leafy covert, he always recalled to my
mind Dibdin’s lines--
‘There’s a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft,
To look out for the life of poor Jack.’
Birds--bright and beautiful birds--fly over the valley of Typee. You
see them perched aloft among the immovable boughs of the majestic
bread-fruit trees, or gently swaying on the elastic branches of the
Omoo; skimming over the palmetto thatching of the bamboo huts; passing
like spirits on the wing through the shadows of the grove, and sometimes
descending into the bosom of the valley in gleaming flights from the
mountains. Their plumage is purple and azure, crimson and white, black
and gold; with bills of every tint: bright bloody red, jet black, and
ivory white, and their eyes are bright and sparkling; they go sailing
through the air in starry throngs; but, alas! the spell of dumbness is
upon them all--there is not a single warbler in the valley!
I know not why it was, but the sight of these birds, generally the
ministers of gladness, always oppressed me with melancholy. As in their
dumb beauty they hovered by me whilst I was walking, or looked down upon
me with steady curious eyes from out the foliage, I was almost inclined
to fancy that they knew they were gazing upon a stranger, and that they
commiserated his fate.
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