- end_line
- 9490
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:25.203Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 9425
- text
- what imprecations I showered upon that Karky. Doubtless he had plotted a
conspiracy against me and my countenance, and would never rest until his
diabolical purpose was accomplished. Several times I met him in various
parts of the valley, and, invariably, whenever he descried me, he came
running after me with his mallet and chisel, flourishing them about my
face as if he longed to begin. What an object he would have made of me!
When the king first expressed his wish to me, I made known to him my
utter abhorrence of the measure, and worked myself into such a state of
excitement, that he absolutely stared at me in amazement. It evidently
surpassed his majesty’s comprehension how any sober-minded and
sensible individual could entertain the least possible objection to so
beautifying an operation.
Soon afterwards he repeated his suggestion, and meeting with a little
repulse, showed some symptoms of displeasure at my obduracy. On his a
third time renewing his request, I plainly perceived that something must
be done, or my visage was ruined for ever; I therefore screwed up my
courage to the sticking point, and declared my willingness to have both
arms tattooed from just above the wrist to the shoulder. His majesty was
greatly pleased at the proposition, and I was congratulating myself with
having thus compromised the matter, when he intimated that as a thing of
course my face was first to undergo the operation. I was fairly driven
to despair; nothing but the utter ruin of my ‘face divine’, as the
poets call it, would, I perceived, satisfy the inexorable Mehevi and his
chiefs, or rather, that infernal Karky, for he was at the bottom of it
all.
The only consolation afforded me was a choice of patterns: I was at
perfect liberty to have my face spanned by three horizontal bars, after
the fashion of my serving-man’s; or to have as many oblique stripes
slanting across it; or if, like a true courtier, I chose to model my
style on that of royalty, I might wear a sort of freemason badge upon
my countenance in the shape of a mystic triangle. However, I would have
none of these, though the king most earnestly impressed upon my mind
that my choice was wholly unrestricted. At last, seeing my unconquerable
repugnance, he ceased to importune me.
But not so some other of the savages. Hardly a day passed but I was
subjected to their annoying requests, until at last my existence
became a burden to me; the pleasures I had previously enjoyed no longer
afforded me delight, and all my former desire to escape from the valley
now revived with additional force.
A fact which I soon afterwards learned augmented my apprehension. The
whole system of tattooing was, I found, connected with their religion;
and it was evident, therefore, that they were resolved to make a convert
of me.
In the decoration of the chiefs it seems to be necessary to exercise the
most elaborate pencilling; while some of the inferior natives looked
as if they had been daubed over indiscriminately with a house-painter’s
brush. I remember one fellow who prided himself hugely upon a great
oblong patch, placed high upon his back, and who always reminded me of
a man with a blister of Spanish flies, stuck between his shoulders.
Another whom I frequently met had the hollow of his eyes tattooed in two
regular squares and his visual organs being remarkably brilliant, they
gleamed forth from out this setting like a couple of diamonds inserted
in ebony.
Although convinced that tattooing was a religious observance, still the
nature of the connection between it and the superstitious idolatry of
the people was a point upon which I could never obtain any information.
Like the still more important system of the ‘Taboo’, it always appeared
inexplicable to me.
- title
- Chunk 3