Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas

as setting by the time the boat came alongside, we got our offshore tacks aboard and stood away for an offing. About daybreak we wore,

ter, the land rolled away in bright hillsides, so warm and undulating that they seemed almost to palpitate in the sun. On we swept, past bluff and grove, wooded glen and valley, and dark ravi

e bay of Hannamanoo. This is the only harbour of any note about the island,

ore, an incident occurred which may convey s

ts were at once lowered for the purpose of pulling the ship's head round. Before this could be done, the eddies were whirling upon all sides, and the rock so near that it seemed as if one might leap upon it from the masthead. Notwithstanding the speechless fright of the captain, and the hoarse shouts of the una

r swimming ashore from the wreck, and having a fine time of i

ead-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

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 b

backed by the light infantry of spears and javelins, vanquished two clans

; receiving along with the damsel as her portion, one thousand fathoms of fine tappa, fifty double-braided mats of split grass, four hundred hogs, te

tly satisfied with his circumstances, and

uch a mystery to him as the genealogy of Odin; and, scorned by everybody, he fled the parish workhouse when a boy, and

, without ties, reckless, and impatient of the restraints of civilization, who are occasionally found quite at home upo

volunteered for a cruise. All the wages he asked was a red shirt, a pair of trousers, and a hat, which were to be put on there and then; besides a plug of tobacco and a pipe. The bargain was struck directly; but Wymontoo afterward came in with a codicil, to the effect that a friend of his, who had come along with him, should be given ten whole sea-biscuits, without crack or flaw, twenty

t in getting away from the land; so after an affecting rubbing of nose

s. That very evening, when the dark blue of his native hills sunk in the horizon, the poor savage leaned over the bulwarks, dropped his head upon his che