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Slung around his neck, waist, elbows, wrists, knees, and ankles were all sorts of extraordinary things cowrie and tortoise-shells, teeth and claws of various beasts of prey, strips of skin from all kinds of animals, inflated gall bladders, bones, and pieces of wood.
He had no love for authority, and certainly not the slightest intention of submitting to the domination of an ordinary Swede sailor. The seeds of discontent were, therefore, already planted in the camp of the mutineers of the Cowrie at the north edge of Jungle Island.
In addition, a dozen old Sniders were in the hands of the original crowd. The rest were armed with spears, clubs, bows and arrows, and long-handled tomahawks. Beyond, drawn up on the beach, he could see the big war-canoes, with high and fantastically carved bows and sterns, ornamented with scrolls and bands of white cowrie shells. These were the men who had killed his trader, Oscar, at Ugi.
As the spirit did not come, she returned to the surface of the earth and went on a voyage of search in a boat that a god had lent to her, a boat of cowrie shell, which in overland travel would shrink so that it could be carried in the hand; then, at the word, would swell to a stately barge of pearl with ivory masts and sails as white as the snow on the mountain.
Cowries were here used as coins, though somewhat cumbersome, as twenty were worth only a halfpenny; thus, in paying a pound sterling, nine thousand six hundred shells had to be counted out. As he remarks: "The great advantage of the use of the cowrie is that forgery is excluded, as it cannot possibly be imitated." The natives show also great dexterity in counting out even the largest sums.
You see every warship is equipped with what they call a wireless apparatus. It lets them talk to other ships hundreds of miles away, and it lets them listen to all that is said on these other ships. Now, you see, when you fellows were shooting up the Cowrie you did a whole lot of loud talking, and there isn't any doubt but that that warship was a-lyin' off south of us listenin' to it all.
Having few cowrie shells, with which to purchase, the poor Scamadumclitchclitchians suffered a great distress, which so touched the hearts of the compassionate Uggards a most humane and conscientious people that they declared war against the Wuggards and sent a fleet of proas to the relief of the sufferers.
The others had died, horribly, and as they deserved, beneath the fangs and talons of the beasts of Tarzan, and in the morning the sun rose on a grisly sight upon the deck of the unhappy Cowrie; but this time the blood which stained her white planking was the blood of the guilty and not of the innocent.
Tell the Hajj al Beshir, the Sheikh has not yet arrived. Know, that there is no dealing here except by cowries, and the cowrie is 3,500 to a mithcal. Convey my salutation to the Hajj Abdal Kerim Ben Aun Allah, and his brother Abdarrahman, and to their sons; many thousand salutations, and say to them, For God's sake take care how you send us any thing, for this land is a vexation to us.
A fellow that has got a fine property or money is regularly hunted down; and even a poor devil like me has to be monstrous careful. Cowrie, of the Carbineers, who has got sixty thousand a year, says that he can't go to certain houses, for fear they may have a clergyman secreted about the place and will get him spliced to the ugliest daughter before he can escape.
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