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First of all, however, a number of presents were made to them, and it would really have done your heart good, reader, to have witnessed the extravagant joy displayed by them on receiving such trifles as bits of hoop-iron, beads, knives, scissors, needles, etc. Iron is as precious among them as gold is among civilized people.
He leaned far over the table, till his very breast-bone was over the edge, as though his eyes had been stilettos and he wanted to drive them home into my brain. It was only much later that I understood how near death I had been at that moment. But the knives on the tablecloth were the usual restaurant knives with rounded ends and about as deadly as pieces of hoop-iron.
The heads were of thin hoop-iron, and the shafts were of flimsy cane, so that whenever the weapons penetrated to a bone they bent; but he was being slashed to ribbons. One of the Indians grew tired of such slow killing, and stepping back a pace threw his tomahawk. That was more quickly done, and resulted, as Ranger Higgins afterward said, "in a close shave!"
Satisfied with this demonstration, their whole anxiety now appeared to be, how to dispose of their yams, which they professed, by signs, and with affectation of fatigue, to have brought from a great distance. They were not a little disappointed that our party, being unprovided with the necessary medium for payment, hoop-iron, were unable to effect the purchase. Monday, Oct. 29.
In their conversation with one another I recognized several Polynesian words. The water is obtained by digging in the sand, and is very brackish. We came to anchor next morning, and soon were surrounded with canoes, and our deck swarmed with natives trading their curios, yams, cocoanuts, and fish for beads and hoop-iron.
Then the cutter, along with all her wealth of hoop-iron, tobacco, knives and calico, had gone up into the air and fallen back into the sea in scattered and fragmented nothingness.
"Oh, do be careful," she cried "even if there's nothing in it but stove-polish and excelsior, the nails and the boards are absolute treasures!" He proceeded more gently. There was any amount of hoop-iron, which he removed carefully, and the nails were drawn with as much caution as if they had been teeth, as they well might be, considering there were no more on earth to draw.
Dere lines an' lances lay beside 'em, an' knives of hoop-iron, wid bone hannles, were in dere boots; but dere was no sign of anythin' to ate, an' dey looked wasted to 'natomies.
But what's that you're doing?" he added, looking at Peterkin, who had drawn the end of a long pole into the tent, and was endeavouring to fit a small piece of the hoop-iron to the end of it. "I'm going to enlist into the Lancers," answered Peterkin.
He explained to them the utter hopelessness of their attempting to deceive or impose upon the white men in any way whatever, and assured them that if they tried that sort of thing again he would punish them severely; but that if they behaved well, and brought plenty of walrus-flesh to the ship, he would give them hoop-iron, beads, looking-glasses, etc.
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