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On the canvas were also painted pictures of a wild man from Borneo, a tattooed man, a skeleton, numerous fat ladies, mermaids, sylphs, and fauns; the whole forming a group of pictures and figures calculated to arrest the attention of the passers-by and attract them into the "theatretorium," as he of the loud voice called it.
At first I knew not what to make of this; but soon an inkling of the truth occurred to me. I remembered a story of a white man a whaleman too who, falling among the cannibals, had been tattooed by them. I concluded that this harpooneer, in the course of his distant voyages, must have met with a similar adventure. And what is it, thought I, after all!
Then they crowded forward for a closer examination of the talismanic mark, staring at it with expressions of awe and wonder. As already stated, Donald was ignorant of the meaning of the mark tattooed on his arm, but with this manifestation of its power he could not longer doubt that, to Indian eyes at least, its significance was of great importance.
And, mon dieu! the guardian of the palace is himself a native!" First night in Atuona valley; sensational arrival of the Golden Bed; Titi-huti's tattooed legs. It was necessary to find at once a residence for my contemplated stay in Atuona, for the schooner sailed on the morrow, and my brief glimpse of the Marquesans had whetted my desire to live among them.
Some of the chiefs were tattooed with an ornamental stripe down the legs, which gave them the appearance of being clad in tights; others had marks round the ankles and insteps, which looked like tight-fitting and elegant boots.
They were full grown, this squad, and had crowded the old man against a tree under which I had backed as shelter from a passing shower. There came a blow straight from the shoulder, a sprawling boy, and Bob was in the midst of them, his right sleeve rolled up, showing a full-rigged ship tattooed in India ink.
When he fell asleep of an evening, with his knotted hands clenching the sides of the easy-chair, and his bald head tattooed with deep wrinkles falling forward on his breast, I would sit and look at him, wondering what he had done, and loading him with all the crimes in the Calendar, until the impulse was powerful on me to start up and fly from him.
The skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are copied verbatim from my right arm, where I had them tattooed; as in my wild wanderings at that period, there was no other secure way of preserving such valuable statistics.
The people were fierce and warlike, and from a canoe boldly attacked the ships with showers of stones thrown from slings. To the north-east of Los Pintados several low inhabited islands or atolls were discovered, and named Los Buenos Jardines, "The Good Gardens." Saavedra cast anchor here, and the natives came to the shore, waving a flag of peace; they were light-complexioned and tattooed.
The custom of tattooing existed also among the Sandwich Islanders; their faces were frequently marked with lines crossing each other at right angles, and some even had their tongues tattooed; pretty drawings were frequently seen on the hands and arms of the women. The ordinary dress of both sexes was nothing more than a piece of stuff folded round their bodies.
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