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Then, last of all, we were to make away with all Old Dibs's trunks, packing what clothes he had, and that into camphor-wood chests, which would occasion no remark, specially if they were covered over on the top with trade dresses and hats, and such like.
And they did him credit; for he had made great exertions to accumulate there specimens of the most useful and remarkable trees and plants in the country especially those that were of service in materia medica. Some immense camphor-wood trees were among the most conspicuous, and there were several specimens of a graceful fan-palm, as well as clumps of the long-leaved Rofia.
Against the wall, in the far corner, I found a handsome chest of camphor-wood bound with brass, such as Chinamen and sailors love, and indeed all of mankind that plies in the Pacific. From its outside view I could thus make no deduction; and, strange to say, the interior was concealed.
Many ships built at that place have continued to swim so long that none could recollect the period at which they were launched. The camphor-wood, so useful for carpenters' purposes, has been already mentioned. Pinaga is valuable as crooked timber, and used for frames and knees of ships, being also very durable. It frequently grows in the wash of the sea.
In the effort to keep things from being lost or improperly used she fell into the habit of storing them in her bedroom, so that in time it became a veritable junk-shop. "Among my dresses," she writes, "hang bridle straps and horse robes. On the camphor-wood trunk which serves as my dressing-table, beside my comb and toothbrush, a collection of tools chisels, pincers, and the like is spread out.
There is nothing else in the room, except, perhaps, one or two camphor-wood chests. The centre pole in the house at Vaiee was wound round and about with ropes of frangipani flowers, while bright red hibiscus bells decorated the cross bars, and ferns in long wreaths were looped round the edge of the room.
Scudder's own private bedroom, where the committee of exigencies, with Miss Prissy at their head, are seated in solemn session around the camphor-wood trunk. "Dress, you know, is of some importance, after all," said Mrs. Scudder, in that apologetic way in which sensible people generally acknowledge a secret leaning towards anything so very mundane.
So Busuk forgot her grief, and she watched with ill-concealed eagerness the coming of Mamat's friends with presents of tobacco and rice and bone-tipped krises. Then for the first time she was permitted to open the camphor-wood chest and gaze upon all the beautiful things that she was to wear for the one great day.
All seven-years'-men they were, said Captain MacWhirr, with a camphor-wood chest to every man. The carpenter should be set to work nailing three-inch battens along the deck below, fore and aft, to keep these boxes from shifting in a sea-way. Jukes had better look to it at once. "D'ye hear, Jukes?" This chinaman here was coming with the ship as far as Fu-chau a sort of interpreter he would be.
He perceived too late that his persistence was unmannerly; hung his head a while in silence; then, lifting up a sheepish countenance, 'I 'shamed, said the tyrant. It was the first and the last time we heard him own to a flaw in his behaviour. Half an hour after he sent us a camphor-wood chest worth only a few dollars but then heaven knows what Tembinok' had paid for it.
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