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This picture is no fancy sketch; it is drawn from the most vivid recollections of the person delineated. Were I asked if the beauteous form of Fayaway was altogether free from the hideous blemish of tattooing, I should be constrained to answer that it was not.
The fresh morning air and the cool flowing waters put both soul and body in a glow, and after a half-hour employed in this recreation, we sauntered back to the house Tinor and Marheyo gathering dry sticks by the way for fire-wood; some of the young men laying the cocoanut trees under contribution as they passed beneath them; while Kory-Kory played his outlandish pranks for my particular diversion, and Fayaway and I, not arm in arm to be sure, but sometimes hand in hand, strolled along, with feelings of perfect charity for all the world, and especial good-will towards each other.
My own mornings I spent in a variety of ways. Sometimes I rambled about from house to house, sure of receiving a cordial welcome wherever I went; or, from grove to grove, and from one shady place to another, in company with Kory-Kory and Fayaway, and a rabble rout of merry young idlers.
Her gala dress will be described hereafter. As the beauties of our own land delight in bedecking themselves with fanciful articles of jewelry, suspending them from their ears, hanging them about their necks, and clasping them around their wrists; so Fayaway and her companions were in the habit of ornamenting themselves with similar appendages. Flora was their jeweller.
This consisted in having the right hand and the left foot most elaborately tattooed; while the rest of the body was wholly free from the operation of the art, with the exception of the minutely dotted lips and slight marks on the shoulders, to which I have previously referred as comprising the sole tattooing exhibited by Fayaway, in common with other young girls of her age.
About their waist they wore a short tunic of spotless white tappa, and some of them super-added to this a mantle of the same material, tied in an elaborate bow upon the left shoulder, and falling about the figure in picturesque folds. Thus arrayed, I would have matched the charming Fayaway against any beauty in the world.
Their importunities drove me half wild, for I felt how easily they might work their will upon me regarding this or anything else which they took into their heads. Still, however, the behaviour of the islanders towards me was as kind as ever. Fayaway was quite as engaging; Kory-Kory as devoted; and Mehevi the king just as gracious and condescending as before.
I handed the musket to Kory-Kory, in doing which he would fain have taken hold of me, threw the roll of cotton to old Marheyo, pointing as I did so to poor Fayaway, who had retired from the edge of the water, and was sitting down disconsolate on the beach, and tumbled the powder-bags out to the nearest young ladies, all of whom were vastly willing to take them.
But, alas! it was after all a raw fish; and all I can say is, that Fayaway ate it in a more ladylike manner than any other girl of the valley. When at Rome do as the Romans do, I held to be so good a proverb, that being in Typee, I made a point of doing as the Typees did.
In this amiable light did Fayaway appear in my eyes; and, reposing full confidence in her candour and intelligence, I now had recourse to her, in the midst of my alarm with regard to my companion. My questions evidently distressed her. She looked round from one to another of the bystanders, as if hardly knowing what answer to give me.
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