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Between the hangings were panels of sandal-wood, ornamented with bits of mirror in the Burmese fashion, and half hidden with curious foreign weapons, daggers, swords, and spears, and even a Zulu assegai or two. On the floor stood a hookah, and on a small inlaid table were a couple of curious little objects which I knew to be opium pipes.
Though they are so clever and neat-handed, and can do many things as well as the English, yet they are idolaters. In their churches, or pagodas as they are called, there are ugly images, which they worship. They burn sandal-wood and bits of paper before them, which they fancy is like saying their prayers. The chief thing produced in the country is tea.
Albinia's first feeling was that there was nothing in herself that could atone for the loss of so fair a creature, and the thought became more oppressive as she looked at a niche in the wall, holding a carved sandal-wood work-box, with a silver watch lying on it. 'Poor Edmund's watch, said Lucy. 'It was given to him for a reward just before he was ill.
From the Cape of Good Hope were received kitchen-garden seeds, butter, Constantia and Madeira wines; while the Chinese brought immense quantities of porcelain and silks of every kind, taking in return opium, ebony, sandal-wood, spices, and birds'-nests. These nests are half the size of a woman's hand.
After repeating to him the conversation in the forecastle about the missionaries, I said: "Tell me, Bill: is this schooner really a trader in sandal-wood?" "Yes, Ralph, she is; but she's just as really a pirate. The black flag you saw flying at the peak was no deception." "Then how can you say she's a trader?" asked I.
He managed to convince the natives that among Christians there were two classes those who merely called themselves by the name, and those who really did their best to practise Christianity; that the sandal-wood traders probably did not even pretend to the name, but that those who had just arrived would soon give proof that they were of a very different spirit.
Darwin observes: "During our stay at Valparaiso, I was most positively assured that sandal-wood formerly grew in abundance on the island of Juan Fernandez, but that this tree had now become entirely extinct there, having been extirpated by the goats which early navigators had introduced. The neighboring islands, to which goats have not been carried, still abound in sandal-wood."
Pink paper, scented with sandal-wood, pah! embossed, too, with cornucopias in the corners, seal motto, Qui hi? Now for the inside: "DEVOTED AND RESPECTFUL SIR: " "Insured of your pitiful conduct, your obsequious suppliant, an eleemosynary lady of decrepit widowhood, throws herself at your Excellency's mercy feet with two imbecile childrens of various denominations.
It is there that a great quantity of sandal-wood and indigo is found, and merchants come in large numbers from the Levant and from the West to trade in both.
I own my judgment, such as it was at nineteen, was opposed to the opinion of the captain. I could see that the contingency contemplated by the instructions had not arisen, and that we should be acting more in conformity with the wishes of the owners, by proceeding to the Sandwich Islands in quest of sandal-wood, and thence to China, after a cargo of teas.