30. CHAPTER XXX.
HINTS FOR A FULL LENGTH OF SAMOA.
My original intention to touch at the Kingsmill Chain,
or the countries adjacent, was greatly strengthened by thus
encountering Samoa; and the more I had to do with my
Belisarius, the more I was pleased with him. Nor could I
avoid congratulating myself, upon having fallen in with a
hero, who in various ways, could not fail of proving exceedingly
useful.
Like any man of mark, Samoa best speaks for himself;
but we may as well convey some idea of his person. Though
manly enough, nay, an obelisk in stature, the savage was
far from being sentimentally prepossessing. Be not alarmed;
but he wore his knife in the lobe of his dexter ear, which,
by constant elongation almost drooped upon his shoulder.
A mode of sheathing it exceedingly handy, and far less brigandish
than the Highlander's dagger concealed in his leggins.
But it was the mother of Samoa, who at a still earlier
day had punctured him through and through in still another
direction. The middle cartilage of his nose was slightly
pendent, peaked, and Gothic, and perforated with a hole;
in which, like a Newfoundland dog carrying a cane, Samoa
sported a trinket: a well polished nail.
In other respects he was equally a coxcomb. In his style
of tattooing, for instance, which seemed rather incomplete;
his marks embracing but a vertical half of his person, from
crown to sole; the other side being free from the slightest
stain. Thus clapped together, as it were, he looked like a
union of the unmatched moieties of two distinct beings; and
your fancy was lost in conjecturing, where roamed the absent
ones. When he turned round upon you suddenly,
you thought you saw some one else, not him whom you
had been regarding before.
But there was one feature in Samoa beyond the reach of
the innovations of art:—his eye; which in civilized man or
savage, ever shines in the head, just as it shone at birth.
Truly, our eyes are miraculous things. But alas, that in
so many instances, these divine organs should be mere lenses
inserted into the socket, as glasses in spectacle rims.
But my Islander had a soul in his eye; looking out upon
you there, like somebody in him. What an eye, to be sure!
At times, brilliantly changeful as opal; in anger, glowing
like steel at white heat.
Belisarius, be it remembered, had but very recently lost
an arm. But you would have thought he had been born
without it; so Lord Nelson-like and cavalierly did he sport
the honorable stump.
But no more of Samoa; only this: that his name had
been given him by a sea-captain; to whom it had been suggested
by the native designation of the islands to which he
belonged; the Saviian or Samoan group, otherwise known
as the Navigator Islands. The island of Upolua, one of
that cluster, claiming the special honor of his birth, as Corsica
does Napoleon's, we shall occasionally hereafter speak
of Samoa as the Upoluan; by which title he most loved to
be called.
It is ever ungallant to pass over a lady. But what shall
be said of Annatoo? As I live, I can make no pleasing
portrait of the dame; for as in most ugly subjects, flattering
would but make the matter worse. Furthermore, unalleviated
ugliness should ever go unpainted, as something unnecessary
to duplicate. But the only ugliness is that of the
heart, seen through the face. And though beauty be obvious,
the only loveliness is invisible.
