His
improvidence had at last driven him to don the nautical garb; but by
this time his frock - a light cotton one - had almost given out, and he
had nothing to replace it. Shorty very generously offered him one
which was a little less ragged; but the alms were proudly refused;
Long Ghost preferring to assume the ancient costume of Tahiti - the
"Roora."
This garment, once worn as a festival dress, is now seldom met with;
but Captain Bob had often shown us one which he kept as an heirloom.
It was a cloak, or mantle, of yellow tappa, precisely similar to the
"poncho" worn by the South-American Spaniards. The head being slipped
through a slit in the middle, the robe hangs about the person in
ample drapery. Tonoi obtained sufficient coarse brown tappa to make a
short mantle of this description; and in five minutes the doctor was
equipped. Zeke, eyeing his toga critically, reminded its proprietor
that there were many streams to ford, and precipices to scale,
between Martair and Tamai; and if he travelled in petticoats, he had
better hold them up.
Besides other deficiencies, we were utterly shoeless. In the free and
easy Pacific, sailors seldom wear shoes; mine had been tossed
overboard the day we met the Trades; and except in one or two tramps
ashore, I had never worn any since. In Martair, they would have been
desirable: but none were to be had. For the expedition we meditated,
however, they were indispensable. Zeke, being the owner of a pair of
huge, dilapidated boots, hanging from a rafter like saddlebags, the
doctor succeeded in exchanging for them a case-knife, the last
valuable article in his possession. For myself, I made sandals from a
bullock's hide, such as are worn by the Indians in California. They
are made in a minute; the sole, rudely fashioned to the foot, being
confined across the instep by three straps of leather.
Our headgear deserves a passing word. My comrade's was a brave old
Panama hat, made of grass, almost as fine as threads of silk; and so
elastic that, upon rolling it up, it sprang into perfect shape again.
Set off by the jaunty slouch of this Spanish sombrero, Doctor Long
Ghost, in this and his Eoora, looked like a mendicant grandee.
Nor was my own appearance in an Eastern turban less distinguished. The
way I came to wear it was this. My hat having been knocked overboard
a few days before reaching Papeetee, I was obliged to mount an
abominable wad of parti-coloured worsted - what sailors call a Scotch
cap. Everyone knows the elasticity of knit wool; and this Caledonian
head-dress crowned my temples so effectually that the confined
atmosphere engendered was prejudicial to my curls. In vain I tried to
ventilate the cap: every gash made seemed to heal whole in no time.
Then such a continual chafing as it kept up in a hot sun.
