With particles of earth, and looked as if just taken
from some place underground.
With sundry winks and horrible giggles peculiar to the dumb, the
vegetable demijohn was now tapped; the old fellow looking round
cautiously, and pointing at it; as much as to intimate that it
contained something which was "taboo," or forbidden.
Aware that intoxicating liquors were strictly prohibited to the
natives, we now watched our entertainer with much interest. Charging
a cocoa-nut shell, he tossed it off, and then filling up again,
presented the goblet to me. Disliking the smell, I made faces at it;
upon which he became highly excited; so much so that a miracle was
wrought upon the spot. Snatching the cup from my hands, he shouted
out, "Ah, karhowree sabbee lee-lee ena arva tee maitai!" in other
words, what a blockhead of a white man! this is the real stuff!
We could not have been more startled had a frog leaped from his mouth.
For an instant, he looked confused enough himself; and then placing a
finger mysteriously upon his mouth, he contrived to make us
understand that at times he was subject to a suspension of the powers
of speech.
Deeming the phenomenon a remarkable one, every way, the doctor desired
him to open his mouth so that he might have a look down. But he
refused.
This occurrence made us rather suspicious of our host; nor could we
afterward account for his conduct, except by supposing that his
feigning dumbness might in some way or other assist him in the
nefarious pursuits in which it afterwards turned out that he was
engaged. This conclusion, however, was not altogether satisfactory.
To oblige him, we at last took a sip of his "arva tee," and found it
very crude, and strong as Lucifer. Curious to know whence it was
obtained, we questioned him; when, lighting up with pleasure, he
seized the taper, and led us outside the hut, bidding us follow.
After going some distance through the woods, we came to a dismantled
old shed of boughs, apparently abandoned to decay. Underneath,
nothing was to be seen but heaps of decaying leaves and an immense,
clumsy jar, wide-mouthed, and by some means, rudely hollowed out from
a ponderous stone.
Here, for a while, we were left to ourselves; the old man placing the
light in the jar, and then disappearing. He returned, carrying a
long, large bamboo, and a crotched stick. Throwing these down, he
poked under a pile of rubbish, and brought out a rough block of wood,
pierced through and through with a hole, which was immediately
clapped on the top of the jar. Then planting the crotched stick
upright about two yards distant, and making it sustain one end of the
bamboo, he inserted the other end of the latter into the hole in the
block:
