Just Previous To Leaving
Tahiti, Having Found My Wardrobe Reduced To Two Suits (Frock And
Trousers, Both Much The Worse
For wear), I had quilted them together
for mutual preservation (after a fashion peculiar to sailors);
engrafting a red frock
Upon a blue one, and producing thereby a
choice variety in the way of clothing. This was the extent of my
wardrobe. Nor was the doctor by any means better off. 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.
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