Some were sociably laughing, and chatting; others diligently making
excavations between their teeth with slivers of bamboo; or turning
their heads into mills, were grinding up leaves and ejecting their
juices. Some were busily inserting the down of a thistle into their
ears. Several stood erect, intent upon maintaining striking attitudes;
their javelins tragically crossed upon their chests. They would have
looked very imposing, were it not, that in rear their vesture was
sadly disordered. Others, with swelling fronts, seemed chiefly
indebted to their dinners for their dignity. Many were nodding and
napping. And, here and there, were sundry indefatigable worthies,
making a great show of imperious and indispensable business;
sedulously folding banana leaves into scrolls, and recklessly placing
them into the hands of little boys, in gay turbans and trim little
girdles, who thereupon fled as if with salvation for the dying.

It was a crowded scene; the dusky chiefs, here and there, grouped
together, and their fantastic tattooings showing like the carved work
on quaint old chimney-stacks, seen from afar. But one of their number
overtopped all the rest. As when, drawing nigh unto old Rome, amid the
crowd of sculptured columns and gables, St. Peter's grand dome soars
far aloft, serene in the upper air; so, showed one calm grand forehead
among those of this mob of chieftains. That head was Saturnina's. Gall
and Spurzheim! saw you ever such a brow?--poised like an avalanche,
under the shadow of a forest! woe betide the devoted valleys
below! Lavatar! behold those lips,--like mystic scrolls! Those eyes,--
like panthers' caves at the base of Popocatepetl!

"By my right hand, Saturnina," cried Babbalanja, "but thou wert made
in the image of thy Maker! Yet, have I beheld men, to the eye as
commanding as thou; and surmounted by heads globe-like as thine, who