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Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) by Herman Melville
page 327 of 437 (74%)
second, lobsters, cuttle-fish, crabs, cockles, cray-fish; the third,
hunchbacked roots of the Taro-plant--plantains, perversely curling at
the end, like the inveterate tails of pertinacious pigs; and for
dessert, ill-shaped melons, huge as idiots' heads, plainly suffering
from water in the brain.

Now these viands were commended to the favorable notice of all guests;
not only for their delicacy of flavor, but for their symmetry.

And in the intervals of the courses, we were bored with hints to
admire numerous objects of vertu: bow-legged stools of mangrove wood;
zig-zag rapiers of bone; armlets of grampus-vertebrae; outlandish
tureens of the callipees of terrapin; and cannakins of the skulls of
baboons.

The banquet over, with many congees, we withdrew.

Returning to the water-side, we passed a field, where dwarfs were
laboring in beds of yams, heaping the soil around the roots, by
scratching it backward; as a dog.

All things in readiness, Yoky's valet, a tri-armed dwarf, treated us
to a glorious start, by giving each canoe a vigorous triple-push,
crying, "away with ye, monsters!"

Nor must it be omitted that just previous to embarking, Vee-Vee,
spying a curious looking stone, turned it over, and found a snake.



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