A DIRTY POTENTATE. 250 



broader, the cheek-bones higher, the nose flatter and 

 more curved, the upper lip longer, the mouth wider, 

 the eyes even smaller, contracting when he laughed 

 into scarcely distinguishable slits. Upon his long 

 upper lip grew a little hedge-row of black bristles, 

 which did not curl gracefully nor droop languidly, but 

 which stuck straight out like the whiskers of a cat. 

 A few of the same sort radiated from his chin. I 

 judged him to be about forty years old, and since 

 soap and towels and the external application of water 

 have not yet been introduced among the native inhab- 

 itants of Whale Sound, these forty years had favored 

 the accumulation of a coating to the skin, which, by 

 the unequal operation of friction, had given his hands 

 and face quite a spotted appearance. 



But if he was not handsome, he was not really 

 ugly ; for, despite his coarse features and dirty face, 

 there was a rugged sort of good-humor and frank sim- 

 plicity about the fellow which pleased me greatly. 

 His tongue was not inclined to rest. He must tell me 

 every thing. His wife was still living, and had added 

 two girls to the amount of his responsibilities ; but 

 his face glowed with delight when I asked him about 

 their first-born, whom I remembered in 1854 as a 

 bright boy of some five or six summers, and he ex- 

 hibited all of a father's just pride in the prospect of 

 the lad's future greatness. Already he could catch 

 birds, and was learning to drive dogs. 



' GO 



I asked him about his old rival Sipsu, who once 

 gave me much trouble, and was an endless source of 

 inconvenience to Kalutunah. He was dead. When 

 asked how he died, he was a little loath to tell, but he 

 finally said that he had been killed. He had become 

 very unpopular, and was stabbed one night in a dark 



