Chapter 58: The Hunting-Feast; and a Visit to Afrehitoo

Two bullocks and a boar! No bad trophies of our day’s sport. So by torchlight we marched into the plantation, the wild hog rocking from its pole, and the doctor singing an old hunting-song—Tally-ho! the chorus of which swelled high above the yells of the natives.

We resolved to make a night of it. Kindling a great fire just outside the dwelling, and hanging one of the heifer’s quarters from a limb of the banian-tree, everyone was at liberty to cut and broil for himself. Baskets of roasted bread-fruit, and plenty of taro pudding; bunches of bananas, and young cocoa-nuts, had also been provided by the natives against our return.

The fire burned bravely, keeping off the mosquitoes, and making every man’s face glow like a beaker of Port. The meat had the true wild-game flavour, not at all impaired by our famous appetites, and a couple of flasks of white brandy, which Zeke, producing from his secret store, circulated freely.

There was no end to my long comrade’s spirits. After telling his stories, and singing his songs, he sprang to his feet, clasped a young damsel of the grove round the waist, and waltzed over the grass with her. But there’s no telling all the pranks he played that night. The natives, who delight in a wag, emphatically pronounced him “maitai.”