Calabash

“ Seated in one of these boats, Nicholas was making sure that the valve he had introduced performed its part properly. Standing on a bench at the mouth of the arbour, Calabash, with her hands placed over her eyes so as to shade away the sun, was looking out in the direction in which Madame Séraphin and Fleur-de-Marie were to come to reach the isle.
"I don't see any one yet, old or young," said Calabash, getting off the bench and speaking to Nicholas. "It will be just as it was yesterday; we may as well wait for the King of Prussia. ”

“ But then these rascally receivers know we cannot do without them," continued Calabash, putting on one of the shawls, and folding it around her, "and so they take advantage of it."
"There is nothing else," said Nicholas, coming to the bottom of the box.
"Now, let us put everything away," said the widow.
"I shall keep this shawl for myself," exclaimed Calabash.
"Oh, you will, will you?" cried Nicholas, roughly; "that depends whether I choose to let you or not. You are always laying your clutches on something or other; you are Madame Free-and-Easy!" ”

“ Calabash looked attentively at this man with the bronzed visage, a perfect type of the soldier of the Empire; a deep scar furrowed his left cheek, and was lost in his large mustache. The simple words of this veteran, whose features, wounds, and red ribbon announced calm and tried bravery, profoundly struck the widow's daughter.
She had refused the consolation of the priest, more from shame and fear of her mother, than from callousness. In her restless and dying thoughts, she compared the impious jesting of her mother with the piety of the soldier. ”

“ She had packed her calabash with her most priceless possessions and had carried it with her even when injured by her cruel husband. With her calabash she limped into the moon and found her abiding home. When the moon is full, the Hawaiians of the long ago, aye and even today, look into the quiet, silvery light and see the goddess in her celestial home, her calabash by her side.
The natives call her now Lono-moku, "the crippled Lono." From this watch tower in the heavens she pointed out to Kahai, one of her descendents, the way to rise up into the skies. ”

“ When the instrument is played with a calabash as a sounding board, it emits a greater volume of sound. Pieces of shells and tin are added to make a jingling accompaniment, and the calabash is also ornamented.
After we had passed up, a party of slaves, belonging to the two native Portuguese who assassinated the chief, Mpangwé, and took possession of his lands at Zumbo, followed on our footsteps, and representing themselves to be our “children,” bought great quantities of ivory from the Bawé, for a few coarse beads a tusk. ”

“ After traversing the open plain, the road led through a grove of young ebony trees, where guinea-fowls and a hartebeest were seen; it then wound, with all the characteristic eccentric curves of a goat-path, up and down a succession of land-waves crested by the dark green foliage of the mango, and the scantier and lighter-coloured leaves of the enormous calabash. The depressions were filled with jungle of more or less density, while here and there opened glades, shadowed even during noon by thin groves of towering trees. ”

“ Wherever a calabash was decorated by carving, it had to be done either with a stone implement or with one made of sharks' teeth, and though these carvings are crude they are really very interesting and add to the value of the calabash. There are very few of the very old ones left now as they have been bought up by collectors. The natives use those made of cocoanut shells or of small gourds, as you may have noticed."
Nan bore away her calabash in triumph, stopping at a little place to have it polished by a man who was noted for doing such work well. ”

“ Happily Nicholas has escaped; happily François and Amandine will escape you. They have already the seeds of vice: poverty will cause them to grow!"
"Oh, Martial! watch well over them, or they will end like my mother and myself. They will also lose their heads," cried Calabash, uttering a hollow groan.
"He will do well to watch over them," cried the widow, vehemently; "vice and misery will be stronger than he, and some day they will avenge father, mother, and sister." ”

“ The Ashantee prince objected to drink out of a calabash, seeing that I was supplied with tumblers, but he was told by one of the King’s headmen that he was only a black man, and that if he did not choose to drink from the calabash he might go without. He preferred the former, and drank out of what he had used all his life—the calabash. The male soldiers were seated on the ground without any regularity, forming a crescent in the rear of his Majesty. ”

“ What a fine cravat it will make for Sundays, won't it?"
"That it will," answered Amandine. "And just see, François, how charming I shall look with my sweet pretty handkerchief tied around my head,—so, brother."
"What a rage the little children at the lime-kilns will be in when they see you pass by!" said Calabash, fixing her malignant glances on the poor children to ascertain whether they comprehended the full and spiteful meaning of her words,—the hateful creature seeking, by the aid of vanity, to stifle the last breathings of virtue within their young minds. ”

“ After depositing their tools the men came out and gathered silently around the strangers’ quarters—only very young children ran to and fro. After a time the women reappeared with steaming calabashes, which they bore half across the road, and set, each of them, on the stone before her dwelling. Then they returned. Forthwith the males strolled back, carried the supper to their respective huts, and in due time replaced the empty calabash upon the stone, whence the women removed it. ”

“ He frequently hangs up a calabash on some twig near his camp, and in this cradle the bird keeps watch, and sallies forth to drive off the vulture that might otherwise commit depredations on the deer-skins or pieces of venison exposed to the air to be dried. The humbled slave of the Southern States takes more pains to accommodate this favourite bird. ”

“ If I had laid hold of the calabash and drank in the ordinary way as practised by pakehas, I would have at once fallen in the estimation of all bystanders, and been set down as a tutua—a nobody, who had no tapu or mana about him; a mere scrub of a pakeha, whom any one might eat or drink after without the slightest danger of being poisoned. ”

“ This day's work led us from the hilly Usagara range into the more level lands of the interior. Making a double march of it, we first stopped to breakfast at the quiet little settlement of Inenge, where cattle were abundant, but grain so scarce that the villagers were living on calabash seeds. Proceeding thence across fields delightfully checkered with fine calabash and fig trees, we marched, carrying water through thorny jungles, until dark, when we bivouacked for the night, only to rest and push on again next morning, arriving at Marenga Mkhali (the saline water) to breakfast. ”

“ It requires a sharp eye to detect the deserted pits, two feet in diameter and 'sunk straight, as if they had been bored with huge augurs.' I have seen something of the kind in the water-meadows near Shoreham. The workman descends by foot-holes, and works with a hoe four to six inches long by two broad: when his calabash is filled it is drawn up by his companions. ”

“ The calabash, Rutherford adds, is the only vessel they have for holding any kind of liquid; and when they drink out of it, they never permit it to touch their lips, but hold their face up, and pour the liquor into their mouth.
After dinner they place themselves for this purpose in a row, when a slave goes from one to another with the calabash, and each holds his hand under his chin as the liquor is poured by the slave into his mouth. They never drink anything hot or warm. ”

“ It occurred to me that a good deal of rope might be spared if we could enclose each calabash, or bunch of calabashes, in a wicker cage made of willow branches. I suggested this, and we went at once to the willows and cut some slender wands, and made such a cage as I had in mind, out of fine wands and tied with bark. This cage securely enclosed four calabashes; as the wires of a lantern-guard enclose the globe, and at the same time afforded a ready means for attaching the rope without wasting any of its length in loops and bends about the calabashes. ”

“ Whilst the maiden was thus warming herself in the hot spring, Tutanekai happened to feel thirsty and sent his servant to fetch him a calabash of water. The servant came to dip it from the lake near where the girl was hiding. She called out to him in a gruff voice, like that of a man, asking him for some to drink, and he gave her the calabash, which she purposely threw down and broke. The servant went back for another calabash and again she broke it in the same way. The servant returned and told his master that a man in the hot spring had broken all his calabashes. ”

“ Their eyes are bleared and red with perpetual intoxication, and they seem to have no amusements but dancing and singing through half the night. None but the wealthier can afford to wear cloth; the substitute is a kilt of the calabash fibre, attached by a cord of the same material to the waist. ”

“ In one corner is a collection of gourds and bowls, or calabashes, as they are called. Some of them are polished [15] highly and prettily ornamented. If Auwae's father desired to do so, he could sell these calabashes to the American "curio" collector for a goodly sum of money; but he will not part with a single one. They are of all sizes, from that of a tiny teacup to the great "company" calabash, which holds at least ten gallons.
When there are many visitors at Auwae's home, this calabash is used at meal-time. It will hold enough food to satisfy the appetites of a large party. ”

“ He added: “All living creatures would agree in that.”
“That is nonsense,” said the cat, her jealousy at once aroused. “I am the fastest creature on earth. I can leap over mountains and I take rivers at a step.”
“It does not matter what you can do,” said Nasca, growing bolder every second. “Let me tell you this: While a man stooped to fill his calabash, I went from this place to a far mountain, cut the thread that bound you, and returned before the man with the calabash had straightened himself, and if you do not believe it, I will bring the man.” ”

“ At these words, which brought to her mind her son at the galleys, the widow knit her brows and suppressed a sigh.
Calabash continued: "I awaited my turn, when the old man we speak of came in. I twigged him at once by his beard, as white as his hair, and his black eyebrows. In spite of his hair, he must be a determined old man. He said, 'Have you any letters from Angers for the Count of Saint Remy?' 'Yes,' was the answer, 'here is one.' 'It is for me,' said he; 'here is my passport.' While the postmaster examined it, the old man drew out his purse to pay the postage. ”

“ We are not afraid of you or Martial either; you can neither eat us nor drink us, that is one good thing." Then, addressing herself to the widow, Calabash continued, "I tell you what, mother, that fellow will get himself into no good by trying to rule, and domineer, and lay down the law here, as he does; both Nicholas and myself are determined not to submit to it. He sets both Amandine and François against everything either you or I order them to do. ”

“ Water, which is their only beverage, is drunk from a large calabash, which grows wild near the rivers, after being cooled in earthen jars. They sleep on mats covered with the skins of animals. Married women are extremely superstitious, in having their beds covered [324] with the skins of particular animals when their husbands visit them ”

“ He had brought with him a coconut calabash, tightly stoppered, of whale-oil that must have been landed on Lahaina beach thirty years before. From his mouth he took a water-tight arrangement of a matchbox composed of two empty rifle-cartridges fitted snugly together. He lighted the wicking that floated on the oil, and I looked about, and knew disappointment. No burial-chamber was it, but merely a lava tube such as occurs on all the islands. ”

“ Amoru also said, “one of the witches will present the calabash holding ‘the night’ three times, and on the third time you must smash the ‘night’ calabash [4] with your matchet, and it will at once become light.” He told his brother to be brave and not to make a noise or tell anyone until the calabash was broken. He must then call out to the people who must catch the witches and tie them up.
Amoru told Nkanyan that when the time came he would hide under one of the beds, but the witches would run outside, and could be easily distinguished from the other people, as they would be all naked. ”

“ In the hut of the poorest inhabitants of the country, fifteen cocuyos, placed in a calabash pierced with holes, afford sufficient light to search for anything during the night. To shake the calabash forcibly is all that is necessary to excite the animal to increase the intensity of the luminous discs situated on each side of its body. ”

“ There was a teacher who taught children to read under a calabash tree, and this teacher's name was called Goso. And one day a gazelle came and climbed up the calabash tree, and threw down a calabash, and it struck the teacher, and he died. His scholars took their teacher and went and buried him. ”