Picture, then, the scene to these wanderers of the northern seas: the
long coral reef, wave-washed by bluest of seas; the little village and
burying-ground and priests' houses nestling under the cocoanut grove at
one end of the semicircular bay, the village where Terreeoboo, king of
the island, dwelt on the long sand beach at the other end; and swimming
through the water like shoals of fish, climbing over the ships' rigging
like monkeys, crowding the decks of the _Discovery_ {198} so that the
ship heeled over till young chief Pareea began tossing the intruders by
the scuff of the neck back into the sea--hundreds, thousands, of
half-naked, tawny-skinned savages welcoming the white men back to the
islands discovered by them. Chief among the visitors to the ship was
Koah, a little, old, emaciated, shifty-eyed priest with a wry neck and
a scaly, leprous skin, who at once led the small boats ashore, driving
the throngs back with a magic wand and drawing a mystic circle with his
wizard stick round a piece of ground near the Morai, or burying-place,
where the white men could erect their tents beside the cocoanut groves.
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