Several stood erect, intent upon maintaining striking attitudes; their javelins tragically crossed upon their chests.

They would have looked very imposing, were it not, that in rear their vesture was sadly disordered.

Others, with swelling fronts, seemed chiefly indebted to their dinners for their dignity.

Many were nodding and napping.

And, here and there, were sundry indefatigable worthies, making a great show of imperious and indispensable business; sedulously folding banana leaves into scrolls, and recklessly placing them into the hands of little boys, in gay turbans and trim little girdles, who thereupon fled as if with salvation for the dying.
It was a crowded scene; the dusky chiefs, here and there, grouped together, and their fantastic tattooings showing like the carved work on quaint old chimney-stacks, seen from afar.