Upon the summit of the temple was a staff; and as we drew nigh, a man with a collar round his neck, and the red marks of stripes upon his back, was just in the act of hoisting a tappa standard—­ correspondingly striped.  Other collared menials were going in and out of the temple.

Near the porch, stood an image like that on the top of the arch we had seen.  Upon its pedestal, were pasted certain hieroglyphical notices; according to Mohi, offering rewards for missing men, so many hands high.

Entering the temple, we beheld an amphitheatrical space, in the middle of which, a great fire was burning.  Around it, were many chiefs, robed in long togas, and presenting strange contrasts in their style of tattooing.

Some were sociably laughing, and chatting; others diligently making excavations between their teeth with slivers of bamboo; or turning their heads into mills, were grinding up leaves and ejecting their juices.  Some were busily inserting the down of a thistle into their ears.  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.  But one of their number overtopped all the rest.  As when, drawing nigh unto old Rome, amid the crowd of sculptured columns and gables, St. Peter’s grand dome soars far aloft, serene in the upper air; so, showed one calm grand forehead among those of this mob of chieftains.  That head was Saturnina’s.  Gall and Spurzheim! saw you ever such a brow?—­poised like an avalanche, under the shadow of a forest! woe betide the devoted valleys below!  Lavatar! behold those lips,—­like mystic scrolls!  Those eyes,—­ like panthers’ caves at the base of Popocatepetl!

“By my right hand, Saturnina,” cried Babbalanja, “but thou wert made in the image of thy Maker!  Yet, have I beheld men, to the eye as commanding as thou; and surmounted by heads globe-like as thine, who never had thy caliber.  We must measure brains, not heads, my lord; else, the sperm whale, with his tun of an occiput, would transcend us all.”