CHAPTER LXXII.
A DEALER IN THE CONTRABAND IT MUST have been at least the tenth day, reckoning from the Hegira, that we found ourselves the guests of Varvy, an old hermit of an islander who kept house by himself perhaps a couple of leagues from Taloo.
A stone's-cast from the beach there was a fantastic rock, moss-grown and deep in a dell.

It was insulated by a shallow brook, which, dividing its waters, flowed on both sides until united below.
Twisting its roots round the rock, a gnarled "Aoa" spread itself overhead in a wilderness of foliage; the elastic branch-roots depending from the larger boughs insinuating themselves into every cleft, thus forming supports to the parent stem.

In some places these pendulous branches, half-grown, had not yet reached the rock; swinging their loose fibrous ends in the air like whiplashes.
Varvy's hut, a mere coop of bamboos, was perched upon a level part of the rock, the ridge-pole resting at one end in a crotch of the "Aoa," and the other propped by a forked bough planted in a fissure.
Notwithstanding our cries as we drew near, the first hint the old hermit received of our approach was the doctor's stepping up and touching his shoulder, as he was kneeling over on a stone cleaning fish in the brook.

He leaped up, and stared at us.

But with a variety of uncouth gestures, he soon made us welcome; informing us, by the same means, that he was both deaf and dumb; he then motioned us into his dwelling.
Going in, we threw ourselves upon an old mat, and peered round.