Not to seem ignorant about the thing--though in truth he was entirely so, concerning the precise way in which to manage the barrow--Queequeg puts his chest upon it; lashes it fast; and then shoulders the barrow and marches up the wharf.

"Why," said I, "Queequeg, you might have known better than that, one would think.

Didn't the people laugh ?" Upon this, he told me another story.

The people of his island of Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl; and this punchbowl always forms the great central ornament on the braided mat where the feast is held.

Now a certain grand merchant ship once touched at Rokovoko, and its commander--from all accounts, a very stately punctilious gentleman, at least for a sea captain--this commander was invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg's sister, a pretty young princess just turned of ten.