I
could see and tell what they were; but the Thing John Canoe had perched
himself upon I could make nothing of. At length I began to comprehend
the device.
The Magnus Apollo of the party, the poet and chief musician, the
nondescript already mentioned, was no less than the boatswain of the
butcher--gang, answering to the driver in an agricultural one. He was
clothed in an entire bullock's hide horns, tail, and the other
particulars, the whole of the skull being retained, and the effect of
the voice growling through the jaws of the beast was most startling.
His legs were enveloped in the skin of the hind--legs, while the arms
were cased in that of the fore, the hands protruding a little above the
hoofs, and, as he walked reared up on his hind--legs, he used, in order
to support the load of the John Canoe who had perched on his shoulders,
like a monkey on a dancing bear, a strong stick, or sprit, with a crutch
top to it, which he leant his breast on every now and then.
After the creature, which I will call the Device for shortness, had
capered with its extra load, as if it had been a feather, for a minute
or two, it came to a stand--still, and, sticking the end of the sprit
into the ground, and tucking the crutch of it under its chin, it
motioned to one of the attendants, who thereupon handed, of all things
in the world, a fiddle to the ox. He then shook off the John Canoe, who
began to caper about as before, while the Device set up a deuced good
pipe, and sung and played, barbarously enough, I will admit, to the tune
of Guinea Corn, the following ditty:
"Massa Buccra lobfor see,
Bullock caper like monkee,
Dance, and shump, and poke him toe,
Like one humane person--just so.
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