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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Typee, by Herman Melville
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Typee
+       A Romance of the South Sea
+
+Author: Herman Melville
+
+Commentator: Arthur Stedman
+
+Release Date: September 1999 [eBook #1900]
+[Most recently updated: May 28, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Dianne Bean and David Widger
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TYPEE ***
+
+
+
+
+TYPEE
+
+A ROMANCE OF THE SOUTH SEAS
+
+
+By Herman Melville
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+More than three years have elapsed since the occurrence of the events
+recorded in this volume. The interval, with the exception of the last
+few months, has been chiefly spent by the author tossing about on
+the wide ocean. Sailors are the only class of men who now-a-days see
+anything like stirring adventure; and many things which to fire-side
+people appear strange and romantic, to them seem as common-place as a
+jacket out at elbows. Yet, notwithstanding the familiarity of sailors
+with all sorts of curious adventure, the incidents recorded in the
+following pages have often served, when ‘spun as a yarn,’ not only to
+relieve the weariness of many a night-watch at sea, but to excite the
+warmest sympathies of the author’s shipmates. He has been, therefore,
+led to think that his story could scarcely fail to interest those who
+are less familiar than the sailor with a life of adventure.
+
+In his account of the singular and interesting people among whom he was
+thrown, it will be observed that he chiefly treats of their more obvious
+peculiarities; and, in describing their customs, refrains in most cases
+from entering into explanations concerning their origin and purposes.
+As writers of travels among barbarous communities are generally very
+diffuse on these subjects, he deems it right to advert to what may be
+considered a culpable omission. No one can be more sensible than the
+author of his deficiencies in this and many other respects; but when the
+very peculiar circumstances in which he was placed are understood, he
+feels assured that all these omissions will be excused.
+
+In very many published narratives no little degree of attention is
+bestowed upon dates; but as the author lost all knowledge of the days of
+the week, during the occurrence of the scenes herein related, he hopes
+that the reader will charitably pass over his shortcomings in this
+particular.
+
+In the Polynesian words used in this volume,--except in those cases
+where the spelling has been previously determined by others,--that form
+of orthography has been employed, which might be supposed most easily
+to convey their sound to a stranger. In several works descriptive of the
+islands in the Pacific, many of the most beautiful combinations of
+vocal sounds have been altogether lost to the ear of the reader by an
+over-attention to the ordinary rules of spelling.
+
+There are a few passages in the ensuing chapters which may be thought
+to bear rather hard upon a reverend order of men, the account of whose
+proceedings in different quarters of the globe--transmitted to us
+through their own hands--very generally, and often very deservedly,
+receives high commendation. Such passages will be found, however, to
+be based upon facts admitting of no contradiction, and which have come
+immediately under the writer’s cognizance. The conclusions deduced from
+these facts are unavoidable, and in stating them the author has been
+influenced by no feeling of animosity, either to the individuals
+themselves, or to that glorious cause which has not always been served
+by the proceedings of some of its advocates.
+
+The great interest with which the important events lately occurring
+at the Sandwich, Marquesas, and Society Islands, have been regarded in
+America and England, and indeed throughout the world, will, he trusts,
+justify a few otherwise unwarrantable digressions.
+
+There are some things related in the narrative which will be sure to
+appear strange, or perhaps entirely incomprehensible, to the reader;
+but they cannot appear more so to him than they did to the author at the
+time. He has stated such matters just as they occurred, and leaves every
+one to form his own opinion concerning them; trusting that his anxious
+desire to speak the unvarnished truth will gain for him the confidence
+of his readers. 1846.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO THE EDITION OF 1892
+
+By Arthur Stedman
+
+Of the trinity of American authors whose births made the year 1819 a
+notable one in our literary history,--Lowell, Whitman, and Melville,--it
+is interesting to observe that the two latter were both descended, on
+the fathers’ and mothers’ sides respectively, from have families of
+British New England and Dutch New York extraction. Whitman and Van
+Velsor, Melville and Gansevoort, were the several combinations which
+produced these men; and it is easy to trace in the life and character
+of each author the qualities derived from his joint ancestry. Here,
+however, the resemblance ceases, for Whitman’s forebears, while worthy
+country people of good descent, were not prominent in public or private
+life. Melville, on the other hand, was of distinctly patrician birth,
+his paternal and maternal grandfathers having been leading characters in
+the Revolutionary War; their descendants still maintaining a dignified
+social position.
+
+Allan Melville, great-grandfather of Herman Melville, removed from
+Scotland to America in 1748, and established himself as a merchant
+in Boston. His son, Major Thomas Melville, was a leader in the famous
+‘Boston Tea Party’ of 1773 and afterwards became an officer in the
+Continental Army. He is reported to have been a Conservative in all
+matters except his opposition to unjust taxation, and he wore the
+old-fashioned cocked hat and knee-breeches until his death, in 1832,
+thus becoming the original of Doctor Holmes’s poem, ‘The Last Leaf’.
+Major Melville’s son Allan, the father of Herman, was an importing
+merchant,--first in Boston, and later in New York. He was a man of much
+culture, and was an extensive traveller for his time. He married Maria
+Gansevoort, daughter of General Peter Gansevoort, best known as ‘the
+hero of Fort Stanwix.’ This fort was situated on the present site of
+Rome, N.Y.; and there Gansevoort, with a small body of men, held in
+check reinforcements on their way to join Burgoyne, until the disastrous
+ending of the latter’s campaign of 1777 was insured. The Gansevoorts, it
+should be said, were at that time and subsequently residents of Albany,
+N.Y.
+
+Herman Melville was born in New York on August 1,1819, and received
+his early education in that city. There he imbibed his first love of
+adventure, listening, as he says in ‘Redburn,’ while his father ‘of
+winter evenings, by the well-remembered sea-coal fire in old Greenwich
+Street, used to tell my brother and me of the monstrous waves at sea,
+mountain high, of the masts bending like twigs, and all about Havre
+and Liverpool.’ The death of his father in reduced circumstances
+necessitated the removal of his mother and the family of eight brothers
+and sisters to the village of Lansingburg, on the Hudson River. There
+Herman remained until 1835, when he attended the Albany Classical School
+for some months. Dr. Charles E. West, the well-known Brooklyn educator,
+was then in charge of the school, and remembers the lad’s deftness in
+English composition, and his struggles with mathematics.
+
+The following year was passed at Pittsfield, Mass., where he engaged in
+work on his uncle’s farm, long known as the ‘Van Schaack place.’ This
+uncle was Thomas Melville, president of the Berkshire Agricultural
+Society, and a successful gentleman farmer.
+
+Herman’s roving disposition, and a desire to support himself
+independently of family assistance, soon led him to ship as cabin boy
+in a New York vessel bound for Liverpool. He made the voyage, visited
+London, and returned in the same ship. ‘Redburn: His First Voyage,’
+published in 1849, is partly founded on the experiences of this trip,
+which was undertaken with the full consent of his relatives, and which
+seems to have satisfied his nautical ambition for a time. As told in the
+book, Melville met with more than the usual hardships of a sailor-boy’s
+first venture. It does not seem difficult in ‘Redburn’ to separate the
+author’s actual experiences from those invented by him, this being the
+case in some of his other writings.
+
+A good part of the succeeding three years, from 1837 to 1840, was
+occupied with school-teaching. While so engaged at Greenbush, now
+East Albany, N.Y., he received the munificent salary of ‘six dollars
+a quarter and board.’ He taught for one term at Pittsfield, Mass.,
+‘boarding around’ with the families of his pupils, in true American
+fashion, and easily suppressing, on one memorable occasion, the efforts
+of his larger scholars to inaugurate a rebellion by physical force.
+
+I fancy that it was the reading of Richard Henry Dana’s ‘Two Years
+Before the Mast’ which revived the spirit of adventure in Melville’s
+breast. That book was published in 1840, and was at once talked of
+everywhere. Melville must have read it at the time, mindful of his
+own experience as a sailor. At any rate, he once more signed a ship’s
+articles, and on January 1, 1841, sailed from New Bedford harbour in the
+whaler Acushnet, bound for the Pacific Ocean and the sperm fishery.
+He has left very little direct information as to the events of this
+eighteen months’ cruise, although his whaling romance, ‘Moby Dick; or,
+the Whale,’ probably gives many pictures of life on board the Acushnet.
+In the present volume he confines himself to a general account of
+the captain’s bad treatment of the crew, and of his non-fulfilment of
+agreements. Under these considerations, Melville decided to abandon the
+vessel on reaching the Marquesas Islands; and the narrative of ‘Typee’
+begins at this point. However, he always recognised the immense
+influence the voyage had had upon his career, and in regard to its
+results has said in ‘Moby Dick,’--
+
+‘If I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small but high hushed
+world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I
+shall do anything that on the whole a man might rather have done than to
+have left undone... then here I prospectively ascribe all the honour
+and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my
+Harvard.’
+
+The record, then, of Melville’s escape from the Dolly, otherwise the
+Acushnet, the sojourn of his companion Toby and himself in the Typee
+Valley on the island of Nukuheva, Toby’s mysterious disappearance, and
+Melville’s own escape, is fully given in the succeeding pages; and rash
+indeed would he be who would enter into a descriptive contest with these
+inimitable pictures of aboriginal life in the ‘Happy Valley.’ So great
+an interest has always centred in the character of Toby, whose actual
+existence has been questioned, that I am glad to be able to declare him
+an authentic personage, by name Richard T. Greene. He was enabled to
+discover himself again to Mr. Melville through the publication of the
+present volume, and their acquaintance was renewed, lasting for quite
+a long period. I have seen his portrait,--a rare old daguerrotype,--and
+some of his letters to our author. One of his children was named for the
+latter, but Mr. Melville lost trace of him in recent years.
+
+With the author’s rescue from what Dr. T. M. Coan has styled his
+‘anxious paradise,’ ‘Typee’ ends, and its sequel, ‘Omoo,’ begins. Here,
+again, it seems wisest to leave the remaining adventures in the South
+Seas to the reader’s own discovery, simply stating that, after a sojourn
+at the Society Islands, Melville shipped for Honolulu. There he remained
+for four months, employed as a clerk. He joined the crew of the American
+frigate United States, which reached Boston, stopping on the way at one
+of the Peruvian ports, in October of 1844. Once more was a narrative
+of his experiences to be preserved in ‘White Jacket; or, the World in
+a Man-of-War.’ Thus, of Melville’s four most important books, three,
+‘Typee,’ ‘Omoo,’ and ‘White-Jacket,’ are directly auto biographical,
+and ‘Moby Dick’ is partially so; while the less important ‘Redburn’ is
+between the two classes in this respect. Melville’s other prose works,
+as will be shown, were, with some exceptions, unsuccessful efforts at
+creative romance.
+
+Whether our author entered on his whaling adventures in the South Seas
+with a determination to make them available for literary purposes, may
+never be certainly known. There was no such elaborate announcement or
+advance preparation as in some later cases. I am inclined to believe
+that the literary prospect was an after-thought, and that this insured
+a freshness and enthusiasm of style not otherwise to be attained.
+Returning to his mother’s home at Lansingburg, Melville soon began the
+writing of ‘Typee,’ which was completed by the autumn of 1845. Shortly
+after this his older brother, Gansevoort Melville, sailed for England
+as secretary of legation to Ambassador McLane, and the manuscript was
+intrusted to Gansevoort for submission to John Murray. Its immediate
+acceptance and publication followed in 1846. ‘Typee’ was dedicated to
+Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw of Massachusetts, an old friendship between
+the author’s family and that of Justice Shaw having been renewed about
+this time. Mr. Melville became engaged to Miss Elizabeth Shaw, the only
+daughter of the Chief Justice, and their marriage followed on August 4,
+1847, in Boston.
+
+The wanderings of our nautical Othello were thus brought to a
+conclusion. Mr. and Mrs. Melville resided in New York City until 1850,
+when they purchased a farmhouse at Pittsfield, their farm adjoining that
+formerly owned by Mr. Melville’s uncle, which had been inherited by the
+latter’s son. The new place was named ‘Arrow Head,’ from the numerous
+Indian antiquities found in the neighbourhood. The house was so situated
+as to command an uninterrupted view of Greylock Mountain and the
+adjacent hills. Here Melville remained for thirteen years, occupied
+with his writing, and managing his farm. An article in Putnam’s Monthly
+entitled ‘I and My Chimney,’ another called ‘October Mountain,’ and the
+introduction to the ‘Piazza Tales,’ present faithful pictures of Arrow
+Head and its surroundings. In a letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne, given
+in ‘Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife,’ his daily life is set forth. The
+letter is dated June 1, 1851.
+
+‘Since you have been here I have been building some shanties of houses
+(connected with the old one), and likewise some shanties of chapters and
+essays. I have been ploughing and sowing and raising and printing and
+praying, and now begin to come out upon a less bristling time, and to
+enjoy the calm prospect of things from a fair piazza at the north of the
+old farmhouse here. Not entirely yet, though, am I without something to
+be urgent with. The ‘Whale’ is only half through the press; for, wearied
+with the long delays of the printers, and disgusted with the heat
+and dust of the Babylonish brick-kiln of New York, I came back to the
+country to feel the grass, and end the book reclining on it, if I may.’
+
+Mr. Hawthorne, who was then living in the red cottage at Lenox, had
+a week at Arrow Head with his daughter Una the previous spring. It is
+recorded that the friends ‘spent most of the time in the barn, bathing
+in the early spring sunshine, which streamed through the open doors,
+and talking philosophy.’ According to Mr. J. E. A. Smith’s volume on the
+Berkshire Hills, these gentlemen, both reserved in nature, though near
+neighbours and often in the same company, were inclined to be shy of
+each other, partly, perhaps, through the knowledge that Melville had
+written a very appreciative review of ‘Mosses from an Old Manse’ for the
+New York Literary World, edited by their mutual friends, the Duyckincks.
+‘But one day,’ writes Mr. Smith, ‘it chanced that when they were out on
+a picnic excursion, the two were compelled by a thundershower to take
+shelter in a narrow recess of the rocks of Monument Mountain. Two hours
+of this enforced intercourse settled the matter. They learned so much
+of each other’s character,... that the most intimate friendship for
+the future was inevitable.’ A passage in Hawthorne’s ‘Wonder Book’
+is noteworthy as describing the number of literary neighbours in
+Berkshire:--
+
+‘For my part, I wish I had Pegasus here at this moment,’ said the
+student. ‘I would mount him forthwith, and gallop about the country
+within a circumference of a few miles, making literary calls on my
+brother authors. Dr. Dewey would be within ray reach, at the foot of
+the Taconic. In Stockbridge, yonder, is Mr. James [G. P. R. James],
+conspicuous to all the world on his mountain-pile of history and
+romance. Longfellow, I believe, is not yet at the Oxbow, else the winged
+horse would neigh at him. But here in Lenox I should find our most
+truthful novelist [Miss Sedgwick], who has made the scenery and life
+of Berkshire all her own. On the hither side of Pittsfield sits Herman
+Melville, shaping out the gigantic conception of his ‘White Whale,’
+while the gigantic shadow of Greylock looms upon him from his study
+window. Another bound of my flying steed would bring me to the door of
+Holmes, whom I mention last, because Pegasus would certainly unseat me
+the next minute, and claim the poet as his rider.’
+
+While at Pittsfield, Mr. Melville was induced to enter the lecture
+field. From 1857 to 1860 he filled many engagements in the lyceums,
+chiefly speaking of his adventures in the South Seas. He lectured
+in cities as widely apart as Montreal, Chicago, Baltimore, and San
+Francisco, sailing to the last-named place in 1860, by way of Cape
+Horn, on the Meteor, commanded, by his younger brother, Captain Thomas
+Melville, afterward governor of the ‘Sailor’s Snug Harbor’ at Staten
+Island, N.Y. Besides his voyage to San Francisco, he had, in 1849 and
+1856, visited England, the Continent, and the Holy Land, partly to
+superintend the publication of English editions of his works, and partly
+for recreation.
+
+A pronounced feature of Melville’s character was his unwillingness to
+speak of himself, his adventures, or his writings in conversation. He
+was, however, able to overcome this reluctance on the lecture platform.
+Our author’s tendency to philosophical discussion is strikingly set
+forth in a letter from Dr. Titus Munson Coan to the latter’s mother,
+written while a student at Williams College over thirty years ago,
+and fortunately preserved by her. Dr. Coan enjoyed the friendship and
+confidence of Mr. Melville during most of his residence in New York. The
+letter reads:--
+
+‘I have made my first literary pilgrimage, a call upon Herman Melville,
+the renowned author of ‘Typee,’ etc. He lives in a spacious farmhouse
+about two miles from Pittsfield, a weary walk through the dust. But it
+as well repaid. I introduced myself as a Hawaiian-American, and soon
+found myself in full tide of talk, or rather of monologue. But he would
+not repeat the experiences of which I had been reading with rapture in
+his books. In vain I sought to hear of Typee and those paradise islands,
+but he preferred to pour forth his philosophy and his theories of
+life. The shade of Aristotle arose like a cold mist between myself and
+Fayaway. We have quite enough of deep philosophy at Williams College,
+and I confess I was disappointed in this trend of the talk. But what
+a talk it was! Melville is transformed from a Marquesan to a gypsy
+student, the gypsy element still remaining strong within him. And this
+contradiction gives him the air of one who has suffered from opposition,
+both literary and social. With his liberal views, he is apparently
+considered by the good people of Pittsfield as little better than a
+cannibal or a ‘beach-comber.’ His attitude seemed to me something like
+that of Ishmael; but perhaps I judged hastily. I managed to draw him out
+very freely on everything but the Marquesas Islands, and when I left him
+he was in full tide of discourse on all things sacred and profane. But
+he seems to put away the objective side of his life, and to shut himself
+up in this cold north as a cloistered thinker.’
+
+I have been told by Dr. Coan that his father, the Rev. Titus Coan, of
+the Hawaiian Islands, personally visited the Marquesas group, found
+the Typee Valley, and verified in all respects the statements made
+in ‘Typee.’ It is known that Mr. Melville from early manhood indulged
+deeply in philosophical studies, and his fondness for discussing such
+matters is pointed out by Hawthorne also, in the ‘English Note Books.’
+This habit increased as he advanced in years, if possible.
+
+The chief event of the residence in Pittsfield was the completion and
+publication of ‘Moby Dick; or, the Whale,’ in 1851. How many young men
+have been drawn to sea by this book is a question of interest. Meeting
+with Mr. Charles Henry Webb [‘John Paul’) the day after Mr. Melville’s
+death, I asked him if he were not familiar with that author’s writings.
+He replied that ‘Moby Dick’ was responsible for his three years of life
+before the mast when a lad, and added that while ‘gamming’ on board
+another vessel he had once fallen in with a member of the boat’s crew
+which rescued Melville from his friendly imprisonment among the Typees.
+
+While at Pittsfield, besides his own family, Mr. Melville’s mother
+and sisters resided with him. As his four children grew up he found
+it necessary to obtain for them better facilities for study than the
+village school afforded; and so, several years after, the household was
+broken up, and he removed with his wife and children to the New York
+house that was afterwards his home. This house belonged to his brother
+Allan, and was exchanged for the estate at Pittsfield. In December,
+1866, he was appointed by Mr. H. A. Smyth, a former travelling companion
+in Europe, a district officer in the New York Custom House. He held the
+position until 1886, preferring it to in-door clerical work, and then
+resigned, the duties becoming too arduous for his failing strength.
+
+In addition to his philosophical studies, Mr. Melville was much
+interested in all matters relating to the fine arts, and devoted most of
+his leisure hours to the two subjects. A notable collection of etchings
+and engravings from the old masters was gradually made by him, those
+from Claude’s paintings being a specialty. After he retired from the
+Custom House, his tall, stalwart figure could be seen almost daily
+tramping through the Fort George district or Central Park, his roving
+inclination leading him to obtain as much out-door life as possible.
+His evenings were spent at home with his books, his pictures, and his
+family, and usually with them alone; for, in spite of the melodramatic
+declarations of various English gentlemen, Melville’s seclusion in his
+latter years, and in fact throughout his life, was a matter of personal
+choice. More and more, as he grew older, he avoided every action on his
+part, and on the part of his family, that might tend to keep his name
+and writings before the public. A few friends felt at liberty to visit
+the recluse, and were kindly welcomed, but he himself sought no one. His
+favorite companions were his grandchildren, with whom he delighted to
+pass his time, and his devoted wife, who was a constant assistant and
+adviser in his literary work, chiefly done at this period for his
+own amusement. To her he addressed his last little poem, the touching
+‘Return of the Sire de Nesle.’ Various efforts were made by the New York
+literary colony to draw him from his retirement, but without success.
+It has been suggested that he might have accepted a magazine editorship,
+but this is doubtful, as he could not bear business details or routine
+work of any sort. His brother Allan was a New York lawyer, and until his
+death, in 1872, managed Melville’s affairs with ability, particularly
+the literary accounts.
+
+During these later years he took great pleasure in a friendly
+correspondence with Mr. W. Clark Russell. Mr. Russell had taken many
+occasions to mention Melville’s sea-tales, his interest in them, and his
+indebtedness to them. The latter felt impelled to write Mr. Russell in
+regard to one of his newly published novels, and received in answer the
+following letter:
+
+July 21, 1886.
+
+MY DEAR Mr. MELVILLE, Your letter has given me a very great and singular
+pleasure. Your delightful books carry the imagination into a maritime
+period so remote that, often as you have been in my mind, I could
+never satisfy myself that you were still amongst the living. I am glad,
+indeed, to learn from Mr. Toft that you are still hale and hearty, and I
+do most heartily wish you many years yet of health and vigour.
+
+Your books I have in the American edition. I have ‘Typee, ‘Omoo,’
+‘Redburn,’ and that noble piece ‘Moby Dick.’ These are all I have been
+able to obtain. There have been many editions of your works in this
+country, particularly the lovely South Sea sketches; but the editions
+are not equal to those of the American publishers. Your reputation here
+is very great. It is hard to meet a man whose opinion as a reader is
+worth leaving who does not speak of your works in such terms as he
+might hesitate to employ, with all his patriotism, toward many renowned
+English writers.
+
+Dana is, indeed, great. There is nothing in literature more remarkable
+than the impression produced by Dana’s portraiture of the homely inner
+life of a little brig’s forecastle.
+
+I beg that you will accept my thanks for the kindly spirit in which you
+have read my books. I wish it were in my power to cross the Atlantic,
+for you assuredly would be the first whom it would be my happiness to
+visit.
+
+The condition of my right hand obliges me to dictate this to my son;
+but painful as it is to me to hold a pen, I cannot suffer this letter
+to reach the hands of a man of so admirable genitis as Herman Melville
+without begging him to believe me to be, with my own hand, his most
+respectful and hearty admirer, W. Clark Russell.
+
+It should be noted here that Melville’s increased reputation in England
+at the period of this letter was chiefly owing to a series of articles
+on his work written by Mr. Russell. I am sorry to say that few English
+papers made more than a passing reference to Melville’s death. The
+American press discussed his life and work in numerous and lengthy
+reviews. At the same time, there always has been a steady sale of his
+books in England, and some of them never have been out of print in that
+country since the publication of ‘Typee.’ One result of this friendship
+between the two authors was the dedication of new volumes to each other
+in highly complimentary terms--Mr. Melville’s ‘John Marr and Other
+Sailors,’ of which twenty-five copies only were printed, on the one
+hand, and Mr. Russell’s ‘An Ocean Tragedy,’ on the other, of which many
+thousand have been printed, not to mention unnumbered pirated copies.
+
+Beside Hawthorne, Mr. Richard Henry Stoddard, of American writers,
+specially knew and appreciated Herman Melville. Mr. Stoddard was
+connected with the New York dock department at the time of Mr.
+Melville’s appointment to a custom-house position, and they at once
+became acquainted. For a good many years, during the period in which
+our author remained in seclusion, much that appeared in print in America
+concerning Melville came from the pen of Mr. Stoddard. Nevertheless,
+the sailor author’s presence in New York was well known to the literary
+guild. He was invited to join in all new movements, but as often felt
+obliged to excuse himself from doing so. The present writer lived for
+some time within a short distance of his house, but found no opportunity
+to meet him until it became necessary to obtain his portrait for an
+anthology in course of publication. The interview was brief, and the
+interviewer could not help feeling although treated with pleasant
+courtesy, that more important matters were in hand than the perpetuation
+of a romancer’s countenance to future generations; but a friendly family
+acquaintance grew up from the incident, and will remain an abiding
+memory.
+
+Mr. Melville died at his home in New York City early on the morning of
+September 28, 1891. His serious illness had lasted a number of
+months, so that the end came as a release. True to his ruling passion,
+philosophy had claimed him to the last, a set of Schopenhauer’s works
+receiving his attention when able to study; but this was varied with
+readings in the ‘Mermaid Series’ of old plays, in which he took much
+pleasure. His library, in addition to numerous works on philosophy and
+the fine arts, was composed of standard books of all classes, including,
+of course, a proportion of nautical literature. Especially interesting
+are fifteen or twenty first editions of Hawthorne’s books inscribed to
+Mr. and Mrs. Melville by the author and his wife.
+
+The immediate acceptance of ‘Typee’ by John Murray was followed by an
+arrangement with the London agent of an American publisher, for its
+simultaneous publication in the United States. I understand that Murray
+did not then publish fiction. At any rate, the book was accepted by him
+on the assurance of Gansevoort Melville that it contained nothing not
+actually experienced by his brother. Murray brought it out early in
+1846, in his Colonial and Home Library, as ‘A Narrative of a Four
+Months’ Residence among the Natives of a Valley of the Marquesas
+Islands; or, a Peep at Polynesian Life,’ or, more briefly, ‘Melville’s
+Marquesas Islands.’ It was issued in America with the author’s own
+title, ‘Typee,’ and in the outward shape of a work of fiction. Mr.
+Melville found himself famous at once. Many discussions were carried on
+as to the genuineness of the author’s name and the reality of the events
+portrayed, but English and American critics alike recognised the book’s
+importance as a contribution to literature.
+
+Melville, in a letter to Hawthorne, speaks of himself as having no
+development at all until his twenty-fifth year, the time of his return
+from the Pacific; but surely the process of development must have been
+well advanced to permit of so virile and artistic a creation as ‘Typee.’
+While the narrative does not always run smoothly, yet the style for the
+most part is graceful and alluring, so that we pass from one scene of
+Pacific enchantment to another quite oblivious of the vast amount of
+descriptive detail which is being poured out upon us. It is the varying
+fortune of the hero which engrosses our attention. We follow his
+adventures with breathless interest, or luxuriate with him in the leafy
+bowers of the ‘Happy Valley,’ surrounded by joyous children of nature.
+When all is ended, we then for the first time realise that we know these
+people and their ways as if we too had dwelt among them.
+
+I do not believe that ‘Typee’ will ever lose its position as a classic
+of American Literature. The pioneer in South Sea romance--for
+the mechanical descriptions of earlier voyagers are not worthy of
+comparison--this book has as yet met with no superior, even in French
+literature; nor has it met with a rival in any other language than the
+French. The character of ‘Fayaway,’ and, no less, William S. Mayo’s
+‘Kaloolah,’ the enchanting dreams of many a youthful heart, will retain
+their charm; and this in spite of endless variations by modern explorers
+in the same domain. A faint type of both characters may be found in the
+Surinam Yarico of Captain John Gabriel Stedman, whose ‘Narrative of a
+Five Years’ Expedition’ appeared in 1796.
+
+‘Typee,’ as written, contained passages reflecting with considerable
+severity on the methods pursued by missionaries in the South Seas. The
+manuscript was printed in a complete form in England, and created much
+discussion on this account, Melville being accused of bitterness; but he
+asserted his lack of prejudice. The passages referred to were omitted in
+the first and all subsequent American editions. They have been restored
+in the present issue, which is complete save for a few paragraphs
+excluded by written direction of the author. I have, with the consent
+of his family, changed the long and cumbersome sub-title of the book,
+calling it a ‘Real-Romance of the South Seas,’ as best expressing its
+nature.
+
+The success of his first volume encouraged Melville to proceed in his
+work, and ‘Omoo,’ the sequel to ‘Typee,’ appeared in England and America
+in 1847. Here we leave, for the most part, the dreamy pictures of island
+life, and find ourselves sharing the extremely realistic discomforts of
+a Sydney whaler in the early forties. The rebellious crew’s experiences
+in the Society Islands are quite as realistic as events on board ship
+and very entertaining, while the whimsical character, Dr. Long Ghost,
+next to Captain Ahab in ‘Moby Dick,’ is Melville’s most striking
+delineation. The errors of the South Sea missions are pointed out with
+even more force than in ‘Typee,’ and it is a fact that both these books
+have ever since been of the greatest value to outgoing missionaries on
+account of the exact information contained in them with respect to the
+islanders.
+
+Melville’s power in describing and investing with romance scenes and
+incidents witnessed and participated in by himself, and his frequent
+failure of success as an inventor of characters and situations, were
+early pointed out by his critics. More recently Mr. Henry S. Salt
+has drawn the same distinction very carefully in an excellent article
+contributed to the Scottish Art Review. In a prefatory note to ‘Mardi’
+(1849), Melville declares that, as his former books have been received
+as romance instead of reality, he will now try his hand at pure fiction.
+‘Mardi’ may be called a splendid failure. It must have been soon after
+the completion of ‘Omoo’ that Melville began to study the writings of
+Sir Thomas Browne. Heretofore our author’s style was rough in places,
+but marvellously simple and direct. ‘Mardi’ is burdened with an
+over-rich diction, which Melville never entirely outgrew. The scene
+of this romance, which opens well, is laid in the South Seas, but
+everything soon becomes overdrawn and fantastical, and the thread of the
+story loses itself in a mystical allegory.
+
+‘Redburn,’ already mentioned, succeeded ‘Mardi’ in the same year, and
+was a partial return to the author’s earlier style. In ‘White-Jacket;
+or, the World in a Man-of-War’ (1850), Melville almost regained it. This
+book has no equal as a picture of life aboard a sailing man-of-war, the
+lights and shadows of naval existence being well contrasted.
+
+With ‘Moby Dick; or, the Whale’ (1851), Melville reached the topmost
+notch of his fame. The book represents, to a certain extent, the
+conflict between the author’s earlier and later methods of composition,
+but the gigantic conception of the ‘White Whale,’ as Hawthorne expressed
+it, permeates the whole work, and lifts it bodily into the highest
+domain of romance. ‘Moby Dick’ contains an immense amount of information
+concerning the habits of the whale and the methods of its capture, but
+this is characteristically introduced in a way not to interfere with
+the narrative. The chapter entitled ‘Stubb Kills a Whale’ ranks with the
+choicest examples of descriptive literature.
+
+‘Moby Dick’ appeared, and Melville enjoyed to the full the enhanced
+reputation it brought him. He did not, however, take warning from
+‘Mardi,’ but allowed himself to plunge more deeply into the sea of
+philosophy and fantasy.
+
+‘Pierre; or, the Ambiguities’ (1852) was published, and there ensued
+a long series of hostile criticisms, ending with a severe, though
+impartial, article by Fitz-James O’Brien in Putnam’s Monthly. About the
+same time the whole stock of the author’s books was destroyed by fire,
+keeping them out of print at a critical moment; and public interest,
+which until then had been on the increase, gradually began to diminish.
+
+After this Mr. Melville contributed several short stories to Putnam’s
+Monthly and Harper’s Magazine. Those in the former periodical were
+collected in a volume as Piazza Tales (1856); and of these ‘Benito
+Cereno’ and ‘The Bell Tower’ are equal to his best previous efforts.
+
+‘Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile’ (1855), first printed as a
+serial in Putnam’s, is an historical romance of the American Revolution,
+based on the hero’s own account of his adventures, as given in a little
+volume picked up by Mr. Melville at a book-stall. The story is well
+told, but the book is hardly worthy of the author of ‘Typee.’ ‘The
+Confidence Man’ (1857), his last serious effort in prose fiction, does
+not seem to require criticism.
+
+Mr. Melville’s pen had rested for nearly ten years, when it was again
+taken up to celebrate the events of the Civil War. ‘Battle Pieces and
+Aspects of the War’ appeared in 1866. Most of these poems originated,
+according to the author, in an impulse imparted by the fall of Richmond;
+but they have as subjects all the chief incidents of the struggle. The
+best of them are ‘The Stone Fleet,’ ‘In the Prison Pen,’ ‘The College
+Colonel,’ ‘The March to the Sea,’ ‘Running the Batteries,’ and ‘Sheridan
+at Cedar Creek.’ Some of these had a wide circulation in the press, and
+were preserved in various anthologies. ‘Clarel, a Poem and Pilgrimage
+in the Holy Land’ (1876), is a long mystical poem requiring, as some one
+has said, a dictionary, a cyclopaedia, and a copy of the Bible for its
+elucidation. In the two privately printed volumes, the arrangement of
+which occupied Mr. Melville during his last illness, there are several
+fine lyrics. The titles of these books are, ‘John Marr and Other
+Sailors’ (1888), and ‘Timoleon’ (1891).
+
+There is no question that Mr. Melville’s absorption in philosophical
+studies was quite as responsible as the failure of his later books for
+his cessation from literary productiveness. That he sometimes realised
+the situation will be seen by a passage in ‘Moby Dick’:--
+
+‘Didn’t I tell you so?’ said Flask. ‘Yes, you’ll soon see this right
+whale’s head hoisted up opposite that parmacetti’s.’
+
+‘In good time Flask’s saying proved true. As before, the Pequod steeply
+leaned over towards the sperm whale’s head, now, by the counterpoise of
+both heads, she regained her own keel, though sorely strained, you may
+well believe. So, when on one side you hoist in Locke’s head, you go
+over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant’s and you
+come back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds forever keep
+trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunderheads overboard,
+and then you will float right and light.’
+
+Mr. Melville would have been more than mortal if he had been indifferent
+to his loss of popularity. Yet he seemed contented to preserve an
+entirely independent attitude, and to trust to the verdict of the
+future. The smallest amount of activity would have kept him before the
+public; but his reserve would not permit this. That reinstatement of his
+reputation cannot be doubted.
+
+In the editing of this reissue of ‘Melville’s Works,’ I have been
+much indebted to the scholarly aid of Dr. Titus Munson Coan, whose
+familiarity with the languages of the Pacific has enabled me to
+harmonise the spelling of foreign words in ‘Typee’ and ‘Omoo,’ though
+without changing the phonetic method of printing adopted by Mr.
+Melville. Dr. Coan has also been most helpful with suggestions in other
+directions. Finally, the delicate fancy of La Fargehas supplemented the
+immortal pen-portrait of the Typee maiden with a speaking impersonation
+of her beauty.
+
+New York, June, 1892.
+
+
+
+
+TYPEE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+THE SEA--LONGINGS FOR SHORE--A LAND-SICK SHIP--DESTINATION OF THE
+VOYAGERS--THE MARQUESAS--ADVENTURE OF A MISSIONARY’S WIFE AMONG THE
+SAVAGES--CHARACTERISTIC ANECDOTE OF THE QUEEN OF NUKUHEVA
+
+
+Six months at sea! Yes, reader, as I live, six months out of sight of
+land; cruising after the sperm-whale beneath the scorching sun of the
+Line, and tossed on the billows of the wide-rolling Pacific--the sky
+above, the sea around, and nothing else! Weeks and weeks ago our fresh
+provisions were all exhausted. There is not a sweet potato left; not a
+single yam. Those glorious bunches of bananas, which once decorated
+our stern and quarter-deck, have, alas, disappeared! and the delicious
+oranges which hung suspended from our tops and stays--they, too, are
+gone! Yes, they are all departed, and there is nothing left us but
+salt-horse and sea-biscuit. Oh! ye state-room sailors, who make so
+much ado about a fourteen-days’ passage across the Atlantic; who so
+pathetically relate the privations and hardships of the sea, where,
+after a day of breakfasting, lunching, dining off five courses,
+chatting, playing whist, and drinking champagne-punch, it was your hard
+lot to be shut up in little cabinets of mahogany and maple, and sleep
+for ten hours, with nothing to disturb you but ‘those good-for-nothing
+tars, shouting and tramping overhead’,--what would ye say to our six
+months out of sight of land?
+
+Oh! for a refreshing glimpse of one blade of grass--for a snuff at the
+fragrance of a handful of the loamy earth! Is there nothing fresh around
+us? Is there no green thing to be seen? Yes, the inside of our bulwarks
+is painted green; but what a vile and sickly hue it is, as if nothing
+bearing even the semblance of verdure could flourish this weary way from
+land. Even the bark that once clung to the wood we use for fuel has been
+gnawed off and devoured by the captain’s pig; and so long ago, too, that
+the pig himself has in turn been devoured.
+
+There is but one solitary tenant in the chicken-coop, once a gay and
+dapper young cock, bearing him so bravely among the coy hens.
+
+But look at him now; there he stands, moping all the day long on that
+everlasting one leg of his. He turns with disgust from the mouldy corn
+before him, and the brackish water in his little trough. He mourns no
+doubt his lost companions, literally snatched from him one by one, and
+never seen again. But his days of mourning will be few for Mungo, our
+black cook, told me yesterday that the word had at last gone forth, and
+poor Pedro’s fate was sealed. His attenuated body will be laid out upon
+the captain’s table next Sunday, and long before night will be buried
+with all the usual ceremonies beneath that worthy individual’s vest. Who
+would believe that there could be any one so cruel as to long for the
+decapitation of the luckless Pedro; yet the sailors pray every minute,
+selfish fellows, that the miserable fowl may be brought to his end. They
+say the captain will never point the ship for the land so long as he
+has in anticipation a mess of fresh meat. This unhappy bird can alone
+furnish it; and when he is once devoured, the captain will come to his
+senses. I wish thee no harm, Pedro; but as thou art doomed, sooner or
+later, to meet the fate of all thy race; and if putting a period to
+thy existence is to be the signal for our deliverance, why--truth to
+speak--I wish thy throat cut this very moment; for, oh! how I wish to
+see the living earth again! The old ship herself longs to look out upon
+the land from her hawse-holes once more, and Jack Lewis said right the
+other day when the captain found fault with his steering.
+
+‘Why d’ye see, Captain Vangs,’ says bold Jack, ‘I’m as good a helmsman
+as ever put hand to spoke; but none of us can steer the old lady now. We
+can’t keep her full and bye, sir; watch her ever so close, she will fall
+off and then, sir, when I put the helm down so gently, and try like to
+coax her to the work, she won’t take it kindly, but will fall round off
+again; and it’s all because she knows the land is under the lee, sir,
+and she won’t go any more to windward.’ Aye, and why should she, Jack?
+didn’t every one of her stout timbers grow on shore, and hasn’t she
+sensibilities; as well as we?
+
+Poor old ship! Her very looks denote her desires! how deplorably she
+appears! The paint on her sides, burnt up by the scorching sun, is
+puffed out and cracked. See the weeds she trails along with her, and
+what an unsightly bunch of those horrid barnacles has formed about her
+stern-piece; and every time she rises on a sea, she shows her copper
+torn away, or hanging in jagged strips.
+
+Poor old ship! I say again: for six months she has been rolling and
+pitching about, never for one moment at rest. But courage, old lass, I
+hope to see thee soon within a biscuit’s toss of the merry land, riding
+snugly at anchor in some green cove, and sheltered from the boisterous
+winds.
+
+        . . . . . .
+
+‘Hurra, my lads! It’s a settled thing; next week we shape our course to
+the Marquesas!’ The Marquesas! What strange visions of outlandish things
+does the very name spirit up! Naked houris--cannibal banquets--groves
+of cocoanut--coral reefs--tattooed chiefs--and bamboo temples; sunny
+valleys planted with bread-fruit-trees--carved canoes dancing on
+the flashing blue waters--savage woodlands guarded by horrible
+idols--HEATHENISH RITES AND HUMAN SACRIFICES.
+
+Such were the strangely jumbled anticipations that haunted me during our
+passage from the cruising ground. I felt an irresistible curiosity to
+see those islands which the olden voyagers had so glowingly described.
+
+The group for which we were now steering (although among the earliest of
+European discoveries in the South Seas, having been first visited in
+the year 1595) still continues to be tenanted by beings as strange
+and barbarous as ever. The missionaries sent on a heavenly errand, had
+sailed by their lovely shores, and had abandoned them to their idols of
+wood and stone. How interesting the circumstances under which they were
+discovered! In the watery path of Mendanna, cruising in quest of some
+region of gold, these isles had sprung up like a scene of enchantment,
+and for a moment the Spaniard believed his bright dream was realized.
+
+In honour of the Marquess de Mendoza, then viceroy of Peru--under whose
+auspices the navigator sailed--he bestowed upon them the name which
+denoted the rank of his patron, and gave to the world on his return
+a vague and magnificent account of their beauty. But these islands,
+undisturbed for years, relapsed into their previous obscurity; and it is
+only recently that anything has been known concerning them. Once in the
+course of a half century, to be sure, some adventurous rover would break
+in upon their peaceful repose, and astonished at the unusual scene,
+would be almost tempted to claim the merit of a new discovery.
+
+Of this interesting group, but little account has ever been given, if
+we except the slight mention made of them in the sketches of South-Sea
+voyages. Cook, in his repeated circumnavigations of the globe, barely
+touched at their shores; and all that we know about them is from a few
+general narratives.
+
+Among these, there are two that claim particular notice. Porter’s
+‘Journal of the Cruise of the U.S. frigate Essex, in the Pacific,
+during the late War’, is said to contain some interesting particulars
+concerning the islanders. This is a work, however, which I have never
+happened to meet with; and Stewart, the chaplain of the American sloop
+of war Vincennes, has likewise devoted a portion of his book, entitled
+‘A Visit to the South Seas’, to the same subject.
+
+Within the last few, years American and English vessels engaged in the
+extensive whale fisheries of the Pacific have occasionally, when short
+of provisions, put into the commodious harbour which there is in one of
+the islands; but a fear of the natives, founded on the recollection of
+the dreadful fate which many white men have received at their hands, has
+deterred their crews from intermixing with the population sufficiently
+to gain any insight into their peculiar customs and manners.
+
+The Protestant Missions appear to have despaired of reclaiming these
+islands from heathenism. The usage they have in every case received from
+the natives has been such as to intimidate the boldest of their number.
+Ellis, in his ‘Polynesian Researches’, gives some interesting accounts
+of the abortive attempts made by the ‘’Tahiti Mission’’ to establish a
+branch Mission upon certain islands of the group. A short time before
+my visit to the Marquesas, a somewhat amusing incident took place in
+connection with these efforts, which I cannot avoid relating.
+
+An intrepid missionary, undaunted by the ill-success that had attended
+all previous endeavours to conciliate the savages, and believing much
+in the efficacy of female influence, introduced among them his young and
+beautiful wife, the first white woman who had ever visited their shores.
+The islanders at first gazed in mute admiration at so unusual a prodigy,
+and seemed inclined to regard it as some new divinity. But after a short
+time, becoming familiar with its charming aspect, and jealous of the
+folds which encircled its form, they sought to pierce the sacred veil
+of calico in which it was enshrined, and in the gratification of their
+curiosity so far overstepped the limits of good breeding, as deeply
+to offend the lady’s sense of decorum. Her sex once ascertained, their
+idolatry was changed into contempt and there was no end to the contumely
+showered upon her by the savages, who were exasperated at the deception
+which they conceived had been practised upon them. To the horror of
+her affectionate spouse, she was stripped of her garments, and given to
+understand that she could no longer carry on her deceits with impunity.
+The gentle dame was not sufficiently evangelical to endure this, and,
+fearful of further improprieties, she forced her husband to relinquish
+his undertaking, and together they returned to Tahiti.
+
+Not thus shy of exhibiting her charms was the Island Queen herself, the
+beauteous wife of Movianna, the king of Nukuheva. Between two and three
+years after the adventures recorded in this volume, I chanced, while
+aboard of a man-of-war to touch at these islands. The French had
+then held possession of the Marquesas some time, and already prided
+themselves upon the beneficial effects of their jurisdiction, as
+discernible in the deportment of the natives. To be sure, in one of
+their efforts at reform they had slaughtered about a hundred and fifty
+of them at Whitihoo--but let that pass. At the time I mention, the
+French squadron was rendezvousing in the bay of Nukuheva, and during an
+interview between one of their captains and our worthy Commodore, it
+was suggested by the former, that we, as the flag-ship of the American
+squadron, should receive, in state, a visit from the royal pair. The
+French officer likewise represented, with evident satisfaction, that
+under their tuition the king and queen had imbibed proper notions of
+their elevated station, and on all ceremonious occasions conducted
+themselves with suitable dignity. Accordingly, preparations were made to
+give their majesties a reception on board in a style corresponding with
+their rank.
+
+One bright afternoon, a gig, gaily bedizened with streamers, was
+observed to shove off from the side of one of the French frigates, and
+pull directly for our gangway. In the stern sheets reclined Mowanna and
+his consort. As they approached, we paid them all the honours due to
+royalty;--manning our yards, firing a salute, and making a prodigious
+hubbub.
+
+They ascended the accommodation ladder, were greeted by the Commodore,
+hat in hand, and passing along the quarter-deck, the marine guard
+presented arms, while the band struck up ‘The King of the Cannibal
+Islands’. So far all went well. The French officers grimaced and smiled
+in exceedingly high spirits, wonderfully pleased with the discreet
+manner in which these distinguished personages behaved themselves.
+
+Their appearance was certainly calculated to produce an effect. His
+majesty was arrayed in a magnificent military uniform, stiff with gold
+lace and embroidery, while his shaven crown was concealed by a huge
+chapeau bras, waving with ostrich plumes. There was one slight blemish,
+however, in his appearance. A broad patch of tattooing stretched
+completely across his face, in a line with his eyes, making him look as
+if he wore a huge pair of goggles; and royalty in goggles suggested some
+ludicrous ideas. But it was in the adornment of the fair person of his
+dark-complexioned spouse that the tailors of the fleet had evinced the
+gaiety of their national taste. She was habited in a gaudy tissue of
+scarlet cloth, trimmed with yellow silk, which, descending a little
+below the knees, exposed to view her bare legs, embellished with spiral
+tattooing, and somewhat resembling two miniature Trajan’s columns. Upon
+her head was a fanciful turban of purple velvet, figured with silver
+sprigs, and surmounted by a tuft of variegated feathers.
+
+The ship’s company, crowding into the gangway to view the sight, soon
+arrested her majesty’s attention. She singled out from their number an
+old salt, whose bare arms and feet, and exposed breast, were covered
+with as many inscriptions in India ink as the lid of an Egyptian
+sarcophagus. Notwithstanding all the sly hints and remonstrances of the
+French officers, she immediately approached the man, and pulling further
+open the bosom of his duck frock, and rolling up the leg of his wide
+trousers, she gazed with admiration at the bright blue and vermilion
+pricking thus disclosed to view. She hung over the fellow, caressing
+him, and expressing her delight in a variety of wild exclamations and
+gestures. The embarrassment of the polite Gauls at such an unlooked-for
+occurrence may be easily imagined, but picture their consternation, when
+all at once the royal lady, eager to display the hieroglyphics on her
+own sweet form, bent forward for a moment, and turning sharply round,
+threw up the skirt of her mantle and revealed a sight from which the
+aghast Frenchmen retreated precipitately, and tumbling into their boats,
+fled the scene of so shocking a catastrophe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+PASSAGE FROM THE CRUISING GROUND TO THE MARQUESAS--SLEEPY TIMES ABOARD
+SHIP--SOUTH SEA SCENERY--LAND HO--THE FRENCH SQUADRON DISCOVERED AT
+ANCHOR IN THE BAY OF NUKUHEVA--STRANGE PILOT--ESCORT OF CANOES--A
+FLOTILLA OF COCOANUTS--SWIMMING VISITORS--THE DOLLY BOARDED BY
+THEM--STATE OF AFFAIRS THAT ENSUE
+
+
+I can never forget the eighteen or twenty days during which the light
+trade-winds were silently sweeping us towards the islands. In pursuit of
+the sperm whale, we had been cruising on the line some twenty degrees
+to the westward of the Gallipagos; and all that we had to do, when our
+course was determined on, was to square in the yards and keep the vessel
+before the breeze, and then the good ship and the steady gale did the
+rest between them. The man at the wheel never vexed the old lady with
+any superfluous steering, but comfortably adjusting his limbs at the
+tiller, would doze away by the hour. True to her work, the Dolly headed
+to her course, and like one of those characters who always do best when
+let alone, she jogged on her way like a veteran old sea-pacer as she
+was.
+
+What a delightful, lazy, languid time we had whilst we were thus gliding
+along! There was nothing to be done; a circumstance that happily
+suited our disinclination to do anything. We abandoned the fore-peak
+altogether, and spreading an awning over the forecastle, slept, ate,
+and lounged under it the live-long day. Every one seemed to be under the
+influence of some narcotic. Even the officers aft, whose duty required
+them never to be seated while keeping a deck watch, vainly endeavoured
+to keep on their pins; and were obliged invariably to compromise the
+matter by leaning up against the bulwarks, and gazing abstractedly over
+the side. Reading was out of the question; take a book in your hand, and
+you were asleep in an instant.
+
+Although I could not avoid yielding in a great measure to the general
+languor, still at times I contrived to shake off the spell, and to
+appreciate the beauty of the scene around me. The sky presented a
+clear expanse of the most delicate blue, except along the skirts of the
+horizon, where you might see a thin drapery of pale clouds which never
+varied their form or colour. The long, measured, dirge-like well of
+the Pacific came rolling along, with its surface broken by little tiny
+waves, sparkling in the sunshine. Every now and then a shoal of flying
+fish, scared from the water under the bows, would leap into the air,
+and fall the next moment like a shower of silver into the sea. Then you
+would see the superb albicore, with his glittering sides, sailing aloft,
+and often describing an arc in his descent, disappear on the surface of
+the water. Far off, the lofty jet of the whale might be seen, and nearer
+at hand the prowling shark, that villainous footpad of the seas, would
+come skulking along, and, at a wary distance, regard us with his evil
+eye. At times, some shapeless monster of the deep, floating on the
+surface, would, as we approached, sink slowly into the blue waters, and
+fade away from the sight. But the most impressive feature of the
+scene was the almost unbroken silence that reigned over sky and water.
+Scarcely a sound could be heard but the occasional breathing of the
+grampus, and the rippling at the cut-water.
+
+As we drew nearer the land, I hailed with delight the appearance of
+innumerable sea-fowl. Screaming and whirling in spiral tracks, they
+would accompany the vessel, and at times alight on our yards and
+stays. That piratical-looking fellow, appropriately named the
+man-of-war’s-hawk, with his blood-red bill and raven plumage, would
+come sweeping round us in gradually diminishing circles, till you
+could distinctly mark the strange flashings of his eye; and then, as if
+satisfied with his observation, would sail up into the air and disappear
+from the view. Soon, other evidences of our vicinity to the land were
+apparent, and it was not long before the glad announcement of its being
+in sight was heard from aloft,--given with that peculiar prolongation of
+sound that a sailor loves--‘Land ho!’
+
+The captain, darting on deck from the cabin, bawled lustily for his
+spy-glass; the mate in still louder accents hailed the masthead with a
+tremendous ‘where-away?’ The black cook thrust his woolly head from the
+galley, and Boatswain, the dog, leaped up between the knight-heads, and
+barked most furiously. Land ho! Aye, there it was. A hardly perceptible
+blue irregular outline, indicating the bold contour of the lofty heights
+of Nukuheva.
+
+This island, although generally called one of the Marquesas, is by some
+navigators considered as forming one of a distinct cluster, comprising
+the islands of Ruhooka, Ropo, and Nukuheva; upon which three the
+appellation of the Washington Group has been bestowed. They form a
+triangle, and lie within the parallels of 8° 38″ and 9° 32″ South
+latitude and 139° 20′ and 140° 10′ West longitude from Greenwich. With
+how little propriety they are to be regarded as forming a separate
+group will be at once apparent, when it is considered that they lie in
+the immediate vicinity of the other islands, that is to say, less than
+a degree to the northwest of them; that their inhabitants speak the
+Marquesan dialect, and that their laws, religion, and general customs
+are identical. The only reason why they were ever thus arbitrarily
+distinguished may be attributed to the singular fact, that their
+existence was altogether unknown to the world until the year 1791, when
+they were discovered by Captain Ingraham, of Boston, Massachusetts,
+nearly two centuries after the discovery of the adjacent islands by the
+agent of the Spanish Viceroy. Notwithstanding this, I shall follow the
+example of most voyagers, and treat of them as forming part and parcel
+of Marquesas.
+
+Nukuheva is the most important of these islands, being the only one
+at which ships are much in the habit of touching, and is celebrated as
+being the place where the adventurous Captain Porter refitted his ships
+during the late war between England and the United States, and whence he
+sallied out upon the large whaling fleet then sailing under the enemy’s
+flag in the surrounding seas. This island is about twenty miles in
+length and nearly as many in breadth. It has three good harbours on its
+coast; the largest and best of which is called by the people living
+in its vicinity ‘Taiohae’, and by Captain Porter was denominated
+Massachusetts Bay. Among the adverse tribes dwelling about the shores of
+the other bays, and by all voyagers, it is generally known by the name
+bestowed upon the island itself--Nukuheva. Its inhabitants have become
+somewhat corrupted, owing to their recent commerce with Europeans, but
+so far as regards their peculiar customs and general mode of life, they
+retain their original primitive character, remaining very nearly in the
+same state of nature in which they were first beheld by white men. The
+hostile clans, residing in the more remote sections of the island, and
+very seldom holding any communication with foreigners, are in every
+respect unchanged from their earliest known condition.
+
+In the bay of Nukuheva was the anchorage we desired to reach. We had
+perceived the loom of the mountains about sunset; so that after running
+all night with a very light breeze, we found ourselves close in with
+the island the next morning, but as the bay we sought lay on its farther
+side, we were obliged to sail some distance along the shore, catching,
+as we proceeded, short glimpses of blooming valleys, deep glens,
+waterfalls, and waving groves hidden here and there by projecting and
+rocky headlands, every moment opening to the view some new and startling
+scene of beauty.
+
+Those who for the first time visit the South Sea, generally are
+surprised at the appearance of the islands when beheld from the sea.
+From the vague accounts we sometimes have of their beauty, many people
+are apt to picture to themselves enamelled and softly swelling plains,
+shaded over with delicious groves, and watered by purling brooks, and
+the entire country but little elevated above the surrounding ocean. The
+reality is very different; bold rock-bound coasts, with the surf beating
+high against the lofty cliffs, and broken here and there into deep
+inlets, which open to the view thickly-wooded valleys, separated by the
+spurs of mountains clothed with tufted grass, and sweeping down towards
+the sea from an elevated and furrowed interior, form the principal
+features of these islands.
+
+Towards noon we drew abreast the entrance go the harbour, and at last
+we slowly swept by the intervening promontory, and entered the bay of
+Nukuheva. No description can do justice to its beauty; but that beauty
+was lost to me then, and I saw nothing but the tri-coloured flag of
+France trailing over the stern of six vessels, whose black hulls and
+bristling broadsides proclaimed their warlike character. There they
+were, floating in that lovely bay, the green eminences of the shore
+looking down so tranquilly upon them, as if rebuking the sternness of
+their aspect. To my eye nothing could be more out of keeping than the
+presence of these vessels; but we soon learnt what brought them
+there. The whole group of islands had just been taken possession of
+by Rear-Admiral Du Petit Thouars, in the name of the invincible French
+nation.
+
+This item of information was imparted to us by a most extraordinary
+individual, a genuine South-Sea vagabond, who came alongside of us in
+a whale-boat as soon as we entered the bay, and, by the aid of some
+benevolent persons at the gangway, was assisted on board, for our
+visitor was in that interesting stage of intoxication when a man is
+amiable and helpless. Although he was utterly unable to stand erect or
+to navigate his body across the deck, he still magnanimously proffered
+his services to pilot the ship to a good and secure anchorage. Our
+captain, however, rather distrusted his ability in this respect, and
+refused to recognize his claim to the character he assumed; but
+our gentleman was determined to play his part, for, by dint of much
+scrambling, he succeeded in getting into the weather-quarter boat,
+where he steadied himself by holding on to a shroud, and then commenced
+issuing his commands with amazing volubility and very peculiar gestures.
+Of course no one obeyed his orders; but as it was impossible to quiet
+him, we swept by the ships of the squadron with this strange fellow
+performing his antics in full view of all the French officers.
+
+We afterwards learned that our eccentric friend had been a lieutenant in
+the English navy; but having disgraced his flag by some criminal conduct
+in one of the principal ports on the main, he had deserted his ship,
+and spent many years wandering among the islands of the Pacific, until
+accidentally being at Nukuheva when the French took possession of
+the place, he had been appointed pilot of the harbour by the newly
+constituted authorities.
+
+As we slowly advanced up the bay, numerous canoes pushed off from the
+surrounding shores, and we were soon in the midst of quite a flotilla
+of them, their savage occupants struggling to get aboard of us, and
+jostling one another in their ineffectual attempts. Occasionally the
+projecting out-riggers of their slight shallops running foul of one
+another, would become entangled beneath the water, threatening to
+capsize the canoes, when a scene of confusion would ensue that baffles
+description. Such strange outcries and passionate gesticulations I never
+certainly heard or saw before. You would have thought the islanders were
+on the point of flying at each other’s throats, whereas they were only
+amicably engaged in disentangling their boats.
+
+Scattered here and there among the canoes might be seen numbers of
+cocoanuts floating closely together in circular groups, and bobbing up
+and down with every wave. By some inexplicable means these cocoanuts
+were all steadily approaching towards the ship. As I leaned curiously
+over the side, endeavouring to solve their mysterious movements, one
+mass far in advance of the rest attracted my attention. In its centre
+was something I could take for nothing else than a cocoanut, but which
+I certainly considered one of the most extraordinary specimens of the
+fruit I had ever seen. It kept twirling and dancing about among the rest
+in the most singular manner, and as it drew nearer I thought it bore a
+remarkable resemblance to the brown shaven skull of one of the savages.
+Presently it betrayed a pair of eyes, and soon I became aware that what
+I had supposed to have been one of the fruit was nothing else than the
+head of an islander, who had adopted this singular method of bringing
+his produce to market. The cocoanuts were all attached to one another
+by strips of the husk, partly torn from the shell and rudely fastened
+together. Their proprietor inserting his head into the midst of them,
+impelled his necklace of cocoanuts through the water by striking out
+beneath the surface with his feet.
+
+I was somewhat astonished to perceive that among the number of natives
+that surrounded us, not a single female was to be seen. At that time I
+was ignorant of the fact that by the operation of the ‘taboo’ the use of
+canoes in all parts of the island is rigorously prohibited to the entire
+sex, for whom it is death even to be seen entering one when hauled on
+shore; consequently, whenever a Marquesan lady voyages by water, she
+puts in requisition the paddles of her own fair body.
+
+We had approached within a mile and a half perhaps of this foot of
+the bay, when some of the islanders, who by this time had managed to
+scramble aboard of us at the risk of swamping their canoes, directed our
+attention to a singular commotion in the water ahead of the vessel. At
+first I imagined it to be produced by a shoal of fish sporting on the
+surface, but our savage friends assured us that it was caused by a shoal
+of ‘whinhenies’ (young girls), who in this manner were coming off from
+the shore to welcome is. As they drew nearer, and I watched the rising
+and sinking of their forms, and beheld the uplifted right arm bearing
+above the water the girdle of tappa, and their long dark hair trailing
+beside them as they swam, I almost fancied they could be nothing else
+than so many mermaids--and very like mermaids they behaved too.
+
+We were still some distance from the beach, and under slow headway,
+when we sailed right into the midst of these swimming nymphs, and they
+boarded us at every quarter; many seizing hold of the chain-plates and
+springing into the chains; others, at the peril of being run over by
+the vessel in her course, catching at the bob-stays, and wreathing their
+slender forms about the ropes, hung suspended in the air. All of them
+at length succeeded in getting up the ship’s side, where they clung
+dripping with the brine and glowing from the bath, their jet-black
+tresses streaming over their shoulders, and half enveloping their
+otherwise naked forms. There they hung, sparkling with savage vivacity,
+laughing gaily at one another, and chattering away with infinite glee.
+Nor were they idle the while, for each one performed the simple offices
+of the toilette for the other. Their luxuriant locks, wound up and
+twisted into the smallest possible compass, were freed from the briny
+element; the whole person carefully dried, and from a little round
+shell that passed from hand to hand, anointed with a fragrant oil: their
+adornments were completed by passing a few loose folds of white tappa,
+in a modest cincture, around the waist. Thus arrayed they no longer
+hesitated, but flung themselves lightly over the bulwarks, and were
+quickly frolicking about the decks. Many of them went forward, perching
+upon the headrails or running out upon the bowsprit, while others seated
+themselves upon the taffrail, or reclined at full length upon the boats.
+What a sight for us bachelor sailors! How avoid so dire a temptation?
+For who could think of tumbling these artless creatures overboard, when
+they had swum miles to welcome us?
+
+Their appearance perfectly amazed me; their extreme youth, the
+light clear brown of their complexions, their delicate features, and
+inexpressibly graceful figures, their softly moulded limbs, and free
+unstudied action, seemed as strange as beautiful.
+
+The Dolly was fairly captured; and never I will say was vessel carried
+before by such a dashing and irresistible party of boarders! The ship
+taken, we could not do otherwise than yield ourselves prisoners, and for
+the whole period that she remained in the bay, the Dolly, as well as her
+crew, were completely in the hands of the mermaids.
+
+In the evening after we had come to an anchor the deck was illuminated
+with lanterns, and this picturesque band of sylphs, tricked out with
+flowers, and dressed in robes of variegated tappa, got up a ball in
+great style. These females are passionately fond of dancing, and in the
+wild grace and spirit of the style excel everything I have ever seen.
+The varied dances of the Marquesan girls are beautiful in the extreme,
+but there is an abandoned voluptuousness in their character which I dare
+not attempt to describe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LATE OPERATIONS OF THE FRENCH AT THE
+MARQUESAS--PRUDENT CONDUCT OF THE ADMIRAL--SENSATION PRODUCED BY
+THE ARRIVAL OF THE STRANGERS--THE FIRST HORSE SEEN BY THE
+ISLANDERS--REFLECTIONS--MISERABLE SUBTERFUGE OF THE FRENCH--DIGRESSION
+CONCERNING TAHITI--SEIZURE OF THE ISLAND BY THE ADMIRAL--SPIRITED
+CONDUCT OF AN ENGLISH LADY
+
+
+It was in the summer of 1842 that we arrived at the islands; the French
+had then held possession of them for several weeks. During this time
+they had visited some of the principal places in the group, and had
+disembarked at various points about five hundred troops. These were
+employed in constructing works of defence, and otherwise providing
+against the attacks of the natives, who at any moment might be expected
+to break out in open hostility. The islanders looked upon the people who
+made this cavalier appropriation of their shores with mingled feelings
+of fear and detestation. They cordially hated them; but the impulses
+of their resentment were neutralized by their dread of the floating
+batteries, which lay with their fatal tubes ostentatiously pointed,
+not at fortifications and redoubts, but at a handful of bamboo sheds,
+sheltered in a grove of cocoanuts! A valiant warrior doubtless, but
+a prudent one too, was this same Rear-Admiral Du Petit Thouars. Four
+heavy, doublebanked frigates and three corvettes to frighten a parcel of
+naked heathen into subjection! Sixty-eight pounders to demolish huts of
+cocoanut boughs, and Congreve rockets to set on fire a few canoe sheds!
+
+At Nukuheva, there were about one hundred soldiers ashore. They were
+encamped in tents, constructed of the old sails and spare spars of
+the squadron, within the limits of a redoubt mounted with a few
+nine-pounders, and surrounded with a fosse. Every other day, these
+troops were marched out in martial array, to a level piece of ground
+in the vicinity, and there for hours went through all sorts of military
+evolutions, surrounded by flocks of the natives, who looked on with
+savage admiration at the show, and as savage a hatred of the actors.
+A regiment of the Old Guard, reviewed on a summer’s day in the Champs
+Elysees, could not have made a more critically correct appearance. The
+officers’ regimentals, resplendent with gold lace and embroidery as if
+purposely calculated to dazzle the islanders, looked as if just unpacked
+from their Parisian cases.
+
+The sensation produced by the presence of the strangers had not in the
+least subsided at the period of our arrival at the islands. The natives
+still flocked in numbers about the encampment, and watched with the
+liveliest curiosity everything that was going forward. A blacksmith’s
+forge, which had been set up in the shelter of a grove near the beach,
+attracted so great a crowd, that it required the utmost efforts of the
+sentries posted around to keep the inquisitive multitude at a sufficient
+distance to allow the workmen to ply their vocation. But nothing gained
+so large a share of admiration as a horse, which had been brought from
+Valparaiso by the Achille, one of the vessels of the squadron. The
+animal, a remarkably fine one, had been taken ashore, and stabled in a
+hut of cocoanut boughs within the fortified enclosure. Occasionally it
+was brought out, and, being gaily caparisoned, was ridden by one of the
+officers at full speed over the hard sand beach. This performance was
+sure to be hailed with loud plaudits, and the ‘puarkee nuee’ (big hog)
+was unanimously pronounced by the islanders to be the most extraordinary
+specimen of zoology that had ever come under their observation.
+
+The expedition for the occupation of the Marquesas had sailed from Brest
+in the spring of 1842, and the secret of its destination was solely in
+the possession of its commander. No wonder that those who contemplated
+such a signal infraction of the rights of humanity should have sought to
+veil the enormity from the eyes of the world. And yet, notwithstanding
+their iniquitous conduct in this and in other matters, the French
+have ever plumed themselves upon being the most humane and polished of
+nations. A high degree of refinement, however, does not seem to subdue
+our wicked propensities so much after all; and were civilization itself
+to be estimated by some of its results, it would seem perhaps better for
+what we call the barbarous part of the world to remain unchanged.
+
+One example of the shameless subterfuges under which the French stand
+prepared to defend whatever cruelties they may hereafter think fit to
+commit in bringing the Marquesan natives into subjection is well worthy
+of being recorded. On some flimsy pretext or other Mowanna, the king of
+Nukuheva, whom the invaders by extravagant presents had cajoled over to
+their interests, and moved about like a mere puppet, has been set up
+as the rightful sovereign of the entire island--the alleged ruler by
+prescription of various clans, who for ages perhaps have treated with
+each other as separate nations. To reinstate this much-injured prince in
+the assumed dignities of his ancestors, the disinterested strangers have
+come all the way from France: they are determined that his title shall
+be acknowledged. If any tribe shall refuse to recognize the authority
+of the French, by bowing down to the laced chapeau of Mowanna, let them
+abide the consequences of their obstinacy. Under cover of a similar
+pretence, have the outrages and massacres at Tahiti the beautiful, the
+queen of the South Seas, been perpetrated.
+
+On this buccaneering expedition, Rear Admiral Du Petit Thouars, leaving
+the rest of his squadron at the Marquesas,--which had then been occupied
+by his forces about five months--set sail for the doomed island in
+the Reine Blanche frigate. On his arrival, as an indemnity for alleged
+insults offered to the flag of his country, he demanded some twenty
+or thirty thousand dollars to be placed in his hands forthwith, and in
+default of payment, threatened to land and take possession of the place.
+
+The frigate, immediately upon coming to an anchor, got springs on her
+cables, and with her guns cast loose and her men at their quarters, lay
+in the circular basin of Papeete, with her broadside bearing upon the
+devoted town; while her numerous cutters, hauled in order alongside,
+were ready to effect a landing, under cover of her batteries. She
+maintained this belligerent attitude for several days, during which time
+a series of informal negotiations were pending, and wide alarm spread
+over the island. Many of the Tahitians were at first disposed to resort
+to arms, and drive the invaders from their shores; but more pacific and
+feebler counsels ultimately prevailed. The unfortunate queen Pomare,
+incapable of averting the impending calamity, terrified at the arrogance
+of the insolent Frenchman, and driven at last to despair, fled by night
+in a canoe to Emio.
+
+During the continuance of the panic there occurred an instance of
+feminine heroism that I cannot omit to record.
+
+In the grounds of the famous missionary consul, Pritchard, then absent
+in London, the consular flag of Britain waved as usual during the day,
+from a lofty staff planted within a few yards of the beach, and in full
+view of the frigate. One morning an officer, at the head of a party
+of men, presented himself at the verandah of Mr Pritchard’s house, and
+inquired in broken English for the lady his wife. The matron soon made
+her appearance; and the polite Frenchman, making one of his best bows,
+and playing gracefully with the aiguillettes that danced upon his
+breast, proceeded in courteous accents to deliver his mission. ‘The
+admiral desired the flag to be hauled down--hoped it would be perfectly
+agreeable--and his men stood ready to perform the duty.’ ‘Tell the
+Pirate your master,’ replied the spirited Englishwoman, pointing to
+the staff, ‘that if he wishes to strike these colours, he must come and
+perform the act himself; I will suffer no one else to do it.’ The lady
+then bowed haughtily and withdrew into the house. As the discomfited
+officer slowly walked away, he looked up to the flag, and perceived that
+the cord by which it was elevated to its place, led from the top of the
+staff, across the lawn, to an open upper window of the mansion, where
+sat the lady from whom he had just parted, tranquilly engaged in
+knitting. Was that flag hauled down? Mrs Pritchard thinks not; and
+Rear-Admiral Du Petit Thouars is believed to be of the same opinion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+STATE OF AFFAIRS ABOARD THE SHIP--CONTENTS OF HER LARDER--LENGTH OF
+SOUTH SEAMEN’S VOYAGES--ACCOUNT OF A FLYING WHALE-MAN--DETERMINATION
+TO LEAVE THE VESSEL--THE BAY OF NUKUHEVA--THE TYPEES--INVASION OF THEIR
+VALLEY BY PORTER--REFLECTIONS--GLEN OF TIOR--INTERVIEW BETWEEN THE OLD
+KING AND THE FRENCH ADMIRAL
+
+
+Our ship had not been many days in the harbour of Nukuheva before I came
+to the determination of leaving her. That my reasons for resolving to
+take this step were numerous and weighty, may be inferred from the fact
+that I chose rather to risk my fortunes among the savages of the island
+than to endure another voyage on board the Dolly. To use the concise,
+pointblank phrase of the sailors. I had made up my mind to ‘run away’.
+Now as a meaning is generally attached to these two words no way
+flattering to the individual to whom they are applied, it behoves
+me, for the sake of my own character, to offer some explanation of my
+conduct.
+
+When I entered on board the Dolly, I signed as a matter of course the
+ship’s articles, thereby voluntarily engaging and legally binding
+myself to serve in a certain capacity for the period of the voyage;
+and, special considerations apart, I was of course bound to fulfill the
+agreement. But in all contracts, if one party fail to perform his share
+of the compact, is not the other virtually absolved from his liability?
+Who is there who will not answer in the affirmative?
+
+Having settled the principle, then, let me apply it to the particular
+case in question. In numberless instances had not only the implied but
+the specified conditions of the articles been violated on the part of
+the ship in which I served. The usage on board of her was tyrannical;
+the sick had been inhumanly neglected; the provisions had been doled out
+in scanty allowance; and her cruises were unreasonably protracted. The
+captain was the author of the abuses; it was in vain to think that he
+would either remedy them, or alter his conduct, which was arbitrary
+and violent in the extreme. His prompt reply to all complaints and
+remonstrances was--the butt-end of a handspike, so convincingly
+administered as effectually to silence the aggrieved party.
+
+To whom could we apply for redress? We had left both law and equity
+on the other side of the Cape; and unfortunately, with a very few
+exceptions, our crew was composed of a parcel of dastardly and
+meanspirited wretches, divided among themselves, and only united in
+enduring without resistance the unmitigated tyranny of the captain.
+It would have been mere madness for any two or three of the number,
+unassisted by the rest, to attempt making a stand against his ill
+usage. They would only have called down upon themselves the particular
+vengeance of this ‘Lord of the Plank’, and subjected their shipmates to
+additional hardships.
+
+But, after all, these things could have been endured awhile, had we
+entertained the hope of being speedily delivered from them by the due
+completion of the term of our servitude. But what a dismal prospect
+awaited us in this quarter! The longevity of Cape Horn whaling voyages
+is proverbial, frequently extending over a period of four or five years.
+
+Some long-haired, bare-necked youths, who, forced by the united
+influences of Captain Marryatt and hard times, embark at Nantucket for
+a pleasure excursion to the Pacific, and whose anxious mothers provide
+them, with bottled milk for the occasion, oftentimes return very
+respectable middle-aged gentlemen.
+
+The very preparations made for one of these expeditions are enough to
+frighten one. As the vessel carries out no cargo, her hold is filled
+with provisions for her own consumption. The owners, who officiate
+as caterers for the voyage, supply the larder with an abundance
+of dainties. Delicate morsels of beef and pork, cut on scientific
+principles from every part of the animal, and of all conceivable shapes
+and sizes, are carefully packed in salt, and stored away in barrels;
+affording a never-ending variety in their different degrees of
+toughness, and in the peculiarities of their saline properties. Choice
+old water too, decanted into stout six-barrel-casks, and two pints of
+which is allowed every day to each soul on board; together with ample
+store of sea-bread, previously reduced to a state of petrifaction, with
+a view to preserve it either from decay or consumption in the ordinary
+mode, are likewise provided for the nourishment and gastronomic
+enjoyment of the crew.
+
+But not to speak of the quality of these articles of sailors’ fare,
+the abundance in which they are put onboard a whaling vessel is almost
+incredible. Oftentimes, when we had occasion to break out in the hold,
+and I beheld the successive tiers of casks and barrels, whose contents
+were all destined to be consumed in due course by the ship’s company, my
+heart has sunk within me.
+
+Although, as a general case, a ship unlucky in falling in with
+whales continues to cruise after them until she has barely sufficient
+provisions remaining to take her home, turning round then quietly and
+making the best of her way to her friends, yet there are instances when
+even this natural obstacle to the further prosecution of the voyage
+is overcome by headstrong captains, who, bartering the fruits of their
+hard-earned toils for a new supply of provisions in some of the ports
+of Chili or Peru, begin the voyage afresh with unabated zeal and
+perseverance. It is in vain that the owners write urgent letters to him
+to sail for home, and for their sake to bring back the ship, since it
+appears he can put nothing in her. Not he. He has registered a vow: he
+will fill his vessel with good sperm oil, or failing to do so, never
+again strike Yankee soundings.
+
+I heard of one whaler, which after many years’ absence was given up for
+lost. The last that had been heard of her was a shadowy report of her
+having touched at some of those unstable islands in the far Pacific,
+whose eccentric wanderings are carefully noted in each new edition
+of the South-Sea charts. After a long interval, however, ‘The
+Perseverance’--for that was her name--was spoken somewhere in the
+vicinity of the ends of the earth, cruising along as leisurely as ever,
+her sails all bepatched and be quilted with rope-yarns, her spars fished
+with old pipe staves, and her rigging knotted and spliced in every
+possible direction. Her crew was composed of some twenty venerable
+Greenwich-pensioner-looking old salts, who just managed to hobble about
+deck. The ends of all the running ropes, with the exception of the
+signal halyards and poop-down-haul, were rove through snatch-blocks, and
+led to the capstan or windlass, so that not a yard was braced or a sail
+set without the assistance of machinery.
+
+Her hull was encrusted with barnacles, which completely encased her.
+Three pet sharks followed in her wake, and every day came alongside to
+regale themselves from the contents of the cook’s bucket, which were
+pitched over to them. A vast shoal of bonetas and albicores always kept
+her company.
+
+Such was the account I heard of this vessel and the remembrance of it
+always haunted me; what eventually became of her I never learned; at
+any rate: he never reached home, and I suppose she is still regularly
+tacking twice in the twenty-four hours somewhere off Desolate Island, or
+the Devil’s-Tail Peak.
+
+Having said thus much touching the usual length of these voyages, when I
+inform the reader that ours had as it were just commenced, we being only
+fifteen months out, and even at that time hailed as a late arrival and
+boarded for news, he will readily perceive that there was little to
+encourage one in looking forward to the future, especially as I had
+always had a presentiment that we should make an unfortunate voyage, and
+our experience so far had justified the expectation.
+
+I may here state, and on my faith as an honest man, that though more
+than three years have elapsed since I left this same identical vessel,
+she still continues; in the Pacific, and but a few days since I saw
+her reported in the papers as having touched at the Sandwich Islands
+previous to going on the coast of Japan.
+
+But to return to my narrative. Placed in these circumstances then, with
+no prospect of matters mending if I remained aboard the Dolly, I at once
+made up my mind to leave her: to be sure it was rather an inglorious
+thing to steal away privily from those at whose hands I had received
+wrongs and outrages that I could not resent; but how was such a course
+to be avoided when it was the only alternative left me? Having made
+up my mind, I proceeded to acquire all the information I could obtain
+relating to the island and its inhabitants, with a view of shaping my
+plans of escape accordingly. The result of these inquiries I will now
+state, in order that the ensuing narrative may be the better understood.
+
+The bay of Nukuheva in which we were then lying is an expanse of
+water not unlike in figure the space included within the limits of a
+horse-shoe. It is, perhaps, nine miles in circumference. You approach
+it from the sea by a narrow entrance, flanked on each side by two small
+twin islets which soar conically to the height of some five hundred
+feet. From these the shore recedes on both hands, and describes a deep
+semicircle.
+
+From the verge of the water the land rises uniformly on all sides, with
+green and sloping acclivities, until from gently rolling hill-sides
+and moderate elevations it insensibly swells into lofty and majestic
+heights, whose blue outlines, ranged all around, close in the view. The
+beautiful aspect of the shore is heightened by deep and romantic
+glens, which come down to it at almost equal distances, all apparently
+radiating from a common centre, and the upper extremities of which are
+lost to the eye beneath the shadow of the mountains. Down each of these
+little valleys flows a clear stream, here and there assuming the form
+of a slender cascade, then stealing invisibly along until it bursts
+upon the sight again in larger and more noisy waterfalls, and at last
+demurely wanders along to the sea.
+
+The houses of the natives, constructed of the yellow bamboo, tastefully
+twisted together in a kind of wicker-work, and thatched with the long
+tapering leaves of the palmetto, are scattered irregularly along these
+valleys beneath the shady branches of the cocoanut trees.
+
+Nothing can exceed the imposing scenery of this bay. Viewed from our
+ship as she lay at anchor in the middle of the harbour, it presented the
+appearance of a vast natural amphitheatre in decay, and overgrown with
+vines, the deep glens that furrowed it’s sides appearing like enormous
+fissures caused by the ravages of time. Very often when lost in
+admiration at its beauty, I have experienced a pang of regret that a
+scene so enchanting should be hidden from the world in these remote
+seas, and seldom meet the eyes of devoted lovers of nature.
+
+Besides this bay the shores of the island are indented by several other
+extensive inlets, into which descend broad and verdant valleys. These
+are inhabited by as many distinct tribes of savages, who, although
+speaking kindred dialects of a common language, and having the same
+religion and laws, have from time immemorial waged hereditary warfare
+against each other. The intervening mountains generally two or three
+thousand feet above the level of the sea geographically define the
+territories of each of these hostile tribes, who never cross them, save
+on some expedition of war or plunder. Immediately adjacent to Nukuheva,
+and only separated from it by the mountains seen from the harbour, lies
+the lovely valley of Happar, whose inmates cherish the most friendly
+relations with the inhabitants of Nukuheva. On the other side of Happar,
+and closely adjoining it, is the magnificent valley of the dreaded
+Typees, the unappeasable enemies of both these tribes.
+
+These celebrated warriors appear to inspire the other islanders with
+unspeakable terrors. Their very name is a frightful one; for the word
+‘Typee’ in the Marquesan dialect signifies a lover of human flesh. It
+is rather singular that the title should have been bestowed upon them
+exclusively, inasmuch as the natives of all this group are irreclaimable
+cannibals. The name may, perhaps, have been given to denote the peculiar
+ferocity of this clan, and to convey a special stigma along with it.
+
+These same Typees enjoy a prodigious notoriety all over the islands. The
+natives of Nukuheva would frequently recount in pantomime to our ship’s
+company their terrible feats, and would show the marks of wounds they
+had received in desperate encounters with them. When ashore they would
+try to frighten us by pointing, to one of their own number, and calling
+him a Typee, manifesting no little surprise that we did not take to our
+heels at so terrible an announcement. It was quite amusing, too, to see
+with what earnestness they disclaimed all cannibal propensities on their
+own part, while they denounced their enemies--the Typees--as inveterate
+gourmandizers of human flesh; but this is a peculiarity to which I shall
+hereafter have occasion to allude.
+
+Although I was convinced that the inhabitants of our bay were as arrant
+cannibals as any of the other tribes on the island, still I could not
+but feel a particular and most unqualified repugnance to the aforesaid
+Typees. Even before visiting the Marquesas, I had heard from men who
+had touched at the group on former voyages some revolting stories in
+connection with these savages; and fresh in my remembrance was the
+adventure of the master of the Katherine, who only a few months
+previous, imprudently venturing into this bay in an armed boat for the
+purpose of barter, was seized by the natives, carried back a little
+distance into their valley, and was only saved from a cruel death by the
+intervention of a young girl, who facilitated his escape by night along
+the beach to Nukuheva.
+
+I had heard too of an English vessel that many years ago, after a weary
+cruise, sought to enter the bay of Nukuheva, and arriving within two or
+three miles of the land, was met by a large canoe filled with natives,
+who offered to lead the way to the place of their destination. The
+captain, unacquainted with the localities of the island, joyfully
+acceded to the proposition--the canoe paddled on, the ship followed. She
+was soon conducted to a beautiful inlet, and dropped her anchor in
+its waters beneath the shadows of the lofty shore. That same night the
+perfidious Typees, who had thus inveigled her into their fatal bay,
+flocked aboard the doomed vessel by hundreds, and at a given signal
+murdered every soul on board.
+
+I shall never forget the observation of one of our crew as we were
+passing slowly by the entrance of the bay in our way to Nukuheva. As we
+stood gazing over the side at the verdant headlands, Ned, pointing
+with his hand in the direction of the treacherous valley, exclaimed,
+‘There--there’s Typee. Oh, the bloody cannibals, what a meal they’d make
+of us if we were to take it into our heads to land! but they say they
+don’t like sailor’s flesh, it’s too salt. I say, maty, how should you
+like to be shoved ashore there, eh?’ I little thought, as I shuddered
+at the question, that in the space of a few weeks I should actually be a
+captive in that self-same valley.
+
+The French, although they had gone through the ceremony of hoisting
+their colours for a few hours at all the principal places of the
+group, had not as yet visited the bay of Typee, anticipating a fierce
+resistance on the part of the savages there, which for the present at
+least they wished to avoid. Perhaps they were not a little influenced in
+the adoption of this unusual policy from a recollection of the warlike
+reception given by the Typees to the forces of Captain Porter, about
+the year 1814, when that brave and accomplished officer endeavoured to
+subjugate the clan merely to gratify the mortal hatred of his allies the
+Nukuhevas and Happars.
+
+On that occasion I have been told that a considerable detachment of
+sailors and marines from the frigate Essex, accompanied by at least two
+thousand warriors of Happar and Nukuheva, landed in boats and canoes at
+the head of the bay, and after penetrating a little distance into the
+valley, met with the stoutest resistance from its inmates. Valiantly,
+although with much loss, the Typees disputed every inch of ground, and
+after some hard fighting obliged their assailants to retreat and abandon
+their design of conquest.
+
+The invaders, on their march back to the sea, consoled themselves for
+their repulse by setting fire to every house and temple in their route;
+and a long line of smoking ruins defaced the once-smiling bosom of the
+valley, and proclaimed to its pagan inhabitants the spirit that reigned
+in the breasts of Christian soldiers. Who can wonder at the deadly
+hatred of the Typees to all foreigners after such unprovoked atrocities?
+
+Thus it is that they whom we denominate ‘savages’ are made to deserve
+the title. When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry
+the ‘big canoe’ of the European rolling through the blue waters towards
+their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms
+stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their
+bosom the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and
+the instinctive feeling of love within their breast is soon converted
+into the bitterest hate.
+
+The enormities perpetrated in the South Seas upon some of the
+inoffensive islanders will nigh pass belief. These things are seldom
+proclaimed at home; they happen at the very ends of the earth; they
+are done in a corner, and there are none to reveal them. But there is,
+nevertheless, many a petty trader that has navigated the Pacific whose
+course from island to island might be traced by a series of cold-blooded
+robberies, kidnappings, and murders, the iniquity of which might be
+considered almost sufficient to sink her guilty timbers to the bottom of
+the sea.
+
+Sometimes vague accounts of such thing’s reach our firesides, and
+we coolly censure them as wrong, impolitic, needlessly severe, and
+dangerous to the crews of other vessels. How different is our tone when
+we read the highly-wrought description of the massacre of the crew of
+the Hobomak by the Feejees; how we sympathize for the unhappy victims,
+and with what horror do we regard the diabolical heathens, who, after
+all, have but avenged the unprovoked injuries which they have received.
+We breathe nothing but vengeance, and equip armed vessels to traverse
+thousands of miles of ocean in order to execute summary punishment upon
+the offenders. On arriving at their destination, they burn, slaughter,
+and destroy, according to the tenor of written instructions, and sailing
+away from the scene of devastation, call upon all Christendom to applaud
+their courage and their justice.
+
+How often is the term ‘savages’ incorrectly applied! None really
+deserving of it were ever yet discovered by voyagers or by travellers.
+They have discovered heathens and barbarians whom by horrible cruelties
+they have exasperated into savages. It may be asserted without fear
+of contradictions that in all the cases of outrages committed by
+Polynesians, Europeans have at some time or other been the aggressors,
+and that the cruel and bloodthirsty disposition of some of the islanders
+is mainly to be ascribed to the influence of such examples.
+
+But to return. Owing to the mutual hostilities of the different tribes
+I have mentioned, the mountainous tracts which separate their respective
+territories remain altogether uninhabited; the natives invariably
+dwelling in the depths of the valleys, with a view of securing
+themselves from the predatory incursions of their enemies, who often
+lurk along their borders, ready to cut off any imprudent straggler,
+or make a descent upon the inmates of some sequestered habitation. I
+several times met with very aged men, who from this cause had never
+passed the confines of their native vale, some of them having never even
+ascended midway up the mountains in the whole course of their lives, and
+who, accordingly had little idea of the appearance of any other part of
+the island, the whole of which is not perhaps more than sixty miles in
+circuit. The little space in which some of these clans pass away their
+days would seem almost incredible.
+
+The glen of the Tior will furnish a curious illustration of this.
+
+The inhabited part is not more than four miles in length, and varies
+in breadth from half a mile to less than a quarter. The rocky vine-clad
+cliffs on one side tower almost perpendicularly from their base to
+the height of at least fifteen hundred feet; while across the vale--in
+striking contrast to the scenery opposite--grass-grown elevations rise
+one above another in blooming terraces. Hemmed in by these stupendous
+barriers, the valley would be altogether shut out from the rest of the
+world, were it not that it is accessible from the sea at one end, and by
+a narrow defile at the other.
+
+The impression produced upon the mind, when I first visited this
+beautiful glen, will never be obliterated.
+
+I had come from Nukuheva by water in the ship’s boat, and when we
+entered the bay of Tior it was high noon. The heat had been intense, as
+we had been floating upon the long smooth swell of the ocean, for there
+was but little wind. The sun’s rays had expended all their fury upon us;
+and to add to our discomfort, we had omitted to supply ourselves with
+water previous to starting. What with heat and thirst together, I became
+so impatient to get ashore, that when at last we glided towards it,
+I stood up in the bow of the boat ready for a spring. As she shot
+two-thirds of her length high upon the beach, propelled by three or four
+strong strokes of the oars, I leaped among a parcel of juvenile savages,
+who stood prepared to give us a kind reception; and with them at my
+heels, yelling like so many imps, I rushed forward across the open
+ground in the vicinity of the sea, and plunged, diver fashion, into the
+recesses of the first grove that offered.
+
+What a delightful sensation did I experience! I felt as if floating in
+some new element, while all sort of gurgling, trickling, liquid sounds
+fell upon my ear. People may say what they will about the refreshing
+influences of a coldwater bath, but commend me when in a perspiration to
+the shade baths of Tior, beneath the cocoanut trees, and amidst the cool
+delightful atmosphere which surrounds them.
+
+How shall I describe the scenery that met my eye, as I looked out
+from this verdant recess! The narrow valley, with its steep and close
+adjoining sides draperied with vines, and arched overhead with a
+fret-work of interlacing boughs, nearly hidden from view by masses
+of leafy verdure, seemed from where I stood like an immense arbour
+disclosing its vista to the eye, whilst as I advanced it insensibly
+widened into the loveliest vale eye ever beheld.
+
+It so happened that the very day I was in Tior the French admiral,
+attended by all the boats of his squadron, came down in state from
+Nukuheva to take formal possession of the place. He remained in the
+valley about two hours, during which time he had a ceremonious interview
+with the king. The patriarch-sovereign of Tior was a man very far
+advanced in years; but though age had bowed his form and rendered him
+almost decrepid, his gigantic frame retained its original magnitude and
+grandeur of appearance.
+
+He advanced slowly and with evident pain, assisting his tottering steps
+with the heavy warspear he held in his hand, and attended by a group of
+grey-bearded chiefs, on one of whom he occasionally leaned for support.
+The admiral came forward with head uncovered and extended hand, while
+the old king saluted him by a stately flourish of his weapon. The
+next moment they stood side by side, these two extremes of the social
+scale,--the polished, splendid Frenchman, and the poor tattooed savage.
+They were both tall and noble-looking men; but in other respects how
+strikingly contrasted! Du Petit Thouars exhibited upon his person
+all the paraphernalia of his naval rank. He wore a richly decorated
+admiral’s frock-coat, a laced chapeau bras, and upon his breast were
+a variety of ribbons and orders; while the simple islander, with the
+exception of a slight cincture about his loins, appeared in all the
+nakedness of nature.
+
+At what an immeasurable distance, thought I, are these two beings
+removed from each other. In the one is shown the result of long
+centuries of progressive Civilization and refinement, which have
+gradually converted the mere creature into the semblance of all that is
+elevated and grand; while the other, after the lapse of the same period,
+has not advanced one step in the career of improvement, ‘Yet, after
+all,’ quoth I to myself, ‘insensible as he is to a thousand wants, and
+removed from harassing cares, may not the savage be the happier man of
+the two?’ Such were the thoughts that arose in my mind as I gazed upon
+the novel spectacle before me. In truth it was an impressive one,
+and little likely to be effaced. I can recall even now with vivid
+distinctness every feature of the scene. The umbrageous shades where
+the interview took place--the glorious tropical vegetation around--the
+picturesque grouping of the mingled throng of soldiery and natives--and
+even the golden-hued bunch of bananas that I held in my hand at the
+time, and of which I occasionally partook while making the aforesaid
+philosophical reflections.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+THOUGHTS PREVIOUS TO ATTEMPTING AN ESCAPE--TOBY, A FELLOW SAILOR, AGREES
+TO SHARE THE ADVENTURE--LAST NIGHT ABOARD THE SHIP
+
+
+Having fully resolved to leave the vessel clandestinely, and having
+acquired all the knowledge concerning the bay that I could obtain under
+the circumstances in which I was placed, I now deliberately turned over
+in my mind every plan to escape that suggested itself, being determined
+to act with all possible prudence in an attempt where failure would be
+attended with so many disagreeable consequences. The idea of being
+taken and brought back ignominiously to the ship was so inexpressibly
+repulsive to me, that I was determined by no hasty and imprudent
+measures to render such an event probable.
+
+I knew that our worthy captain, who felt, such a paternal solicitude
+for the welfare of his crew, would not willingly consent that one of his
+best hands should encounter the perils of a sojourn among the natives
+of a barbarous island; and I was certain that in the event of my
+disappearance, his fatherly anxiety would prompt him to offer, by way of
+a reward, yard upon yard of gaily printed calico for my apprehension.
+He might even have appreciated my services at the value of a musket, in
+which case I felt perfectly certain that the whole population of the
+bay would be immediately upon my track, incited by the prospect of so
+magnificent a bounty.
+
+Having ascertained the fact before alluded to, that the islanders,--from
+motives of precaution, dwelt altogether in the depths of the valleys,
+and avoided wandering about the more elevated portions of the shore,
+unless bound on some expedition of war or plunder, I concluded that if
+I could effect unperceived a passage to the mountain, I might easily
+remain among them, supporting myself by such fruits as came in my way
+until the sailing of the ship, an event of which I could not fail to be
+immediately apprised, as from my lofty position I should command a view
+of the entire harbour.
+
+The idea pleased me greatly. It seemed to combine a great deal of
+practicability with no inconsiderable enjoyment in a quiet way; for how
+delightful it would be to look down upon the detested old vessel from
+the height of some thousand feet, and contrast the verdant scenery about
+me with the recollection of her narrow decks and gloomy forecastle! Why,
+it was really refreshing even to think of it; and so I straightway fell
+to picturing myself seated beneath a cocoanut tree on the brow of the
+mountain, with a cluster of plantains within easy reach, criticizing her
+nautical evolutions as she was working her way out of the harbour.
+
+To be sure there was one rather unpleasant drawback to these agreeable
+anticipations--the possibility of falling in with a foraging party of
+these same bloody-minded Typees, whose appetites, edged perhaps by the
+air of so elevated a region, might prompt them to devour one. This, I
+must confess, was a most disagreeable view of the matter.
+
+Just to think of a party of these unnatural gourmands taking it into
+their heads to make a convivial meal of a poor devil, who would have
+no means of escape or defence: however, there was no help for it. I was
+willing to encounter some risks in order to accomplish my object, and
+counted much upon my ability to elude these prowling cannibals amongst
+the many coverts which the mountains afforded. Besides, the chances
+were ten to one in my favour that they would none of them quit their own
+fastnesses.
+
+I had determined not to communicate my design of withdrawing from the
+vessel to any of my shipmates, and least of all to solicit any one to
+accompany me in my flight. But it so happened one night, that being upon
+deck, revolving over in my mind various plans of escape, I perceived one
+of the ship’s company leaning over the bulwarks, apparently plunged in a
+profound reverie. He was a young fellow about my own age, for whom I
+had all along entertained a great regard; and Toby, such was the name
+by which he went among us, for his real name he would never tell us, was
+every way worthy of it. He was active, ready and obliging, of dauntless
+courage, and singularly open and fearless in the expression of his
+feelings. I had on more than one occasion got him out of scrapes into
+which this had led him; and I know not whether it was from this cause,
+or a certain congeniality of sentiment between us, that he had always
+shown a partiality for my society. We had battled out many a long watch
+together, beguiling the weary hours with chat, song, and story, mingled
+with a good many imprecations upon the hard destiny it seemed our common
+fortune to encounter.
+
+Toby, like myself, had evidently moved in a different sphere of life,
+and his conversation at times betrayed this, although he was anxious
+to conceal it. He was one of that class of rovers you sometimes meet
+at sea, who never reveal their origin, never allude to home, and go
+rambling over the world as if pursued by some mysterious fate they
+cannot possibly elude.
+
+There was much even in the appearance of Toby calculated to draw me
+towards him, for while the greater part of the crew were as coarse in
+person as in mind, Toby was endowed with a remarkably prepossessing
+exterior. Arrayed in his blue frock and duck trousers, he was as smart a
+looking sailor as ever stepped upon a deck; he was singularly small
+and slightly made, with great flexibility of limb. His naturally dark
+complexion had been deepened by exposure to the tropical sun, and a mass
+of jetty locks clustered about his temples, and threw a darker shade
+into his large black eyes. He was a strange wayward being, moody,
+fitful, and melancholy--at times almost morose. He had a quick and fiery
+temper too, which, when thoroughly roused, transported him into a state
+bordering on delirium.
+
+It is strange the power that a mind of deep passion has over feebler
+natures. I have seen a brawny, fellow, with no lack of ordinary courage,
+fairly quail before this slender stripling, when in one of his curious
+fits. But these paroxysms seldom occurred, and in them my big-hearted
+shipmate vented the bile which more calm-tempered individuals get rid of
+by a continual pettishness at trivial annoyances.
+
+No one ever saw Toby laugh. I mean in the hearty abandonment of
+broad-mouthed mirth. He did smile sometimes, it is true; and there was
+a good deal of dry, sarcastic humour about him, which told the more from
+the imperturbable gravity of his tone and manner.
+
+Latterly I had observed that Toby’s melancholy had greatly increased,
+and I had frequently seen him since our arrival at the island gazing
+wistfully upon the shore, when the remainder of the crew would be
+rioting below. I was aware that he entertained a cordial detestation
+of the ship, and believed that, should a fair chance of escape present
+itself, he would embrace it willingly.
+
+But the attempt was so perilous in the place where we then lay, that
+I supposed myself the only individual on board the ship who was
+sufficiently reckless to think of it. In this, however, I was mistaken.
+
+When I perceived Toby leaning, as I have mentioned, against the bulwarks
+and buried in thought, it struck me at once that the subject of his
+meditations might be the same as my own. And if it be so, thought I,
+is he not the very one of all my shipmates whom I would choose: for the
+partner of my adventure? and why should I not have some comrade with me
+to divide its dangers and alleviate its hardships? Perhaps I might be
+obliged to lie concealed among the mountains for weeks. In such an event
+what a solace would a companion be?
+
+These thoughts passed rapidly through my mind, and I wondered why I had
+not before considered the matter in this light. But it was not too late.
+A tap upon the shoulder served to rouse Toby from his reverie; I found
+him ripe for the enterprise, and a very few words sufficed for a mutual
+understanding between us. In an hour’s time we had arranged all the
+preliminaries, and decided upon our plan of action. We then ratified our
+engagement with an affectionate wedding of palms, and to elude suspicion
+repaired each to his hammock, to spend the last night on board the
+Dolly.
+
+The next day the starboard watch, to which we both belonged, was to be
+sent ashore on liberty; and, availing ourselves of this opportunity,
+we determined, as soon after landing as possible, to separate ourselves
+from the rest of the men without exciting their suspicions, and strike
+back at once for the mountains. Seen from the ship, their summits
+appeared inaccessible, but here and there sloping spurs extended from
+them almost into the sea, buttressing the lofty elevations with which
+they were connected, and forming those radiating valleys I have before
+described. One of these ridges, which appeared more practicable than the
+rest, we determined to climb, convinced that it would conduct us to
+the heights beyond. Accordingly, we carefully observed its bearings and
+locality from the ship, so that when ashore we should run no chance of
+missing it.
+
+In all this the leading object we had in view was to seclude ourselves
+from sight until the departure of the vessel; then to take our chance as
+to the reception the Nukuheva natives might give us; and after remaining
+upon the island as long as we found our stay agreeable, to leave it the
+first favourable opportunity that offered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+A SPECIMEN OF NAUTICAL ORATORY--CRITICISMS OF THE SAILORS--THE STARBOARD
+WATCH ARE GIVEN A HOLIDAY--THE ESCAPE TO THE MOUNTAINS
+
+
+Early the next morning the starboard watch were mustered upon the
+quarter-deck, and our worthy captain, standing in the cabin gangway,
+harangued us as follows:--
+
+‘Now, men, as we are just off a six months’ cruise, and have got through
+most all our work in port here, I suppose you want to go ashore. Well, I
+mean to give your watch liberty today, so you may get ready as soon all
+you please, and go; but understand this, I am going to give you liberty
+because I suppose you would growl like so many old quarter gunners if I
+didn’t; at the same time, if you’ll take my advice, every mother’s son
+of you will stay aboard and keep out of the way of the bloody cannibals
+altogether. Ten to one, men, if you go ashore, you will get into some
+infernal row, and that will be the end of you; for if those tattooed
+scoundrels get you a little ways back into their valleys, they’ll nab
+you--that you may be certain of. Plenty of white men have gone ashore
+here and never been seen any more. There was the old Dido, she put in
+here about two years ago, and sent one watch off on liberty; they never
+were heard of again for a week--the natives swore they didn’t know where
+they were--and only three of them ever got back to the ship again, and
+one with his face damaged for life, for the cursed heathens tattooed a
+broad patch clean across his figure-head. But it will be no use talking
+to you, for go you will, that I see plainly; so all I have to say is,
+that you need not blame me if the islanders make a meal of you. You may
+stand some chance of escaping them though, if you keep close about the
+French encampment,--and are back to the ship again before sunset. Keep
+that much in your mind, if you forget all the rest I’ve been saying to
+you. There, go forward: bear a hand and rig yourselves, and stand by for
+a call. At two bells the boat will be manned to take you off, and the
+Lord have mercy on you!’
+
+Various were the emotions depicted upon the countenances of the
+starboard watch whilst listening to this address; but on its conclusion
+there was a general move towards the forecastle, and we soon were
+all busily engaged in getting ready for the holiday so auspiciously
+announced by the skipper. During these preparations his harangue was
+commented upon in no very measured terms; and one of the party, after
+denouncing him as a lying old son of a seacook who begrudged a fellow a
+few hours’ liberty, exclaimed with an oath, ‘But you don’t bounce me out
+of my liberty, old chap, for all your yarns; for I would go ashore if
+every pebble on the beach was a live coal, and every stick a gridiron,
+and the cannibals stood ready to broil me on landing.’
+
+The spirit of this sentiment was responded to by all hands, and we
+resolved that in spite of the captain’s croakings we would make a
+glorious day of it.
+
+But Toby and I had our own game to play, and we availed ourselves of
+the confusion which always reigns among a ship’s company preparatory to
+going ashore, to confer together and complete our arrangements. As our
+object was to effect as rapid a flight as possible to the mountains, we
+determined not to encumber ourselves with any superfluous apparel; and
+accordingly, while the rest were rigging themselves out with some idea
+of making a display, we were content to put on new stout duck trousers,
+serviceable pumps, and heavy Havre-frocks, which with a Payta hat
+completed our equipment.
+
+When our shipmates wondered at this, Toby exclaimed in his odd grave way
+that the rest might do, as they liked, but that he for one preserved
+his go-ashore traps for the Spanish main, where the tie of a sailor’s
+neckerchief might make some difference; but as for a parcel of
+unbreeched heathen, he wouldn’t go to the bottom of his chest for any
+of them, and was half disposed to appear among them in buff himself. The
+men laughed at what they thought was one of his strange conceits, and so
+we escaped suspicion.
+
+It may appear singular that we should have been thus on our guard with
+our own shipmates; but there were some among us who, had they possessed
+the least inkling of our project, would, for a paltry hope of reward,
+have immediately communicated it to the captain.
+
+As soon as two bells were struck, the word was passed for the
+liberty-men to get into the boat. I lingered behind in the forecastle a
+moment to take a parting glance at its familiar features, and just as
+I was about to ascend to the deck my eye happened to light on the
+bread-barge and beef-kid, which contained the remnants of our last hasty
+meal. Although I had never before thought of providing anything in the
+way of food for our expedition, as I fully relied upon the fruits of the
+island to sustain us wherever we might wander, yet I could not resist
+the inclination I felt to provide luncheon from the relics before me.
+Accordingly I took a double handful of those small, broken, flinty bits
+of biscuit which generally go by the name of ‘midshipmen’s nuts’, and
+thrust them into the bosom of my frock in which same simple receptacle I
+had previously stowed away several pounds of tobacco and a few yards of
+cotton cloth--articles with which I intended to purchase the good-will
+of the natives, as soon as we should appear among them after the
+departure of our vessel.
+
+This last addition to my stock caused a considerable protuberance in
+front, which I abated in a measure by shaking the bits of bread around
+my waist, and distributing the plugs of tobacco among the folds of the
+garment.
+
+Hardly had I completed these arrangements when my name was sung out by a
+dozen voices, and I sprung upon the deck, where I found all the party in
+the boat, and impatient to shove off. I dropped over the side and seated
+myself with the rest of the watch in the stern sheets, while the poor
+larboarders shipped their oars, and commenced pulling us ashore.
+
+This happened to be the rainy season at the islands, and the heavens
+had nearly the whole morning betokened one of those heavy showers which
+during this period so frequently occur. The large drops fell bubbling
+into the water shortly after our leaving the ship, and by the time we
+had affected a landing it poured down in torrents. We fled for shelter
+under cover of an immense canoe-house which stood hard by the beach, and
+waited for the first fury of the storm to pass.
+
+It continued, however, without cessation; and the monotonous beating of
+the rain over head began to exert a drowsy influence upon the men, who,
+throwing themselves here and there upon the large war-canoes, after
+chatting awhile, all fell asleep.
+
+This was the opportunity we desired, and Toby and I availed ourselves
+of it at once by stealing out of the canoe-house and plunging into the
+depths of an extensive grove that was in its rear. After ten minutes’
+rapid progress we gained an open space from which we could just descry
+the ridge we intended to mount looming dimly through the mists of the
+tropical shower, and distant from us, as we estimated, something more
+than a mile. Our direct course towards it lay through a rather populous
+part of the bay; but desirous as we were of evading the natives and
+securing an unmolested retreat to the mountains, we determined, by
+taking a circuit through some extensive thickets, to avoid their
+vicinity altogether.
+
+The heavy rain that still continued to fall without intermission
+favoured our enterprise, as it drove the islanders into their houses,
+and prevented any casual meeting with them. Our heavy frocks soon became
+completely saturated with water, and by their weight, and that of
+the articles we had concealed beneath them, not a little impeded our
+progress. But it was no time to pause when at any moment we might be
+surprised by a body of the savages, and forced at the very outset to
+relinquish our undertaking.
+
+Since leaving the canoe-house we had scarcely exchanged a single
+syllable with one another; but when we entered a second narrow opening
+in the wood, and again caught sight of the ridge before us, I took Toby
+by the arm, and pointing along its sloping outline to the lofty heights
+at its extremity, said in a low tone, ‘Now, Toby, not a word, nor a
+glance backward, till we stand on the summit of yonder mountain--so no
+more lingering but let us shove ahead while we can, and in a few hours’
+time we may laugh aloud. You are the lightest and the nimblest, so lead
+on, and I will follow.’
+
+‘All right, brother,’ said Toby, ‘quick’s our play; only lets keep close
+together, that’s all;’ and so saying with a bound like a young roe, he
+cleared a brook which ran across our path, and rushed forward with a
+quick step.
+
+When we arrived within a short distance of the ridge, we were stopped by
+a mass of tall yellow reeds, growing together as thickly as they could
+stand, and as tough and stubborn as so many rods of steel; and we
+perceived, to our chagrin, that they extended midway up the elevation we
+proposed to ascend.
+
+For a moment we gazed about us in quest of a more practicable route; it
+was, however, at once apparent that there was no resource but to pierce
+this thicket of canes at all hazards. We now reversed our order of
+march, I, being the heaviest, taking the lead, with a view of breaking a
+path through the obstruction, while Toby fell into the rear.
+
+Two or three times I endeavoured to insinuate myself between the canes,
+and by dint of coaxing and bending them to make some progress; but a
+bull-frog might as well have tried to work a passage through the teeth
+of a comb, and I gave up the attempt in despair.
+
+Half wild with meeting an obstacle we had so little anticipated, I threw
+myself desperately against it, crushing to the ground the canes with
+which I came in contact, and, rising to my feet again, repeated the
+action with like effect. Twenty minutes of this violent exercise almost
+exhausted me, but it carried us some way into the thicket; when Toby,
+who had been reaping the benefit of my labours by following close at my
+heels, proposed to become pioneer in turn, and accordingly passed ahead
+with a view of affording me a respite from my exertions. As however
+with his slight frame he made but bad work of it, I was soon obliged to
+resume my old place again. On we toiled, the perspiration starting from
+our bodies in floods, our limbs torn and lacerated with the splintered
+fragments of the broken canes, until we had proceeded perhaps as far
+as the middle of the brake, when suddenly it ceased raining, and the
+atmosphere around us became close and sultry beyond expression. The
+elasticity of the reeds quickly recovering from the temporary pressure
+of our bodies, caused them to spring back to their original position;
+so that they closed in upon us as we advanced, and prevented the
+circulation of little air which might otherwise have reached us.
+Besides this, their great height completely shut us out from the view of
+surrounding objects, and we were not certain but that we might have been
+going all the time in a wrong direction.
+
+Fatigued with my long-continued efforts, and panting for breath, I felt
+myself completely incapacitated for any further exertion. I rolled up
+the sleeve of my frock, and squeezed the moisture it contained into
+my parched mouth. But the few drops I managed to obtain gave me little
+relief, and I sank down for a moment with a sort of dogged apathy, from
+which I was aroused by Toby, who had devised a plan to free us from the
+net in which we had become entangled.
+
+He was laying about him lustily with his sheath-knive, lopping the canes
+right and left, like a reaper, and soon made quite a clearing around us.
+This sight reanimated me; and seizing my own knife, I hacked and hewed
+away without mercy. But alas! the farther we advanced the thicker and
+taller, and apparently the more interminable, the reeds became.
+
+I began to think we were fairly snared, and had almost made up my mind
+that without a pair of wings we should never be able to escape from the
+toils; when all at once I discerned a peep of daylight through the canes
+on my right, and, communicating the joyful tidings to Toby, we both fell
+to with fresh spirit, and speedily opening the passage towards it we
+found ourselves clear of perplexities, and in the near vicinity of the
+ridge. After resting for a few moments we began the ascent, and after
+a little vigorous climbing found ourselves close to its summit. Instead
+however of walking along its ridge, where we should have been in full
+view of the natives in the vales beneath, and at a point where they
+could easily intercept us were they so inclined, we cautiously advanced
+on one side, crawling on our hands and knees, and screened from
+observation by the grass through which we glided, much in the fashion of
+a couple of serpents. After an hour employed in this unpleasant kind
+of locomotion, we started to our feet again and pursued our way boldly
+along the crest of the ridge.
+
+This salient spur of the lofty elevations that encompassed the bay rose
+with a sharp angle from the valleys at its base, and presented, with the
+exception of a few steep acclivities, the appearance of a vast inclined
+plane, sweeping down towards the sea from the heights in the distance.
+We had ascended it near the place of its termination and at its lowest
+point, and now saw our route to the mountains distinctly defined along
+its narrow crest, which was covered with a soft carpet of verdure, and
+was in many parts only a few feet wide.
+
+Elated with the success which had so far attended our enterprise, and
+invigorated by the refreshing atmosphere we now inhaled, Toby and I in
+high spirits were making our way rapidly along the ridge, when suddenly
+from the valleys below which lay on either side of us we heard the
+distant shouts of the natives, who had just descried us, and to whom our
+figures, brought in bold relief against the sky, were plainly revealed.
+
+Glancing our eyes into these valleys, we perceived their savage
+inhabitants hurrying to and fro, seemingly under the influence of some
+sudden alarm, and appearing to the eye scarcely bigger than so many
+pigmies; while their white thatched dwellings, dwarfed by the distance,
+looked like baby-houses. As we looked down upon the islanders from our
+lofty elevation, we experienced a sense of security; feeling confident
+that, should they undertake a pursuit, it would, from the start we
+now had, prove entirely fruitless, unless they followed us into the
+mountains, where we knew they cared not to venture.
+
+However, we thought it as well to make the most of our time; and
+accordingly, where the ground would admit of it, we ran swiftly along
+the summit of the ridge, until we were brought to a stand by a steep
+cliff, which at first seemed to interpose an effectual barrier to our
+farther advance. By dint of much hard scrambling however, and at some
+risk to our necks, we at last surmounted it, and continued our fight
+with unabated celerity.
+
+We had left the beach early in the morning, and after an uninterrupted,
+though at times difficult and dangerous ascent, during which we had
+never once turned our faces to the sea, we found ourselves, about
+three hours before sunset, standing on the top of what seemed to be the
+highest land on the island, an immense overhanging cliff composed of
+basaltic rocks, hung round with parasitical plants. We must have been
+more than three thousand feet above the level of the sea, and the
+scenery viewed from this height was magnificent.
+
+The lonely bay of Nukuheva, dotted here and there with the black hulls
+of the vessels composing the French squadron, lay reposing at the base
+of a circular range of elevations, whose verdant sides, perforated with
+deep glens or diversified with smiling valleys, formed altogether the
+loveliest view I ever beheld, and were I to live a hundred years, I
+shall never forget the feeling of admiration which I then experienced.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN--DISAPPOINTMENT--INVENTORY OF ARTICLES
+BROUGHT FROM THE SHIP--DIVISION OF THE STOCK OF BREAD--APPEARANCE OF
+THE INTERIOR OF THE ISLAND--A DISCOVERY--A RAVINE AND WATERFALLS--A
+SLEEPLESS NIGHT--FURTHER DISCOVERIES--MY ILLNESS--A MARQUESAN LANDSCAPE
+
+
+My curiosity had been not a little raised with regard to the description
+of country we should meet on the other side of the mountains; and I had
+supposed, with Toby, that immediately on gaining the heights we should
+be enabled to view the large bays of Happar and Typee reposing at our
+feet on one side, in the same way that Nukuheva lay spread out below
+on the other. But here we were disappointed. Instead of finding the
+mountain we had ascended sweeping down in the opposite direction into
+broad and capacious valleys, the land appeared to retain its general
+elevation, only broken into a series of ridges and inter-vales which
+so far as the eye could reach stretched away from us, with their
+precipitous sides covered with the brightest verdure, and waving here
+and there with the foliage of clumps of woodland; among which, however,
+we perceived none of those trees upon whose fruit we had relied with
+such certainty.
+
+This was a most unlooked-for discovery, and one that promised to defeat
+our plans altogether, for we could not think of descending the mountain
+on the Nukuheva side in quest of food. Should we for this purpose
+be induced to retrace our steps, we should run no small chance of
+encountering the natives, who in that case, if they did nothing worse to
+us, would be certain to convey us back to the ship for the sake of the
+reward in calico and trinkets, which we had no doubt our skipper would
+hold out to them as an inducement to our capture.
+
+What was to be done? The Dolly would not sail perhaps for ten days, and
+how were we to sustain life during this period? I bitterly repented our
+improvidence in not providing ourselves, as we easily might have done,
+with a supply of biscuits. With a rueful visage I now bethought me of
+the scanty handful of bread I had stuffed into the bosom of my frock,
+and felt somewhat desirous to ascertain what part of it had weathered
+the rather rough usage it had experienced in ascending the mountain.
+I accordingly proposed to Toby that we should enter into a joint
+examination of the various articles we had brought from the ship.
+
+With this intent we seated ourselves upon the grass; and a little
+curious to see with what kind of judgement my companion had filled
+his frock--which I remarked seemed about as well lined as my own--I
+requested him to commence operations by spreading out its contents.
+
+Thrusting his hand, then, into the bosom of this capacious receptacle,
+he first brought to light about a pound of tobacco, whose component
+parts still adhered together, the whole outside being covered with
+soft particles of sea-bread. Wet and dripping, it had the appearance of
+having been just recovered from the bottom of the sea. But I paid
+slight attention to a substance of so little value to us in our present
+situation, as soon as I perceived the indications it gave of Toby’s
+foresight in laying in a supply of food for the expedition.
+
+I eagerly inquired what quantity he had brought with him, when rummaging
+once more beneath his garment, he produced a small handful of something
+so soft, pulpy, and discoloured, that for a few moments he was as
+much puzzled as myself to tell by what possible instrumentality such
+a villainous compound had become engendered in his bosom. I can only
+describe it as a hash of soaked bread and bits of tobacco, brought to
+a doughy consistency by the united agency of perspiration and rain.
+But repulsive as it might otherwise have been, I now regarded it as
+an invaluable treasure, and proceeded with great care to transfer this
+paste-like mass to a large leaf which I had plucked from a bush beside
+me. Toby informed me that in the morning he had placed two whole
+biscuits in his bosom, with a view of munching them, should he feel so
+inclined, during our flight. These were now reduced to the equivocal
+substance which I had just placed on the leaf.
+
+Another dive into the frock brought to view some four or five yards of
+calico print, whose tasteful pattern was rather disfigured by the yellow
+stains of the tobacco with which it had been brought in contact. In
+drawing this calico slowly from his bosom inch by inch, Toby reminded
+me of a juggler performing the feat of the endless ribbon. The next
+cast was a small one, being a sailor’s little ‘ditty bag’, containing
+needles, thread, and other sewing utensils, then came a razor-case,
+followed by two or three separate plugs of negro-head, which were fished
+up from the bottom of the now empty receptacle. These various matters,
+being inspected, I produced the few things which I had myself brought.
+
+As might have been anticipated from the state of my companion’s edible
+supplies, I found my own in a deplorable condition, and diminished to a
+quantity that would not have formed half a dozen mouthfuls for a hungry
+man who was partial enough to tobacco not to mind swallowing it. A
+few morsels of bread, with a fathom or two of white cotton cloth, and
+several pounds of choice pigtail, composed the extent of my possessions.
+
+Our joint stock of miscellaneous articles were now made up into a
+compact bundle, which it was agreed we should carry alternately. But the
+sorry remains of the biscuit were not to be disposed of so summarily:
+the precarious circumstances in which we were placed made us regard them
+as something on which very probably, depended the fate of our adventure.
+After a brief discussion, in which we both of us expressed our
+resolution of not descending into the bay until the ship’s departure,
+I suggested to my companion that little of it as there was, we should
+divide the bread into six equal portions, each of which should be a
+day’s allowance for both of us. This proposition he assented to; so I
+took the silk kerchief from my neck, and cutting it with my knife into
+half a dozen equal pieces, proceeded to make an exact division.
+
+At first, Toby with a degree of fastidiousness that seemed to me
+ill-timed, was for picking out the minute particles of tobacco
+with which the spongy mass was mixed; but against this proceeding I
+protested, as by such an operation we must have greatly diminished its
+quantity.
+
+When the division was accomplished, we found that a day’s allowance for
+the two was not a great deal more than what a table-spoon might hold.
+Each separate portion we immediately rolled up in the bit of silk
+prepared for it, and joining them all together into a small package, I
+committed them, with solemn injunctions of fidelity, to the custody of
+Toby. For the remainder of that day we resolved to fast, as we had been
+fortified by a breakfast in the morning; and now starting again to our
+feet, we looked about us for a shelter during the night, which, from the
+appearance of the heavens, promised to be a dark and tempestuous one.
+
+There was no place near us which would in any way answer our purpose,
+so turning our backs upon Nukuheva, we commenced exploring the unknown
+regions which lay upon the other side of the mountain.
+
+In this direction, as far as our vision extended, not a sign of life,
+nor anything that denoted even the transient residence of man, could be
+seen. The whole landscape seemed one unbroken solitude, the interior of
+the island having apparently been untenanted since the morning of the
+creation; and as we advanced through this wilderness, our voices
+sounded strangely in our ears, as though human accents had never before
+disturbed the fearful silence of the place, interrupted only by the low
+murmurings of distant waterfalls.
+
+Our disappointment, however, in not finding the various fruits with
+which we had intended to regale ourselves during our stay in these
+wilds, was a good deal lessened by the consideration that from this very
+circumstance we should be much less exposed to a casual meeting with the
+savage tribes about us, who we knew always dwelt beneath the shadows of
+those trees which supplied them with food.
+
+We wandered along, casting eager glances into every bush we passed,
+until just as we had succeeded in mounting one of the many ridges that
+intersected the ground, I saw in the grass before me something like an
+indistinctly traced footpath, which appeared to lead along the top of
+the ridge, and to descend--with it into a deep ravine about half a mile
+in advance of us.
+
+Robinson Crusoe could not have been more startled at the footprint in
+the sand than we were at this unwelcome discovery. My first impulse was
+to make as rapid a retreat as possible, and bend our steps in some
+other direction; but our curiosity to see whither this path might lead,
+prompted us to pursue it. So on we went, the track becoming more and
+more visible the farther we proceeded, until it conducted us to the
+verge of the ravine, where it abruptly terminated.
+
+‘And so,’ said Toby, peering down into the chasm, ‘everyone that travels
+this path takes a jump here, eh?’
+
+‘Not so,’ said I, ‘for I think they might manage to descend without it;
+what say you,--shall we attempt the feat?’
+
+‘And what, in the name of caves and coal-holes, do you expect to find at
+the bottom of that gulf but a broken neck--why it looks blacker than our
+ship’s hold, and the roar of those waterfalls down there would batter
+one’s brains to pieces.’
+
+‘Oh, no, Toby,’ I exclaimed, laughing; ‘but there’s something to be seen
+here, that’s plain, or there would have been no path, and I am resolved
+to find out what it is.’
+
+‘I will tell you what, my pleasant fellow,’ rejoined Toby quickly, ‘if
+you are going to pry into everything you meet with here that excites
+your curiosity, you will marvellously soon get knocked on the head; to
+a dead certainty you will come bang upon a party of these savages in the
+midst of your discovery-makings, and I doubt whether such an event would
+particularly delight you, just take my advice for once, and let us ‘bout
+ship and steer in some other direction; besides, it’s getting late and
+we ought to be mooring ourselves for the night.’
+
+‘That is just the thing I have been driving at,’ replied I; ‘and I am
+thinking that this ravine will exactly answer our purpose, for it is
+roomy, secluded, well watered, and may shelter us from the weather.’
+
+‘Aye, and from sleep too, and by the same token will give us sore
+throats, and rheumatisms into the bargain,’ cried Toby, with evident
+dislike at the idea.
+
+‘Oh, very well then, my lad,’ said I, ‘since you will not accompany me,
+here I go alone. You will see me in the morning;’ and advancing to the
+edge of the cliff upon which we had been standing, I proceeded to lower
+myself down by the tangled roots which clustered about all the crevices
+of the rock. As I had anticipated, Toby, in spite of his previous
+remonstrances, followed my example, and dropping himself with the
+activity of a squirrel from point to point, he quickly outstripped
+me and effected a landing at the bottom before I had accomplished
+two-thirds of the descent.
+
+The sight that now greeted us was one that will ever be vividly
+impressed upon my mind. Five foaming streams, rushing through as many
+gorges, and swelled and turbid by the recent rains, united together in
+one mad plunge of nearly eighty feet, and fell with wild uproar into a
+deep black pool scooped out of the gloomy looking rocks that lay piled
+around, and thence in one collected body dashed down a narrow sloping
+channel which seemed to penetrate into the very bowels of the earth.
+Overhead, vast roots of trees hung down from the sides of the ravine
+dripping with moisture, and trembling with the concussions produced by
+the fall. It was now sunset, and the feeble uncertain light that found
+its way into these caverns and woody depths heightened their strange
+appearance, and reminded us that in a short time we should find
+ourselves in utter darkness.
+
+As soon as I had satisfied my curiosity by gazing at this scene, I fell
+to wondering how it was that what we had taken for a path should have
+conducted us to so singular a place, and began to suspect that after all
+I might have been deceived in supposing it to have been a trick
+formed by the islanders. This was rather an agreeable reflection than
+otherwise, for it diminished our dread of accidentally meeting with any
+of them, and I came to the conclusion that perhaps we could not have
+selected a more secure hiding-place than this very spot we had so
+accidentally hit upon.
+
+Toby agreed with me in this view of the matter, and we immediately began
+gathering together the limbs of trees which lay scattered about, with
+the view of constructing a temporary hut for the night. This we were
+obliged to build close to the foot of the cataract, for the current of
+water extended very nearly to the sides of the gorge. The few moments
+of light that remained we employed in covering our hut with a species of
+broad-bladed grass that grew in every fissure of the ravine. Our hut,
+if it deserved to be called one, consisted of six or eight of the
+straightest branches we could find laid obliquely against the steep wall
+of rock, with their lower ends within a foot of the stream. Into the
+space thus covered over we managed to crawl, and dispose our wearied
+bodies as best we could.
+
+Shall I ever forget that horrid night! As for poor Toby, I could
+scarcely get a word out of him. It would have been some consolation to
+have heard his voice, but he lay shivering the live-long night like a
+man afflicted with the palsy, with his knees drawn up to his head, while
+his back was supported against the dripping side of the rock. During
+this wretched night there seemed nothing wanting to complete the perfect
+misery of our condition. The rain descended in such torrents that our
+poor shelter proved a mere mockery. In vain did I try to elude the
+incessant streams that poured upon me; by protecting one part I only
+exposed another, and the water was continually finding some new opening
+through which to drench us.
+
+I have had many a ducking in the course of my life, and in general
+cared little about it; but the accumulated horrors of that night, the
+deathlike coldness of the place, the appalling darkness and the dismal
+sense of our forlorn condition, almost unmanned me.
+
+It will not be doubted that the next morning we were early risers, and
+as soon as I could catch the faintest glimpse of anything like daylight
+I shook my companion by the arm, and told him it was sunrise. Poor Toby
+lifted up his head, and after a moment’s pause said, in a husky voice,
+‘Then, shipmate, my toplights have gone out, for it appears darker now
+with my eyes open that it did when they were shut.’
+
+‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed I; ‘You are not awake yet.’
+
+‘Awake!’ roared Toby in a rage, ‘awake! You mean to insinuate I’ve been
+asleep, do you? It is an insult to a man to suppose he could sleep in
+such an infernal place as this.’
+
+By the time I had apologized to my friend for having misconstrued his
+silence, it had become somewhat more light, and we crawled out of our
+lair. The rain had ceased, but everything around us was dripping with
+moisture. We stripped off our saturated garments, and wrung them as dry
+as we could. We contrived to make the blood circulate in our benumbed
+limbs by rubbing them vigorously with our hands; and after performing
+our ablutions in the stream, and putting on our still wet clothes,
+we began to think it advisable to break our long fast, it being now
+twenty-four hours since we had tasted food.
+
+Accordingly our day’s ration was brought out, and seating ourselves on a
+detached fragment of rock, we proceeded to discuss it. First we divided
+it into two equal portions, and carefully rolling one of them up for our
+evening’s repast, divided the remainder again as equally as possible,
+and then drew lots for the first choice. I could have placed the morsel
+that fell to my share upon the tip of my finger; but notwithstanding
+this I took care that it should be full ten minutes before I had
+swallowed the last crumb. What a true saying it is that ‘appetite
+furnishes the best sauce.’ There was a flavour and a relish to this
+small particle of food that under other circumstances it would have
+been impossible for the most delicate viands to have imparted. A copious
+draught of the pure water which flowed at our feet served to complete
+the meal, and after it we rose sensibly refreshed, and prepared for
+whatever might befall us.
+
+We now carefully examined the chasm in which we had passed the night.
+We crossed the stream, and gaining the further side of the pool I have
+mentioned, discovered proofs that the spot must have been visited by
+some one but a short time previous to our arrival. Further observation
+convinced us that it had been regularly frequented, and, as we
+afterwards conjectured from particular indications, for the purpose
+of obtaining a certain root, from which the natives obtained a kind of
+ointment.
+
+These discoveries immediately determined us to abandon a place which
+had presented no inducement for us to remain, except the promise of
+security; and as we looked about us for the means of ascending again
+into the upper regions, we at last found a practicable part of the rock,
+and half an hour’s toil carried us to the summit of the same cliff from
+which the preceding evening we had descended.
+
+I now proposed to Toby that instead of rambling about the island,
+exposing ourselves to discovery at every turn, we should select some
+place as our fixed abode for as long a period as our food should
+hold out, build ourselves a comfortable hut, and be as prudent and
+circumspect as possible. To all this my companion assented, and we at
+once set about carrying the plan into execution.
+
+With this view, after exploring without success a little glen near us,
+we crossed several of the ridges of which I have before spoken; and
+about noon found ourselves ascending a long and gradually rising slope,
+but still without having discovered any place adapted to our purpose.
+Low and heavy clouds betokened an approaching storm, and we hurried on
+to gain a covert in a clump of thick bushes, which appeared to terminate
+the long ascent. We threw ourselves under the lee of these bushes, and
+pulling up the long grass that grew around, covered ourselves completely
+with it, and awaited the shower.
+
+But it did not come as soon as we had expected, and before many minutes
+my companion was fast asleep, and I was rapidly falling into the same
+state of happy forgetfulness. Just at this juncture, however, down came
+the rain with the violence that put all thoughts of slumber to flight.
+Although in some measure sheltered, our clothes soon became as wet
+as ever; this, after all the trouble we had taken to dry them, was
+provoking enough: but there was no help for it; and I recommend all
+adventurous youths who abandon vessels in romantic islands during the
+rainy season to provide themselves with umbrellas.
+
+After an hour or so the shower passed away. My companion slept through
+it all, or at least appeared so to do; and now that it was over I had
+not the heart to awaken him. As I lay on my back completely shrouded
+with verdure, the leafy branches drooping over me, my limbs buried
+in grass, I could not avoid comparing our situation with that of the
+interesting babes in the wood. Poor little sufferers!--no wonder their
+constitutions broke down under the hardships to which they were exposed.
+
+During the hour or two spent under the shelter of these bushes, I began
+to feel symptoms which I at once attributed to the exposure of the
+preceding night. Cold shiverings and a burning fever succeeded one
+another at intervals, while one of my legs was swelled to such a degree,
+and pained me so acutely, that I half suspected I had been bitten by
+some venomous reptile, the congenial inhabitant of the chasm from which
+we had lately emerged. I may here remark by the way--what I subsequently
+gleamed--that all the islands of Polynesia enjoy the reputation, in
+common with the Hibernian isle, of being free from the presence of any
+vipers; though whether Saint Patrick ever visited them, is a question I
+shall not attempt to decide.
+
+As the feverish sensation increased upon me I tossed about, still
+unwilling to disturb my slumbering companion, from whose side I removed
+two or three yards. I chanced to push aside a branch, and by so doing
+suddenly disclosed to my view a scene which even now I can recall with
+all the vividness of the first impression. Had a glimpse of the gardens
+of Paradise been revealed to me, I could scarcely have been more
+ravished with the sight.
+
+From the spot where I lay transfixed with surprise and delight, I looked
+straight down into the bosom of a valley, which swept away in long wavy
+undulations to the blue waters in the distance. Midway towards the
+sea, and peering here and there amidst the foliage, might be seen the
+palmetto-thatched houses of its inhabitants glistening in the sun that
+had bleached them to a dazzling whiteness. The vale was more than three
+leagues in length, and about a mile across at its greatest width.
+
+On either side it appeared hemmed in by steep and green acclivities,
+which, uniting near the spot where I lay, formed an abrupt and
+semicircular termination of grassy cliffs and precipices hundreds of
+feet in height, over which flowed numberless small cascades. But the
+crowning beauty of the prospect was its universal verdure; and in this
+indeed consists, I believe, the peculiar charm of every Polynesian
+landscape. Everywhere below me, from the base of the precipice upon
+whose very verge I had been unconsciously reposing, the surface of the
+vale presented a mass of foliage, spread with such rich profusion
+that it was impossible to determine of what description of trees it
+consisted.
+
+But perhaps there was nothing about the scenery I beheld more impressive
+than those silent cascades, whose slender threads of water, after
+leaping down the steep cliffs, were lost amidst the rich herbage of the
+valley.
+
+Over all the landscape there reigned the most hushed repose, which I
+almost feared to break, lest, like the enchanted gardens in the fairy
+tale, a single syllable might dissolve the spell. For a long time,
+forgetful alike of my own situation, and the vicinity of my still
+slumbering companion, I remained gazing around me, hardly able to
+comprehend by what means I had thus suddenly been made a spectator of
+such a scene.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+THE IMPORTANT QUESTION, TYPEE OR HAPPAR?--A WILD GOOSE CHASE--MY
+SUFFERINGS--DISHEARTENING SITUATION--A NIGHT IN A RAVINE--MORNING
+MEAL--HAPPY IDEA OF TOBY--JOURNEY TOWARDS THE VALLEY
+
+
+Recovering from my astonishment at the beautiful scene before me, I
+quickly awakened Toby, and informed him of the discovery I had made.
+Together we now repaired to the border of the precipice, and my
+companion’s admiration was equal to my own. A little reflection,
+however, abated our surprise at coming so unexpectedly upon this valley,
+since the large vales of Happar and Typee, lying upon this side of
+Nukuheva, and extending a considerable distance from the sea towards the
+interior, must necessarily terminate somewhere about this point.
+
+The question now was as to which of those two places we were looking
+down upon. Toby insisted that it was the abode of the Happar, and I that
+it was tenanted by their enemies the ferocious Typees. To be sure I was
+not entirely convinced by my own arguments, but Toby’s proposition to
+descend at once into the valley, and partake of the hospitality of its
+inmates, seemed to me to be risking so much upon the strength of a mere
+supposition, that I resolved to oppose it until we had more evidence to
+proceed upon.
+
+The point was one of vital importance, as the natives of Happar were
+not only at peace with Nukuheva, but cultivated with its inhabitants the
+most friendly relations, and enjoyed besides a reputation for gentleness
+and humanity which led us to expect from them, if not a cordial
+reception, at least a shelter during the short period we should remain
+in their territory.
+
+On the other hand, the very name of Typee struck a panic into my heart
+which I did not attempt to disguise. The thought of voluntarily throwing
+ourselves into the hands of these cruel savages, seemed to me an act
+of mere madness; and almost equally so the idea of venturing into the
+valley, uncertain by which of these two tribes it was inhabited. That
+the vale at our feet was tenanted by one of them, was a point that
+appeared to us past all doubt, since we knew that they resided in this
+quarter, although our information did not enlighten us further.
+
+My companion, however, incapable of resisting the tempting prospect
+which the place held out of an abundant supply of food and other means
+of enjoyment, still clung to his own inconsiderate view of the subject,
+nor could all my reasoning shake it. When I reminded him that it was
+impossible for either of us to know anything with certainty, and when
+I dwelt upon the horrible fate we should encounter were we rashly
+to descend into the valley, and discover too late the error we had
+committed, he replied by detailing all the evils of our present
+condition, and the sufferings we must undergo should we continue to
+remain where we then were.
+
+Anxious to draw him away from the subject, if possible--for I saw
+that it would be in vain to attempt changing his mind--I directed his
+attention to a long bright unwooded tract of land which, sweeping down
+from the elevations in the interior, descended into the valley before
+us. I then suggested to him that beyond this ridge might lie a capacious
+and untenanted valley, abounding with all manner of delicious fruits;
+for I had heard that there were several such upon the island, and
+proposed that we should endeavour to reach it, and if we found our
+expectations realized we should at once take refuge in it and remain
+there as long as we pleased.
+
+He acquiesced in the suggestion; and we immediately, therefore, began
+surveying the country lying before us, with a view of determining upon
+the best route for us to pursue; but it presented little choice, the
+whole interval being broken into steep ridges, divided by dark ravines,
+extending in parallel lines at right angles to our direct course. All
+these we would be obliged to cross before we could hope to arrive at our
+destination.
+
+A weary journey! But we decided to undertake it, though, for my own
+part, I felt little prepared to encounter its fatigues, shivering and
+burning by turns with the ague and fever; for I know not how else to
+describe the alternate sensations I experienced, and suffering not
+a little from the lameness which afflicted me. Added to this was the
+faintness consequent on our meagre diet--a calamity in which Toby
+participated to the same extent as myself.
+
+These circumstances, however, only augmented my anxiety to reach a place
+which promised us plenty and repose, before I should be reduced to a
+state which would render me altogether unable to perform the journey.
+Accordingly we now commenced it by descending the almost perpendicular
+side of a steep and narrow gorge, bristling with a thick growth of
+reeds. Here there was but one mode for us to adopt. We seated ourselves
+upon the ground, and guided our descent by catching at the canes in our
+path. This velocity with which we thus slid down the side of the ravine
+soon brought us to a point where we could use our feet, and in a short
+time we arrived at the edge of the torrent, which rolled impetuously
+along the bed of the chasm.
+
+After taking a refreshing draught from the water of the stream, we
+addressed ourselves to a much more difficult undertaking than the last.
+Every foot of our late descent had to be regained in ascending the
+opposite side of the gorge--an operation rendered the less agreeable
+from the consideration that in these perpendicular episodes we did not
+progress a hundred yards on our journey. But, ungrateful as the task
+was, we set about it with exemplary patience, and after a snail-like
+progress of an hour or more, had scaled perhaps one half of the
+distance, when the fever which had left me for a while returned with
+such violence, and accompanied by so raging a thirst, that it required
+all the entreaties of Toby to prevent me from losing all the fruits of
+my late exertion, by precipitating myself madly down the cliffs we had
+just climbed, in quest of the water which flowed so temptingly at their
+base. At the moment all my hopes and fears appeared to be merged in
+this one desire, careless of the consequences that might result from its
+gratification. I am aware of no feeling, either of pleasure or of pain,
+that so completely deprives one of an power to resist its impulses, as
+this same raging thirst.
+
+Toby earnestly conjured me to continue the ascent, assuring me that a
+little more exertion would bring us to the summit, and that then in less
+than five minutes we should find ourselves at the brink of the stream,
+which must necessarily flow on the other side of the ridge.
+
+‘Do not,’ he exclaimed, ‘turn back, now that we have proceeded thus far;
+for I tell you that neither of us will have the courage to repeat the
+attempt, if once more we find ourselves looking up to where we now are
+from the bottom of these rocks!’
+
+I was not yet so perfectly beside myself as to be heedless of these
+representations, and therefore toiled on, ineffectually endeavouring to
+appease the thirst which consumed me, by thinking that in a short time I
+should be able to gratify it to my heart’s content.
+
+At last we gained the top of the second elevation, the loftiest of
+those I have described as extending in parallel lines between us and the
+valley we desired to reach. It commanded a view of the whole intervening
+distance; and, discouraged as I was by other circumstances, this
+prospect plunged me into the very depths of despair. Nothing but dark
+and fearful chasms, separated by sharp-crested and perpendicular ridges
+as far as the eye could reach. Could we have stepped from summit
+to summit of these steep but narrow elevations we could easily have
+accomplished the distance; but we must penetrate to the bottom of every
+yawning gulf, and scale in succession every one of the eminences before
+us. Even Toby, although not suffering as I did, was not proof against
+the disheartening influences of the sight.
+
+But we did not long stand to contemplate it, impatient as I was to reach
+the waters of the torrent which flowed beneath us. With an insensibility
+to danger which I cannot call to mind without shuddering, we threw
+ourselves down the depths of the ravine, startling its savage solitudes
+with the echoes produced by the falling fragments of rock we every
+moment dislodged from their places, careless of the insecurity of our
+footing, and reckless whether the slight roots and twigs we clutched at
+sustained us for the while, or treacherously yielded to our grasp. For
+my own part, I scarcely knew whether I was helplessly falling from the
+heights above, or whether the fearful rapidity with which I descended
+was an act of my own volition.
+
+In a few minutes we reached the foot of the gorge, and kneeling upon
+a small ledge of dripping rocks, I bent over to the stream. What a
+delicious sensation was I now to experience! I paused for a second to
+concentrate all my capabilities of enjoyment, and then immerged my lips
+in the clear element before me. Had the apples of Sodom turned to ashes
+in my mouth, I could not have felt a more startling revulsion. A single
+drop of the cold fluid seemed to freeze every drop of blood in my body;
+the fever that had been burning in my veins gave place on the instant to
+death-like chills, which shook me one after another like so many shocks
+of electricity, while the perspiration produced by my late violent
+exertions congealed in icy beads upon my forehead. My thirst was gone,
+and I fairly loathed the water. Starting to my feet, the sight of those
+dank rocks, oozing forth moisture at every crevice, and the dark
+stream shooting along its dismal channel, sent fresh chills through
+my shivering frame, and I felt as uncontrollable a desire to climb up
+towards the genial sunlight as I before had to descend the ravine.
+
+After two hours’ perilous exertions we stood upon the summit of another
+ridge, and it was with difficulty I could bring myself to believe that
+we had ever penetrated the black and yawning chasm which then gaped at
+our feet. Again we gazed upon the prospect which the height commanded,
+but it was just as depressing as the one which had before met our eyes.
+I now felt that in our present situation it was in vain for us to think
+of ever overcoming the obstacles in our way, and I gave up all thoughts
+of reaching the vale which lay beyond this series of impediments; while
+at the same time I could not devise any scheme to extricate ourselves
+from the difficulties in which we were involved.
+
+The remotest idea of returning to Nukuheva, unless assured of our
+vessel’s departure, never once entered my mind, and indeed it was
+questionable whether we could have succeeded in reaching it, divided as
+we were from the bay by a distance we could not compute, and perplexed
+too in our remembrance of localities by our recent wanderings. Besides,
+it was unendurable the thought of retracing our steps and rendering all
+our painful exertions of no avail.
+
+There is scarcely anything when a man is in difficulties that he is
+more disposed to look upon with abhorrence than a rightabout retrograde
+movement--a systematic going over of the already trodden ground:
+and especially if he has a love of adventure, such a course appears
+indescribably repulsive, so long as there remains the least hope to be
+derived from braving untried difficulties.
+
+It was this feeling that prompted us to descend the opposite side of the
+elevation we had just scaled, although with what definite object in view
+it would have been impossible for either of us to tell.
+
+Without exchanging a syllable upon the subject, Toby and myself
+simultaneously renounced the design which had lured us thus
+far--perceiving in each other’s countenances that desponding expression
+which speaks more eloquently than words.
+
+Together we stood towards the close of this weary day in the cavity of
+the third gorge we had entered, wholly incapacitated for any further
+exertion, until restored to some degree of strength by food and repose.
+
+We seated ourselves upon the least uncomfortable spot we could select,
+and Toby produced from the bosom of his frock the sacred package. In
+silence we partook of the small morsel of refreshment that had been left
+from the morning’s repast, and without once proposing to violate the
+sanctity of our engagement with respect to the remainder, we rose to
+our feet, and proceeded to construct some sort of shelter under which we
+might obtain the sleep we so greatly needed.
+
+Fortunately the spot was better adapted to our purpose than the one in
+which we had passed the last wretched night. We cleared away the tall
+reeds from the small but almost level bit of ground, and twisted them
+into a low basket-like hut, which we covered with a profusion of long
+thick leaves, gathered from a tree near at hand. We disposed them
+thickly all around, reserving only a slight opening that barely
+permitted us to crawl under the shelter we had thus obtained.
+
+These deep recesses, though protected from the winds that assail the
+summits of their lofty sides, are damp and chill to a degree that one
+would hardly anticipate in such a climate; and being unprovided with
+anything but our woollen frocks and thin duck trousers to resist the
+cold of the place, we were the more solicitous to render our habitation
+for the night as comfortable as we could. Accordingly, in addition to
+what we had already done, we plucked down all the leaves within our
+reach and threw them in a heap over our little hut, into which we now
+crept, raking after us a reserved supply to form our couch.
+
+That night nothing but the pain I suffered prevented me from sleeping
+most refreshingly. As it was, I caught two or three naps, while Toby
+slept away at my side as soundly as though he had been sandwiched
+between two Holland sheets. Luckily it did not rain, and we were
+preserved from the misery which a heavy shower would have occasioned
+us. In the morning I was awakened by the sonorous voice of my companion
+ringing in my ears and bidding me rise. I crawled out from our heap of
+leaves, and was astonished at the change which a good night’s rest had
+wrought in his appearance. He was as blithe and joyous as a young bird,
+and was staying the keenness of his morning’s appetite by chewing the
+soft bark of a delicate branch he held in his hand, and he recommended
+the like to me as an admirable antidote against the gnawings of hunger.
+
+For my own part, though feeling materially better than I had done the
+preceding evening, I could not look at the limb that had pained me
+so violently at intervals during the last twenty-four hours, without
+experiencing a sense of alarm that I strove in vain to shake off.
+Unwilling to disturb the flow of my comrade’s spirits, I managed to
+stifle the complaints to which I might otherwise have given vent, and
+calling upon him good-humouredly to speed our banquet, I prepared myself
+for it by washing in the stream. This operation concluded, we swallowed,
+or rather absorbed, by a peculiar kind of slow sucking process, our
+respective morsels of nourishment, and then entered into a discussion as
+to the steps is was necessary for us to pursue.
+
+‘What’s to be done now?’ inquired I, rather dolefully.
+
+‘Descend into that same valley we descried yesterday.’ rejoined Toby,
+with a rapidity and loudness of utterance that almost led me to suspect
+he had been slyly devouring the broadside of an ox in some of the
+adjoining thickets. ‘What else,’ he continued, ‘remains for us to do but
+that, to be sure? Why, we shall both starve to a certainty if we remain
+here; and as to your fears of those Typees--depend upon it, it is all
+nonsense.’
+
+‘It is impossible that the inhabitants of such a lovely place as we
+saw can be anything else but good fellows; and if you choose rather to
+perish with hunger in one of these soppy caverns, I for one prefer to
+chance a bold descent into the valley, and risk the consequences’.
+
+‘And who is to pilot us thither,’ I asked, ‘even if we should decide
+upon the measure you propose? Are we to go again up and down those
+precipices that we crossed yesterday, until we reach the place we
+started from, and then take a flying leap from the cliffs to the
+valley?’
+
+‘Faith, I didn’t think of that,’ said Toby; ‘sure enough, both sides of
+the valley appeared to be hemmed in by precipices, didn’t they?’
+
+‘Yes,’ answered I, ‘as steep as the sides of a line-of-battle ship,
+and about a hundred times as high.’ My companion sank his head upon his
+breast, and remained for a while in deep thought. Suddenly he sprang to
+his feet, while his eyes lighted up with that gleam of intelligence that
+marks the presence of some bright idea.
+
+‘Yes, yes,’ he exclaimed; ‘the streams all run in the same direction,
+and must necessarily flow into the valley before they reach the sea; all
+we have to do is just to follow this stream, and sooner or later it will
+lead us into the vale.’
+
+‘You are right, Toby,’ I exclaimed, ‘you are right; it must conduct us
+thither, and quickly too; for, see with what a steep inclination the
+water descends.’
+
+‘It does, indeed,’ burst forth my companion, overjoyed at my
+verification of his theory, ‘it does indeed; why, it is as plain as a
+pike-staff. Let us proceed at once; come, throw away all those stupid
+ideas about the Typees, and hurrah for the lovely valley of the
+Happars.’
+
+‘You will have it to be Happar, I see, my dear fellow; pray Heaven you
+may not find yourself deceived,’ observed I, with a shake of my head.
+
+‘Amen to all that, and much more,’ shouted Toby, rushing forward; ‘but
+Happar it is, for nothing else than Happar can it be. So glorious a
+valley--such forests of bread-fruit trees--such groves of cocoanut--such
+wilderness of guava-bushes! Ah! shipmate! don’t linger behind: in the
+name of all delightful fruits, I am dying to be at them. Come on, come
+on; shove ahead, there’s a lively lad; never mind the rocks; kick them
+out of the way, as I do; and tomorrow, old fellow, take my word for
+it, we shall be in clover. Come on;’ and so saying, he dashed along the
+ravine like a madman, forgetting my inability to keep up with him. In a
+few minutes, however, the exuberance of his spirits abated, and, pausing
+for a while, he permitted me to overtake him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+PERILOUS PASSAGE OF THE RAVINE--DESCENT INTO THE VALLEY
+
+
+The fearless confidence of Toby was contagious, and I began to adopt the
+Happar side of the question. I could not, however, overcome a certain
+feeling of trepidation as we made our way along these gloomy solitudes.
+Our progress, at first comparatively easy, became more and more
+difficult. The bed of the watercourse was covered with fragments of
+broken rocks, which had fallen from above, offering so many obstructions
+to the course of the rapid stream, which vexed and fretted about
+them,--forming at intervals small waterfalls, pouring over into deep
+basins, or splashing wildly upon heaps of stones.
+
+From the narrowness of the gorge, and the steepness of its sides, there
+was no mode of advancing but by wading through the water; stumbling
+every moment over the impediments which lay hidden under its surface,
+or tripping against the huge roots of trees. But the most annoying
+hindrance we encountered was from a multitude of crooked boughs, which,
+shooting out almost horizontally from the sides of the chasm, twisted
+themselves together in fantastic masses almost to the surface of the
+stream, affording us no passage except under the low arches which they
+formed. Under these we were obliged to crawl on our hands and feet,
+sliding along the oozy surface of the rocks, or slipping into the deep
+pools, and with scarce light enough to guide us. Occasionally we would
+strike our heads against some projecting limb of a tree; and while
+imprudently engaged in rubbing the injured part, would fall sprawling
+amongst flinty fragments, cutting and bruising ourselves, whilst the
+unpitying waters flowed over our prostrate bodies. Belzoni, worming
+himself through the subterranean passages of the Egyptian catacombs,
+could not have met with great impediments than those we here
+encountered. But we struggled against them manfully, well knowing our
+only hope lay in advancing.
+
+Towards sunset we halted at a spot where we made preparations for
+passing the night. Here we constructed a hut, in much the same way as
+before, and crawling into it, endeavoured to forget our sufferings. My
+companion, I believe, slept pretty soundly; but at day break, when we
+rolled out of our dwelling, I felt nearly disqualified for any further
+efforts. Toby prescribed as a remedy for my illness the contents of one
+of our little silk packages, to be taken at once in a single dose. To
+this species of medical treatment, however, I would by no means accede,
+much as he insisted upon it; and so we partook of our usual morsel, and
+silently resumed our journey. It was now the fourth day since we left
+Nukuheva, and the gnawings of hunger became painfully acute. We were
+fain to pacify them by chewing the tender bark of roots and twigs,
+which, if they did not afford us nourishment, were at least sweet and
+pleasant to the taste.
+
+Our progress along the steep watercourse was necessarily slow, and by
+noon we had not advanced more than a mile. It was somewhere near this
+part of the day that the noise of falling waters, which we had faintly
+caught in the early morning, became more distinct; and it was not long
+before we were arrested by a rocky precipice of nearly a hundred feet
+in depth, that extended all across the channel, and over which the wild
+stream poured in an unbroken leap. On each hand the walls of the
+ravine presented their overhanging sides both above and below the fall,
+affording no means whatever of avoiding the cataract by taking a circuit
+round it.
+
+‘What’s to be done now, Toby?’ said I.
+
+‘Why,’ rejoined he, ‘as we cannot retreat, I suppose we must keep
+shoving along.’
+
+‘Very true, my dear Toby; but how do you purpose accomplishing that
+desirable object?’
+
+‘By jumping from the top of the fall, if there be no other way,’
+unhesitatingly replied my companion: ‘it will be much the quickest way
+of descent; but as you are not quite as active as I am, we will try some
+other way.’
+
+And, so saying, he crept cautiously along and peered over into the
+abyss, while I remained wondering by what possible means we could
+overcome this apparently insuperable obstruction. As soon as my
+companion had completed his survey, I eagerly inquired the result.
+
+‘The result of my observations you wish to know, do you?’ began Toby,
+deliberately, with one of his odd looks: ‘well, my lad, the result of my
+observations is very quickly imparted. It is at present uncertain which
+of our two necks will have the honour to be broken first; but about a
+hundred to one would be a fair bet in favour of the man who takes the
+first jump.’
+
+‘Then it is an impossible thing, is it?’ inquired I gloomily.
+
+‘No, shipmate; on the contrary, it is the easiest thing in life: the
+only awkward point is the sort of usage which our unhappy limbs may
+receive when we arrive at the bottom, and what sort of travelling trim
+we shall be in afterwards. But follow me now, and I will show you the
+only chance we have.’ With this he conducted me to the verge of the
+cataract, and pointed along the side of the ravine to a number of
+curious looking roots, some three or four inches in thickness, and
+several feet long, which, after twisting among the fissures of the rock,
+shot perpendicularly from it and ran tapering to a point in the air,
+hanging over the gulf like so many dark icicles. They covered nearly
+the entire surface of one side of the gorge, the lowest of them
+reaching even to the water. Many were moss grown and decayed, with their
+extremities snapped short off, and those in the immediate vicinity of
+the fall were slippery with moisture.
+
+Toby’s scheme, and it was a desperate one, was to entrust ourselves
+to these treacherous-looking roots, and by slipping down from one to
+another to gain the bottom.
+
+‘Are you ready to venture it?’ asked Toby, looking at me earnestly but
+without saying a word as to the practicability of the plan.
+
+‘I am,’ was my reply; for I saw it was our only resource if we wished to
+advance, and as for retreating, all thoughts of that sort had been long
+abandoned.
+
+After I had signified my assent, Toby, without uttering a a single word,
+crawled along the dripping ledge until he gained a point from whence
+he could just reach one of the largest of the pendant roots; he shook
+it--it quivered in his grasp, and when he let it go it twanged in the
+air like a strong, wire sharply struck. Satisfied by his scrutiny, my
+light limbed companion swung himself nimbly upon it, and twisting his
+legs round it in sailor fashion, slipped down eight or ten feet, where
+his weight gave it a motion not un-like that of a pendulum. He could not
+venture to descend any further; so holding on with one hand, he with the
+other shook one by one all the slender roots around him, and at last,
+finding one which he thought trustworthy, shifted him self to it and
+continued his downward progress.
+
+So far so well; but I could not avoid comparing my heavier frame and
+disabled condition with his light figure and remarkable activity;
+but there was no help for it, and in less than a minute’s time I was
+swinging directly over his head. As soon as his upturned eyes caught a
+glimpse of me, he exclaimed in his usual dry tone, for the danger did
+not seem to daunt him in the least, ‘Mate, do me the kindness not to
+fall until I get out of your way;’ and then swinging himself more on
+one side, he continued his descent. In the mean time I cautiously
+transferred myself from the limb down which I had been slipping to a
+couple of others that were near it, deeming two strings to my bow better
+than one, and taking care to test their strength before I trusted my
+weight to them.
+
+On arriving towards the end of the second stage in this vertical
+journey, and shaking the long roots which were round me, to my
+consternation they snapped off one after another like so many pipe
+stems, and fell in fragments against the side of the gulf, splashing at
+last into the waters beneath.
+
+As one after another the treacherous roots yielded to my grasp, and fell
+into the torrent, my heart sunk within me. The branches on which I was
+suspended over the yawning chasm swang to and fro in the air, and I
+expected them every moment to snap in twain. Appalled at the dreadful
+fate that menaced me, I clutched frantically at the only large root
+which remained near me, but in vain; I could not reach it, though my
+fingers were within a few inches of it. Again and again I tried to reach
+it, until at length, maddened with the thought of my situation, I swayed
+myself violently by striking my foot against the side of the rock, and
+at the instant that I approached the large root caught desperately at
+it, and transferred myself to it. It vibrated violently under the sudden
+weight, but fortunately did not give way.
+
+My brain grew dizzy with the idea of the frightful risk I had just run,
+and I involuntarily closed my eyes to shut out the view of the
+depth beneath me. For the instant I was safe, and I uttered a devout
+ejaculation of thanksgiving for my escape.
+
+‘Pretty well done,’ shouted Toby underneath me; ‘you are nimbler than
+I thought you to be--hopping about up there from root to root like any
+young squirrel. As soon as you have diverted yourself sufficiently, I
+would advise you to proceed.’
+
+‘Aye, aye, Toby, all in good time: two or three more such famous roots
+as this, and I shall be with you.’
+
+The residue of my downward progress was comparatively easy; the roots
+were in greater abundance, and in one or two places jutting out points
+of rock assisted me greatly. In a few moments I was standing by the side
+of my companion.
+
+Substituting a stout stick for the one I had thrown aside at the top of
+the precipice, we now continued our course along the bed of the ravine.
+Soon we were saluted by a sound in advance, that grew by degrees
+louder and louder, as the noise of the cataract we were leaving behind
+gradually died on our ears.
+
+‘Another precipice for us, Toby.’
+
+‘Very good; we can descend them, you know--come on.’
+
+Nothing indeed appeared to depress or intimidate this intrepid fellow.
+Typees or Niagaras, he was as ready to engage one as the other, and I
+could not avoid a thousand times congratulating myself upon having such
+a companion in an enterprise like the present.
+
+After an hour’s painful progress, we reached the verge of another fall,
+still loftier than the preceding and flanked both above and below with
+the same steep masses of rock, presenting, however, here and there
+narrow irregular ledges, supporting a shallow soil, on which grew a
+variety of bushes and trees, whose bright verdure contrasted beautifully
+with the foamy waters that flowed between them.
+
+Toby, who invariably acted as pioneer, now proceeded to reconnoitre.
+On his return, he reported that the shelves of rock on our right
+would enable us to gain with little risk the bottom of the cataract.
+Accordingly, leaving the bed of the stream at the very point where it
+thundered down, we began crawling along one of those sloping ledges
+until it carried us to within a few feet of another that inclined
+downwards at a still sharper angle, and upon which, by assisting each
+other we managed to alight in safety. We warily crept along this,
+steadying ourselves by the naked roots of the shrubs that clung to every
+fissure. As we proceeded, the narrow path became still more contracted,
+rendering it difficult for us to maintain our footing, until suddenly,
+as we reached an angle of the wall of rock where we had expected it to
+widen, we perceived to our consternation that a yard or two further on
+it abruptly terminated at a place we could not possibly hope to pass.
+
+Toby as usual led the van, and in silence I waited to learn from him how
+he proposed to extricate us from this new difficulty.
+
+‘Well, my boy,’ I exclaimed, after the expiration of several minutes,
+during which time my companion had not uttered a word, ‘what’s to be
+done now?’
+
+He replied in a tranquil tone, that probably the best thing we could do
+in our present strait was to get out of it as soon as possible.
+
+‘Yes, my dear Toby, but tell me how we are to get out of it.’
+
+‘Something in this sort of style,’ he replied, and at the same moment to
+my horror he slipped sideways off the rocks and, as I then thought, by
+good fortune merely, alighted among the spreading branches of a species
+of palm tree, that shooting its hardy roots along a ledge below, curved
+its trunk upwards into the air, and presented a thick mass of foliage
+about twenty feet below the spot where we had thus suddenly been brought
+to a standstill. I involuntarily held my breath, expecting to see the
+form of my companion, after being sustained for a moment by the branches
+of the tree, sink through their frail support, and fall headlong to
+the bottom. To my surprise and joy, however, he recovered himself, and
+disentangling his limbs from the fractured branches, he peered out from
+his leafy bed, and shouted lustily, ‘Come on, my hearty there is no
+other alternative!’ and with this he ducked beneath the foliage, and
+slipping down the trunk, stood in a moment at least fifty feet beneath
+me, upon the broad shelf of rock from which sprung the tree he had
+descended.
+
+What would I not have given at that moment to have been by his side. The
+feat he had just accomplished seemed little less than miraculous, and
+I could hardly credit the evidence of my senses when I saw the wide
+distance that a single daring act had so suddenly placed between us.
+
+Toby’s animating ‘come on’ again sounded in my ears, and dreading to
+lose all confidence in myself if I remained meditating upon the step,
+I once more gazed down to assure myself of the relative bearing of the
+tree and my own position, and then closing my eyes and uttering one
+comprehensive ejaculation of prayer, I inclined myself over towards the
+abyss, and after one breathless instant fell with a crash into the tree,
+the branches snapping and cracking with my weight, as I sunk lower and
+lower among them, until I was stopped by coming in contact with a sturdy
+limb.
+
+In a few moments I was standing at the foot of the tree manipulating
+myself all over with a view of ascertaining the extent of the injuries
+I had received. To my surprise the only effects of my feat were a few
+slight contusions too trifling to care about. The rest of our descent
+was easily accomplished, and in half an hour after regaining the ravine
+we had partaken of our evening morsel, built our hut as usual, and
+crawled under its shelter.
+
+The next morning, in spite of our debility and the agony of hunger under
+which we were now suffering, though neither of us confessed to the fact,
+we struggled along our dismal and still difficult and dangerous path,
+cheered by the hope of soon catching a glimpse of the valley before
+us, and towards evening the voice of a cataract which had for some time
+sounded like a low deep bass to the music of the smaller waterfalls,
+broke upon our ears in still louder tones, and assured us that we were
+approaching its vicinity.
+
+That evening we stood on the brink of a precipice, over which the dark
+stream bounded in one final leap of full 300 feet. The sheer descent
+terminated in the region we so long had sought. On each side of the
+fall, two lofty and perpendicular bluffs buttressed the sides of the
+enormous cliff, and projected into the sea of verdure with which the
+valley waved, and a range of similar projecting eminences stood disposed
+in a half circle about the head if the vale. A thick canopy of trees
+hung over the very verge of the fall, leaving an arched aperture for the
+passage of the waters, which imparted a strange picturesqueness to the
+scene.
+
+The valley was now before us; but instead of being conducted into its
+smiling bosom by the gradual descent of the deep watercourse we had thus
+far pursued, all our labours now appeared to have been rendered futile
+by its abrupt termination. But, bitterly disappointed, we did not
+entirely despair.
+
+As it was now near sunset we determined to pass the night where we were,
+and on the morrow, refreshed by sleep, and by eating at one meal all our
+stock of food, to accomplish a descent into the valley, or perish in the
+attempt.
+
+We laid ourselves down that night on a spot, the recollection of which
+still makes me shudder. A small table of rock which projected over the
+precipice on one side of the stream, and was drenched by the spray
+of the fall, sustained a huge trunk of a tree which must have been
+deposited there by some heavy freshet. It lay obliquely, with one end
+resting on the rock and the other supported by the side of the ravine.
+Against it we placed in a sloping direction a number of the half decayed
+boughs that were strewn about, and covering the whole with twigs and
+leaves, awaited the morning’s light beneath such shelter as it afforded.
+
+During the whole of this night the continual roaring of the
+cataract--the dismal moaning of the gale through the trees--the
+pattering of the rain, and the profound darkness, affected my spirits to
+a degree which nothing had ever before produced. Wet, half famished,
+and chilled to the heart with the dampness of the place, and nearly wild
+with the pain I endured, I fairly cowered down to the earth under
+this multiplication of hardships, and abandoned myself to frightful
+anticipations of evil; and my companion, whose spirit at last was a good
+deal broken, scarcely uttered a word during the whole night.
+
+At length the day dawned upon us, and rising from our miserable pallet,
+we stretched our stiffened joints, and after eating all that remained
+of our bread, prepared for the last stage of our journey. I will not
+recount every hair-breadth escape, and every fearful difficulty that
+occurred before we succeeded in reaching the bosom of the valley. As I
+have already described similar scenes, it will be sufficient to say that
+at length, after great toil and great dangers, we both stood with no
+limbs broken at the head of that magnificent vale which five days before
+had so suddenly burst upon my sight, and almost beneath the shadow of
+those very cliffs from whose summits we had gazed upon the prospect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+THE HEAD OF THE VALLEY--CAUTIOUS ADVANCE--A PATH--FRUIT--DISCOVERY
+OF TWO OF THE NATIVES--THEIR SINGULAR CONDUCT--APPROACH TOWARDS
+THE INHABITED PARTS OF THE VALE--SENSATION PRODUCED BY OUR
+APPEARANCE--RECEPTION AT THE HOUSE OF ONE OF THE NATIVES
+
+
+How to obtain the fruit which we felt convinced must grow near at hand
+was our first thought.
+
+Typee or Happar? A frightful death at the hands of the fiercest of
+cannibals, or a kindly reception from a gentler race of savages? Which?
+But it was too late now to discuss a question which would so soon be
+answered.
+
+The part of the valley in which we found ourselves appeared to be
+altogether uninhabited. An almost impenetrable thicket extended
+from side to side, without presenting a single plant affording the
+nourishment we had confidently calculated upon; and with this object, we
+followed the course of the stream, casting quick glances as we
+proceeded into the thick jungles on each hand. My companion--to whose
+solicitations I had yielded in descending into the valley--now that
+the step was taken, began to manifest a degree of caution I had little
+expected from him. He proposed that in the event of our finding an
+adequate supply of fruit, we should remain in this unfrequented portion
+of the country--where we should run little chance of being surprised by
+its occupants, whoever they might be--until sufficiently recruited to
+resume our journey; when laying a store of food equal to our wants, we
+might easily regain the bay of Nukuheva, after the lapse of a sufficient
+interval to ensure the departure of our vessel.
+
+I objected strongly to this proposition, plausible as it was, as the
+difficulties of the route would be almost insurmountable, unacquainted
+as we were with the general bearings of the country, and I reminded
+my companion of the hardships which we had already encountered in our
+uncertain wanderings; in a word, I said that since we had deemed
+it advisable to enter the valley, we ought manfully to face the
+consequences, whatever they might be; the more especially as I was
+convinced there was no alternative left us but to fall in with the
+natives at once, and boldly risk the reception they might give us; and
+that as to myself, I felt the necessity of rest and shelter, and that
+until I had obtained them, I should be wholly unable to encounter such
+sufferings as we had lately passed through. To the justice of these
+observations Toby somewhat reluctantly assented.
+
+We were surprised that, after moving as far as we had along the valley,
+we should still meet with the same impervious thickets; and thinking,
+that although the borders of the stream might be lined for some distance
+with them, yet beyond there might be more open ground, I requested Toby
+to keep a bright look-out upon one side, while I did the same on the
+other, in order to discover some opening in the bushes, and especially
+to watch for the slightest appearance of a path or anything else that
+might indicate the vicinity of the islanders.
+
+What furtive and anxious glances we cast into those dim-looking shadows!
+With what apprehensions we proceeded, ignorant at what moment we might
+be greeted by the javelin of some ambushed savage. At last my companion
+paused, and directed my attention to a narrow opening in the foliage. We
+struck into it, and it soon brought us by an indistinctly traced path to
+a comparatively clear space, at the further end of which we descried
+a number of the trees, the native name of which is ‘annuee’, and which
+bear a most delicious fruit. What a race! I hobbling over the ground
+like some decrepid wretch, and Toby leaping forward like a greyhound. He
+quickly cleared one of the trees on which there were two or three of
+the fruit, but to our chagrin they proved to be much decayed; the rinds
+partly opened by the birds, and their hearts half devoured. However, we
+quickly despatched them, and no ambrosia could have been more delicious.
+
+We looked about us uncertain whither to direct our steps, since the path
+we had so far followed appeared to be lost in the open space around us.
+At last we resolved to enter a grove near at hand, and had advanced a
+few rods, when, just upon its skirts, I picked up a slender bread-fruit
+shoot perfectly green, and with the tender bark freshly stripped from
+it. It was still slippery with moisture, and appeared as if it had been
+but that moment thrown aside. I said nothing, but merely held it up to
+Toby, who started at this undeniable evidence of the vicinity of the
+savages.
+
+The plot was now thickening.--A short distance further lay a little
+faggot of the same shoots bound together with a strip of bark. Could it
+have been thrown down by some solitary native, who, alarmed at seeing
+us, had hurried forward to carry the tidings of our approach to his
+countrymen?--Typee or Happar?--But it was too late to recede, so we
+moved on slowly, my companion in advance casting eager glances under the
+trees on each side, until all at once I saw him recoil as if stung by
+an adder. Sinking on his knee, he waved me off with one hand, while with
+the other he held aside some intervening leaves, and gazed intently at
+some object.
+
+Disregarding his injunction, I quickly approached him and caught a
+glimpse of two figures partly hidden by the dense foliage; they were
+standing close together, and were perfectly motionless. They must have
+previously perceived us, and withdrawn into the depths of the wood to
+elude our observation.
+
+My mind was at once made up. Dropping my staff, and tearing open the
+package of things we had brought from the ship, I unrolled the cotton
+cloth, and holding it in one hand picked with the other a twig from the
+bushes beside me, and telling Toby to follow my example, I broke through
+the covert and advanced, waving the branch in token of peace towards
+the shrinking forms before me. They were a boy and a girl, slender and
+graceful, and completely naked, with the exception of a slight girdle of
+bark, from which depended at opposite points two of the russet leaves of
+the bread-fruit tree. An arm of the boy, half screened from sight by
+her wild tresses, was thrown about the neck of the girl, while with the
+other he held one of her hands in his; and thus they stood together,
+their heads inclined forward, catching the faint noise we made in our
+progress, and with one foot in advance, as if half inclined to fly from
+our presence.
+
+As we drew near, their alarm evidently increased. Apprehensive that
+they might fly from us altogether, I stopped short and motioned them
+to advance and receive the gift I extended towards them, but they would
+not; I then uttered a few words of their language with which I was
+acquainted, scarcely expected that they would understand me, but to show
+that we had not dropped from the clouds upon them. This appeared to give
+them a little confidence, so I approached nearer, presenting the cloth
+with one hand, and holding the bough with the other, while they slowly
+retreated. At last they suffered us to approach so near to them that we
+were enabled to throw the cotton cloth across their shoulders, giving
+them to understand that it was theirs, and by a variety of gestures
+endeavouring to make them understand that we entertained the highest
+possible regard for them.
+
+The frightened pair now stood still, whilst we endeavoured to make them
+comprehend the nature of our wants. In doing this Toby went through with
+a complete series of pantomimic illustrations--opening his mouth from
+ear to ear, and thrusting his fingers down his throat, gnashing his
+teeth and rolling his eyes about, till I verily believe the poor
+creatures took us for a couple of white cannibals who were about to
+make a meal of them. When, however, they understood us, they showed
+no inclination to relieve our wants. At this juncture it began to rain
+violently, and we motioned them to lead us to some place of shelter.
+With this request they appeared willing to comply, but nothing could
+evince more strongly the apprehension with which they regarded us,
+than the way in which, whilst walking before us, they kept their eyes
+constantly turned back to watch every movement we made, and even our
+very looks.
+
+‘Typee or Happar, Toby?’ asked I as we walked after them.
+
+‘Of course Happar,’ he replied, with a show of confidence which was
+intended to disguise his doubts.
+
+‘We shall soon know,’ I exclaimed; and at the same moment I
+stepped forward towards our guides, and pronouncing the two names
+interrogatively and pointing to the lowest part of the valley,
+endeavoured to come to the point at once. They repeated the words after
+me again and again, but without giving any peculiar emphasis to either,
+so that I was completely at a loss to understand them; for a couple of
+wilier young things than we afterwards found them to have been on this
+particular occasion never probably fell in any traveller’s way.
+
+More and more curious to ascertain our fate, I now threw together in the
+form of a question the words ‘Happar’ and ‘Motarkee’, the latter being
+equivalent to the word ‘good’. The two natives interchanged glances
+of peculiar meaning with one another at this, and manifested no little
+surprise; but on the repetition of the question after some consultation
+together, to the great joy of Toby, they answered in the affirmative.
+Toby was now in ecstasies, especially as the young savages continued
+to reiterate their answer with great energy, as though desirous of
+impressing us with the idea that being among the Happars, we ought to
+consider ourselves perfectly secure.
+
+Although I had some lingering doubts, I feigned great delight with Toby
+at this announcement, while my companion broke out into a pantomimic
+abhorrence of Typee, and immeasurable love for the particular valley in
+which we were; our guides all the while gazing uneasily at one another
+as if at a loss to account for our conduct.
+
+They hurried on, and we followed them; until suddenly they set up a
+strange halloo, which was answered from beyond the grove through which
+we were passing, and the next moment we entered upon some open ground,
+at the extremity of which we descried a long, low hut, and in front of
+it were several young girls. As soon as they perceived us they fled with
+wild screams into the adjoining thickets, like so many startled fawns.
+A few moments after the whole valley resounded with savage outcries, and
+the natives came running towards us from every direction.
+
+Had an army of invaders made an irruption into their territory they
+could not have evinced greater excitement. We were soon completely
+encircled by a dense throng, and in their eager desire to behold us they
+almost arrested our progress; an equal number surrounded our youthful
+guides, who with amazing volubility appeared to be detailing the
+circumstances which had attended their meeting with us. Every item of
+intelligence appeared to redouble the astonishment of the islanders, and
+they gazed at us with inquiring looks.
+
+At last we reached a large and handsome building of bamboos, and were by
+signs told to enter it, the natives opening a lane for us through which
+to pass; on entering without ceremony, we threw our exhausted frames
+upon the mats that covered the floor. In a moment the slight tenement
+was completely full of people, whilst those who were unable to obtain
+admittance gazed at us through its open cane-work.
+
+It was now evening, and by the dim light we could just discern the
+savage countenances around us, gleaming with wild curiosity and wonder;
+the naked forms and tattooed limbs of brawny warriors, with here and
+there the slighter figures of young girls, all engaged in a perfect
+storm of conversation, of which we were of course the one only
+theme, whilst our recent guides were fully occupied in answering the
+innumerable questions which every one put to them. Nothing can exceed
+the fierce gesticulation of these people when animated in conversation,
+and on this occasion they gave loose to all their natural vivacity,
+shouting and dancing about in a manner that well nigh intimidated us.
+
+Close to where we lay, squatting upon their haunches, were some eight or
+ten noble-looking chiefs--for such they subsequently proved to be--who,
+more reserved than the rest, regarded us with a fixed and stern
+attention, which not a little discomposed our equanimity. One of them
+in particular, who appeared to be the highest in rank, placed himself
+directly facing me, looking at me with a rigidity of aspect under which
+I absolutely quailed. He never once opened his lips, but maintained his
+severe expression of countenance, without turning his face aside for
+a single moment. Never before had I been subjected to so strange and
+steady a glance; it revealed nothing of the mind of the savage, but it
+appeared to be reading my own.
+
+After undergoing this scrutiny till I grew absolutely nervous, with a
+view of diverting it if possible, and conciliating the good opinion of
+the warrior, I took some tobacco from the bosom of my frock and
+offered it to him. He quietly rejected the proffered gift, and, without
+speaking, motioned me to return it to its place.
+
+In my previous intercourse with the natives of Nukuheva and Tior, I had
+found that the present of a small piece of tobacco would have rendered
+any of them devoted to my service. Was this act of the chief a token of
+his enmity? Typee or Happar? I asked within myself. I started, for at
+the same moment this identical question was asked by the strange being
+before me. I turned to Toby, the flickering light of a native taper
+showed me his countenance pale with trepidation at this fatal question.
+I paused for a second, and I know not by what impulse it was that I
+answered ‘Typee’. The piece of dusky statuary nodded in approval, and
+then murmured ‘Motarkee!’ ‘Motarkee,’ said I, without further hesitation
+‘Typee motarkee.’
+
+What a transition! The dark figures around us leaped to their feet,
+clapped their hands in transport, and shouted again and again the
+talismanic syllables, the utterance of which appeared to have settled
+everything.
+
+When this commotion had a little subsided, the principal chief squatted
+once more before me, and throwing himself into a sudden rage, poured
+forth a string of philippics, which I was at no loss to understand, from
+the frequent recurrence of the word Happar, as being directed against
+the natives of the adjoining valley. In all these denunciations my
+companion and I acquiesced, while we extolled the character of the
+warlike Typees. To be sure our panegyrics were somewhat laconic,
+consisting in the repetition of that name, united with the potent
+adjective ‘motarkee’. But this was sufficient, and served to conciliate
+the good will of the natives, with whom our congeniality of sentiment on
+this point did more towards inspiring a friendly feeling than anything
+else that could have happened.
+
+At last the wrath of the chief evaporated, and in a few moments he
+was as placid as ever. Laying his hand upon his breast, he gave me to
+understand that his name was ‘Mehevi’, and that, in return, he wished me
+to communicate my appellation. I hesitated for an instant, thinking that
+it might be difficult for him to pronounce my real name, and then with
+the most praiseworthy intentions intimated that I was known as ‘Tom’.
+But I could not have made a worse selection; the chief could not master
+it. ‘Tommo,’ ‘Tomma’, ‘Tommee’, everything but plain ‘Tom’. As he
+persisted in garnishing the word with an additional syllable, I
+compromised the matter with him at the word ‘Tommo’; and by that name
+I went during the entire period of my stay in the valley. The same
+proceeding was gone through with Toby, whose mellifluous appellation was
+more easily caught.
+
+An exchange of names is equivalent to a ratification of good will and
+amity among these simple people; and as we were aware of this fact, we
+were delighted that it had taken place on the present occasion.
+
+Reclining upon our mats, we now held a kind of levee, giving audience
+to successive troops of the natives, who introduced themselves to us by
+pronouncing their respective names, and retired in high good humour on
+receiving ours in return. During this ceremony the greatest merriment
+prevailed nearly every announcement on the part of the islanders being
+followed by a fresh sally of gaiety, which induced me to believe that
+some of them at least were innocently diverting the company at our
+expense, by bestowing upon themselves a string of absurd titles, of the
+humour of which we were of course entirely ignorant.
+
+All this occupied about an hour, when the throng having a little
+diminished, I turned to Mehevi and gave him to understand that we were
+in need of food and sleep. Immediately the attentive chief addressed a
+few words to one of the crowd, who disappeared, and returned in a few
+moments with a calabash of ‘poee-poee’, and two or three young cocoanuts
+stripped of their husks, and with their shells partly broken. We both
+of us forthwith placed one of these natural goblets to our lips, and
+drained it in a moment of the refreshing draught it contained. The
+poee-poee was then placed before us, and even famished as I was, I
+paused to consider in what manner to convey it to my mouth.
+
+This staple article of food among the Marquese islanders is manufactured
+from the produce of the bread-fruit tree. It somewhat resembles in
+its plastic nature our bookbinders’ paste, is of a yellow colour, and
+somewhat tart to the taste.
+
+Such was the dish, the merits of which I was now eager to discuss. I
+eyed it wistfully for a moment, and then, unable any longer to stand on
+ceremony, plunged my hand into the yielding mass, and to the boisterous
+mirth of the natives drew it forth laden with the poee-poee, which
+adhered in lengthy strings to every finger. So stubborn was its
+consistency, that in conveying my heavily-weighted hand to my mouth, the
+connecting links almost raised the calabash from the mats on which it
+had been placed. This display of awkwardness--in which, by-the-bye, Toby
+kept me company--convulsed the bystanders with uncontrollable laughter.
+
+As soon as their merriment had somewhat subsided, Mehevi, motioning us
+to be attentive, dipped the forefinger of his right hand in the dish,
+and giving it a rapid and scientific twirl, drew it out coated smoothly
+with the preparation. With a second peculiar flourish he prevented the
+poee-poee from dropping to the ground as he raised it to his mouth, into
+which the finger was inserted and drawn forth perfectly free from any
+adhesive matter.
+
+This performance was evidently intended for our instruction; so I
+again essayed the feat on the principles inculcated, but with very ill
+success.
+
+A starving man, however, little heeds conventional proprieties,
+especially on a South-Sea Island, and accordingly Toby and I partook of
+the dish after our own clumsy fashion, beplastering our faces all over
+with the glutinous compound, and daubing our hands nearly to the
+wrist. This kind of food is by no means disagreeable to the palate of a
+European, though at first the mode of eating it may be. For my own
+part, after the lapse of a few days I became accustomed to its singular
+flavour, and grew remarkably fond of it.
+
+So much for the first course; several other dishes followed it, some of
+which were positively delicious. We concluded our banquet by tossing
+off the contents of two more young cocoanuts, after which we regaled
+ourselves with the soothing fumes of tobacco, inhaled from a quaintly
+carved pipe which passed round the circle.
+
+During the repast, the natives eyed us with intense curiosity, observing
+our minutest motions, and appearing to discover abundant matter for
+comment in the most trifling occurrence. Their surprise mounted the
+highest, when we began to remove our uncomfortable garments, which were
+saturated with rain. They scanned the whiteness of our limbs, and seemed
+utterly unable to account for the contrast they presented to the swarthy
+hue of our faces embrowned from a six months’ exposure to the scorching
+sun of the Line. They felt our skin, much in the same way that a silk
+mercer would handle a remarkably fine piece of satin; and some of them
+went so far in their investigation as to apply the olfactory organ.
+
+Their singular behaviour almost led me to imagine that they never before
+had beheld a white man; but a few moments’ reflection convinced me that
+this could not have been the case; and a more satisfactory reason for
+their conduct has since suggested itself to my mind.
+
+Deterred by the frightful stories related of its inhabitants, ships
+never enter this bay, while their hostile relations with the tribes in
+the adjoining valleys prevent the Typees from visiting that section of
+the island where vessels occasionally lie. At long intervals, however,
+some intrepid captain will touch on the skirts of the bay, with two or
+three armed boats’ crews and accompanied by interpreters. The natives
+who live near the sea descry the strangers long before they reach their
+waters, and aware of the purpose for which they come, proclaim loudly
+the news of their approach. By a species of vocal telegraph the
+intelligence reaches the inmost recesses of the vale in an inconceivably
+short space of time, drawing nearly its whole population down to
+the beach laden with every variety of fruit. The interpreter, who is
+invariably a ‘tabooed Kanaka’ *, leaps ashore with the goods intended for
+barter, while the boats, with their oars shipped, and every man on his
+thwart, lie just outside the surf, heading off the shore, in readiness
+at the first untoward event to escape to the open sea. As soon as the
+traffic is concluded, one of the boats pulls in under cover of the
+muskets of the others, the fruit is quickly thrown into her, and the
+transient visitors precipitately retire from what they justly consider
+so dangerous a vicinity.
+
+* The word ‘Kanaka’ is at the present day universally used in the South
+Seas by Europeans to designate the Islanders. In the various dialects
+of the principal groups it is simply a sexual designation applied to
+the males; but it is now used by the natives in their intercourse with
+foreigners in the same sense in which the latter employ it.
+
+A ‘Tabooed Kanaka’ is an islander whose person has been made to a
+certain extent sacred by the operation of a singular custom hereafter to
+be explained.
+
+
+The intercourse occurring with Europeans being so restricted, no wonder
+that the inhabitants of the valley manifested so much curiosity with
+regard to us, appearing as we did among them under such singular
+circumstances. I have no doubt that we were the first white men who ever
+penetrated thus far back into their territories, or at least the first
+who had ever descended from the head of the vale. What had brought us
+thither must have appeared a complete mystery to them, and from our
+ignorance of the language it was impossible for us to enlighten them. In
+answer to inquiries which the eloquence of their gestures enabled us to
+comprehend, all that we could reply was, that we had come from Nukuheva,
+a place, be it remembered, with which they were at open war. This
+intelligence appeared to affect them with the most lively emotions.
+‘Nukuheva motarkee?’ they asked. Of course we replied most energetically
+in the negative.
+
+Then they plied us with a thousand questions, of which we could
+understand nothing more than that they had reference to the recent
+movements of the French, against whom they seemed to cherish the most
+fierce hatred. So eager were they to obtain information on this point,
+that they still continued to propound their queries long after we had
+shown that we were utterly unable to answer them. Occasionally we caught
+some indistinct idea of their meaning, when we would endeavour by every
+method in our power to communicate the desired intelligence. At such
+times their gratification was boundless, and they would redouble their
+efforts to make us comprehend them more perfectly. But all in vain; and
+in the end they looked at us despairingly, as if we were the receptacles
+of invaluable information; but how to come at it they knew not.
+
+After a while the group around us gradually dispersed, and we were
+left about midnight (as we conjectured) with those who appeared to be
+permanent residents of the house. These individuals now provided us with
+fresh mats to lie upon, covered us with several folds of tappa, and then
+extinguishing the tapers that had been burning, threw themselves down
+beside us, and after a little desultory conversation were soon sound
+asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+
+MIDNIGHT REFLECTIONS--MORNING VISITORS--A WARRIOR IN COSTUME--A SAVAGE
+AESCULAPIUS--PRACTICE OF THE HEALING ART--BODY SERVANT--A DWELLING-HOUSE
+OF THE VALLEY DESCRIBED--PORTRAITS OF ITS INMATES
+
+
+Various and conflicting were the thoughts which oppressed me during the
+silent hours that followed the events related in the preceding chapter.
+Toby, wearied with the fatigues of the day, slumbered heavily by my
+side; but the pain under which I was suffering effectually prevented
+my sleeping, and I remained distressingly alive to all the fearful
+circumstances of our present situation. Was it possible that, after all
+our vicissitudes, we were really in the terrible valley of Typee, and
+at the mercy of its inmates, a fierce and unrelenting tribe of savages?
+Typee or Happar? I shuddered when I reflected that there was no longer
+any room for doubt; and that, beyond all hope of escape, we were now
+placed in those very circumstances from the bare thought of which I had
+recoiled with such abhorrence but a few days before. What might not
+be our fearful destiny? To be sure, as yet we had been treated with no
+violence; nay, had been even kindly and hospitably entertained. But what
+dependence could be placed upon the fickle passions which sway the bosom
+of a savage? His inconstancy and treachery are proverbial. Might it
+not be that beneath these fair appearances the islanders covered some
+perfidious design, and that their friendly reception of us might only
+precede some horrible catastrophe? How strongly did these forebodings
+spring up in my mind as I lay restlessly upon a couch of mats surrounded
+by the dimly revealed forms of those whom I so greatly dreaded!
+
+From the excitement of these fearful thoughts I sank towards morning
+into an uneasy slumber; and on awaking, with a start, in the midst of an
+appalling dream, looked up into the eager countenance of a number of the
+natives, who were bending over me.
+
+It was broad day; and the house was nearly filled with young females,
+fancifully decorated with flowers, who gazed upon me as I rose with
+faces in which childish delight and curiosity were vividly portrayed.
+After waking Toby, they seated themselves round us on the mats, and gave
+full play to that prying inquisitiveness which time out of mind has been
+attributed to the adorable sex.
+
+As these unsophisticated young creatures were attended by no jealous
+duennas, their proceedings were altogether informal, and void of
+artificial restraint. Long and minute was the investigation with which
+they honoured us, and so uproarious their mirth, that I felt infinitely
+sheepish; and Toby was immeasurably outraged at their familiarity.
+
+These lively young ladies were at the same time wonderfully polite
+and humane; fanning aside the insects that occasionally lighted on our
+brows; presenting us with food; and compassionately regarding me in the
+midst of my afflictions. But in spite of all their blandishments, my
+feelings of propriety were exceedingly shocked, for I could but consider
+them as having overstepped the due limits of female decorum.
+
+Having diverted themselves to their hearts’ content, our young visitants
+now withdrew, and gave place to successive troops of the other sex, who
+continued flocking towards the house until near noon; by which time I
+have no doubt that the greater part of the inhabitants of the valley had
+bathed themselves in the light of our benignant countenances.
+
+At last, when their numbers began to diminish, a superb-looking warrior
+stooped the towering plumes of his head-dress beneath the low portal,
+and entered the house. I saw at once that he was some distinguished
+personage, the natives regarding him with the utmost deference, and
+making room for him as he approached. His aspect was imposing. The
+splendid long drooping tail-feathers of the tropical bird, thickly
+interspersed with the gaudy plumage of the cock, were disposed in an
+immense upright semicircle upon his head, their lower extremities being
+fixed in a crescent of guinea-heads which spanned the forehead. Around
+his neck were several enormous necklaces of boar’s tusks, polished like
+ivory, and disposed in such a manner as that the longest and largest
+were upon his capacious chest. Thrust forward through the large
+apertures in his ears were two small and finely-shaped sperm whale
+teeth, presenting their cavities in front, stuffed with freshly-plucked
+leaves, and curiously wrought at the other end into strange little
+images and devices. These barbaric trinkets, garnished in this manner at
+their open extremities, and tapering and curving round to a point behind
+the ear, resembled not a little a pair of cornucopias.
+
+The loins of the warrior were girt about with heavy folds of a
+dark-coloured tappa, hanging before and behind in clusters of braided
+tassels, while anklets and bracelets of curling human hair completed
+his unique costume. In his right hand he grasped a beautifully carved
+paddle-spear, nearly fifteen feet in length, made of the bright
+koar-wood, one end sharply pointed, and the other flattened like an
+oar-blade. Hanging obliquely from his girdle by a loop of sinnate was
+a richly decorated pipe; the slender reed forming its stem was coloured
+with a red pigment, and round it, as well as the idol-bowl, fluttered
+little streamers of the thinnest tappa.
+
+But that which was most remarkable in the appearance of this splendid
+islander was the elaborate tattooing displayed on every noble limb. All
+imaginable lines and curves and figures were delineated over his whole
+body, and in their grotesque variety and infinite profusion I could only
+compare them to the crowded groupings of quaint patterns we sometimes
+see in costly pieces of lacework. The most simple and remarkable of all
+these ornaments was that which decorated the countenance of the chief.
+Two broad stripes of tattooing, diverging from the centre of his shaven
+crown, obliquely crossed both eyes--staining the lids--to a little
+below each ear, where they united with another stripe which swept in a
+straight line along the lips and formed the base of the triangle.
+The warrior, from the excellence of his physical proportions, might
+certainly have been regarded as one of Nature’s noblemen, and the lines
+drawn upon his face may possibly have denoted his exalted rank.
+
+This warlike personage, upon entering the house, seated himself at some
+distance from the spot where Toby and myself reposed, while the rest of
+the savages looked alternately from us to him, as if in expectation of
+something they were disappointed in not perceiving. Regarding the chief
+attentively, I thought his lineaments appeared familiar to me. As
+soon as his full face was turned upon me, and I again beheld its
+extraordinary embellishment, and met the strange gaze to which I had
+been subjected the preceding night, I immediately, in spite of the
+alteration in his appearance, recognized the noble Mehevi. On addressing
+him, he advanced at once in the most cordial manner, and greeting me
+warmly, seemed to enjoy not a little the effect his barbaric costume had
+produced upon me.
+
+I forthwith determined to secure, if possible, the good-will of this
+individual, as I easily perceived he was a man of great authority in his
+tribe, and one who might exert a powerful influence upon our subsequent
+fate. In the endeavour I was not repulsed; for nothing could surpass
+the friendliness he manifested towards both my companion and myself.
+He extended his sturdy limbs by our side, and endeavoured to make
+us comprehend the full extent of the kindly feelings by which he was
+actuated. The almost insuperable difficulty in communicating to one
+another our ideas affected the chief with no little mortification. He
+evinced a great desire to be enlightened with regard to the customs and
+peculiarities of the far-off country we had left behind us, and to which
+under the name of Maneeka he frequently alluded.
+
+But that which more than any other subject engaged his attention was
+the late proceedings of the ‘Frannee’ as he called the French, in the
+neighbouring bay of Nukuheva. This seemed a never-ending theme with him,
+and one concerning which he was never weary of interrogating us. All the
+information we succeeded in imparting to him on this subject was little
+more than that we had seen six men-of-war lying in the hostile bay at
+the time we had left it. When he received this intelligence, Mehevi, by
+the aid of his fingers, went through a long numerical calculation, as if
+estimating the number of Frenchmen the squadron might contain.
+
+It was just after employing his faculties in this way that he happened
+to notice the swelling in my limb. He immediately examined it with the
+utmost attention, and after doing so, despatched a boy who happened to
+be standing by with some message.
+
+After the lapse of a few moments the stripling re-entered the house with
+an aged islander, who might have been taken for old Hippocrates himself.
+His head was as bald as the polished surface of a cocoanut shell, which
+article it precisely resembled in smoothness and colour, while a long
+silvery beard swept almost to his girdle of bark. Encircling his temples
+was a bandeau of the twisted leaves of the Omoo tree, pressed closely
+over the brows to shield his feeble vision from the glare of the sun.
+His tottering steps were supported by a long slim staff, resembling the
+wand with which a theatrical magician appears on the stage, and in
+one hand he carried a freshly plaited fan of the green leaflets of the
+cocoanut tree. A flowing robe of tappa, knotted over the shoulder, hung
+loosely round his stooping form, and heightened the venerableness of his
+aspect.
+
+Mehevi, saluting this old gentleman, motioned him to a seat between us,
+and then uncovering my limb, desired him to examine it. The leech
+gazed intently from me to Toby, and then proceeded to business. After
+diligently observing the ailing member, he commenced manipulating it;
+and on the supposition probably that the complaint had deprived the leg
+of all sensation, began to pinch and hammer it in such a manner that I
+absolutely roared with pain. Thinking that I was as capable of making
+an application of thumps and pinches to the part as any one else, I
+endeavoured to resist this species of medical treatment. But it was
+not so easy a matter to get out of the clutches of the old wizard; he
+fastened on the unfortunate limb as if it were something for which he
+had been long seeking, and muttering some kind of incantation continued
+his discipline, pounding it after a fashion that set me well nigh crazy;
+while Mehevi, upon the same principle which prompts an affectionate
+mother to hold a struggling child in a dentist’s chair, restrained me
+in his powerful grasp, and actually encouraged the wretch in this
+infliction of torture.
+
+Almost frantic with rage and pain, I yelled like a bedlamite; while
+Toby, throwing himself into all the attitudes of a posture-master,
+vainly endeavoured to expostulate with the natives by signs and
+gestures. To have looked at my companion, as, sympathizing with my
+sufferings, he strove to put an end to them, one would have thought
+that he was the deaf and dumb alphabet incarnated. Whether my tormentor
+yielded to Toby’s entreaties, or paused from sheer exhaustion, I do not
+know; but all at once he ceased his operations, and at the same time the
+chief relinquishing his hold upon me, I fell back, faint and breathless
+with the agony I had endured.
+
+My unfortunate limb was now left much in the same condition as a
+rump-steak after undergoing the castigating process which precedes
+cooking. My physician, having recovered from the fatigues of his
+exertions, as if anxious to make amends for the pain to which he had
+subjected me, now took some herbs out of a little wallet that was
+suspended from his waist, and moistening them in water, applied them
+to the inflamed part, stooping over it at the same time, and either
+whispering a spell, or having a little confidential chat with some
+imaginary demon located in the calf of my leg. My limb was now swathed
+in leafy bandages, and grateful to Providence for the cessation of
+hostilities, I was suffered to rest.
+
+Mehevi shortly after rose to depart; but before he went he spoke
+authoritatively to one of the natives whom he addressed as Kory-Kory;
+and from the little I could understand of what took place, pointed
+him out to me as a man whose peculiar business thenceforth would be to
+attend upon my person. I am not certain that I comprehended as much as
+this at the time, but the subsequent conduct of my trusty body-servant
+fully assured me that such must have been the case.
+
+I could not but be amused at the manner in which the chief addressed me
+upon this occasion, talking to me for at least fifteen or twenty minutes
+as calmly as if I could understand every word that he said. I remarked
+this peculiarity very often afterwards in many other of the islanders.
+
+Mehevi having now departed, and the family physician having likewise
+made his exit, we were left about sunset with ten or twelve natives, who
+by this time I had ascertained composed the household of which Toby and
+I were members. As the dwelling to which we had been first introduced
+was the place of my permanent abode while I remained in the valley,
+and as I was necessarily placed upon the most intimate footing with its
+occupants, I may as well here enter into a little description of it
+and its inhabitants. This description will apply also to nearly all the
+other dwelling-places in the vale, and will furnish some idea of the
+generality of the natives.
+
+Near one side of the valley, and about midway up the ascent of a rather
+abrupt rise of ground waving with the richest verdure, a number of large
+stones were laid in successive courses, to the height of nearly
+eight feet, and disposed in such a manner that their level surface
+corresponded in shape with the habitation which was perched upon it. A
+narrow space, however, was reserved in front of the dwelling, upon the
+summit of this pile of stones (called by the natives a ‘pi-pi’),
+which being enclosed by a little picket of canes, gave it somewhat the
+appearance of a verandah. The frame of the house was constructed of
+large bamboos planted uprightly, and secured together at intervals by
+transverse stalks of the light wood of the habiscus, lashed with thongs
+of bark. The rear of the tenement--built up with successive ranges of
+cocoanut boughs bound one upon another, with their leaflets cunningly
+woven together--inclined a little from the vertical, and extended from
+the extreme edge of the ‘pi-pi’ to about twenty feet from its surface;
+whence the shelving roof--thatched with the long tapering leaves of the
+palmetto--sloped steeply off to within about five feet of the floor;
+leaving the eaves drooping with tassel-like appendages over the front
+of the habitation. This was constructed of light and elegant canes in a
+kind of open screenwork, tastefully adorned with bindings of variegated
+sinnate, which served to hold together its various parts. The sides of
+the house were similarly built; thus presenting three quarters for the
+circulation of the air, while the whole was impervious to the rain.
+
+In length this picturesque building was perhaps twelve yards, while
+in breadth it could not have exceeded as many feet. So much for the
+exterior; which, with its wire-like reed-twisted sides, not a little
+reminded me of an immense aviary.
+
+Stooping a little, you passed through a narrow aperture in its front;
+and facing you, on entering, lay two long, perfectly straight, and
+well-polished trunks of the cocoanut tree, extending the full length of
+the dwelling; one of them placed closely against the rear, and the other
+lying parallel with it some two yards distant, the interval between
+them being spread with a multitude of gaily-worked mats, nearly all of a
+different pattern. This space formed the common couch and lounging place
+of the natives, answering the purpose of a divan in Oriental countries.
+Here would they slumber through the hours of the night, and recline
+luxuriously during the greater part of the day. The remainder of the
+floor presented only the cool shining surfaces of the large stones of
+which the ‘pi-pi’ was composed.
+
+From the ridge-pole of the house hung suspended a number of large
+packages enveloped in coarse tappa; some of which contained festival
+dresses, and various other matters of the wardrobe, held in high
+estimation. These were easily accessible by means of a line, which,
+passing over the ridge-pole, had one end attached to a bundle, while
+with the other, which led to the side of the dwelling and was there
+secured, the package could be lowered or elevated at pleasure.
+
+Against the farther wall of the house were arranged in tasteful figures
+a variety of spears and javelins, and other implements of savage
+warfare. Outside of the habitation, and built upon the piazza-like area
+in its front, was a little shed used as a sort of larder or pantry, and
+in which were stored various articles of domestic use and convenience.
+A few yards from the pi-pi was a large shed built of cocoanut boughs,
+where the process of preparing the ‘poee-poee’ was carried on, and all
+culinary operations attended to.
+
+Thus much for the house, and its appurtenances; and it will be readily
+acknowledged that a more commodious and appropriate dwelling for the
+climate and the people could not possibly be devised. It was cool, free
+to admit the air, scrupulously clean, and elevated above the dampness
+and impurities of the ground.
+
+But now to sketch the inmates; and here I claim for my tried servitor
+and faithful valet Kory-Kory the precedence of a first description. As
+his character will be gradually unfolded in the course of my narrative,
+I shall for the present content myself with delineating his personal
+appearance. Kory-Kory, though the most devoted and best natured
+serving-man in the world, was, alas! a hideous object to look upon. He
+was some twenty-five years of age, and about six feet in height, robust
+and well made, and of the most extraordinary aspect. His head was
+carefully shaven with the exception of two circular spots, about the
+size of a dollar, near the top of the cranium, where the hair, permitted
+to grow of an amazing length, was twisted up in two prominent knots,
+that gave him the appearance of being decorated with a pair of horns.
+His beard, plucked out by the root from every other part of his face,
+was suffered to droop in hairy pendants, two of which garnished his
+under lip, and an equal number hung from the extremity of his chin.
+
+Kory-Kory, with a view of improving the handiwork of nature, and
+perhaps prompted by a desire to add to the engaging expression of
+his countenance, had seen fit to embellish his face with three broad
+longitudinal stripes of tattooing, which, like those country roads that
+go straight forward in defiance of all obstacles, crossed his nasal
+organ, descended into the hollow of his eyes, and even skirted the
+borders of his mouth. Each completely spanned his physiognomy; one
+extending in a line with his eyes, another crossing the face in the
+vicinity of the nose, and the third sweeping along his lips from ear
+to ear. His countenance thus triply hooped, as it were, with tattooing,
+always reminded me of those unhappy wretches whom I have sometimes
+observed gazing out sentimentally from behind the grated bars of a
+prison window; whilst the entire body of my savage valet, covered all
+over with representations of birds and fishes, and a variety of most
+unaccountable-looking creatures, suggested to me the idea of a pictorial
+museum of natural history, or an illustrated copy of ‘Goldsmith’s
+Animated Nature.’
+
+But it seems really heartless in me to write thus of the poor islander,
+when I owe perhaps to his unremitting attentions the very existence I
+now enjoy. Kory-Kory, I mean thee no harm in what I say in regard to
+thy outward adornings; but they were a little curious to my unaccustomed
+sight, and therefore I dilate upon them. But to underrate or forget thy
+faithful services is something I could never be guilty of, even in the
+giddiest moment of my life.
+
+The father of my attached follower was a native of gigantic frame, and
+had once possessed prodigious physical powers; but the lofty form was
+now yielding to the inroads of time, though the hand of disease seemed
+never to have been laid upon the aged warrior. Marheyo--for such was
+his name--appeared to have retired from all active participation in the
+affairs of the valley, seldom or never accompanying the natives in
+their various expeditions; and employing the greater part of his time
+in throwing up a little shed just outside the house, upon which he was
+engaged to my certain knowledge for four months, without appearing
+to make any sensible advance. I suppose the old gentleman was in his
+dotage, for he manifested in various ways the characteristics which mark
+this particular stage of life.
+
+I remember in particular his having a choice pair of ear-ornaments,
+fabricated from the teeth of some sea-monster. These he would
+alternately wear and take off at least fifty times in the course of the
+day, going and coming from his little hut on each occasion with all the
+tranquillity imaginable. Sometimes slipping them through the slits
+in his ears, he would seize his spear--which in length and slightness
+resembled a fishing-pole--and go stalking beneath the shadows of the
+neighbouring groves, as if about to give a hostile meeting to some
+cannibal knight. But he would soon return again, and hiding his weapon
+under the projecting eaves of the house, and rolling his clumsy trinkets
+carefully in a piece of tappa, would resume his more pacific operations
+as quietly as if he had never interrupted them.
+
+But despite his eccentricities, Marheyo was a most paternal and
+warm-hearted old fellow, and in this particular not a little resembled
+his son Kory-Kory. The mother of the latter was the mistress of the
+family, and a notable housewife, and a most industrious old lady she
+was. If she did not understand the art of making jellies, jams, custard,
+tea-cakes, and such like trashy affairs, she was profoundly skilled in
+the mysteries of preparing ‘amar’, ‘poee-poee’, and ‘kokoo’, with other
+substantial matters.
+
+She was a genuine busy-body; bustling about the house like a country
+landlady at an unexpected arrival; for ever giving the young girls tasks
+to perform, which the little hussies as often neglected; poking into
+every corner, and rummaging over bundles of old tappa, or making a
+prodigious clatter among the calabashes. Sometimes she might have been
+seen squatting upon her haunches in front of a huge wooden basin, and
+kneading poee-poee with terrific vehemence, dashing the stone pestle
+about as if she would shiver the vessel into fragments; on other
+occasions, galloping about the valley in search of a particular kind
+of leaf, used in some of her recondite operations, and returning home,
+toiling and sweating, with a bundle of it, under which most women would
+have sunk.
+
+To tell the truth, Kory-Kory’s mother was the only industrious person
+in all the valley of Typee; and she could not have employed herself more
+actively had she been left an exceedingly muscular and destitute widow,
+with an inordinate ate supply of young children, in the bleakest part
+of the civilized world. There was not the slightest necessity for the
+greater portion of the labour performed by the old lady: but she seemed
+to work from some irresistible impulse; her limbs continually swaying to
+and fro, as if there were some indefatigable engine concealed within her
+body which kept her in perpetual motion.
+
+Never suppose that she was a termagant or a shrew for all this; she had
+the kindliest heart in the world, and acted towards me in particular
+in a truly maternal manner, occasionally putting some little morsel of
+choice food into my hand, some outlandish kind of savage sweetmeat or
+pastry, like a doting mother petting a sickly urchin with tarts
+and sugar plums. Warm indeed are my remembrances of the dear, good,
+affectionate old Tinor!
+
+Besides the individuals I have mentioned, there belonged to the
+household three young men, dissipated, good-for-nothing, roystering
+blades of savages, who were either employed in prosecuting love affairs
+with the maidens of the tribe, or grew boozy on ‘arva’ and tobacco in
+the company of congenial spirits, the scapegraces of the valley.
+
+Among the permanent inmates of the house were likewise several lovely
+damsels, who instead of thrumming pianos and reading novels, like
+more enlightened young ladies, substituted for these employments the
+manufacture of a fine species of tappa; but for the greater portion of
+the time were skipping from house to house, gadding and gossiping with
+their acquaintances.
+
+From the rest of these, however, I must except the beauteous nymph
+Fayaway, who was my peculiar favourite. Her free pliant figure was the
+very perfection of female grace and beauty. Her complexion was a rich
+and mantling olive, and when watching the glow upon her cheeks I could
+almost swear that beneath the transparent medium there lurked the
+blushes of a faint vermilion.
+
+The face of this girl was a rounded oval, and each feature as perfectly
+formed as the heart or imagination of man could desire.
+
+Her full lips, when parted with a smile, disclosed teeth of dazzling
+whiteness and when her rosy mouth opened with a burst of merriment, they
+looked like the milk-white seeds of the ‘arta,’ a fruit of the valley,
+which, when cleft in twain, shows them reposing in rows on each side,
+imbedded in the red and juicy pulp. Her hair of the deepest brown,
+parted irregularly in the middle, flowed in natural ringlets over her
+shoulders, and whenever she chanced to stoop, fell over and hid from
+view her lovely bosom. Gazing into the depths of her strange blue
+eyes, when she was in a contemplative mood, they seemed most placid yet
+unfathomable; but when illuminated by some lively emotion, they beamed
+upon the beholder like stars. The hands of Fayaway were as soft and
+delicate as those of any countess; for an entire exemption from rude
+labour marks the girlhood and even prime of a Typee woman’s life. Her
+feet, though wholly exposed, were as diminutive and fairly shaped as
+those which peep from beneath the skirts of a Lima lady’s dress. The
+skin of this young creature, from continual ablutions and the use of
+mollifying ointments, was inconceivably smooth and soft.
+
+I may succeed, perhaps, in particularizing some of the individual
+features of Fayaway’s beauty, but that general loveliness of appearance
+which they all contributed to produce I will not attempt to describe.
+The easy unstudied graces of a child of nature like this, breathing from
+infancy an atmosphere of perpetual summer, and nurtured by the simple
+fruits of the earth; enjoying a perfect freedom from care and anxiety,
+and removed effectually from all injurious tendencies, strike the eye in
+a manner which cannot be pourtrayed. This picture is no fancy sketch; it
+is drawn from the most vivid recollections of the person delineated.
+
+Were I asked if the beauteous form of Fayaway was altogether free from
+the hideous blemish of tattooing, I should be constrained to answer that
+it was not. But the practitioners of the barbarous art, so remorseless
+in their inflictions upon the brawny limbs of the warriors of the tribe,
+seem to be conscious that it needs not the resources of their profession
+to augment the charms of the maidens of the vale.
+
+The females are very little embellished in this way, and Fayaway, and
+all the other young girls of her age, were even less so than those of
+their sex more advanced in years. The reason of this peculiarity will
+be alluded to hereafter. All the tattooing that the nymph in question
+exhibited upon her person may be easily described. Three minute dots, no
+bigger than pin-heads, decorated each lip, and at a little distance were
+not at all discernible. Just upon the fall of the shoulder were drawn
+two parallel lines half an inch apart, and perhaps three inches in
+length, the interval being filled with delicately executed figures.
+These narrow bands of tattooing, thus placed, always reminded me of
+those stripes of gold lace worn by officers in undress, and which are in
+lieu of epaulettes to denote their rank.
+
+Thus much was Fayaway tattooed. The audacious hand which had gone so far
+in its desecrating work stopping short, apparently wanting the heart to
+proceed.
+
+But I have omitted to describe the dress worn by this nymph of the
+valley.
+
+Fayaway--I must avow the fact--for the most part clung to the primitive
+and summer garb of Eden. But how becoming the costume!
+
+It showed her fine figure to the best possible advantage; and nothing
+could have been better adapted to her peculiar style of beauty. On
+ordinary occasions she was habited precisely as I have described the two
+youthful savages whom we had met on first entering the valley. At other
+times, when rambling among the groves, or visiting at the houses of her
+acquaintances, she wore a tunic of white tappa, reaching from her waist
+to a little below the knees; and when exposed for any length of time to
+the sun, she invariably protected herself from its rays by a floating
+mantle of--the same material, loosely gathered about the person. Her
+gala dress will be described hereafter.
+
+As the beauties of our own land delight in bedecking themselves with
+fanciful articles of jewellery, suspending them from their ears, hanging
+them about their necks, and clasping them around their wrists; so
+Fayaway and her companions were in the habit of ornamenting themselves
+with similar appendages.
+
+Flora was their jeweller. Sometimes they wore necklaces of small
+carnation flowers, strung like rubies upon a fibre of tappa, or
+displayed in their ears a single white bud, the stem thrust backward
+through the aperture, and showing in front the delicate petals folded
+together in a beautiful sphere, and looking like a drop of the purest
+pearl. Chaplets too, resembling in their arrangement the strawberry
+coronal worn by an English peeress, and composed of intertwined leaves
+and blossoms, often crowned their temples; and bracelets and anklets
+of the same tasteful pattern were frequently to be seen. Indeed, the
+maidens of the island were passionately fond of flowers, and never
+wearied of decorating their persons with them; a lovely trait in their
+character, and one that ere long will be more fully alluded to.
+
+Though in my eyes, at least, Fayaway was indisputably the loveliest
+female I saw in Typee, yet the description I have given of her will in
+some measure apply to nearly all the youthful portion of her sex in the
+valley. Judge ye then, reader, what beautiful creatures they must have
+been.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+OFFICIOUSNESS OF KORY-KORY--HIS DEVOTION--A BATH IN THE STREAM--WANT
+OF REFINEMENT OF THE TYPEE DAMSELS--STROLL WITH MEHEVI--A TYPEE
+HIGHWAY--THE TABOO GROVES--THE HOOLAH HOOLAH GROUND--THE TI--TIMEWORN
+SAVAGES--HOSPITALITY OF MEHEVI--MIDNIGHT MUSINGS--ADVENTURES IN THE
+DARK--DISTINGUISHED HONOURS PAID TO THE VISITORS--STRANGE PROCESSION AND
+RETURN TO THE HOUSE OF MARHEYO
+
+
+When Mehevi had departed from the house, as related in the preceding
+chapter, Kory-Kory commenced the functions of the post assigned him.
+He brought out, various kinds of food; and, as if I were an infant,
+insisted upon feeding me with his own hands. To this procedure I, of
+course, most earnestly objected, but in vain; and having laid a calabash
+of kokoo before me, he washed his fingers in a vessel of water, and then
+putting his hands into the dish and rolling the food into little balls,
+put them one after another into my mouth. All my remonstrances against
+this measure only provoked so great a clamour on his part, that I
+was obliged to acquiesce; and the operation of feeding being thus
+facilitated, the meal was quickly despatched. As for Toby, he was
+allowed to help himself after his own fashion.
+
+The repast over, my attendant arranged the mats for repose, and, bidding
+me lie down, covered me with a large robe of tappa, at the same time
+looking approvingly upon me, and exclaiming ‘Ki-Ki, nuee nuee, ah! moee
+moee motarkee’ (eat plenty, ah! sleep very good). The philosophy of
+this sentiment I did not pretend to question; for deprived of sleep for
+several preceding nights, and the pain of my limb having much abated, I
+now felt inclined to avail myself of the opportunity afforded me.
+
+The next morning, on waking, I found Kory-Kory stretched out on one side
+of me, while my companion lay upon the other. I felt sensibly refreshed
+after a night of sound repose, and immediately agreed to the proposition
+of my valet that I should repair to the water and wash, although
+dreading the suffering that the exertion might produce. From this
+apprehension, however, I was quickly relieved; for Kory-Kory, leaping
+from the pi-pi, and then backing himself up against it, like a porter
+in readiness to shoulder a trunk, with loud vociferations and a
+superabundance of gestures, gave me to understand that I was to mount
+upon his back and be thus transported to the stream, which flowed
+perhaps two hundred yards from the house.
+
+Our appearance upon the verandah in front of the habitation drew
+together quite a crowd, who stood looking on and conversing with one
+another in the most animated manner. They reminded one of a group of
+idlers gathered about the door of a village tavern when the equipage
+of some distinguished traveller is brought round previously to his
+departure. As soon as I clasped my arms about the neck of the devoted
+fellow, and he jogged off with me, the crowd--composed chiefly of young
+girls and boys--followed after, shouting and capering with infinite
+glee, and accompanied us to the banks of the stream.
+
+On gaining it, Kory-Kory, wading up to his hips in the water, carried me
+half way across, and deposited me on a smooth black stone which rose a
+few inches above the surface. The amphibious rabble at our heels plunged
+in after us, and climbing to the summit of the grass-grown rocks with
+which the bed of the brook was here and there broken, waited curiously
+to witness our morning ablutions.
+
+Somewhat embarrassed by the presence of the female portion of the
+company, and feeling my cheeks burning with bashful timidity, I formed
+a primitive basin by joining my hands together, and cooled my blushes
+in the water it contained; then removing my frock, bent over and washed
+myself down to my waist in the stream. As soon as Kory-Kory comprehended
+from my motions that this was to be the extent of my performance, he
+appeared perfectly aghast with astonishment, and rushing towards me,
+poured out a torrent of words in eager deprecation of so limited an
+operation, enjoining me by unmistakable signs to immerse my whole body.
+To this I was forced to consent; and the honest fellow regarding me as a
+froward, inexperienced child, whom it was his duty to serve at the risk
+of offending, lifted me from the rocks, and tenderly bathed my limbs.
+This over, and resuming my seat, I could not avoid bursting into
+admiration of the scene around me.
+
+From the verdant surfaces of the large stones that lay scattered about,
+the natives were now sliding off into the water, diving and ducking
+beneath the surface in all directions--the young girls springing
+buoyantly into the air, and revealing their naked forms to the waist,
+with their long tresses dancing about their shoulders, their eyes
+sparkling like drops of dew in the sun, and their gay laughter pealing
+forth at every frolicsome incident. On the afternoon of the day that I
+took my first bath in the valley, we received another visit from Mehevi.
+The noble savage seemed to be in the same pleasant mood, and was quite
+as cordial in his manner as before. After remaining about an hour, he
+rose from the mats, and motioning to leave the house, invited Toby and
+myself to accompany him. I pointed to my leg; but Mehevi in his turn
+pointed to Kory-Kory, and removed that objection; so, mounting upon the
+faithful fellow’s shoulders again--like the old man of the sea astride
+of Sindbad--I followed after the chief.
+
+The nature of the route we now pursued struck me more forcibly than
+anything I had yet seen, as illustrating the indolent disposition of
+the islanders. The path was obviously the most beaten one in the
+valley, several others leading from each side into it, and perhaps for
+successive generations it had formed the principal avenue of the place.
+And yet, until I grew more familiar with its impediments, it seemed as
+difficult to travel as the recesses of a wilderness. Part of it swept
+around an abrupt rise of ground, the surface of which was broken by
+frequent inequalities, and thickly strewn with projecting masses of
+rocks, whose summits were often hidden from view by the drooping foliage
+of the luxurious vegetation. Sometimes directly over, sometimes evading
+these obstacles with a wide circuit, the path wound along;--one moment
+climbing over a sudden eminence smooth with continued wear, then
+descending on the other side into a steep glen, and crossing the flinty
+channel of a brook. Here it pursued the depths of a glade, occasionally
+obliging you to stoop beneath vast horizontal branches; and now you
+stepped over huge trunks and boughs that lay rotting across the track.
+
+Such was the grand thoroughfare of Typee. After proceeding a little
+distance along it--Kory-Kory panting and blowing with the weight of
+his burden--I dismounted from his back, and grasping the long spear of
+Mehevi in my hand, assisted my steps over the numerous obstacles of
+the road; preferring this mode of advance to one which, from the
+difficulties of the way, was equally painful to myself and my wearied
+servitor.
+
+Our journey was soon at an end; for, scaling a sudden height, we came
+abruptly upon the place of our destination. I wish that it were possible
+to sketch in words this spot as vividly as I recollect it.
+
+Here were situated the Taboo groves of the valley--the scene of many a
+prolonged feast, of many a horrid rite. Beneath the dark shadows of
+the consecrated bread-fruit trees there reigned a solemn twilight--a
+cathedral-like gloom. The frightful genius of pagan worship seemed to
+brood in silence over the place, breathing its spell upon every object
+around. Here and there, in the depths of these awful shades, half
+screened from sight by masses of overhanging foliage, rose the
+idolatrous altars of the savages, built of enormous blocks of black and
+polished stone, placed one upon another, without cement, to the height
+of twelve or fifteen feet, and surmounted by a rustic open temple,
+enclosed with a low picket of canes, within which might be seen, in
+various stages of decay, offerings of bread-fruit and cocoanuts, and the
+putrefying relics of some recent sacrifice.
+
+In the midst of the wood was the hallowed ‘Hoolah Hoolah’ ground--set
+apart for the celebration of the fantastical religious ritual of these
+people--comprising an extensive oblong pi-pi, terminating at either end
+in a lofty terraced altar, guarded by ranks of hideous wooden idols, and
+with the two remaining sides flanked by ranges of bamboo sheds, opening
+towards the interior of the quadrangle thus formed. Vast trees, standing
+in the middle of this space, and throwing over it an umbrageous shade,
+had their massive trunks built round with slight stages, elevated a few
+feet above the ground, and railed in with canes, forming so many rustic
+pulpits, from which the priests harangued their devotees.
+
+This holiest of spots was defended from profanation by the strictest
+edicts of the all-pervading ‘taboo’, which condemned to instant death
+the sacrilegious female who should enter or touch its sacred precincts,
+or even so much as press with her feet the ground made holy by the
+shadows that it cast.
+
+Access was had to the enclosure through an embowered entrance, on one
+side, facing a number of towering cocoanut trees, planted at intervals
+along a level area of a hundred yards. At the further extremity of this
+space was to be seen a building of considerable size, reserved for the
+habitation of the priests and religious attendants of the groves.
+
+In its vicinity was another remarkable edifice, built as usual upon the
+summit of a pi-pi, and at least two hundred feet in length, though not
+more than twenty in breadth. The whole front of this latter structure
+was completely open, and from one end to the other ran a narrow
+verandah, fenced in on the edge of the pi-pi with a picket of canes.
+Its interior presented the appearance of an immense lounging place, the
+entire floor being strewn with successive layers of mats, lying between
+parallel trunks of cocoanut trees, selected for the purpose from the
+straightest and most symmetrical the vale afforded.
+
+To this building, denominated in the language of the natives the ‘Ti’,
+Mehevi now conducted us. Thus far we had been accompanied by a troop of
+the natives of both sexes; but as soon as we approached its vicinity,
+the females gradually separated themselves from the crowd, and standing
+aloof, permitted us to pass on. The merciless prohibitions of the
+taboo extended likewise to this edifice, and were enforced by the
+same dreadful penalty that secured the Hoolah-Hoolah ground from the
+imaginary pollution of a woman’s presence.
+
+On entering the house, I was surprised to see six muskets ranged against
+the bamboo on one side, from the barrels of which depended as many small
+canvas pouches, partly filled with powder.
+
+Disposed about these muskets, like the cutlasses that decorate the
+bulkhead of a man-of-war’s cabin, were a great variety of rude spears
+and paddles, javelins, and war-clubs. This then, said I to Toby, must be
+the armoury of the tribe.
+
+As we advanced further along the building, we were struck with the
+aspect of four or five hideous old wretches, on whose decrepit forms
+time and tattooing seemed to have obliterated every trace of humanity.
+Owing to the continued operation of this latter process, which only
+terminates among the warriors of the island after all the figures
+stretched upon their limbs in youth have been blended together--an
+effect, however, produced only in cases of extreme longevity--the bodies
+of these men were of a uniform dull green colour--the hue which the
+tattooing gradually assumes as the individual advances in age. Their
+skin had a frightful scaly appearance, which, united with its singular
+colour, made their limbs not a little resemble dusty specimens of
+verde-antique. Their flesh, in parts, hung upon them in huge folds, like
+the overlapping plaits on the flank of a rhinoceros. Their heads were
+completely bald, whilst their faces were puckered into a thousand
+wrinkles, and they presented no vestige of a beard. But the most
+remarkable peculiarity about them was the appearance of their feet;
+the toes, like the radiating lines of the mariner’s compass, pointed
+to every quarter of the horizon. This was doubtless attributable to
+the fact, that during nearly a hundred years of existence the said toes
+never had been subjected to any artificial confinement, and in their
+old age, being averse to close neighbourhood, bid one another keep open
+order.
+
+These repulsive-looking creatures appeared to have lost the use of their
+lower limbs altogether; sitting upon the floor cross-legged in a state
+of torpor. They never heeded us in the least, scarcely looking conscious
+of our presence, while Mehevi seated us upon the mats, and Kory-Kory
+gave utterance to some unintelligible gibberish.
+
+In a few moments a boy entered with a wooden trencher of poee-poee; and
+in regaling myself with its contents I was obliged again to submit to
+the officious intervention of my indefatigable servitor. Various other
+dishes followed, the chief manifesting the most hospitable importunity
+in pressing us to partake, and to remove all bashfulness on our part,
+set us no despicable example in his own person.
+
+The repast concluded, a pipe was lighted, which passed from mouth to
+mouth, and yielding to its soporific influence, the quiet of the place,
+and the deepening shadows of approaching night, my companion and I sank
+into a kind of drowsy repose, while the chief and Kory-Kory seemed to be
+slumbering beside us.
+
+I awoke from an uneasy nap, about midnight, as I supposed; and, raising
+myself partly from the mat, became sensible that we were enveloped
+in utter darkness. Toby lay still asleep, but our late companions had
+disappeared. The only sound that interrupted the silence of the place
+was the asthmatic breathing of the old men I have mentioned, who reposed
+at a little distance from us. Besides them, as well as I could judge,
+there was no one else in the house.
+
+Apprehensive of some evil, I roused my comrade, and we were engaged in a
+whispered conference concerning the unexpected withdrawal of the natives
+when all at once, from the depths of the grove, in full view of us
+where we lay, shoots of flame were seen to rise, and in a few moments
+illuminated the surrounding trees, casting, by contrast, into still
+deeper gloom the darkness around us.
+
+While we continued gazing at this sight, dark figures appeared moving
+to and fro before the flames; while others, dancing and capering about,
+looked like so many demons.
+
+Regarding this new phenomenon with no small degree of trepidation, I
+said to my companion, ‘What can all this mean, Toby?’
+
+‘Oh, nothing,’ replied he; ‘getting the fire ready, I suppose.’
+
+‘Fire!’ exclaimed I, while my heart took to beating like a trip-hammer,
+‘what fire?’
+
+‘Why, the fire to cook us, to be sure, what else would the cannibals be
+kicking up such a row about if it were not for that?’
+
+‘Oh, Toby! have done with your jokes; this is no time for them;
+something is about to happen, I feel confident.’
+
+‘Jokes, indeed?’ exclaimed Toby indignantly. ‘Did you ever hear me joke?
+Why, for what do you suppose the devils have been feeding us up in this
+kind of style during the last three days, unless it were for something
+that you are too much frightened at to talk about? Look at that
+Kory-Kory there!--has he not been stuffing you with his confounded
+mushes, just in the way they treat swine before they kill them? Depend
+upon it, we will be eaten this blessed night, and there is the fire we
+shall be roasted by.’
+
+This view of the matter was not at all calculated to allay my
+apprehensions, and I shuddered when I reflected that we were indeed at
+the mercy of a tribe of cannibals, and that the dreadful contingency
+to which Toby had alluded was by no means removed beyond the bounds of
+possibility.
+
+‘There! I told you so! they are coming for us!’ exclaimed my companion
+the next moment, as the forms of four of the islanders were seen in
+bold relief against the illuminated back-ground mounting the pi-pi and
+approaching towards us.
+
+They came on noiselessly, nay stealthily, and glided along through the
+gloom that surrounded us as if about to spring upon some object they
+were fearful of disturbing before they should make sure of it.--Gracious
+heaven! the horrible reflections which crowded upon me that moment.--A
+cold sweat stood upon my brow, and spell-bound with terror I awaited my
+fate!
+
+Suddenly the silence was broken by the well-remembered tones of Mehevi,
+and at the kindly accents of his voice my fears were immediately
+dissipated. ‘Tommo, Toby, ki ki!’ (eat). He had waited to address us,
+until he had assured himself that we were both awake, at which he seemed
+somewhat surprised.
+
+‘Ki ki! is it?’ said Toby in his gruff tones; ‘Well, cook us first, will
+you--but what’s this?’ he added, as another savage appeared, bearing
+before him a large trencher of wood containing some kind of steaming
+meat, as appeared from the odours it diffused, and which he deposited at
+the feet of Mehevi. ‘A baked baby, I dare say I but I will have none
+of it, never mind what it is.--A pretty fool I should make of myself,
+indeed, waked up here in the middle of the night, stuffing and guzzling,
+and all to make a fat meal for a parcel of booby-minded cannibals one
+of these mornings!--No, I see what they are at very plainly, so I am
+resolved to starve myself into a bunch of bones and gristle, and then,
+if they serve me up, they are welcome! But I say, Tommo, you are not
+going to eat any of that mess there, in the dark, are you? Why, how can
+you tell what it is?’
+
+‘By tasting it, to be sure,’ said I, masticating a morsel that Kory-Kory
+had just put in my mouth, ‘and excellently good it is, too, very much
+like veal.’
+
+‘A baked baby, by the soul of Captain Cook!’ burst forth Toby, with
+amazing vehemence; ‘Veal? why there never was a calf on the island
+till you landed. I tell you you are bolting down mouthfuls from a dead
+Happar’s carcass, as sure as you live, and no mistake!’
+
+Emetics and lukewarm water! What a sensation in the abdominal region!
+Sure enough, where could the fiends incarnate have obtained meat? But I
+resolved to satisfy myself at all hazards; and turning to Mehevi, I soon
+made the ready chief understand that I wished a light to be brought.
+When the taper came, I gazed eagerly into the vessel, and recognized the
+mutilated remains of a juvenile porker! ‘Puarkee!’ exclaimed Kory-Kory,
+looking complacently at the dish; and from that day to this I have never
+forgotten that such is the designation of a pig in the Typee lingo.
+
+The next morning, after being again abundantly feasted by the hospitable
+Mehevi, Toby and myself arose to depart. But the chief requested us to
+postpone our intention. ‘Abo, abo’ (Wait, wait), he said and accordingly
+we resumed our seats, while, assisted by the zealous Kory-Kory, he
+appeared to be engaged in giving directions to a number of the natives
+outside, who were busily employed in making arrangements, the nature
+of which we could not comprehend. But we were not left long in our
+ignorance, for a few moments only had elapsed, when the chief beckoned
+us to approach, and we perceived that he had been marshalling a kind of
+guard of honour to escort us on our return to the house of Marheyo.
+
+The procession was led off by two venerable-looking savages, each
+provided with a spear, from the end of which streamed a pennon of
+milk-white tappa. After them went several youths, bearing aloft
+calabashes of poee-poee, and followed in their turn by four stalwart
+fellows, sustaining long bamboos, from the tops of which hung
+suspended, at least twenty feet from the ground, large baskets of
+green bread-fruits. Then came a troop of boys, carrying bunches of ripe
+bananas, and baskets made of the woven leaflets of cocoanut boughs,
+filled with the young fruit of the tree, the naked shells stripped of
+their husks peeping forth from the verdant wicker-work that surrounded
+them. Last of all came a burly islander, holding over his head a wooden
+trencher, in which lay disposed the remnants of our midnight feast,
+hidden from view, however, by a covering of bread-fruit leaves.
+
+Astonished as I was at this exhibition, I could not avoid smiling at
+its grotesque appearance, and the associations it naturally called
+up. Mehevi, it seemed, was bent on replenishing old Marheyo’s larder,
+fearful perhaps that without this precaution his guests might not fare
+as well as they could desire.
+
+As soon as I descended from the pi-pi, the procession formed anew,
+enclosing us in its centre; where I remained part of the time, carried
+by Kory-Kory, and occasionally relieving him from his burden by limping
+along with spear. When we moved off in this order, the natives struck
+up a musical recitative, which with various alternations, they continued
+until we arrived at the place of our destination.
+
+As we proceeded on our way, bands of young girls, darting from the
+surrounding groves, hung upon our skirts, and accompanied us with shouts
+of merriment and delight, which almost drowned the deep notes of the
+recitative. On approaching old Marheyo’s domicile, its inmates rushed
+out to receive us; and while the gifts of Mehevi were being disposed of,
+the superannuated warrior did the honours of his mansion with all the
+warmth of hospitality evinced by an English squire when he regales his
+friends at some fine old patrimonial mansion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+ATTEMPT TO PROCURE RELIEF FROM NUKUHEVA--PERILOUS ADVENTURE OF TOBY IN
+THE HAPPAR MOUNTAINS--ELOQUENCE OF KORY-KORY
+
+
+Amidst these novel scenes a week passed away almost imperceptibly. The
+natives, actuated by some mysterious impulse, day after day redoubled
+their attentions to us. Their manner towards us was unaccountable.
+Surely, thought I, they would not act thus if they meant us any harm.
+But why this excess of deferential kindness, or what equivalent can they
+imagine us capable of rendering them for it?
+
+We were fairly puzzled. But despite the apprehensions I could not
+dispel, the horrible character imputed to these Typees appeared to be
+wholly undeserved.
+
+‘Why, they are cannibals!’ said Toby on one occasion when I eulogized
+the tribe. ‘Granted,’ I replied, ‘but a more humane, gentlemanly and
+amiable set of epicures do not probably exist in the Pacific.’
+
+But, notwithstanding the kind treatment we received, I was too familiar
+with the fickle disposition of savages not to feel anxious to withdraw
+from the valley, and put myself beyond the reach of that fearful death
+which, under all these smiling appearances, might yet menace us. But
+here there was an obstacle in the way of doing so. It was idle for me
+to think of moving from the place until I should have recovered from the
+severe lameness that afflicted me; indeed my malady began seriously to
+alarm me; for, despite the herbal remedies of the natives, it continued
+to grow worse and worse. Their mild applications, though they soothed
+the pain, did not remove the disorder, and I felt convinced that without
+better aid I might anticipate long and acute suffering.
+
+But how was this aid to be procured? From the surgeons of the French
+fleet, which probably still lay in the bay of Nukuheva, it might easily
+have been obtained, could I have made my case known to them. But how
+could that be effected?
+
+At last, in the exigency to which I was reduced, I proposed to Toby that
+he should endeavour to go round to Nukuheva, and if he could not
+succeed in returning to the valley by water, in one of the boats of the
+squadron, and taking me off, he might at least procure me some proper
+medicines, and effect his return overland.
+
+My companion listened to me in silence, and at first did not appear to
+relish the idea. The truth was, he felt impatient to escape from the
+place, and wished to avail himself of our present high favour with
+the natives to make good our retreat, before we should experience some
+sudden alteration in their behaviour. As he could not think of leaving
+me in my helpless condition, he implored me to be of good cheer; assured
+me that I should soon be better, and enabled in a few days to return
+with him to Nukuheva.
+
+Added to this, he could not bear the idea of again returning to this
+dangerous place; and as for the expectation of persuading the Frenchmen
+to detach a boat’s crew for the purpose of rescuing me from the Typees,
+he looked upon it as idle; and with arguments that I could not answer,
+urged the improbability of their provoking the hostilities of the clan
+by any such measure; especially, as for the purpose of quieting its
+apprehensions, they had as yet refrained from making any visit to the
+bay. ‘And even should they consent,’ said Toby, ‘they would only produce
+a commotion in the valley, in which we might both be sacrificed by these
+ferocious islanders.’ This was unanswerable; but still I clung to the
+belief that he might succeed in accomplishing the other part of my plan;
+and at last I overcame his scruples, and he agreed to make the attempt.
+
+As soon as we succeeded in making the natives understand our intention,
+they broke out into the most vehement opposition to the measure, and
+for a while I almost despaired of obtaining their consent. At the bare
+thought of one of us leaving them, they manifested the most lively
+concern. The grief and consternation of Kory-Kory, in particular, was
+unbounded; he threw himself into a perfect paroxysm of gestures which
+were intended to convey to us not only his abhorrence of Nukuheva
+and its uncivilized inhabitants, but also his astonishment that after
+becoming acquainted with the enlightened Typees, we should evince the
+least desire to withdraw, even for a time, from their agreeable society.
+
+However, I overbore his objections by appealing to my lameness; from
+which I assured the natives I should speedily recover if Toby were
+permitted to obtain the supplies I needed.
+
+It was agreed that on the following morning my companion should depart,
+accompanied by some one or two of the household, who should point out to
+him an easy route, by which the bay might be reached before sunset.
+
+At early dawn of the next day, our habitation was astir. One of the
+young men mounted into an adjoining cocoanut tree, and threw down a
+number of the young fruit, which old Marheyo quickly stripped of the
+green husks, and strung together upon a short pole. These were intended
+to refresh Toby on his route.
+
+The preparations being completed, with no little emotion I bade my
+companion adieu. He promised to return in three days at farthest; and,
+bidding me keep up my spirits in the interval, turned round the corner
+of the pi-pi, and, under the guidance of the venerable Marheyo, was
+soon out of sight. His departure oppressed me with melancholy, and,
+re-entering the dwelling, I threw myself almost in despair upon the
+matting of the floor.
+
+In two hours’ time the old warrior returned, and gave me to understand
+that after accompanying my companion a little distance, and showing him
+the route, he had left him journeying on his way.
+
+It was about noon of this same day, a season which these people are wont
+to pass in sleep, that I lay in the house, surrounded by its slumbering
+inmates, and painfully affected by the strange silence which prevailed.
+All at once I thought I heard a faint shout, as if proceeding from
+some persons in the depth of the grove which extended in front of our
+habitation.
+
+The sounds grew louder and nearer, and gradually the whole valley rang
+with wild outcries. The sleepers around me started to their feet in
+alarm, and hurried outside to discover the cause of the commotion.
+Kory-Kory, who had been the first to spring up, soon returned almost
+breathless, and nearly frantic with the excitement under which he seemed
+to be labouring. All that I could understand from him was that some
+accident had happened to Toby. Apprehensive of some dreadful calamity,
+I rushed out of the house, and caught sight of a tumultuous crowd, who,
+with shrieks and lamentations, were just emerging from the grove
+bearing in their arms some object, the sight of which produced all this
+transport of sorrow. As they drew near, the men redoubled their
+cries, while the girls, tossing their bare arms in the air, exclaimed
+plaintively, ‘Awha! awha! Toby mukee moee!’--Alas! alas! Toby is killed!
+
+In a moment the crowd opened, and disclosed the apparently lifeless body
+of my companion home between two men, the head hanging heavily against
+the breast of the foremost. The whole face, neck, back, and bosom were
+covered with blood, which still trickled slowly from a wound behind the
+temple. In the midst of the greatest uproar and confusion the body was
+carried into the house and laid on a mat. Waving the natives off to give
+room and air, I bent eagerly over Toby, and, laying my hand upon the
+breast, ascertained that the heart still beat. Overjoyed at this, I
+seized a calabash of water, and dashed its contents upon his face, then
+wiping away the blood, anxiously examined the wound. It was about three
+inches long, and on removing the clotted hair from about it, showed the
+skull laid completely bare. Immediately with my knife I cut away the
+heavy locks, and bathed the part repeatedly in water.
+
+In a few moments Toby revived, and opening his eyes for a second--closed
+them again without speaking. Kory-Kory, who had been kneeling beside me,
+now chafed his limbs gently with the palms of his hands, while a young
+girl at his head kept fanning him, and I still continued to moisten his
+lips and brow. Soon my poor comrade showed signs of animation, and I
+succeeded in making him swallow from a cocoanut shell a few mouthfuls of
+water.
+
+Old Tinor now appeared, holding in her hand some simples she had
+gathered, the juice of which she by signs besought me to squeeze into
+the wound. Having done so, I thought it best to leave Toby undisturbed
+until he should have had time to rally his faculties. Several times he
+opened his lips, but fearful for his safety I enjoined silence. In the
+course of two or three hours, however, he sat up, and was sufficiently
+recovered to tell me what had occurred.
+
+‘After leaving the house with Marheyo,’ said Toby, ‘we struck across the
+valley, and ascended the opposite heights. Just beyond them, my guide
+informed me, lay the valley of Happar, while along their summits, and
+skirting the head of the vale, was my route to Nukuheva. After mounting
+a little way up the elevation my guide paused, and gave me to understand
+that he could not accompany me any farther, and by various signs
+intimated that he was afraid to approach any nearer the territories of
+the enemies of his tribe. He however pointed out my path, which now
+lay clearly before me, and bidding me farewell, hastily descended the
+mountain.
+
+‘Quite elated at being so near the Happars, I pushed up the acclivity,
+and soon gained its summit. It tapered to a sharp ridge, from whence
+I beheld both the hostile valleys. Here I sat down and rested for a
+moment, refreshing myself with my cocoanuts. I was soon again pursuing
+my way along the height, when suddenly I saw three of the islanders, who
+must have just come out of Happar valley, standing in the path ahead of
+me. They were each armed with a heavy spear, and one from his appearance
+I took to be a chief. They sung out something, I could not understand
+what, and beckoned me to come on.
+
+‘Without the least hesitation I advanced towards them, and had
+approached within about a yard of the foremost, when, pointing angrily
+into the Typee valley, and uttering some savage exclamation, he wheeled
+round his weapon like lightning, and struck me in a moment to the
+ground. The blow inflicted this wound, and took away my senses. As soon
+as I came to myself, I perceived the three islanders standing a little
+distance off, and apparently engaged in some violent altercation
+respecting me.
+
+‘My first impulse was to run for it; but, in endeavouring to rise, I
+fell back, and rolled down a little grassy precipice. The shock seemed
+to rally my faculties; so, starting to my feet, I fled down the path I
+had just ascended. I had no need to look behind me, for, from the yells
+I heard, I knew that my enemies were in full pursuit. Urged on by their
+fearful outcries, and heedless of the injury I had received--though
+the blood flowing from the wound trickled over into my eyes and almost
+blinded me--I rushed down the mountain side with the speed of the wind.
+In a short time I had descended nearly a third of the distance, and the
+savages had ceased their cries, when suddenly a terrific howl burst upon
+my ear, and at the same moment a heavy javelin darted past me as I fled,
+and stuck quivering in a tree close to me. Another yell followed, and
+a second spear and a third shot through the air within a few feet of my
+body, both of them piercing the ground obliquely in advance of me. The
+fellows gave a roar of rage and disappointment; but they were afraid, I
+suppose, of coming down further into the Typee valley, and so abandoned
+the chase. I saw them recover their weapons and turn back; and I
+continued my descent as fast as I could.
+
+‘What could have caused this ferocious attack on the part of these
+Happars I could not imagine, unless it were that they had seen me
+ascending the mountain with Marheyo, and that the mere fact of coming
+from the Typee valley was sufficient to provoke them.
+
+‘As long as I was in danger I scarcely felt the wound I had received;
+but when the chase was over I began to suffer from it. I had lost my
+hat in the flight, and the run scorched my bare head. I felt faint
+and giddy; but, fearful of falling to the ground beyond the reach of
+assistance, I staggered on as well as I could, and at last gained the
+level of the valley, and then down I sank; and I knew nothing more until
+I found myself lying upon these mats, and you stooping over me with the
+calabash of water.’
+
+Such was Toby’s account of this sad affair. I afterwards learned that,
+fortunately, he had fallen close to a spot where the natives go for
+fuel. A party of them caught sight of him as he fell, and sounding
+the alarm, had lifted him up; and after ineffectually endeavouring to
+restore him at the brook, had hurried forward with him to the house.
+
+This incident threw a dark cloud over our prospects. It reminded us that
+we were hemmed in by hostile tribes, whose territories we could not hope
+to pass, on our route to Nukuheva, without encountering the effects of
+their savage resentment. There appeared to be no avenue opened to our
+escape but the sea, which washed the lower extremities of the vale.
+
+Our Typee friends availed themselves of the recent disaster of Toby to
+exhort us to a due appreciation of the blessings we enjoyed among them,
+contrasting their own generous reception of us with the animosity of
+their neighbours. They likewise dwelt upon the cannibal propensities of
+the Happars, a subject which they were perfectly aware could not fail
+to alarm us; while at the same time they earnestly disclaimed all
+participation in so horrid a custom. Nor did they omit to call upon
+us to admire the natural loveliness of their own abode, and the lavish
+abundance with which it produced all manner of luxuriant fruits;
+exalting it in this particular above any of the surrounding valleys.
+
+Kory-Kory seemed to experience so heartfelt a desire to infuse into our
+minds proper views on these subjects, that, assisted in his endeavours
+by the little knowledge of the language we had acquired, he actually
+made us comprehend a considerable part of what he said. To facilitate
+our correct apprehension of his meaning, he at first condensed his ideas
+into the smallest possible compass.
+
+‘Happar keekeeno nuee,’ he exclaimed, ‘nuee, nuee, ki ki
+kannaka!--ah! owle motarkee!’ which signifies, ‘Terrible fellows those
+Happars!--devour an amazing quantity of men!--ah, shocking bad!’
+Thus far he explained himself by a variety of gestures, during
+the performance of which he would dart out of the house, and point
+abhorrently towards the Happar valley; running in to us again with
+a rapidity that showed he was fearful he would lose one part of
+his meaning before he could complete the other; and continuing his
+illustrations by seizing the fleshy part of my arm in his teeth,
+intimating by the operation that the people who lived over in that
+direction would like nothing better than to treat me in that manner.
+
+Having assured himself that we were fully enlightened on this point, he
+proceeded to another branch of his subject. ‘Ah! Typee mortakee!--nuee,
+nuee mioree--nuee, nuee wai--nuee, nuee poee-poee--nuee, nuee kokoo--ah!
+nuee, nuee kiki--ah! nuee, nuee, nuee!’ Which literally interpreted
+as before, would imply, ‘Ah, Typee! isn’t it a fine place though!--no
+danger of starving here, I tell you!--plenty of bread-fruit--plenty of
+water--plenty of pudding--ah! plenty of everything! ah! heaps, heaps
+heaps!’ All this was accompanied by a running commentary of signs and
+gestures which it was impossible not to comprehend.
+
+As he continued his harangue, however, Kory-Kory, in emulation of our
+more polished orators, began to launch out rather diffusely into other
+branches of his subject, enlarging probably upon the moral reflections
+it suggested; and proceeded in such a strain of unintelligible and
+stunning gibberish, that he actually gave me the headache for the rest
+of the day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+
+A GREAT EVENT HAPPENS IN THE VALLEY--THE ISLAND TELEGRAPH--SOMETHING
+BEFALLS TOBY--FAYAWAY DISPLAYS A TENDER HEART--MELANCHOLY
+REFLECTIONS--MYSTERIOUS CONDUCT OF THE ISLANDERS--DEVOTION OF
+KORY-KORY--A RURAL COUCH--A LUXURY--KORY-KORY STRIKES A LIGHT A LA TYPEE
+
+
+In the course of a few days Toby had recovered from the effects of
+his adventure with the Happar warriors; the wound on his head rapidly
+healing under the vegetable treatment of the good Tinor. Less fortunate
+than my companion however, I still continued to languish under a
+complaint, the origin and nature of which were still a mystery. Cut off
+as I was from all intercourse with the civilized world, and feeling the
+inefficacy of anything the natives could do to relieve me; knowing,
+too, that so long as I remained in my present condition, it would
+be impossible for me to leave the valley, whatever opportunity might
+present itself; and apprehensive that ere long we might be exposed to
+some caprice on the part of the islanders, I now gave up all hopes
+of recovery, and became a prey to the most gloomy thoughts. A deep
+dejection fell upon me, which neither the friendly remonstrances of
+my companion, the devoted attentions of Kory-Kory nor all the soothing
+influences of Fayaway could remove.
+
+One morning as I lay on the mats in the house, plunged in melancholy
+reverie, and regardless of everything around me, Toby, who had left me
+about an hour, returned in haste, and with great glee told me to cheer
+up and be of good heart; for he believed, from what was going on among
+the natives, that there were boats approaching the bay.
+
+These tidings operated upon me like magic. The hour of our deliverance
+was at hand, and starting up, I was soon convinced that something
+unusual was about to occur. The word ‘botee! botee!’ was vociferated in
+all directions; and shouts were heard in the distance, at first
+feebly and faintly; but growing louder and nearer at each successive
+repetition, until they were caught up by a fellow in a cocoanut tree a
+few yards off, who sounding them in turn, they were reiterated from a
+neighbouring grove, and so died away gradually from point to point, as
+the intelligence penetrated into the farthest recess of the valley. This
+was the vocal telegraph of the islanders; by means of which condensed
+items of information could be carried in a very few minutes from the
+sea to their remotest habitation, a distance of at least eight or nine
+miles. On the present occasion it was in active operation; one piece of
+information following another with inconceivable rapidity.
+
+The greatest commotion now appeared to prevail. At every fresh item of
+intelligence the natives betrayed the liveliest interest, and redoubled
+the energy with which they employed themselves in collecting fruit to
+sell to the expected visitors. Some were tearing off the husks from
+cocoanuts; some perched in the trees were throwing down bread-fruit
+to their companions, who gathered them into heaps as they fell; while
+others were plying their fingers rapidly in weaving leafen baskets in
+which to carry the fruit.
+
+There were other matters too going on at the same time. Here you would
+see a stout warrior polishing his spear with a bit of old tappa, or
+adjusting the folds of the girdle about his waist; and there you might
+descry a young damsel decorating herself with flowers, as if having
+in her eye some maidenly conquest; while, as in all cases of hurry
+and confusion in every part of the world, a number of individuals kept
+hurrying to and fro, with amazing vigour and perseverance, doing nothing
+themselves, and hindering others.
+
+Never before had we seen the islanders in such a state of bustle and
+excitement; and the scene furnished abundant evidence of the fact--that
+it was only at long intervals any such events occur.
+
+When I thought of the length of time that might intervene before a
+similar chance of escape would be presented, I bitterly lamented that
+I had not the power of availing myself effectually of the present
+opportunity.
+
+From all that we could gather, it appeared that the natives were fearful
+of arriving too late upon the beach, unless they made extraordinary
+exertions. Sick and lame as I was, I would have started with Toby at
+once, had not Kory-Kory not only refused to carry me, but manifested
+the most invincible repugnance to our leaving the neighbourhood of the
+house. The rest of the savages were equally opposed to our wishes, and
+seemed grieved and astonished at the earnestness of my solicitations.
+I clearly perceived that while my attendant avoided all appearance of
+constraining my movements, he was nevertheless determined to thwart my
+wishes. He seemed to me on this particular occasion, as well as often
+afterwards, to be executing the orders of some other person with regard
+to me, though at the same time feeling towards me the most lively
+affection.
+
+Toby, who had made up his mind to accompany the islanders if possible,
+as soon as they were in readiness to depart, and who for that reason had
+refrained from showing the same anxiety that I had done, now represented
+to me that it was idle for me to entertain the hope of reaching the
+beach in time to profit by any opportunity that might then be presented.
+
+‘Do you not see,’ said he, ‘the savages themselves are fearful of being
+too late, and I should hurry forward myself at once did I not think that
+if I showed too much eagerness I should destroy all our hopes of reaping
+any benefit from this fortunate event. If you will only endeavour to
+appear tranquil or unconcerned, you will quiet their suspicions, and I
+have no doubt they will then let me go with them to the beach, supposing
+that I merely go out of curiosity. Should I succeed in getting down to
+the boats, I will make known the condition in which I have left you, and
+measures may then be taken to secure our escape.’
+
+In the expediency of this I could not but acquiesce; and as the natives
+had now completed their preparations, I watched with the liveliest
+interest the reception that Toby’s application might meet with. As soon
+as they understood from my companion that I intended to remain, they
+appeared to make no objection to his proposition, and even hailed it
+with pleasure. Their singular conduct on this occasion not a little
+puzzled me at the time, and imparted to subsequent events an additional
+mystery.
+
+The islanders were now to be seen hurrying along the path which led to
+the sea. I shook Toby warmly by the hand, and gave him my Payta hat
+to shield his wounded head from the sun, as he had lost his own. He
+cordially returned the pressure of my hand, and solemnly promising to
+return as soon as the boats should leave the shore, sprang from my side,
+and the next minute disappeared in a turn of the grove.
+
+In spite of the unpleasant reflections that crowded upon my mind, I
+could not but be entertained by the novel and animated sight which by
+now met my view. One after another the natives crowded along the narrow
+path, laden with every variety of fruit. Here, you might have seen one,
+who, after ineffectually endeavouring to persuade a surly porker to be
+conducted in leading strings, was obliged at last to seize the perverse
+animal in his arms, and carry him struggling against his naked breast,
+and squealing without intermission. There went two, who at a little
+distance might have been taken for the Hebrew spies, on their return to
+Moses with the goodly bunch of grape. One trotted before the other at a
+distance of a couple of yards, while between them, from a pole resting
+on the shoulders, was suspended a huge cluster of bananas, which swayed
+to and fro with the rocking gait at which they proceeded. Here ran
+another, perspiring with his exertions, and bearing before him a
+quantity of cocoanuts, who, fearful of being too late, heeded not the
+fruit that dropped from his basket, and appeared solely intent upon
+reaching his destination, careless how many of his cocoanuts kept
+company with him.
+
+In a short time the last straggler was seen hurrying on his way, and the
+faint shouts of those in advance died insensibly upon the ear. Our
+part of the valley now appeared nearly deserted by its inhabitants,
+Kory-Kory, his aged father, and a few decrepit old people, being all
+that were left.
+
+Towards sunset the islanders in small parties began to return from
+the beach, and among them, as they drew near to the house, I sought to
+descry the form of my companion. But one after another they passed the
+dwelling, and I caught no glimpse of him. Supposing, however, that he
+would soon appear with some of the members of the household, I quieted
+my apprehensions, and waited patiently to see him advancing in company
+with the beautiful Fayaway. At last, I perceived Tinor coming forward,
+followed by the girls and young men who usually resided in the house of
+Marheyo; but with them came not my comrade, and, filled with a thousand
+alarms, I eagerly sought to discover the cause of his delay.
+
+My earnest questions appeared to embarrass the natives greatly. All
+their accounts were contradictory: one giving me to understand that
+Toby would be with me in a very short time; another that he did not know
+where he was; while a third, violently inveighing, against him, assured
+me that he had stolen away, and would never come back. It appeared
+to me, at the time, that in making these various statements they
+endeavoured to conceal from me some terrible disaster, lest the
+knowledge of it should overpower me.
+
+Fearful lest some fatal calamity had overtaken him, I sought out young
+Fayaway, and endeavoured to learn from her, if possible, the truth.
+
+This gentle being had early attracted my regard, not only from her
+extraordinary beauty, but from the attractive cast of her countenance,
+singularly expressive of intelligence and humanity. Of all the natives
+she alone seemed to appreciate the effect which the peculiarity of the
+circumstances in which we were placed had produced upon the minds of my
+companion and myself. In addressing me--especially when I lay reclining
+upon the mats suffering from pain--there was a tenderness in her manner
+which it was impossible to misunderstand or resist. Whenever she entered
+the house, the expression of her face indicated the liveliest sympathy
+for me; and moving towards the place where I lay, with one arm slightly
+elevated in a gesture of pity, and her large glistening eyes gazing
+intently into mine, she would murmur plaintively, ‘Awha! awha! Tommo,’
+and seat herself mournfully beside me.
+
+Her manner convinced me that she deeply compassionated my situation, as
+being removed from my country and friends, and placed beyond the reach
+of all relief. Indeed, at times I was almost led to believe that her
+mind was swayed by gentle impulses hardly to be anticipated from one in
+her condition; that she appeared to be conscious there were ties rudely
+severed, which had once bound us to our homes; that there were sisters
+and brothers anxiously looking forward to our return, who were, perhaps,
+never more to behold us.
+
+In this amiable light did Fayaway appear in my eyes; and reposing full
+confidence in her candour and intelligence, I now had recourse to her,
+in the midst of my alarm, with regard to my companion.
+
+My questions evidently distressed her. She looked round from one to
+another of the bystanders, as if hardly knowing what answer to give me.
+At last, yielding to my importunities, she overcame her scruples, and
+gave me to understand that Toby had gone away with the boats which had
+visited the bay, but had promised to return at the expiration of three
+days. At first I accused him of perfidiously deserting me; but as I grew
+more composed, I upbraided myself for imputing so cowardly an action
+to him, and tranquillized myself with the belief that he had availed
+himself, of the opportunity to go round to Nukuheva, in order to make
+some arrangement by which I could be removed from the valley. At any
+rate, thought I, he will return with the medicines I require, and then,
+as soon as I recover, there will be no difficulty in the way of our
+departure.
+
+Consoling myself with these reflections, I lay down that night in a
+happier frame of mind than I had done for some time. The next day passed
+without any allusion to Toby on the part of the natives, who seemed
+desirous of avoiding all reference to the subject. This raised some
+apprehensions in my breast; but when night came, I congratulated myself
+that the second day had now gone by, and that on the morrow Toby would
+again be with me. But the morrow came and went, and my companion did
+not appear. Ah! thought I, he reckons three days from the morning of his
+departure,--tomorrow he will arrive. But that weary day also closed upon
+me, without his return. Even yet I would not despair; I thought that
+something detained him--that he was waiting for the sailing of a boat,
+at Nukuheva, and that in a day or two at farthest I should see him
+again. But day after day of renewed disappointment passed by; at last
+hope deserted me, and I fell a victim to despair.
+
+Yes; thought I, gloomily, he has secured his own escape, and cares not
+what calamity may befall his unfortunate comrade. Fool that I was,
+to suppose that any one would willingly encounter the perils of this
+valley, after having once got beyond its limits! He has gone, and has
+left me to combat alone all the dangers by which I am surrounded. Thus
+would I sometimes seek to derive a desperate consolation from dwelling
+upon the perfidity of Toby: whilst at other times I sunk under the
+bitter remorse which I felt as having by my own imprudence brought upon
+myself the fate which I was sure awaited me.
+
+At other times I thought that perhaps after all these treacherous
+savages had made away with him, and thence the confusion into which
+they were thrown by my questions, and their contradictory answers, or he
+might be a captive in some other part of the valley, or, more dreadful
+still, might have met with that fate at which my very soul shuddered.
+But all these speculations were vain; no tidings of Toby ever reached
+me; he had gone never to return.
+
+The conduct of the islanders appeared inexplicable. All reference to my
+lost comrade was carefully evaded, and if at any time they were forced
+to make some reply to my frequent inquiries on the subject, they would
+uniformly denounce him as an ungrateful runaway, who had deserted
+his friend, and taken himself off to that vile and detestable place
+Nukuheva.
+
+But whatever might have been his fate, now that he was gone the natives
+multiplied their acts of kindness and attention towards myself, treating
+me with a degree of deference which could hardly have been surpassed had
+I been some celestial visitant. Kory-Kory never for one moment left my
+side, unless it were to execute my wishes. The faithful fellow, twice
+every day, in the cool of the morning and in the evening, insisted upon
+carrying me to the stream, and bathing me in its refreshing water.
+
+Frequently in the afternoon he would carry me to a particular part of
+the stream, where the beauty of the scene produced a soothing influence
+upon my mind. At this place the waters flowed between grassy banks,
+planted with enormous bread-fruit trees, whose vast branches interlacing
+overhead, formed a leafy canopy; near the stream were several smooth
+black rocks. One of these, projecting several feet above the surface
+of the water, had upon its summit a shallow cavity, which, filled with
+freshly-gathered leaves, formed a delightful couch.
+
+Here I often lay for hours, covered with a gauze-like veil of tappa,
+while Fayaway, seated beside me, and holding in her hand a fan woven
+from the leaflets of a young cocoanut bough, brushed aside the insects
+that occasionally lighted on my face, and Kory-Kory, with a view of
+chasing away my melancholy, performed a thousand antics in the water
+before us.
+
+As my eye wandered along this romantic stream, it would fall upon the
+half-immersed figure of a beautiful girl, standing in the transparent
+water, and catching in a little net a species of diminutive shell-fish,
+of which these people are extraordinarily fond. Sometimes a chattering
+group would be seated upon the edge of a low rock in the midst of the
+brook, busily engaged in thinning and polishing the shells of cocoanuts,
+by rubbing them briskly with a small stone in the water, an operation
+which soon converts them into a light and elegant drinking vessel,
+somewhat resembling goblets made of tortoise shell.
+
+But the tranquillizing influence of beautiful scenery, and the
+exhibition of human life under so novel and charming an aspect were not
+my only sources of consolation.
+
+Every evening the girls of the house gathered about me on the mats, and
+after chasing away Kory-Kory from my side--who nevertheless, retired
+only to a little distance and watched their proceedings with the most
+jealous attention--would anoint my whole body with a fragrant oil,
+squeezed from a yellow root, previously pounded between a couple of
+stones, and which in their language is denominated ‘aka’. And most
+refreshing and agreeable are the juices of the ‘aka’, when applied to
+ones, limbs by the soft palms of sweet nymphs, whose bright eyes are
+beaming upon you with kindness; and I used to hail with delight the
+daily recurrence of this luxurious operation, in which I forgot all my
+troubles, and buried for the time every feeling of sorrow.
+
+Sometimes in the cool of the evening my devoted servitor would lead me
+out upon the pi-pi in front of the house, and seating me near its edge,
+protect my body from the annoyance of the insects which occasionally
+hovered in the air, by wrapping me round with a large roll of tappa.
+He then bustled about, and employed himself at least twenty minutes in
+adjusting everything to secure my personal comfort.
+
+Having perfected his arrangements, he would get my pipe, and, lighting
+it, would hand it to me. Often he was obliged to strike a light for the
+occasion, and as the mode he adopted was entirely different from what I
+had ever seen or heard of before I will describe it.
+
+A straight, dry, and partly decayed stick of the Hibiscus, about six
+feet in length, and half as many inches in diameter, with a small, bit
+of wood not more than a foot long, and scarcely an inch wide, is as
+invariably to be met with in every house in Typee as a box of lucifer
+matches in the corner of a kitchen cupboard at home.
+
+The islander, placing the larger stick obliquely against some object,
+with one end elevated at an angle of forty-five degrees, mounts astride
+of it like an urchin about to gallop off upon a cane, and then grasping
+the smaller one firmly in both hands, he rubs its pointed end slowly
+up and down the extent of a few inches on the principal stick, until at
+last he makes a narrow groove in the wood, with an abrupt termination
+at the point furthest from him, where all the dusty particles which the
+friction creates are accumulated in a little heap.
+
+At first Kory-Kory goes to work quite leisurely, but gradually quickens
+his pace, and waxing warm in the employment, drives the stick furiously
+along the smoking channel, plying his hands to and fro with amazing
+rapidity, the perspiration starting from every pore. As he approaches
+the climax of his effort, he pants and gasps for breath, and his eyes
+almost start from their sockets with the violence of his exertions. This
+is the critical stage of the operation; all his previous labours
+are vain if he cannot sustain the rapidity of the movement until the
+reluctant spark is produced. Suddenly he stops, becoming perfectly
+motionless. His hands still retain their hold of the smaller stick,
+which is pressed convulsively against the further end of the channel
+among the fine powder there accumulated, as if he had just pierced
+through and through some little viper that was wriggling and struggling
+to escape from his clutches. The next moment a delicate wreath of smoke
+curls spirally into the air, the heap of dusty particles glows with
+fire, and Kory-Kory, almost breathless, dismounts from his steed.
+
+This operation appeared to me to be the most laborious species of work
+performed in Typee; and had I possessed a sufficient intimacy with the
+language to have conveyed my ideas upon the subject, I should certainly
+have suggested to the most influential of the natives the expediency of
+establishing a college of vestals to be centrally located in the valley,
+for the purpose of keeping alive the indispensable article of fire; so
+as to supersede the necessity of such a vast outlay of strength and
+good temper, as were usually squandered on these occasions. There might,
+however, be special difficulties in carrying this plan into execution.
+
+What a striking evidence does this operation furnish of the wide
+difference between the extreme of savage and civilized life. A gentleman
+of Typee can bring up a numerous family of children and give them all
+a highly respectable cannibal education, with infinitely less toil
+and anxiety than he expends in the simple process of striking a light;
+whilst a poor European artisan, who through the instrumentality of a
+lucifer performs the same operation in one second, is put to his wit’s
+end to provide for his starving offspring that food which the children
+of a Polynesian father, without troubling their parents, pluck from the
+branches of every tree around them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+
+KINDNESS OF MARHEYO AND THE REST OF THE ISLANDERS--A FULL DESCRIPTION OF
+THE BREAD-FRUIT TREE--DIFFERENT MODES OF PREPARING THE FRUIT
+
+
+All the inhabitants of the valley treated me with great kindness; but as
+to the household of Marheyo, with whom I was now permanently domiciled,
+nothing could surpass their efforts to minister to my comfort. To the
+gratification of my palate they paid the most unwearied attention.
+They continually invited me to partake of food, and when after eating
+heartily I declined the viands they continued to offer me, they seemed
+to think that my appetite stood in need of some piquant stimulant to
+excite its activity.
+
+In pursuance of this idea, old Marheyo himself would hie him away to
+the sea-shore by the break of day, for the purpose of collecting
+various species of rare sea-weed; some of which among these people are
+considered a great luxury. After a whole day spent in this employment,
+he would return about nightfall with several cocoanut shells filled with
+different descriptions of kelp. In preparing these for use he manifested
+all the ostentation of a professed cook, although the chief mystery of
+the affair appeared to consist in pouring water in judicious quantities
+upon the slimy contents of his cocoanut shells.
+
+The first time he submitted one of these saline salads to my critical
+attention I naturally thought that anything collected at such pains must
+possess peculiar merits; but one mouthful was a complete dose; and great
+was the consternation of the old warrior at the rapidity with which I
+ejected his Epicurean treat.
+
+How true it is, that the rarity of any particular article enhances
+its value amazingly. In some part of the valley--I know not where, but
+probably in the neighbourhood of the sea--the girls were sometimes in
+the habit of procuring small quantities of salt, a thimble-full or
+so being the result of the united labours of a party of five or six
+employed for the greater part of the day. This precious commodity they
+brought to the house, enveloped in multitudinous folds of leaves; and
+as a special mark of the esteem in which they held me, would spread
+an immense leaf on the ground, and dropping one by one a few minute
+particles of the salt upon it, invite me to taste them.
+
+From the extravagant value placed upon the article, I verily believe,
+that with a bushel of common Liverpool salt all the real estate in Typee
+might have been purchased. With a small pinch of it in one hand, and a
+quarter section of a bread-fruit in the other, the greatest chief in the
+valley would have laughed at all luxuries of a Parisian table.
+
+The celebrity of the bread-fruit tree, and the conspicuous place it
+occupies in a Typee bill of fare, induces me to give at some length
+a general description of the tree, and the various modes in which the
+fruit is prepared.
+
+The bread-fruit tree, in its glorious prime, is a grand and towering
+object, forming the same feature in a Marquesan landscape that the
+patriarchal elm does in New England scenery. The latter tree it not a
+little resembles in height, in the wide spread of its stalwart branches,
+and in its venerable and imposing aspect.
+
+The leaves of the bread-fruit are of great size, and their edges are cut
+and scolloped as fantastically as those of a lady’s lace collar. As they
+annually tend towards decay, they almost rival in brilliant variety
+of their gradually changing hues the fleeting shades of the expiring
+dolphin. The autumnal tints of our American forests, glorious as they
+are, sink into nothing in comparison with this tree.
+
+The leaf, in one particular stage, when nearly all the prismatic colours
+are blended on its surface, is often converted by the natives into
+a superb and striking head-dress. The principal fibre traversing its
+length being split open a convenient distance, and the elastic sides of
+the aperture pressed apart, the head is inserted between them, the leaf
+drooping on one side, with its forward half turned jauntily up on the
+brows, and the remaining part spreading laterally behind the ears.
+
+The fruit somewhat resembles in magnitude and general appearance one of
+our citron melons of ordinary size; but, unlike the citron, it has no
+sectional lines drawn along the outside. Its surface is dotted all over
+with little conical prominences, looking not unlike the knobs, on an
+antiquated church door. The rind is perhaps an eighth of an inch in
+thickness; and denuded of this at the time when it is in the greatest
+perfection, the fruit presents a beautiful globe of white pulp, the
+whole of which may be eaten, with the exception of a slender core, which
+is easily removed.
+
+The bread-fruit, however, is never used, and is indeed altogether unfit
+to be eaten, until submitted in one form or other to the action of fire.
+
+The most simple manner in which this operation is performed, and I
+think, the best, consists in placing any number of the freshly plucked
+fruit, when in a particular state of greenness, among the embers of a
+fire, in the same way that you would roast a potato. After the lapse
+of ten or fifteen minutes, the green rind embrowns and cracks, showing
+through the fissures in its sides the milk-white interior. As soon as it
+cools the rind drops off, and you then have the soft round pulp in its
+purest and most delicious state. Thus eaten, it has a mild and pleasing
+flavour.
+
+Sometimes after having been roasted in the fire, the natives snatch it
+briskly from the embers, and permitting it to slip out of the yielding
+rind into a vessel of cold water, stir up the mixture, which they
+call ‘bo-a-sho’. I never could endure this compound, and indeed the
+preparation is not greatly in vogue among the more polite Typees.
+
+There is one form, however, in which the fruit is occasionally served,
+that renders it a dish fit for a king. As soon as it is taken from the
+fire the exterior is removed, the core extracted, and the remaining part
+is placed in a sort of shallow stone mortar, and briskly worked with
+a pestle of the same substance. While one person is performing this
+operation, another takes a ripe cocoanut, and breaking it in halves,
+which they also do very cleverly, proceeds to grate the juicy meat into
+fine particles. This is done by means of a piece of mother-of-pearl
+shell, lashed firmly to the extreme end of a heavy stick, with its
+straight side accurately notched like a saw. The stick is sometimes a
+grotesquely-formed limb of a tree, with three or four branches twisting
+from its body like so many shapeless legs, and sustaining it two or
+three feet from the ground.
+
+The native, first placing a calabash beneath the nose, as it were, of
+his curious-looking log-steed, for the purpose of receiving the
+grated fragments as they fall, mounts astride of it as if it were a
+hobby-horse, and twirling the inside of his hemispheres of cocoanut
+around the sharp teeth of the mother-of-pearl shell, the pure white meat
+falls in snowy showers into the receptacle provided. Having obtained a
+quantity sufficient for his purpose, he places it in a bag made of
+the net-like fibrous substance attached to all cocoanut trees, and
+compressing it over the bread-fruit, which being now sufficiently
+pounded, is put into a wooden bowl--extracts a thick creamy milk. The
+delicious liquid soon bubbles round the fruit, and leaves it at last
+just peeping above its surface.
+
+This preparation is called ‘kokoo’, and a most luscious preparation it
+is. The hobby-horse and the pestle and mortar were in great requisition
+during the time I remained in the house of Marheyo, and Kory-Kory had
+frequent occasion to show his skill in their use.
+
+But the great staple articles of food into which the bread-fruit is
+converted by these natives are known respectively by the names of Amar
+and Poee-Poee.
+
+At a certain season of the year, when the fruit of the hundred groves
+of the valley has reached its maturity, and hangs in golden spheres from
+every branch, the islanders assemble in harvest groups, and garner in
+the abundance which surrounds them.
+
+The trees are stripped of their nodding burdens, which, easily freed
+from the rind and core, are gathered together in capacious wooden
+vessels, where the pulpy fruit is soon worked by a stone pestle,
+vigorously applied, into a blended mass of a doughy consistency, called
+by the natives ‘Tutao’. This is then divided into separate parcels,
+which, after being made up into stout packages, enveloped in successive
+folds of leaves, and bound round with thongs of bark, are stored away in
+large receptacles hollowed in the earth, from whence they are drawn as
+occasion may require. In this condition the Tutao sometimes remains for
+years, and even is thought to improve by age. Before it is fit to be
+eaten, however, it has to undergo an additional process. A primitive
+oven is scooped in the ground, and its bottom being loosely covered
+with stones, a large fire is kindled within it. As soon as the requisite
+degree of heat is attained, the embers are removed, and the surface of
+the stones being covered with thick layers of leaves, one of the large
+packages of Tutao is deposited upon them and overspread with another
+layer of leaves. The whole is then quickly heaped up with earth, and
+forms a sloping mound.
+
+The Tutao thus baked is called ‘Amar’; the action of the oven having
+converted it into an amber-coloured caky substance, a little tart, but
+not at all disagreeable to the taste.
+
+By another and final process the ‘Amar’ is changed into ‘Poee-Poee’.
+This transition is rapidly effected. The Amar is placed in a vessel, and
+mixed with water until it gains a proper pudding-like consistency, when,
+without further preparation, it is in readiness for use. This is the
+form in which the ‘Tutao’ is generally consumed. The singular mode of
+eating it I have already described.
+
+Were it not that the bread-fruit is thus capable of being preserved for
+a length of time, the natives might be reduced to a state of starvation;
+for owing to some unknown cause the trees sometimes fail to bear fruit;
+and on such occasions the islanders chiefly depend upon the supplies
+they have been enabled to store away.
+
+This stately tree, which is rarely met with upon the Sandwich Islands,
+and then only of a very inferior quality, and at Tahiti does not abound
+to a degree that renders its fruit the principal article of food,
+attains its greatest excellence in the genial climate of the Marquesan
+group, where it grows to an enormous magnitude, and flourishes in the
+utmost abundance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+
+MELANCHOLY CONDITION--OCCURRENCE AT THE TI--ANECDOTE OF MARHEYO--SHAVING
+THE HEAD OF A WARRIOR
+
+
+In looking back to this period, and calling to remembrance the
+numberless proofs of kindness and respect which I received from the
+natives of the valley, I can scarcely understand how it was that, in the
+midst of so many consolatory circumstances, my mind should still have
+been consumed by the most dismal forebodings, and have remained a
+prey to the profoundest melancholy. It is true that the suspicious
+circumstances which had attended the disappearance of Toby were enough
+of themselves to excite distrust with regard to the savages, in whose
+power I felt myself to be entirely placed, especially when it was
+combined with the knowledge that these very men, kind and respectful
+as they were to me, were, after all, nothing better than a set of
+cannibals.
+
+But my chief source of anxiety, and that which poisoned every temporary
+enjoyment, was the mysterious disease in my leg, which still remained
+unabated. All the herbal applications of Tinor, united with the severer
+discipline of the old leech, and the affectionate nursing of Kory-Kory,
+had failed to relieve me. I was almost a cripple, and the pain I endured
+at intervals was agonizing. The unaccountable malady showed no signs
+of amendment: on the contrary, its violence increased day by day, and
+threatened the most fatal results, unless some powerful means were
+employed to counteract it. It seemed as if I were destined to sink
+under this grievous affliction, or at least that it would hinder me from
+availing myself of any opportunity of escaping from the valley.
+
+An incident which occurred as nearly as I can estimate about three weeks
+after the disappearance of Toby, convinced me that the natives, from
+some reason or other, would interpose every possible obstacle to my
+leaving them.
+
+One morning there was no little excitement evinced by the people near
+my abode, and which I soon discovered proceeded from a vague report
+that boats, had been seen at a great distance approaching the bay.
+Immediately all was bustle and animation. It so happened that day that
+the pain I suffered having somewhat abated, and feeling in much better
+spirits than usual, I had complied with Kory-Kory’s invitation to visit
+the chief Mehevi at the place called the ‘Ti’, which I have before
+described as being situated within the precincts of the Taboo Groves.
+These sacred recesses were at no great distance from Marheyo’s
+habitation, and lay between it and the sea; the path that conducted to
+the beach passing directly in front of the Ti, and thence skirting along
+the border of the groves.
+
+I was reposing upon the mats, within the sacred building, in company
+with Mehevi and several other chiefs, when the announcement was first
+made. It sent a thrill of joy through my whole frame;--perhaps Toby was
+about to return. I rose at once to my feet, and my instinctive impulse
+was to hurry down to the beach, equally regardless of the distance that
+separated me from it, and of my disabled condition. As soon as Mehevi
+noticed the effect the intelligence had produced upon me, and the
+impatience I betrayed to reach the sea, his countenance assumed that
+inflexible rigidity of expression which had so awed me on the afternoon
+of our arrival at the house of Marheyo. As I was proceeding to leave
+the Ti, he laid his hand upon my shoulder, and said gravely, ‘abo, abo’
+(wait, wait). Solely intent upon the one thought that occupied my mind,
+and heedless of his request, I was brushing past him, when suddenly he
+assumed a tone of authority, and told me to ‘moee’ (sit down). Though
+struck by the alteration in his demeanour, the excitement under which I
+laboured was too strong to permit me to obey the unexpected command,
+and I was still limping towards the edge of the pi-pi with Kory-Kory
+clinging to one arm in his efforts to restrain me, when the natives
+around started to their feet, ranged themselves along the open front of
+the building, while Mehevi looked at me scowlingly, and reiterated his
+commands still more sternly.
+
+It was at this moment, when fifty savage countenances were glaring upon
+me, that I first truly experienced I was indeed a captive in the
+valley. The conviction rushed upon me with staggering force, and I was
+overwhelmed by this confirmation of my worst fears. I saw at once that
+it was useless for me to resist, and sick at heart, I reseated myself
+upon the mats, and for the moment abandoned myself to despair.
+
+I now perceived the natives one after the other hurrying past the Ti and
+pursuing the route that conducted to the sea. These savages, thought
+I, will soon be holding communication with some of my own countrymen
+perhaps, who with ease could restore me to liberty did they know of the
+situation I was in. No language can describe the wretchedness which I
+felt; and in the bitterness of my soul I imprecated a thousand curses on
+the perfidious Toby, who had thus abandoned me to destruction. It was in
+vain that Kory-Kory tempted me with food, or lighted my pipe, or sought
+to attract my attention by performing the uncouth antics that
+had sometimes diverted me. I was fairly knocked down by this last
+misfortune, which, much as I had feared it, I had never before had the
+courage calmly to contemplate.
+
+Regardless of everything but my own sorrow, I remained in the Ti for
+several hours, until shouts proceeding at intervals from the groves
+beyond the house proclaimed the return of the natives from the beach.
+
+Whether any boats visited the bay that morning or not, I never could
+ascertain. The savages assured me that there had not--but I was inclined
+to believe that by deceiving me in this particular they sought to allay
+the violence of my grief. However that might be, this incident showed
+plainly that the Typees intended to hold me a prisoner. As they still
+treated me with the same sedulous attention as before, I was utterly
+at a loss how to account for their singular conduct. Had I been in a
+situation to instruct them in any of the rudiments of the mechanic arts,
+or had I manifested a disposition to render myself in any way useful
+among them, their conduct might have been attributed to some adequate
+motive, but as it was, the matter seemed to me inexplicable.
+
+During my whole stay on the island there occurred but two or three
+instances where the natives applied to me with the view of availing
+themselves of my superior information; and these now appear so ludicrous
+that I cannot forbear relating them.
+
+The few things we had brought from Nukuheva had been done up into a
+small bundle which we had carried with us in our descent to the valley.
+This bundle, the first night of our arrival, I had used as a pillow, but
+on the succeeding morning, opening it for the inspection of the natives,
+they gazed upon the miscellaneous contents as though I had just revealed
+to them a casket of diamonds, and they insisted that so precious a
+treasure should be properly secured. A line was accordingly attached to
+it, and the other end being passed over the ridge-pole of the house, it
+was hoisted up to the apex of the roof, where it hung suspended directly
+over the mats where I usually reclined. When I desired anything from it
+I merely raised my finger to a bamboo beside me, and taking hold of
+the string which was there fastened, lowered the package. This was
+exceedingly handy, and I took care to let the natives understand how
+much I applauded the invention. Of this package the chief contents were
+a razor with its case, a supply of needles and thread, a pound or two of
+tobacco and a few yards of bright-coloured calico.
+
+I should have mentioned that shortly after Toby’s disappearance,
+perceiving the uncertainty of the time I might be obliged to remain in
+the valley--if, indeed, I ever should escape from it--and considering
+that my whole wardrobe consisted of a shirt and a pair of trousers, I
+resolved to doff these garments at once, in order to preserve them in
+a suitable condition for wear should I again appear among civilized
+beings. I was consequently obliged to assume the Typee costume, a little
+altered, however, to suit my own views of propriety, and in which I have
+no doubt I appeared to as much advantage as a senator of Rome enveloped
+in the folds of his toga. A few folds of yellow tappa tucked about my
+waist, descended to my feet in the style of a lady’s petticoat, only
+I did not have recourse to those voluminous paddings in the rear with
+which our gentle dames are in the habit of augmenting the sublime
+rotundity of their figures. This usually comprised my in-door dress;
+whenever I walked out, I superadded to it an ample robe of the same
+material, which completely enveloped my person, and screened it from the
+rays of the sun.
+
+One morning I made a rent in this mantle; and to show the islanders with
+what facility it could be repaired, I lowered my bundle, and taking
+from it a needle and thread, proceeded to stitch up the opening. They
+regarded this wonderful application of science with intense admiration;
+and whilst I was stitching away, old Marheyo, who was one of the
+lookers-on, suddenly clapped his hand to his forehead, and rushing to
+a corner of the house, drew forth a soiled and tattered strip of faded
+calico which he must have procured some time or other in traffic on the
+beach--and besought me eagerly to exercise a little of my art upon it.
+I willingly complied, though certainly so stumpy a needle as mine never
+took such gigantic strides over calico before. The repairs completed,
+old Marheyo gave me a paternal hug; and divesting himself of his ‘maro’
+(girdle), swathed the calico about his loins, and slipping the beloved
+ornaments into his ears, grasped his spear and sallied out of the house,
+like a valiant Templar arrayed in a new and costly suit of armour.
+
+I never used my razor during my stay in the island, but although a
+very subordinate affair, it had been vastly admired by the Typees; and
+Narmonee, a great hero among them, who was exceedingly precise in the
+arrangements of his toilet and the general adjustment of is person,
+being the most accurately tattooed and laboriously horrified individual
+in all the valley, thought it would be a great advantage to have it
+applied to the already shaven crown of his head.
+
+The implement they usually employ is a shark’s tooth, which is about as
+well adapted to the purpose as a one-pronged fork for pitching hay. No
+wonder, then, that the acute Narmonee perceived the advantage my razor
+possessed over the usual implement. Accordingly, one day he requested as
+a personal favour that I would just run over his head with the razor. In
+reply, I gave him to understand that it was too dull, and could not be
+used to any purpose without being previously sharpened. To assist my
+meaning, I went through an imaginary honing process on the palm of my
+hand. Narmonee took my meaning in an instant, and running out of the
+house, returned the next moment with a huge rough mass of rock as big
+as a millstone, and indicated to me that that was exactly the thing
+I wanted. Of course there was nothing left for me but to proceed to
+business, and I began scraping away at a great rate. He writhed and
+wriggled under the infliction, but, fully convinced of my skill, endured
+the pain like a martyr.
+
+Though I never saw Narmonee in battle I will, from what I then observed,
+stake my life upon his courage and fortitude. Before commencing
+operations, his head had presented a surface of short bristling hairs,
+and by the time I had concluded my unskilful operation it resembled not
+a little a stubble field after being gone over with a harrow. However,
+as the chief expressed the liveliest satisfaction at the result, I was
+too wise to dissent from his opinion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+
+IMPROVEMENT IN HEALTH AND SPIRITS--FELICITY OF THE
+TYPEES--THEIR ENJOYMENTS COMPARED WITH THOSE OF MORE ENLIGHTENED
+COMMUNITIES--COMPARATIVE WICKEDNESS OF CIVILIZED AND UNENLIGHTENED
+PEOPLE--A SKIRMISH IN THE MOUNTAIN WITH THE WARRIORS OF HAPPAR
+
+
+Day after day wore on, and still there was no perceptible change in the
+conduct of the islanders towards me. Gradually I lost all knowledge of
+the regular recurrence of the days of the week, and sunk insensibly into
+that kind of apathy which ensues after some violent outburst of despair.
+My limb suddenly healed, the swelling went down, the pain subsided, and
+I had every reason to suppose I should soon completely recover from the
+affliction that had so long tormented me.
+
+As soon as I was enabled to ramble about the valley in company with the
+natives, troops of whom followed me whenever I sallied out of the house,
+I began to experience an elasticity of mind which placed me beyond the
+reach of those dismal forebodings to which I had so lately been a prey.
+Received wherever I went with the most deferential kindness; regaled
+perpetually with the most delightful fruits; ministered to by dark-eyed
+nymphs, and enjoying besides all the services of the devoted Kory-Kory,
+I thought that, for a sojourn among cannibals, no man could have well
+made a more agreeable one.
+
+To be sure there were limits set to my wanderings. Toward the sea my
+progress was barred by an express prohibition of the savages; and after
+having made two or three ineffectual attempts to reach it, as much to
+gratify my curiosity as anything else, I gave up the idea. It was in
+vain to think of reaching it by stealth, since the natives escorted me
+in numbers wherever I went, and not for one single moment that I can
+recall to mind was I ever permitted to be alone.
+
+The green and precipitous elevations that stood ranged around the
+head of the vale where Marheyo’s habitation was situated effectually
+precluded all hope of escape in that quarter, even if I could have
+stolen away from the thousand eyes of the savages.
+
+But these reflections now seldom obtruded upon me; I gave myself up to
+the passing hour, and if ever disagreeable thoughts arose in my mind, I
+drove them away. When I looked around the verdant recess in which I was
+buried, and gazed up to the summits of the lofty eminence that hemmed me
+in, I was well disposed to think that I was in the ‘Happy Valley’,
+and that beyond those heights there was naught but a world of care
+and anxiety. As I extended my wanderings in the valley and grew more
+familiar with the habits of its inmates, I was fain to confess that,
+despite the disadvantages of his condition, the Polynesian savage,
+surrounded by all the luxurious provisions of nature, enjoyed an
+infinitely happier, though certainly a less intellectual existence than
+the self-complacent European.
+
+The naked wretch who shivers beneath the bleak skies, and starves among
+the inhospitable wilds of Tierra-del-Fuego, might indeed be made happier
+by civilization, for it would alleviate his physical wants. But the
+voluptuous Indian, with every desire supplied, whom Providence has
+bountifully provided with all the sources of pure and natural enjoyment,
+and from whom are removed so many of the ills and pains of life--what
+has he to desire at the hands of Civilization? She may ‘cultivate his
+mind--may elevate his thoughts,’--these I believe are the established
+phrases--but will he be the happier? Let the once smiling and populous
+Hawaiian islands, with their now diseased, starving, and dying natives,
+answer the question. The missionaries may seek to disguise the matter
+as they will, but the facts are incontrovertible; and the devoutest
+Christian who visits that group with an unbiased mind, must go away
+mournfully asking--‘Are these, alas! the fruits of twenty-five years of
+enlightening?’
+
+In a primitive state of society, the enjoyments of life, though few
+and simple, are spread over a great extent, and are unalloyed; but
+Civilization, for every advantage she imparts, holds a hundred evils in
+reserve;--the heart-burnings, the jealousies, the social rivalries,
+the family dissentions, and the thousand self-inflicted discomforts of
+refined life, which make up in units the swelling aggregate of human
+misery, are unknown among these unsophisticated people.
+
+But it will be urged that these shocking unprincipled wretches are
+cannibals. Very true; and a rather bad trait in their character it must
+be allowed. But they are such only when they seek to gratify the passion
+of revenge upon their enemies; and I ask whether the mere eating of
+human flesh so very far exceeds in barbarity that custom which only
+a few years since was practised in enlightened England:--a convicted
+traitor, perhaps a man found guilty of honesty, patriotism, and suchlike
+heinous crimes, had his head lopped off with a huge axe, his bowels
+dragged out and thrown into a fire; while his body, carved into four
+quarters, was with his head exposed upon pikes, and permitted to rot and
+fester among the public haunts of men!
+
+The fiend-like skill we display in the invention of all manner of
+death-dealing engines, the vindictiveness with which we carry on our
+wars, and the misery and desolation that follow in their train, are
+enough of themselves to distinguish the white civilized man as the most
+ferocious animal on the face of the earth.
+
+His remorseless cruelty is seen in many of the institutions of our own
+favoured land. There is one in particular lately adopted in one of the
+States of the Union, which purports to have been dictated by the most
+merciful considerations. To destroy our malefactors piece-meal, drying
+up in their veins, drop by drop, the blood we are too chicken-hearted
+to shed by a single blow which would at once put a period to their
+sufferings, is deemed to be infinitely preferable to the old-fashioned
+punishment of gibbeting--much less annoying to the victim, and more in
+accordance with the refined spirit of the age; and yet how feeble is all
+language to describe the horrors we inflict upon these wretches, whom we
+mason up in the cells of our prisons, and condemn to perpetual solitude
+in the very heart of our population.
+
+But it is needless to multiply the examples of civilized barbarity; they
+far exceed in the amount of misery they cause the crimes which we regard
+with such abhorrence in our less enlightened fellow-creatures.
+
+The term ‘Savage’ is, I conceive, often misapplied, and indeed, when I
+consider the vices, cruelties, and enormities of every kind that spring
+up in the tainted atmosphere of a feverish civilization, I am inclined
+to think that so far as the relative wickedness of the parties is
+concerned, four or five Marquesan Islanders sent to the United States
+as Missionaries might be quite as useful as an equal number of Americans
+despatched to the Islands in a similar capacity.
+
+I once heard it given as an instance of the frightful depravity of a
+certain tribe in the Pacific that they had no word in their language
+to express the idea of virtue. The assertion was unfounded; but were
+it otherwise, it might be met by stating that their language is almost
+entirely destitute of terms to express the delightful ideas conveyed by
+our endless catalogue of civilized crimes.
+
+In the altered frame of mind to which I have referred, every object that
+presented itself to my notice in the valley struck me in a new light,
+and the opportunities I now enjoyed of observing the manners of its
+inmates, tended to strengthen my favourable impressions. One peculiarity
+that fixed my admiration was the perpetual hilarity reigning through the
+whole extent of the vale.
+
+There seemed to be no cares, griefs, troubles, or vexations, in all
+Typee. The hours tripped along as gaily as the laughing couples down a
+country dance.
+
+There were none of those thousand sources of irritation that the
+ingenuity of civilized man has created to mar his own felicity. There
+were no foreclosures of mortgages, no protested notes, no bills payable,
+no debts of honour in Typee; no unreasonable tailors and shoemakers
+perversely bent on being paid; no duns of any description and battery
+attorneys, to foment discord, backing their clients up to a quarrel,
+and then knocking their heads together; no poor relations, everlastingly
+occupying the spare bed-chamber, and diminishing the elbow room at the
+family table; no destitute widows with their children starving on the
+cold charities of the world; no beggars; no debtors’ prisons; no proud
+and hard-hearted nabobs in Typee; or to sum up all in one word--no
+Money! ‘That root of all evil’ was not to be found in the valley.
+
+In this secluded abode of happiness there were no cross old women, no
+cruel step-dames, no withered spinsters, no lovesick maidens, no sour
+old bachelors, no inattentive husbands, no melancholy young men, no
+blubbering youngsters, and no squalling brats. All was mirth, fun and
+high good humour. Blue devils, hypochondria, and doleful dumps, went and
+hid themselves among the nooks and crannies of the rocks.
+
+Here you would see a parcel of children frolicking together the
+live-long day, and no quarrelling, no contention, among them. The same
+number in our own land could not have played together for the space of
+an hour without biting or scratching one another. There you might have
+seen a throng of young females, not filled with envyings of each other’s
+charms, nor displaying the ridiculous affectations of gentility, nor
+yet moving in whalebone corsets, like so many automatons, but free,
+inartificially happy, and unconstrained.
+
+There were some spots in that sunny vale where they would frequently
+resort to decorate themselves with garlands of flowers. To have seen
+them reclining beneath the shadows of one of the beautiful groves;
+the ground about them strewn with freshly gathered buds and blossoms,
+employed in weaving chaplets and necklaces, one would have thought
+that all the train of Flora had gathered together to keep a festival in
+honour of their mistress.
+
+With the young men there seemed almost always some matter of diversion
+or business on hand that afforded a constant variety of enjoyment. But
+whether fishing, or carving canoes, or polishing their ornaments, never
+was there exhibited the least sign of strife or contention among them.
+As for the warriors, they maintained a tranquil dignity of demeanour,
+journeying occasionally from house to house, where they were always sure
+to be received with the attention bestowed upon distinguished guests.
+The old men, of whom there were many in the vale, seldom stirred from
+their mats, where they would recline for hours and hours, smoking and
+talking to one another with all the garrulity of age.
+
+But the continual happiness, which so far as I was able to judge
+appeared to prevail in the valley, sprang principally from that
+all-pervading sensation which Rousseau has told us be at one time
+experienced, the mere buoyant sense of a healthful physical existence.
+And indeed in this particular the Typees had ample reason to felicitate
+themselves, for sickness was almost unknown. During the whole period of
+my stay I saw but one invalid among them; and on their smooth skins you
+observed no blemish or mark of disease.
+
+The general repose, however, upon which I have just been descanting,
+was broken in upon about this time by an event which proved that the
+islanders were not entirely exempt from those occurrences which disturb
+the quiet of more civilized communities.
+
+Having now been a considerable time in the valley, I began to feel
+surprised that the violent hostility subsisting between its inhabitants,
+and those of the adjoining bay of Happar, should never have manifested
+itself in any warlike encounter. Although the valiant Typees would often
+by gesticulations declare their undying hatred against their enemies,
+and the disgust they felt at their cannibal propensities; although they
+dilated upon the manifold injuries they had received at their hands, yet
+with a forbearance truly commendable, they appeared to sit down under
+their grievances, and to refrain from making any reprisals. The Happars,
+entrenched behind their mountains, and never even showing themselves on
+their summits, did not appear to me to furnish adequate cause for that
+excess of animosity evinced towards them by the heroic tenants of our
+vale, and I was inclined to believe that the deeds of blood attributed
+to them had been greatly exaggerated.
+
+On the other hand, as the clamours of war had not up to this period
+disturbed the serenity of the tribe, I began to distrust the truth of
+those reports which ascribed so fierce and belligerent a character to
+the Typee nation. Surely, thought I, all these terrible stories I have
+heard about the inveteracy with which they carried on the feud, their
+deadly intensity, of hatred and the diabolical malice with which they
+glutted their revenge upon the inanimate forms of the slain, are nothing
+more than fables, and I must confess that I experienced something like a
+sense of regret at having my hideous anticipations thus disappointed.
+I felt in some sort like a ‘prentice boy who, going to the play in the
+expectation of being delighted with a cut-and-thrust tragedy, is almost
+moved to tears of disappointment at the exhibition of a genteel comedy.
+
+I could not avoid thinking that I had fallen in with a greatly traduced
+people, and I moralized not a little upon the disadvantage of having a
+bad name, which in this instance had given a tribe of savages, who
+were as pacific as so many lambkins, the reputation of a confederacy of
+giant-killers.
+
+But subsequent events proved that I had been a little too premature in
+coming to this conclusion. One, day about noon, happening to be at the
+Ti, I had lain down on the mats with several of the chiefs, and had
+gradually sunk into a most luxurious siesta, when I was awakened by
+a tremendous outcry, and starting up beheld the natives seizing their
+spears and hurrying out, while the most puissant of the chiefs, grasping
+the six muskets which were ranged against the bamboos, followed after,
+and soon disappeared in the groves. These movements were accompanied
+by wild shouts, in which ‘Happar, Happar,’ greatly predominated. The
+islanders were now seen running past the Ti, and striking across the
+valley to the Happar side. Presently I heard the sharp report of a
+musket from the adjoining hills, and then a burst of voices in the same
+direction. At this the women who had congregated in the groves, set up
+the most violent clamours, as they invariably do here as elsewhere on
+every occasion of excitement and alarm, with a view of tranquillizing
+their own minds and disturbing other people. On this particular
+occasion they made such an outrageous noise, and continued it with such
+perseverance, that for awhile, had entire volleys of musketry been fired
+off in the neighbouring mountains, I should not have been able to have
+heard them.
+
+When this female commotion had a little subsided I listened eagerly for
+further information. At last bang went another shot, and then a second
+volley of yells from the hills. Again all was quiet, and continued so
+for such a length of time that I began to think the contending armies
+had agreed upon a suspension of hostilities; when pop went a third gun,
+followed as before with a yell. After this, for nearly two hours
+nothing occurred worthy of comment, save some straggling shouts from the
+hillside, sounding like the halloos of a parcel of truant boys who had
+lost themselves in the woods.
+
+During this interval I had remained standing on the piazza of the ‘Ti,’
+which directly fronted the Happar mountain, and with no one near me
+but Kory-Kory and the old superannuated savages I have described. These
+latter never stirred from their mats, and seemed altogether unconscious
+that anything unusual was going on.
+
+As for Kory-Kory, he appeared to think that we were in the midst of
+great events, and sought most zealously to impress me with a due sense
+of their importance. Every sound that reached us conveyed some momentous
+item of intelligence to him. At such times, as if he were gifted with
+second sight, he would go through a variety of pantomimic illustrations,
+showing me the precise manner in which the redoubtable Typees were at
+that very moment chastising the insolence of the enemy. ‘Mehevi hanna
+pippee nuee Happar,’ he exclaimed every five minutes, giving me to
+understand that under that distinguished captain the warriors of his
+nation were performing prodigies of valour.
+
+Having heard only four reports from the muskets, I was led to believe
+that they were worked by the islanders in the same manner as the Sultan
+Solyman’s ponderous artillery at the siege of Byzantium, one of them
+taking an hour or two to load and train. At last, no sound whatever
+proceeding from the mountains, I concluded that the contest had been
+determined one way or the other. Such appeared, indeed, to be the case,
+for in a little while a courier arrived at the ‘Ti’, almost breathless
+with his exertions, and communicated the news of a great victory having
+been achieved by his countrymen: ‘Happar poo arva!--Happar poo arva!’
+(the cowards had fled). Kory-Kory was in ecstasies, and commenced a
+vehement harangue, which, so far as I understood it, implied that the
+result exactly agreed with his expectations, and which, moreover,
+was intended to convince me that it would be a perfectly useless
+undertaking, even for an army of fire-eaters, to offer battle to the
+irresistible heroes of our valley. In all this I of course acquiesced,
+and looked forward with no little interest to the return of the
+conquerors, whose victory I feared might not have been purchased without
+cost to themselves.
+
+But here I was again mistaken; for Mehevi, in conducting his warlike
+operations, rather inclined to the Fabian than to the Bonapartean
+tactics, husbanding his resources and exposing his troops to no
+unnecessary hazards. The total loss of the victors in this obstinately
+contested affair was, in killed, wounded, and missing--one forefinger
+and part of a thumb-nail (which the late proprietor brought along with
+him in his hand), a severely contused arm, and a considerable effusion
+of blood flowing from the thigh of a chief, who had received an ugly
+thrust from a Happar spear. What the enemy had suffered I could not
+discover, but I presume they had succeeded in taking off with them the
+bodies of their slain.
+
+Such was the issue of the battle, as far as its results came under my
+observation: and as it appeared to be considered an event of prodigious
+importance, I reasonably concluded that the wars of the natives were
+marked by no very sanguinary traits. I afterwards learned how the
+skirmish had originated. A number of the Happars had been discovered
+prowling for no good purpose on the Typee side of the mountain; the
+alarm sounded, and the invaders, after a protracted resistance, had been
+chased over the frontier. But why had not the intrepid Mehevi carried
+the war into Happar? Why had he not made a descent into the hostile
+vale, and brought away some trophy of his victory--some materials for
+the cannibal entertainment which I had heard usually terminated every
+engagement? After all, I was much inclined to believe that these
+shocking festivals must occur very rarely among the islanders, if,
+indeed, they ever take place.
+
+For two or three days the late event was the theme of general comment;
+after which the excitement gradually wore away, and the valley resumed
+its accustomed tranquility.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+
+SWIMMING IN COMPANY WITH THE GIRLS OF THE VALLEY--A CANOE--EFFECTS
+OF THE TABOO--A PLEASURE EXCURSION ON THE POND--BEAUTIFUL FREAK OF
+FAYAWAY--MANTUA-MAKING--A STRANGER ARRIVES IN THE VALLEY--HIS MYSTERIOUS
+CONDUCT--NATIVE ORATORY--THE INTERVIEW--ITS RESULTS--DEPARTURE OF THE
+STRANGER
+
+
+Returning health and peace of mind gave a new interest to everything
+around me. I sought to diversify my time by as many enjoyments as lay
+within my reach. Bathing in company with troops of girls formed one of
+my chief amusements. We sometimes enjoyed the recreation in the waters
+of a miniature lake, to which the central stream of the valley expanded.
+This lovely sheet of water was almost circular in figure, and about
+three hundred yards across. Its beauty was indescribable. All around
+its banks waved luxuriant masses of tropical foliage, soaring high above
+which were seen, here and there, the symmetrical shaft of the cocoanut
+tree, surmounted by its tufts of graceful branches, drooping in the air
+like so many waving ostrich plumes.
+
+The ease and grace with which the maidens of the valley propelled
+themselves through the water, and their familiarity with the element,
+were truly astonishing. Sometimes they might be seen gliding along just
+under the surface, without apparently moving hand or foot--then throwing
+themselves on their sides, they darted through the water, revealing
+glimpses of their forms, as, in the course of their rapid progress, they
+shot for an instant partly into the air--at one moment they dived deep
+down into the water, and the next they rose bounding to the surface.
+
+I remember upon one occasion plunging in among a parcel of these
+river-nymphs, and counting vainly on my superior strength, sought to
+drag some of them under the water, but I quickly repented my temerity.
+The amphibious young creatures swarmed about me like a shoal of
+dolphins, and seizing hold of my devoted limbs, tumbled me about and
+ducked me under the surface, until from the strange noises which rang in
+my ears, and the supernatural visions dancing before my eyes, I thought
+I was in the land of the spirits. I stood indeed as little chance among
+them as a cumbrous whale attacked on all sides by a legion of swordfish.
+When at length they relinquished their hold of me, they swam away in
+every direction, laughing at my clumsy endeavours to reach them.
+
+There was no boat on the lake; but at my solicitation and for my special
+use, some of the young men attached to Marheyo’s household, under
+the direction of the indefatigable Kory-Kory, brought up a light and
+tastefully carved canoe from the sea. It was launched upon the sheet
+of water, and floated there as gracefully as a swan. But, melancholy to
+relate, it produced an effect I had not anticipated. The sweet nymphs,
+who had sported with me before on the lake, now all fled its vicinity.
+The prohibited craft, guarded by the edicts of the ‘taboo,’ extended the
+prohibition to the waters in which it lay.
+
+For a few days, Kory-Kory, with one or two other youths, accompanied
+me in my excursions to the lake, and while I paddled about in my light
+canoe, would swim after me shouting and gambolling in pursuit. But I
+as ever partial to what is termed in the ‘Young Men’s Own Book’--‘the
+society of virtuous and intelligent young ladies;’ and in the absence
+of the mermaids, the amusement became dull and insipid. One morning
+I expressed to my faithful servitor my desire for the return of the
+nymphs. The honest fellow looked at me bewildered for a moment, and
+then shook his head solemnly, and murmured ‘taboo! taboo!’ giving me to
+understand that unless the canoe was removed I could not expect to have
+the young ladies back again. But to this procedure I was averse; I not
+only wanted the canoe to stay where it was, but I wanted the beauteous
+Fayaway to get into it, and paddle with me about the lake. This latter
+proposition completely horrified Kory-Kory’s notions of propriety. He
+inveighed against it, as something too monstrous to be thought of. It
+not only shocked their established notions of propriety, but was at
+variance with all their religious ordinances.
+
+However, although the ‘taboo’ was a ticklish thing to meddle with, I
+determined to test its capabilities of resisting an attack. I consulted
+the chief Mehevi, who endeavoured to dissuade me from my object; but
+I was not to be repulsed; and accordingly increased the warmth of my
+solicitations. At last he entered into a long, and I have no doubt a
+very learned and eloquent exposition of the history and nature of the
+‘taboo’ as affecting this particular case; employing a variety of most
+extraordinary words, which, from their amazing length and sonorousness,
+I have every reason to believe were of a theological nature. But all
+that he said failed to convince me: partly, perhaps, because I could not
+comprehend a word that he uttered; but chiefly, that for the life of me
+I could not understand why a woman would not have as much right to
+enter a canoe as a man. At last he became a little more rational, and
+intimated that, out of the abundant love he bore me, he would consult
+with the priests and see what could be done.
+
+How it was that the priesthood of Typee satisfied the affair with their
+consciences, I know not; but so it was, and Fayaway dispensation from
+this portion of the taboo was at length procured. Such an event I
+believe never before had occurred in the valley; but it was high time
+the islanders should be taught a little gallantry, and I trust that the
+example I set them may produce beneficial effects. Ridiculous, indeed,
+that the lovely creatures should be obliged to paddle about in the
+water, like so many ducks, while a parcel of great strapping fellows
+skimmed over its surface in their canoes.
+
+The first day after Fayaway’s emancipation, I had a delightful little
+party on the lake--the damsels’ Kory-Kory, and myself. My zealous
+body-servant brought from the house a calabash of poee-poee, half a
+dozen young cocoanuts--stripped of their husks--three pipes, as many
+yams, and me on his back a part of the way. Something of a load; but
+Kory-Kory was a very strong man for his size, and by no means brittle in
+the spine. We had a very pleasant day; my trusty valet plied the paddle
+and swept us gently along the margin of the water, beneath the shades
+of the overhanging thickets. Fayaway and I reclined in the stern of
+the canoe, on the very best terms possible with one another; the gentle
+nymph occasionally placing her pipe to her lip, and exhaling the mild
+fumes of the tobacco, to which her rosy breath added a fresh perfume.
+Strange as it may seem, there is nothing in which a young and beautiful
+female appears to more advantage than in the act of smoking. How
+captivating is a Peruvian lady, swinging in her gaily-woven hammock of
+grass, extended between two orange-trees, and inhaling the fragrance of
+a choice cigarro!
+
+But Fayaway, holding in her delicately formed olive hand the long yellow
+reed of her pipe, with its quaintly carved bowl, and every few moments
+languishingly giving forth light wreaths of vapour from her mouth and
+nostrils, looked still more engaging.
+
+We floated about thus for several hours, when I looked up to the warm,
+glowing, tropical sky, and then down into the transparent depths below;
+and when my eye, wandering from the bewitching scenery around, fell upon
+the grotesquely-tattooed form of Kory-Kory, and finally, encountered the
+pensive gaze of Fayaway, I thought I had been transported to some fairy
+region, so unreal did everything appear.
+
+This lovely piece of water was the coolest spot in all the valley, and I
+now made it a place of continual resort during the hottest period of
+the day. One side of it lay near the termination of a long gradually
+expanding gorge, which mounted to the heights that environed the vale.
+The strong trade wind, met in its course by these elevations, circled
+and eddied about their summits, and was sometimes driven down the
+steep ravine and swept across the valley, ruffling in its passage the
+otherwise tranquil surface of the lake.
+
+One day, after we had been paddling about for some time, I disembarked
+Kory-Kory, and paddled the canoe to the windward side of the lake. As
+I turned the canoe, Fayaway, who was with me, seemed all at once to be
+struck with some happy idea. With a wild exclamation of delight, she
+disengaged from her person the ample robe of tappa which was knotted
+over her shoulder (for the purpose of shielding her from the sun), and
+spreading it out like a sail, stood erect with upraised arms in the head
+of the canoe. We American sailors pride ourselves upon our straight,
+clean spars, but a prettier little mast than Fayaway made was never
+shipped aboard of any craft.
+
+In a moment the tappa was distended by the breeze--the long brown
+tresses of Fayaway streamed in the air--and the canoe glided rapidly
+through the water, and shot towards the shore. Seated in the stern, I
+directed its course with my paddle until it dashed up the soft sloping
+bank, and Fayaway, with a light spring alighted on the ground; whilst
+Kory-Kory, who had watched our manoeuvres with admiration, now
+clapped his hands in transport, and shouted like a madman. Many a time
+afterwards was this feat repeated.
+
+If the reader has not observed ere this that I was the declared admirer
+of Miss Fayaway, all I can say is that he is little conversant with
+affairs of the heart, and I certainly shall not trouble myself to
+enlighten him any farther. Out of the calico I had brought from the ship
+I made a dress for this lovely girl. In it she looked, I must confess,
+something like an opera-dancer.
+
+The drapery of the latter damsel generally commences a little above
+the elbows, but my island beauty’s began at the waist, and terminated
+sufficiently far above the ground to reveal the most bewitching ankle in
+the universe.
+
+The day that Fayaway first wore this robe was rendered memorable by a
+new acquaintance being introduced to me. In the afternoon I was lying
+in the house when I heard a great uproar outside; but being by this time
+pretty well accustomed to the wild halloos which were almost continually
+ringing through the valley, I paid little attention to it, until old
+Marheyo, under the influence of some strange excitement, rushed into my
+presence and communicated the astounding tidings, ‘Marnoo pemi!’ which
+being interpreted, implied that an individual by the name of Marnoo was
+approaching.
+
+My worthy old friend evidently expected that this intelligence would
+produce a great effect upon me, and for a time he stood earnestly
+regarding me, as if curious to see how I should conduct myself, but as
+I remained perfectly unmoved, the old gentleman darted out of the house
+again, in as great a hurry as he had entered it.
+
+‘Marnoo, Marnoo,’ cogitated I, ‘I have never heard that name before.
+Some distinguished character, I presume, from the prodigious riot the
+natives are making;’ the tumultuous noise drawing nearer and nearer
+every moment, while ‘Marnoo!--Marnoo!’ was shouted by every tongue.
+
+I made up my mind that some savage warrior of consequence, who had
+not yet enjoyed the honour of an audience, was desirous of paying his
+respects on the present occasion. So vain had I become by the lavish
+attention to which I had been accustomed, that I felt half inclined,
+as a punishment for such neglect, to give this Marnoo a cold reception,
+when the excited throng came within view, convoying one of the most
+striking specimens of humanity that I ever beheld.
+
+The stranger could not have been more than twenty-five years of age, and
+was a little above the ordinary height; had he a single hair’s breadth
+taller, the matchless symmetry of his form would have been destroyed.
+His unclad limbs were beautifully formed; whilst the elegant outline of
+his figure, together with his beardless cheeks, might have entitled him
+to the distinction of standing for the statue of the Polynesian Apollo;
+and indeed the oval of his countenance and the regularity of every
+feature reminded one of an antique bust. But the marble repose of art
+was supplied by a warmth and liveliness of expression only to be seen in
+the South Sea Islander under the most favourable developments of nature.
+The hair of Marnoo was a rich curling brown, and twined about his
+temples and neck in little close curling ringlets, which danced up and
+down continually, when he was animated in conversation. His cheek was
+of a feminine softness, and his face was free from the least blemish
+of tattooing, although the rest of his body was drawn all over with
+fanciful figures, which--unlike the unconnected sketching usual among
+these natives--appeared to have been executed in conformity with some
+general design.
+
+The tattooing on his back in particular attracted my attention. The
+artist employed must indeed have excelled in his profession. Traced
+along the course of the spine was accurately delineated the slender,
+tapering and diamond checkered shaft of the beautiful ‘artu’ tree.
+Branching from the stem on each side, and disposed alternately, were
+the graceful branches drooping with leaves all correctly drawn and
+elaborately finished. Indeed the best specimen of the Fine Arts I had
+yet seen in Typee. A rear view of the stranger might have suggested the
+idea of a spreading vine tacked against a garden wall. Upon his breast,
+arms and legs, were exhibited an infinite variety of figures; every
+one of which, however, appeared to have reference to the general
+effect sought to be produced. The tattooing I have described was of the
+brightest blue, and when contrasted with the light olive-colour of the
+skin, produced an unique and even elegant effect. A slight girdle of
+white tappa, scarcely two inches in width, but hanging before and behind
+in spreading tassels, composed the entire costume of the stranger.
+
+He advanced surrounded by the islanders, carrying under one arm a small
+roll of native cloth, and grasping in his other hand a long and richly
+decorated spear. His manner was that of a traveller conscious that he is
+approaching a comfortable stage in his journey. Every moment he turned
+good-humouredly on the throng around him, and gave some dashing sort of
+reply to their incessant queries, which appeared to convulse them with
+uncontrollable mirth.
+
+Struck by his demeanour, and the peculiarity of his appearance, so
+unlike that of the shaven-crowned and face-tattooed natives in general,
+I involuntarily rose as he entered the house, and proffered him a seat
+on the mats beside me. But without deigning to notice the civility, or
+even the more incontrovertible fact of my existence, the stranger passed
+on, utterly regardless of me, and flung himself upon the further end
+of the long couch that traversed the sole apartment of Marheyo’s
+habitation.
+
+Had the belle of the season, in the pride of her beauty and power, been
+cut in a place of public resort by some supercilious exquisite, she
+could not have felt greater indignation than I did at this unexpected
+slight.
+
+I was thrown into utter astonishment. The conduct of the savages had
+prepared me to anticipate from every newcomer the same extravagant
+expressions of curiosity and regard. The singularity of his conduct,
+however, only roused my desire to discover who this remarkable personage
+might be, who now engrossed the attention of every one.
+
+Tinor placed before him a calabash of poee-poee, from which the stranger
+regaled himself, alternating every mouthful with some rapid exclamation,
+which was eagerly caught up and echoed by the crowd that completely
+filled the house. When I observed the striking devotion of the natives
+to him, and their temporary withdrawal of all attention from myself, I
+felt not a little piqued. The glory of Tommo is departed, thought I, and
+the sooner he removes from the valley the better. These were my feelings
+at the moment, and they were prompted by that glorious principle
+inherent in all heroic natures--the strong-rooted determination to have
+the biggest share of the pudding or to go without any of it.
+
+Marnoo, that all-attractive personage, having satisfied his hunger and
+inhaled a few whiffs from a pipe which was handed to him, launched
+out into an harangue which completely enchained the attention of his
+auditors.
+
+Little as I understood of the language, yet from his animated gestures
+and the varying expression of his features--reflected as from so many
+mirrors in the countenances around him, I could easily discover the
+nature of those passions which he sought to arouse. From the frequent
+recurrence of the words ‘Nukuheva’ and ‘Frannee’ (French), and some
+others with the meaning of which I was acquainted, he appeared to be
+rehearsing to his auditors events which had recently occurred in the
+neighbouring bays. But how he had gained the knowledge of these matters
+I could not understand, unless it were that he had just come from
+Nukuheva--a supposition which his travel-stained appearance not a little
+supported. But, if a native of that region, I could not account for his
+friendly reception at the hands of the Typees.
+
+Never, certainly, had I beheld so powerful an exhibition of natural
+eloquence as Marnoo displayed during the course of his oration. The
+grace of the attitudes into which he threw his flexible figure, the
+striking gestures of his naked arms, and above all, the fire which shot
+from his brilliant eyes, imparted an effect to the continually changing
+accents of his voice, of which the most accomplished orator might have
+been proud. At one moment reclining sideways upon the mat, and leaning
+calmly upon his bended arm, he related circumstantially the aggressions
+of the French--their hostile visits to the surrounding bays, enumerating
+each one in succession--Happar, Puerka, Nukuheva, Tior,--and then
+starting to his feet and precipitating himself forward with clenched
+hands and a countenance distorted with passion, he poured out a tide of
+invectives. Falling back into an attitude of lofty command, he exhorted
+the Typees to resist these encroachments; reminding them, with a fierce
+glance of exultation, that as yet the terror of their name had preserved
+them from attack, and with a scornful sneer he sketched in ironical
+terms the wondrous intrepidity of the French, who, with five war-canoes
+and hundreds of men, had not dared to assail the naked warriors of their
+valley.
+
+The effect he produced upon his audience was electric; one and all they
+stood regarding him with sparkling eyes and trembling limbs, as though
+they were listening to the inspired voice of a prophet.
+
+But it soon appeared that Marnoo’s powers were as versatile as they
+were extraordinary. As soon as he had finished his vehement harangue, he
+threw himself again upon the mats, and, singling out individuals in the
+crowd, addressed them by name, in a sort of bantering style, the humour
+of which, though nearly hidden from me filled the whole assembly with
+uproarious delight.
+
+He had a word for everybody; and, turning rapidly from one to another,
+gave utterance to some hasty witticism, which was sure to be followed
+by peals of laughter. To the females as well as to the men, he addressed
+his discourse. Heaven only knows what he said to them, but he caused
+smiles and blushes to mantle their ingenuous faces. I am, indeed, very
+much inclined to believe that Marnoo, with his handsome person and
+captivating manners, was a sad deceiver among the simple maidens of the
+island.
+
+During all this time he had never, for one moment, deigned to regard me.
+He appeared, indeed, to be altogether unconscious of my presence. I
+was utterly at a loss how to account for this extraordinary conduct. I
+easily perceived that he was a man of no little consequence among the
+islanders; that he possessed uncommon talents; and was gifted with a
+higher degree of knowledge than the inmates of the valley. For these
+reasons, I therefore greatly feared lest having, from some cause or
+other, unfriendly feelings towards me, he might exert his powerful
+influence to do me mischief.
+
+It seemed evident that he was not a permanent resident of the vale, and
+yet, whence could he have come? On all sides the Typees were girt in by
+hostile tribes, and how could he possibly, if belonging to any of these,
+be received with so much cordiality?
+
+The personal appearance of the enigmatical stranger suggested additional
+perplexities. The face, free from tattooing, and the unshaven crown,
+were peculiarities I had never before remarked in any part of the
+island, and I had always heard that the contrary were considered the
+indispensable distinction of a Marquesan warrior. Altogether the matter
+was perfectly incomprehensible to me, and I awaited its solution with no
+small degree of anxiety.
+
+At length, from certain indications, I suspected that he was making me
+the subject of his remarks, although he appeared cautiously to avoid
+either pronouncing my name, or looking in the direction where I lay. All
+at once he rose from the mats where he had been reclining, and, still
+conversing, moved towards me, his eye purposely evading mine, and seated
+himself within less than a yard of me. I had hardly recovered from my
+surprise, when he suddenly turned round, and, with a most benignant
+countenance extended his right hand gracefully towards me. Of course I
+accepted the courteous challenge, and, as soon as our palms met, he bent
+towards me, and murmured in musical accents--‘How you do?’ ‘How long you
+been in this bay?’ ‘You like this bay?’
+
+Had I been pierced simultaneously by three Happar spears, I could not
+have started more than I did at hearing these simple questions. For a
+moment I was overwhelmed with astonishment, and then answered something
+I know not what; but as soon as I regained my self-possession, the
+thought darted through my mind that from this individual I might obtain
+that information regarding Toby which I suspected the natives had
+purposely withheld from me. Accordingly I questioned him concerning
+the disappearance of my companion, but he denied all knowledge of
+the matter. I then inquired from whence he had come? He replied, from
+Nukuheva. When I expressed my surprise, he looked at me for a moment,
+as if enjoying my perplexity, and then with his strange vivacity,
+exclaimed,--‘Ah! Me taboo,--me go Nukuheva,--me go Tior,--me go
+Typee,--me go everywhere,--nobody harm me,--me taboo.’
+
+This explanation would have been altogether unintelligible to me, had
+it not recalled to my mind something I had previously heard concerning
+a singular custom among these islanders. Though the country is possessed
+by various tribes, whose mutual hostilities almost wholly prelude any
+intercourse between them; yet there are instances where a person having
+ratified friendly relations with some individual belonging longing to
+the valley, whose inmates are at war with his own, may, under particular
+restrictions, venture with impunity into the country of his friend,
+where, under other circumstances, he would have been treated as an
+enemy. In this light are personal friendships regarded among them, and
+the individual so protected is said to be ‘taboo’, and his person, to a
+certain extent, is held as sacred. Thus the stranger informed me he had
+access to all the valleys in the island.
+
+Curious to know how he had acquired his knowledge of English, I
+questioned him on the subject. At first, for some reason or other, he
+evaded the inquiry, but afterwards told me that, when a boy, he had
+been carried to sea by the captain of a trading vessel, with whom he
+had stayed three years, living part of the time with him at Sidney in
+Australia, and that at a subsequent visit to the island, the captain
+had, at his own request, permitted him to remain among his countrymen.
+The natural quickness of the savage had been wonderfully improved by his
+intercourse with the white men, and his partial knowledge of a foreign
+language gave him a great ascendancy over his less accomplished
+countrymen.
+
+When I asked the now affable Marnoo why it was that he had not
+previously spoken to me, he eagerly inquired what I had been led to
+think of him from his conduct in that respect. I replied, that I had
+supposed him to be some great chief or warrior, who had seen plenty
+of white men before, and did not think it worth while to notice a poor
+sailor. At this declaration of the exalted opinion I had formed of him,
+he appeared vastly gratified, and gave me to understand that he had
+purposely behaved in that manner, in order to increase my astonishment,
+as soon as he should see proper to address me.
+
+Marnoo now sought to learn my version of the story as to how I came
+to be an inmate of the Typee valley. When I related to him the
+circumstances under which Toby and I had entered it, he listened
+with evident interest; but as soon as I alluded to the absence, yet
+unaccounted for, of my comrade, he endeavoured to change the subject, as
+if it were something he desired not to agitate. It seemed, indeed, as
+if everything connected with Toby was destined to beget distrust and
+anxiety in my bosom. Notwithstanding Marnoo’s denial of any knowledge
+of his fate, I could not avoid suspecting that he was deceiving me; and
+this suspicion revived those frightful apprehensions with regard to my
+own fate, which, for a short time past, had subsided in my breast.
+
+Influenced by these feelings, I now felt a strong desire to avail myself
+of the stranger’s protection, and under his safeguard to return to
+Nukuheva. But as soon as I hinted at this, he unhesitatingly pronounced
+it to be entirely impracticable; assuring me that the Typees would never
+consent to my leaving the valley. Although what he said merely confirmed
+the impression which I had before entertained, still it increased
+my anxiety to escape from a captivity which, however endurable, nay,
+delightful it might be in some respects, involved in its issues a fate
+marked by the most frightful contingencies.
+
+I could not conceal from my mind that Toby had been treated in the same
+friendly manner as I had been, and yet all their kindness terminated
+with his mysterious disappearance. Might not the same fate await me?--a
+fate too dreadful to think of. Stimulated by these considerations,
+I urged anew my request to Marnoo; but he only set forth in stronger
+colours the impossibility of my escape, and repeated his previous
+declaration that the Typees would never be brought to consent to my
+departure.
+
+When I endeavoured to learn from him the motives which prompted them to
+hold me a prisoner, Marnoo again presumed that mysterious tone which had
+tormented me with apprehension when I had questioned him with regard to
+the fate of my companion.
+
+Thus repulsed, in a manner which only served, by arousing the most
+dreadful forebodings, to excite me to renewed attempts, I conjured him
+to intercede for me with the natives, and endeavour to procure their
+consent to my leaving them. To this he appeared strongly averse; but,
+yielding at last to my importunities, he addressed several of the
+chiefs, who with the rest had been eyeing us intently during the whole
+of our conversation. His petition, however, was at once met with the
+most violent disapprobation, manifesting itself in angry glances and
+gestures, and a perfect torrent of passionate words, directed to both
+him and myself. Marnoo, evidently repenting the step he had taken,
+earnestly deprecated the resentment of the crowd, and, in a few moments
+succeeded in pacifying to some extent the clamours which had broken out
+as soon as his proposition had been understood.
+
+With the most intense interest had I watched the reception his
+intercession might receive; and a bitter pang shot through my heart
+at the additional evidence, now furnished, of the unchangeable
+determination of the islanders. Marnoo told me with evident alarm in his
+countenance, that although admitted into the bay on a friendly footing
+with its inhabitants, he could not presume to meddle with their
+concerns, as such procedure, if persisted in, would at once absolve
+the Typees from the restraints of the ‘taboo’, although so long as
+he refrained from such conduct, it screened him effectually from the
+consequences of the enmity they bore his tribe. At this moment, Mehevi,
+who was present, angrily interrupted him; and the words which he uttered
+in a commanding tone, evidently meant that he must at once cease talking
+to me and withdraw to the other part of the house. Marnoo immediately
+started up, hurriedly enjoining me not to address him again, and as I
+valued my safety, to refrain from all further allusion to the subject of
+my departure; and then, in compliance with the order of the determined
+chief, but not before it had again been angrily repeated, he withdrew to
+a distance.
+
+I now perceived, with no small degree of apprehension, the same savage
+expression in the countenances of the natives, which had startled me
+during the scene at the Ti. They glanced their eyes suspiciously from
+Marnoo to me, as if distrusting the nature of an intercourse carried on,
+as it was, in a language they could not understand, and they seemed to
+harbour the belief that already we had concerted measures calculated to
+elude their vigilance.
+
+The lively countenances of these people are wonderfully indicative of
+the emotions of the soul, and the imperfections of their oral language
+are more than compensated for by the nervous eloquence of their looks
+and gestures. I could plainly trace, in every varying expression of
+their faces, all those passions which had been thus unexpectedly aroused
+in their bosoms.
+
+It required no reflection to convince me, from what was going on, that
+the injunction of Marnoo was not to be rashly slighted; and accordingly,
+great as was the effort to suppress my feelings, I accosted Mehevi in
+a good-humoured tone, with a view of dissipating any ill impression
+he might have received. But the ireful, angry chief was not so easily
+mollified. He rejected my advances with that peculiarly stern expression
+I have before described, and took care by the whole of his behaviour
+towards me to show the displeasure and resentment which he felt.
+
+Marnoo, at the other extremity of the house, apparently desirous of
+making a diversion in my favour, exerted himself to amuse with his
+pleasantries the crowd about him; but his lively attempts were not so
+successful as they had previously been, and, foiled in his efforts, he
+rose gravely to depart. No one expressed any regret at this movement,
+so seizing his roll of tappa, and grasping his spear, he advanced to
+the front of the pi-pi, and waving his hand in adieu to the now silent
+throng, cast upon me a glance of mingled pity and reproach, and flung
+himself into the path which led from the house. I watched his receding
+figure until it was lost in the obscurity of the grove, and then gave
+myself up to the most desponding reflections.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN
+
+REFLECTIONS AFTER MARNOO’S DEPARTURE-BATTLE OF THE POP-GUNS--STRANGE
+CONCEIT OF MARHEYO--PROCESS OF MAKING TAPPA
+
+
+The knowledge I had now obtained as to the intention of the savages
+deeply affected me.
+
+Marnoo, I perceived, was a man who, by reason of his superior
+acquirements, and the knowledge he possessed of the events which were
+taking place in the different bays of the island, was held in no little
+estimation by the inhabitants of the valley. He had been received with
+the most cordial welcome and respect. The natives had hung upon the
+accents of his voice, and, had manifested the highest gratification at
+being individually noticed by him. And yet despite all this, a few
+words urged in my behalf, with the intent of obtaining my release from
+captivity, had sufficed not only to banish all harmony and good-will;
+but, if I could believe what he told me, had gone on to endanger his own
+personal safety.
+
+How strongly rooted, then, must be the determination of the Typees
+with regard to me, and how suddenly could they display the strangest
+passions! The mere suggestion of my departure had estranged from me,
+for the time at least, Mehevi, who was the most influential of all
+the chiefs, and who had previously exhibited so many instances of his
+friendly sentiments. The rest of the natives had likewise evinced their
+strong repugnance to my wishes, and even Kory-Kory himself seemed to
+share in the general disapprobation bestowed upon me.
+
+In vain I racked my invention to find out some motive for them, but I
+could discover none.
+
+But however this might be, the scene which had just occurred admonished
+me of the danger of trifling with the wayward and passionate spirits
+against whom it was vain to struggle, and might even be fatal to do go.
+My only hope was to induce the natives to believe that I was reconciled
+to my detention in the valley, and by assuming a tranquil and cheerful
+demeanour, to allay the suspicions which I had so unfortunately aroused.
+Their confidence revived, they might in a short time remit in some
+degree their watchfulness over my movements, and I should then be the
+better enabled to avail myself of any opportunity which presented itself
+for escape. I determined, therefore, to make the best of a bad
+bargain, and to bear up manfully against whatever might betide. In this
+endeavour, I succeeded beyond my own expectations. At the period
+of Marnoo’s visit, I had been in the valley, as nearly as I could
+conjecture, some two months. Although not completely recovered from my
+strange illness, which still lingered about me, I was free from pain
+and able to take exercise. In short, I had every reason to anticipate a
+perfect recovery. Freed from apprehension on this point, and resolved
+to regard the future without flinching, I flung myself anew into all the
+social pleasures of the valley, and sought to bury all regrets, and
+all remembrances of my previous existence in the wild enjoyments it
+afforded.
+
+In my various wanderings through the vale, and as I became better
+acquainted with the character of its inhabitants, I was more and more
+struck with the light-hearted joyousness that everywhere prevailed. The
+minds of these simple savages, unoccupied by matters of graver moment,
+were capable of deriving the utmost delight from circumstances which
+would have passed unnoticed in more intelligent communities. All their
+enjoyment, indeed, seemed to be made up of the little trifling incidents
+of the passing hour; but these diminutive items swelled altogether to an
+amount of happiness seldom experienced by more enlightened individuals,
+whose pleasures are drawn from more elevated but rarer sources.
+
+What community, for instance, of refined and intellectual mortals
+would derive the least satisfaction from shooting pop-guns? The
+mere supposition of such a thing being possible would excite their
+indignation, and yet the whole population of Typee did little else for
+ten days but occupy themselves with that childish amusement, fairly
+screaming, too, with the delight it afforded them.
+
+One day I was frolicking with a little spirited urchin, some six years
+old, who chased me with a piece of bamboo about three feet long, with
+which he occasionally belaboured me. Seizing the stick from him, the
+idea happened to suggest itself, that I might make for the youngster,
+out of the slender tube, one of those nursery muskets with which I had
+sometimes seen children playing.
+
+Accordingly, with my knife I made two parallel slits in the cane several
+inches in length, and cutting loose at one end the elastic strip between
+them, bent it back and slipped the point into a little notch made for
+the purse. Any small substance placed against this would be projected
+with considerable force through the tube, by merely springing the bent
+strip out of the notch.
+
+Had I possessed the remotest idea of the sensation this piece of
+ordnance was destined to produce, I should certainly have taken out a
+patent for the invention. The boy scampered away with it, half delirious
+with ecstasy, and in twenty minutes afterwards I might have been seen
+surrounded by a noisy crowd--venerable old graybeards--responsible
+fathers of families--valiant warriors--matrons--young men--girls and
+children, all holding in their hands bits of bamboo, and each clamouring
+to be served first.
+
+For three or four hours I was engaged in manufacturing pop-guns, but
+at last made over my good-will and interest in the concern to a lad of
+remarkably quick parts, whom I soon initiated into the art and mystery.
+
+Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop, now resounded all over the valley. Duels,
+skirmishes, pitched battles, and general engagements were to be seen
+on every side. Here, as you walked along a path which led through a
+thicket, you fell into a cunningly laid ambush, and became a target for
+a body of musketeers whose tattooed limbs you could just see peeping
+into view through the foliage. There you were assailed by the intrepid
+garrison of a house, who levelled their bamboo rifles at you from
+between the upright canes which composed its sides. Farther on you were
+fired upon by a detachment of sharpshooters, mounted upon the top of a
+pi-pi.
+
+Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop! green guavas, seeds, and berries were flying about
+in every direction, and during this dangerous state of affairs I was
+half afraid that, like the man and his brazen bull, I should fall
+a victim to my own ingenuity. Like everything else, however, the
+excitement gradually wore away, though ever after occasionally pop-guns
+might be heard at all hours of the day.
+
+It was towards the close of the pop-gun war, that I was infinitely
+diverted with a strange freak of Marheyo’s.
+
+I had worn, when I quitted the ship, a pair of thick pumps, which, from
+the rough usage they had received in scaling precipices and sliding down
+gorges, were so dilapidated as to be altogether unfit for use--so, at
+least, would have thought the generality of people, and so they most
+certainly were, when considered in the light of shoes. But things
+unservicable in one way, may with advantage be applied in another,
+that is, if one have genius enough for the purpose. This genius Marheyo
+possessed in a superlative degree, as he abundantly evinced by the use
+to which he put those sorely bruised and battered old shoes.
+
+Every article, however trivial, which belonged to me, the natives
+appeared to regard as sacred; and I observed that for several days
+after becoming an inmate of the house, my pumps were suffered to remain,
+untouched, where I had first happened to throw them. I remembered,
+however, that after awhile I had missed them from their accustomed
+place; but the matter gave me no concern, supposing that Tinor--like any
+other tidy housewife, having come across them in some of her domestic
+occupations--had pitched the useless things out of the house. But I was
+soon undeceived.
+
+One day I observed old Marheyo bustling about me with unusual activity,
+and to such a degree as almost to supersede Kory-Kory in the functions
+of his office. One moment he volunteered to trot off with me on his back
+to the stream; and when I refused, noways daunted by the repulse, he
+continued to frisk about me like a superannuated house-dog. I could not
+for the life of me conjecture what possessed the old gentleman, until
+all at once, availing himself of the temporary absence of the household,
+he went through a variety of of uncouth gestures, pointing eagerly down
+to my feet, then up to a little bundle, which swung from the ridge pole
+overhead. At last I caught a faint idea of his meaning, and motioned him
+to lower the package. He executed the order in the twinkling of an eye,
+and unrolling a piece of tappa, displayed to my astonished gaze the
+identical pumps which I thought had been destroyed long before.
+
+I immediately comprehended his desire, and very generously gave him the
+shoes, which had become quite mouldy, wondering for what earthly purpose
+he could want them. The same afternoon I descried the venerable warrior
+approaching the house, with a slow, stately gait, ear-rings in ears, and
+spear in hand, with this highly ornamental pair of shoes suspended from
+his neck by a strip of bark, and swinging backwards and forwards on
+his capacious chest. In the gala costume of the tasteful Marheyo, these
+calf-skin pendants ever after formed the most striking feature.
+
+But to turn to something a little more important. Although the whole
+existence of the inhabitants of the valley seemed to pass away exempt
+from toil, yet there were some light employments which, although amusing
+rather than laborious as occupations, contributed to their comfort and
+luxury. Among these the most important was the manufacture of the native
+cloth,--‘tappa’,--so well known, under various modifications, throughout
+the whole Polynesian Archipelago. As is generally understood, this
+useful and sometimes elegant article is fabricated from the bark
+of different trees. But, as I believe that no description of its
+manufacture has ever been given, I shall state what I know regarding it.
+
+In the manufacture of the beautiful white tappa generally worn on the
+Marquesan Islands, the preliminary operation consists in gathering a
+certain quantity of the young branches of the cloth-tree. The exterior
+green bark being pulled off as worthless, there remains a slender
+fibrous substance, which is carefully stripped from the stick, to which
+it closely adheres. When a sufficient quantity of it has been collected,
+the various strips are enveloped in a covering of large leaves, which
+the natives use precisely as we do wrapping-paper, and which are secured
+by a few turns of a line passed round them. The package is then laid in
+the bed of some running stream, with a heavy stone placed over it, to
+prevent its being swept away. After it has remained for two or three
+days in this state, it is drawn out, and exposed, for a short time, to
+the action of the air, every distinct piece being attentively inspected,
+with a view of ascertaining whether it has yet been sufficiently
+affected by the operation. This is repeated again and again, until the
+desired result is obtained.
+
+When the substance is in a proper state for the next process, it
+betrays evidences of incipient decomposition; the fibres are relaxed and
+softened, and rendered perfectly malleable. The different strips are
+now extended, one by one, in successive layers, upon some smooth
+surface--generally the prostrate trunk of a cocoanut tree--and the heap
+thus formed is subjected, at every new increase, to a moderate beating,
+with a sort of wooden mallet, leisurely applied. The mallet is made of a
+hard heavy wood resembling ebony, is about twelve inches in length, and
+perhaps two in breadth, with a rounded handle at one end, and in shape
+is the exact counterpart of one of our four-sided razor-strops. The flat
+surfaces of the implement are marked with shallow parallel indentations,
+varying in depth on the different sides, so as to be adapted to the
+several stages of the operation. These marks produce the corduroy sort
+of stripes discernible in the tappa in its finished state. After being
+beaten in the manner I have described, the material soon becomes blended
+in one mass, which, moistened occasionally with water, is at intervals
+hammered out, by a kind of gold-beating process, to any degree of
+thinness required. In this way the cloth is easily made to vary in
+strength and thickness, so as to suit the numerous purposes to which it
+is applied.
+
+When the operation last described has been concluded, the new-made tappa
+is spread out on the grass to bleach and dry, and soon becomes of a
+dazzling whiteness. Sometimes, in the first stages of the manufacture,
+the substance is impregnated with a vegetable juice, which gives it
+a permanent colour. A rich brown and a bright yellow are occasionally
+seen, but the simple taste of the Typee people inclines them to prefer
+the natural tint.
+
+The notable wife of Kamehameha, the renowned conqueror and king of the
+Sandwich Islands, used to pride herself in the skill she displayed in
+dyeing her tappa with contrasting colours disposed in regular figures;
+and, in the midst of the innovations of the times, was regarded, towards
+the decline of her life, as a lady of the old school, clinging as she
+did to the national cloth, in preference to the frippery of the
+European calicoes. But the art of printing the tappa is unknown upon the
+Marquesan Islands. In passing along the valley, I was often attracted by
+the noise of the mallet, which, when employed in the manufacture of
+the cloth produces at every stroke of its hard, heavy wood, a clear,
+ringing, and musical sound, capable of being heard at a great distance.
+When several of these implements happen to be in operation at the same
+time, near one another, the effect upon the ear of a person, at a little
+distance, is really charming.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY
+
+HISTORY OF A DAY AS USUALLY SPENT IN TYPEE VALLEY--DANCES OF THE
+MARQUESAN GIRLS
+
+
+Nothing can be more uniform and undiversified than the life of the
+Typees; one tranquil day of ease and happiness follows another in quiet
+succession; and with these unsophisicated savages the history of a
+day is the history of a life. I will, therefore, as briefly as I can,
+describe one of our days in the valley.
+
+To begin with the morning. We were not very early risers--the sun would
+be shooting his golden spikes above the Happar mountain, ere I threw
+aside my tappa robe, and girding my long tunic about my waist, sallied
+out with Fayaway and Kory-Kory, and the rest of the household, and bent
+my steps towards the stream. Here we found congregated all those who
+dwelt in our section of the valley; and here we bathed with them. The
+fresh morning air and the cool flowing waters put both soul and body in
+a glow, and after a half-hour employed in this recreation, we sauntered
+back to the house--Tinor and Marheyo gathering dry sticks by the way
+for fire-wood; some of the young men laying the cocoanut trees under
+contribution as they passed beneath them; while Kory-Kory played his
+outlandish pranks for my particular diversion, and Fayaway and I, not
+arm in arm to be sure, but sometimes hand in hand, strolled along, with
+feelings of perfect charity for all the world, and especial good-will
+towards each other.
+
+Our morning meal was soon prepared. The islanders are somewhat
+abstemious at this repast; reserving the more powerful efforts of
+their appetite to a later period of the day. For my own part, with the
+assistance of my valet, who, as I have before stated, always officiated
+as spoon on these occasions, I ate sparingly from one of Tinor’s
+trenchers, of poee-poee; which was devoted exclusively for my own use,
+being mixed with the milky meat of ripe cocoanut. A section of a roasted
+bread-fruit, a small cake of ‘Amar’, or a mess of ‘Cokoo,’ two or three
+bananas, or a mammee-apple; an annuee, or some other agreeable and
+nutritious fruit served from day to day to diversify the meal, which was
+finished by tossing off the liquid contents of a young cocoanut or two.
+
+While partaking of this simple repast, the inmates of Marheyo’s house,
+after the style of the ancient Romans, reclined in sociable groups upon
+the divan of mats, and digestion was promoted by cheerful conversation.
+
+After the morning meal was concluded, pipes were lighted; and among them
+my own especial pipe, a present from the noble Mehevi.
+
+The islanders, who only smoke a whiff or two at a time, and at long
+intervals, and who keep their pipes going from hand to hand continually,
+regarded my systematic smoking of four or five pipefuls of tobacco in
+succession, as something quite wonderful. When two or three pipes had
+circulated freely, the company gradually broke up. Marheyo went to the
+little hut he was forever building. Tinor began to inspect her rolls of
+tappa, or employed her busy fingers in plaiting grass-mats. The girls
+anointed themselves with their fragrant oils, dressed their hair, or
+looked over their curious finery, and compared together their ivory
+trinkets, fashioned out of boar’s tusks or whale’s teeth. The young men
+and warriors produced their spears, paddles, canoe-gear, battle-clubs,
+and war-conchs, and occupied themselves in carving, all sorts of figures
+upon them with pointed bits of shell or flint, and adorning them,
+especially the war-conchs, with tassels of braided bark and tufts of
+human hair. Some, immediately after eating, threw themselves once more
+upon the inviting mats, and resumed the employment of the previous
+night, sleeping as soundly as if they had not closed their eyes for a
+week. Others sallied out into the groves, for the purpose of gathering
+fruit or fibres of bark and leaves; the last two being in constant
+requisition, and applied to a hundred uses. A few, perhaps, among the
+girls, would slip into the woods after flowers, or repair to the stream
+will; small calabashes and cocoanut shells, in order to polish them
+by friction with a smooth stone in the water. In truth these innocent
+people seemed to be at no loss for something to occupy their time; and
+it would be no light task to enumerate all their employments, or rather
+pleasures.
+
+My own mornings I spent in a variety of ways. Sometimes I rambled about
+from house to house, sure of receiving a cordial welcome wherever I
+went; or from grove to grove, and from one shady place to another, in
+company with Kory-Kory and Fayaway, and a rabble rout of merry young
+idlers. Sometimes I was too indolent for exercise, and accepting one of
+the many invitations I was continually receiving, stretched myself out
+on the mats of some hospitable dwelling, and occupied myself pleasantly
+either in watching the proceedings of those around me or taking part
+in them myself. Whenever I chose to do the latter, the delight of the
+islanders was boundless; and there was always a throng of competitors
+for the honour of instructing me in any particular craft. I soon became
+quite an accomplished hand at making tappa--could braid a grass sling as
+well as the best of them--and once, with my knife, carved the handle of
+a javelin so exquisitely, that I have no doubt, to this day, Karnoonoo,
+its owner, preserves it as a surprising specimen of my skill. As noon
+approached, all those who had wandered forth from our habitation, began
+to return; and when midday was fairly come scarcely a sound was to be
+heard in the valley: a deep sleep fell upon all. The luxurious siesta
+was hardly ever omitted, except by old Marheyo, who was so eccentric
+a character, that he seemed to be governed by no fixed principles
+whatever; but acting just according to the humour of the moment,
+slept, ate, or tinkered away at his little hut, without regard to the
+proprieties of time or place. Frequently he might have been seen taking
+a nap in the sun at noon-day, or a bath in the stream of mid-night.
+Once I beheld him perched eighty feet from the ground, in the tuft of a
+cocoanut tree, smoking; and often I saw him standing up to the waist
+in water, engaged in plucking out the stray hairs of his beard, using a
+piece of muscle-shell for tweezers.
+
+The noon-tide slumber lasted generally an hour and a half: very often
+longer; and after the sleepers had arisen from their mats they again
+had recourse to their pipes, and then made preparations for the most
+important meal of the day.
+
+I, however, like those gentlemen of leisure who breakfast at home and
+dine at their club, almost invariably, during my intervals of health,
+enjoyed the afternoon repast with the bachelor chiefs of the Ti, who
+were always rejoiced to see me, and lavishly spread before me all the
+good things which their larder afforded. Mehevi generally introduced
+among other dainties a baked pig, an article which I have every reason
+to suppose was provided for my sole gratification.
+
+The Ti was a right jovial place. It did my heart, as well as my body,
+good to visit it. Secure from female intrusion, there was no restraint
+upon the hilarity of the warriors, who, like the gentlemen of Europe
+after the cloth is drawn and the ladies retire, freely indulged their
+mirth.
+
+After spending a considerable portion of the afternoon at the Ti, I
+usually found myself, as the cool of the evening came on, either sailing
+on the little lake with Fayaway, or bathing in the waters of the
+stream with a number of the savages, who, at this hour, always repaired
+thither. As the shadows of night approached Marheyo’s household were
+once more assembled under his roof: tapers were lit, long curious chants
+were raised, interminable stories were told (for which one present was
+little the wiser), and all sorts of social festivities served to while
+away the time.
+
+The young girls very often danced by moonlight in front of their
+dwellings. There are a great variety of these dances, in which, however,
+I never saw the men take part. They all consist of active, romping,
+mischievous evolutions, in which every limb is brought into requisition.
+Indeed, the Marquesan girls dance all over, as it were; not only do
+their feet dance, but their arms, hands, fingers, ay, their very eyes,
+seem to dance in their heads.
+
+The damsels wear nothing but flowers and their compendious gala tunics;
+and when they plume themselves for the dance, they look like a band of
+olive-coloured Sylphides on the point of taking wing. In good sooth,
+they so sway their floating forms, arch their necks, toss aloft their
+naked arms, and glide, and swim, and whirl, that it was almost too much
+for a quiet, sober-minded, modest young man like myself.
+
+Unless some particular festivity was going forward, the inmates of
+Marheyo’s house retired to their mats rather early in the evening; but
+not for the night, since, after slumbering lightly for a while, they
+rose again, relit their tapers, partook of the third and last meal of
+the day, at which poee-poee alone was eaten, and then, after inhaling a
+narcotic whiff from a pipe of tobacco, disposed themselves for the great
+business of night, sleep. With the Marquesans it might almost most be
+styled the great business of life, for they pass a large portion
+of their time in the arms of Somnus. The native strength of their
+constitution is no way shown more emphatically than in the quantity of
+sleep they can endure. To many of them, indeed, life is little else than
+an often interrupted and luxurious nap.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
+
+THE SPRING OF ARVA WAI--REMARKABLE MONUMENTAL REMAINS--SOME IDEAS WITH
+REGARD TO THE HISTORY OF THE PI-PIS FOUND IN THE VALLEY
+
+
+Almost every country has its medicinal springs famed for their healing
+virtues. The Cheltenham of Typee is embosomed in the deepest solitude,
+and but seldom receives a visitor. It is situated remote from any
+dwelling, a little way up the mountain, near the head of the valley; and
+you approach it by a pathway shaded by the most beautiful foliage, and
+adorned with a thousand fragrant plants.
+
+The mineral waters of Arva Wai* ooze forth from the crevices of a rock,
+and gliding down its mossy side, fall at last, in many clustering
+drops, into a natural basin of stone fringed round with grass and
+dewy-looking little violet-coloured flowers, as fresh and beautiful as
+the perpetual moisture they enjoy can make them.
+
+
+*I presume this might be translated into ‘Strong Waters’. Arva is the
+name bestowed upon a root the properties of which are both inebriating
+and medicinal. ‘Wai’ is the Marquesan word for water.
+
+
+The water is held in high estimation by the islanders, some of whom
+consider it an agreeable as well as a medicinal beverage; they bring it
+from the mountain in their calabashes, and store it away beneath heaps
+of leaves in some shady nook near the house. Old Marheyo had a great
+love for the waters of the spring. Every now and then he lugged off to
+the mountain a great round demijohn of a calabash, and, panting with his
+exertions, brought it back filled with his darling fluid.
+
+The water tasted like a solution of a dozen disagreeable things, and was
+sufficiently nauseous to have made the fortune of the proprietor, had
+the spa been situated in the midst of any civilized community.
+
+As I am no chemist, I cannot give a scientific analysis of the water.
+All I know about the matter is, that one day Marheyo in my presence
+poured out the last drop from his huge calabash, and I observed at the
+bottom of the vessel a small quantity of gravelly sediment very much
+resembling our common sand. Whether this is always found in the water,
+and gives it its peculiar flavour and virtues, or whether its presence
+was merely incidental, I was not able to ascertain.
+
+One day in returning from this spring by a circuitous path, I came upon
+a scene which reminded me of Stonehenge and the architectural labours of
+the Druids.
+
+At the base of one of the mountains, and surrounded on all sides by
+dense groves, a series of vast terraces of stone rises, step by step,
+for a considerable distance up the hill side. These terraces cannot
+be less than one hundred yards in length and twenty in width. Their
+magnitude, however, is less striking than the immense size of the blocks
+composing them. Some of the stones, of an oblong shape, are from ten
+to fifteen feet in length, and five or six feet thick. Their sides are
+quite smooth, but though square, and of pretty regular formation, they
+bear no mark of the chisel. They are laid together without cement, and
+here and there show gaps between. The topmost terrace and the lower
+one are somewhat peculiar in their construction. They have both a
+quadrangular depression in the centre, leaving the rest of the terrace
+elevated several feet above it. In the intervals of the stones immense
+trees have taken root, and their broad boughs stretching far over, and
+interlacing together, support a canopy almost impenetrable to the sun.
+Overgrowing the greater part of them, and climbing from one to another,
+is a wilderness of vines, in whose sinewy embrace many of the stones
+lie half-hidden, while in some places a thick growth of bushes entirely
+covers them. There is a wild pathway which obliquely crosses two of
+these terraces; and so profound is the shade, so dense the vegetation,
+that a stranger to the place might pass along it without being aware of
+their existence.
+
+These structures bear every indication of a very high antiquity and
+Kory-Kory, who was my authority in all matters of scientific research,
+gave me to understand that they were coeval with the creation of the
+world; that the great gods themselves were the builders; and that they
+would endure until time shall be no more.
+
+Kory-Kory’s prompt explanation and his attributing the work to a
+divine origin, at once convinced me that neither he nor the rest of his
+country-men knew anything about them.
+
+As I gazed upon this monument, doubtless the work of an extinct and
+forgotten race, thus buried in the green nook of an island at the ends
+of the earth, the existence of which was yesterday unknown, a stronger
+feeling of awe came over me than if I had stood musing at the mighty
+base of the Pyramid of Cheops. There are no inscriptions, no sculpture,
+no clue, by which to conjecture its history; nothing but the dumb
+stones. How many generations of the majestic trees which overshadow them
+have grown and flourished and decayed since first they were erected!
+
+These remains naturally suggest many interesting reflections. They
+establish the great age of the island, an opinion which the builders
+of theories concerning, the creation of the various groups in the South
+Seas are not always inclined to admit. For my own part, I think it
+just as probable that human beings were living in the valleys of the
+Marquesas three thousand years ago as that they were inhabiting the land
+of Egypt. The origin of the island of Nukuheva cannot be imputed to the
+coral insect; for indefatigable as that wonderful creature is, it would
+be hardly muscular enough to pile rocks one upon the other more than
+three thousand feet above the level of the sea. That the land may have
+been thrown up by a submarine volcano is as possible as anything else.
+No one can make an affidavit to the contrary, and therefore I still say
+nothing against the supposition: indeed, were geologists to assert that
+the whole continent of America had in like manner been formed by the
+simultaneous explosion of a train of Etnas laid under the water all the
+way from the North Pole to the parallel of Cape Horn, I am the last man
+in the world to contradict them.
+
+I have already mentioned that the dwellings of the islanders were almost
+invariably built upon massive stone foundations, which they call pi-pis.
+The dimensions of these, however, as well as of the stones composing
+them, are comparatively small: but there are other and larger erections
+of a similar description comprising the ‘morais’, or burying grounds,
+and festival-places, in nearly all the valleys of the island. Some of
+these piles are so extensive, and so great a degree of labour and skill
+must have been requisite in constructing them, that I can scarcely
+believe they were built by the ancestors of the present inhabitants. If
+indeed they were, the race has sadly deteriorated in their knowledge of
+the mechanic arts. To say nothing of their habitual indolence, by what
+contrivance within the reach of so simple a people could such enormous
+masses have been moved or fixed in their places? and how could they with
+their rude implements have chiselled and hammered them into shape?
+
+All of these larger pi-pis--like that of the Hoolah Hoolah ground in the
+Typee valley--bore incontestible marks of great age; and I am disposed
+to believe that their erection may be ascribed to the same race of men
+who were the builders of the still more ancient remains I have just
+described.
+
+According to Kory-Kory’s account, the pi-pi upon which stands the Hoolah
+Hoolah ground was built a great many moons ago, under the direction of
+Monoo, a great chief and warrior, and, as it would appear, master-mason
+among the Typees. It was erected for the express purpose to which it is
+at present devoted, in the incredibly short period of one sun; and was
+dedicated to the immortal wooden idols by a grand festival, which lasted
+ten days and nights.
+
+Among the smaller pi-pis, upon which stand the dwelling-houses of the
+natives, I never observed any which intimated a recent erection. There
+are in every part of the valley a great many of these massive stone
+foundations which have no houses upon them. This is vastly convenient,
+for whenever an enterprising islander chooses to emigrate a few hundred
+yards from the place where he was born, all he has to do in order to
+establish himself in some new locality, is to select one of the many
+unappropriated pi-pis, and without further ceremony pitch his bamboo
+tent upon it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
+
+PREPARATIONS FOR A GRAND FESTIVAL IN THE VALLEY--STRANGE DOINGS IN
+THE TABOO GROVES--MONUMENT OF CALABASHES--GALA COSTUME OF THE TYPEE
+DAMSELS--DEPARTURE FOR THE FESTIVAL
+
+
+From the time that my lameness had decreased I had made a daily practice
+of visiting Mehevi at the Ti, who invariably gave me a most cordial
+reception. I was always accompanied in these excursions by Fayaway
+and the ever-present Kory-Kory. The former, as soon as we reached the
+vicinity of the Ti--which was rigorously tabooed to the whole female
+sex--withdrew to a neighbouring hut, as if her feminine delicacy
+‘restricted’ her from approaching a habitation which might be regarded
+as a sort of Bachelor’s Hall.
+
+And in good truth it might well have been so considered. Although it
+was the permanent residence of several distinguished chiefs, and of
+the noble Mehevi in particular, it was still at certain seasons the
+favourite haunt of all the jolly, talkative, and elderly savages of
+the vale, who resorted thither in the same way that similar characters
+frequent a tavern in civilized countries. There they would remain hour
+after hour, chatting, smoking, eating poee-poee, or busily engaged in
+sleeping for the good of their constitutions.
+
+This building appeared to be the head-quarters of the valley, where all
+flying rumours concentrated; and to have seen it filled with a crowd
+of the natives, all males, conversing in animated clusters, while
+multitudes were continually coming and going, one would have thought it
+a kind of savage Exchange, where the rise and fall of Polynesian Stock
+was discussed.
+
+Mehevi acted as supreme lord over the place, spending the greater
+portion of his time there: and often when, at particular hours of the
+day, it was deserted by nearly every one else except the verd-antique
+looking centenarians, who were fixtures in the building, the chief
+himself was sure to be found enjoying his ‘otium cum dignitate’--upon
+the luxurious mats which covered the floor. Whenever I made my
+appearance he invariably rose, and like a gentleman doing the honours of
+his mansion, invited me to repose myself wherever I pleased, and calling
+out ‘tamaree!’ (boy), a little fellow would appear, and then retiring
+for an instant, return with some savoury mess, from which the chief
+would press me to regale myself. To tell the truth, Mehevi was indebted
+to the excellence of his viands for the honour of my repeated visits--a
+matter which cannot appear singular, when it is borne in mind that
+bachelors, all the world over, are famous for serving up unexceptionable
+repasts.
+
+One day, on drawing near to the Ti, I observed that extensive
+preparations were going forward, plainly betokening some approaching
+festival. Some of the symptoms reminded me of the stir produced among
+the scullions of a large hotel, where a grand jubilee dinner is about to
+be given. The natives were hurrying about hither and thither, engaged in
+various duties, some lugging off to the stream enormous hollow
+bamboos, for the purpose of filling them with water; others chasing
+furious-looking hogs through the bushes, in their endeavours to capture
+them; and numbers employed in kneading great mountains of poee-poee
+heaped up in huge wooden vessels.
+
+After observing these lively indications for a while, I was attracted to
+a neighbouring grove by a prodigious squeaking which I heard there. On
+reaching the spot I found it proceeded from a large hog which a number
+of natives were forcibly holding to the earth, while a muscular fellow,
+armed with a bludgeon, was ineffectually aiming murderous blows at the
+skull of the unfortunate porker. Again and again he missed his
+writhing and struggling victim, but though puffing and panting with
+his exertions, he still continued them; and after striking a sufficient
+number of blows to have demolished an entire drove of oxen, with one
+crashing stroke he laid him dead at his feet.
+
+Without letting any blood from the body, it was immediately carried to a
+fire which had been kindled near at hand and four savages taking hold of
+the carcass by its legs, passed it rapidly to and fro in the flames.
+In a moment the smell of burning bristles betrayed the object of this
+procedure. Having got thus far in the matter, the body was removed to a
+little distance and, being disembowelled, the entrails were laid aside
+as choice parts, and the whole carcass thoroughly washed with water. An
+ample thick green cloth, composed of the long thick leaves of a species
+of palm-tree, ingeniously tacked together with little pins of bamboo,
+was now spread upon the ground, in which the body being carefully
+rolled, it was borne to an oven previously prepared to receive it. Here
+it was at once laid upon the heated stones at the bottom, and covered
+with thick layers of leaves, the whole being quickly hidden from sight
+by a mound of earth raised over it.
+
+Such is the summary style in which the Typees convert perverse-minded
+and rebellious hogs into the most docile and amiable pork; a morsel
+of which placed on the tongue melts like a soft smile from the lips of
+Beauty.
+
+I commend their peculiar mode of proceeding to the consideration of all
+butchers, cooks, and housewives. The hapless porker whose fate I have
+just rehearsed, was not the only one who suffered in that memorable day.
+Many a dismal grunt, many an imploring squeak, proclaimed what was going
+on throughout the whole extent of the valley; and I verily believe the
+first-born of every litter perished before the setting of that fatal
+sun.
+
+The scene around the Ti was now most animated. Hogs and poee-poee were
+baking in numerous ovens, which, heaped up with fresh earth into slight
+elevations, looked like so many ant-hills. Scores of the savages were
+vigorously plying their stone pestles in preparing masses of poee-poee,
+and numbers were gathering green bread-fruit and young cocoanuts in the
+surrounding groves; when an exceeding great multitude, with a view of
+encouraging the rest in their labours, stood still, and kept shouting
+most lustily without intermission.
+
+It is a peculiarity among these people, that, when engaged in an
+employment, they always make a prodigious fuss about it. So seldom do
+they ever exert themselves, that when they do work they seem determined
+that so meritorious an action shall not escape the observation of those
+around if, for example, they have occasion to remove a stone to a little
+distance, which perhaps might be carried by two able-bodied men, a whole
+swarm gather about it, and, after a vast deal of palavering, lift it
+up among them, every one struggling to get hold of it, and bear it off
+yelling and panting as if accomplishing some mighty achievement. Seeing
+them on these occasions, one is reminded of an infinity of black ants
+clustering about and dragging away to some hole the leg of a deceased
+fly.
+
+Having for some time attentively observed these demonstrations of good
+cheer, I entered the Ti, where Mehevi sat complacently looking out upon
+the busy scene, and occasionally issuing his orders. The chief appeared
+to be in an extraordinary flow of spirits and gave me to understand that
+on the morrow there would be grand doings in the Groves generally, and
+at the Ti in particular; and urged me by no means to absent myself. In
+commemoration of what event, however, or in honour of what
+distinguished personage, the feast was to be given, altogether passed my
+comprehension. Mehevi sought to enlighten my ignorance, but he failed as
+signally as when he had endeavoured to initiate me into the perplexing
+arcana of the taboo.
+
+On leaving the Ti, Kory-Kory, who had as a matter of course accompanied
+me, observing that my curiosity remained unabated, resolved to make
+everything plain and satisfactory. With this intent, he escorted
+me through the Taboo Groves, pointing out to my notice a variety of
+objects, and endeavoured to explain them in such an indescribable jargon
+of words, that it almost put me in bodily pain to listen to him. In
+particular, he led me to a remarkable pyramidical structure some three
+yards square at the base, and perhaps ten feet in height, which had
+lately been thrown up, and occupied a very conspicuous position. It
+was composed principally of large empty calabashes, with a few polished
+cocoanut shells, and looked not unlike a cenotaph of skulls. My cicerone
+perceived the astonishment with which I gazed at this monument of savage
+crockery, and immediately addressed himself in the task of enlightening
+me: but all in vain; and to this hour the nature of the monument remains
+a complete mystery to me. As, however, it formed so prominent a feature
+in the approaching revels, I bestowed upon the latter, in my own mind,
+the title of the ‘Feast of Calabashes’.
+
+The following morning, awaking rather late, I perceived the whole of
+Marheyo’s family busily engaged in preparing for the festival.
+
+The old warrior himself was arranging in round balls the two grey locks
+of hair that were suffered to grow from the crown of his head; his
+earrings and spear, both well polished, lay beside him, while the highly
+decorative pair of shoes hung suspended from a projecting cane against
+the side of the house. The young men were similarly employed; and the
+fair damsels, including Fayaway, were anointing themselves with ‘aka’,
+arranging their long tresses, and performing other matters connected
+with the duties of the toilet.
+
+Having completed their preparations, the girls now exhibited themselves
+in gala costume; the most conspicuous feature of which was a necklace
+of beautiful white flowers, with the stems removed, and strung closely
+together upon a single fibre of tappa. Corresponding ornaments were
+inserted in their ears, and woven garlands upon their heads. About their
+waist they wore a short tunic of spotless white tappa, and some of them
+super-added to this a mantle of the same material, tied in an elaborate
+bow upon the left shoulder, and falling about the figure in picturesque
+folds.
+
+Thus arrayed, I would have matched the charming Fayaway against any
+beauty in the world.
+
+People may say what they will about the taste evinced by our fashionable
+ladies in dress. Their jewels, their feathers, their silks, and
+their furbelows, would have sunk into utter insignificance beside the
+exquisite simplicity of attire adopted by the nymphs of the vale on this
+festive occasion. I should like to have seen a gallery of coronation
+beauties, at Westminster Abbey, confronted for a moment by this band of
+island girls; their stiffness, formality, and affectation, contrasted
+with the artless vivacity and unconcealed natural graces of these savage
+maidens. It would be the Venus de’ Medici placed beside a milliner’s
+doll. It was not long before Kory-Kory and myself were left alone in the
+house, the rest of its inmates having departed for the Taboo Groves.
+My valet was all impatience to follow them; and was as fidgety about my
+dilatory movements as a diner out waiting hat in hand at the bottom
+of the stairs for some lagging companion. At last, yielding to his
+importunities, I set out for the Ti. As we passed the houses peeping out
+from the groves through which our route lay, I noticed that they were
+entirely deserted by their inhabitants.
+
+When we reached the rock that abruptly terminated the path, and
+concealed from us the festive scene, wild shouts and a confused blending
+of voices assured me that the occasion, whatever it might be, had
+drawn together a great multitude. Kory-Kory, previous to mounting the
+elevation, paused for a moment, like a dandy at a ball-room door, to put
+a hasty finish to his toilet. During this short interval, the thought
+struck me that I ought myself perhaps to be taking some little pains
+with my appearance.
+
+But as I had no holiday raiment, I was not a little puzzled to devise
+some means of decorating myself. However, as I felt desirous to create a
+sensation, I determined to do all that lay in my power; and knowing that
+I could not delight the savages more than by conforming to their style
+of dress, I removed from my person the large robe of tappa which I was
+accustomed to wear over my shoulders whenever I sallied into the open
+air, and remained merely girt about with a short tunic descending from
+my waist to my knees.
+
+My quick-witted attendant fully appreciated the compliment I was paying
+to the costume of his race, and began more sedulously to arrange the
+folds of the one only garment which remained to me. Whilst he was doing
+this, I caught sight of a knot of young lasses, who were sitting near us
+on the grass surrounded by heaps of flowers which they were forming into
+garlands. I motioned to them to bring some of their handywork to me;
+and in an instant a dozen wreaths were at my disposal. One of them I
+put round the apology for a hat which I had been forced to construct for
+myself out of palmetto-leaves, and some of the others I converted into a
+splendid girdle. These operations finished, with the slow and dignified
+step of a full-dressed beau I ascended the rock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
+
+THE FEAST OF CALABASHES
+
+
+The whole population of the valley seemed to be gathered within the
+precincts of the grove. In the distance could be seen the long front of
+the Ti, its immense piazza swarming with men, arrayed in every variety
+of fantastic costume, and all vociferating with animated gestures; while
+the whole interval between it and the place where I stood was enlivened
+by groups of females fancifully decorated, dancing, capering, and
+uttering wild exclamations. As soon as they descried me they set up a
+shout of welcome; and a band of them came dancing towards me, chanting
+as they approached some wild recitative. The change in my garb seemed to
+transport them with delight, and clustering about me on all sides, they
+accompanied me towards the Ti. When however we drew near it these joyous
+nymphs paused in their career, and parting on either side, permitted me
+to pass on to the now densely thronged building.
+
+So soon as I mounted to the pi-pi I saw at a glance that the revels were
+fairly under way.
+
+What lavish plenty reigned around?--Warwick feasting his retainers with
+beef and ale, was a niggard to the noble Mehevi!--All along the piazza
+of the Ti were arranged elaborately carved canoe-shaped vessels, some
+twenty feet in length, tied with newly made poee-poee, and sheltered
+from the sun by the broad leaves of the banana. At intervals were heaps
+of green bread-fruit, raised in pyramidical stacks, resembling the
+regular piles of heavy shot to be seen in the yard of an arsenal.
+Inserted into the interstices of the huge stones which formed the pi-pi
+were large boughs of trees; hanging from the branches of which, and
+screened from the sun by their foliage, were innumerable little packages
+with leafy coverings, containing the meat of the numerous hogs which
+had been slain, done up in this manner to make it more accessible to the
+crowd. Leaning against the railing on the piazza were an immense
+number of long, heavy bamboos, plugged at the lower end, and with their
+projecting muzzles stuffed with a wad of leaves. These were filled with
+water from the stream, and each of them might hold from four to five
+gallons.
+
+The banquet being thus spread, naught remained but for everyone to
+help himself at his pleasure. Accordingly not a moment passed but the
+transplanted boughs I have mentioned were rifled by the throng of the
+fruit they certainly had never borne before. Calabashes of poee-poee
+were continually being replenished from the extensive receptacle in
+which that article was stored, and multitudes of little fires were
+kindled about the Ti for the purpose of roasting the bread-fruit.
+
+Within the building itself was presented a most extraordinary scene. The
+immense lounge of mats lying between the parallel rows of the trunks of
+cocoanut trees, and extending the entire length of the house, at least
+two hundred feet, was covered by the reclining forms of a host of chiefs
+and warriors who were eating at a great rate, or soothing the cares of
+Polynesian life in the sedative fumes of tobacco. The smoke was inhaled
+from large pipes, the bowls of which, made out of small cocoanut shells,
+were curiously carved in strange heathenish devices. These were passed
+from mouth to mouth by the recumbent smokers, each of whom, taking two
+or three prodigious whiffs, handed the pipe to his neighbour; sometimes
+for that purpose stretching indolently across the body of some dozing
+individual whose exertions at the dinner-table had already induced
+sleep.
+
+The tobacco used among the Typees was of a very mild and pleasing
+flavour, and as I always saw it in leaves, and the natives appeared
+pretty well supplied with it, I was led to believe that it must have
+been the growth of the valley. Indeed Kory-Kory gave me to understand
+that this was the case; but I never saw a single plant growing on the
+island. At Nukuheva, and, I believe, in all the other valleys, the weed
+is very scarce, being only obtained in small quantities from foreigners,
+and smoking is consequently with the inhabitants of these places a very
+great luxury. How it was that the Typees were so well furnished with
+it I cannot divine. I should think them too indolent to devote any
+attention to its culture; and, indeed, as far as my observation
+extended, not a single atom of the soil was under any other cultivation
+than that of shower and sunshine. The tobacco-plant, however, like the
+sugar-cane, may grow wild in some remote part of the vale.
+
+There were many in the Ti for whom the tobacco did not furnish a
+sufficient stimulus, and who accordingly had recourse to ‘arva’, as a
+more powerful agent in producing the desired effect.
+
+‘Arva’ is a root very generally dispersed over the South Seas, and from
+it is extracted a juice, the effects of which upon the system are at
+first stimulating in a moderate degree; but it soon relaxes the muscles,
+and exerting a narcotic influence produces a luxurious sleep. In
+the valley this beverage was universally prepared in the following
+way:--Some half-dozen young boys seated themselves in a circle around
+an empty wooden vessel, each one of them being supplied with a certain
+quantity of the roots of the ‘arva’, broken into small bits and laid
+by his side. A cocoanut goblet of water was passed around the juvenile
+company, who rinsing their mouths with its contents, proceeded to the
+business before them. This merely consisted in thoroughly masticating
+the ‘arva’, and throwing it mouthful after mouthful into the receptacle
+provided. When a sufficient quantity had been thus obtained water was
+poured upon the mass, and being stirred about with the forefinger of the
+right hand, the preparation was soon in readiness for use. The ‘arva’
+has medicinal qualities.
+
+Upon the Sandwich Islands it has been employed with no small success in
+the treatment of scrofulous affections, and in combating the ravages
+of a disease for whose frightful inroads the ill-starred inhabitants of
+that group are indebted to their foreign benefactors. But the tenants of
+the Typee valley, as yet exempt from these inflictions, generally employ
+the ‘arva’ as a minister to social enjoyment, and a calabash of the
+liquid circulates among them as the bottle with us.
+
+Mehevi, who was greatly delighted with the change in my costume, gave
+me a cordial welcome. He had reserved for me a most delectable mess
+of ‘cokoo’, well knowing my partiality for that dish; and had likewise
+selected three or four young cocoanuts, several roasted bread-fruit,
+and a magnificent bunch of bananas, for my especial comfort and
+gratification. These various matters were at once placed before me; but
+Kory-Kory deemed the banquet entirely insufficient for my wants until
+he had supplied me with one of the leafy packages of pork, which,
+notwithstanding the somewhat hasty manner in which it had been prepared,
+possessed a most excellent flavour, and was surprisingly sweet and
+tender.
+
+Pork is not a staple article of food among the people of the Marquesas;
+consequently they pay little attention to the BREEDING of the swine. The
+hogs are permitted to roam at large on the groves, where they obtain
+no small part of their nourishment from the cocoanuts which continually
+fall from the trees. But it is only after infinite labour and
+difficulty, that the hungry animal can pierce the husk and shell so as
+to get at the meat. I have frequently been amused at seeing one of
+them, after crunching the obstinate nut with his teeth for a long time
+unsuccessfully, get into a violent passion with it. He would then root
+furiously under the cocoanut, and, with a fling of his snout, toss it
+before him on the ground. Following it up, he would crunch at it again
+savagely for a moment, and then next knock it on one side, pausing
+immediately after, as if wondering how it could so suddenly have
+disappeared. In this way the persecuted cocoanuts were often chased half
+across the valley.
+
+The second day of the Feast of Calabashes was ushered in by still more
+uproarious noises than the first. The skins of innumerable sheep seemed
+to be resounding to the blows of an army of drummers. Startled from my
+slumbers by the din, I leaped up, and found the whole household engaged
+in making preparations for immediate departure. Curious to discover of
+what strange events these novel sounds might be the precursors, and not
+a little desirous to catch a sight of the instruments which produced
+the terrific noise, I accompanied the natives as soon as they were in
+readiness to depart for the Taboo Groves.
+
+The comparatively open space that extended from the Ti toward the rock,
+to which I have before alluded as forming the ascent to the place, was,
+with the building itself, now altogether deserted by the men; the whole
+distance being filled by bands of females, shouting and dancing under
+the influence of some strange excitement.
+
+I was amused at the appearance of four or five old women who, in a state
+of utter nudity, with their arms extended flatly down their sides, and
+holding themselves perfectly erect, were leaping stiffly into the
+air, like so many sticks bobbing to the surface, after being pressed
+perpendicularly into the water. They preserved the utmost gravity of
+countenance, and continued their extraordinary movements without
+a single moment’s cessation. They did not appear to attract the
+observation of the crowd around them, but I must candidly confess that
+for my own part, I stared at them most pertinaciously.
+
+Desirous of being enlightened in regard to the meaning of this peculiar
+diversion, I turned, inquiringly to Kory-Kory; that learned Typee
+immediately proceeded to explain the whole matter thoroughly. But all
+that I could comprehend from what he said was, that the leaping figures
+before me were bereaved widows, whose partners had been slain in battle
+many moons previously; and who, at every festival, gave public evidence
+in this manner of their calamities. It was evident that Kory-Kory
+considered this an all-sufficient reason for so indecorous a custom; but
+I must say that it did not satisfy me as to its propriety.
+
+Leaving these afflicted females, we passed on to the Hoolah Hoolah
+ground. Within the spacious quadrangle, the whole population of the
+valley seemed to be assembled, and the sight presented was truly
+remarkable. Beneath the sheds of bamboo which opened towards the
+interior of the square reclined the principal chiefs and warriors, while
+a miscellaneous throng lay at their ease under the enormous trees which
+spread a majestic canopy overhead. Upon the terraces of the gigantic
+altars, at each end, were deposited green bread-fruit in baskets of
+cocoanut leaves, large rolls of tappa, bunches of ripe bananas, clusters
+of mammee-apples, the golden-hued fruit of the artu-tree, and baked
+hogs, laid out in large wooden trenchers, fancifully decorated with
+freshly plucked leaves, whilst a variety of rude implements of war were
+piled in confused heaps before the ranks of hideous idols. Fruits of
+various kinds were likewise suspended in leafen baskets, from the tops
+of poles planted uprightly, and at regular intervals, along the lower
+terraces of both altars. At their base were arranged two parallel rows
+of cumbersome drums, standing at least fifteen feet in height, and
+formed from the hollow trunks of large trees. Their heads were covered
+with shark skins, and their barrels were elaborately carved with various
+quaint figures and devices. At regular intervals they were bound round
+by a species of sinnate of various colours, and strips of native cloth
+flattened upon them here and there. Behind these instruments were built
+slight platforms, upon which stood a number of young men who, beating
+violently with the palms of their hands upon the drum-heads, produced
+those outrageous sounds which had awakened me in the morning. Every few
+minutes these musical performers hopped down from their elevation into
+the crowd below, and their places were immediately supplied by fresh
+recruits. Thus an incessant din was kept up that might have startled
+Pandemonium.
+
+Precisely in the middle of the quadrangle were placed perpendicularly
+in the ground, a hundred or more slender, fresh-cut poles, stripped of
+their bark, and decorated at the end with a floating pennon of white
+tappa; the whole being fenced about with a little picket of canes. For
+what purpose these angular ornaments were intended I in vain endeavoured
+to discover.
+
+Another most striking feature of the performance was exhibited by a
+score of old men, who sat cross-legged in the little pulpits, which
+encircled the trunks of the immense trees growing in the middle of the
+enclosure. These venerable gentlemen, who I presume were the priests,
+kept up an uninterrupted monotonous chant, which was partly drowned in
+the roar of drums. In the right hand they held a finely woven grass fan,
+with a heavy black wooden handle curiously chased: these fans they kept
+in continual motion.
+
+But no attention whatever seemed to be paid to the drummers or to the
+old priests; the individuals who composed the vast crowd present being
+entirely taken up in chanting and laughing with one another, smoking,
+drinking ‘arva’, and eating. For all the observation it attracted,
+or the good it achieved, the whole savage orchestra might with great
+advantage to its own members and the company in general, have ceased the
+prodigious uproar they were making.
+
+In vain I questioned Kory-Kory and others of the natives, as to the
+meaning of the strange things that were going on; all their explanations
+were conveyed in such a mass of outlandish gibberish and gesticulation
+that I gave up the attempt in despair. All that day the drums resounded,
+the priests chanted, and the multitude feasted and roared till sunset,
+when the throng dispersed, and the Taboo Groves were again abandoned to
+quiet and repose. The next day the same scene was repeated until night,
+when this singular festival terminated.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
+
+IDEAS SUGGESTED BY THE FEAST OF CALABASHES--INACCURACY OF CERTAIN
+PUBLISHED ACCOUNTS OF THE ISLANDS--A REASON--NEGLECTED STATE OF
+HEATHENISM IN THE VALLEY--EFFIGY OF A DEAD WARRIOR--A SINGULAR
+SUPERSTITION--THE PRIEST KOLORY AND THE GOD MOA ARTUA--AMAZING RELIGIOUS
+OBSERVANCE--A DILAPIDATED SHRINE--KORY-KORY AND THE IDOL--AN INFERENCE
+
+
+Although I had been baffled in my attempts to learn the origin of
+the Feast of Calabashes, yet it seemed very plain to me that it was
+principally, if not wholly, of a religious character. As a religious
+solemnity, however, it had not at all corresponded with the horrible
+descriptions of Polynesian worship which we have received in some
+published narratives, and especially in those accounts of the
+evangelized islands with which the missionaries have favoured us. Did
+not the sacred character of these persons render the purity of their
+intentions unquestionable, I should certainly be led to suppose that
+they had exaggerated the evils of Paganism, in order to enhance the
+merit of their own disinterested labours.
+
+In a certain work incidentally treating of the ‘Washington, or Northern
+Marquesas Islands,’ I have seen the frequent immolation of human victims
+upon the altars of their gods, positively and repeatedly charged upon
+the inhabitants. The same work gives also a rather minute account of
+their religion--enumerates a great many of their superstitions--and
+makes known the particular designations of numerous orders of the
+priesthood. One would almost imagine from the long list that is given
+of cannibal primates, bishops, arch-deacons, prebendaries, and other
+inferior ecclesiastics, that the sacerdotal order far outnumbered the
+rest of the population, and that the poor natives were more severely
+priest-ridden than even the inhabitants of the papal states. These
+accounts are likewise calculated to leave upon the reader’s mind an
+impression that human victims are daily cooked and served up upon the
+altars; that heathenish cruelties of every description are continually
+practised; and that these ignorant Pagans are in a state of the
+extremest wretchedness in consequence of the grossness of their
+superstitions. Be it observed, however, that all this information is
+given by a man who, according to his own statement, was only at one of
+the islands, and remained there but two weeks, sleeping every night on
+board his ship, and taking little kid-glove excursions ashore in the
+daytime, attended by an armed party.
+
+Now, all I can say is, that in all my excursions through the valley of
+Typee, I never saw any of these alleged enormities. If any of them are
+practised upon the Marquesas Islands they must certainly have come to
+my knowledge while living for months with a tribe of savages, wholly
+unchanged from their original primitive condition, and reputed the most
+ferocious in the South Seas.
+
+The fact is, that there is a vast deal of unintentional humbuggery
+in some of the accounts we have from scientific men concerning the
+religious institutions of Polynesia. These learned tourists generally
+obtain the greater part of their information from retired old South-Sea
+rovers, who have domesticated themselves among the barbarous tribes of
+the Pacific. Jack, who has long been accustomed to the long-bow, and
+to spin tough yarns on the ship’s forecastle, invariably officiates as
+showman of the island on which he has settled, and having mastered a few
+dozen words of the language, is supposed to know all about the people
+who speak it. A natural desire to make himself of consequence in the
+eyes of the strangers, prompts him to lay claim to a much greater
+knowledge of such matters than he actually possesses. In reply to
+incessant queries, he communicates not only all he knows but a good deal
+more, and if there be any information deficient still he is at no
+loss to supply it. The avidity with which his anecdotes are noted
+down tickles his vanity, and his powers of invention increase with the
+credulity auditors. He knows just the sort of information wanted, and
+furnishes it to any extent.
+
+This is not a supposed case; I have met with several individuals like
+the one described, and I have been present at two or three of their
+interviews with strangers.
+
+Now, when the scientific voyager arrives at home with his collection
+of wonders, he attempts, perhaps, to give a description of some of the
+strange people he has been visiting. Instead of representing them as
+a community of lusty savages, who are leading a merry, idle, innocent
+life, he enters into a very circumstantial and learned narrative of
+certain unaccountable superstitions and practices, about which he knows
+as little as the islanders themselves. Having had little time, and
+scarcely any opportunity, to become acquainted with the customs he
+pretends to describe, he writes them down one after another in an
+off-hand, haphazard style; and were the book thus produced to be
+translated into the tongue of the people of whom it purports to give the
+history, it would appear quite as wonderful to them as it does to the
+American public, and much more improbable.
+
+For my own part, I am free to confess my almost entire inability to
+gratify any curiosity that may be felt with regard to the theology of
+the valley. I doubt whether the inhabitants themselves could do so. They
+are either too lazy or too sensible to worry themselves about abstract
+points of religious belief. While I was among them, they never held any
+synods or councils to settle the principles of their faith by agitating
+them. An unbounded liberty of conscience seemed to prevail. Those
+who pleased to do so were allowed to repose implicit faith in an
+ill-favoured god with a large bottle-nose and fat shapeless arms crossed
+upon his breast; whilst others worshipped an image which, having no
+likeness either in heaven or on earth, could hardly be called an idol.
+As the islanders always maintained a discreet reserve with regard to
+my own peculiar views on religion, I thought it would be excessively
+ill-bred of me to pry into theirs.
+
+But, although my knowledge of the religious faith of the Typees was
+unavoidably limited, one of their superstitious observances with which I
+became acquainted interested me greatly.
+
+In one of the most secluded portions of the valley within a stone’s
+cast of Fayaway’s lake--for so I christened the scene of our island
+yachting--and hard by a growth of palms, which stood ranged in order
+along both banks of the stream, waving their green arms as if to do
+honour to its passage, was the mausoleum of a deceased, warrior chief.
+Like all the other edifices of any note, it was raised upon a small
+pi-pi of stones, which, being of unusual height, was a conspicuous
+object from a distance. A light thatching of bleached palmetto-leaves
+hung over it like a self supported canopy; for it was not until you
+came very near that you saw it was supported by four slender columns of
+bamboo rising at each corner to a little more than the height of a man.
+A clear area of a few yards surrounded the pi-pi, and was enclosed by
+four trunks of cocoanut trees resting at the angles on massive blocks of
+stone. The place was sacred. The sign of the inscrutable Taboo was seen
+in the shape of a mystic roll of white tappa, suspended by a twisted
+cord of the same material from the top of a slight pole planted within
+the enclosure*. The sanctity of the spot appeared never to have been
+violated. The stillness of the grave was there, and the calm solitude
+around was beautiful and touching. The soft shadows of those lofty
+palm-trees!--I can see them now--hanging over the little temple, as if
+to keep out the intrusive sun.
+
+*White appears to be the sacred colour among the Marquesans.
+
+On all sides as you approached this silent spot you caught sight of the
+dead chief’s effigy, seated in the stern of a canoe, which was raised on
+a light frame a few inches above the level of the pi-pi. The canoe was
+about seven feet in length; of a rich, dark coloured wood, handsomely
+carved and adorned in many places with variegated bindings of stained
+sinnate, into which were ingeniously wrought a number of sparkling
+seashells, and a belt of the same shells ran all round it. The body
+of the figure--of whatever material it might have been made--was
+effectually concealed in a heavy robe of brown tappa, revealing; only
+the hands and head; the latter skilfully carved in wood, and surmounted
+by a superb arch of plumes. These plumes, in the subdued and gentle
+gales which found access to this sequestered spot, were never for one
+moment at rest, but kept nodding and waving over the chief’s brow. The
+long leaves of the palmetto drooped over the eaves, and through them you
+saw the warrior holding his paddle with both hands in the act of rowing,
+leaning forward and inclining his head, as if eager to hurry on his
+voyage. Glaring at him forever, and face to face, was a polished human
+skull, which crowned the prow of the canoe. The spectral figurehead,
+reversed in its position, glancing backwards, seemed to mock the
+impatient attitude of the warrior.
+
+When I first visited this singular place with Kory-Kory, he told me--or
+at least I so understood him--that the chief was paddling his way to
+the realms of bliss, and bread-fruit--the Polynesian heaven--where
+every moment the bread-fruit trees dropped their ripened spheres to the
+ground, and where there was no end to the cocoanuts and bananas: there
+they reposed through the livelong eternity upon mats much finer than
+those of Typee; and every day bathed their glowing limbs in rivers
+of cocoanut oil. In that happy land there were plenty of plumes and
+feathers, and boars’-tusks and sperm-whale teeth, far preferable to all
+the shining trinkets and gay tappa of the white men; and, best of all,
+women far lovelier than the daughters of earth were there in abundance.
+‘A very pleasant place,’ Kory-Kory said it was; ‘but after all, not much
+pleasanter, he thought, than Typee.’ ‘Did he not then,’ I asked him,
+‘wish to accompany the warrior?’ ‘Oh no: he was very happy where he was;
+but supposed that some time or other he would go in his own canoe.’
+
+Thus far, I think, I clearly comprehended Kory-Kory. But there was a
+singular expression he made use of at the time, enforced by as singular
+a gesture, the meaning of which I would have given much to penetrate.
+I am inclined to believe it must have been a proverb he uttered; for I
+afterwards heard him repeat the same words several times, and in what
+appeared to me to be a somewhat: similar sense. Indeed, Kory-Kory had
+a great variety of short, smart-sounding sentences, with which he
+frequently enlivened his discourse; and he introduced them with an air
+which plainly intimated, that in his opinion, they settled the matter in
+question, whatever it might be.
+
+Could it have been then, that when I asked him whether he desired to go
+to this heaven of bread-fruit, cocoanuts, and young ladies, which he had
+been describing, he answered by saying something equivalent to our
+old adage--‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’?--if he did,
+Kory-Kory was a discreet and sensible fellow, and I cannot sufficiently
+admire his shrewdness.
+
+Whenever, in the course of my rambles through the valley I happened to
+be near the chief’s mausoleum, I always turned aside to visit it. The
+place had a peculiar charm for me; I hardly know why, but so it was. As
+I leaned over the railing and gazed upon the strange effigy and watched
+the play of the feathery head-dress, stirred by the same breeze which in
+low tones breathed amidst the lofty palm-trees, I loved to yield myself
+up to the fanciful superstition of the islanders, and could almost
+believe that the grim warrior was bound heavenward. In this mood when
+I turned to depart, I bade him ‘God speed, and a pleasant voyage.’ Aye,
+paddle away, brave chieftain, to the land of spirits! To the material
+eye thou makest but little progress; but with the eye of faith, I see
+thy canoe cleaving the bright waves, which die away on those dimly
+looming shores of Paradise.
+
+This strange superstition affords another evidence of the fact, that
+however ignorant man may be, he still feels within him his immortal
+spirit yearning, after the unknown future.
+
+Although the religious theories of the islands were a complete mystery
+to me, their practical every-day operation could not be concealed. I
+frequently passed the little temples reposing in the shadows of the
+taboo groves and beheld the offerings--mouldy fruit spread out upon
+a rude altar, or hanging in half-decayed baskets around some uncouth
+jolly-looking image; I was present during the continuance of the
+festival; I daily beheld the grinning idols marshalled rank and file in
+the Hoolah Hoolah ground, and was often in the habit of meeting
+those whom I supposed to be the priests. But the temples seemed to be
+abandoned to solitude; the festival had been nothing more than a jovial
+mingling of the tribe; the idols were quite harmless as any other logs
+of wood; and the priests were the merriest dogs in the valley.
+
+In fact religious affairs in Typee were at a very low ebb: all such
+matters sat very lightly upon the thoughtless inhabitants; and, in the
+celebration of many of their strange rites, they appeared merely to seek
+a sort of childish amusement.
+
+A curious evidence of this was given in a remarkable ceremony in which I
+frequently saw Mehevi and several other chefs and warriors of note take
+part; but never a single female.
+
+Among those whom I looked upon as forming the priesthood of the valley,
+there was one in particular who often attracted my notice, and whom
+I could not help regarding as the head of the order. He was a noble
+looking man, in the prime of his life, and of a most benignant aspect.
+The authority this man, whose name was Kolory, seemed to exercise over
+the rest, the episcopal part he took in the Feast of Calabashes, his
+sleek and complacent appearance, the mystic characters which were
+tattooed upon his chest, and above all the mitre he frequently wore,
+in the shape of a towering head-dress, consisting of part of a cocoanut
+branch, the stalk planted uprightly on his brow, and the leaflets
+gathered together and passed round the temples and behind the ears, all
+these pointed him out as Lord Primate of Typee. Kolory was a sort of
+Knight Templar--a soldier-priest; for he often wore the dress of a
+Marquesan warrior, and always carried a long spear, which, instead of
+terminating in a paddle at the lower end, after the general fashion of
+these weapons, was curved into a heathenish-looking little image. This
+instrument, however, might perhaps have been emblematic of his double
+functions. With one end in carnal combat he transfixed the enemies of
+his tribe; and with the other as a pastoral crook he kept in order his
+spiritual flock. But this is not all I have to say about Kolory.
+
+His martial grace very often carried about with him what seemed to me
+the half of a broken war-club. It was swathed round with ragged bits of
+white tappa, and the upper part, which was intended to represent a
+human head, was embellished with a strip of scarlet cloth of European
+manufacture. It required little observation to discover that this
+strange object was revered as a god. By the side of the big and lusty
+images standing sentinel over the altars of the Hoolah Hoolah ground, it
+seemed a mere pigmy in tatters. But appearances all the world over are
+deceptive. Little men are sometimes very potent, and rags sometimes
+cover very extensive pretensions. In fact, this funny little image was
+the ‘crack’ god of the island; lording it over all the wooden lubbers
+who looked so grim and dreadful; its name was Moa Artua*. And it was in
+honour of Moa Artua, and for the entertainment of those who believe in
+him, that the curious ceremony I am about to describe was observed.
+
+*The word ‘Artua’, although having some other significations, is in
+nearly all the Polynesian dialects used as the general designation of
+the gods.
+
+
+Mehevi and the chieftains of the Ti have just risen from their noontide
+slumbers. There are no affairs of state to dispose of; and having eaten
+two or three breakfasts in the course of the morning, the magnates of
+the valley feel no appetite as yet for dinner. How are their leisure
+moments to be occupied? They smoke, they chat, and at last one of their
+number makes a proposition to the rest, who joyfully acquiescing, he
+darts out of the house, leaps from the pi-pi, and disappears in the
+grove. Soon you see him returning with Kolory, who bears the god Moa
+Artua in his arms, and carries in one hand a small trough, hollowed out
+in the likeness of a canoe. The priest comes along dandling his charge
+as if it were a lachrymose infant he was endeavouring to put into a
+good humour. Presently entering the Ti, he seats himself on the mats as
+composedly as a juggler about to perform his sleight-of-hand tricks; and
+with the chiefs disposed in a circle around him, commences his ceremony.
+In the first place he gives Moa Artua an affectionate hug, then
+caressingly lays him to his breast, and, finally, whispers something in
+his ear; the rest of the company listening eagerly for a reply. But
+the baby-god is deaf or dumb,--perhaps both, for never a word does, he
+utter. At last Kolory speaks a little louder, and soon growing angry,
+comes boldly out with what he has to say and bawls to him. He put me in
+mind of a choleric fellow, who, after trying in vain to communicated a
+secret to a deaf man, all at once flies into a passion and screams it
+out so that every one may hear. Still Moa Artua remains as quiet as
+ever; and Kolory, seemingly losing his temper, fetches him a box over
+the head, strips him of his tappa and red cloth, and laying him in
+a state of nudity in a little trough, covers him from sight. At this
+proceeding all present loudly applaud and signify their approval by
+uttering the adjective ‘motarkee’ with violent emphasis. Kolory however,
+is so desirous his conduct should meet with unqualified approbation,
+that he inquires of each individual separately whether under existing
+circumstances he has not done perfectly right in shutting up Moa Artua.
+The invariable response is ‘Aa, Aa’ (yes, yes), repeated over again
+and again in a manner which ought to quiet the scruples of the most
+conscientious. After a few moments Kolory brings forth his doll again,
+and while arraying it very carefully in the tappa and red cloth,
+alternately fondles and chides it. The toilet being completed, he once
+more speaks to it aloud. The whole company hereupon show the greatest
+interest; while the priest holding Moa Artua to his ear interprets to
+them what he pretends the god is confidentially communicating to him.
+Some items intelligence appear to tickle all present amazingly; for one
+claps his hands in a rapture; another shouts with merriment; and a third
+leaps to his feet and capers about like a madman.
+
+What under the sun Moa Artua on these occasions had to say to Kolory
+I never could find out; but I could not help thinking that the former
+showed a sad want of spirit in being disciplined into making those
+disclosures, which at first he seemed bent on withholding. Whether the
+priest honestly interpreted what he believed the divinity said to him,
+or whether he was not all the while guilty of a vile humbug, I shall
+not presume to decide. At any rate, whatever as coming from the god
+was imparted to those present seemed to be generally of a complimentary
+nature: a fact which illustrates the sagacity of Kolory, or else the
+timeserving disposition of this hardly used deity.
+
+Moa Artua having nothing more to say, his bearer goes to nursing
+him again, in which occupation, however, he is soon interrupted by a
+question put by one of the warriors to the god. Kolory hereupon snatches
+it up to his ear again, and after listening attentively, once more
+officiates as the organ of communication. A multitude of questions and
+answers having passed between the parties, much to the satisfaction of
+those who propose them, the god is put tenderly to bed in the trough,
+and the whole company unite in a long chant, led off by Kolory. This
+ended, the ceremony is over; the chiefs rise to their feet in high good
+humour, and my Lord Archbishop, after chatting awhile, and regaling
+himself with a whiff or two from a pipe of tobacco, tucks the canoe
+under his arm and marches off with it.
+
+The whole of these proceedings were like those of a parcel of children
+playing with dolls and baby houses.
+
+For a youngster scarcely ten inches high, and with so few early
+advantages as he doubtless had had, Moa Artua was certainly a precocious
+little fellow if he really said all that was imputed to him; but for
+what reason this poor devil of a deity, thus cuffed about, cajoled, and
+shut up in a box, was held in greater estimation than the full-grown
+and dignified personages of the Taboo Groves, I cannot divine. And yet
+Mehevi, and other chiefs of unquestionable veracity--to say nothing of
+the Primate himself--assured me over and over again that Moa Artua was
+the tutelary deity of Typee, and was more to be held in honour than a
+whole battalion of the clumsy idols in the Hoolah Hoolah grounds.
+
+Kory-Kory--who seemed to have devoted considerable attention to the
+study of theology, as he knew the names of all the graven images in the
+valley, and often repeated them over to me--likewise entertained some
+rather enlarged ideas with regard to the character and pretensions of
+Moa Artua. He once gave me to understand, with a gesture there was no
+misconceiving, that if he (Moa Artua) were so minded he could cause a
+cocoanut tree to sprout out of his (Kory-Kory’s) head; and that it
+would be the easiest thing in life for him (Moa Artua) to take the whole
+island of Nukuheva in his mouth and dive down to the bottom of the sea
+with it.
+
+But in sober seriousness, I hardly knew what to make of the religion
+of the valley. There was nothing that so much perplexed the illustrious
+Cook, in his intercourse with the South Sea islanders, as their sacred
+rites. Although this prince of navigators was in many instances assisted
+by interpreters in the prosecution of his researches, he still frankly
+acknowledges that he was at a loss to obtain anything like a clear
+insight into the puzzling arcana of their faith. A similar admission has
+been made by other eminent voyagers: by Carteret, Byron, Kotzebue, and
+Vancouver.
+
+For my own part, although hardly a day passed while I remained upon the
+island that I did not witness some religious ceremony or other, it was
+very much like seeing a parcel of ‘Freemasons’ making secret signs to
+each other; I saw everything, but could comprehend nothing.
+
+On the whole, I am inclined to believe, that the islanders in the
+Pacific have no fixed and definite ideas whatever on the subject of
+religion. I am persuaded that Kolory himself would be effectually posed
+were he called upon to draw up the articles of his faith and pronounce
+the creed by which he hoped to be saved. In truth, the Typees, so far
+as their actions evince, submitted to no laws human or divine--always
+excepting the thrice mysterious Taboo. The ‘independent electors’ of the
+valley were not to be brow-beaten by chiefs, priests, idol or devils.
+As for the luckless idols, they received more hard knocks than
+supplications. I do not wonder that some of them looked so grim, and
+stood so bolt upright as if fearful of looking to the right or the left
+lest they should give any one offence. The fact is, they had to
+carry themselves ‘PRETTY STRAIGHT,’ or suffer the consequences. Their
+worshippers were such a precious set of fickle-minded and irreverent
+heathens, that there was no telling when they might topple one of them
+over, break it to pieces, and making a fire with it on the very altar
+itself, fall to roasting the offerings of bread-fruit, and at them in
+spite of its teeth.
+
+In how little reverence these unfortunate deities were held by the
+natives was on one occasion most convincingly proved to me.--Walking
+with Kory-Kory through the deepest recesses of the groves, I perceived
+a curious looking image, about six feet in height which originally had
+been placed upright against a low pi-pi, surmounted by a ruinous bamboo
+temple, but having become fatigued and weak in the knees, was now
+carelessly leaning against it. The idol was partly concealed by the
+foliage of a tree which stood near, and whose leafy boughs drooped over
+the pile of stones, as if to protect the rude fane from the decay to
+which it was rapidly hastening. The image itself was nothing more than
+a grotesquely shaped log, carved in the likeness of a portly naked man
+with the arms clasped over the head, the jaws thrown wide apart, and its
+thick shapeless legs bowed into an arch. It was much decayed. The
+lower part was overgrown with a bright silky moss. Thin spears of grass
+sprouted from the distended mouth, and fringed the outline of the head
+and arms. His godship had literally attained a green old age. All its
+prominent points were bruised and battered, or entirely rotted away.
+The nose had taken its departure, and from the general appearance of the
+head it might have, been supposed that the wooden divinity, in despair
+at the neglect of its worshippers, had been trying to beat its own
+brains out against the surrounding trees.
+
+I drew near to inspect more closely this strange object of idolatry, but
+halted reverently at the distance of two or three paces, out of regard
+to the religious prejudices of my valet. As soon, however, as Kory-Kory
+perceived that I was in one of my inquiring, scientific moods, to my
+astonishment, he sprang to the side of the idol, and pushing it away
+from the stones against which it rested, endeavoured to make it stand
+upon its legs. But the divinity had lost the use of them altogether; and
+while Kory-Kory was trying to prop it up, placing a stick between it
+and the pi-pi, the monster fell clumsily to the ground, and would have
+infallibly have broken its neck had not Kory-Kory providentially broken
+its fall by receiving its whole weight on his own half-crushed back. I
+never saw the honest fellow in such a rage before. He leaped furiously
+to his feet, and seizing the stick, began beating the poor image: every
+moment, or two pausing and talking to it in the most violent manner, as
+if upbraiding it for the accident. When his indignation had subsided
+a little he whirled the idol about most profanely, so as to give me an
+opportunity of examining it on all sides. I am quite sure I never should
+have presumed to have taken such liberties with the god myself, and I
+was not a little shocked at Kory-Kory’s impiety.
+
+This anecdote speaks for itself. When one of the inferior order of
+natives could show such contempt for a venerable and decrepit God of the
+Groves, what the state of religion must be among the people in general
+is easy to be imagined. In truth, I regard the Typees as a back-slidden
+generation. They are sunk in religious sloth, and require a spiritual
+revival. A long prosperity of bread-fruit and cocoanuts has rendered
+them remiss in the performance of their higher obligations. The wood-rot
+malady is spreading among the idols--the fruit upon their altars
+is becoming offensive--the temples themselves need rethatching--the
+tattooed clergy are altogether too light-hearted and lazy--and their
+flocks are going astray.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
+
+GENERAL INFORMATION GATHERED AT THE FESTIVAL--PERSONAL BEAUTY OF
+THE TYPEES--THEIR SUPERIORITY OVER THE INHABITANTS OF THE OTHER
+ISLANDS--DIVERSITY OF COMPLEXION--A VEGETABLE COSMETIC AND
+OINTMENT--TESTIMONY OF VOYAGERS TO THE UNCOMMON BEAUTY OF
+THE MARQUESANS--FEW EVIDENCES OF INTERCOURSE WITH CIVILIZED
+BEINGS--DILAPIDATED MUSKET--PRIMITIVE SIMPLICITY OF GOVERNMENT--REGAL
+DIGNITY OF MEHEVI
+
+
+Although I had been unable during the late festival to obtain
+information on many interesting subjects which had much excited my
+curiosity, still that important event had not passed by without adding
+materially to my general knowledge of the islanders.
+
+I was especially struck by the physical strength and beauty which
+they displayed, by their great superiority in these respects over the
+inhabitants of the neighbouring bay of Nukuheva, and by the singular
+contrasts they presented among themselves in their various shades of
+complexion.
+
+In beauty of form they surpassed anything I had ever seen. Not a single
+instance of natural deformity was observable in all the throng attending
+the revels. Occasionally I noticed among the men the scars of wounds
+they had received in battle; and sometimes, though very seldom, the loss
+of a finger, an eye, or an arm, attributable to the same cause. With
+these exceptions, every individual appeared free from those blemishes
+which sometimes mar the effect of an otherwise perfect form. But their
+physical excellence did not merely consist in an exemption from these
+evils; nearly every individual of their number might have been taken for
+a sculptor’s model.
+
+When I remembered that these islanders derived no advantage from dress,
+but appeared in all the naked simplicity of nature, I could not avoid
+comparing them with the fine gentlemen and dandies who promenade such
+unexceptionable figures in our frequented thoroughfares. Stripped of
+the cunning artifices of the tailor, and standing forth in the garb
+of Eden--what a sorry, set of round-shouldered, spindle-shanked,
+crane-necked varlets would civilized men appear! Stuffed calves,
+padded breasts, and scientifically cut pantaloons would then avail them
+nothing, and the effect would be truly deplorable.
+
+Nothing in the appearance of the islanders struck me more forcibly
+than the whiteness of their teeth. The novelist always compares the
+masticators of his heroine to ivory; but I boldly pronounce the teeth
+of the Typee to be far more beautiful than ivory itself. The jaws of the
+oldest graybeards among them were much better garnished than those of
+most of the youths of civilized countries; while the teeth of the young
+and middle-aged, in their purity and whiteness, were actually dazzling
+to the eye. Their marvellous whiteness of the teeth is to be ascribed
+to the pure vegetable diet of these people, and the uninterrupted
+healthfulness of their natural mode of life.
+
+The men, in almost every instance, are of lofty stature, scarcely
+ever less than six feet in height, while the other sex are uncommonly
+diminutive. The early period of life at which the human form arrives
+at maturity in this generous tropical climate, likewise deserves to be
+mentioned. A little creature, not more than thirteen years of age, and
+who in other particulars might be regarded as a mere child, is often
+seen nursing her own baby, whilst lads who, under less ripening skies,
+would be still at school, are here responsible fathers of families.
+
+On first entering the Typee Valley, I had been struck with the marked
+contrast presented by its inhabitants with those of the bay I had
+previously left. In the latter place, I had not been favourably
+impressed with the personal appearance of the male portion of the
+population; although with the females, excepting in some truly
+melancholy instances, I had been wonderfully pleased. I had observed
+that even the little intercourse Europeans had carried on with the
+Nukuheva natives had not failed to leave its traces amongst them. One of
+the most dreadful curses under which humanity labours had commenced its
+havocks, and betrayed, as it ever does among the South Sea islanders,
+the most aggravated symptoms. From this, as from all other foreign
+inflictions, the yet uncontaminated tenants of the Typee Valley were
+wholly exempt; and long may they continue so. Better will it be for them
+for ever to remain the happy and innocent heathens and barbarians
+that they now are, than, like the wretched inhabitants of the Sandwich
+Islands, to enjoy the mere name of Christians without experiencing any
+of the vital operations of true religion, whilst, at the same time, they
+are made the victims of the worst vices and evils of civilized life.
+
+Apart, however, from these considerations, I am inclined to believe that
+there exists a radical difference between the two tribes, if indeed
+they are not distinct races of men. To those who have merely touched at
+Nukuheva Bay, without visiting other portions of the island, it would
+hardly appear credible the diversities presented between the various
+small clans inhabiting so diminutive a spot. But the hereditary
+hostility which has existed between them for ages, fully accounts for
+this.
+
+Not so easy, however, is it to assign an adequate cause for the endless
+variety of complexions to be seen in the Typee Valley. During the
+festival, I had noticed several young females whose skins were almost as
+white as any Saxon damsel’s; a slight dash of the mantling brown being
+all that marked the difference. This comparative fairness of complexion,
+though in a great degree perfectly natural, is partly the result of an
+artificial process, and of an entire exclusion from the sun. The juice
+of the ‘papa’ root found in great abundance at the head of the valley,
+is held in great esteem as a cosmetic, with which many of the females
+daily anoint their whole person. The habitual use of it whitens and
+beautifies the skin. Those of the young girls who resort to this method
+of heightening their charms, never expose themselves selves to the
+rays of the sun; an observance, however, that produces little or no
+inconvenience, since there are but few of the inhabited portions of the
+vale which are not shaded over with a spreading canopy of boughs, so
+that one may journey from house to house, scarcely deviating from the
+direct course, and yet never once see his shadow cast upon the ground.
+
+The ‘papa’, when used, is suffered to remain upon the skin for several
+hours; being of a light green colour, it consequently imparts for
+the time a similar hue to the complexion. Nothing, therefore, can be
+imagined more singular than the appearance of these nearly naked damsels
+immediately after the application of the cosmetic. To look at one of
+them you would almost suppose she was some vegetable in an unripe state;
+and that, instead of living in the shade for ever, she ought to be
+placed out in the sun to ripen.
+
+All the islanders are more or less in the habit of anointing themselves;
+the women preferring the ‘aker’ to ‘papa’, and the men using the oil
+of the cocoanut. Mehevi was remarkable fond of mollifying his entire
+cuticle with this ointment. Sometimes he might be seen, with his whole
+body fairly reeking with the perfumed oil of the nut, looking as if he
+had just emerged from a soap-boiler’s vat, or had undergone the process
+of dipping in a tallow-chandlery. To this cause perhaps, united to their
+frequent bathing and extreme cleanliness, is ascribable, in a great
+measure, the marvellous purity and smoothness of skin exhibited by the
+natives in general.
+
+The prevailing tint among the women of the valley was a light olive, and
+of this style of complexion Fayaway afforded the most beautiful example.
+Others were still darker; while not a few were of a genuine golden
+colour, and some of a swarthy hue.
+
+As agreeing with much previously mentioned in this narrative I may
+here observe that Mendanna, their discoverer, in his account of the
+Marquesas, described the natives as wondrously beautiful to behold, and
+as nearly resembling the people of southern Europe. The first of these
+islands seen by Mendanna was La Madelena, which is not far distant from
+Nukuheva; and its inhabitants in every respect resemble those dwelling
+on that and the other islands of the group. Figueroa, the chronicler of
+Mendanna’s voyage, says, that on the morning the land was descried,
+when the Spaniards drew near the shore, there sallied forth, in rude
+progression, about seventy canoes, and at the same time many of the
+inhabitants (females I presume) made towards the ships by swimming. He
+adds, that ‘in complexion they were nearly white; of good stature,
+and finely formed; and on their faces and bodies were delineated
+representations of fishes and other devices’. The old Don then goes on
+to say, ‘There came, among others, two lads paddling their canoe, whose
+eyes were fixed on the ship; they had beautiful faces and the most
+promising animation of countenance; and were in all things so becoming,
+that the pilot-mayor Quiros affirmed, nothing in his life ever caused
+him so much regret as the leaving such fine creatures to be lost in that
+country.’* More than two hundred years have gone by since the passage of
+which the above is a translation was written; and it appears to me
+now, as I read it, as fresh and true as if written but yesterday. The
+islanders are still the same; and I have seen boys in the Typee Valley
+of whose ‘beautiful faces’ and promising ‘animation of countenance’ no
+one who has not beheld them can form any adequate idea. Cook, in the
+account of his voyage, pronounces the Marquesans as by far the most
+splendid islanders in the South Seas. Stewart, the chaplain of the U.S.
+ship Vincennes, in his ‘Scenes in the South Seas’, expresses, in more
+than one place, his amazement at the surpassing loveliness of the women;
+and says that many of the Nukuheva damsels reminded him forcibly of the
+most celebrated beauties in his own land. Fanning, a Yankee mariner of
+some reputation, likewise records his lively impressions of the physical
+appearance of these people; and Commodore David Porter of the U.S.
+frigate Essex, is said to have been vastly smitten by the beauty of the
+ladies. Their great superiority over all other Polynesians cannot fail
+to attract the notice of those who visit the principal groups in the
+Pacific. The voluptuous Tahitians are the only people who at all deserve
+to be compared with them; while the dark-haired Hawaiians and
+the woolly-headed Feejees are immeasurably inferior to them. The
+distinguishing characteristic of the Marquesan islanders, and that
+which at once strikes you, is the European cast of their features--a
+peculiarity seldom observable among other uncivilized people. Many of
+their faces present profiles classically beautiful, and in the valley of
+Typee I saw several who, like the stranger Marnoo, were in every respect
+models of beauty.
+
+* This passage, which is cited as an almost literal translation from the
+original, I found in a small volume entitled ‘Circumnavigation of the
+Globe, in which volume are several extracts from ‘Dalrymple’s Historical
+Collections’. The last-mentioned work I have never seen, but it is said
+to contain a very correct English version of great part of the learned
+Doctor Christoval Suaverde da Figueroa’s History of Mendanna’s Voyage,
+published at Madrid, A.D. 1613.
+
+
+Some of the natives present at the Feast of Calabashes had displayed a
+few articles of European dress; disposed however, about their persons
+after their own peculiar fashion. Among these I perceived two pieces of
+cotton-cloth which poor Toby and myself had bestowed upon our youthful
+guides the afternoon we entered the valley. They were evidently reserved
+for gala days; and during those of the festival they rendered the young
+islanders who wore them very distinguished characters. The small number
+who were similarly adorned, and the great value they appeared to place
+upon the most common and most trivial articles, furnished ample evidence
+of the very restricted intercourse they held with vessels touching at
+the island. A few cotton handkerchiefs, of a gay pattern, tied about the
+neck, and suffered to fall over the shoulder; strips of fanciful calico,
+swathed about the loins, were nearly all I saw.
+
+Indeed, throughout the valley, there were few things of any kind to
+be seen of European origin. All I ever saw, besides the articles just
+alluded to, were the six muskets preserved in the Ti, and three or four
+similar implements of warfare hung up in other houses; some small
+canvas bags, partly filled with bullets and powder, and half a dozen old
+hatchet-heads, with the edges blunted and battered to such a degree
+as to render them utterly useless. These last seemed to be regarded as
+nearly worthless by the natives; and several times they held up, one
+of them before me, and throwing it aside with a gesture of disgust,
+manifested their contempt for anything that could so soon become
+unserviceable.
+
+But the muskets, the powder, and the bullets were held in most
+extravagant esteem. The former, from their great age and the
+peculiarities they exhibited, were well worthy a place in any
+antiquarian’s armoury. I remember in particular one that hung in the
+Ti, and which Mehevi--supposing as a matter of course that I was able to
+repair it--had put into my hands for that purpose. It was one of those
+clumsy, old-fashioned, English pieces known generally as Tower Hill
+muskets, and, for aught I know, might have been left on the island by
+Wallace, Carteret, Cook, or Vancouver. The stock was half rotten and
+worm-eaten; the lock was as rusty and about as well adapted to its
+ostensible purpose as an old door-hinge; the threading of the screws
+about the trigger was completely worn away; while the barrel shook in
+the wood. Such was the weapon the chief desired me to restore to its
+original condition. As I did not possess the accomplishments of a
+gunsmith, and was likewise destitute of the necessary tools, I was
+reluctantly obliged to signify my inability to perform the task. At this
+unexpected communication Mehevi regarded me, for a moment, as if he half
+suspected I was some inferior sort of white man, who after all did not
+know much more than a Typee. However, after a most laboured explanation
+of the matter, I succeeded in making him understand the extreme
+difficulty of the task. Scarcely satisfied with my apologies, however,
+he marched off with the superannuated musket in something of a huff, as
+if he would no longer expose it to the indignity of being manipulated by
+such unskilful fingers.
+
+During the festival I had not failed to remark the simplicity of manner,
+the freedom from all restraint, and, to certain degree, the equality
+of condition manifested by the natives in general. No one appeared to
+assume any arrogant pretensions. There was little more than a slight
+difference in costume to distinguish the chiefs from the other natives.
+All appeared to mix together freely, and without any reserve; although
+I noticed that the wishes of a chief, even when delivered in the mildest
+tone, received the same immediate obedience which elsewhere would have
+been only accorded to a peremptory command. What may be the extent
+of the authority of the chiefs over the rest of the tribe, I will not
+venture to assert; but from all I saw during my stay in the valley, I
+was induced to believe that in matters concerning the general welfare
+it was very limited. The required degree of deference towards them,
+however, was willingly and cheerfully yielded; and as all authority is
+transmitted from father to son, I have no doubt that one of the effects
+here, as elsewhere, of high birth, is to induce respect and obedience.
+
+The civil institutions of the Marquesas Islands appear to be in this,
+as in other respects, directly the reverse of those of the Tahitian and
+Hawaiian groups, where the original power of the king and chiefs was far
+more despotic than that of any tyrant in civilized countries. At Tahiti
+it used to be death for one of the inferior orders to approach, without
+permission, under the shadow, of the king’s house; or to fail in paying
+the customary reverence when food destined for the king was borne past
+them by his messengers. At the Sandwich Islands, Kaahumanu, the gigantic
+old dowager queen--a woman of nearly four hundred pounds weight, and
+who is said to be still living at Mowee--was accustomed, in some of her
+terrific gusts of temper, to snatch up an ordinary sized man who had
+offended her, and snap his spine across her knee. Incredible as this
+may seem, it is a fact. While at Lahainaluna--the residence of this
+monstrous Jezebel--a humpbacked wretch was pointed out to me, who, some
+twenty-five years previously, had had the vertebrae of his backbone very
+seriously discomposed by his gentle mistress.
+
+The particular grades of rank existing among the chiefs of Typee, I
+could not in all cases determine. Previous to the Feast of Calabashes
+I had been puzzled what particular station to assign to Mehevi. But the
+important part he took upon that occasion convinced me that he had no
+superior among the inhabitants of the valley. I had invariably noticed a
+certain degree of deference paid to him by all with whom I had ever seen
+him brought in contact; but when I remembered that my wanderings had
+been confined to a limited portion of the valley, and that towards
+the sea a number of distinguished chiefs resided, some of whom had
+separately visited me at Marheyo’s house, and whom, until the Festival,
+I had never seen in the company of Mehevi, I felt disposed to believe
+that his rank after all might not be particularly elevated.
+
+The revels, however, had brought together all the warriors whom I had
+seen individually and in groups at different times and places. Among
+them Mehevi moved with an easy air of superiority which was not to be
+mistaken; and he whom I had only looked at as the hospitable host of the
+Ti, and one of the military leaders of the tribe, now assumed in my eyes
+the dignity of royal station. His striking costume, no less than his
+naturally commanding figure, seemed indeed to give him pre-eminence over
+the rest. The towering helmet of feathers that he wore raised him
+in height above all who surrounded him; and though some others were
+similarly adorned, the length and luxuriance of their plumes were
+inferior to his.
+
+Mehevi was in fact the greatest of the chiefs--the head of his clan--the
+sovereign of the valley; and the simplicity of the social institutions
+of the people could not have been more completely proved than by the
+fact, that after having been several weeks in the valley, and almost in
+daily intercourse with Mehevi, I should have remained until the time of
+the festival ignorant of his regal character. But a new light had now
+broken in upon me. The Ti was the palace--and Mehevi the king. Both the
+one and the other of a most simple and patriarchal nature: it must be
+allowed, and wholly unattended by the ceremonious pomp which usually
+surrounds the purple.
+
+After having made this discovery I could not avoid congratulating myself
+that Mehevi had from the first taken me as it were under his royal
+protection, and that he still continued to entertain for me the warmest
+regard, as far at least as I was enabled to judge from appearances. For
+the future I determined to pay most assiduous court to him, hoping that
+eventually through his kindness I might obtain my liberty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
+
+KING MEHEVI--ALLUSION TO HIS HAWAIIAN MAJESTY--CONDUCT OF MARHEYO AND
+MEHEVI IN CERTAIN DELICATE MATTERS--PECULIAR SYSTEM OF MARRIAGE--NUMBER
+OF POPULATION--UNIFORMITY--EMBALMING--PLACES OF SEPULTURE--FUNERAL
+OBSEQUIES AT NUKUHEVA-NUMBER OF INHABITANTS IN TYPEE--LOCATION OF THE
+DWELLINGS--HAPPINESS ENJOYED IN THE VALLEY--A WARNING--SOME IDEAS WITH
+REGARD TO THE PRESENT STATE OF THE HAWAIIANS--STORY OF A MISSIONARY’S
+WIFE--FASHIONABLE EQUIPAGES AT OAHU--REFLECTIONS
+
+
+King Mehevi!--A goodly sounding title--and why should I not bestow
+it upon the foremost man in the valley of Typee? The republican
+missionaries of Oahu cause to be gazetted in the Court Journal,
+published at Honolulu, the most trivial movement of ‘his gracious
+majesty’ King Kammehammaha III, and ‘their highnesses the princes of the
+blood royal’.* And who is his ‘gracious majesty’, and what the
+quality of this blood royal’?--His ‘gracious majesty’ is a fat, lazy,
+negro-looking blockhead, with as little character as power. He has
+lost the noble traits of the barbarian, without acquiring the redeeming
+graces of a civilized being; and, although a member of the Hawiian
+Temperance Society, is a most inveterate dram-drinker.
+
+*Accounts like these are sometimes copied into English and American
+journals. They lead the reader to infer that the arts and customs of
+civilized life are rapidly refining the natives of the Sandwich Islands.
+But let no one be deceived by these accounts. The chiefs swagger about
+in gold lace and broadcloth, while the great mass of the common people
+are nearly as primitive in their appearance as in the days of Cook. In
+the progress of events at these islands, the two classes are receding
+from each other; the chiefs are daily becoming more luxurious and
+extravagant in their style of living, and the common people more and
+more destitute of the necessaries and decencies of life. But the end
+to which both will arrive at last will be the same: the one are fast
+destroying themselves by sensual indulgences, and the other are
+fast being destroyed by a complication of disorders, and the want of
+wholesome food. The resources of the domineering chiefs are wrung from
+the starving serfs, and every additional bauble with which they bedeck
+themselves is purchased by the sufferings of their bondsmen; so that the
+measure of gew-gaw refinement attained by the chiefs is only an index
+to the actual state in which the greater portion of the population lie
+grovelling.
+
+
+The ‘blood royal’ is an extremely thick, depraved fluid; formed
+principally of raw fish, bad brandy, and European sweetmeats, and is
+charged with a variety of eruptive humours, which are developed in
+sundry blotches and pimples upon the august face of ‘majesty itself’,
+and the angelic countenances of the ‘princes and princesses of the blood
+royal’!
+
+Now, if the farcical puppet of a chief magistrate in the Sandwich
+Islands be allowed the title of King, why should it be withheld from
+the noble savage Mehevi, who is a thousand times more worthy of the
+appellation? All hail, therefore, Mehevi, King of the Cannibal Valley,
+and long life and prosperity to his Typeean majesty! May Heaven for many
+a year preserve him, the uncompromising foe of Nukuheva and the French,
+if a hostile attitude will secure his lovely domain from the remorseless
+inflictions of South Sea civilization.
+
+Previously to seeing the Dancing Widows I had little idea that there
+were any matrimonial relations subsisting in Typee, and I should as soon
+have thought of a Platonic affection being cultivated between the sexes,
+as of the solemn connection of man and wife. To be sure, there were old
+Marheyo and Tinor, who seemed to have a sort of nuptial understanding
+with one another; but for all that, I had sometimes observed a
+comical-looking old gentleman dressed in a suit of shabby tattooing, who
+had the audacity to take various liberties with the lady, and that too
+in the very presence of the old warrior her husband, who looked on
+as good-naturedly as if nothing was happening. This behaviour, until
+subsequent discoveries enlightened me, puzzled me more than anything
+else I witnessed in Typee.
+
+As for Mehevi, I had supposed him a confirmed bachelor, as well as most
+of the principal chiefs. At any rate, if they had wives and families,
+they ought to have been ashamed of themselves; for sure I am, they never
+troubled themselves about any domestic affairs. In truth, Mehevi seemed
+to be the president of a club of hearty fellows, who kept ‘Bachelor’s
+Hall’ in fine style at the Ti. I had no doubt but that they regarded
+children as odious incumbrances; and their ideas of domestic felicity
+were sufficiently shown in the fact, that they allowed no meddlesome
+housekeepers to turn topsy-turvy those snug little arrangements they had
+made in their comfortable dwelling. I strongly suspected however, that
+some of these jolly bachelors were carrying on love intrigues with
+the maidens of the tribe; although they did not appear publicly to
+acknowledge them. I happened to pop upon Mehevi three or four times when
+he was romping--in a most undignified manner for a warrior king--with
+one of the prettiest little witches in the valley. She lived with an
+old woman and a young man, in a house near Marheyo’s; and although in
+appearance a mere child herself, had a noble boy about a year old, who
+bore a marvellous resemblance to Mehevi, whom I should certainly have
+believed to have been the father, were it not that the little fellow
+had no triangle on his face--but on second thoughts, tattooing is not
+hereditary. Mehevi, however, was not the only person upon whom the
+damsel Moonoony smiled--the young fellow of fifteen, who permanently
+resided in the home with her, was decidedly in her good graces. I
+sometimes beheld both him and the chief making love at the same time. Is
+it possible, thought I, that the valiant warrior can consent to give
+up a corner in the thing he loves? This too was a mystery which, with
+others of the same kind, was afterwards satisfactorily explained.
+
+During the second day of the Feast of Calabashes, Kory-Kory--being
+determined that I should have some understanding on these matters--had,
+in the course of his explanations, directed my attention to
+a peculiarity I had frequently remarked among many of the
+females;--principally those of a mature age and rather matronly
+appearance. This consisted in having the right hand and the left foot
+most elaborately tattooed; whilst the rest of the body was wholly free
+from the operation of the art, with the exception of the minutely dotted
+lips and slight marks on the shoulders, to which I have previously
+referred as comprising the sole tattooing exhibited by Fayaway, in
+common with other young girls of her age. The hand and foot thus
+embellished were, according to Kory-Kory, the distinguishing badge of
+wedlock, so far as that social and highly commendable institution is
+known among those people. It answers, indeed, the same purpose as the
+plain gold ring worn by our fairer spouses.
+
+After Kory-Kory’s explanation of the subject, I was for some time
+studiously respectful in the presence of all females thus distinguished,
+and never ventured to indulge in the slightest approach to flirtation
+with any of their number. Married women, to be sure!--I knew better than
+to offend them.
+
+A further insight, however, into the peculiar domestic customs of the
+inmates of the valley did away in a measure with the severity of my
+scruples, and convinced me that I was deceived in some at least of my
+conclusions. A regular system of polygamy exists among the islanders;
+but of a most extraordinary nature,--a plurality of husbands, instead of
+wives! and this solitary fact speaks volumes for the gentle disposition
+of the male population.
+
+Where else, indeed, could such a practice exist, even for a single
+day?--Imagine a revolution brought about in a Turkish seraglio, and
+the harem rendered the abode of bearded men; or conceive some beautiful
+woman in our own country running distracted at the sight of her numerous
+lovers murdering one another before her eyes, out of jealousy for the
+unequal distribution of her favours!--Heaven defend us from such a state
+of things!--We are scarcely amiable and forbearing enough to submit to
+it.
+
+I was not able to learn what particular ceremony was observed in forming
+the marriage contract, but am inclined to think that it must have been
+of a very simple nature. Perhaps the mere ‘popping the question’, as
+it is termed with us, might have been followed by an immediate nuptial
+alliance. At any rate, I have more than one reason to believe that
+tedious courtships are unknown in the valley of Typee.
+
+The males considerably outnumber the females. This holds true of many
+of the islands of Polynesia, although the reverse of what is the case in
+most civilized countries. The girls are first wooed and won, at a very
+tender age, by some stripling in the household in which they reside.
+This, however, is a mere frolic of the affections, and no formal
+engagement is contracted. By the time this first love has a little
+subsided, a second suitor presents himself, of graver years, and carries
+both boy and girl away to his own habitation. This disinterested and
+generous-hearted fellow now weds the young couple--marrying damsel
+and lover at the same time--and all three thenceforth live together
+as harmoniously as so many turtles. I have heard of some men who in
+civilized countries rashly marry large families with their wives, but
+had no idea that there was any place where people married supplementary
+husbands with them. Infidelity on either side is very rare. No man
+has more than one wife, and no wife of mature years has less than two
+husbands,--sometimes she has three, but such instances are not
+frequent. The marriage tie, whatever it may be, does not appear to be
+indissoluble; for separations occasionally happen. These, however,
+when they do take place, produce no unhappiness, and are preceded by no
+bickerings; for the simple reason, that an ill-used wife or a henpecked
+husband is not obliged to file a bill in Chancery to obtain a divorce.
+As nothing stands in the way of a separation, the matrimonial yoke sits
+easily and lightly, and a Typee wife lives on very pleasant and sociable
+terms with her husband. On the whole, wedlock, as known among these
+Typees, seems to be of a more distinct and enduring nature than
+is usually the case with barbarous people. A baneful promiscuous
+intercourse of the sexes is hereby avoided, and virtue, without being
+clamorously invoked, is, as it were, unconsciously practised.
+
+The contrast exhibited between the Marquesas and other islands of the
+Pacific in this respect, is worthy of being noticed. At Tahiti the
+marriage tie was altogether unknown; and the relation of husband
+and wife, father and son, could hardly be said to exist. The Arreory
+Society--one of the most singular institutions that ever existed in any
+part of the world--spread universal licentiousness over the island. It
+was the voluptuous character of these people which rendered the disease
+introduced among them by De Bougainville’s ships, in 1768, doubly
+destructive. It visited them like a plague, sweeping them off by
+hundreds.
+
+Notwithstanding the existence of wedlock among the Typees, the
+Scriptural injunction to increase and multiply seems to be but
+indifferently attended to. I never saw any of those large families in
+arithmetical or step-ladder progression which one often meets with at
+home. I never knew of more than two youngsters living together in the
+same home, and but seldom even that number. As for the women, it was
+very plain that the anxieties of the nursery but seldom disturbed the
+serenity of their souls; and they were never seen going about the valley
+with half a score of little ones tagging at their apron-strings, or
+rather at the bread-fruit-leaf they usually wore in the rear.
+
+The ratio of increase among all the Polynesian nations is very small;
+and in some places as yet uncorrupted by intercourse with Europeans,
+the births would appear not very little to outnumber the deaths; the
+population in such instances remaining nearly the same for several
+successive generations, even upon those islands seldom or never
+desolated by wars, and among people with whom the crime of infanticide
+is altogether unknown. This would seem expressively ordained by
+Providence to prevent the overstocking of the islands with a race too
+indolent to cultivate the ground, and who, for that reason alone, would,
+by any considerable increase in their numbers, be exposed to the most
+deplorable misery. During the entire period of my stay in the valley of
+Typee, I never saw more than ten or twelve children under the age of six
+months, and only became aware of two births.
+
+It is to the absence of the marriage tie that the late rapid decrease
+of the population of the Sandwich Islands and of Tahiti is in part to be
+ascribed. The vices and diseases introduced among these unhappy people
+annually swell the ordinary mortality of the islands, while, from the
+same cause, the originally small number of births is proportionally
+decreased. Thus the progress of the Hawaiians and Tahitians to utter
+extinction is accelerated in a sort of compound ratio.
+
+I have before had occasion to remark, that I never saw any of the
+ordinary signs of a pace of sepulture in the valley, a circumstance
+which I attributed, at the time, to my living in a particular part
+of it, and being forbidden to extend my rambles to any considerable
+distance towards the sea. I have since thought it probable, however,
+that the Typees, either desirous of removing from their sight the
+evidences of mortality, or prompted by a taste for rural beauty, may
+have some charming cemetery situation in the shadowy recesses along
+the base of the mountains. At Nukuheva, two or three large quadrangular
+‘pi-pis’, heavily flagged, enclosed with regular stone walls, and shaded
+over and almost hidden from view by the interlacing branches of
+enormous trees, were pointed out to me as burial-places. The bodies, I
+understood, were deposited in rude vaults beneath the flagging, and were
+suffered to remain there without being disinterred. Although nothing
+could be more strange and gloomy than the aspect of these places, where
+the lofty trees threw their dark shadows over rude blocks of stone,
+a stranger looking at them would have discerned none of the ordinary
+evidences of a place of sepulture.
+
+During my stay in the valley, as none of its inmates were so
+accommodating as to die and be buried in order to gratify my curiosity
+with regard to their funeral rites, I was reluctantly obliged to
+remain in ignorance of them. As I have reason to believe, however, the
+observances of the Typees in these matters are the same with those of
+all the other tribes in the island, I will here relate a scene I chanced
+to witness at Nukuheva.
+
+A young man had died, about daybreak, in a house near the beach. I had
+been sent ashore that morning, and saw a good deal of the preparations
+they were making for his obsequies. The body, neatly wrapped in a new
+white tappa, was laid out in an open shed of cocoanut boughs, upon a
+bier constructed of elastic bamboos ingeniously twisted together. This
+was supported about two feet from the ground, by large canes planted
+uprightly in the earth. Two females, of a dejected appearance, watched
+by its side, plaintively chanting and beating the air with large grass
+fans whitened with pipe-clay. In the dwelling-house adjoining a numerous
+company we assembled, and various articles of food were being prepared
+for consumption. Two or three individuals, distinguished by head-dresses
+of beautiful tappa, and wearing a great number of ornaments, appeared
+to officiate as masters of the ceremonies. By noon the entertainment had
+fairly begun and we were told that it would last during the whole of
+the two following days. With the exception of those who mourned by
+the corpse, every one seemed disposed to drown the sense of the late
+bereavement in convivial indulgence. The girls, decked out in their
+savage finery, danced; the old men chanted; the warriors smoked and
+chatted; and the young and lusty, of both sexes, feasted plentifully,
+and seemed to enjoy themselves as pleasantly as they could have done had
+it been a wedding.
+
+The islanders understand the art of embalming, and practise it with such
+success that the bodies of their great chiefs are frequently preserved
+for many years in the very houses where they died. I saw three of these
+in my visit to the Bay of Tior. One was enveloped in immense folds of
+tappa, with only the face exposed, and hung erect against the side of
+the dwelling. The others were stretched out upon biers of bamboo, in
+open, elevated temples, which seemed consecrated to their memory. The
+heads of enemies killed in battle are invariably preserved and hung up
+as trophies in the house of the conqueror. I am not acquainted with the
+process which is in use, but believe that fumigation is the principal
+agency employed. All the remains which I saw presented the appearance of
+a ham after being suspended for some time in a smoky chimney.
+
+But to return from the dead to the living. The late festival had drawn
+together, as I had every reason to believe, the whole population of the
+vale, and consequently I was enabled to make some estimate with regard
+to its numbers. I should imagine that there were about two thousand
+inhabitants in Typee; and no number could have been better adapted to
+the extent of the valley. The valley is some nine miles in length,
+and may average one in breadth; the houses being distributed at wide
+intervals throughout its whole extent, principally, however, towards the
+head of the vale. There are no villages; the houses stand here and there
+in the shadow of the groves, or are scattered along the banks of the
+winding stream; their golden-hued bamboo sides and gleaming white thatch
+forming a beautiful contrast to the perpetual verdure in which they are
+embowered. There are no roads of any kind in the valley. Nothing but a
+labyrinth of footpaths twisting and turning among the thickets without
+end.
+
+The penalty of the Fall presses very lightly upon the valley of Typee;
+for, with the one solitary exception of striking a light, I scarcely saw
+any piece of work performed there which caused the sweat to stand upon
+a single brow. As for digging and delving for a livelihood, the thing is
+altogether unknown. Nature has planted the bread-fruit and the banana,
+and in her own good time she brings them to maturity, when the idle
+savage stretches forth his hand, and satisfies his appetite.
+
+Ill-fated people! I shudder when I think of the change a few years
+will produce in their paradisaical abode; and probably when the most
+destructive vices, and the worst attendances on civilization, shall have
+driven all peace and happiness from the valley, the magnanimous
+French will proclaim to the world that the Marquesas Islands have been
+converted to Christianity! and this the Catholic world will doubtless
+consider as a glorious event. Heaven help the ‘Isles of the Sea’!--The
+sympathy which Christendom feels for them, has, alas! in too many
+instances proved their bane.
+
+How little do some of these poor islanders comprehend when they look
+around them, that no inconsiderable part of their disasters originate
+in certain tea-party excitements, under the influence of which
+benevolent-looking gentlemen in white cravats solicit alms, and old
+ladies in spectacles, and young ladies in sober russet gowns, contribute
+sixpences towards the creation of a fund, the object of which is to
+ameliorate the spiritual condition of the Polynesians, but whose end has
+almost invariably been to accomplish their temporal destruction!
+
+Let the savages be civilized, but civilize them with benefits, and not
+with evils; and let heathenism be destroyed, but not by destroying the
+heathen. The Anglo-Saxon hive have extirpated Paganism from the greater
+part of the North American continent; but with it they have likewise
+extirpated the greater portion of the Red race. Civilization is
+gradually sweeping from the earth the lingering vestiges of Paganism,
+and at the same time the shrinking forms of its unhappy worshippers.
+
+Among the islands of Polynesia, no sooner are the images overturned, the
+temples demolished, and the idolators converted into NOMINAL Christians,
+that disease, vice, and premature death make their appearance. The
+depopulated land is then recruited from the rapacious, hordes of
+enlightened individuals who settle themselves within its borders,
+and clamorously announce the progress of the Truth. Neat villas, trim
+gardens, shaven lawns, spires, and cupolas arise, while the poor savage
+soon finds himself an interloper in the country of his fathers, and
+that too on the very site of the hut where he was born. The spontaneous
+fruits of the earth, which God in his wisdom had ordained for the
+support of the indolent natives, remorselessly seized upon and
+appropriated by the stranger, are devoured before the eyes of the
+starving inhabitants, or sent on board the numerous vessels which now
+touch at their shores.
+
+When the famished wretches are cut off in this manner from their natural
+supplies, they are told by their benefactors to work and earn their
+support by the sweat of their brows! But to no fine gentleman born to
+hereditary opulence, does this manual labour come more unkindly than
+to the luxurious Indian when thus robbed of the bounty of heaven.
+Habituated to a life of indolence, he cannot and will not exert himself;
+and want, disease, and vice, all evils of foreign growth, soon terminate
+his miserable existence.
+
+But what matters all this? Behold the glorious result!--The abominations
+of Paganism have given way to the pure rites of the Christian
+worship,--the ignorant savage has been supplanted by the refined
+European! Look at Honolulu, the metropolis of the Sandwich Islands!--A
+community of disinterested merchants, and devoted self-exiled heralds of
+the Cross, located on the very spot that twenty years ago was defiled by
+the presence of idolatry. What a subject for an eloquent Bible-meeting
+orator! Nor has such an opportunity for a display of missionary rhetoric
+been allowed to pass by unimproved!--But when these philanthropists send
+us such glowing accounts of one half of their labours, why does their
+modesty restrain them from publishing the other half of the good they
+have wrought?--Not until I visited Honolulu was I aware of the fact that
+the small remnant of the natives had been civilized into draught-horses;
+and evangelized into beasts of burden. But so it is. They have been
+literally broken into the traces, and are harnessed to the vehicles of
+their spiritual instructors like so many dumb brutes!
+
+          . . . . . . .
+
+Lest the slightest misconception should arise from anything thrown out
+in this chapter, or indeed in any other part of the volume, let me here
+observe that against the cause of missions in, the abstract no Christian
+can possibly be opposed: it is in truth a just and holy cause. But
+if the great end proposed by it be spiritual, the agency employed to
+accomplish that end is purely earthly; and, although the object in
+view be the achievement of much good, that agency may nevertheless be
+productive of evil. In short, missionary undertaking, however it may
+blessed of heaven, is in itself but human; and subject, like everything
+else, to errors and abuses. And have not errors and abuses crept into
+the most sacred places, and may there not be unworthy or incapable
+missionaries abroad, as well as ecclesiastics of similar character
+at home? May not the unworthiness or incapacity of those who assume
+apostolic functions upon the remote islands of the sea more easily
+escape detection by the world at large than if it were displayed in
+the heart of a city? An unwarranted confidence in the sanctity of its
+apostles--a proneness to regard them as incapable of guile--and
+an impatience of the least suspicion to their rectitude as men or
+Christians, have ever been prevailing faults in the Church. Nor is this
+to be wondered at: for subject as Christianity is to the assaults of
+unprincipled foes, we are naturally disposed to regard everything like
+an exposure of ecclesiastical misconduct as the offspring of malevolence
+or irreligious feeling. Not even this last consideration, however shall
+deter me from the honest expression of my sentiments.
+
+There is something apparently wrong in the practical operations of
+the Sandwich Islands Mission. Those who from pure religious motives
+contribute to the support of this enterprise should take care to
+ascertain that their donations, flowing through many devious channels,
+at last effect their legitimate object, the conversion of the Hawaiians.
+I urge this not because I doubt the moral probity of those who disburse
+the funds, but because I know that they are not rightly applied. To read
+pathetic accounts of missionary hardships, and glowing descriptions of
+conversion, and baptisms, taking place beneath palm-trees, is one thing;
+and to go to the Sandwich Islands and see the missionaries dwelling
+in picturesque and prettily furnished coral-rock villas, whilst the
+miserable natives are committing all sorts of immorality around them, is
+quite another.
+
+In justice to the missionaries, however, I will willingly admit, that
+where-ever evils may have resulted from their collective mismanagement
+of the business of the mission, and from the want of vital piety evinced
+by some of their number, still the present deplorable condition of the
+Sandwich Islands is by no means wholly chargeable against them. The
+demoralizing influence of a dissolute foreign population, and the
+frequent visits of all descriptions of vessels, have tended not a little
+to increase the evils alluded to. In a word, here, as in every case
+where civilization has in any way been introduced among those whom we
+call savages, she has scattered her vices, and withheld her blessings.
+
+As wise a man as Shakespeare has said, that the bearer of evil tidings
+hath but a losing office; and so I suppose will it prove with me, in
+communicating to the trusting friends of the Hawiian Mission what has
+been disclosed in various portions of this narrative. I am persuaded,
+however, that as these disclosures will by their very nature attract
+attention, so they will lead to something which will not be without
+ultimate benefit to the cause of Christianity in the Sandwich Islands.
+
+I have but one more thing to add in connection with this subject--those
+things which I have stated as facts will remain facts, in spite of
+whatever the bigoted or incredulous may say or write against them. My
+reflections, however, on those facts may not be free from error. If such
+be the case, I claim no further indulgence than should be conceded to
+every man whose object is to do good.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
+
+THE SOCIAL CONDITION AND GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE TYPEES
+
+
+I have already mentioned that the influence exerted over the people
+of the valley by their chiefs was mild in the extreme; and as to any
+general rule or standard of conduct by which the commonality were
+governed in their intercourse with each other, so far as my observation
+extended, I should be almost tempted to say, that none existed on the
+island, except, indeed, the mysterious ‘Taboo’ be considered as such.
+During the time I lived among the Typees, no one was ever put upon his
+trial for any offence against the public. To all appearance there
+were no courts of law or equity. There was no municipal police for the
+purpose of apprehending vagrants and disorderly characters. In
+short, there were no legal provisions whatever for the well-being and
+conservation of society, the enlightened end of civilized legislation.
+And yet everything went on in the valley with a harmony and smoothness
+unparalleled, I will venture to assert, in the most select, refined, and
+pious associations of mortals in Christendom. How are we to explain this
+enigma? These islanders were heathens! savages! ay, cannibals! and how
+came they without the aid of established law, to exhibit, in so eminent
+a degree, that social order which is the greatest blessing and highest
+pride of the social state?
+
+It may reasonably be inquired, how were these people governed? how were
+their passions controlled in their everyday transactions? It must have
+been by an inherent principle of honesty and charity towards each other.
+They seemed to be governed by that sort of tacit common-sense law which,
+say what they will of the inborn lawlessness of the human race, has
+its precepts graven on every breast. The grand principles of virtue and
+honour, however they may be distorted by arbitrary codes, are the same
+all the world over: and where these principles are concerned, the right
+or wrong of any action appears the same to the uncultivated as to the
+enlightened mind. It is to this indwelling, this universally diffused
+perception of what is just and noble, that the integrity of the
+Marquesans in their intercourse with each other, is to be attributed.
+In the darkest nights they slept securely, with all their worldly wealth
+around them, in houses the doors of which were never fastened. The
+disquieting ideas of theft or assassination never disturbed them.
+
+Each islander reposed beneath his own palmetto thatching, or sat under
+his own bread-fruit trees, with none to molest or alarm him. There was
+not a padlock in the valley, nor anything that answered the purpose
+of one: still there was no community of goods. This long spear, so
+elegantly carved, and highly polished, belongs to Wormoonoo: it is far
+handsomer than the one which old Marheyo so greatly prizes; it is the
+most valuable article belonging to its owner. And yet I have seen it
+leaning against a cocoanut tree in the grove, and there it was found
+when sought for. Here is a sperm-whale tooth, graven all over with
+cunning devices: it is the property of Karluna; it is the most precious
+of the damsel’s ornaments. In her estimation its price is far above
+rubies--and yet there hangs the dental jewel by its cord of braided
+bark, in the girl’s house, which is far back in the valley; the door is
+left open, and all the inmates have gone off to bathe in the stream.*
+
+*The strict honesty which the inhabitants of nearly all the Polynesian
+Islands manifest toward each other, is in striking contrast with the
+thieving propensities some of them evince in their intercourse with
+foreigners. It would almost seem that, according to their peculiar code
+of morals, the pilfering of a hatchet or a wrought nail from a European,
+is looked upon as a praiseworthy action. Or rather, it may be presumed,
+that bearing in mind the wholesale forays made upon them by their
+nautical visitors, they consider the property of the latter as a fair
+object of reprisal. This consideration, while it serves to reconcile an
+apparent contradiction in the moral character of the islanders, should
+in some measure alter that low opinion of it which the reader of South
+Sea voyages is too apt to form.
+
+
+So much for the respect in which ‘personal property’ is held in Typee;
+how secure an investment of ‘real property’ may be, I cannot take upon
+me to say. Whether the land of the valley was the joint property of its
+inhabitants, or whether it was parcelled out among a certain number of
+landed proprietors who allowed everybody to ‘squat’ and ‘poach’ as
+much as he or she pleased, I never could ascertain. At any rate, musty
+parchments and title-deeds there were none on the island; and I am half
+inclined to believe that its inhabitants hold their broad valleys in fee
+simple from Nature herself; to have and to hold, so long as grass grows
+and water runs; or until their French visitors, by a summary mode of
+conveyancing, shall appropriate them to their own benefit and behoof.
+
+Yesterday I saw Kory-Kory hie him away, armed with a long pole, with
+which, standing on the ground, he knocked down the fruit from the
+topmost boughs of the trees, and brought them home in his basket of
+cocoanut leaves. Today I see an islander, whom I know to reside in a
+distant part of the valley, doing the self-same thing. On the sloping
+bank of the stream are a number of banana-trees I have often seen a
+score or two of young people making a merry foray on the great golden
+clusters, and bearing them off, one after another, to different parts
+of the vale, shouting and trampling as they went. No churlish old
+curmudgeon could have been the owner of that grove of bread-fruit trees,
+or of these gloriously yellow bunches of bananas.
+
+From what I have said it will be perceived that there is a vast
+difference between ‘personal property’ and ‘real estate’ in the valley
+of Typee. Some individuals, of course, are more wealthy than others.
+For example, the ridge-pole of Marheyo’s house bends under the weight of
+many a huge packet of tappa; his long couch is laid with mats placed one
+upon the other seven deep. Outside, Tinor has ranged along in her
+bamboo cupboard--or whatever the place may be called--a goodly array of
+calabashes and wooden trenchers. Now, the house just beyond the grove,
+and next to Marheyo’s, occupied by Ruaruga, is not quite so well
+furnished. There are only three moderate-sized packages swinging
+overhead: there are only two layers of mats beneath; and the calabashes
+and trenchers are not so numerous, nor so tastefully stained and carved.
+But then, Ruaruga has a house--not so pretty a one, to be sure--but just
+as commodious as Marheyo’s; and, I suppose, if he wished to vie with
+his neighbour’s establishment, he could do so with very little trouble.
+These, in short, constituted the chief differences perceivable in the
+relative wealth of the people in Typee.
+
+Civilization does not engross all the virtues of humanity: she has not
+even her full share of them. They flourish in greater abundance and
+attain greater strength among many barbarous people. The hospitality
+of the wild Arab, the courage of the North American Indian, and the
+faithful friendship of some of the Polynesian nations, far surpass
+anything of a similar kind among the polished communities of Europe. If
+truth and justice, and the better principles of our nature, cannot
+exist unless enforced by the statute-book, how are we to account for the
+social condition of the Typees? So pure and upright were they in all the
+relations of life, that entering their valley, as I did, under the most
+erroneous impressions of their character, I was soon led to exclaim in
+amazement: ‘Are these the ferocious savages, the blood-thirsty cannibals
+of whom I have heard such frightful tales! They deal more kindly with
+each other, and are more humane than many who study essays on virtue and
+benevolence, and who repeat every night that beautiful prayer breathed
+first by the lips of the divine and gentle Jesus.’ I will frankly
+declare that after passing a few weeks in this valley of the Marquesas,
+I formed a higher estimate of human nature than I had ever before
+entertained. But alas! since then I have been one of the crew of a
+man-of-war, and the pent-up wickedness of five hundred men has nearly
+overturned all my previous theories.
+
+There was one admirable trait in the general character of the Typees
+which, more than anything else, secured my admiration: it was the
+unanimity of feeling they displayed on every occasion. With them
+there hardly appeared to be any difference of opinion upon any subject
+whatever. They all thought and acted alike. I do not conceive that they
+could support a debating society for a single night: there would be
+nothing to dispute about; and were they to call a convention to take
+into consideration the state of the tribe, its session would be a
+remarkably short one. They showed this spirit of unanimity in every
+action of life; everything was done in concert and good fellowship. I
+will give an instance of this fraternal feeling.
+
+One day, in returning with Kory-Kory from my accustomed visit to the
+Ti, we passed by a little opening in the grove; on one side of which,
+my attendant informed me, was that afternoon to be built a dwelling of
+bamboo. At least a hundred of the natives were bringing materials to the
+ground, some carrying in their hands one or two of the canes which were
+to form the sides, others slender rods of the habiscus, strung with
+palmetto leaves, for the roof. Every one contributed something to the
+work; and by the united, but easy, and even indolent, labours of all,
+the entire work was completed before sunset. The islanders, while
+employed in erecting this tenement, reminded me of a colony of beavers
+at work. To be sure, they were hardly as silent and demure as those
+wonderful creatures, nor were they by any means as diligent. To tell the
+truth they were somewhat inclined to be lazy, but a perfect tumult of
+hilarity prevailed; and they worked together so unitedly, and seemed
+actuated by such an instinct of friendliness, that it was truly
+beautiful to behold.
+
+Not a single female took part in this employment: and if the degree of
+consideration in which the ever-adorable sex is held by the men be--as
+the philosophers affirm--a just criterion of the degree of refinement
+among a people, then I may truly pronounce the Typees to be as polished
+a community as ever the sun shone upon. The religious restrictions of
+the taboo alone excepted, the women of the valley were allowed every
+possible indulgence. Nowhere are the ladies more assiduously courted;
+nowhere are they better appreciated as the contributors to our highest
+enjoyments; and nowhere are they more sensible of their power. Far
+different from their condition among many rude nations, where the women
+are made to perform all the work while their ungallant lords and masters
+lie buried in sloth, the gentle sex in the valley of Typee were exempt
+from toil, if toil it might be called that, even in the tropical
+climate, never distilled one drop of perspiration. Their light household
+occupations, together with the manufacture of tappa, the platting of
+mats, and the polishing of drinking-vessels, were the only employments
+pertaining to the women. And even these resembled those pleasant
+avocations which fill up the elegant morning leisure of our fashionable
+ladies at home. But in these occupations, slight and agreeable though
+they were, the giddy young girls very seldom engaged. Indeed these
+wilful care-killing damsels were averse to all useful employment.
+
+Like so many spoiled beauties, they ranged through the groves--bathed
+in the stream--danced--flirted--played all manner of mischievous pranks,
+and passed their days in one merry round of thoughtless happiness.
+
+During my whole stay on the island I never witnessed a single quarrel,
+nor anything that in the slightest degree approached even to a dispute.
+The natives appeared to form one household, whose members were bound
+together by the ties of strong affection. The love of kindred I did not
+so much perceive, for it seemed blended in the general love; and where
+all were treated as brothers and sisters, it was hard to tell who were
+actually related to each other by blood.
+
+Let it not be supposed that I have overdrawn this picture. I have
+not done so. Nor let it be urged, that the hostility of this tribe
+to foreigners, and the hereditary feuds they carry on against their
+fellow-islanders beyond the mountains, are facts which contradict me.
+Not so; these apparent discrepancies are easily reconciled. By many a
+legendary tale of violence and wrong, as well as by events which have
+passed before their eyes, these people have been taught to look upon
+white men with abhorrence. The cruel invasion of their country by Porter
+has alone furnished them with ample provocation; and I can sympathize
+in the spirit which prompts the Typee warrior to guard all the passes to
+his valley with the point of his levelled spear, and, standing upon
+the beach, with his back turned upon his green home, to hold at bay the
+intruding European.
+
+As to the origin of the enmity of this particular clan towards the
+neighbouring tribes, I cannot so confidently speak. I will not say that
+their foes are the aggressors, nor will I endeavour to palliate their
+conduct. But surely, if our evil passions must find vent, it is far
+better to expend them on strangers and aliens, than in the bosom of
+the community in which we dwell. In many polished countries civil
+contentions, as well as domestic enmities, are prevalent, and the same
+time that the most atrocious foreign wars are waged. How much less
+guilty, then, are our islanders, who of these three sins are only
+chargeable with one, and that the least criminal!
+
+The reader will ere long have reason to suspect that the Typees are not
+free from the guilt of cannibalism; and he will then, perhaps, charge me
+with admiring a people against whom so odious a crime is chargeable. But
+this only enormity in their character is not half so horrible as it
+is usually described. According to the popular fictions, the crews of
+vessels, shipwrecked on some barbarous coast, are eaten alive like so
+many dainty joints by the uncivil inhabitants; and unfortunate voyagers
+are lured into smiling and treacherous bays; knocked on the head with
+outlandish war-clubs; and served up without any prelimary dressing. In
+truth, so horrific and improbable are these accounts, that many sensible
+and well-informed people will not believe that any cannibals exist; and
+place every book of voyages which purports to give any account of them,
+on the same shelf with Blue Beard and Jack the Giant-Killer. While
+others, implicitly crediting the most extravagant fictions, firmly
+believe that there are people in the world with tastes so depraved that
+they would infinitely prefer a single mouthful of material humanity to
+a good dinner of roast beef and plum pudding. But here, Truth, who loves
+to be centrally located, is again found between the two extremes; for
+cannibalism to a certain moderate extent is practised among several of
+the primitive tribes in the Pacific, but it is upon the bodies of slain
+enemies alone, and horrible and fearful as the custom is, immeasurably
+as it is to be abhorred and condemned, still I assert that those who
+indulge in it are in other respects humane and virtuous.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
+
+FISHING PARTIES--MODE OF DISTRIBUTING THE FISH--MIDNIGHT
+BANQUET--TIME-KEEPING TAPERS--UNCEREMONIOUS STYLE OF EATING THE FISH
+
+
+There was no instance in which the social and kindly dispositions of the
+Typees were more forcibly evinced than in the manner the conducted their
+great fishing parties. Four times during my stay in the valley the young
+men assembled near the full of the moon, and went together on these
+excursions. As they were generally absent about forty-eight hours, I was
+led to believe that they went out towards the open sea, some distance
+from the bay. The Polynesians seldom use a hook and line, almost always
+employing large well-made nets, most ingeniously fabricated from the
+twisted fibres of a certain bark. I examined several of them which had
+been spread to dry upon the beach at Nukuheva. They resemble very much
+our own seines, and I should think they were nearly as durable.
+
+All the South Sea Islanders are passionately fond of fish; but none
+of them can be more so than the inhabitants of Typee. I could not
+comprehend, therefore, why they so seldom sought it in their waters, for
+it was only at stated times that the fishing parties were formed, and
+these occasions were always looked forward to with no small degree of
+interest.
+
+During their absence the whole population of the place were in a
+ferment, and nothing was talked of but ‘pehee, pehee’ (fish, fish).
+Towards the time when they were expected to return the vocal telegraph
+was put into operation--the inhabitants, who were scattered throughout
+the length of the valley, leaped upon rocks and into trees, shouting
+with delight at the thoughts of the anticipated treat. As soon as the
+approach of the party was announced, there was a general rush of the
+men towards the beach; some of them remaining, however, about the Ti in
+order to get matters in readiness for the reception of the fish, which
+were brought to the Taboo Groves in immense packages of leaves, each one
+of them being suspended from a pole carried on the shoulders of two men.
+
+I was present at the Ti on one of these occasions, and the sight was
+most interesting. After all the packages had arrived, they were laid in
+a row under the verandah of the building and opened.
+
+The fish were all quite small, generally about the size of a herring,
+and of every variety. About one-eighth of the whole being reserved
+for the use of the Ti itself, the remainder was divided into numerous
+smaller packages, which were immediately dispatched in every direction
+to the remotest parts of the valley. Arrived at their destination, these
+were in turn portioned out, and equally distributed among the various
+houses of each particular district. The fish were under a strict Taboo,
+until the distribution was completed, which seemed to be effected in the
+most impartial manner. By the operation of this system every man, woman,
+and child in the vale, were at one and the same time partaking of this
+favourite article of food.
+
+Once I remember the party arrived at midnight; but the unseasonableness
+of the tour did not repress the impatience of the islanders. The
+carriers dispatched from the Ti were to be seen hurrying in all
+directions through the deep groves; each individual preceded by a boy
+bearing a flaming torch of dried cocoanut boughs, which from time to
+time was replenished from the materials scattered along the path. The
+wild glare of these enormous flambeaux, lighting up with a startling
+brilliancy the innermost recesses of the vale, and seen moving rapidly
+along beneath the canopy of leaves, the savage shout of the excited
+messengers sounding the news of their approach, which was answered
+on all sides, and the strange appearance of their naked bodies, seen
+against the gloomy background, produced altogether an effect upon my
+mind that I shall long remember.
+
+It was on this same occasion that Kory-Kory awakened me at the dead
+hour of night, and in a sort of transport communicated the intelligence
+contained in the words ‘pehee perni’ (fish come). As I happened to have
+been in a remarkably sound and refreshing slumber, I could not imagine
+why the information had not been deferred until morning, indeed, I felt
+very much inclined to fly into a passion and box my valet’s ears; but on
+second thoughts I got quietly up, and on going outside the house was not
+a little interested by the moving illumination which I beheld.
+
+When old Marheyo received his share of the spoils, immediate
+preparations were made for a midnight banquet; calabashes of poee-poee
+were filled to the brim; green bread-fruit were roasted; and a huge cake
+of ‘amar’ was cut up with a sliver of bamboo and laid out on an immense
+banana-leaf.
+
+At this supper we were lighted by several of the native tapers, held in
+the hands of young girls. These tapers are most ingeniously made. There
+is a nut abounding in the valley, called by the Typees ‘armor’, closely
+resembling our common horse-chestnut. The shell is broken, and the
+contents extracted whole. Any number of these are strung at pleasure
+upon the long elastic fibre that traverses the branches of the cocoanut
+tree. Some of these tapers are eight or ten feet in length; but being
+perfectly flexible, one end is held in a coil, while the other is
+lighted. The nut burns with a fitful bluish flame, and the oil that it
+contains is exhausted in about ten minutes. As one burns down, the next
+becomes ignited, and the ashes of the former are knocked into a cocoanut
+shell kept for the purpose. This primitive candle requires continual
+attention, and must be constantly held in the hand. The person so
+employed marks the lapse of time by the number of nuts consumed, which
+is easily learned by counting the bits of tappa distributed at regular
+intervals along the string.
+
+I grieve to state so distressing a fact, but the inhabitants of
+Typee were in the habit of devouring fish much in the same way that
+a civilized being would eat a radish, and without any more previous
+preparation. They eat it raw; scales, bones, gills, and all the inside.
+The fish is held by the tail, and the head being introduced into the
+mouth, the animal disappears with a rapidity that would at first nearly
+lead one to imagine it had been launched bodily down the throat.
+
+Raw fish! Shall I ever forget my sensations when I first saw my island
+beauty devour one. Oh, heavens! Fayaway, how could you ever have
+contracted so vile a habit? However, after the first shock had subsided,
+the custom grew less odious in my eyes, and I soon accustomed myself to
+the sight. Let no one imagine, however, that the lovely Fayaway was in
+the habit of swallowing great vulgar-looking fishes: oh, no; with her
+beautiful small hand she would clasp a delicate, little, golden-hued
+love of a fish and eat it as elegantly and as innocently as though it
+were a Naples biscuit. But alas! it was after all a raw fish; and all I
+can say is, that Fayaway ate it in a more ladylike manner than any other
+girl of the valley.
+
+When at Rome do as the Romans do, I held to be so good a proverb, that
+being in Typee I made a point of doing as the Typees did. Thus I
+ate poee-poee as they did; I walked about in a garb striking for its
+simplicity; and I reposed on a community of couches; besides doing many
+other things in conformity with their peculiar habits; but the farthest
+I ever went in the way of conformity, was on several occasions to regale
+myself with raw fish. These being remarkably tender, and quite small,
+the undertaking was not so disagreeable in the main, and after a few
+trials I positively began to relish them; however, I subjected them to a
+slight operation with a knife previously to making my repast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
+
+NATURAL HISTORY OF THE VALLEY--GOLDEN LIZARDS--TAMENESS OF THE
+BIRDS--MOSQUITOES--FLIES--DOGS--A SOLITARY CAT--THE CLIMATE--THE
+COCOANUT TREE--SINGULAR MODES OF CLIMBING IT--AN AGILE YOUNG
+CHIEF--FEARLESSNESS OF THE CHILDREN--TOO-TOO AND THE COCOANUT TREE--THE
+BIRDS OF THE VALLEY
+
+
+I think I must enlighten the reader a little about the natural history
+of the valley.
+
+Whence, in the name of Count Buffon and Baron Cuvier, came those dogs
+that I saw in Typee? Dogs!--Big hairless rats rather; all with smooth,
+shining speckled hides--fat sides, and very disagreeable faces. Whence
+could they have come? That they were not the indigenous production of
+the region, I am firmly convinced. Indeed they seemed aware of their
+being interlopers, looking fairly ashamed, and always trying to hide
+themselves in some dark corner. It was plain enough they did not feel at
+home in the vale--that they wished themselves well out of it, and back
+to the ugly country from which they must have come.
+
+Scurvy curs! they were my abhorrence; I should have liked nothing
+better than to have been the death of every one of them. In fact, on one
+occasion, I intimated the propriety of a canine crusade to Mehevi; but
+the benevolent king would not consent to it. He heard me very patiently;
+but when I had finished, shook his head, and told me in confidence that
+they were ‘taboo’.
+
+As for the animal that made the fortune of the ex-lord-mayor
+Whittington, I shall never forget the day that I was lying in the house
+about noon, everybody else being fast asleep; and happening to raise
+my eyes, met those of a big black spectral cat, which sat erect in the
+doorway, looking at me with its frightful goggling green orbs, like one
+of those monstrous imps that torment some of Teniers’ saints! I am one
+of those unfortunate persons to whom the sight of these animals are, at
+any time an insufferable annoyance.
+
+Thus constitutionally averse to cats in general, the unexpected
+apparition of this one in particular utterly confounded me. When I had
+a little recovered from the fascination of its glance, I started up; the
+cat fled, and emboldened by this, I rushed out of the house in pursuit;
+but it had disappeared. It was the only time I ever saw one in the
+valley, and how it got there I cannot imagine. It is just possible that
+it might have escaped from one of the ships at Nukuheva. It was in vain
+to seek information on the subject from the natives, since none of them
+had seen the animal, the appearance of which remains a mystery to me to
+this day.
+
+Among the few animals which are to be met with in Typee, there was none
+which I looked upon with more interest than a beautiful golden-hued
+species of lizard. It measured perhaps five inches from head to tail,
+and was most gracefully proportioned. Numbers of those creatures were
+to be seen basking in the sunshine upon the thatching of the houses, and
+multitudes at all hours of the day showed their glittering sides as they
+ran frolicking between the spears of grass or raced in troops up and
+down the tall shafts of the cocoanut trees. But the remarkable beauty
+of these little animals and their lively ways were not their only claims
+upon my admiration. They were perfectly tame and insensible to fear.
+Frequently, after seating myself upon the ground in some shady place
+during the heat of the day, I would be completely overrun with them.
+If I brushed one off my arm, it would leap perhaps into my hair: when I
+tried to frighten it away by gently pinching its leg, it would turn for
+protection to the very hand that attacked it.
+
+The birds are also remarkably tame. If you happened to see one perched
+upon a branch within reach of your arm, and advanced towards it, it did
+not fly away immediately, but waited quietly looking at you, until you
+could almost touch it, and then took wing slowly, less alarmed at your
+presence, it would seem, than desirous of removing itself from your
+path. Had salt been less scarce in the valley than it was, this was the
+very place to have gone birding with it. I remember that once, on an
+uninhabited island of the Gallipagos, a bird alighted on my outstretched
+arm, while its mate chirped from an adjoining tree. Its tameness, far
+from shocking me, as a similar occurrence did Selkirk, imparted to
+me the most exquisite thrill of delight I ever experienced, and with
+somewhat of the same pleasure did I afterwards behold the birds and
+lizards of the valley show their confidence in the kindliness of man.
+
+Among the numerous afflictions which the Europeans have entailed upon
+some of the natives of the South Seas, is the accidental introduction
+among them of that enemy of all repose and ruffler of even tempers--the
+Mosquito. At the Sandwich Islands and at two or three of the Society
+group, there are now thriving colonies of these insects, who promise ere
+long to supplant altogether the aboriginal sand-flies. They sting, buzz,
+and torment, from one end of the year to the other, and by incessantly
+exasperating the natives materially obstruct the benevolent labours of
+the missionaries.
+
+From this grievous visitation, however the Typees are as yet wholly
+exempt; but its place is unfortunately in some degree supplied by the
+occasional presence of a minute species of fly, which, without stinging,
+is nevertheless productive of no little annoyance. The tameness of the
+birds and lizards is as nothing when compared to the fearless confidence
+of this insect. He will perch upon one of your eye-lashes, and go to
+roost there if you do not disturb him, or force his way through your
+hair, or along the cavity of the nostril, till you almost fancy he is
+resolved to explore the very brain itself. On one occasion I was so
+inconsiderate as to yawn while a number of them were hovering around
+me. I never repeated the act. Some half-dozen darted into the open
+apartment, and began walking about its ceiling; the sensation was
+dreadful. I involuntarily closed my mouth, and the poor creatures being
+enveloped in inner darkness, must in their consternation have stumbled
+over my palate, and been precipitated into the gulf beneath. At any
+rate, though I afterwards charitably held my mouth open for at least
+five minutes, with a view of affording egress to the stragglers, none of
+them ever availed themselves of the opportunity.
+
+There are no wild animals of any kind on the island unless it be decided
+that the natives themselves are such. The mountains and the interior
+present to the eye nothing but silent solitudes, unbroken by the roar
+of beasts of prey, and enlivened by few tokens even of minute animated
+existence. There are no venomous reptiles, and no snakes of any
+description to be found in any of the valleys.
+
+In a company of Marquesan natives the weather affords no topic of
+conversation. It can hardly be said to have any vicissitudes. The rainy
+season, it is true, brings frequent showers, but they are intermitting
+and refreshing. When an islander bound on some expedition rises from his
+couch in the morning, he is never solicitous to peep out and see how the
+sky looks, or ascertain from what quarter the wind blows. He is always
+sure of a ‘fine day’, and the promise of a few genial showers he hails
+with pleasure. There is never any of that ‘remarkable weather’ on the
+islands which from time immemorial has been experienced in America, and
+still continues to call forth the wondering conversational exclamations
+of its elderly citizens. Nor do there even occur any of those eccentric
+meteorological changes which elsewhere surprise us. In the valley of
+Typee ice-creams would never be rendered less acceptable by sudden
+frosts, nor would picnic parties be deferred on account of inauspicious
+snowstorms: for there day follows day in one unvarying round of summer
+and sunshine, and the whole year is one long tropical month of June just
+melting into July.
+
+It is this genial climate which causes the cocoanuts to flourish as they
+do. This invaluable fruit, brought to perfection by the rich soil of the
+Marquesas, and home aloft on a stately column more than a hundred feet
+from the ground, would seem at first almost inaccessible to the simple
+natives. Indeed the slender, smooth, and soaring shaft, without a single
+limb or protuberance of any kind to assist one in mounting it, presents
+an obstacle only to be overcome by the surprising agility and ingenuity
+of the islanders. It might be supposed that their indolence would lead
+them patiently to await the period when the ripened nuts, slowly parting
+from their stems, fall one by one to the ground. This certainly would
+be the case, were it not that the young fruit, encased in a soft green
+husk, with the incipient meat adhering in a jelly-like pellicle to its
+sides, and containing a bumper of the most delicious nectar, is what
+they chiefly prize. They have at least twenty different terms to express
+as many progressive stages in the growth of the nut. Many of them reject
+the fruit altogether except at a particular period of its growth, which,
+incredible as it may appear, they seemed to me to be able to ascertain
+within an hour or two. Others are still more capricious in their
+tastes; and after gathering together a heap of the nuts of all ages, and
+ingeniously tapping them, will first sip from one and then from another,
+as fastidiously as some delicate wine-bibber experimenting glass in hand
+among his dusty demi-johns of different vintages.
+
+Some of the young men, with more flexible frames than their comrades,
+and perhaps with more courageous souls, had a way of walking up
+the trunk of the cocoanut trees which to me seemed little less than
+miraculous; and when looking at them in the act, I experienced that
+curious perplexity a child feels when he beholds a fly moving feet
+uppermost along a ceiling.
+
+I will endeavour to describe the way in which Narnee, a noble young
+chief, sometimes performed this feat for my peculiar gratification; but
+his preliminary performances must also be recorded. Upon my signifying
+my desire that he should pluck me the young fruit of some particular
+tree, the handsome savage, throwing himself into a sudden attitude of
+surprise, feigns astonishment at the apparent absurdity of the request.
+Maintaining this position for a moment, the strange emotions depicted on
+his countenance soften down into one of humorous resignation to my will,
+and then looking wistfully up to the tufted top of the tree, he
+stands on tip-toe, straining his neck and elevating his arm, as though
+endeavouring to reach the fruit from the ground where he stands. As
+if defeated in this childish attempt, he now sinks to the earth
+despondingly, beating his breast in well-acted despair; and then,
+starting to his feet all at once, and throwing back his head, raises
+both hands, like a school-boy about to catch a falling ball. After
+continuing this for a moment or two, as if in expectation that the fruit
+was going to be tossed down to him by some good spirit in the tree-top,
+he turns wildly round in another fit of despair, and scampers off to the
+distance of thirty or forty yards. Here he remains awhile, eyeing the
+tree, the very picture of misery; but the next moment, receiving, as it
+were, a flash of inspiration, he rushes again towards it, and clasping
+both arms about the trunk, with one elevated a little above the other,
+he presses the soles of his feet close together against the tree,
+extending his legs from it until they are nearly horizontal, and his
+body becomes doubled into an arch; then, hand over hand and foot over
+foot, he rises from the earth with steady rapidity, and almost before
+you are aware of it, has gained the cradled and embowered nest of nuts,
+and with boisterous glee flings the fruit to the ground.
+
+This mode of walking the tree is only practicable where the trunk
+declines considerably from the perpendicular. This, however, is almost
+always the case; some of the perfectly straight shafts of the trees
+leaning at an angle of thirty degrees.
+
+The less active among the men, and many of the children of the valley
+have another method of climbing. They take a broad and stout piece of
+bark, and secure each end of it to their ankles, so that when the feet
+thus confined are extended apart, a space of little more than twelve
+inches is left between them. This contrivance greatly facilitates
+the act of climbing. The band pressed against the tree, and closely
+embracing it, yields a pretty firm support; while with the arms clasped
+about the trunk, and at regular intervals sustaining the body, the feet
+are drawn up nearly a yard at a time, and a corresponding elevation of
+the hands immediately succeeds. In this way I have seen little children,
+scarcely five years of age, fearlessly climbing the slender pole of
+a young cocoanut tree, and while hanging perhaps fifty feet from the
+ground, receiving the plaudits of their parents beneath, who clapped
+their hands, and encouraged them to mount still higher.
+
+What, thought I, on first witnessing one of these exhibitions, would
+the nervous mothers of America and England say to a similar display of
+hardihood in any of their children? The Lacedemonian nation might have
+approved of it, but most modern dames would have gone into hysterics at
+the sight.
+
+At the top of the cocoanut tree the numerous branches, radiating on
+all sides from a common centre, form a sort of green and waving
+basket, between the leaflets of which you just discern the nuts thickly
+clustering together, and on the loftier trees looking no bigger from
+the ground than bunches of grapes. I remember one adventurous little
+fellow--Too-Too was the rascal’s name--who had built himself a sort of
+aerial baby-house in the picturesque tuft of a tree adjoining Marheyo’s
+habitation. He used to spend hours there,--rustling among the branches,
+and shouting with delight every time the strong gusts of wind rushing
+down from the mountain side, swayed to and fro the tall and flexible
+column on which he was perched. Whenever I heard Too-Too’s musical voice
+sounding strangely to the ear from so great a height, and beheld him
+peeping down upon me from out his leafy covert, he always recalled to my
+mind Dibdin’s lines--
+
+    ‘There’s a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft,
+     To look out for the life of poor Jack.’
+
+Birds--bright and beautiful birds--fly over the valley of Typee. You
+see them perched aloft among the immovable boughs of the majestic
+bread-fruit trees, or gently swaying on the elastic branches of the
+Omoo; skimming over the palmetto thatching of the bamboo huts; passing
+like spirits on the wing through the shadows of the grove, and sometimes
+descending into the bosom of the valley in gleaming flights from the
+mountains. Their plumage is purple and azure, crimson and white, black
+and gold; with bills of every tint: bright bloody red, jet black, and
+ivory white, and their eyes are bright and sparkling; they go sailing
+through the air in starry throngs; but, alas! the spell of dumbness is
+upon them all--there is not a single warbler in the valley!
+
+I know not why it was, but the sight of these birds, generally the
+ministers of gladness, always oppressed me with melancholy. As in their
+dumb beauty they hovered by me whilst I was walking, or looked down upon
+me with steady curious eyes from out the foliage, I was almost inclined
+to fancy that they knew they were gazing upon a stranger, and that they
+commiserated his fate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY
+
+A PROFESSOR OF THE FINE ARTS--HIS PERSECUTIONS--SOMETHING ABOUT
+TATTOOING AND TABOOING--TWO ANECDOTES IN ILLUSTRATION OF THE LATTER--A
+FEW THOUGHTS ON THE TYPEE DIALECT
+
+In one of my strolls with Kory-Kory, in passing along the border of a
+thick growth of bushes, my attention was arrested by a singular noise.
+On entering the thicket I witnessed for the first time the operation of
+tattooing as performed by these islanders.
+
+I beheld a man extended flat upon his back on the ground, and, despite
+the forced composure of his countenance, it was evident that he was
+suffering agony. His tormentor bent over him, working away for all the
+world like a stone-cutter with mallet and chisel. In one hand he held a
+short slender stick, pointed with a shark’s tooth, on the upright end of
+which he tapped with a small hammer-like piece of wood, thus puncturing
+the skin, and charging it with the colouring matter in which the
+instrument was dipped. A cocoanut shell containing this fluid was placed
+upon the ground. It is prepared by mixing with a vegetable juice the
+ashes of the ‘armor’, or candle-nut, always preserved for the purpose.
+Beside the savage, and spread out upon a piece of soiled tappa, were
+a great number of curious black-looking little implements of bone and
+wood, used in the various divisions of his art. A few terminated in a
+single fine point, and, like very delicate pencils, were employed in
+giving the finishing touches, or in operating upon the more sensitive
+portions of the body, as was the case in the present instance. Others
+presented several points distributed in a line, somewhat resembling the
+teeth of a saw. These were employed in the coarser parts of the work,
+and particularly in pricking in straight marks. Some presented their
+points disposed in small figures, and being placed upon the body,
+were, by a single blow of the hammer, made to leave their indelible
+impression. I observed a few the handles of which were mysteriously
+curved, as if intended to be introduced into the orifice of the ear,
+with a view perhaps of beating the tattoo upon the tympanum. Altogether
+the sight of these strange instruments recalled to mind that display
+of cruel-looking mother-of-pearl-handled things which one sees in their
+velvet-lined cases at the elbow of a dentist.
+
+The artist was not at this time engaged on an original sketch, his
+subject being a venerable savage, whose tattooing had become somewhat
+faded with age and needed a few repairs, and accordingly he was merely
+employed in touching up the works of some of the old masters of the
+Typee school, as delineated upon the human canvas before him. The parts
+operated upon were the eyelids, where a longitudinal streak, like the
+one which adorned Kory-Kory, crossed the countenance of the victim.
+
+In spite of all the efforts of the poor old man, sundry twitchings and
+screwings of the muscles of the face denoted the exquisite sensibility
+of these shutters to the windows of his soul, which he was now having
+repainted. But the artist, with a heart as callous as that of an army
+surgeon, continued his performance, enlivening his labours with a wild
+chant, tapping away the while as merrily as a woodpecker.
+
+So deeply engaged was he in his work, that he had not observed our
+approach, until, after having, enjoyed an unmolested view of the
+operation, I chose to attract his attention. As soon as he perceived me,
+supposing that I sought him in his professional capacity, he seized hold
+of me in a paroxysm of delight, and was an eagerness to begin the work.
+When, however, I gave him to understand that he had altogether mistaken
+my views, nothing could exceed his grief and disappointment. But
+recovering from this, he seemed determined not to credit my assertion,
+and grasping his implements, he flourished them about in fearful
+vicinity to my face, going through an imaginary performance of his art,
+and every moment bursting into some admiring exclamation at the beauty
+of his designs.
+
+Horrified at the bare thought of being rendered hideous for life if the
+wretch were to execute his purpose upon me, I struggled to get away
+from him, while Kory-Kory, turning traitor, stood by, and besought me
+to comply with the outrageous request. On my reiterated refusals the
+excited artist got half beside himself, and was overwhelmed with sorrow
+at losing so noble an opportunity of distinguishing himself in his
+profession.
+
+The idea of engrafting his tattooing upon my white skin filled him
+with all a painter’s enthusiasm; again and again he gazed into my
+countenance, and every fresh glimpse seemed to add to the vehemence
+of his ambition. Not knowing to what extremities he might proceed,
+and shuddering at the ruin he might inflict upon my figure-head, I now
+endeavoured to draw off his attention from it, and holding out my arm
+in a fit of desperation, signed to him to commence operations. But he
+rejected the compromise indignantly, and still continued his attack on
+my face, as though nothing short of that would satisfy him. When his
+forefinger swept across my features, in laying out the borders of those
+parallel bands which were to encircle my countenance, the flesh fairly
+crawled upon my bones. At last, half wild with terror and indignation, I
+succeeded in breaking away from the three savages, and fled towards old
+Marheyo’s house, pursued by the indomitable artist, who ran after me,
+implements in hand. Kory-Kory, however, at last interfered and drew him
+off from the chase.
+
+This incident opened my eyes to a new danger; and I now felt convinced
+that in some luckless hour I should be disfigured in such a manner as
+never more to have the FACE to return to my countrymen, even should an
+opportunity offer.
+
+These apprehensions were greatly increased by the desire which King
+Mehevi and several of the inferior chiefs now manifested that I should
+be tattooed. The pleasure of the king was first signified to me some
+three days after my casual encounter with Karky the artist. Heavens!
+what imprecations I showered upon that Karky. Doubtless he had plotted a
+conspiracy against me and my countenance, and would never rest until his
+diabolical purpose was accomplished. Several times I met him in various
+parts of the valley, and, invariably, whenever he descried me, he came
+running after me with his mallet and chisel, flourishing them about my
+face as if he longed to begin. What an object he would have made of me!
+
+When the king first expressed his wish to me, I made known to him my
+utter abhorrence of the measure, and worked myself into such a state of
+excitement, that he absolutely stared at me in amazement. It evidently
+surpassed his majesty’s comprehension how any sober-minded and
+sensible individual could entertain the least possible objection to so
+beautifying an operation.
+
+Soon afterwards he repeated his suggestion, and meeting with a little
+repulse, showed some symptoms of displeasure at my obduracy. On his a
+third time renewing his request, I plainly perceived that something must
+be done, or my visage was ruined for ever; I therefore screwed up my
+courage to the sticking point, and declared my willingness to have both
+arms tattooed from just above the wrist to the shoulder. His majesty was
+greatly pleased at the proposition, and I was congratulating myself with
+having thus compromised the matter, when he intimated that as a thing of
+course my face was first to undergo the operation. I was fairly driven
+to despair; nothing but the utter ruin of my ‘face divine’, as the
+poets call it, would, I perceived, satisfy the inexorable Mehevi and his
+chiefs, or rather, that infernal Karky, for he was at the bottom of it
+all.
+
+The only consolation afforded me was a choice of patterns: I was at
+perfect liberty to have my face spanned by three horizontal bars, after
+the fashion of my serving-man’s; or to have as many oblique stripes
+slanting across it; or if, like a true courtier, I chose to model my
+style on that of royalty, I might wear a sort of freemason badge upon
+my countenance in the shape of a mystic triangle. However, I would have
+none of these, though the king most earnestly impressed upon my mind
+that my choice was wholly unrestricted. At last, seeing my unconquerable
+repugnance, he ceased to importune me.
+
+But not so some other of the savages. Hardly a day passed but I was
+subjected to their annoying requests, until at last my existence
+became a burden to me; the pleasures I had previously enjoyed no longer
+afforded me delight, and all my former desire to escape from the valley
+now revived with additional force.
+
+A fact which I soon afterwards learned augmented my apprehension. The
+whole system of tattooing was, I found, connected with their religion;
+and it was evident, therefore, that they were resolved to make a convert
+of me.
+
+In the decoration of the chiefs it seems to be necessary to exercise the
+most elaborate pencilling; while some of the inferior natives looked
+as if they had been daubed over indiscriminately with a house-painter’s
+brush. I remember one fellow who prided himself hugely upon a great
+oblong patch, placed high upon his back, and who always reminded me of
+a man with a blister of Spanish flies, stuck between his shoulders.
+Another whom I frequently met had the hollow of his eyes tattooed in two
+regular squares and his visual organs being remarkably brilliant, they
+gleamed forth from out this setting like a couple of diamonds inserted
+in ebony.
+
+Although convinced that tattooing was a religious observance, still the
+nature of the connection between it and the superstitious idolatry of
+the people was a point upon which I could never obtain any information.
+Like the still more important system of the ‘Taboo’, it always appeared
+inexplicable to me.
+
+There is a marked similarity, almost an identity, between the religious
+institutions of most of the Polynesian islands, and in all exists the
+mysterious ‘Taboo’, restricted in its uses to a greater or less extent.
+So strange and complex in its arrangements is this remarkable system,
+that I have in several cases met with individuals who, after residing
+for years among the islands in the Pacific, and acquiring a considerable
+knowledge of the language, have nevertheless been altogether unable to
+give any satisfactory account of its operations. Situated as I was
+in the Typee valley, I perceived every hour the effects of this
+all-controlling power, without in the least comprehending it. Those
+effects were, indeed, wide-spread and universal, pervading the most
+important as well as the minutest transactions of life. The savage, in
+short, lives in the continual observance of its dictates, which guide
+and control every action of his being.
+
+For several days after entering the valley I had been saluted at least
+fifty times in the twenty-four hours with the talismanic word ‘Taboo’
+shrieked in my ears, at some gross violation of its provisions, of which
+I had unconsciously been guilty. The day after our arrival I happened to
+hand some tobacco to Toby over the head of a native who sat between
+us. He started up, as if stung by an adder; while the whole company,
+manifesting an equal degree of horror, simultaneously screamed out
+‘Taboo!’ I never again perpetrated a similar piece of ill-manners,
+which, indeed, was forbidden by the canons of good breeding, as well as
+by the mandates of the taboo. But it was not always so easy to perceive
+wherein you had contravened the spirit of this institution. I was many
+times called to order, if I may use the phrase, when I could not for the
+life of me conjecture what particular offence I had committed.
+
+One day I was strolling through a secluded portion of the valley, and
+hearing the musical sound of the cloth-mallet at a little distance, I
+turned down a path that conducted me in a few moments to a house where
+there were some half-dozen girls employed in making tappa. This was an
+operation I had frequently witnessed, and had handled the bark in all
+the various stages of its preparation. On the present occasion the
+females were intent upon their occupation, and after looking up and
+talking gaily to me for a few moments, they resumed their employment. I
+regarded them for a while in silence, and then carelessly picking up a
+handful of the material that lay around, proceeded unconsciously to pick
+it apart. While thus engaged, I was suddenly startled by a scream, like
+that of a whole boarding-school of young ladies just on the point of
+going into hysterics. Leaping up with the idea of seeing a score of
+Happar warriors about to perform anew the Sabine atrocity, I found
+myself confronted by the company of girls, who, having dropped their
+work, stood before me with starting eyes, swelling bosoms, and fingers
+pointed in horror towards me.
+
+Thinking that some venomous reptile must be concealed in the bark which
+I held in my hand, I began cautiously to separate and examine it. Whilst
+I did so the horrified girls re-doubled their shrieks. Their wild cries
+and frightened motions actually alarmed me, and throwing down the tappa,
+I was about to rush from the house, when in the same instant their
+clamours ceased, and one of them, seizing me by the arm, pointed to the
+broken fibres that had just fallen from my grasp, and screamed in my
+ears the fatal word Taboo!
+
+I subsequently found out that the fabric they were engaged in making was
+of a peculiar kind, destined to be worn on the heads of the females, and
+through every stage of its manufacture was guarded by a rigorous taboo,
+which interdicted the whole masculine gender from even so much as
+touching it.
+
+Frequently in walking through the groves I observed bread-fruit and
+cocoanut trees, with a wreath of leaves twined in a peculiar fashion
+about their trunks. This was the mark of the taboo. The trees
+themselves, their fruit, and even the shadows they cast upon the ground,
+were consecrated by its presence. In the same way a pipe, which the king
+had bestowed upon me, was rendered sacred in the eyes of the natives,
+none of whom could I ever prevail upon to smoke from it. The bowl was
+encircled by a woven band of grass, somewhat resembling those Turks’
+heads occasionally worked in the handles of our whip-stalks.
+
+A similar badge was once braided about my wrist by the royal hand
+of Mehevi himself, who, as soon as he had concluded the operation,
+pronounced me ‘Taboo’. This occurred shortly after Toby’s disappearance;
+and, were it not that from the first moment I had entered the valley
+the natives had treated me with uniform kindness, I should have supposed
+that their conduct afterwards was to be ascribed to the fact that I had
+received this sacred investiture.
+
+The capricious operations of the taboo are not its least remarkable
+feature: to enumerate them all would be impossible. Black hogs--infants
+to a certain age--women in an interesting situation--young men while the
+operation of tattooing their faces is going on--and certain parts of the
+valley during the continuance of a shower--are alike fenced about by the
+operation of the taboo.
+
+I witnessed a striking instance of its effects in the bay of Tior,
+my visit to which place has been alluded to in a former part of this
+narrative. On that occasion our worthy captain formed one of the party.
+He was a most insatiable sportsman. Outward bound, and off the pitch of
+Cape Horn, he used to sit on the taffrail, and keep the steward loading
+three or four old fowling pieces, with which he would bring down
+albatrosses, Cape pigeons, jays, petrels, and divers other marine fowl,
+who followed chattering in our wake. The sailors were struck aghast at
+his impiety, and one and all attributed our forty days’ beating about
+that horrid headland to his sacrilegious slaughter of these inoffensive
+birds.
+
+At Tior he evinced the same disregard for the religious prejudices of
+the islanders, as he had previously shown for the superstitions of the
+sailors. Having heard that there were a considerable number of fowls in
+the valley the progeny of some cocks and hens accidentally left there by
+an English vessel, and which, being strictly tabooed, flew about almost
+in a wild state--he determined to break through all restraints, and
+be the death of them. Accordingly, he provided himself with a most
+formidable looking gun, and announced his landing on the beach by
+shooting down a noble cock that was crowing what proved to be his own
+funeral dirge, on the limb of an adjoining tree. ‘Taboo’, shrieked the
+affrighted savages. ‘Oh, hang your taboo,’ says the nautical sportsman;
+‘talk taboo to the marines’; and bang went the piece again, and down
+came another victim. At this the natives ran scampering through the
+groves, horror-struck at the enormity of the act.
+
+All that afternoon the rocky sides of the valley rang with successive
+reports, and the superb plumage of many a beautiful fowl was ruffled by
+the fatal bullet. Had it not been that the French admiral, with a large
+party, was then in the glen, I have no doubt that the natives, although
+their tribe was small and dispirited, would have inflicted summary
+vengeance upon the man who thus outraged their most sacred institutions;
+as it was, they contrived to annoy him not a little.
+
+Thirsting with his exertions, the skipper directed his steps to
+a stream; but the savages, who had followed at a little distance,
+perceiving his object, rushed towards him and forced him away from its
+bank--his lips would have polluted it. Wearied at last, he sought to
+enter a house that he might rest for a while on the mats; its inmates
+gathered tumultuously about the door and denied him admittance. He
+coaxed and blustered by turns, but in vain; the natives were neither
+to be intimidated nor appeased, and as a final resort he was obliged
+to call together his boat’s crew, and pull away from what he termed the
+most infernal place he ever stepped upon.
+
+Lucky was it for him and for us that we were not honoured on our
+departure by a salute of stones from the hands of the exasperated Tiors.
+In this way, on the neighbouring island of Ropo, were killed, but a few
+weeks previously, and for a nearly similar offence, the master and three
+of the crew of the K---.
+
+I cannot determine with anything approaching to certainty, what power
+it is that imposes the taboo. When I consider the slight disparity
+of condition among the islanders--the very limited and inconsiderable
+prerogatives of the king and chiefs--and the loose and indefinite
+functions of the priesthood, most of whom were hardly to be
+distinguished from the rest of their countrymen, I am wholly at a loss
+where to look for the authority which regulates this potent institution.
+It is imposed upon something today, and withdrawn tomorrow; while its
+operations in other cases are perpetual. Sometimes its restrictions only
+affect a single individual--sometimes a particular family--sometimes
+a whole tribe; and in a few instances they extend not merely over the
+various clans on a single island, but over all the inhabitants of an
+entire group. In illustration of this latter peculiarity, I may cite
+the law which forbids a female to enter a canoe--a prohibition which
+prevails upon all the northern Marquesas Islands.
+
+The word itself (taboo) is used in more than one signification. It
+is sometimes used by a parent to his child, when in the exercise
+of parental authority he forbids it to perform a particular action.
+Anything opposed to the ordinary customs of the islanders, although not
+expressly prohibited, is said to be ‘taboo’.
+
+The Typee language is one very difficult to be acquired; it bears a
+close resemblance to the other Polynesian dialects, all of which show a
+common origin. The duplication of words, as ‘lumee lumee’, ‘poee poee’,
+‘muee muee’, is one of their peculiar features. But another, and a more
+annoying one, is the different senses in which one and the same word is
+employed; its various meanings all have a certain connection, which
+only makes the matter more puzzling. So one brisk, lively little word
+is obliged, like a servant in a poor family, to perform all sorts of
+duties; for instance, one particular combination of syllables expresses
+the ideas of sleep, rest, reclining, sitting, leaning, and all other
+things anywise analogous thereto, the particular meaning being shown
+chiefly by a variety of gestures and the eloquent expression of the
+countenance.
+
+The intricacy of these dialects is another peculiarity. In the
+Missionary College at Lahainaluna, on Mowee, one of the Sandwich
+Islands, I saw a tabular exhibition of a Hawiian verb, conjugated
+through all its moods and tenses. It covered the side of a considerable
+apartment, and I doubt whether Sir William Jones himself would not have
+despaired of mastering it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
+
+STRANGE CUSTOM OF THE ISLANDERS--THEIR CHANTING, AND THE PECULIARITY OF
+THEIR VOICE--RAPTURE OF THE KING AT FIRST HEARING A SONG--A NEW DIGNITY
+CONFERRED ON THE AUTHOR--MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS IN THE VALLEY--ADMIRATION
+OF THE SAVAGES AT BEHOLDING A PUGILISTIC PERFORMANCE--SWIMMING
+INFANT--BEAUTIFUL TRESSES OF THE GIRLS--OINTMENT FOR THE HAIR
+
+Sadly discursive as I have already been, I must still further entreat
+the reader’s patience, as I am about to string together, without any
+attempt at order, a few odds and ends of things not hitherto mentioned,
+but which are either curious in themselves or peculiar to the Typees.
+
+There was one singular custom observed in old Marheyo’s domestic
+establishment, which often excited my surprise. Every night, before
+retiring, the inmates of the house gathered together on the mats, and
+so squatting upon their haunches, after the universal practice of
+these islanders, would commence a low, dismal and monotonous chant,
+accompanying the voice with the instrumental melody produced by two
+small half-rotten sticks tapped slowly together, a pair of which
+were held in the hands of each person present. Thus would they employ
+themselves for an hour or two, sometimes longer. Lying in the gloom
+which wrapped the further end of the house, I could not avoid looking
+at them, although the spectacle suggested nothing but unpleasant
+reflection. The flickering rays of the ‘armor’ nut just served to reveal
+their savage lineaments, without dispelling the darkness that hovered
+about them.
+
+Sometimes when, after falling into a kind of doze, and awaking suddenly
+in the midst of these doleful chantings, my eye would fall upon the
+wild-looking group engaged in their strange occupation, with their naked
+tattooed limbs, and shaven heads disposed in a circle, I was almost
+tempted to believe that I gazed upon a set of evil beings in the act of
+working at a frightful incantation.
+
+What was the meaning or purpose of this custom, whether it was practiced
+merely as a diversion, or whether it was a religious exercise, a sort of
+family prayers, I never could discover.
+
+The sounds produced by the natives on these occasions were of a most
+singular description; and had I not actually been present, I never would
+have believed that such curious noises could have been produced by human
+beings.
+
+To savages generally is imputed a guttural articulation. This however,
+is not always the case, especially among the inhabitants of the
+Polynesian Archipelago. The labial melody with which the Typee girls
+carry on an ordinary conversation, giving a musical prolongation to the
+final syllable of every sentence, and chirping out some of the words
+with a liquid, bird-like accent, was singularly pleasing.
+
+The men however, are not quite so harmonious in their utterance, and
+when excited upon any subject, would work themselves up into a sort of
+wordy paroxysm, during which all descriptions of rough-sided sounds
+were projected from their mouths, with a force and rapidity which was
+absolutely astonishing.
+
+      . . . . .  .  .  .
+
+Although these savages are remarkably fond of chanting, still they
+appear to have no idea whatever of singing, at least as the art is
+practised in other nations.
+
+I shall never forget the first time I happened to roar out a stave
+in the presence of noble Mehevi. It was a stanza from the ‘Bavarian
+broom-seller’. His Typeean majesty, with all his court, gazed upon me in
+amazement, as if I had displayed some preternatural faculty which Heaven
+had denied to them. The King was delighted with the verse; but the
+chorus fairly transported him. At his solicitation I sang it again and
+again, and nothing could be more ludicrous than his vain attempts to
+catch the air and the words. The royal savage seemed to think that by
+screwing all the features of his face into the end of his nose he
+might possibly succeed in the undertaking, but it failed to answer the
+purpose; and in the end he gave it up, and consoled himself by listening
+to my repetition of the sounds fifty times over.
+
+Previous to Mehevi’s making the discovery, I had never been aware that
+there was anything of the nightingale about me; but I was now promoted
+to the place of court-minstrel, in which capacity I was afterwards
+perpetually called upon to officiate.
+
+      . . . . .  .  .  .
+
+Besides the sticks and the drums, there are no other musical instruments
+among the Typees, except one which might appropriately be denominated a
+nasal flute. It is somewhat longer than an ordinary fife; is made of
+a beautiful scarlet-coloured reed; and has four or five stops, with
+a large hole near one end, which latter is held just beneath the left
+nostril. The other nostril being closed by a peculiar movement of the
+muscles about the nose, the breath is forced into the tube, and produces
+a soft dulcet sound which is varied by the fingers running at random
+over the stops. This is a favourite recreation with the females and one
+in which Fayaway greatly excelled. Awkward as such an instrument may
+appear, it was, in Fayaway’s delicate little hands, one of the most
+graceful I have ever seen. A young lady, in the act of tormenting a
+guitar strung about her neck by a couple of yards of blue ribbon, is not
+half so engaging.
+
+      . . . . .  .  .  .
+
+Singing was not the only means I possessed of diverting the royal Mehevi
+and his easy-going subject. Nothing afforded them more pleasure than to
+see me go through the attitude of pugilistic encounter. As not one of
+the natives had soul enough in him to stand up like a man, and allow me
+to hammer away at him, for my own personal gratification and that of
+the king, I was necessitated to fight with an imaginary enemy, whom I
+invariably made to knock under to my superior prowess. Sometimes when
+this sorely battered shadow retreated precipitately towards a group of
+the savages, and, following him up, I rushed among them dealing my
+blows right and left, they would disperse in all directions much to the
+enjoyment of Mehevi, the chiefs, and themselves.
+
+The noble art of self-defence appeared to be regarded by them as the
+peculiar gift of the white man; and I make little doubt that they
+supposed armies of Europeans were drawn up provided with nothing else
+but bony fists and stout hearts, with which they set to in column, and
+pummelled one another at the word of command.
+
+      . . . . .  .  .  .
+
+One day, in company with Kory-Kory, I had repaired to the stream for the
+purpose of bathing, when I observed a woman sitting upon a rock in
+the midst of the current, and watching with the liveliest interest the
+gambols of something, which at first I took to be an uncommonly large
+species of frog that was sporting in the water near her. Attracted by
+the novelty of the sight, I waded towards the spot where she sat, and
+could hardly credit the evidence of my senses when I beheld a little
+infant, the period of whose birth could not have extended back many
+days, paddling about as if it had just risen to the surface, after being
+hatched into existence at the bottom. Occasionally, the delighted parent
+reached out her hand towards it, when the little thing, uttering a faint
+cry, and striking out its tiny limbs, would sidle for the rock, and the
+next moment be clasped to its mother’s bosom. This was repeated again
+and again, the baby remaining in the stream about a minute at a time.
+Once or twice it made wry faces at swallowing a mouthful of water, and
+choked a spluttered as if on the point of strangling. At such times
+however, the mother snatched it up and by a process scarcely to be
+mentioned obliged it to eject the fluid. For several weeks afterwards
+I observed this woman bringing her child down to the stream regularly
+every day, in the cool of the morning and evening and treating it to a
+bath. No wonder that the South Sea Islanders are so amphibious a race,
+when they are thus launched into the water as soon as they see the
+light. I am convinced that it is as natural for a human being to swim as
+it is for a duck. And yet in civilized communities how many able-bodied
+individuals die, like so many drowning kittens, from the occurrence of
+the most trivial accidents!
+
+       . . . . .  .  .  .
+
+The long luxuriant and glossy tresses of the Typee damsels often
+attracted my admiration. A fine head of hair is the pride and joy of
+every woman’s heart. Whether against the express will of Providence, it
+is twisted upon the crown of the head and there coiled away like a rope
+on a ship’s deck; whether it be stuck behind the ears and hangs down
+like the swag of a small window-curtain; or whether it be permitted to
+flow over the shoulders in natural ringlets, it is always the pride of
+the owner, and the glory of the toilette.
+
+The Typee girls devote much of their time to the dressing of their fair
+and redundant locks. After bathing, as they sometimes do five or six
+times every day, the hair is carefully dried, and if they have been in
+the sea, invariably washed in fresh water, and anointed with a highly
+scented oil extracted from the meat of the cocoanut. This oil is
+obtained in great abundance by the following very simple process:
+
+A large vessel of wood, with holes perforated in the bottom, is filled
+with the pounded meat, and exposed to the rays of the sun. As the
+oleaginous matter exudes, it falls in drops through the apertures into a
+wide-mouthed calabash placed underneath. After a sufficient quantity has
+thus been collected, the oil undergoes a purifying process, and is then
+poured into the small spherical shells of the nuts of the moo-tree,
+which are hollowed out to receive it. These nuts are then hermetically
+sealed with a resinous gum, and the vegetable fragrance of their green
+rind soon imparts to the oil a delightful odour. After the lapse of a
+few weeks the exterior shell of the nuts becomes quite dry and hard, and
+assumes a beautiful carnation tint; and when opened they are found to
+be about two-thirds full of an ointment of a light yellow colour and
+diffusing the sweetest perfume. This elegant little odorous globe would
+not be out of place even upon the toilette of a queen. Its merits as a
+preparation for the hair are undeniable--it imparts to it a superb gloss
+and a silky fineness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
+
+APPREHENSIONS OF EVIL--FRIGHTFUL DISCOVERY--SOME REMARKS
+ON CANNIBALISM--SECOND BATTLE WITH THE HAPPARS--SAVAGE
+SPECTACLE--MYSTERIOUS FEAST--SUBSEQUENT DISCLOSURES
+
+
+From the time of my casual encounter with Karky the artist, my life was
+one of absolute wretchedness. Not a day passed but I was persecuted by
+the solicitations of some of the natives to subject myself to the odious
+operation of tattooing. Their importunities drove me half wild, for I
+felt how easily they might work their will upon me regarding this or
+anything else which they took into their heads. Still, however, the
+behaviour of the islanders towards me was as kind as ever. Fayaway was
+quite as engaging; Kory-Kory as devoted; and Mehevi the king just as
+gracious and condescending as before. But I had now been three months in
+their valley, as nearly as I could estimate; I had grown familiar with
+the narrow limits to which my wandering had been confined; and I began
+bitterly to feel the state of captivity in which I was held. There
+was no one with whom I could freely converse; no one to whom I could
+communicate my thoughts; no one who could sympathize with my sufferings.
+A thousand times I thought how much more endurable would have been my
+lot had Toby still been with me. But I was left alone, and the thought
+was terrible to me. Still, despite my griefs, I did all in my power
+to appear composed and cheerful, well knowing that by manifesting any
+uneasiness, or any desire to escape, I should only frustrate my object.
+
+It was during the period I was in this unhappy frame of mind that the
+painful malady under which I had been labouring--after having almost
+completely subsided--began again to show itself, and with symptoms as
+violent as ever. This added calamity nearly unmanned me; the recurrence
+of the complaint proved that without powerful remedial applications
+all hope of cure was futile; and when I reflected that just beyond the
+elevations, which bound me in, was the medical relief I needed, and that
+although so near, it was impossible for me to avail myself of it, the
+thought was misery.
+
+In this wretched situation, every circumstance which evinced the
+savage nature of the beings at whose mercy I was, augmented the fearful
+apprehensions that consumed me. An occurrence which happened about this
+time affected me most powerfully.
+
+I have already mentioned that from the ridge-pole of Marheyo’s house
+were suspended a number of packages enveloped in tappa. Many of these I
+had often seen in the hands of the natives, and their contents had been
+examined in my presence. But there were three packages hanging
+very nearly over the place where I lay, which from their remarkable
+appearance had often excited my curiosity. Several times I had asked
+Kory-Kory to show me their contents, but my servitor, who, in almost
+every other particular had acceded to my wishes, refused to gratify me
+in this.
+
+One day, returning unexpectedly from the ‘Ti’, my arrival seemed to
+throw the inmates of the house into the greatest confusion. They were
+seated together on the mats, and by the lines which extended from the
+roof to the floor I immediately perceived that the mysterious packages
+were for some purpose or another under inspection. The evident alarm
+the savages betrayed filled me with forebodings of evil, and with an
+uncontrollable desire to penetrate the secret so jealously guarded.
+Despite the efforts of Marheyo and Kory-Kory to restrain me, I forced
+my way into the midst of the circle, and just caught a glimpse of three
+human heads, which others of the party were hurriedly enveloping in the
+coverings from which they had been taken.
+
+One of the three I distinctly saw. It was in a state of perfect
+preservation, and from the slight glimpse I had of it, seemed to have
+been subjected to some smoking operation which had reduced it to the
+dry, hard, and mummy-like appearance it presented. The two long scalp
+locks were twisted up into balls upon the crown of the head in the same
+way that the individual had worn them during life. The sunken cheeks
+were rendered yet more ghastly by the rows of glistening teeth which
+protruded from between the lips, while the sockets of the eyes--filled
+with oval bits of mother-of-pearl shell, with a black spot in the
+centre--heightened the hideousness of its aspect.
+
+Two of the three were heads of the islanders; but the third, to my
+horror, was that of a white man. Although it had been quickly removed
+from my sight, still the glimpse I had of it was enough to convince me
+that I could not be mistaken.
+
+Gracious God! what dreadful thoughts entered my head; in solving this
+mystery perhaps I had solved another, and the fate of my lost companion
+might be revealed in the shocking spectacle I had just witnessed. I
+longed to have torn off the folds of cloth and satisfied the awful
+doubts under which I laboured. But before I had recovered from the
+consternation into which I had been thrown, the fatal packages were
+hoisted aloft, and once more swung over my head. The natives now
+gathered round me tumultuously, and laboured to convince me that what
+I had just seen were the heads of three Happar warriors, who had been
+slain in battle. This glaring falsehood added to my alarm, and it was
+not until I reflected that I had observed the packages swinging from
+their elevation before Toby’s disappearance, that I could at all recover
+my composure.
+
+But although this horrible apprehension had been dispelled, I had
+discovered enough to fill me, in my present state of mind, with the most
+bitter reflections. It was plain that I had seen the last relic of some
+unfortunate wretch, who must have been massacred on the beach by the
+savages, in one of those perilous trading adventures which I have before
+described.
+
+It was not, however, alone the murder of the stranger that overcame me
+with gloom. I shuddered at the idea of the subsequent fate his inanimate
+body might have met with. Was the same doom reserved for me? Was I
+destined to perish like him--like him perhaps, to be devoured and my
+head to be preserved as a fearful memento of the events? My imagination
+ran riot in these horrid speculations, and I felt certain that the
+worst possible evils would befall me. But whatever were my misgivings, I
+studiously concealed them from the islanders, as well as the full extent
+of the discovery I had made.
+
+Although the assurances which the Typees had often given me, that they
+never eat human flesh, had not convinced me that such was the case, yet,
+having been so long a time in the valley without witnessing anything
+which indicated the existence of the practice, I began to hope that it
+was an event of very rare occurrence, and that I should be spared the
+horror of witnessing it during my stay among them: but, alas, these
+hopes were soon destroyed.
+
+It is a singular fact, that in all our accounts of cannibal tribes we
+have seldom received the testimony of an eye-witness account to this
+revolting practice. The horrible conclusion has almost always been
+derived from the second-hand evidence of Europeans, or else from the
+admissions of the savages themselves, after they have in some degree
+become civilized. The Polynesians are aware of the detestation in which
+Europeans hold this custom, and therefore invariably deny its existence,
+and with the craft peculiar to savages, endeavour to conceal every trace
+of it.
+
+The excessive unwillingness betrayed by the Sandwich Islanders, even at
+the present day, to allude to the unhappy fate of Cook, has often been
+remarked. And so well have they succeeded in covering the event with
+mystery, that to this very hour, despite all that has been said and
+written on the subject, it still remains doubtful whether they wreaked
+upon his murdered body the vengeance they sometimes inflicted upon their
+enemies.
+
+At Kealakekau, the scene of that tragedy, a strip of ship’s copper
+nailed against an upright post in the ground used to inform
+the traveller that beneath reposed the ‘remains’ of the great
+circumnavigator. But I am strongly inclined to believe not only the
+corpse was refused Christian burial, but that the heart which was
+brought to Vancouver some time after the event, and which the Hawaiians
+stoutly maintained was that of Captain Cook, was no such thing; and that
+the whole affair was a piece of imposture which was sought to be palmed
+off upon the credulous Englishman.
+
+A few years since there was living on the island of Maui (one of the
+Sandwich group) an old chief, who, actuated by a morbid desire for
+notoriety, gave himself out among the foreign residents of the place
+as the living tomb of Captain Cook’s big toe!--affirming that at the
+cannibal entertainment which ensued after the lamented Briton’s death,
+that particular portion of his body had fallen to his share. His
+indignant countrymen actually caused him to be prosecuted in the native
+courts, on a charge nearly equivalent to what we term defamation of
+character; but the old fellow persisting in his assertion, and no
+invalidating proof being adduced, the plaintiffs were cast in the suit,
+and the cannibal reputation of the defendant firmly established. This
+result was the making of his fortune; ever afterwards he was in the
+habit of giving very profitable audiences to all curious travellers who
+were desirous of beholding the man who had eaten the great navigator’s
+great toe.
+
+About a week after my discovery of the contents of the mysterious
+packages, I happened to be at the Ti, when another war-alarm was
+sounded, and the natives rushing to their arms, sallied out to resist
+a second incursion of the Happar invaders. The same scene was again
+repeated, only that on this occasion I heard at least fifteen reports of
+muskets from the mountains during the time that the skirmish lasted.
+An hour or two after its termination, loud paeans chanted through the
+valley announced the approach of the victors. I stood with Kory-Kory
+leaning against the railing of the pi-pi awaiting their advance, when
+a tumultuous crowd of islanders emerged with wild clamours from
+the neighbouring groves. In the midst of them marched four men, one
+preceding the other at regular intervals of eight or ten feet, with
+poles of a corresponding length, extending from shoulder to shoulder,
+to which were lashed with thongs of bark three long narrow bundles,
+carefully wrapped in ample coverings of freshly plucked palm-leaves,
+tacked together with slivers of bamboo. Here and there upon these green
+winding-sheets might be seen the stains of blood, while the warriors who
+carried the frightful burdens displayed upon their naked limbs similar
+sanguinary marks. The shaven head of the foremost had a deep gash upon
+it, and the clotted gore which had flowed from the wound remained in dry
+patches around it. The savage seemed to be sinking under the weight
+he bore. The bright tattooing upon his body was covered with blood
+and dust; his inflamed eyes rolled in their sockets, and his whole
+appearance denoted extraordinary suffering and exertion; yet sustained
+by some powerful impulse, he continued to advance, while the throng
+around him with wild cheers sought to encourage him. The other three men
+were marked about the arms and breasts with several slight wounds, which
+they somewhat ostentatiously displayed.
+
+These four individuals, having been the most active in the late
+encounter, claimed the honour of bearing the bodies of their slain
+enemies to the Ti. Such was the conclusion I drew from my own
+observations, and, as far as I could understand, from the explanation
+which Kory-Kory gave me.
+
+The royal Mehevi walked by the side of these heroes. He carried in one
+hand a musket, from the barrel of which was suspended a small canvas
+pouch of powder, and in the other he grasped a short javelin, which he
+held before him and regarded with fierce exultation. This javelin he had
+wrested from a celebrated champion of the Happars, who had ignominiously
+fled, and was pursued by his foes beyond the summit of the mountain.
+
+When within a short distance of the Ti, the warrior with the wounded
+head, who proved to be Narmonee, tottered forward two or three steps,
+and fell helplessly to the ground; but not before another had caught the
+end of the pole from his shoulder, and placed it upon his own.
+
+The excited throng of islanders, who surrounded the person of the king
+and the dead bodies of the enemy, approached the spot where I stood,
+brandishing their rude implements of warfare, many of which were bruised
+and broken, and uttering continual shouts of triumph. When the crowd
+drew up opposite the Ti, I set myself to watch their proceedings most
+attentively; but scarcely had they halted when my servitor, who had left
+my side for an instant, touched my arm and proposed our returning to
+Marheyo’s house. To this I objected; but, to my surprise, Kory-Kory
+reiterated his request, and with an unusual vehemence of manner. Still,
+however, I refused to comply, and was retreating before him, as in his
+importunity he pressed upon me, when I felt a heavy hand laid upon my
+shoulder, and turning round, encountered the bulky form of Mow-Mow, a
+one-eyed chief, who had just detached himself from the crowd below, and
+had mounted the rear of the pi-pi upon which we stood. His cheek had
+been pierced by the point of a spear, and the wound imparted a still
+more frightful expression to his hideously tattooed face, already
+deformed by the loss of an eye. The warrior, without uttering a
+syllable, pointed fiercely in the direction of Marheyo’s house, while
+Kory-Kory, at the same time presenting his back, desired me to mount.
+
+I declined this offer, but intimated my willingness to withdraw, and
+moved slowly along the piazza, wondering what could be the cause of this
+unusual treatment. A few minutes’ consideration convinced me that the
+savages were about to celebrate some hideous rite in connection with
+their peculiar customs, and at which they were determined I should not
+be present. I descended from the pi-pi, and attended by Kory-Kory, who
+on this occasion did not show his usual commiseration for my lameness,
+but seemed only anxious to hurry me on, walked away from the place. As I
+passed through the noisy throng, which by this time completely environed
+the Ti, I looked with fearful curiosity at the three packages, which now
+were deposited upon the ground; but although I had no doubt as to their
+contents, still their thick coverings prevented my actually detecting
+the form of a human body.
+
+The next morning, shortly after sunrise, the same thundering sounds
+which had awakened me from sleep on the second day of the Feast of
+Calabashes, assured me that the savages were on the eve of celebrating
+another, and, as I fully believed, a horrible solemnity.
+
+All the inmates of the house, with the exception of Marheyo, his son,
+and Tinor, after assuming their gala dresses, departed in the direction
+of the Taboo Groves.
+
+Although I did not anticipate a compliance with my request, still, with
+a view of testing the truth of my suspicions, I proposed to Kory-Kory
+that, according to our usual custom in the morning, we should take a
+stroll to the Ti: he positively refused; and when I renewed the request,
+he evinced his determination to prevent my going there; and, to divert
+my mind from the subject, he offered to accompany me to the stream. We
+accordingly went, and bathed. On our coming back to the house, I was
+surprised to find that all its inmates had returned, and were lounging
+upon the mats as usual, although the drums still sounded from the
+groves.
+
+The rest of the day I spent with Kory-Kory and Fayaway, wandering about
+a part of the valley situated in an opposite direction from the Ti,
+and whenever I so much as looked towards that building, although it was
+hidden from view by intervening trees, and at the distance of more than
+a mile, my attendant would exclaim, ‘Taboo, taboo!’
+
+At the various houses where we stopped, I found many of the inhabitants
+reclining at their ease, or pursuing some light occupation, as if
+nothing unusual were going forward; but amongst them all I did not
+perceive a single chief or warrior. When I asked several of the people
+why they were not at the ‘Hoolah Hoolah’ (the feast), their uniformly
+answered the question in a manner which implied that it was not intended
+for them, but for Mehevi, Narmonee, Mow-Mow, Kolor, Womonoo, Kalow,
+running over, in their desire to make me comprehend their meaning, the
+names of all the principal chiefs.
+
+Everything, in short, strengthened my suspicions with regard to the
+nature of the festival they were now celebrating; and which amounted
+almost to a certainty. While in Nukuheva I had frequently been informed
+that the whole tribe were never present at these cannibal banquets, but
+the chiefs and priests only; and everything I now observed agreed with
+the account.
+
+The sound of the drums continued without intermission the whole day, and
+falling continually upon my ear, caused me a sensation of horror which I
+am unable to describe. On the following day, hearing none of those
+noisy indications of revelry, I concluded that the inhuman feast was
+terminated; and feeling a kind of morbid curiosity to discover whether
+the Ti might furnish any evidence of what had taken place there, I
+proposed to Kory-Kory to walk there. To this proposition he replied
+by pointing with his finger to the newly risen sun, and then up to the
+zenith, intimating that our visit must be deferred until noon. Shortly
+after that hour we accordingly proceeded to the Taboo Groves, and as
+soon as we entered their precincts, I looked fearfully round in, quest
+of some memorial of the scene which had so lately been acted there; but
+everything appeared as usual. On reaching the Ti, we found Mehevi and a
+few chiefs reclining on the mats, who gave me as friendly a reception as
+ever. No allusions of any kind were made by them to the recent events;
+and I refrained, for obvious reasons, from referring to them myself.
+
+After staying a short time I took my leave. In passing along the piazza,
+previously to descending from the pi-pi, I observed a curiously carved
+vessel of wood, of considerable size, with a cover placed over it, of
+the same material, and which resembled in shape a small canoe. It was
+surrounded by a low railing of bamboos, the top of which was scarcely
+a foot from the ground. As the vessel had been placed in its present
+position since my last visit, I at once concluded that it must have
+some connection with the recent festival, and, prompted by a curiosity
+I could not repress, in passing it I raised one end of the cover; at the
+same moment the chiefs, perceiving my design, loudly ejaculated, ‘Taboo!
+taboo!’
+
+But the slight glimpse sufficed; my eyes fell upon the disordered
+members of a human skeleton, the bones still fresh with moisture, and
+with particles of flesh clinging to them here and there!
+
+Kory-Kory, who had been a little in advance of me, attracted by
+the exclamations of the chiefs, turned round in time to witness the
+expression of horror on my countenance. He now hurried towards me,
+pointing at the same time to the canoe, and exclaiming rapidly,
+‘Puarkee! puarkee!’ (Pig, pig). I pretended to yield to the deception,
+and repeated the words after him several times, as though acquiescing
+in what he said. The other savages, either deceived by my conduct
+or unwilling to manifest their displeasure at what could not now be
+remedied, took no further notice of the occurrence, and I immediately
+left the Ti.
+
+All that night I lay awake, revolving in my mind the fearful situation
+in which I was placed. The last horrid revelation had now been made, and
+the full sense of my condition rushed upon my mind with a force I had
+never before experienced.
+
+Where, thought I, desponding, is there the slightest prospect of escape?
+The only person who seemed to possess the ability to assist me was the
+stranger Marnoo; but would he ever return to the valley? and if he did,
+should I be permitted to hold any communication with him? It seemed as
+if I were cut off from every source of hope, and that nothing remained
+but passively to await whatever fate was in store for me. A thousand
+times I endeavoured to account for the mysterious conduct of the
+natives.
+
+For what conceivable purpose did they thus retain me a captive? What
+could be their object in treating me with such apparent kindness, and
+did it not cover some treacherous scheme? Or, if they had no other
+design than to hold me a prisoner, how should I be able to pass away my
+days in this narrow valley, deprived of all intercourse with civilized
+beings, and for ever separated from friends and home?
+
+One only hope remained to me. The French could not long defer a visit
+to the bay, and if they should permanently locate any of their troops
+in the valley, the savages could not for any length of time conceal my
+existence from them. But what reason had I to suppose that I should be
+spared until such an event occurred, an event which might be postponed
+by a hundred different contingencies?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
+
+THE STRANGER AGAIN ARRIVES IN THE VALLEY--SINGULAR INTERVIEW WITH
+HIM--ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE--FAILURE--MELANCHOLY SITUATION--SYMPATHY OF
+MARHEYO
+
+
+‘Marnoo, Marnoo pemi!’ Such were the welcome sounds which fell upon my
+ear some ten days after the events related in the preceding chapter.
+Once more the approach of the stranger was heralded, and the
+intelligence operated upon me like magic. Again I should be able to
+converse with him in my own language; and I resolve at all hazards to
+concert with him some scheme, however desperate, to rescue me from a
+condition that had now become insupportable.
+
+As he drew near, I remembered with many misgivings the inauspicious
+termination of our former interview, and when he entered the house, I
+watched with intense anxiety the reception he met with from its inmates.
+To my joy, his appearance was hailed with the liveliest pleasure; and
+accosting me kindly, he seated himself by my side, and entered into
+conversation with the natives around him. It soon appeared however,
+that on this occasion he had not any intelligence of importance to
+communicate. I inquired of him from whence he had just come? He replied
+from Pueearka, his native valley, and that he intended to return to it
+the same day.
+
+At once it struck me that, could I but reach that valley under his
+protection, I might easily from thence reach Nukuheva by water; and
+animated by the prospect which this plan held, out I disclosed it in
+a few brief words to the stranger, and asked him how it could be best
+accomplished. My heart sunk within me, when in his broken English he
+answered me that it could never be effected. ‘Kanaka no let you go
+nowhere,’ he said; ‘you taboo. Why you no like to stay? Plenty moee-moee
+(sleep)--plenty ki-ki (eat)--plenty wahenee (young girls)--Oh, very good
+place Typee! Suppose you no like this bay, why you come? You no hear
+about Typee? All white men afraid Typee, so no white men come.’
+
+These words distressed me beyond belief; and when I had again related to
+him the circumstances under which I had descended into the valley, and
+sought to enlist his sympathies in my behalf by appealing to the bodily
+misery I had endure, he listened with impatience, and cut me short by
+exclaiming passionately, ‘Me no hear you talk any more; by by Kanaka
+get mad, kill you and me too. No you see he no want you to speak at
+all?--you see--ah! by by you no mind--you get well, he kill you, eat
+you, hang you head up there, like Happar Kanaka.--Now you listen--but no
+talk any more. By by I go;--you see way I go--Ah! then some night Kanaka
+all moee-moee (sleep)--you run away, you come Pueearka. I speak Pueearka
+Kanaka--he no harm you--ah! then I take you my canoe Nukuheva--and you
+run away ship no more.’ With these words, enforced by a vehemence of
+gesture I cannot describe, Marnoo started from my side, and immediately
+engaged in conversation with some of the chiefs who had entered the
+house.
+
+It would have been idle for me to have attempted resuming the interview
+so peremptorily terminated by Marnoo, who was evidently little disposed
+to compromise his own safety by any rash endeavour to ensure mine.
+But the plan he had suggested struck me as one which might possibly be
+accomplished, and I resolved to act upon it as speedily as possible.
+
+Accordingly, when he arose to depart, I accompanied him with the natives
+outside of the house, with a view of carefully noting the path he
+would take in leaving the valley. Just before leaping from the pi-pi he
+clasped my hand, and looking significantly at me, exclaimed, ‘Now you
+see--you do what I tell you--ah! then you do good;--you no do so--ah!
+then you die.’ The next moment he waved his spear to the islanders, and
+following the route that conducted to a defile in the mountains lying
+opposite the Happar side, was soon out of sight.
+
+A mode of escape was now presented to me, but how was I to avail myself
+of it? I was continually surrounded by the savages; I could not stir
+from one house to another without being attended by some of them; and
+even during the hours devoted to slumber, the slightest movement which I
+made seemed to attract the notice of those who shared the mats with me.
+In spite of these obstacles, however, I determined forthwith to make the
+attempt. To do so with any prospect of success, it was necessary that
+I should have at least two hours start before the islanders should
+discover my absence; for with such facility was any alarm spread through
+the valley, and so familiar, of course, were the inhabitants with the
+intricacies of the groves, that I could not hope, lame and feeble as I
+was, and ignorant of the route, to secure my escape unless I had this
+advantage. It was also by night alone that I could hope to accomplish my
+object, and then only by adopting the utmost precaution.
+
+The entrance to Marheyo’s habitation was through a low narrow opening
+in its wicker-work front. This passage, for no conceivable reason that I
+could devise, was always closed after the household had retired to rest,
+by drawing a heavy slide across it, composed of a dozen or more bits of
+wood, ingeniously fastened together by seizings of sinnate. When any of
+the inmates chose to go outside, the noise occasioned by the removing of
+this rude door awakened every body else; and on more than one occasion
+I had remarked that the islanders were nearly as irritable as more
+civilized beings under similar circumstances.
+
+The difficulty thus placed in my way I, determined to obviate in the
+following manner. I would get up boldly in the course of the night, and
+drawing the slide, issue from the house, and pretend that my object was
+merely to procure a drink from the calabash, which always stood
+without the dwelling on the corner of the pi-pi. On re-entering I would
+purposely omit closing the passage after me, and trusting that the
+indolence of the savages would prevent them from repairing my neglect,
+would return to my mat, and waiting patiently until all were again
+asleep, I would then steal forth, and at once take the route to
+Pueearka.
+
+The very night which followed Marnoo’s departure, I proceeded to put
+this project into execution. About midnight, as I imagined, I arose and
+drew the slide. The natives, just as I had expected, started up, while
+some of them asked, ‘Arware poo awa, Tommo?’ (where are you going,
+Tommo?) ‘Wai’ (water) I laconically answered, grasping the calabash. On
+hearing my reply they sank back again, and in a minute or two I returned
+to my mat, anxiously awaiting the result of the experiment.
+
+One after another the savages, turning restlessly, appeared to resume
+their slumbers, and rejoicing at the stillness which prevailed, I was
+about to rise again from my couch, when I heard a slight rustling--a
+dark form was intercepted between me and the doorway--the slide was
+drawn across it, and the individual, whoever he was, returned to
+his mat. This was a sad blow to me; but as it might have aroused the
+suspicions of the islanders to have made another attempt that night, I
+was reluctantly obliged to defer it until the next. Several times after
+I repeated the same manoeuvre, but with as little success as before.
+As my pretence for withdrawing from the house was to allay my thirst,
+Kory-Kory either suspecting some design on my part, or else prompted
+by a desire to please me, regularly every evening placed a calabash of
+water by my side.
+
+Even, under these inauspicious circumstances I again and again renewed
+the attempt, but when I did so, my valet always rose with me, as if
+determined I should not remove myself from his observation. For
+the present, therefore, I was obliged to abandon the attempt; but I
+endeavoured to console myself with the idea that by this mode I might
+yet effect my escape.
+
+Shortly after Marnoo’s visit I was reduced to such a state that it was
+with extreme difficulty I could walk, even with the assistance of a
+spear, and Kory-Kory, as formerly, was obliged to carry me daily to the
+stream.
+
+For hours and hours during the warmest part of the day I lay upon my
+mat, and while those around me were nearly all dozing away in careless
+ease, I remained awake, gloomily pondering over the fate which it
+appeared now idle for me to resist, when I thought of the loved friends
+who were thousands and thousands of miles from the savage island in
+which I was held a captive, when I reflected that my dreadful fate would
+for ever be concealed from them, and that with hope deferred they might
+continue to await my return long after my inanimate form had blended
+with the dust of the valley--I could not repress a shudder of anguish.
+
+How vividly is impressed upon my mind every minute feature of the scene
+which met my view during those long days of suffering and sorrow. At my
+request my mats were always spread directly facing the door, opposite
+which, and at a little distance, was the hut of boughs that Marheyo was
+building.
+
+Whenever my gentle Fayaway and Kory-Kory, laying themselves down beside
+me, would leave me awhile to uninterrupted repose, I took a strange
+interest in the slightest movements of the eccentric old warrior. All
+alone during the stillness of the tropical mid-day, he would pursue his
+quiet work, sitting in the shade and weaving together the leaflets of
+his cocoanut branches, or rolling upon his knee the twisted fibres of
+bark to form the cords with which he tied together the thatching of
+his tiny house. Frequently suspending his employment, and noticing my
+melancholy eye fixed upon him, he would raise his hand with a gesture
+expressive of deep commiseration, and then moving towards me slowly,
+would enter on tip-toes, fearful of disturbing the slumbering natives,
+and, taking the fan from my hand, would sit before me, swaying it gently
+to and fro, and gazing earnestly into my face.
+
+Just beyond the pi-pi, and disposed in a triangle before the entrance
+of the house, were three magnificent bread-fruit trees. At this moment I
+can recap to my mind their slender shafts, and the graceful inequalities
+of their bark, on which my eye was accustomed to dwell day after day in
+the midst of my solitary musings. It is strange how inanimate objects
+will twine themselves into our affections, especially in the hour of
+affliction. Even now, amidst all the bustle and stir of the proud and
+busy city in which I am dwelling, the image of those three trees seems
+to come as vividly before my eyes as if they were actually present, and
+I still feel the soothing quiet pleasure which I then had in watching
+hour after hour their topmost boughs waving gracefully in the breeze.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
+
+THE ESCAPE
+
+
+Nearly three weeks had elapsed since the second visit of Marnoo, and it
+must have been more than four months since I entered the valley, when
+one day about noon, and whilst everything was in profound silence,
+Mow-Mow, the one-eyed chief, suddenly appeared at the door, and leaning
+towards me as I lay directly facing him, said in a low tone, ‘Toby pemi
+ena’ (Toby has arrived here). Gracious heaven! What a tumult of emotions
+rushed upon me at this startling intelligence! Insensible to the pain
+that had before distracted me, I leaped to my feet, and called wildly
+to Kory-Kory who was reposing by my side. The startled islanders sprang
+from their mats; the news was quickly communicated to them; and the
+next moment I was making my way to the Ti on the back of Kory-Kory; and
+surrounded by the excited savages.
+
+All that I could comprehend of the particulars which Mow-Mow rehearsed
+to his audience as we proceeded, was that my long-lost companion had
+arrived in a boat which had just entered the bay. These tidings made
+me most anxious to be carried at once to the sea, lest some untoward
+circumstance should prevent our meeting; but to this they would not
+consent, and continued their course towards the royal abode. As we
+approached it, Mehevi and several chiefs showed themselves from the
+piazza, and called upon us loudly to come to them.
+
+As soon as we had approached, I endeavoured to make them understand that
+I was going down to the sea to meet Toby. To this the king objected, and
+motioned Kory-Kory to bring me into the house. It was in vain to resist;
+and in a few moments I found myself within the Ti, surrounded by a noisy
+group engaged in discussing the recent intelligence. Toby’s name was
+frequently repeated, coupled with violent exclamations of astonishment.
+It seemed as if they yet remained in doubt with regard to the fact of
+his arrival, at at every fresh report that was brought from the shore
+they betrayed the liveliest emotions.
+
+Almost frenzied at being held in this state of suspense, I passionately
+besought Mehevi to permit me to proceed. Whether my companion had
+arrived or not, I felt a presentiment that my own fate was about to be
+decided. Again and again I renewed my petition to Mehevi. He regarded me
+with a fixed and serious eye, but at length yielding to my importunity,
+reluctantly granted my request.
+
+Accompanied by some fifty of the natives, I now rapidly continued my
+journey; every few moments being transferred from the back of one
+to another, and urging my bearer forward all the while with earnest
+entreaties. As I thus hurried forward, no doubt as to the truth of the
+information I had received ever crossed my mind.
+
+I was alive only to the one overwhelming idea, that a chance of
+deliverance was now afforded me, if the jealous opposition of the
+savages could be overcome.
+
+Having been prohibited from approaching the sea during the whole of my
+stay in the valley, I had always associated with it the idea of escape.
+Toby too--if indeed he had ever voluntarily deserted me--must have
+effected this flight by the sea; and now that I was drawing near to
+it myself, I indulged in hopes which I had never felt before. It was
+evident that a boat had entered the bay, and I saw little reason to
+doubt the truth of the report that it had brought my companion. Every
+time therefore that we gained an elevation, I looked eagerly around,
+hoping to behold him. In the midst of an excited throng, who by their
+violent gestures and wild cries appeared to be under the influence of
+some excitement as strong as my own, I was now borne along at a rapid
+trot, frequently stooping my head to avoid the branches which crossed
+the path, and never ceasing to implore those who carried me to
+accelerate their already swift pace.
+
+In this manner we had proceeded about four or five miles, when we were
+met by a party of some twenty islanders, between whom and those who
+accompanied me ensued an animated conference. Impatient of the delay
+occasioned by this interruption, I was beseeching the man who carried me
+to proceed without his loitering companions, when Kory-Kory, running
+to my side, informed me, in three fatal words, that the news had all
+proved, false--that Toby had not arrived--‘Toby owlee pemi’. Heaven only
+knows how, in the state of mind and body I then was, I ever sustained
+the agony which this intelligence caused me; not that the news was
+altogether unexpected; but I had trusted that the fact might not have
+been made known until we should have arrived upon the beach. As it was,
+I at once foresaw the course the savages would pursue. They had only
+yielded thus far to my entreaties, that I might give a joyful welcome to
+my long-lost comrade; but now that it was known he had not arrived they
+would at once oblige me to turn back.
+
+My anticipations were but too correct. In spite of the resistance I
+made, they carried me into a house which was near the spot, and left me
+upon the mats. Shortly afterwards several of those who had accompanied
+me from the Ti, detaching themselves from the others, proceeded in
+the direction of the sea. Those who remained--among whom were Marheyo,
+Mow-Mow, Kory-Kory, and Tinor--gathered about the dwelling, and appeared
+to be awaiting their return.
+
+This convinced me that strangers--perhaps some of my own countrymen--had
+for some cause or other entered the bay. Distracted at the idea of their
+vicinity, and reckless of the pain which I suffered, I heeded not the
+assurances of the islanders, that there were no boats at the beach, but
+starting to my feet endeavoured to gain the door. Instantly the passage
+was blocked up by several men, who commanded me to resume my seat. The
+fierce looks of the irritated savages admonished me that I could gain
+nothing by force, and that it was by entreaty alone that I could hope to
+compass my object.
+
+Guided by this consideration, I turned to Mow-Mow, the only chief
+present whom I had been much in the habit of seeing, and carefully
+concealing, my real design, tried to make him comprehend that I still
+believed Toby to have arrived on the shore, and besought him to allow me
+to go forward to welcome him.
+
+To all his repeated assertions, that my companion had not been seen,
+I pretended to turn a deaf ear, while I urged my solicitations with an
+eloquence of gesture which the one-eyed chief appeared unable to resist.
+He seemed indeed to regard me as a forward child, to whose wishes he had
+not the heart to oppose force, and whom he must consequently humour. He
+spoke a few words to the natives, who at once retreated from the door,
+and I immediately passed out of the house.
+
+Here I looked earnestly round for Kory-Kory; but that hitherto faithful
+servitor was nowhere to be seen. Unwilling to linger even for a single
+instant when every moment might be so important, I motioned to a
+muscular fellow near me to take me upon his back; to my surprise he
+angrily refused. I turned to another, but with a like result. A third
+attempt was as unsuccessful, and I immediately perceived what had
+induced Mow-Mow to grant my request, and why the other natives conducted
+themselves in so strange a manner. It was evident that the chief had
+only given me liberty to continue my progress towards the sea, because
+he supposed that I was deprived of the means of reaching it.
+
+Convinced by this of their determination to retain me a captive, I
+became desperate; and almost insensible to the pain which I suffered,
+I seized a spear which was leaning against the projecting eaves of the
+house, and supporting myself with it, resumed the path that swept by
+the dwelling. To my surprise, I was suffered to proceed alone; all
+the natives remaining in front of the house, and engaging in earnest
+conversation, which every moment became more loud and vehement; and to
+my unspeakable delight, I perceived that some difference of opinion
+had arisen between them; that two parties, in short, were formed, and
+consequently that in their divided counsels there was some chance of my
+deliverance.
+
+Before I had proceeded a hundred yards I was again surrounded by the
+savages, who were still in all the heat of argument, and appeared every
+moment as if they would come to blows. In the midst of this tumult
+old Marheyo came to my side, and I shall never forget the benevolent
+expression of his countenance. He placed his arm upon my shoulder, and
+emphatically pronounced the only two English words I had taught him
+‘Home’ and ‘Mother’. I at once understood what he meant, and eagerly
+expressed my thanks to him. Fayaway and Kory-Kory were by his side, both
+weeping violently; and it was not until the old man had twice repeated
+the command that his son could bring himself to obey him, and take me
+again upon his back. The one-eyed chief opposed his doing so, but he was
+overruled, and, as it seemed to me, by some of his own party.
+
+We proceeded onwards, and never shall I forget the ecstasy I felt when I
+first heard the roar of the surf breaking upon the beach. Before long
+I saw the flashing billows themselves through the opening between the
+trees. Oh glorious sight and sound of ocean! with what rapture did I
+hail you as familiar friends! By this time the shouts of the crowd
+upon the beach were distinctly audible, and in the blended confusion
+of sounds I almost fancied I could distinguish the voices of my own
+countrymen.
+
+When we reached the open space which lay between the groves and the sea,
+the first object that met my view was an English whale-boat, lying with
+her bow pointed from the shore, and only a few fathoms distant from it.
+It was manned by five islanders, dressed in shirt tunics of calico. My
+first impression was that they were in the very act of pulling out from
+the bay; and that, after all my exertions, I had come too late. My soul
+sunk within me: but a second glance convinced me that the boat was only
+hanging off to keep out of the surf; and the next moment I heard my own
+name shouted out by a voice from the midst of the crowd.
+
+Looking in the direction of the sound, I perceived, to my indescribable
+joy, the tall figure of Karakoee, an Oahu Kanaka, who had often been
+aboard the ‘Dolly’, while she lay in Nukuheva. He wore the green
+shooting-jacket with gilt buttons, which had been given to him by an
+officer of the Reine Blanche--the French flag-ship--and in which I had
+always seen him dressed. I now remembered the Kanaka had frequently told
+me that his person was tabooed in all the valleys of the island, and the
+sight of him at such a moment as this filled my heart with a tumult of
+delight.
+
+Karakoee stood near the edge of the water with a large roll of
+cotton-cloth thrown over one arm, and holding two or three canvas bags
+of powder, while with the other hand he grasped a musket, which he
+appeared to be proffering to several of the chiefs around him. But they
+turned with disgust from his offers and seemed to be impatient at
+his presence, with vehement gestures waving him off to his boat, and
+commanding him to depart.
+
+The Kanaka, however, still maintained his ground, and I at once
+perceived that he was seeking to purchase my freedom. Animated by the
+idea, I called upon him loudly to come to me; but he replied, in broken
+English, that the islanders had threatened to pierce him with their
+spears, if he stirred a foot towards me. At this time I was still
+advancing, surrounded by a dense throng of the natives, several of whom
+had their hands upon me, and more than one javelin was threateningly
+pointed at me. Still I perceived clearly that many of those least
+friendly towards me looked irresolute and anxious. I was still some
+thirty yards from Karakoee when my farther progress was prevented by the
+natives, who compelled me to sit down upon the ground, while they still
+retained their hold upon my arms. The din and tumult now became tenfold,
+and I perceived that several of the priests were on the spot, all of
+whom were evidently urging Mow-Mow and the other chiefs to prevent my
+departure; and the detestable word ‘Roo-ne! Roo-ne!’ which I had heard
+repeated a thousand times during the day, was now shouted out on every
+side of me. Still I saw that the Kanaka continued his exertions in my
+favour--that he was boldly debating the matter with the savages, and was
+striving to entice them by displaying his cloth and powder, and snapping
+the lock of his musket. But all he said or did appeared only to augment
+the clamours of those around him, who seemed bent upon driving him into
+the sea.
+
+When I remembered the extravagant value placed by these people upon the
+articles which were offered to them in exchange for me, and which
+were so indignantly rejected, I saw a new proof of the same fixed
+determination of purpose they had all along manifested with regard
+to me, and in despair, and reckless of consequences, I exerted all my
+strength, and shaking myself free from the grasp of those who held me, I
+sprang upon my feet and rushed towards Karakoee.
+
+The rash attempt nearly decided my fate; for, fearful that I might slip
+from them, several of the islanders now raised a simultaneous shout,
+and pressing upon Karakoee, they menaced him with furious gestures, and
+actually forced him into the sea. Appalled at their violence, the poor
+fellow, standing nearly to the waist in the surf, endeavoured to pacify
+them; but at length fearful that they would do him some fatal violence,
+he beckoned to his comrades to pull in at once, and take him into the
+boat.
+
+It was at this agonizing moment, when I thought all hope was ended, that
+a new contest arose between the two parties who had accompanied me to
+the shore; blows were struck, wounds were given, and blood flowed. In
+the interest excited by the fray, every one had left me except Marheyo,
+Kory-Kory and poor dear Fayaway, who clung to me, sobbing indignantly.
+I saw that now or never was the moment. Clasping my hands together, I
+looked imploringly at Marheyo, and move towards the now almost deserted
+beach. The tears were in the old man’s eyes, but neither he nor
+Kory-Kory attempted to hold me, and I soon reached the Kanaka, who had
+anxiously watched my movements; the rowers pulled in as near as they
+dared to the edge of the surf; I gave one parting embrace to Fayaway,
+who seemed speechless with sorrow, and the next instant I found myself
+safe in the boat, and Karakoee by my side, who told the rowers at once
+to give way. Marheyo and Kory-Kory, and a great many of the women,
+followed me into the water, and I was determined, as the only mark of
+gratitude I could show, to give them the articles which had been brought
+as my ransom. I handed the musket to Kory-Kory, with a rapid gesture
+which was equivalent to a ‘Deed of Gift’; threw the roll of cotton to
+old Marheyo, pointing as I did so to poor Fayaway, who had retired from
+the edge of the water and was sitting down disconsolate on the shingles;
+and tumbled the powder-bags out to the nearest young ladies, all of whom
+were vastly willing to take them. This distribution did not occupy ten
+seconds, and before it was over the boat was under full way; the Kanaka
+all the while exclaiming loudly against what he considered a useless
+throwing away of valuable property.
+
+Although it was clear that my movements had been noticed by several of
+the natives, still they had not suspended the conflict in which they
+were engaged, and it was not until the boat was above fifty yards from
+the shore that Mow-Mow and some six or seven other warriors rushed into
+the sea and hurled their javelins at us. Some of the weapons passed
+quite as close to us as was desirable, but no one was wounded, and the
+men pulled away gallantly. But although soon out of the reach of the
+spears, our progress was extremely slow; it blew strong upon the shore,
+and the tide was against us; and I saw Karakoee, who was steering the
+boat, give many a look towards a jutting point of the bay round which we
+had to pass.
+
+For a minute or two after our departure, the savages, who had formed
+into different groups, remained perfectly motionless and silent. All
+at-once the enraged chief showed by his gestures that he had resolved
+what course he would take. Shouting loudly to his companions, and
+pointing with his tomahawk towards the headland, he set off at full
+speed in that direction, and was followed by about thirty of the
+natives, among whom were several of the priests, all yelling out
+‘Roo-ne! Roo-ne!’ at the very top of their voices. Their intention was
+evidently to swim off from the headland and intercept us in our course.
+The wind was freshening every minute, and was right in our teeth, and it
+was one of those chopping angry seas in which it is so difficult to
+row. Still the chances seemed in our favour, but when we came within a
+hundred yards of the point, the active savages were already dashing into
+the water, and we all feared that within five minutes’ time we should
+have a score of the infuriated wretches around us. If so our doom
+was sealed, for these savages, unlike the feeble swimmer of civilized
+countries, are, if anything, more formidable antagonists in the water
+than when on the land. It was all a trial of strength; our natives
+pulled till their oars bent again, and the crowd of swimmers shot
+through the water despite its roughness, with fearful rapidity.
+
+By the time we had reached the headland, the savages were spread right
+across our course. Our rowers got out their knives and held them ready
+between their teeth, and I seized the boat-hook. We were all aware that
+if they succeeded in intercepting us they would practise upon us the
+manoeuvre which has proved so fatal to many a boat’s crew in these seas.
+They would grapple the oars, and seizing hold of the gunwhale, capsize
+the boat, and then we should be entirely at their mercy.
+
+After a few breathless moments discerned Mow-Mow. The athletic islander,
+with his tomahawk between his teeth, was dashing the water before him
+till it foamed again. He was the nearest to us, and in another instant
+he would have seized one of the oars. Even at the moment I felt horror
+at the act I was about to commit; but it was no time for pity or
+compunction, and with a true aim, and exerting all my strength, I dashed
+the boat-hook at him. It struck him just below the throat, and forced
+him downwards. I had no time to repeat the blow, but I saw him rise
+to the surface in the wake of the boat, and never shall I forget the
+ferocious expression of his countenance.
+
+Only one other of the savages reached the boat. He seized the gunwhale,
+but the knives of our rowers so mauled his wrists, that he was forced to
+quit his hold, and the next minute we were past them all, and in safety.
+The strong excitement which had thus far kept me up, now left me, and I
+fell back fainting into the arms of Karakoee.
+
+           . . . . . . . .
+
+The circumstances connected with my most unexpected escape may be very
+briefly stated. The captain of an Australian vessel, being in distress
+for men in these remote seas, had put into Nukuheva in order to recruit
+his ship’s company; but not a single man was to be obtained; and the
+barque was about to get under weigh, when she was boarded by Karakoee,
+who informed the disappointed Englishman that an American sailor
+was detained by the savages in the neighbouring bay of Typee; and he
+offered, if supplied with suitable articles of traffic, to undertake his
+release. The Kanaka had gained his intelligence from Marnoo, to whom,
+after all, I was indebted for my escape. The proposition was acceded to;
+and Karakoee, taking with him five tabooed natives of Nukuheva, again
+repaired aboard the barque, which in a few hours sailed to that part of
+the island, and threw her main-top-sail aback right off the entrance
+to the Typee bay. The whale-boat, manned by the tabooed crew, pulled
+towards the head of the inlet, while the ship lay ‘off and on’ awaiting
+its return.
+
+The events which ensued have already been detailed, and little more
+remains to be related. On reaching the ‘Julia’ I was lifted over the
+side, and my strange appearance and remarkable adventure occasioned the
+liveliest interest. Every attention was bestowed upon me that humanity
+could suggest. But to such a state was I reduced, that three months
+elapsed before I recovered my health.
+
+The mystery which hung over the fate of my friend and companion Toby has
+never been cleared up. I still remain ignorant whether he succeeded in
+leaving the valley, or perished at the hands of the islanders.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF TOBY
+
+
+The morning my comrade left me, as related in the narrative, he was
+accompanied by a large party of the natives, some of them carrying fruit
+and hogs for the purposes of traffic, as the report had spread that
+boats had touched at the bay.
+
+As they proceeded through the settled parts of the valley, numbers
+joined them from every side, running with animated cries from every
+pathway. So excited were the whole party, that eager as Toby was to gain
+the beach, it was almost as much as he could do to keep up with them.
+Making the valley ring with their shouts, they hurried along on a swift
+trot, those in advance pausing now and then, and flourishing their
+weapons to urge the rest forward.
+
+Presently they came to a place where the paths crossed a bend of the
+main stream of the valley. Here a strange sound came through the grove
+beyond, and the Islanders halted. It was Mow-Mow, the one-eyed chief,
+who had gone on before; he was striking his heavy lance against the
+hollow bough of a tree.
+
+This was a signal of alarm;--for nothing was now heard but shouts
+of ‘Happar! Happar!’--the warriors tilting with their spears and
+brandishing them in the air, and the women and boys shouting to each
+other, and picking up the stones in the bed of the stream. In a moment
+or two Mow-Mow and two or three other chiefs ran out from the grove, and
+the din increased ten fold.
+
+Now, thought Toby, for a fray; and being unarmed, he besought one of the
+young men domiciled with Marheyo for the loan of his spear. But he was
+refused; the youth roguishly telling him that the weapon was very good
+for him (the Typee), but that a white man could fight much better with
+his fists.
+
+The merry humour of this young wag seemed to be shared by the rest, for
+in spite of their warlike cries and gestures, everybody was capering
+and laughing, as if it was one of the funniest things in the world to be
+awaiting the flight of a score or two of Happar javelins from an ambush
+in the thickets.
+
+While my comrade was in vain trying to make out the meaning of all this,
+a good number of the natives separated themselves from the rest and ran
+off into the grove on one side, the others now keeping perfectly still,
+as if awaiting the result. After a little while, however, Mow-Mow, who
+stood in advance, motioned them to come on stealthily, which they did,
+scarcely rustling a leaf. Thus they crept along for ten or fifteen
+minutes, every now and then pausing to listen.
+
+Toby by no means relished this sort of skulking; if there was going to
+be a fight, he wanted it to begin at once. But all in good time,--for
+just then, as they went prowling into the thickest of the wood, terrific
+howls burst upon them on all sides, and volleys of darts and stones flew
+across the path. Not an enemy was to be seen, and what was still more
+surprising, not a single man dropped, though the pebbles fell among the
+leaves like hail.
+
+There was a moment’s pause, when the Typees, with wild shrieks, flung
+themselves into the covert, spear in hand; nor was Toby behindhand.
+Coming so near getting his skull broken by the stones, and animated by
+an old grudge he bore the Happars, he was among the first to dash at
+them. As he broke his way through the underbush, trying, as he did
+so, to wrest a spear from a young chief, the shouts of battle all of a
+sudden ceased, and the wood was as still as death. The next moment, the
+party who had left them so mysteriously rushed out from behind every
+bush and tree, and united with the rest in long and merry peals of
+laughter.
+
+It was all a sham, and Toby, who was quite out of breath with
+excitement, was much incensed at being made a fool of.
+
+It afterwards turned out that the whole affair had been concerted for
+his particular benefit, though with what precise view it would be hard
+to tell. My comrade was the more enraged at this boys’ play, since it
+had consumed so much time, every moment of which might be precious.
+Perhaps, however, it was partly intended for this very purpose; and he
+was led to think so, because when the natives started again, he observed
+that they did not seem to be in so great a hurry as before. At last,
+after they had gone some distance, Toby, thinking all the while that
+they never would get to the sea, two men came running towards them,
+and a regular halt ensued, followed by a noisy discussion, during which
+Toby’s name was often repeated. All this made him more and more anxious
+to learn what was going on at the beach; but it was in vain that he now
+tried to push forward; the natives held him back.
+
+In a few moments the conference ended, and many of them ran down the
+path in the direction of the water, the rest surrounding Toby, and
+entreating him to ‘Moee’, or sit down and rest himself. As an additional
+inducement, several calabashes of food, which had been brought along,
+were now placed on the ground, and opened, and pipes also were lighted.
+Toby bridled his impatience a while, but at last sprang to his feet
+and dashed forward again. He was soon overtaken nevertheless, and again
+surrounded, but without further detention was then permitted to go down
+to the sea.
+
+They came out upon a bright green space between the groves and the
+water, and close under the shadow of the Happar mountain, where a path
+was seen winding out of sight through a gorge.
+
+No sign of a boat, however, was beheld, nothing but a tumultuous crowd
+of men and women, and some one in their midst, earnestly talking to
+them. As my comrade advanced, this person came forward and proved to
+be no stranger. He was an old grizzled sailor, whom Toby and myself had
+frequently seen in Nukuheva, where he lived an easy devil-may-care life
+in the household of Mowanna the king, going by the name of ‘Jimmy’.
+In fact he was the royal favourite, and had a good deal to say in his
+master’s councils. He wore a Manilla hat and a sort of tappa morning
+gown, sufficiently loose and negligent to show the verse of a song
+tattooed upon his chest, and a variety of spirited cuts by native
+artists in other parts of his body. He sported a fishing rod in his
+hand, and carried a sooty old pipe slung about his neck.
+
+This old rover having retired from active life, had resided in Nukuheva
+some time--could speak the language, and for that reason was frequently
+employed by the French as an interpreter. He was an arrant old gossip
+too; for ever coming off in his canoe to the ships in the bay, and
+regaling their crews with choice little morsels of court scandal--such,
+for instance, as a shameful intrigue of his majesty with a Happar
+damsel, a public dancer at the feasts--and otherwise relating some
+incredible tales about the Marquesas generally. I remember in particular
+his telling the Dolly’s crew what proved to be literally a cock-and-bull
+story, about two natural prodigies which he said were then on the
+island. One was an old monster of a hermit, having a marvellous
+reputation for sanctity, and reputed a famous sorcerer, who lived away
+off in a den among the mountains, where he hid from the world a
+great pair of horns that grew out of his temples. Notwithstanding his
+reputation for piety, this horrid old fellow was the terror of all the
+island round, being reported to come out from his retreat, and go a
+man-hunting every dark night. Some anonymous Paul Pry, too, coming down
+the mountain, once got a peep at his den, and found it full of bones. In
+short, he was a most unheard-of monster.
+
+The other prodigy Jimmy told us about was the younger son of a chief,
+who, although but just turned of ten, had entered upon holy orders,
+because his superstitious countrymen thought him especially intended
+for the priesthood from the fact of his having a comb on his head like
+a rooster. But this was not all; for still more wonderful to relate, the
+boy prided himself upon his strange crest, being actually endowed with a
+cock’s voice, and frequently crowing over his peculiarity.
+
+But to return to Toby. The moment he saw the old rover on the beach, he
+ran up to him, the natives following after, and forming a circle round
+them.
+
+After welcoming him to the shore, Jimmy went on to tell him how that he
+knew all about our having run away from the ship, and being among the
+Typees. Indeed, he had been urged by Mowanna to come over to the valley,
+and after visiting his friends there, to bring us back with him, his
+royal master being exceedingly anxious to share with him the reward
+which had been held out for our capture. He, however, assured Toby that
+he had indignantly spurned the offer.
+
+All this astonished my comrade not a little, as neither of us had
+entertained the least idea that any white man ever visited the Typees
+sociably. But Jimmy told him that such was the case nevertheless,
+although he seldom came into the bay, and scarcely ever went back
+from the beach. One of the priests of the valley, in some way or other
+connected with an old tattooed divine in Nukuheva, was a friend of his,
+and through him he was ‘taboo’.
+
+He said, moreover, that he was sometimes employed to come round to the
+bay, and engage fruit for ships lying in Nukuheva. In fact, he was now
+on that very errand, according to his own account, having just come
+across the mountains by the way of Happar. By noon of the next day the
+fruit would be heaped up in stacks on the beach, in readiness for the
+boats which he then intended to bring into the bay.
+
+Jimmy now asked Toby whether he wished to leave the island--if he did,
+there was a ship in want of men lying in the other harbour, and he would
+be glad to take him over, and see him on board that very day.
+
+‘No,’ said Toby, ‘I cannot leave the island unless my comrade goes with
+me. I left him up the valley because they would not let him come down.
+Let us go now and fetch him.’
+
+‘But how is he to cross the mountain with us,’ replied Jimmy, ‘even if
+we get him down to the beach? Better let him stay till tomorrow, and I
+will bring him round to Nukuheva in the boats.’
+
+‘That will never do,’ said Toby, ‘but come along with me now, and let
+us get him down here at any rate,’ and yielding to the impulse of the
+moment, he started to hurry back into the valley. But hardly was his
+back turned, when a dozen hands were laid on him, and he learned that he
+could not go a step further.
+
+It was in vain that he fought with them; they would not hear of his
+stirring from the beach. Cut to the heart at this unexpected repulse,
+Toby now conjured the sailor to go after me alone. But Jimmy replied,
+that in the mood the Typees then were they would not permit him so to
+do, though at the same time he was not afraid of their offering him any
+harm.
+
+Little did Toby then think, as he afterwards had good reason to suspect,
+that this very Jimmy was a heartless villain, who, by his arts, had just
+incited the natives to restrain him as he was in the act of going after
+me. Well must the old sailor have known, too, that the natives would
+never consent to our leaving together, and he therefore wanted to get
+Toby off alone, for a purpose which he afterwards made plain. Of all
+this, however, my comrade now knew nothing.
+
+He was still struggling with the islanders when Jimmy again came up to
+him, and warned him against irritating them, saying that he was only
+making matters worse for both of us, and if they became enraged, there
+was no telling what might happen. At last he made Toby sit down on a
+broken canoe by a pile of stones, upon which was a ruinous little shrine
+supported by four upright poles, and in front partly screened by a net.
+The fishing parties met there, when they came in from the sea, for their
+offerings were laid before an image, upon a smooth black stone within.
+This spot Jimmy said was strictly ‘taboo’, and no one would molest or
+come near him while he stayed by its shadow. The old sailor then went
+off, and began speaking very earnestly to Mow-Mow and some other chiefs,
+while all the rest formed a circle round the taboo place, looking
+intently at Toby, and talking to each other without ceasing.
+
+Now, notwithstanding what Jimmy had just told him, there presently came
+up to my comrade an old woman, who seated herself beside him on the
+canoe.
+
+‘Typee motarkee?’ said she. ‘Motarkee nuee,’ said Toby.
+
+She then asked him whether he was going to Nukuheva; he nodded yes; and
+with a plaintive wail and her eyes filling with tears she rose and left
+him.
+
+This old woman, the sailor afterwards said, was the wife of an aged king
+of a small island valley, communicating by a deep pass with the country
+of the Typees. The inmates of the two valleys were related to each other
+by blood, and were known by the same name. The old woman had gone down
+into the Typee valley the day before, and was now with three chiefs, her
+sons, on a visit to her kinsmen.
+
+As the old king’s wife left him, Jimmy again came up to Toby, and told
+him that he had just talked the whole matter over with the natives, and
+there was only one course for him to follow. They would not allow him to
+go back into the valley, and harm would certainly come to both him and
+me, if he remained much longer on the beach. ‘So,’ said he, ‘you and I
+had better go to Nukuheva now overland, and tomorrow I will bring Tommo,
+as they call him, by water; they have promised to carry him down to the
+sea for me early in the morning, so that there will be no delay.’
+
+‘No, no,’ said Toby desperately, ‘I will not leave him that way; we must
+escape together.’
+
+‘Then there is no hope for you,’ exclaimed the sailor, ‘for if I leave
+you here on the beach, as soon as I am gone you will be carried back
+into the valley, and then neither of you will ever look upon the
+sea again.’ And with many oaths he swore that if he would only go to
+Nukuheva with him that day, he would be sure to have me there the very
+next morning.
+
+‘But how do you know they will bring him down to the beach tomorrow,
+when they will not do so today?’ said Toby. But the sailor had many
+reasons, all of which were so mixed up with the mysterious customs
+of the islanders, that he was none the wiser. Indeed, their conduct,
+especially in preventing him from returning into the valley, was
+absolutely unaccountable to him; and added to everything else, was the
+bitter reflection, that the old sailor, after all, might possibly be
+deceiving him. And then again he had to think of me, left alone with the
+natives, and by no means well. If he went with Jimmy, he might at least
+hope to procure some relief for me. But might not the savages who had
+acted so strangely, hurry me off somewhere before his return? Then, even
+if he remained, perhaps they would not let him go back into the valley
+where I was.
+
+Thus perplexed was my poor comrade; he knew not what to do, and his
+courageous spirit was of no use to him now. There he was, all by
+himself, seated upon the broken canoe--the natives grouped around him at
+a distance, and eyeing him more and more fixedly. ‘It is getting late:
+said Jimmy, who was standing behind the rest. ‘Nukuheva is far off, and
+I cannot cross the Happar country by night. You see how it is;--if you
+come along with me, all will be well; if you do not, depend upon it,
+neither of you will ever escape.’
+
+‘There is no help for it,’ said Toby, at last, with a heavy heart, ‘I
+will have to trust you,’ and he came out from the shadow of the little
+shrine, and cast a long look up the valley.
+
+‘Now keep close to my side,’ said the sailor, ‘and let us be moving
+quickly.’ Tinor and Fayaway here appeared; the kindhearted old woman
+embracing Toby’s knees, and giving way to a flood of tears; while
+Fayaway, hardly less moved, spoke some few words of English she had
+learned, and held up three fingers before him--in so many days he would
+return.
+
+At last Jimmy pulled Toby out of the crowd, and after calling to a
+young Typee who was standing by with a young pig in his arms, all three
+started for the mountains.
+
+‘I have told them that you are coming back again,’ said the old fellow,
+laughing, as they began the ascent, ‘but they’ll have to wait a long
+time.’ Toby turned, and saw the natives all in motion--the girls waving
+their tappas in adieu, and the men their spears. As the last figure
+entered the grove with one arm raised, and the three fingers spread, his
+heart smote him.
+
+As the natives had at last consented to his going, it might have been,
+that some of them, at least, really counted upon his speedy return;
+probably supposing, as indeed he had told them when they were coming
+down the valley, that his only object in leaving them was to procure the
+medicines I needed. This, Jimmy also must have told them. And as they
+had done before, when my comrade, to oblige me, started on his perilous
+journey to Nukuheva, they looked upon me, in his absence, as one of two
+inseparable friends who was a sure guaranty for the other’s return.
+This is only my own supposition, however, for as to all their strange
+conduct, it is still a mystery.
+
+‘You see what sort of a taboo man I am,’ said the sailor, after for some
+time silently following the path which led up the mountain. ‘Mow-Mow
+made me a present of this pig here, and the man who carries it will
+go right through Happar, and down into Nukuheva with us. So long as he
+stays by me he is safe, and just so it will be with you, and tomorrow
+with Tommo. Cheer up, then, and rely upon me, you will see him in the
+morning.’
+
+The ascent of the mountain was not very difficult, owing to its being
+near to the sea, where the island ridges are comparatively low; the
+path, too, was a fine one, so that in a short time all three were
+standing on the summit with the two valleys at their feet. The white
+cascade marking the green head of the Typee valley first caught Toby’s
+eye; Marheyo’s house could easily be traced by them.
+
+As Jimmy led the way along the ridge, Toby observed that the valley of
+the Happars did not extend near so far inland as that of the Typees.
+This accounted for our mistake in entering the latter valley as we had.
+
+A path leading down from the mountain was soon seen, and, following it,
+the party were in a short time fairly in the Happar valley.
+
+‘Now,’ said Jimmy, as they hurried on, ‘we taboo men have wives in all
+the bays, and I am going to show you the two I have here.’
+
+So, when they came to the house where he said they lived,--which was
+close by the base of the mountain in a shady nook among the groves--he
+went in, and was quite furious at finding it empty--the ladies, had gone
+out. However, they soon made their appearance, and to tell the truth,
+welcomed Jimmy quite cordially, as well as Toby, about whom they were
+very inquisitive. Nevertheless, as the report of their arrival spread,
+and the Happars began to assemble, it became evident that the appearance
+of a white stranger among them was not by any means deemed so wonderful
+an event as in the neighbouring valley.
+
+The old sailor now bade his wives prepare something to eat, as he must
+be in Nukuheva before dark. A meal of fish, bread-fruit, and bananas,
+was accordingly served up, the party regaling themselves on the mats, in
+the midst of a numerous company.
+
+The Happars put many questions to Jimmy about Toby; and Toby himself
+looked sharply at them, anxious to recognize the fellow who gave him the
+wound from which he was still suffering. But this fiery gentleman, so
+handy with his spear, had the delicacy, it seemed, to keep out of view.
+Certainly the sight of him would not have been any added inducement to
+making a stay in the valley,--some of the afternoon loungers in Happar
+having politely urged Toby to spend a few days with them,--there was a
+feast coming on. He, however, declined.
+
+All this while the young Typee stuck to Jimmy like his shadow, and
+though as lively a dog as any of his tribe, he was now as meek as
+a lamb, never opening his mouth except to eat. Although some of the
+Happars looked queerly at him, others were more civil, and seemed
+desirous of taking him abroad and showing him the valley. But the Typee
+was not to be cajoled in that way. How many yards he would have to
+remove from Jimmy before the taboo would be powerless, it would be hard
+to tell, but probably he himself knew to a fraction.
+
+On the promise of a red cotton handkerchief, and something else which he
+kept secret, this poor fellow had undertaken a rather ticklish journey,
+though, as far as Toby could ascertain, it was something that had never
+happened before.
+
+The island-punch--arva--was brought in at the conclusion of the repast,
+and passed round in a shallow calabash.
+
+Now my comrade, while seated in the Happar house, began to feel more
+troubled than ever at leaving me; indeed, so sad did he feel that he
+talked about going back to the valley, and wanted Jimmy to escort him
+as far as the mountains. But the sailor would not listen to him, and, by
+way of diverting his thoughts, pressed him to drink of the arva. Knowing
+its narcotic nature, he refused; but Jimmy said he would have something
+mixed with it, which would convert it into an innocent beverage that
+would inspirit them for the rest of their journey. So at last he was
+induced to drink of it, and its effects were just as the sailor had
+predicted; his spirits rose at once, and all his gloomy thoughts left
+him.
+
+The old rover now began to reveal his true character, though he was
+hardly suspected at the time. ‘If I get you off to a ship,’ said he,
+‘you will surely give a poor fellow something for saving you.’ In short,
+before they left the house, he made Toby promise that he would give him
+five Spanish dollars if he succeeded in getting any part of his wages
+advanced from the vessel, aboard of which they were going; Toby,
+moreover, engaging to reward him still further, as soon as my
+deliverance was accomplished.
+
+A little while after this they started again, accompanied by many of the
+natives, and going up the valley, took a steep path near its head,
+which led to Nukuheva. Here the Happars paused and watched them as they
+ascended the mountain, one group of bandit-looking fellows, shaking
+their spears and casting threatening glances at the poor Typee, whose
+heart as well as heels seemed much the lighter when he came to look down
+upon them.
+
+On gaining the heights once more, their way led for a time along several
+ridges covered with enormous ferns. At last they entered upon a wooded
+tract, and here they overtook a party of Nukuheva natives, well armed,
+and carrying bundles of long poles. Jimmy seemed to know them all very
+well, and stopped for a while, and had a talk about the ‘Wee-Wees’, as
+the people of Nukuheva call the Monsieurs.
+
+The party with the poles were King Mowanna’s men, and by his orders they
+had been gathering them in the ravines for his allies the French.
+
+Leaving these fellows to trudge on with their loads, Toby and his
+companions now pushed forward again, as the sun was already low in the
+west. They came upon the valleys of Nukuheva on one side of the bay,
+where the highlands slope off into the sea. The men-of-war were still
+lying in the harbour, and as Toby looked down upon them, the strange
+events which had happened so recently, seemed all a dream.
+
+They soon descended towards the beach, and found themselves in Jimmy’s
+house before it was well dark. Here he received another welcome from
+his Nukuheva wives, and after some refreshments in the shape of cocoanut
+milk and poee-poee, they entered a canoe (the Typee of course going
+along) and paddled off to a whaleship which was anchored near the shore.
+This was the vessel in want of men. Our own had sailed some time before.
+The captain professed great pleasure at seeing Toby, but thought from
+his exhausted appearance that he must be unfit for duty. However, he
+agreed to ship him, as well as his comrade, as soon as he should arrive.
+Toby begged hard for an armed boat, in which to go round to Typee and
+rescue me, notwithstanding the promises of Jimmy. But this the captain
+would not hear of, and told him to have patience, for the sailor would
+be faithful to his word. When, too, he demanded the five silver dollars
+for Jimmy, the captain was unwilling to give them. But Toby insisted
+upon it, as he now began to think that Jimmy might be a mere mercenary,
+who would be sure to prove faithless if not well paid. Accordingly he
+not only gave him the money, but took care to assure him, over and over
+again, that as soon as he brought me aboard he would receive a still
+larger sum.
+
+Before sun-rise the next day, Jimmy and the Typee started in two of the
+ship’s boats, which were manned by tabooed natives. Toby, of course, was
+all eagerness to go along, but the sailor told him that if he did, it
+would spoil all; so, hard as it was, he was obliged to remain.
+
+Towards evening he was on the watch, and descried the boats turning the
+headland and entering the bay. He strained his eyes, and thought he saw
+me; but I was not there. Descending from the mast almost distracted, he
+grappled Jimmy as he struck the deck, shouting in a voice that startled
+him, ‘Where is Tommo?’ The old fellow faltered, but soon recovering,
+did all he could to soothe him, assuring him that it had proved to be
+impossible to get me down to the shore that morning; assigning many
+plausible reasons, and adding that early on the morrow he was going to
+visit the bay again in a French boat, when, if he did not find me on the
+beach--as this time he certainly expected to--he would march right back
+into the valley, and carry me away at all hazards. He, however, again
+refused to allow Toby to accompany him. Now, situated as Toby was, his
+sole dependence for the present was upon this Jimmy, and therefore he
+was fain to comfort himself as well as he could with what the old sailor
+told him. The next morning, however, he had the satisfaction of seeing
+the French boat start with Jimmy in it. Tonight, then, I will see him,
+thought Toby; but many a long day passed before he ever saw Tommo again.
+Hardly was the boat out of sight, when the captain came forward and
+ordered the anchor weighed; he was going to sea.
+
+Vain were all Toby’s ravings--they were disregarded; and when he came to
+himself, the sails were set, and the ship fast leaving the land.
+
+... ‘Oh!’ said he to me at our meeting, ‘what sleepless nights were
+mine. Often I started from my hammock, dreaming you were before me, and
+upbraiding me for leaving you on the island.’
+
+       . . . . . . .
+
+There is little more to be related. Toby left this vessel at New
+Zealand, and after some further adventures, arrived home in less than
+two years after leaving the Marquesas. He always thought of me as
+dead--and I had every reason to suppose that he too was no more; but a
+strange meeting was in store for us, one which made Toby’s heart all the
+lighter.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE.
+
+
+The author was more than two years in the South Seas, after escaping
+from the valley, as recounted in the last chapter. Some time after
+returning home the foregoing narrative was published, though it was
+little thought at the time that this would be the means of revealing
+the existence of Toby, who had long been given up for lost. But so it
+proved.
+
+The story of his escape supplies a natural sequel to the adventure, and
+as such it is now added to the volume. It was related to the author by
+Toby himself, not ten days since.
+
+New York, July, 1846.
+
+
+
+
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