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Typee: A Romance of the South Seas

by Herman Melville · English · Gutenberg #1900 · 676,289 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Typee: A Romance of the South Seas

Author: Herman Melville

Editor: Arthur Griffin Stedman


        
Release date: September 1, 1999 [eBook #1900]
                Most recently updated: May 28, 2022

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1900

Credits: Dianne Bean and David Widger


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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

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