HERMAN MELVILLE (1819-1891)

Dana had voyaged to the Pacific at the advice of his physician; Hermán Melville went to sea from pure love of adventure. Though of New England descent, he was born in New York. He lived there during his boyhood, and after 1860 he made it his home. College had no attractions for him. Before he was twenty he had become a sailor, and at twenty-two he had joined the crew of a whaler bound for the Pacific. Never was voyage more full of adventure. During eighteen months he experienced all the hardships and excitements of the sperm whale fishery; he found brutality equal to that which Dana had experienced; he deserted the ship and with a single companion lived for four months among the Marquesas cannibals, was rescued after a sharp fight by an Australian whaler, and after two more years of wandering came home on an American man of war.

His experiences he recorded first in Typee: a Peep at Polynesian Life During a Four-Months' Residence in a Valley of the Marquesas, 1846, and then in Omoo, 1847. These books, which purport to be plain narrative of facts, he followed with Mardi: and a Voyage Thither, 1849, 'a romance of Polynesian Adventure' as he termed it, and by Redburn: His First Voyage, 1849, a story undoubtedly based upon his own first voyage to Liverpool. These he followed with White-Jacket; or, the World in a Man of War, 1850, and Moby Dick; or, the Whale, 1851, the latter a wild mélange of adventure and of Gothic romance which he dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne. As a novelist Melville was a failure. He was strong, however, in his pictures of life on the ocean. In some chapters of stirring action few have surpassed him. In descriptions of life in the forecastle and of all that pertains to nautical adventure he was a realist, and his pictures are first-hand documents for the history of a vanished epoch.

THE SOCIAL CONDITION AND
GENERAL CHARACTER OF
THE TYPEES

There

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There seemed to be no rogues of any kind in Typee. In the darkest nights the natives slept securely, with all their worldly wealth around them, in houses the doors of which were never fastened. The disquieting ideas of theft or assassina- 10 tion never disturbed them. Each islander reposed beneath his own palmetto thatching, or sat under his own bread-fruit tree, with none to molest or alarm him. was not a padlock in the valley, nor anything that answered the purpose of one; still there was no community of goods. This long spear, so elegantly carved and highly polished, belongs to Warmoonoo; it is far handsomer than the one Marheyo 20 so greatly prizes; it is the most valuable article belonging to its owner. And yet I have seen it leaning against a cocoanut tree in the grove, and there it was found when sought for. Here is a 25 sperm-whale tooth, graven all over with cunning devices: it is the property of Karluna: it is the most precious of the

damsel's ornaments. In her estimation its price is far above rubies and yet there hangs the dental jewel by its cord of braided bark, in the girl's house, which 5 is far back in the valley; the door is left open, and all the inmates have gone off to bathe in the stream.

or

So much for the respect in which such matters are held in Typee. As to the land of the valley, whether it was the joint property of its inhabitants, whether it was parceled out among a certain number of landed proprietors who allowed everybody to roam over it as much as they pleased, I never could ascertain. At any rate, musty parchments and title-deeds there were none in the island; and I am half inclined to believe that its inhabitants hold their broad valleys in fee simple from nature herself.

Yesterday I saw Kory-Kory hie him away, armed with a long pole, with which, -standing on the ground, he knocked down the fruit from the topmost boughs of the trees, and brought them home in his basket of cocoa-nut leaves. To-day I see an islander, whom I know to reside in a distant part of the valley, doing the self

same thing. On the sloping bank of the stream are a number of banana-trees. I have often seen a score or two of young people making a merry foray on the great golden clusters, and bearing them off, one after another, to different parts of the vale, shouting and tramping as they went. No churlish old curmudgeon could have been the owner of that grove of breadfruit trees, or of these glorious yellow 10 bunches of bananas.

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From what I have said it will be perceived that there is a vast difference between personal property' and 'real estate' in the valley of Typee. Some in- 15 dividuals, of course, are more wealthy than others. For example: the ridge-pole of Marheyo's house bends under the weight of many a huge packet of tappa; his long couch is laid with mats placed one upon the other seven deep. Outside, Tinor has ranged along in her bamboo cupboard- or whatever the place may be called a goodly array of calabashes and wooden trenchers. Now, the house 25 just beyond the grove, and next to Marheyo's, occupied by Ruaruga, is not quite so well furnished. There are only three moderate-sized packages swinging overhead: there are only two layers of 30 mats beneath; and the calabashes and trenchers are not so numerous, nor so tastefully stained and carved. But then, Ruaruga has a house - not so pretty a one, to be sure - but just as commodious 35 as Marheyo's; and, I suppose, if he wished to vie with his neighbor's establishment, he could do so with very little trouble. These, in short, constitute the chief differences perceivable in the rela- 40 tive wealth of the people in Typee.

They lived in great harmony with each other. I will give an instance of their fraternal feeling.

One day, in returning with Kory-Kory 45 from my accustomed visit to the Ti, we passed by a little opening in the grove; on one side of which, my attendant informed me, was that afternoon to be built a dwelling of bamboo. At least a hun- 50 dred of the natives were bringing materials to the ground, some carrying in their hands one or two of the canes which were to form the sides, others slender rods of the habiscus, strung with palmetto 55 leaves, for the roof. Every one contributed something to the work; and by the united, but easy, and even indolent, labors

of all, the entire work was completed before sunset. The islanders, while employed in erecting this tenement, reminded me of a colony of beavers at work. To 5 be sure, they were hardly as silent and demure as those wonderful creatures, nor were they by any means as diligent. To tell the truth, they were somewhat inclined to be lazy, but a perfect tumult of hilarity prevailed; and they worked together so unitedly, and seemed actuated by such an instinct of friendliness, that it was truly beautiful to behold.

Not a single female took part in this employment: and if the degree of consideration in which the ever-adorable sex is held by the men be- as the philosophers affirma just criterion of the degree of refinement among a people, then I may truly pronounce the Typees to be as polished a community as ever the sun shone upon. The religious restrictions of the taboo alone excepted, the women of the valley were allowed every possible indulgence. Nowhere are the ladies more assiduously courted; nowhere are they better appreciated as the contributors to our highest enjoyments; and nowhere are they more sensible of their power. Far different from their condition among many rude nations, where the women are made to perform all the work while their ungallant lords and masters lie buried in sloth, the gentle sex in the valley of Typee were exempt from toil, if toil it might be called that, even in that tropical climate, never distilled one drop of perspiration. Their light household occupations, together with the manufacture of tappa, the platting of mats, and the polishing of drinking-vessels, were the only employments pertaining to the women. even these resembled those pleasant avocations which fill up the elegant morning leisure of our fashionable ladies at home. But in these occupations, slight and agreeable though they were, the giddy young girls very seldom engaged. Indeed these wilful, care-killing damsels. were averse to all useful employment. Like so many spoiled beauties, they ranged through the groves-bathed in stream danced flirted played all manner of mischievous pranks, and passed their days in one merry round of thoughtless happiness.

And

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During my whole stay on the island I never witnessed a single quarrel, nor any