 | CHAPTER IV. Narrative of a four months' residence among the natives of a valley of the Marquesas Islands, or, A peep at Polynesian life |  |
CHAPTER IV.
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, point-blank
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 cruizes were unreasonably protracted. The
captain was the author of these abuses; it was in vain to think
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 mean-spirited 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 are allowed every
day to each soul on board; together with ample store of sea-bread,
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 on board 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 cruize 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, cruizing along as leisurely as ever, her sails all bepatched
and bequilted with rope-yarns, her spars fished with old pipe
stores, 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
machinery.
Her hull was incrusted 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 as 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 she never reached home, and I suppose
she is still regularly tacking twice in the twenty-four hours
somewhere off Buggerry 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
You approach it from the sea by a narrow entrance,
flanked on either 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 burst 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
cocoa-nut 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
its 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
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 gormandizers 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
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 cruize, 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 and 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 this 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
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 bosoms the
vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the
instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted
into the bitterest hate.
The enormities perpetrated in the South Seas upon some of
the inoffensive islanders wellnigh 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 things 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
sympathise for the unhappy victims, and with what horror do we
regard the diabolical heathens, who, after all, have but avenged
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 contradiction, 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 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
it is accessible from the sea at one end, and by a narrow defile at
the other.
The impression produced upon my 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 cold-water bath, but commend
me when in a perspiration to the shade baths of Tior, beneath
the cocoa-nut 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
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 all its original magnitude
and grandeur of appearance. He advanced slowly and
with evident pain, assisting his tottering steps with the heavy
war-spear 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 banannas that I held in
my hand at the time, and of which I occasionally partook while
making the aforesaid philosophical reflections.
| CHAPTER IV. Narrative of a four months' residence among the natives of a valley of the Marquesas Islands, or, A peep at Polynesian life | |