1. CHAPTER I.
It was in the middle of a bright tropical afternoon that we
made good our escape from the bay. The vessel we sought
lay with her main-topsail aback about a league from the land,
and was the only object that broke the broad expanse of the
ocean.
On approaching, she turned out to be a small, slatternly looking
craft, her hull and spars a dingy black, rigging all slack and
bleached nearly white, and every thing denoting an ill state of
affairs aboard. The four boats hanging from her sides proclaimed
her a whaler. Leaning carelessly over the bulwarks
were the sailors, wild, haggard-looking fellows in Scotch caps
and faded blue frocks; some of them with cheeks of a mottled
bronze, to which sickness soon changes the rich berry-brown
of a seaman's complexion in the tropics.
On the quarter-deck was one whom I took for the chief mate.
He wore a broad-brimmed Panama hat, and his spy-glass was
leveled as we advanced.
When we came alongside, a low cry ran fore and aft the
deck, and every body gazed at us with inquiring eyes. And
well they might. To say nothing of the savage boat's crew,
panting with excitement, all gesture and vociferation, my own
appearance was calculated to excite curiosity. A robe of the
native cloth was thrown over my shoulders, my hair and beard
were uncut, and I betrayed other evidences of my recent adventure.
Immediately on gaining the deck, they beset me on
all sides with questions, the half of which I could not answer,
so incessantly were they put.
As an instance of the curious coincidences which often befall
the sailor, I must here mention, that two countenances before
me were familiar. One was that of an old man-of-war's-man,
whose acquaintance I had made in Rio de Janeiro, at which
place touched the ship in which I sailed from home. The
other was a young man, whom, four years previous, I had frequently
met in a sailor boarding-house in Liverpool. I remembered
parting with him at Prince's Dock Gates, in the
midst of a swarm of police-officers, truckmen, stevedores, beggars,
and the like. And here we were again:—years had rolled
by, many a league of ocean had been traversed, and we were
thrown together under circumstances which almost made me
doubt my own existence.
But a few moments passed ere I was sent for into the cabin
by the captain.
He was quite a young man, pale and slender, more like a
sickly counting-house clerk than a bluff sea-captain. Bidding
me be seated, he ordered the steward to hand me a glass of
Pisco.[1]
In the state I was, this stimulus almost made me delirious;
so that of all I then went on to relate concerning my
residence on the island I can scarcely remember a word.
After this I was asked whether I desired to “ship;” of course I
said yes; that is, if he would allow me to enter for one cruise,
engaging to discharge me, if I so desired, at the next port. In
this way men are frequently shipped on board whalemen in
the South Seas. My stipulation was acceded to, and the ship's
articles handed me to sign.
The mate was now called below, and charged to make a “well
man” of me; not, let it be borne in mind, that the captain felt
any great compassion for me, he only desired to have the benefit
of my services as soon as possible.
Helping me on deck, the mate stretched me out on the windlass
and commenced examining my limb; and then doctoring
it after a fashion with something from the medicine-chest, rolled
it up in a piece of an old sail, making so big a bundle, that
with my feet resting on the windlass, I might have been taken
for a sailor with the gout. While this was going on, some one
removing my tappa cloak slipped on a blue frock in its place;
and another, actuated by the same desire to make a civilized
mortal of me, flourished about my head a great pair of sheepshears,
to the imminent jeopardy of both ears, and the certain
destruction of hair and beard.
The day was now drawing to a close, and, as the land faded
from my sight, I was all alive to the change in my condition.
But how far short of our expectations is oftentimes the fulfillment
of the most ardent hopes. Safe aboard of a ship—so long
my earnest prayer—with home and friends once more in prospect,
I nevertheless felt weighed down by a melancholy that
could not be shaken off. It was the thought of never more
seeing those, who, notwithstanding their desire to retain me
a captive, had, upon the whole, treated me so kindly. I was
leaving them forever.
So unforeseen and sudden had been my escape, so excited
had I been through it all, and so great the contrast between
the luxurious repose of the valley, and the wild noise and motion
of a ship at sea, that at times my recent adventures had all
the strangeness of a dream; and I could scarcely believe that
the same sun now setting over a waste of waters, had that very
morning risen above the mountains and peered in upon me as
I lay on my mat in Typee.
Going below into the forecastle just after dark, I was inducted
into a wretched “bunk” or sleeping-box built over another.
The rickety bottoms of both were spread with several
pieces of a blanket. A battered tin can was then handed me,
containing about half a pint of “tea”—so called by courtesy,
though whether the juice of such stalks as one finds floating
therein deserves that title, is a matter all ship-owners must settle
with their consciences. A cube of salt beef, on a hard round
biscuit by way of platter, was also handed up; and without
more ado, I made a meal, the salt flavor of which, after the
Nebuchadnezzar fare of the valley, was positively delicious.
While thus engaged, an old sailor on a chest just under me
was puffing out volumes of tobacco smoke. My supper finished,
he brushed the stem of his sooty pipe against the sleeve of
his frock, and politely waved it toward me. The attention was
sailor-like; as for the nicety of the thing, no man who has
lived in forecastles is at all fastidious; and so, after a few
vigorous whiffs to induce repose, I turned over and tried
my best to forget myself. But in vain. My crib, instead of
extending fore and aft, as it should have done, was placed
athwartships, that is, at right angles to the keel; and the
vessel going before the wind, rolled to such a degree, that
every time my heels went up and my head went down, I
thought I was on the point of turning a somerset. Beside this,
there were still more annoying causes of inquietude; and,
every once in a while, a splash of water came down the open
scuttle, and flung the spray in my face.
At last, after a sleepless night, broken twice by the merciless
call of the watch, a peep of daylight struggled into view from
above, and some one came below. It was my old friend with
the pipe.
“Here, shipmate,” said I, “help me out of this place, and let
me go on deck.”
“Halloa, who's that croaking?” was the rejoinder, as he
peered into the obscurity where I lay. “Ay, Typee, my king
of the cannibals, is it you! But I say, my lad, how's that spar
of your'n? the mate says it's in a devil of a way; and last night
set the steward to sharpening the handsaw: hope he won't
have the carving of ye.”
Long before daylight we arrived off the bay of Nukuheva,
and making short tacks until morning, we then ran in, and sent
a boat ashore with the natives who had brought me to the ship.
Upon its return, we made sail again, and stood off from the
land. There was a fine breeze; and, notwithstanding my bad
night's rest, the cool, fresh air of a morning at sea was so bracing,
that, as soon as I breathed it, my spirits rose at once.
Seated upon the windlass the greater portion of the day,
and chatting freely with the men, I learned the history of the
voyage thus far, and every thing respecting the ship and its
present condition.
These matters I will now throw together in the next chapter.
