Typee

by Herman Melville

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  Natural history of the valley--Golden lizards--Tameness of the birds--Mosquitoes--Flies--Dogs--A solitary cat--The climate--The cocoa-nut tree--Singular modes of climbing it--An agile young chief--Fearlessness of the children--Too-too and the cocoa-nut tree--The birds of the valley.

  There were some curious-looking dogs in the valley. Dogs!--big, hairlessrats rather; all with smooth, shining, speckled hides--fat sides, and verydisagreeable faces. Whence could they have come? That they were not theindigenous production of the region, I am firmly convinced. Indeed, theyseemed aware of their being interlopers, looking fairly ashamed, andalways trying to hide themselves in some dark corner. It was plain enoughthey did not feel at home in the vale--that they wished themselves well outof it, and back to the ugly country from which they must have come.

  Scurvy curs! they were my abhorrence; I should have liked nothing betterthan to have been the death of every one of them. In fact, on oneoccasion, I intimated the propriety of a canine crusade to Mehevi but thebenevolent king would not consent to it. He heard me very patiently; butwhen I had finished, shook his head, and told me in confidence, that theywere "taboo."

  As for the animal that made the fortune of my lord mayor Whittington, Ishall never forget the day that I was lying in the house about noon,everybody else being fast asleep; and happening to raise my eyes, metthose of a big black spectral cat, which sat erect in the doorway, lookingat me with its frightful goggling green orbs, like one of those monstrousimps that tormented some of the olden saints! I am one of thoseunfortunate persons, to whom the sight of these animals is at any time aninsufferable annoyance.

  Thus constitutionally averse to cats in general, the unexpected apparitionof this one in particular utterly confounded me. When I had a littlerecovered from the fascination of its glance, I started up; the cat fled,and emboldened by this, I rushed out of the house in pursuit; but it haddisappeared. It was the only time I ever saw one in the valley, and how itgot there I cannot imagine. It is just possible that it might have escapedfrom one of the ships at Nukuheva. It was in vain to seek information onthe subject from the natives, since none of them had seen the animal, theappearance of which remains a mystery to me to this day.

  Among the few animals which are to be met with in Typee, there was nonewhich I looked upon with more interest than a beautiful golden-huedspecies of lizard. It measured perhaps five inches from head to tail, andwas most gracefully proportioned. Numbers of those creatures were to beseen basking in the sunshine upon the thatching of the houses, andmultitudes at all hours of the day showed their glittering sides as theyran frolicking between the spears of grass, or raced in troops up and downthe tall shafts of the cocoa-nut trees. But the remarkable beauty of theselittle animals and their lively ways were not their only claims upon myadmiration. They were perfectly tame and insensible to fear. Frequently,after seating myself upon the ground in some shady place during the heatof the day, I would be completely overrun with them. If I brushed one offmy arm, it would leap perhaps into my hair: when I tried to frighten itaway by gently pinching its leg, it would turn for protection to the veryhand that attacked it.

  The birds are also remarkably tame. If you happened to see one perchedupon a branch within reach of your arm, and advanced towards it, it didnot fly away immediately, but waited quietly looking at you, until youcould almost touch it, and then took wing slowly, less alarmed at yourpresence, it would seem, than desirous of removing itself from your path.Had salt been less scarce in the valley than it was, this was the veryplace to have gone birding with it.

  I remember that once, on an uninhabited island of the Gallipagos, a birdalighted on my outstretched arm, while its mate chirped from an adjoiningtree. Its tameness, far from shocking me, as a similar occurrence didSelkirk, imparted to me the most exquisite thrill of delight I everexperienced; and with somewhat of the same pleasure did I afterwardsbehold the birds and lizards of the valley show their confidence in thekindliness of man.

  Among the numerous afflictions which the Europeans have entailed upon someof the natives of the South Seas, is the accidental introduction amongthem of that enemy of all repose and ruffler of even tempers--the mosquito.At the Sandwich Islands, and at two or three of the Society group, thereare now thriving colonies of these insects, who promise ere long tosupplant altogether the aboriginal sand-flies. They sting, buzz, andtorment, from one end of the year to the other, and by incessantlyexasperating the natives, materially obstruct the benevolent labours ofthe missionaries.

  From this grievous visitation, however, the Typees are as yet whollyexempt; but its place is unfortunately in some degree supplied by theoccasional presence of a minute species of fly, which, without stinging,is nevertheless productive of no little annoyance. The tameness of thebirds and lizards is as nothing when compared to the fearless confidenceof this insect. He will perch upon one of your eye-lashes, and go to roostthere, if you do not disturb him, or force his way through your hair, oralong the cavity of the nostril, till you almost fancy he is resolved toexplore the very brain itself. On one occasion I was so inconsiderate asto yawn while a number of them were hovering around me. I never repeatedthe act. Some half-dozen darted into the open compartment, and beganwalking about its ceiling; the sensation was dreadful. I involuntarilyclosed my mouth, and the poor creatures, being enveloped in innerdarkness, must in their consternation have stumbled over my palate, andbeen precipitated into the gulf beneath. At any rate, though I afterwardscharitably held my mouth open for at least five minutes, with a view ofaffording egress to the stragglers, none of them ever availed themselvesof the opportunity.

  There are no wild animals of any kind on the island, unless it be decidedthat the natives themselves are such. The mountains and the interiorpresent to the eye nothing but silent solitudes, unbroken by the roar ofbeasts of prey, and enlivened by few tokens even of minute animatedexistence. There are no venomous reptiles, and no snakes of anydescription to be found in any of the valleys.

  In a company of Marquesan natives the weather affords no topic ofconversation. It can hardly be said to have any vicissitudes. The rainyseason, it is true, brings frequent showers, but they are intermitting andrefreshing. When an islander, bound on some expedition, rises from hiscouch in the morning, he is never solicitous to peep out and see how thesky looks, or ascertain from what quarter the wind blows. He is alwayssure of a "fine day," and the promise of a few genial showers he hailswith pleasure. There is never any of that "remarkable weather" on theislands which from time immemorial has been experienced in America, andstill continues to call forth the wondering conversational exclamations ofits elderly citizens. Nor do there even occur any of those eccentricmeteorological changes which elsewhere surprise us. In the valley of Typeeice-creams would never be rendered less acceptable by sudden frosts, norwould picnic parties be deferred on account of inauspicious snowstorms:for there day follows day in one unvarying round of summer and sunshine,and the whole year is one long tropical month of June just melting intoJuly.

  It is this genial climate which causes the cocoa-nuts to flourish as theydo. This invaluable fruit, brought to perfection by the rich soil of theMarquesas, and borne aloft on a stately column more than a hundred feetfrom the ground, would seem at first almost inaccessible to the simplenatives. Indeed, the slender, smooth, and soaring shaft, without a singlelimb or protuberance of any kind to assist one in mounting it, presents anobstacle only to be overcome by the surprising agility and ingenuity ofthe islanders. It might be supposed that their indolence would lead thempatiently to await the period when the ripened nuts, slowly parting fromtheir stems, fall one by one to the ground. This certainly would be thecase, were it not that the young fruit, encased in a soft green husk, withthe incipient meat adhering in a jelly-like pellicle to its sides, andcontaining a bumper of the most delicious nectar, is what they chieflyprize. They have at least twenty different terms to express as manyprogres
sive stages in the growth of the nut. Many of them reject the fruitaltogether except at a particular period of its growth, which, incredibleas it may appear, they seemed to me to be able to ascertain within an houror two. Others are still more capricious in their tastes; and aftergathering together a heap of the nuts of all ages, and ingeniously tappingthem, will first sip from one and then from another, as fastidiously assome delicate wine-bibber experimenting, glass in hand, among his dustydemijohns of different vintages.

  Some of the young men, with more flexible frames than their comrades, andperhaps with more courageous souls, had a way of walking up the trunk ofthe cocoa-nut trees which to me seemed little less than miraculous; andwhen looking at them in the act, I experienced that curious perplexity achild feels when he beholds a fly moving feet uppermost along a ceiling.

  I will endeavour to describe the way in which Narnee, a noble young chief,sometimes performed this feat for my particular gratification; but hispreliminary performances must also be recorded. Upon my signifying mydesire that he should pluck me the young fruit of some particular tree,the handsome savage, throwing himself into a sudden attitude of surprise,feigns astonishment at the apparent absurdity of the request. Maintainingthis position for a moment, the strange emotions depicted on hiscountenance soften down into one of humorous resignation to my will, andthen, looking wistfully up to the tufted top of the tree, he stands ontip-toe, straining his neck and elevating his arms, as though endeavouringto reach the fruit from the ground where he stands. As if defeated in thischildish attempt, he now sinks to the earth despondingly, beating hisbreast in well-acted despair; and then, starting to his feet all at once,and throwing back his head, raises both hands, like a schoolboy about tocatch a falling ball. After continuing this for a moment or two, as if inexpectation that the fruit was going to be tossed down to him by some goodspirit in the tree-top, he turns wildly round in another fit of despair,and scampers off to the distance of thirty or forty yards. Here he remainsawhile, eyeing the tree, the very picture of misery; but the next moment,receiving, as it were, a flash of inspiration, he rushes again towards it,and clasping both arms about the trunk, with one elevated a little abovethe other, he presses the soles of his feet close together against thetree, extending his legs from it until they are nearly horizontal, and hisbody becomes doubled into an arch; then, hand over hand and foot afterfoot, he rises from the earth with steady rapidity, and almost before youare aware of it, has gained the cradled and embowered nest of nuts, andwith boisterous glee flings the fruit to the ground.

  This mode of walking the tree is only practicable where the trunk declinesconsiderably from the perpendicular. This, however, is almost always thecase; some of the perfectly straight shafts of the trees leaning at anangle of thirty degrees.

  The less active among the men, and many of the children of the valley,have another method of climbing. They take a broad and stout piece ofbark, and secure either end of it to their ankles: so that when the feetthus confined are extended apart, a space of little more than twelveinches is left between them. This contrivance greatly facilitates the actof climbing. The band pressed against the tree, and closely embracing it,yields a pretty firm support; while with the arms clasped about the trunk,and at regular intervals sustaining the body, the feet are drawn up nearlya yard at a time, and a corresponding elevation of the hands immediatelysucceeds. In this way I have seen little children, scarcely five years ofage, fearlessly climbing the slender pole of a young cocoa-nut tree, andwhile hanging perhaps fifty feet from the ground, receiving the plauditsof their parents beneath, who clapped their hands, and encouraged them tomount still higher.

  What, thought I, on first witnessing one of these exhibitions, would thenervous mothers of America and England say to a similar display ofhardihood in any of their children? The Lacedemonian nation might haveapproved of it, but most modern dames would have gone into hysterics atthe sight.

  At the top of the cocoa-nut tree the numerous branches, radiating on allsides from a common centre, form a sort of green and waving basket,between the leaflets of which you just discern the nuts thickly clusteringtogether, and on the loftier trees looking no bigger from the ground thanbunches of grapes. I remember one adventurous little fellow--Too-Too wasthe rascal's name--who had built himself a sort of aerial baby-house in thepicturesque tuft of a tree adjoining Marheyo's habitation. He used tospend hours there,--rustling among the branches, and shouting with delightevery time the strong gusts of wind, rushing down from the mountain side,swayed to and fro the tall and flexible column on which he was perched.Whenever I heard Too-Too's musical voice sounding strangely to the earfrom so great a height, and beheld him peeping down upon me from out hisleafy covert, he always recalled to my mind Dibdin's lines--

  There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft, To look out for the life of poor Jack.

  Birds--bright and beautiful birds--fly over the valley of Typee. You seethem perched aloft among the immovable boughs of the majestic bread-fruittrees, or gently swaying on the elastic branches of the Omoo; skimmingover the palmetto-thatching of the bamboo huts; passing like spirits onthe wing through the shadows of the grove, and sometimes descending intothe bosom of the valley in gleaming flights from the mountains. Theirplumage is purple and azure, crimson and white, black and gold; with billsof every tint;--bright bloody-red, jet black, and ivory white; and theireyes are bright and sparkling; they go sailing through the air in starrythrongs; but, alas! the spell of dumbness is upon them all--there is not asingle warbler in the valley!

  I know not why it was, but the sight of these birds, generally theministers of gladness, always oppressed me with melancholy. As in theirdumb beauty they hovered by me whilst I was walking, or looked down uponme with steady curious eyes from out the foliage, I was almost inclined tofancy that they knew they were gazing upon a stranger, and that theycommiserated his fate.