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.