We were much puzzled, a few weeks since, by a tantalising and
unintelligible paragraph, pertinaciously reiterated in the London
newspapers. Its brevity equalled its mystery; it consisted but of five
words, the first and last in imposing majuscules. Thus it ran:--
"OMOO, by the author of TYPEE."
With Trinculo we exclaimed, "What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or
alive?" Who or what were Typee and Omoo? Were things or creatures thus
designated? Did they exist on the earth, or in the air, or in the waters
under the earth; were they spiritual or material, vegetable or mineral,
brute or human? Were they newly-discovered planets, nicknamed whilst
awaiting baptism, or strange fossils, contemporaries of the Megatherium,
or Magyar dissyllables from Dr Bowring's vocabulary? Perchance they were
a pair of new singers for the Garden, or a fresh brace of beasts for the
legitimate drama at Drury. Omoo might be the heavy elephant; Typee the
light-comedy camel. Did danger lurk in the enigmatical words? Were they
obscure intimations of treasonable designs, Swing advertisements, or
masonic signs? Was the palace at Westminster in peril? had an agent of
sure of Barbarossa Joinville undermined the Trafalgar column? Were they
conspirators' watchwords, lovers' letters, signals concerted between the
robbers of Rogers's bank? We tried them anagrammatically, but in vain:
there was nought to be made of Omoo; shake it as we would, the O's came
uppermost; and by reversing Typee we obtained but a pitiful result. At
last a bright gleam broke through the mist of conjecture. Omoo was a
book. The outlandish title that had perplexed us was intended to
perplex; it was a bait thrown out to that wide-mouthed fish, the public;
a specimen of what is theatrically styled _gag_. Having but an
indifferent opinion of books ushered into existence by such
charlatanical manoeuvres, we thought no more of Omoo, until, musing
the other day over our matutinal hyson, the volume itself was laid
before us, and we suddenly found ourselves in the entertaining society
of Marquesan Melville, the phoenix of modern voyagers, sprung, it
would seem, from the mingled ashes of Captain Cook and Robin Crusoe.
Those who have read M. Herman Melville's former work will remember,
those who have not are informed by the introduction to the present one,
that the author, an educated American, whom circumstances had shipped as
a common sailor on board a South-Seaman, was left by his vessel on the
island of Nukuheva, one of the Marquesan group. Here he remained some
months, until taken off by a Sydney whaler, short-handed, and glad to
catch him. At this point of his adventures he commences Omoo. The title
is borrowed from the dialect of the Marquesas, and signifies a rover:
the book is excellent, quite first-rate, the "clear grit," as Mr
Melville's countrymen would say. Its chief fault, almost its only one,
interferes little with the pleasure of reading it, will escape many, and
is hardly worth insisting upon. Omoo is of the order composite, a
skilfully concocted Robinsonade, where fictitious incident is
ingeniously blended with genuine information. Doubtless its author has
visited the countries he describes, but not in the capacity he states.
He is no Munchausen; there is nothing improbable in his adventures, save
their occurrence to himself, and that he should have been a man before
the mast on board South-Sea traders, or whalers, or on any ship or ships
whatever. His speech betrayeth him. His voyages and wanderings
commenced, according to his own account, at least as far back as the
year 1838; for aught we know they are not yet at an end. On leaving
Tahiti in 1843, he made sail for Japan, and the very book before us may
have been scribbled on the greasy deck of a whaler, whilst floating
amidst the coral reefs of the wide Pacific. True that in his preface,
and in the month of January of the present year, Mr Melville hails from
New York; but in such matters we really place little dependence upon
him. From his narrative we gather that this literary and gentlemanly
common-sailor is quite a young man. His life, therefore, since he
emerged from boyhood, has been spent in a ship's forecastle, amongst the
wildest and most ignorant class of mariners. Yet his tone is refined and
well-bred; he writes like one accustomed to good European society, who
has read books and collected stores of information, other than could be
perused or gathered in the places and amongst the rude associates he
describes. These inconsistencies are glaring, and can hardly be
explained. A wild freak or unfortunate act of folly, or a boyish thirst
for adventure, sometimes drives lads of education to try life before the
mast, but when suited for better things they seldom persevere; and Mr
Melville does not seem to us the manner of man to rest long contented
with the coarse company and humble lot of merchant seamen. Other
discrepancies strike us in his book and character. The train of
suspicion once lighted, the flame runs rapidly along. Our misgivings
begin with the title-page. "Lovel or Belville," says the Laird of
Monkbarns, "are just the names which youngsters are apt to assume on
such occasions." And Herman Melville sounds to us vastly like the
harmonious and carefully selected appellation of an imaginary hero of
romance. Separately the names are not uncommon; we can urge no valid
reason against their junction, and yet in this instance they fall
suspiciously on our ear. We are similarly impressed by the dedication.
Of the existence of Uncle Gansevoort, of Gansevoort, Saratoga County, we
are wholly incredulous. We shall commission our New York correspondents
to inquire as to the reality of Mr Melville's avuncular relative, and,
until certified of his corporality, shall set down the gentleman with
the Dutch patronymic as a member of an imaginary clan.
Although glad to escape from Nukuheva, where he had been held in a sort
of honourable captivity, Typee--the _alias_ bestowed upon the rover by
his new shipmates, after the valley whence they rescued him--was but
indifferently pleased with the vessel on which he left it, and whose
articles he signed as a seaman for one cruise. The Julia was of a
beautiful model, and on or before a wind she sailed like a witch; but
that was all that could be said in her praise. She was rotten to the
core, incommodious, and ill-provided, badly manned, and worse commanded.
American-built, she dated from the Short war, had served as a privateer,
been taken by the British, passed through many vicissitudes, and was in
no condition for a long cruise in the Pacific. So mouldering was her
fabric, that the reckless sailors, when seated in the forecastle, dug
their knives into the dank boards between them and eternity as easily as
into the moist sides of some old pollard oak. She was much dilapidated
and rapidly becoming more so; for Black Baltimore, the ship's cook, when
in want of firewood, did not scruple to hack splinters from the bits and
beams. Lugubrious indeed was the aspect of the forecastle. Landsmen,
whose ideas of a sailor's sleeping-place are taken from the snow-white
hammocks and exquisitely clean berth-deck of a man of war, or from the
rough, but substantial comfort of a well-appointed merchantman, can form
no conception of the surpassing and countless abominations of a
South-Sea whaler. The "Little Jule," as her crew affectionately styled
her, was a craft of two hundred tons or thereabouts; she had sailed with
thirty-two hands, whom desertion had reduced to twenty, but these were
too many for the cramped and putrid nook in which they slept, ate, and
smoked, and alternately desponded or were jovial, as sickness and
discomfort, or a Saturday night's bottle and hopes of better luck, got
the upper hand. Want of room, however, was one of the least grievances
of which the Julia's crew complained. It was a mere trifle, not worth
the naming. They could have submitted to close stowage had the dunnage
been decent. But instead of swinging in cosy hammocks, they slept in
_bunks_ or wretched pigeon-holes, on fragments of sails, unclean rags,
blanket-shreds, and the like. Such unenviable accommodations ought
hardly to have been disputed with their luckless possessors, who
nevertheless were not allowed to occupy in peace their broken-down bunks
and scanty bedding. Two races of creatures, time out of mind the curse
of old ships in warm latitudes, infested the Julia's forecastle,
resisting all efforts to dislodge or exterminate them, sometimes even
getting the upper hand, dispossessing the tortured mariners, and driving
them on deck in terror and despair. The sick only, hapless martyrs
unable to leave their cribs, lay passive, if not resigned, and were
trampled under foot by their ferocious and unfragrant foes. These were
rats and cockroaches. Typee--we use the name he bore during his Julian
tribulations--records a singular phenomenon in the nocturnal habits of
the last-named vermin. "Every night they had a jubilee. The first
symptom was an unusual clustering and humming amongst the swarms lining
the beams overhead, and the inside of the sleeping-places. This was
succeeded by a prodigious coming and going on the part of those living
out of sight. Presently they all came forth; the larger sort racing over
the chests and planks; winged monsters darting to and fro in the air;
and the small fry buzzing in heaps almost in a state of fusion. On the
first alarm, all who were able darted on deck; while some of the sick,
who were too feeble, lay perfectly quiet, the distracted vermin running
over them at pleasure. The performance lasted some ten minutes." Persons
there are, weak enough to view with loathing and aversion certain sable
insects that stray at night in kitchen or in pantry, and barbarous
enough to circumvent and destroy the odoriferous coleopterae by artful
devices of glass traps and scarlet wafers. Such persons will probably
form their ideas of Typee's cockroaches from their own domestic
opportunities of observation. That were unjust to the crew of the Julia,
and would give no adequate idea of their sufferings. As a purring tabby
to a roaring jaguar, so is a British black-beetle to a cock-roach of the
Southern Seas. We back our assertion by a quotation from our lamented
friend Captain Cringle, who in his especially graphic and attractive
style thus hits off the peculiarities of this graceful insect. "When
full grown," saith Thomas, "it is a large dingy brown-coloured beetle,
about two inches long, with six legs, and two feelers as long as its
body. It has a strong anti-hysterical flavour, something between rotten
cheese and asafoetida, and seldom stirs abroad when the sun is up, but
lies concealed in the most obscure and obscene crevices it can creep
into; so that, when it is seen, its wings and body are thickly covered
with dust and dirt of various shades, which any culprit who chances to
fall asleep with his mouth open, is sure to reap the benefit of, as it
has a great propensity to walk into it, partly for the sake of the
crumbs adhering to the masticators, and also, apparently, with a
scientific desire to inspect, by accurate admeasurement with the
aforesaid antennae, the state and condition of the whole potato-trap." A
description worthy of Buffon. Such were the delicate monsters, the
savoury sexipedes, with whom Typee and his comrades had to wage
incessant war. They were worse even than the rats, which were certainly
bad enough. "Tame as Trenck's mouse, they stood in their holes, peering
at you like old grandfathers in a doorway;" watching for their prey, and
disputing with the sailors the weevil-biscuit, rancid pork, and
horse-beef, composing the Julia's stores; or smothering themselves, the
luscious vermin, in molasses, which thereby acquired a rich wood-cock
flavour, whose cause became manifest when the treacle-jar ran low,
greatly to the disgust and consternation of the biped consumers. There
were no delicate feeders on board, but this saccharine essence of rat
was too much even for the unscrupulous stomachs of South-Sea whalers. A
queer set they were on board that Sydney barque. Paper Jack, the
captain, was a feeble Cockney, of meek spirit and puny frame, who glided
about the vessel in a nankeen jacket and canvass pumps, a laughing-stock
to his crew. The real command devolved upon the chief mate, John
Jermin--a good sailor and brave fellow, but violent, and given to drink.
The junior mate had deserted; of the four harpooners only one was left,
a fierce barbarian of a New Zealander--an excellent mariner, whose stock
of English was limited to nautical phrases and a frightful power of
oath, but who, in spite of his cannibal origin, ranked as a sort of
officer, in virtue of his harpoon, and took command of the ship when
mate and captain were absent. What a capital story, by the bye, Typee
tells us of one of this Bembo's whaling exploits! New Zealanders are
brave and bloodthirsty, and excellent harpooners, and they act up to the
South-Seaman's war-cry, "A dead whale or a stove boat!" There is a world
of wild romance and thrilling adventure in the occasional glimpses of
the whale fishery afforded us in Omoo; a strange picturesqueness and
piratical mystery about the lawless class of seamen engaged in it. Such
a portrait gallery as Typee makes out of the Julia's crew, beginning
with Chips and Bungs, the carpenter and cooper, the "Cods," or leaders
of the forecastle, and descending until he arrives at poor Rope Yarn, or
Ropey, as he was called, a stunted journeyman baker from Holborn, the
most helpless and forlorn of all land-lubbers, the butt and drudge of
the ship's company! A Dane, a Portuguese, a Finlander, a savage
from Hivarhoo, sundry English, Irish, and Americans, a daring
Yankee _beach-comber_, called Salem, and Sydney Ben, a runaway
ticket-of-leave-man, made up a crew much too weak to do any good in the
whaling way. But the best fellow on board, and by far the most
remarkable, was a disciple of Esculapius, known as Doctor Long-Ghost.
Jermin is a good portrait; so is Captain Guy; but Long-Ghost is a jewel
of a boy, a complete original, hit off with uncommon felicity. Nothing
is told us of his early life. Typee takes him up on board the Julia,
shakes hands with him in the last page of the book, and informs us that
he has never since seen or heard of him. So we become acquainted with
but a small section of the doctor's life; his subsequent adventures are
unknown, and, save a chance hint or two, his previous career is a
mystery, unfathomable as the Tahitian coast, where, within a biscuit's
toss of the coral shore, soundings there are none. Now and then he would
obscurely refer to days more palmy and prosperous than those spent on
board the Julia. But however great the contrast between his former
fortunes and his then lowly position, he exhibited much calm philosophy
and cheerful resignation. He was even merry and facetious, a practical
wag of the very first order, and as such a great favourite with the
whole ship's company, the captain excepted. He had arrived at Sydney in
an emigrant ship, had expended his resources, and entered as doctor on
board the Julia. All British whalers are bound to carry a medico, who is
treated as a gentleman, so long as he behaves as such, and has nothing
to do but to drug the men and play drafts with the captain. At first
Long-Ghost and Captain Guy hit it off very well; until, in an unlucky
hour, a dispute about politics destroyed their harmonious association.
The captain got a thrashing; the mutinous doctor was put in confinement
and on bread and water, ran away from the ship, was pursued, captured,
and again imprisoned. Released at last, he resigned his office, refused
to do duty, and went forward amongst the men. This was more magnanimous
than wise. Long-Ghost was a sort of medical Tom Coffin, a raw-boned
giant, upwards of two yards high, one of those men to whom the
between-decks of a small craft is a residence little less afflicting
than one of Cardinal Balue's iron cages. And to one who "had certainly,
at some time or other, spent money, drunk Burgundy, and associated with
gentlemen," the Julia's forecastle must have contained a host of
disagreeables, irrespective of rats and cockroaches, of its low roof,
evil odours, damp timbers, and dungeon-like aspect. The captain's table,
if less luxurious than that of a royal yacht or New York liner, surely
offered something better than the biscuits, hard as gun-flints and
thoroughly honeycombed, and the shot-soup, "great round peas polishing
themselves like pebbles by rolling about in tepid water," on which the
restive man of medicine was fain to exercise his grinders during his
abode forward. As regarded society, he lost little by relinquishing that
of Guy the Cockney, since he obtained in exchange the intimacy of
Melville the Yankee, who, to judge from his book, must be exceeding good
company, and to whom he was a great resource. The doctor was a man of
learning and accomplishments, who had made the most of his time whilst
the sun shone on his side the hedge, and had rolled his ungainly carcass
over half the world. "He quoted Virgil, and talked of Hobbes of
Malmsbury, besides repeating poetry by the canto, especially Hudibras.
In the easiest way imaginable, he could refer to an amour he had in
Palermo, his lion-hunting before breakfast among the Caffres, and the
quality of the coffee to be drunk in Muscat." Strangely must such
reminiscences have sounded in a whaler's forecastle, with Dunks the
Dane, Finland Van, and Wymontoo the Savage, for auditors.
The Julia had hitherto had little luck in her cruise, and could scarcely
hope for better in the state in which Typee found her. Besides the
losses by desertion, her crew was weakened by disease. Several of the
men lay sick in their berths, wholly unfit for duty. The captain himself
was ill, and all would have derived benefit from a short sojourn in
port; but this could not be thought of. The discipline of the ship was
bad, and the sailors, desperate and unruly fellows, discontented, as
well they might be, with their wretched provisions and uncomfortable
state, were not to be trusted on or near shore. Three-fourths of them,
had they once set foot on dry land, would have absconded, taken refuge
in the woods or amongst the savages, and have submitted to any amount of
tattoo, paint, and nose-ringing, rather than return to the ship.
Already, at St Christina, one of the Marquesas, a large party had made
their escape in two of the four whale-boats, scuttling the third, and
cutting the tackles of the fourth nearly through, so that when Bembo
jumped in to clear it away, man and boat went souse into the water. By
the assistance of a French corvette, and by bribing the king of the
country with a musket and ammunition, the fugitives were captured. But
it was more than probable that they and others would renew the attempt
should opportunity offer; so there was no alternative but to keep the
sea, and hope for better days and for the convalescence of the invalids.
Two of these died. Neither Bible nor Prayer-book were on board the
godless craft, and like dogs, without form of Christian burial, the dead
were launched into the deep. The situation of the survivors inspired
with considerable uneasiness the few amongst them capable of reflection.
The captain was ignorant of navigation; it was the mate who, from the
commencement of the voyage, had kept the ship's reckoning, and kept it
all to himself. He had only to get washed overboard in a gale, or to
walk over in a drunken fit, to leave his shipmates in a fix of the most
unpleasant description, ignorant of latitude, longitude, and of
everything else necessary to be known to guide the vessel on her course.
And as to the sperm whales, which Jermin had promised them in such
abundance that they would only have to strike and take, not a single fin
showed itself. At last the captain was reported dying, and the mate took
counsel with Long-Ghost, Typee, and others of the crew. He would gladly
have continued the cruise, but his wish was overruled, and the whaler's
stern was turned towards the Society Islands.
The first glimpse of the peaks of Tahiti was hailed with transport by
the Julia's weary mariners. They had got a notion that if the captain
left the ship, their articles were no longer binding, and they should be
free to follow his example. And, at any rate, the sickness on board and
the shaky condition of the barque, guaranteed them, as they thought,
long and blissful leisure amongst the waving palm-groves and soft-eyed
Neuhas of Polynesia. Their arrival in sight of Papeetee, the Tahitian
capital, was welcomed by the boom of cannon. The frigate Reine Blanche,
at whose fore flew the flag of Admiral Du Petit Thouars, thus celebrated
the compulsory treaty, concluded that morning, by which the island was
ceded to the French.
Captain Guy and his baggage were now set on shore, and it was soon
apparent to his men that whilst he nursed himself in the pure climate
and pleasant shades of Tahiti, they were to put to sea under the mate's
orders, and after a certain time to touch again at the island, and take
off their commander. The vessel was not even allowed to go into port,
although needing repairs, and in fact unseaworthy; and as to healing the
sick, selfish Paper Jack thought only of solacing his own infirmities.
The fury of the ill-fed, reckless, discontented crew, on discovering the
project of their superiors, passed all bounds. Chips and Bungs
volunteered to head a mutiny, and a round-robin was drawn up and signed.
But when Wilson, an old acquaintance of Guy's, and acting consul in the
absence of missionary Pritchard, came on board, the gallant cooper, who
derived much of his courage from the grog-kid, was cowed and craven. The
grievances brought forward, amongst others that of the _salt-horse_, (a
horse's hoof with the shoe on, so swore the cook, had been found in the
pickle,) were treated as trifles and pooh-poohed by the functionary, "a
minute gentleman with a viciously pugged nose, and a decidedly thin pair
of legs." But if Bungs allowed himself to be brow-beaten, so did not his
comrades. Yankee Salem flourished a bowie-knife, and such alarming
demonstrations were made, that the _counsellor_, as the sailors
persisted in calling the consul, thought it wise to beat a retreat.
Jermin now tried his hand, holding out brilliant prospects of a rich
cargo of sperm oil, and a pocket-full of dollars for every man on his
return to Sydney. The mutineers were proof alike against menace and
blandishment, and, at the secret instigation of Long Ghost and Typee,
resolutely refused to do duty. The consul, who had promised to return,
did not show; and at last the mate, having now but a few invalids and
landsmen to work the ship and keep her off shore, was compelled to enter
the harbour. The Julia came to an anchor within cable's length of the
French frigate, on board which consul Wilson repaired to obtain
assistance. The Reine Blanche was to sail in a few days for Valparaiso,
and the mutineers expected to go with her and be delivered up to a
British man-of-war. Undismayed by this prospect, they continued stanch
in their contumacy, and presently an armed cutter, "painted a 'pirate
black,' its crew a dark, grim-looking set, and the officers uncommonly
fierce-looking little Frenchmen," conveyed them on board the frigate,
where they were duly handcuffed, and secured by the ankle to a great
iron bar bolted down to the berth-deck.
Touching the proceedings on board the French man-of-war, its imperfect
discipline, and the strange, un-nautical way of carrying on the duty,
Typee is jocular and satirical. American though he be--and, but for
occasional slight yankeeisms in his style, we might have doubted even
that fact--he has evidently much more sympathy with his cousin John Bull
than with his country's old allies, the French, whom he freely admits to
be a clever and gallant nation, whilst he broadly hints that their
valour is not likely to be displayed to advantage on the water. He finds
too much of the military style about their marine institutions. Sailors
should be fighting men, but not soldiers or musket-carriers, as they all
are in turn in the French navy. He laughs at or objects to every thing;
the mustaches of the officers, the system of punishment, the sour wine
that replaces rum and water, the soup instead of junk, the pitiful
little rolls baked on board, and distributed in lieu of hard biscuit.
And whilst praising the build of their ships--the only thing about them
he does praise--he ejaculates a hope, which sounds like a doubt, that
they will not some day fall into the hands of the people across the
Channel. "In case of war," he says, "what a fluttering of French ensigns
there would be! for the Frenchman makes but an indifferent seaman, and
though for the most part he fights well enough, somehow or other, he
seldom fights well enough to beat:"--at sea, be it understood. We are
rather at a loss to comprehend the familiarity shown by Typee with the
internal arrangements and architecture of the Reine Blanche. His time on
board was passed in fetters; at nightfall on the fifth day he left the
ship. How, we are curious to know, did he become acquainted with the
minute details of "the crack craft in the French navy," with the
disposition of her guns and decks, the complicated machinery by which
certain exceedingly simple things were done, and even with the rich
hangings, mirrors, and mahogany of the commodore's cabin? Surely the
ragged and disreputable mutineer of the Julia, whose foot had scarcely
touched the gangway, when he was hurried into confinement below, could
have had scanty opportunity for such observations: unless, indeed,
Herman Melville, or Typee, or the Rover, or by whatever other _alias_ he
be known, instead of creeping in at the hawse-holes, was welcomed on the
quarter-deck and admitted to the gun-room, or to the commodore's cabin,
an honoured guest in broad-cloth, not a despised merchant seaman in
canvass frock and hat of tarpaulin. We shall not dwell on these small
inconsistencies and oversights in an amusing book. We prefer
accompanying the Julia's crew to Tahiti, where they were put on shore
contrary to their expectations, and not altogether to their
satisfaction, since they had anticipated a rapid run to Valparaiso, the
fag-end of a cruise in an English man-of-war, and a speedy discharge at
Portsmouth. Paper Jack and Consul Wilson had other designs, and still
hoped to reclaim them to their duty on board the crazy Julia. On their
stubborn refusal, they were given in charge to a fat, good-humoured, old
Tahitian, called Captain Bob, who, at the head of an escort of natives,
conveyed them up the country to a sort of shed, known as the Calabooza
Beretanee or English jail, used as a prison for refractory sailors. This
commences Typee's shore-going adventures, not less pleasant and original
than his sea-faring ones; although it is with some regret that we lose
sight of the vermin-haunted barque, on whose board such strange and
exciting scenes occurred.
Throughout the book, however, fun and incident abound, and we are
consoled for our separation from poor little Jule, by the curious
insight we obtain into the manners, morals, and condition of the gentle
savages, on whom an attempted civilisation has brought far more curses
than blessings.
"How pleasant were the songs of Toobonai,"
how gladsome and grateful the rustle of leaves and tinkle of rills, and
silver-toned voices of Tahitian maidens, to the rough seamen who had so
long been "cabined, cribbed, confined," in the Julia's filthy
forecastle! Not that they were allowed free range of the Eden of the
South Seas. On board the Reine Blanche their ankles had been manacled to
an iron bar; in the Calabooza, (from the Spanish _calabozo_, a dungeon,)
they were placed in rude wooden stocks twenty feet long, constructed for
the particular benefit of refractory mariners. There they lay, merry men
all of a row, fed upon _taro_ (Indian turnip) and bread-fruit, and
covered up at night with one huge counterpane of brown _tappa_, the
native cloth. It was owing to no friendly indulgence on the part of Guy
and the consul, that their diet was so agreeable and salutary. Every
morning Ropey came grinning into the prison, with a bucket full of the
old worm-eaten biscuit from the Julia. It was a huge treat to the
unfortunate Cockney, thus to be instrumental in the annoyance of his
former persecutors; and lucky for him that their limbo'd legs prevented
their rewarding his visible exultation otherwise than by a shower of
maledictions. They swore to starve rather than consume the maggoty
provender. Luckily the natives had it in very different estimation. They
did not mind maggots, and held British biscuit to be a piquant and
delicious delicacy. So in exchange for their allotted ration, the
mutineers obtained a small quantity of vegetable food, and an unlimited
supply of oranges, thanks to which refreshing regimen the sick were
speedily restored to health. And after a few days of stocks and
submission, jolly old Captain Bob, who spoke sailor's English, and
obstinately claimed intimacy with Captain Cook,--whose visit to the
island had occurred some years before his birth--relaxed his severity,
and allowed the captives their freedom during the day. They profited of
this permission to forage a little, in a quiet way; assisting at
pig-killings, and dropping in at dinner-time upon the wealthier of their
neighbours. Tahitian hospitality is boundless, and the more praiseworthy
that the island, although so fertile, produces but a scanty amount of
edibles. Bread-fruit is the chief resource; fish, a very important one,
the chief dependence of many of the poorer natives. There is little
industry amongst them, and on the spontaneous produce of the soil the
shipping make heavy demands. Polynesian indolence is proverbial. Very
light labour would enable the Tahitians to roll in riches, at least
according to their own estimate of the value of money and of the
luxuries it procures. The sugar-cane is indigenous to the island, and of
remarkably fine quality; cotton is of ready growth; but the fine
existing plantations "are owned and worked by whites, who would rather
pay a drunken sailor eighteen or twenty Spanish dollars a month, than
hire a sober native for his fish and _taro_." Wholly without energy, the
Tahitians saunter away their lives in a state of drowsy indolence,
aiming only at the avoidance of trouble, and the sensual enjoyment of
the moment. The race rapidly diminishes. "In 1777, Captain Cook
estimated the population of Tahiti at about two hundred thousand. By a
regular census taken some four or five years ago, it was found to be
only nine thousand!" Diseases of various kinds, entirely of European
introduction, and chiefly the result of drunkenness and debauchery,
account for this frightful decrease, which must result in the extinction
of the aborigines.
"The palm-tree shall grow,
The coral shall spread,
But man shall cease."
So runs an old Tahitian prophecy, soon to be realised. And if Pomaree,
who is under forty years of age, proves a long-lived sovereign, she may
chance to find herself a queen without subjects. Concerning her majesty
and her court, Typee is diffuse and diverting. This is an age of queens,
and although her dominions be of the smallest, her people few and
feeble, and her prerogative wofully clipped, she of Tahiti has made some
noise in the world, and attracted a fair share of public attention. At
one time, indeed, she was almost as much thought of and talked about as
her more civilised and puissant European sisters. In France, _La Reine
Pomaree_ was looked upon as a far more interesting personage than
Spanish Isabel or Portuguese Maria; and extraordinary notions were
formed as to the appearance, habits, and attributes of her dusky
majesty. Distance favoured delusion, and French imagination ran riot in
conjecture, until the reports of the valiant Thonars, and his squadron
of protection, dissipated the enchantment, and reduced Pomaree to her
true character, that of a lazy, dirty, licentious, Polynesian savage,
who walks about barefoot, drinks spirits, and hen-pecks her husband. Her
real name is Aimata, but she assumed, on ascending the throne, the royal
patronymic by which she is best known. There were Caesars in Rome, there
are Pomarees in Tahiti. The name was originally assumed by the great
Otoo, (to be read of in Captain Cook,) who united the whole island under
one crown. It descended to his son, and then to his grandson, who came
to the throne an infant, and, dying young, was succeeded by her present
majesty, Pomaree Vahinee I., the first female Pomaree. This lady has
been twice married. Her first husband was a king's son, but the union
was ill assorted, a divorce obtained, and she took up with one Tanee, a
chief from the neighbouring island of Imeco. She leads him a dog's life,
and he consoles himself by getting drunk. In that state, he now and then
violently breaks out, contemns the royal authority, thrashes his wife,
and smashes the crockery. Captain Bob gave Typee an account of a burst
of this sort, which occurred about seven years ago. Stimulated by the
seditious advice of his boon companions, and under the influence of an
unusually large dose of strong waters, the turbulent king-consort forgot
the respect due to his wife and sovereign, mounted his horse, and ran
full tilt at the royal cavalcade, out for their afternoon ride in the
park. One maid of honour was floored, the rest fled in terror, save and
except Pomaree, who stood her ground like a man, and apostrophised her
insubordinate spouse in the choicest Tahitian Billingsgate. For once her
eloquence failed of effect. Dragged from her horse, her personal charms
were deteriorated by a severe thumping on the face. This done,
Othello-Tanee attempted to strangle her, and was in a fair way to
succeed, when her loving subjects came to her rescue. So heinous a crime
could not be overlooked, and Tanee, was banished to his native island;
but after a short time he declared his penitence, made _amende
honorable_, and was restored to favour. He does not very often venture
to thwart the will of his royal wife, much less to raise his hand
against her sacred person, but submits with exemplary patience to her
caprices and abuse, and even to the manual admonitions she not
unfrequently bestows upon him.
Upon the whole, life, at the Calabooza was not very disagreeable. The
prisoners, now only nominally so, had little to complain of, except
occasional short commons, arising not from unwillingness, but from
disability, on the part of the kind-hearted natives, to satisfy the
cravings of the hungry whalers, whose appetites were remarkable,
especially that of lanky Doctor Long Ghost. The doctor was a stickler
for quality as well as quantity; the memory of his claret and beccafico
days still clung to him, like the scent of the roses to Tom Moore's
broken gallipot: he was curious in condiments, and whilst devouring,
grumbled at the unseasoned viands of Tahiti. Cayenne and Harvey abounded
not in those latitudes, but pepper and salt were on board the Julia, and
the doctor prevailed on Rope Yarn to bring him a supply. "This he placed
in a small leather wallet, a monkey bag (so called by sailors) usually
worn as a purse about the neck. 'In my poor opinion,' said Long Ghost,
as he tucked the wallet out of sight, 'it behoves a stranger in Tahiti
to have his knife in readiness, and his castor slung.'" And thus
equipped, the doctor and his brethren in captivity rambled over the
verdant slopes and through the cool groves of Tahiti, bathed in the
mountain streams, and luxuriated in orange orchards, where "the trees
formed a dense shade, spreading overhead a dark, rustling vault, groined
with boughs, and studded here and there with the ripened spheres, like
gilded balls." Then they had plenty of society; native visitors flocked
to see them, and Doctor Johnson, a resident English physician, was
constant in his attendance, knowing that the Consul must pay his bill.
Three French priests also called upon them, one of whom proved to be no
Frenchman, but a portly, handsome, good-humoured Irishman, well known
and much disliked by the Polynesian protestant missionaries. A strong
attempt was made by Guy and Wilson to get the men to do duty. A schooner
was about to sail for Sydney, and they were threatened to be sent
thither for trial. They still refused to hand rope or break biscuit on
board the Julia. Long Ghost made some cutting remarks on the captain;
and the sailors, who had been taken down to the Consul's office for
examination, began to bully, and talked of carrying off Consul and
Captain to bear them company in the Calabooza. The same ill success
attended subsequent attempts, until Captain Guy was compelled to look
out for another crew, which he obtained with difficulty, and by a
considerable advance of hard dollars. And at last, "It was Sunday in
Tahiti, and a glorious morning, when Captain Bob, waddling into the
Calabooza, startled us by announcing, 'Ah, my boy--shippee you,
harree--maky sail!' in other words, the Julia was off," and had taken
her stores of old biscuit with her: so the next morning the inmates of
the Calabooza were without rations. The Consul would supply none, and it
was pretty evident that he rather desired the departure of the obstinate
seamen from that part of the island. The whole of his proceedings with
regard to them had served but to render him ridiculous, and he wished
them out of his neighbourhood; but the ex-prisoners found themselves
pretty comfortable, and preferred remaining. They were better off than
they had for some time been, for Jermin--not such a bad fellow, after
all--had sent them their chests ashore; and these, besides supplying
them with sundry necessaries, gave them immense importance in Tahitian
eyes. They had been kindly treated before, but now they were courted and
flattered, like younger sons in marching regiments, who suddenly step
into the family acres. The natives crowded round them, eager to swear
eternal friendship, according to an old Polynesian custom, once
universal in the islands, but that has fallen into considerable disuse,
except when something is to be gained by its observance. A gentleman of
the name of Kooloo fixed his affections upon Typee--or rather upon his
goods and chattels; for when he had wheedled him out of a regatta shirt,
and other small pieces of finery, he transferred his affections to a
newly-arrived sailor, whose chest was better lined, and who bestowed on
him a love-token, in the shape of a heavy pea-jacket. In this garment,
closely buttoned up, Kooloo took morning promenades, with the tropical
sun glaring down upon him. He frequently met his former friend, but
passed him with a careless "How d'ye do?" which presently dwindled into
a nod. "In one week's time," says poor Typee, "he gave me the cut
direct, and lounged by without even nodding. He must have taken me for
part of the landscape."
After a while the contents of the chests, and even the chests
themselves--esteemed by the Tahitians most valuable pieces of
furniture--were given or bartered away, and, as the Consul still refused
them rations, the sailors knew not how to live. The natives helped them
as much as they could, but their larders were scantily furnished, and
they grew tired of feeding fifteen hungry idlers. So at last the latter
made a morning call upon the Consul, who, being unwilling to withdraw,
and equally so to press, charges which he knew would not be sustained,
refused to have any thing to say to them. Thereupon some of the party,
strong in principle and resolution, and seeing how grievous an annoyance
their presence was to their enemy, Wilson, swore to abide near him and
never to leave him. Others, less obstinate or more impatient of a
change, resolved to decamp from the Calabooza. The first to depart were
Typee and Long Ghost. They had received intelligence of a new plantation
in Imeco, recently formed by foreigners, who wanted white labourers, and
were expected at Papeetee to seek them. With these men they took service
under the names of Peter and Paul, at wages of fifteen silver dollars a
month; and, after an affecting separation from their shipmates--whose
respectable character may be judged of by the fact, that one of them
picked Long Ghost's pocket in the very act of embracing him,--they
sailed away for Imeco, and arrived without accident in the valley of
Martair, where the plantation was situate. The chapters recording their
stay here are amongst the very best in the book, full of rich, quiet
fun. Typee gives a capital description of his employers. They were two
in number, both "whole-souled fellows; one was a tall robust Yankee,
born in the backwoods of Maine, sallow, and with a long face; the other,
a short little Cockney who had first clapped his eyes on the Monument."
Zeke the Yankee, had christened his comrade "Shorty;" and Shorty looked
up to him with respect, and yielded to him in most things. Both showed
themselves well disposed towards their new labourers, whom they at once
discovered to be superior to their station. And they soon found their
society so agreeable, that they were willing to keep them to do little
more than nominal work. As to making them efficient farm servants, they
quickly gave up that idea. As a sailor, Typee had little fancy for
husbandry; and the doctor found his long back terribly in his way when
requested to dig potatoes and root up stumps, under a sun which, as
Shorty said, "was hot enough to melt the nose hoff a brass monkey." Long
Ghost very soon gave in; the extraction of a single tree-root settled
him; he pleaded illness, and retired to his hammock, but was
considerably vexed when he heard the Yankee propose a bullock hunting
expedition, in which, as a sick man, he could not decently take part.
This was only the prologue to his annoyances. Musquitoes, unknown in
Tahiti, abound in Imeeo. They were brought there, according to a native
tradition, by one Nathan Coleman, of Nantucket, who, in revenge for some
fancied grievance, towed a rotten water-cask ashore, and left it in a
neglected _taro_ patch, where the ground was moist and warm. Musquitoes
were the result. "When tormented by them, I found much relief in
coupling the word Coleman with another of one syllable, and pronouncing
them together energetically." The musquito chapter is very amusing,
showing the various comical and ingenious manoeuvres of the friends to
avoid their tormentors, and obtain a night's sleep. At last they entered
a fishing canoe, paddled some distance from shore, and dropped the
native anchor, a stone secured to a rope. They were awakened in the
morning by the motion of their boat. Zeke was wading in the shallow
water, and towing them from a reef towards which they had drifted. "The
water-sprites had rolled our stone out of its noose, and we had floated
away." This was a narrow escape, but nevertheless they stuck to their
floating bedstead as the only possible sleeping place. A day's
successful hunting, followed by a famous supper and jollification under
a banian-tree, put the doctor in good humour, and he made himself vastly
agreeable. The natives beheld his waggish pranks with infinite
admiration, and Zeke looked upon him with particular favour; so much so,
that when upon the following morning an order came from a ship at
Papeetee, for a supply of potatoes, he almost hesitated to tell funny
Peter to assist in digging them up. But the emergency pressed, and the
work must be done. So Peter and Paul were set to unearth the vegetables.
This was no very cruel task, for "the rich tawny soil seemed specially
adapted to the crop; the great yellow murphies rolling out of the hills
like eggs from a nest." But when they were dug up, they had to be
carried to the beach; and to this part of the business the lazy
adventurers had a special dislike, although Zeke kindly provided them,
to lighten their toil, with what he called the barrel machine--a sort of
rural sedan, in which the servants carried their loads with comparative
ease, whilst their employers sweated under shouldered hampers. But no
alleviation could reconcile the sailor and the physician to this novel
and unpleasant labour, and the potato-digging was the last piece of
work, deserving the name, that either of them did. A few days afterwards
they gave their masters warning, greatly to the vexation of Zeke,
although he received the notice--with true Yankee imperturbability. He
proposed that Long Ghost, who, after the hunt, had shown, considerable
culinary skill, should assume the office of cook, and that Paul-Typee
should only work when it suited him, which would not have been very
often. The offer was friendly and favourable, but it was refused. A
hospitable invitation to remain as guests as long as was convenient to
them, was likewise rejected, and, bent upon a ramble, the restless
adventurers left the vale of Martair. Even greater inducements would
probably have been insufficient to keep them there. They had been so
long on the rove, that change of scene had become essential to their
happiness. The doctor, especially, was anxious to be off to Tamai, an
inland village on the borders of a lake, where the fruits were the
finest, and the women the most beautiful and unsophisticated in all the
Society Islands. Epicurean Long Ghost had set his mind upon visiting
this terrestrial paradise, and thither his steady chum willingly
accompanied him. It was a day's journey on foot, allowing time for
dinner and siesta; and the path lay through wood and ravine, unpeopled
save by wild cattle. About noon they reached the heart of the island,
thus pleasantly described. "It was a green, cool hollow among the
mountains, into which we at last descended with a bound. The place was
gushing with a hundred springs, and shaded over with great solemn trees,
on whose mossy boles the moisture stood in beads." There is something
delightfully hydropathic in these lines; they cool one like a
shower-bath. He is a prime fellow, this common sailor Melville, at such
scraps of description, terse and true, placing the scene before us in
ten words. In long yarns he indulges not, but of such happy touches as
the above, we could quote a score. We have not room, either for them,
or for an account of the valley of Tamai, its hospitable inhabitants,
and its heathenish dances, performed in secret, and in dread of the
missionaries, by whom such saturnalia are forbidden. The place was
altogether so pleasant, that the doctor and his friend entertained
serious thoughts of settling there, or at least of making a long stay,
when one morning they were put to flight by the arrival of strangers,
said to be missionaries, with whom, vagrants as they were, they had no
wish to fall in. So they returned to their friend Zeke, nursing new and
ambitious projects. They had no intention of remaining with the
good-hearted Yankee, but merely paid him a flying visit, and that with
an interested motive. What they wanted of him was this. Although feeling
themselves gentlemen every inch, they were not always able to convince
the world of their respectability. So they resolved to have a passport,
and pitched upon Zeke to manufacture it, he being well known and much
respected in Imeeo. Zeke was gratified by the compliment, and set to
work with a rooster's quill, and a piece of dirty paper. "Evidently he
was not accustomed to composition; for his literary throes were so
violent, that the doctor suggested that some sort of a Caesarian
operation might be necessary. The precious paper was at last finished;
and a great curiosity it was. We were much diverted with his reasons for
not dating it. 'In this here damned climate,' he observed, 'a feller
can't keep the run of the months, no how; 'cause there's no seasons, no
summer and winter to go by. One's etarnally thinking it's always July,
it's so pesky hot.' A passport provided, we cast about for some means of
getting to Taloo."
The decline of the Tahitian monarchy--the degradation of the regal house
of Pomaree, is painful to contemplate. The queen still wears a crown--a
tinsel one, received as a present from her sister-sovereign of
England,--she has also a court and a palace, such as they are; but her
power is little more than nominal, her exchequer seldom otherwise than
empty. Typee draws a touching contrast between times past and present.
"'I'm a greater man than King George,' said the incorrigible young Otoo,
to the first missionaries; 'he rides on a horse and I on a man.' Such
was the case. He travelled post through his dominions on the shoulders
of his subjects, and relays of immortal beings were provided in all the
valleys. But, alas! how times have changed! how transient human
greatness! Some years since, Pomaree Vahinee I., granddaughter of the
proud Otoo, went into the laundry business, publicly soliciting, by her
agents, the washing of the linen belonging to officers of ships touching
in her harbours." Into the court of this washerwoman-queen, Typee and
Long Ghost were exceedingly anxious to penetrate. Vague ideas of favour
and preferment haunted their brains. During their Polynesian cruise,
they had seen many instances of rapid advancement; vagabond foreigners,
of all nations, domesticated in the families of chiefs and kings, and
sometimes married to their daughters and sharing their power. At one of
the Tonga islands, a scamp of a Welshman officiated as cupbearer to the
king of the cannibals. The monarch of the Sandwich islands has three
foreigners about his court--a Negro to beat the drum, a wooden-legged
Portuguese to play the fiddle, and Mordecai, a juggler, to amuse his
majesty with cups and balls and sleight of hand. On the Marquesan island
of Hivarhoo, they had found an English sailor who had attained to the
highest dignity in the country. He had deserted from a merchant ship,
and at once set up, on his own hook, as an independent sovereign,
without dominions, but by disposition most belligerent. A musket and a
store of cartridges were his whole possessions; but in a land where war
was rife, carried on with the primitive weapons of spear and javelin,
they were sufficiently important to make a native prince covet his
alliance. His first battle was a decisive victory, a perfect Waterloo,
and he became the Wellington of Hivarhoo, receiving, as reward for his
distinguished services, the hand of a princess, and a splendid dowry of
hogs, mats, and other produce. To conform to the prejudices of his new
family, he allowed himself to be tattooed, tabooed, and otherwise
paganized, becoming as big a savage as any in the island. A blue shark
adorned his forehead; a broad bar, of the same colour, traversed his
face. The tabooing was a less ornamental but more decidedly useful
formality, for by it his person was declared sacred and inviolable.
Typee and his medical friend had a strong prejudice against cerulean
sharks and the like embellishments; but if these could be dispensed
with, they felt no disinclination to form part of Pomaree's household.
They had not quite made up their minds what office would best suit them,
but their circumstances were unprosperous, and they resolved not to be
particular. They understood that the queen was mustering around her all
the foreigners she could recruit, to make head against the French. She
was then at Taloo, a village on the coast of Imeeo, and thither the two
adventurers betook themselves, hoping to be at once elevated to
important posts at court; but quite resigned, in case of disappointment,
to work as day-labourers in a sugar-plantation, or go to sea in a
whaler, then in the harbour for wood and water. Disgusted with their
desultory, hand-to-mouth existence, they yearned after respectability
and a prime-ministership. To their sanguine anticipations, both of these
seemed easy of attainment. Long Ghost, indeed, who, amongst his various
accomplishments, was a very Orpheus upon the violin, insisted strongly
upon the probability of his becoming a Tahitian Rizzio. But a necessary
preliminary to the realisation of these day-dreams, was a presentation
at court, and that was difficult to obtain. Once before Queen Pomaree,
they doubted not but she, with Napoleonic sagacity, would discern their
merits, and forthwith make Typee her admiral, and Long Ghost
inspector-general of hospitals. But they lacked an introduction. The
proper course, according to the practice of travelling nobodies,
desirous of intruding their plebeianism into a foreign court, would have
been to apply to their ambassadors. Unfortunately Deputy-Consul Wilson,
the only person at hand of a diplomatic character, was by no means
disposed to act as master of the ceremonies to the insurgents of the
Julia. And their costume, it must be confessed, scarcely qualified them
to appear at levee or drawing-room. A short time previously, their
ragged and variegated garb had given them much the look of a brace of
Polynesian Robert Macaires. Typee had made himself a new frock out of
two old ones, a blue and a red, the irregular mingling of the colours
producing a pleasing parrot-like effect; a tattered shirt of printed
calico was twisted round his head, turban-fashion, the sleeves dangling
behind, and bullock's-hide sandals protected his feet. The doctor was
still more fantastical in his attire. He sported a _roora_, a garment
similar to the South American poncho, a sort of mantle or blanket, with
a hole in the centre, through which the head passes. This simple article
of apparel, which in the doctor's case was of coarse brown tappa, fell
in folds around his angular carcass, and in conjunction with a
broad-brimmed hat of Panama grass, gave him the aspect of a decayed
grandee. Thus clad, the two friends arrived in the neighbourhood of the
royal residence, and there were fortunate enough to fall in with Mrs
Po-Po, a benevolent Tahitian matron, who provided them with clean frocks
and trousers, such as sailors wear, and in all respects was as good as a
mother to them. Her husband, Jeremiah Po-Po, a man of substance and
consideration, made them welcome in his house, fed and fostered them,
without hope of fee or recompense. A little of this generous hospitality
was owing to the hypocrisy of that villain, Long Ghost, who, finding his
entertainers devoutly disposed, muttered a "Grace before Meat" over the
succulent little porkers, baked _a la facon de Barbarie_ in the ground,
upon which their kind-hearted Amphitrion regaled them. But neither clean
canvass, nor simulated piety, sufficed to draw upon the ambitious
schemers the favourable notice of Queen Pomaree. Accustomed to sailors,
she held them cheap. A uniform, though but the moth-eaten undress of a
militia ensign, would have been a powerful auxiliary to their projects
of aggrandisement. Like some others of her sex, Pomaree loves a
soldier's coat, and maintained in more prosperous days a formidable
regiment of body-guards, in pasteboard shakos, and without breeches.
To go to court, however, Typee and his comrade were fully resolved; and
they were not very scrupulous as to the manner of their introduction.
They made up to a Marquesan gentleman of herculean proportions, whose
office it was to take the princes of the blood an airing in his arms.
Typee, who spoke his language, and had been at his native village, soon
ingratiated himself with Marbonna, who introduced them to one of the
queen's chamberlains. Bribery and corruption now came into play: a plug
of tobacco, proved an excellent passport to within the royal precincts,
but then Marbonna was suddenly called away, and the intruders found
themselves abandoned to their fate amongst the ladies of the court,
amiable and affable damsels, whom a little "soft sawder" induced to
conduct them into the queen's own drawing room. Here were collected
numerous costly articles of European manufacture, sent as presents to
Pomaree. Writing-desks, cut glass and beautiful china, valuable
engravings, and gilt candelabras, arms and instruments of all kinds, lay
scratched and broken, musty and rusting amongst greasy calabashes, old
matting, paddles, fish-spears, and rubbish of all kinds. It was
supper-time; and presently the queen came out of her private boudoir,
attired in a blue silk gown and rich shawls, but without shoes or
stockings. She lay down upon a mat, and fed herself with her fingers.
Presumptuous Long Ghost, unabashed before royalty, was for immediately
introducing himself and friend; but the attendants opposed this forward
proceeding, and, in doing so, made such a fuss that the queen looked up
from her calabash of fish, perceived the strangers, and ordered them
out. Such was the first and last interview between Typee the mariner and
Pomaree the queen.
"Disappointed in going to court, we determined upon going to sea." The
Leviathan, an American whaler, lay in harbour, and Typee shipped on
board her. Long Ghost would have done the same, but the Yankee captain
disliked the cut of his jib, swore he was a "Sidney bird," and would
have nought to say to him. So Typee divided his advance of wages with
the medical spectre--drank with him a parting bottle of wine,
surreptitiously purchased from a pilfering member of Pomaree's
household--and sailed on a whaling cruise to the coast of Japan. We look
forward with confidence and interest to an account of what there befel
him.