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.
It was in the summer of 1842, that we arrived at the islands. Our ship
had not been many days in the harbour of Nukuheva, before I came to the
determination of leaving her. That my reasons for resolving to take
this step were numerous and weighty, may be inferred from the fact that
I chose rather to risk my fortunes among the savages of the island than
to endure another voyage on board the _Dolly_. To use the concise,
point-blank phrase of the sailors, I had made up my mind to “run away.”
Now, as a meaning is generally attached to these two words no way
flattering to the individual to whom they are applied, it behoves me,
for the sake of my own character, to offer some explanation of my
conduct.
When I entered on board the _Dolly_, I signed, as a matter of course,
the ship’s articles, thereby voluntarily engaging and legally binding
myself to serve in a certain capacity for the period of the voyage;
and, special considerations apart, I was of course bound to fulfil 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 these 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 hand-spike, so
convincingly administered as effectually to silence the aggrieved
party.
To whom could we apply for redress? We had left both law and equity on
the other side of the Cape; and unfortunately, with a very few
exceptions, our crew was composed of a parcel of dastardly and
mean-spirited wretches, divided among themselves, and only united in
enduring without resistance the unmitigated tyranny of the captain. It
would have been mere madness for any two or three of the number,
unassisted by the rest, to attempt making a stand against his ill
usage. They would only have called down upon themselves the particular
vengeance of this “Lord of the Plank,” and subjected their shipmates to
additional hardships.
But, after all, these things could have been endured awhile, had we
entertained the hope of being speedily delivered from them by the due
completion of the terms 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 a roving spirit 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 on board a whaling vessel is almost
incredible. Oftentimes, when we had occasion to break out in the hold,
and I beheld the successive tiers of casks and barrels, whose contents
were all destined to be consumed in due course by the ship’s company,
my heart has sunk within me.
Although, as a general case, a ship unlucky in falling in with whales
continues to 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 bequilted 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 she never reached home, and I suppose she is still regularly
tacking twice in the twenty-four hours somewhere off Buggerry Island,
or the Devil’s-Tail Peak.
Having said thus much touching the usual length of these voyages, when
I inform the reader that ours had as it were just commenced, we being
only fifteen months out, and even at that time hailed as a late
arrival, and boarded for news, he will readily perceive that there was
little to encourage one in looking forward to the future, especially as
I had always had a presentiment that we should make an unfortunate
voyage, and our experience so far had justified the expectation.
I may here state, and on my faith as an honest man, that some time
after arriving home from my adventures, I learned that this vessel was
still in the Pacific, and that she had met with very poor success in
the fishery. Very many of her crew, also, left her; and her voyage
lasted about five years.
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 privately 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 either side by two
small twin islets which soar conically to the height of some five
hundred feet. From these the shore recedes on both hands, and describes
a deep semicircle.
From the verge of the water the land rises uniformly on all sides, with
green and sloping acclivities, until from gently rolling hillsides 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 wickerwork, and thatched with the long
tapering leaves of the palmetto, are scattered irregularly along these
valleys beneath the shady branches of the cocoa-nut trees.
Nothing can exceed the imposing scenery of this bay. Viewed from our
ship as she lay at anchor in the middle of the harbour, it presented
the appearance of a vast natural amphitheatre in decay, and overgrown
with vines, the deep glens that furrowed its sides appearing like
enormous fissures caused by the ravages of time. Very often when lost
in admiration at its beauty, I have experienced a pang of regret that a
scene so enchanting should be hidden from the world in these remote
seas, and seldom meet the eyes of devoted lovers of nature.
Besides this bay the shores of the island are indented by several other
extensive inlets, into which descend broad and verdant valleys. These
are inhabited by as many distinct tribes of savages, who, although
speaking kindred dialects of a common language, and having the same
religion and laws, have from time immemorial waged hereditary warfare
against each other. The intervening mountains, generally two or three
thousand feet above 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 gormandizers of human flesh; but this is a
peculiarity to which I shall hereafter have occasion to allude.
Although I was convinced that the inhabitants of our bay were as arrant
cannibals as any of the other tribes on the island, still I could not
but feel a particular and most unqualified repugnance to the aforesaid
Typees. Even before visiting the Marquesas, I had heard from men who
had touched at the group on former voyages some revolting stories in
connection with these savages; and fresh in my remembrance was the
adventure of the master of the _Katherine_, who only a few months
previous, imprudently venturing into this bay in an armed boat for the
purpose of barter, was seized by the natives, carried back a 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 and the ship followed.
She was soon conducted to a beautiful inlet, and dropped her anchor in
its waters beneath the shadows of the lofty shore. That same night the
perfidious Typees, who had thus inveigled her into their fatal bay,
flocked aboard the doomed vessel by hundreds, and at a given signal
murdered every soul on board.