Improvement in health and spirits—Felicity of the Typees—A skirmish in
the mountain with the warriors of Happar.
Day after day wore on, and still there was no perceptible change in the
conduct of the islanders towards me. Gradually I lost all knowledge of
the regular recurrence of the days of the week, and sunk insensibly
into that kind of apathy which ensues after some violent outbreak of
despair. My limb suddenly healed, the swelling went down, the pain
subsided, and I had every reason to suppose I should soon completely
recover from the affliction that had so long tormented me.
As soon as I was enabled to ramble about the valley in company with the
natives, troops of whom followed me whenever I sallied out of the
house, I began to experience an elasticity of mind which placed me
beyond the reach of those dismal forebodings to which I had so lately
been a prey. Received wherever I went with the most deferential
kindness; regaled perpetually with the most delightful fruits;
ministered to by dark-eyed nymphs; and enjoying besides all the
services of the devoted Kory-Kory, I thought that, for a sojourn among
cannibals, no man could have well made a more agreeable one.
To be sure, there were limits set to my wanderings. Toward the sea, my
progress was barred by an express prohibition of the savages; and after
having made two or three ineffectual attempts to reach it, as much to
gratify my curiosity as anything else, I gave up the idea. It was in
vain to think of reaching it by stealth, since the natives escorted me
in numbers wherever I went, and not for one single moment that I can
recall to mind was I ever permitted to be alone.
The green and precipitous elevations that stood ranged around the head
of the vale where Marheyo’s habitation was situated, effectually
precluded all hope of escape in that quarter, even if I could have
stolen away from the thousand eyes of the savages.
But these reflections now seldom obtruded upon me; I gave myself up to
the passing hour, and if ever disagreeable thoughts arose in my mind, I
drove them away. When I looked around the verdant recess in which I was
buried, and gazed up to the summits of the lofty eminence that hemmed
me in, I was well disposed to think that I was in the “Happy Valley,”
and that beyond those heights there was nought but a world of care and
anxiety.
In this frame of mind, every object that presented itself to my notice
struck me in a new light, and the opportunities I now enjoyed of
observing the manners of the natives, tended to strengthen my
favourable impressions. One peculiarity that fixed my admiration was
the perpetual hilarity reigning through the whole extent of the vale.
There seemed to be no cares, griefs, troubles, or vexations in all
Typee. The hours tripped along as gaily as the laughing couples down a
country dance.
There were none of those thousand sources of irritation that the
ingenuity of civilized man has created to mar his own felicity. There
were no foreclosures of mortgages, no protested notes, no bills
payable, no debts of honour, in Typee; no unreasonable tailors and
shoemakers, perversely bent on being paid; no duns of any description;
no assault and battery attorneys, to foment discord, backing their
clients up to a quarrel, and then knocking their heads together; no
poor relations everlastingly occupying the spare bed-chamber, and
diminishing the elbow-room at the family table; no destitute widows
with their children starving on the cold charities of the world; no
beggars; no debtor’s prisons; no proud and hard-hearted nabobs in
Typee; or, to sum up all in one word—no Money! That “root of all evil”
was not to be found in the valley.
In this secluded abode of happiness there were no cross old women, no
cruel step-dames, no withered spinsters, no love-sick maidens, no sour
old bachelors, no inattentive husbands, no melancholy young men, no
blubbering youngsters, and no squalling brats. All was mirth, fun, and
high good humour. Blue devils, hypochondria, and doleful dumps went and
hid themselves among the nooks and crannies of the rocks.
Here you would see a parcel of children frolicking together the
live-long day, and no quarrelling, no contention among them. The same
number in our own land could not have played together for the space of
an hour without biting or scratching one another. There you might have
seen a throng of young females, not filled with envyings of each
other’s charms, nor displaying the ridiculous affectations of
gentility, nor yet moving in whalebone corsets, like so many
automatons, but free, inartificially happy and unconstrained.
There were some spots in that sunny vale where they would frequently
resort to decorate themselves with garlands of flowers. To have seen
them reclining beneath the shadows of one of the beautiful groves, the
ground about them strewn with freshly gathered buds and blossoms,
employed in weaving chaplets and necklaces, one would have thought that
all the train of Flora had gathered together to keep a festival in
honour of their mistress.
With the young men there seemed almost always some matter of diversion
or business on hand, that afforded a constant variety of enjoyment. But
whether fishing, or carving canoes, or polishing their ornaments, never
was there exhibited the least sign of strife or contention among them.
As for the warriors, they maintained a tranquil dignity of demeanour,
journeying occasionally from house to house, where they were always
sure to be received with the attention bestowed upon distinguished
guests. The old men, of whom there were many in the vale, seldom
stirred from their mats, where they would recline for hours and hours,
smoking and talking to one another with all the garrulity of age.
But the continual happiness which, so far as I was able to judge,
appeared to prevail in the valley, sprung principally from that
all-pervading sensation which Rousseau has told us he at one time
experienced, the mere buoyant sense of a healthful physical existence.
And, indeed, in this particular the Typees had ample reason to
felicitate themselves, for sickness was almost unknown. During the
whole period of my stay, I saw but one invalid among them; and on their
smooth clear skins you observed no blemish or mark of disease.
The general repose, however, upon which I have just been descanting,
was broken in upon about this time by an event, which proved that the
islanders were not entirely exempt from those occurrences which disturb
the quiet of more civilized communities.
Having now been a considerable time in the valley, I began to feel
surprised that the violent hostility subsisting between its inhabitants
and those of the adjoining bay of Happar, should never have manifested
itself in any warlike encounter. Although the valiant Typees would
often, by gesticulations, declare their undying hatred against their
enemies, and the disgust they felt at their cannibal propensities;
although they dilated upon the manifold injuries they had received at
their hands, yet, with a forbearance truly commendable, they appeared
patiently to sit down under their grievances, and to refrain from
making any reprisals. The Happars, entrenched behind their mountains,
and never even showing themselves on their summits, did not appear to
me to furnish adequate cause for that excess of animosity evinced
towards them by the heroic tenants of our vale, and I was inclined to
believe that the deeds of blood attributed to them had been greatly
exaggerated.
On the other hand, as the clamours of war had not up to this period
disturbed the serenity of the tribe, I began to distrust the truth of
those reports which ascribed so fierce and belligerent a character to
the Typee nation. Surely, thought I, all these terrible stories I have
heard about the inveteracy with which they carried on the feud, their
deadly intensity of hatred, and the diabolical malice with which they
glutted their revenge upon the inanimate forms of the slain, are
nothing more than fables, and I must confess that I experienced
something like a sense of regret at having my hideous anticipations
thus disappointed. I felt in some sort like a ’prentice boy who, going
to the play in the expectation of being delighted with a cut-and-thrust
tragedy, is almost moved to tears of disappointment at the exhibition
of a genteel comedy.
I could not avoid thinking that I had fallen in with a greatly traduced
people, and I moralized not a little upon the disadvantage of having a
bad name, which in this instance had given a tribe of savages, who were
as pacific as so many lambkins, the reputation of a confederacy of
giant-killers.
But subsequent events proved that I had been a little too premature in
coming to this conclusion. One day, about noon, happening to be at the
Ti, I had lain down on the mats with several of the chiefs, and had
gradually sunk into a most luxurious siesta, when I was awakened by a
tremendous outcry, and starting up, beheld the natives, seizing their
spears and hurrying out, while the most puissant of the chiefs,
grasping the six muskets which were ranged against the bamboos,
followed after, and soon disappeared in the groves. These movements
were accompanied by wild shouts, in which “Happar, Happar,” greatly
predominated. The islanders were now to be seen running past the Ti,
and striking across the valley to the Happar side. Presently I heard
the sharp report of a musket from the adjoining hills, and then a burst
of voices in the same direction. At this the women, who had congregated
in the groves, set up the most violent clamours, as they invariably do
here as elsewhere on every occasion of excitement and alarm, with a
view of tranquillizing their own minds and disturbing other people. On
this particular occasion they made such an outrageous noise, and
continued it with such perseverance, that for awhile, had entire
volleys of musketry been fired off in the neighbouring mountains, I
should not have been able to have heard them.
When this female commotion had a little subsided I listened eagerly for
further information. At last bang went another shot, and then a second
volley of yells from the hills. Again all was quiet, and continued so
for such a length of time that I began to think the contending armies
had agreed upon a suspension of hostilities; when pop went a third gun,
followed as before with a yell. After this, for nearly two hours
nothing occurred worthy of comment, save some straggling shouts from
the hillside, sounding like the halloos of a parcel of truant boys who
had lost themselves in the woods.
During this interval I had remained standing on the piazza of the “Ti,”
which directly fronted the Happar mountain, and with no one near me but
Kory-Kory and the old superannuated savages I have before described.
These latter never stirred from their mats, and seemed altogether
unconscious that anything unusual was going on.
As for Kory-Kory, he appeared to think that we were in the midst of
great events, and sought most zealously to impress me with a due sense
of their importance. Every sound that reached us conveyed some
momentous item of intelligence to him. At such times, as if he were
gifted with second sight, he would go through a variety of pantomimic
illustrations, showing me the precise manner in which the redoubtable
Typees were at that very moment chastising the insolence of the enemy.
“Mehevi hanna pippee nuee Happar,” he exclaimed every five minutes,
giving me to understand that under that distinguished captain the
warriors of his nation were performing prodigies of valour.
Having heard only four reports from the muskets, I was led to believe
that they were worked by the islanders in the same manner as the Sultan
Solyman’s ponderous artillery at the siege of Byzantium, one of them
taking an hour or two to load and train. At last, no sound whatever
proceeding from the mountains, I concluded that the contest had been
determined one way or the other. Such appeared, indeed, to be the case,
for in a little while a courier arrived at the “Ti,” almost breathless
with his exertions, and communicated the news of a great victory having
been achieved by his countrymen: “Happar poo arva!—Happar poo arva!”
(the cowards had fled). Kory-Kory was in ecstasies, and commenced a
vehement harangue, which, so far as I understood it, implied that the
result exactly agreed with his expectations, and which, moreover, was
intended to convince me that it would be a perfectly useless
undertaking, even for an army of fire-eaters, to offer battle to the
irresistible heroes of our valley. In all this I of course acquiesced,
and looked forward with no little interest to the return of the
conquerors, whose victory I feared might not have been purchased
without cost to themselves.
But here I was again mistaken; for Mehevi, in conducting his warlike
operations, rather inclined to the Fabian than to the Buonapartean
tactics, husbanding his resources and exposing his troops to no
unnecessary hazards. The total loss of the victors in this obstinately
contested affair was,—in killed, wounded, and missing—one forefinger
and part of a thumb-nail (which the late proprietor brought along with
him in his hand), a severely contused arm, and a considerable effusion
of blood flowing from the thigh of a chief who had received an ugly
thrust from a Happar spear. What the enemy had suffered I could not
discover, but I presume they had succeeded in taking off with them the
bodies of their slain.
Such was the issue of the battle, as far as its results came under my
observation; and as it appeared to be considered an event of prodigious
importance, I reasonably concluded that the wars of the natives were
marked by no very sanguinary traits. I afterwards learned how the
skirmish had originated. A number of the Happars had been discovered
prowling for no good purpose on the Typee side of the mountain; the
alarm sounded, and the invaders, after a protracted resistance, had
been chased over the frontier. But why had not the intrepid Mehevi
carried the war into Happar? Why had not he made a descent into the
hostile vale, and brought away some trophy of his victory—some
materials for the cannibal entertainment which I had heard usually
terminated every engagement? After all, I was much inclined to believe
that these shocking festivals must occur very rarely among the
islanders, if, indeed, they ever take place.
For two or three days the late event was the theme of general comment;
after which the excitement gradually wore away, and the valley resumed
its accustomed tranquillity.