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Otherwise he might have been guilty of the beautiful exaggerations in Melville's "Typee" or the imaginative orgies in the latter's "Moby Dick."
Whence, in the name of Count Buffon and Baron Cuvier, came those dogs that I saw in Typee? Dogs! Big hairless rats rather; all with smooth, shining speckled hides fat sides, and very disagreeable faces. Whence could they have come? That they were not the indigenous production of the region, I am firmly convinced.
Could it have been thrown down by some solitary native, who, alarmed at seeing us, had hurried forward to carry the tidings of our approach to his countrymen? Typee or Happar? But it was too late to recede, so we moved on slowly, my companion in advance casting eager glances under the trees on each side, until all at once I saw him recoil as if stung by an adder.
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.
The record, then, of Melville's escape from the Dolly, otherwise the Acushnet, the sojourn of his companion Toby and himself in the Typee Valley on the island of Nukuheva, Toby's mysterious disappearance, and Melville's own escape, is fully given in the succeeding pages; and rash indeed would he be who would enter into a descriptive contest with these inimitable pictures of aboriginal life in the 'Happy Valley. So great an interest has always centred in the character of Toby, whose actual existence has been questioned, that I am glad to be able to declare him an authentic personage, by name Richard T. Greene.
Nothing in the appearance of the islanders struck me more forcibly than the whiteness of their teeth. The novelist always compares the masticators of his heroine to ivory; but I boldly pronounce the teeth of the Typee to be far more beautiful than ivory itself.
With this request they appeared willing to comply, but nothing could evince more strongly the apprehension with which they regarded us, than the way in which, whilst walking before us, they kept their eyes constantly turned back to watch every movement we made, and even our very looks. “Typee or Happar, Toby?” asked I, as we walked after them.
Anything opposed to the ordinary customs of the islanders, although not expressly prohibited, is said to be 'taboo'. The Typee language is one very difficult to be acquired; it bears a close resemblance to the other Polynesian dialects, all of which show a common origin. The duplication of words, as 'lumee lumee', 'poee poee', 'muee muee', is one of their peculiar features.
At the same time, there always has been a steady sale of his books in England, and some of them never have been out of print in that country since the publication of 'Typee. One result of this friendship between the two authors was the dedication of new volumes to each other in highly complimentary terms Mr.
The Kanaka had gained his intelligence from Marnoo, to whom, after all, I was indebted for my escape. The proposition was acceded to; and Karakoee, taking with him five tabooed natives of Nukuheva, again repaired aboard the barque, which in a few hours sailed to that part of the island, and threw her main-top-sail aback right off the entrance to the Typee bay.
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