At last we arose above the vexation of wasps.It was a matter of altitude, however, rather than of fortitude.All about us lay the jagged back-bones of ranges, as far as the eye could see, thrusting their pinnacles into the trade-wind clouds.Under us, from the way we had come, the Snark lay like a tiny toy on the calm water of Taiohae Bay.Ahead we could see the inshore indentation of Comptroller Bay.We dropped down a thousand feet, and Typee lay beneath us."Had a glimpse of the gardens of paradise been revealed to me I could scarcely have been more ravished with the sight"--so said Melville on the moment of his first view of the valley.He saw a garden.We saw a wilderness.Where were the hundred groves of the breadfruit tree he saw? We saw jungle, nothing but jungle, with the exception of two grass huts and several clumps of cocoanuts breaking the primordial green mantle.Where was the Ti of Mehevi, the bachelors' hall, the palace where women were taboo, and where he ruled with his lesser chieftains, keeping the half-dozen dusty and torpid ancients to remind them of the valorous past? From the swift stream no sounds arose of maids and matrons pounding tapa.And where was the hut that old Narheyo eternally builded? In vain Ilooked for him perched ninety feet from the ground in some tall cocoanut, taking his morning smoke.
We went down a zigzag trail under overarching, matted jungle, where great butterflies drifted by in the silence.No tattooed savage with club and javelin guarded the path; and when we forded the stream, we were free to roam where we pleased.No longer did the taboo, sacred and merciless, reign in that sweet vale.Nay, the taboo still did reign, a new taboo, for when we approached too near the several wretched native women, the taboo was uttered warningly.
And it was well.They were lepers.The man who warned us was afflicted horribly with elephantiasis.All were suffering from lung trouble.The valley of Typee was the abode of death, and the dozen survivors of the tribe were gasping feebly the last painful breaths of the race.
Certainly the battle had not been to the strong, for once the Typeans were very strong, stronger than the Happars, stronger than the Taiohaeans, stronger than all the tribes of Nuku-hiva.The word "typee," or, rather, "taipi," originally signified an eater of human flesh.But since all the Marquesans were human-flesh eaters, to be so designated was the token that the Typeans were the human-flesh eaters par excellence.Not alone to Nuku-hiva did the Typean reputation for bravery and ferocity extend.In all the islands of the Marquesas the Typeans were named with dread.Man could not conquer them.Even the French fleet that took possession of the Marquesas left the Typeans alone.Captain Porter, of the frigate Essex, once invaded the valley.His sailors and marines were reinforced by two thousand warriors of Happar and Taiohae.They penetrated quite a distance into the valley, but met with so fierce a resistance that they were glad to retreat and get away in their flotilla of boats and war-canoes.
Of all inhabitants of the South Seas, the Marquesans were adjudged the strongest and the most beautiful.Melville said of them: "Iwas especially struck by the physical strength and beauty they displayed...In beauty of form they surpassed anything I had ever seen.Not a single instance of natural deformity was observable in all the throng attending the revels.Every individual appeared free from those blemishes which sometimes mar the effect of an otherwise perfect form.But their physical excellence did not merely consist in an exemption from these evils; nearly every individual of the number might have been taken for a sculptor's model." Mendana, the discoverer of the Marquesas, described the natives as wondrously beautiful to behold.Figueroa, the chronicler of his voyage, said of them: "In complexion they were nearly white; of good stature and finely formed." Captain Cook called the Marquesans the most splendid islanders in the South Seas.The men were described, as "in almost every instance of lofty stature, scarcely ever less than six feet in height."And now all this strength and beauty has departed, and the valley of Typee is the abode of some dozen wretched creatures, afflicted by leprosy, elephantiasis, and tuberculosis.Melville estimated the population at two thousand, not taking into consideration the small adjoining valley of Ho-o-u-mi.Life has rotted away in this wonderful garden spot, where the climate is as delightful and healthful as any to be found in the world.Not alone were the Typeans physically magnificent; they were pure.Their air did not contain the bacilli and germs and microbes of disease that fill our own air.And when the white men imported in their ships these various micro-organisms or disease, the Typeans crumpled up and went down before them.