Walter Bagehot - "Physics and Politics"

Max Nordau - "The Malady of the Century"

Alphonse Daudet - "Fromont and Risler, v4"

John S. C. Abbott - "Napoleon Bonaparte"

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Books: Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas

H >> Herman Melville >> Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas



Scanned and proofed by David Moynihan dmoynihan@blackmask.com





PART I

CHAPTER I. MY RECEPTION ABOARD
CHAPTER II. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE SHIP
CHAPTER III. FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE JULIA
CHAPTER IV. A SCENE IN THE FORECASTLE
CHAPTER V. WHAT HAPPENED AT HYTYHOO
CHAPTER VI. WE TOUCH AT LA DOMINICA
CHAPTER VII. WHAT HAPPENED AT HANNAMANOO
CHAPTER VIII. THE TATTOOERS OF LA DOMINICA
CHAPTER IX. WE STEER TO THE WESTWARD--STATE OF AFFAIRS
CHAPTER X. A SEA-PARLOUR DESCRIBED, WITH SOME OF ITS TENANTS
CHAPTER XI. DOCTOR LONG GHOST A WAG--ONE OF HIS CAPERS
CHAPTER XII. DEATH AND BURIAL OF TWO OF THE CREW
CHAPTER XIII. OUR DESTINATION CHANGED
CHAPTER XIV. ROPE YARN
CHAPTER XV. CHIPS AND BUNGS
CHAPTER XVI. WE ENCOUNTEB A GALE
CHAPTER XVII. THE CORAL ISLANDS
CHAPTER XVIII. TAHITI
CHAPTER XIX. A SURPRISE--MORE ABOUT BEMBO
CHAPTER XX. THE ROUND ROBIN--VISITORS FROM SHORE
CHAPTER XXI. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONSUL
CHAPTER XXII. THE CONSUL'S DEPARTURE
CHAPTER XXIII. THE SECOND NIGHT OFF PAPEETEE
CHAPTER XXIV. OUTBREAK OF THE CREW
CHAPTER XXV. JERMIN ENCOUNTERS AN OLD SHIPMATE
CHAPTER XXVI. WE ENTER THE HARBOUR--JIM THE PILOT
CHAPTER XXVII. A GLANCE AT PAPEETEE--WE ARE SENT ABOARD THE FRIGATE
CHAPTER XXVIII. RECEPTION FROM THE FRENCHMAN
CHAPTER XXIX. THE REINE BLANCHE
CHAPTER XXX. THEY TAKE US ASHORE--WHAT HAPPENED THERE
CHAPTER XXXI. THE CALABOOZA BERETANEE
CHAPTER XXXII. PROCEEDINGS OF THE FRENCH AT TAHITI
CHAPTER XXXIII. WE RECEIVE CALLS AT THE HOTEL DE CALABOOZA
CHAPTER XXXIV. LIFE AT THE CALABOOZA
CHAPTER XXXV. VISIT FROM AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
CHAPTER XXXVI. WE ARE CARRIED BEFORE THE CONSUL AND CAPTAIN
CHAPTER XXXVII. THE FRENCH PRIESTS PAY THEIR RESPECTS
CHAPTER XXXVIII. LITTLE JULIA SAILS WITHOUT US
CHAPTER XXXIX. JERMIN SERVES US A GOOD TURN--FRIENDSHIPS IN POLYNESIA

PART II

CHAPTER XL. WE TAKE UNTO OURSELVES FRIENDS
CHAPTER XLI. WE LEVY CONTRIBUTIONS ON THE SHIPPING
CHAPTER XLII. MOTOO-OTOO A TAHITIAN CASUIST
CHAPTER XLIII. ONE IS JUDGED BY THE COMPANY HE KEEPS
CHAPTER XLIV. CATHEDRAL OF PAPOAR--THE CHURCH OP THE COCOA-NUTS
CHAPTER XLV. MISSIONARY'S SERMON; WITH SOME REFLECTIONS
CHAPTER XLVI. SOMETHING ABOUT THE KANNAKIPPERS
CHAPTER XLVII. HOW THEY DRESS IN TAHITI
CHAPTER XLVIII. TAHITI AS IT IS
CHAPTER XLIX. SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED
CHAPTER L. SOMETHING HAPPENS TO LONG GHOST
CHAPTER LI. WILSON GIVES US THE CUT--DEPARTURE FOR IMEEO
CHAPTER LII. THE VALLEY OF MARTAIR
CHAPTER LIII. FARMING IN POLYNESIA
CHAPTER LIV. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE WILD CATTLE IN POLYNESIA
CHAPTER LV. A HUNTING RAMBLE WITH ZEKE
CHAPTER LVI. MOSQUITOES
CHAPTER LVII. THE SECOND HUNT IN THE MOUNTAINS
CHAPTER LVIII. THE HUNTING-FEAST; AND A VISIT TO AFREHITOO
CHAPTER LIX. THE MURPHIES
CHAPTER LX. WHAT THEY THOUGHT OF US IN MARTAIR
CHAPTER LXI. PREPARING FOR THE JOURNEY
CHAPTER LXII. TAMAI
CHAPTER LXIII. A DANCE IN THE VALLEY
CHAPTER LXIV. MYSTERIOUS
CHAPTER LXV. THE HEGIRA, OR FLIGHT
CHAPTER LXVI. HOW WE WERE TO GET TO TALOO
CHAPTER LXVII. THE JOURNEY ROUND THE BEACH
CHAPTER LXVIII. A DINNER-PARTY IN IMEEO
CHAPTER LXIX. THE COCOA-PALM
CHAPTER LXX. LIFE AT LOOHOOLOO
CHAPTER LXXI. WE START FOR TALOO
CHAPTER LXXII. A DEALER IN THE CONTRABAND
CHAPTER LXXIII. OUR RECEPTION IN PARTOOWYE
CHAPTER LXXIV. RETIRING FOR THE NIGHT--THE DOCTOR GROWS DEVOUT
CHAPTER LXXV. A RAMBLE THROUGH THE SETTLEMENT
CHAPTER LXXVI. AN ISLAND JILT--WE VISIT THE SHIP
CHAPTER LXXVII. A PARTY OF ROVERS--LITTLE LOO AND THE DOCTOR
CHAPTER LXXVIII. MRS. BELL
CHAPTER LXXIX. TALOO CHAPEL--HOLDING COURT IN POLYNESIA
CHAPTER LXXX. QUEEN POMAREE
CHAPTER LXXXI. WE VISIT THE COURT
CHAPTER LXXXII. WHICH ENDS THE BOOK




PART I

CHAPTER I.

MY RECEPTION ABOARD

IT WAS the middle of a bright tropical afternoon that we made good our
escape from the bay. The vessel we sought lay with her main-topsail
aback about a league from the land, and was the only object that
broke the broad expanse of the ocean.

On approaching, she turned out to be a small, slatternly-looking
craft, her hull and spars a dingy black, rigging all slack and
bleached nearly white, and everything denoting an ill state of
affairs aboard. The four boats hanging from her sides proclaimed her
a whaler. Leaning carelessly over the bulwarks were the sailors,
wild, haggard-looking fellows in Scotch caps and faded blue frocks;
some of them with cheeks of a mottled bronze, to which sickness soon
changes the rich berry-brown of a seaman's complexion in the tropics.

On the quarter-deck was one whom I took for the chief mate. He wore a
broad-brimmed Panama hat, and his spy-glass was levelled as we
advanced.

When we came alongside, a low cry ran fore and aft the deck, and
everybody gazed at us with inquiring eyes. And well they might. To
say nothing of the savage boat's crew, panting with excitement, all
gesture and vociferation, my own appearance was calculated to excite
curiosity. A robe of the native cloth was thrown over my shoulders,
my hair and beard were uncut, and I betrayed other evidences of my
recent adventure. Immediately on gaining the deck, they beset me on
all sides with questions, the half of which I could not answer, so
incessantly were they put.

As an instance of the curious coincidences which often befall the
sailor, I must here mention that two countenances before me were
familiar. One was that of an old man-of-war's-man, whose acquaintance
I had made in Rio de Janeiro, at which place touched the ship in
which I sailed from home. The other was a young man whom, four years
previous, I had frequently met in a sailor boarding-house in
Liverpool. I remembered parting with him at Prince's Dock Gates, in
the midst of a swarm of police-officers, trackmen, stevedores,
beggars, and the like. And here we were again:--years had rolled by,
many a league of ocean had been traversed, and we were thrown
together under circumstances which almost made me doubt my own
existence.

But a few moments passed ere I was sent for into the cabin by the
captain.

He was quite a young man, pale and slender, more like a sickly
counting-house clerk than a bluff sea-captain. Bidding me be seated,
he ordered the steward to hand me a glass of Pisco. In the state I
was, this stimulus almost made me delirious; so that of all I then
went on to relate concerning my residence on the island I can
scarcely remember a word. After this I was asked whether I desired to
"ship"; of course I said yes; that is, if he would allow me to enter
for one cruise, engaging to discharge me, if I so desired, at the
next port. In this way men are frequently shipped on board whalemen
in the South Seas. My stipulation was acceded to, and the ship's
articles handed me to sign.

The mate was now called below, and charged to make a "well man" of me;
not, let it be borne in mind, that the captain felt any great
compassion for me, he only desired to have the benefit of my services
as soon as possible.

Helping me on deck, the mate stretched me out on the windlass and
commenced examining my limb; and then doctoring it after a fashion
with something from the medicine-chest, rolled it up in a piece of an
old sail, making so big a bundle that, with my feet resting on the
windlass, I might have been taken for a sailor with the gout. While
this was going on, someone removing my tappa cloak slipped on a blue
frock in its place, and another, actuated by the same desire to make
a civilized mortal of me, flourished about my head a great pair lie
imminent jeopardy of both ears, and the certain destruction of hair
and beard.

The day was now drawing to a close, and, as the land faded from my
sight, I was all alive to the change in my condition. But how far
short of our expectations is oftentimes the fulfilment of the most
ardent hopes. Safe aboard of a ship--so long my earnest prayer--with
home and friends once more in prospect, I nevertheless felt weighed
down by a melancholy that could not be shaken off. It was the thought
of never more seeing those who, notwithstanding their desire to
retain me a captive, had, upon the whole, treated me so kindly. I was
leaving them for ever.

So unforeseen and sudden had been my escape, so excited had I been
through it all, and so great the contrast between the luxurious
repose of the valley, and the wild noise and motion of a ship at sea,
that at times my recent adventures had all the strangeness of a
dream; and I could scarcely believe that the same sun now setting
over a waste of waters, had that very morning risen above the
mountains and peered in upon me as I lay on my mat in Typee.

Going below into the forecastle just after dark, I was inducted into a
wretched "bunk" or sleeping-box built over another. The rickety
bottoms of both were spread with several pieces of a blanket. A
battered tin can was then handed me, containing about half a pint of
"tea"--so called by courtesy, though whether the juice of such stalks
as one finds floating therein deserves that title, is a matter all
shipowners must settle with their consciences. A cube of salt beef,
on a hard round biscuit by way of platter, was also handed up; and
without more ado, I made a meal, the salt flavour of which, after the
Nebuchadnezzar fare of the valley, was positively delicious.

While thus engaged, an old sailor on a chest just under me was puffing
out volumes of tobacco smoke. My supper finished, he brushed the stem
of his sooty pipe against the sleeve of his frock, and politely waved
it toward me. The attention was sailor-like; as for the nicety of the
thing, no man who has lived in forecastles is at all fastidious; and
so, after a few vigorous whiffs to induce repose, I turned over and
tried my best to forget myself. But in vain. My crib, instead of
extending fore and aft, as it should have done, was placed athwart
ships, that is, at right angles to the keel, and the vessel, going
before the wind, rolled to such a degree, that-every time my heels
went up and my head went down, I thought I was on the point of
turning a somerset. Beside this, there were still more annoying
causes of inquietude; and every once in a while a splash of water
came down the open scuttle, and flung the spray in my face.

At last, after a sleepless night, broken twice by the merciless call
of the watch, a peep of daylight struggled into view from above, and
someone came below. It was my old friend with the pipe.

"Here, shipmate," said I, "help me out of this place, and let me go
on deck."

"Halloa, who's that croaking?" was the rejoinder, as he peered into
the obscurity where I lay. "Ay, Typee, my king of the cannibals, is
it you I But I say, my lad, how's that spar of your'n? the mate says
it's in a devil of a way; and last night set the steward to
sharpening the handsaw: hope he won't have the carving of ye."

Long before daylight we arrived off the bay of Nukuheva, and making
short tacks until morning, we then ran in and sent a boat ashore with
the natives who had brought me to the ship. Upon its return, we made
sail again, and stood off from the land. There was a fine breeze; and
notwithstanding my bad night's rest, the cool, fresh air of a
morning at sea was so bracing, mat, as soon as I breathed it, my
spirits rose at once.

Seated upon the windlass the greater portion of the day, and chatting
freely with the men, I learned the history of the voyage thus far,
and everything respecting the ship and its present condition.

These matters I will now throw together in the next chapter.



CHAPTER II.

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE SHIP

FIRST AND foremost, I must give some account of the Julia herself; or
"Little Jule," as the sailors familiarly styled her.

She was a small barque of a beautiful model, something more than two
hundred tons, Yankee-built and very old. Fitted for a privateer out
of a New England port during the war of 1812, she had been captured
at sea by a British cruiser, and, after seeing all sorts of service,
was at last employed as a government packet in the Australian seas.
Being condemned, however, about two years previous, she was purchased
at auction by a house in Sydney, who, after some slight repairs,
dispatched her on the present voyage.

Notwithstanding the repairs, she was still in a miserable plight. The
lower masts were said to be unsound; the standing rigging was much
worn; and, in some places, even the bulwarks were quite rotten.
Still, she was tolerably tight, and but little more than the ordinary
pumping of a morning served to keep her free.

But all this had nothing to do with her sailing; at that, brave Little
Jule, plump Little Jule, was a witch. Blow high, or blow low, she was
always ready for the breeze; and when she dashed the waves from her
prow, and pranced, and pawed the sea, you never thought of her
patched sails and blistered hull. How the fleet creature would fly
before the wind! rolling, now and then, to be sure, but in very
playfulness. Sailing to windward, no gale could bow her over: with
spars erect, she looked right up into the wind's eye, and so she went.

But after all, Little Jule was not to be confided in. Lively enough,
and playful she was, but on that very account the more to be
distrusted. Who knew, but that like some vivacious old mortal all at
once sinking into a decline, she might, some dark night, spring a
leak and carry us all to the bottom. However, she played us no such
ugly trick, and therefore, I wrong Little Jule in supposing it.

She had a free roving commission. According to her papers she might go
whither she pleased--whaling, sealing, or anything else. Sperm
whaling, however, was what she relied upon; though, as yet, only two
fish had been brought alongside.

The day they sailed out of Sydney Heads, the ship's company, all told,
numbered some thirty-two souls; now, they mustered about twenty; the
rest had deserted. Even the three junior mates who had headed the
whaleboats were gone: and of the four harpooners, only one was left,
a wild New Zealander, or "Mowree" as his countrymen are more commonly
called in the Pacific. But this was not all. More than half the
seamen remaining were more or less unwell from a long sojourn in a
dissipated port; some of them wholly unfit for duty, one or two
dangerously ill, and the rest managing to stand their watch though
they could do but little.

The captain was a young cockney, who, a few years before, had
emigrated to Australia, and, by some favouritism or other, had
procured the command of the vessel, though in no wise competent.
He was essentially a landsman, and though a man of education, no more
meant for the sea than a hairdresser. Hence everybody made fun of
him. They called him "The Cabin Boy," "Paper Jack," and half a dozen
other undignified names. In truth, the men made no secret of the
derision in which they held him; and as for the slender gentleman
himself, he knew it all very well, and bore himself with becoming
meekness. Holding as little intercourse with them as possible, he
left everything to the chief mate, who, as the story went, had been
given his captain in charge. Yet, despite his apparent
unobtrusiveness, the silent captain had more to do with the men than
they thought. In short, although one of your sheepish-looking
fellows, he had a sort of still, timid cunning, which no one would
have suspected, and which, for that very reason, was all the more
active. So the bluff mate, who always thought he did what he pleased,
was occasionally made a fool of; and some obnoxious measures which he
carried out, in spite of all growlings, were little thought to
originate with the dapper little fellow in nankeen jacket and white
canvas pumps. But, to all appearance, at least, the mate had
everything his own way; indeed, in most things this was actually the
case; and it was quite plain that the captain stood in awe of him.

So far as courage, seamanship, and a natural aptitude for keeping
riotous spirits in subjection were concerned, no man was better
qualified for his vocation than John Jermin. He was the very
beau-ideal of the efficient race of short, thick-set men. His hair
curled in little rings of iron gray all over his round bullet head. As
for his countenance, it was strongly marked, deeply pitted with the
small-pox. For the rest, there was a fierce little squint out of one
eye; the nose had a rakish twist to one side; while his large mouth,
and great white teeth, looked absolutely sharkish when he laughed. In
a word, no one, after getting a fair look at him, would ever think of
improving the shape of his nose, wanting in symmetry as it was.
Notwithstanding his pugnacious looks, however, Jermin had a heart as
big as a bullock's; that you saw at a glance.

Such was our mate; but he had one failing: he abhorred all weak
infusions, and cleaved manfully to strong drink.. At all times he was
more or less under the influence of it. Taken in moderate quantities,
I believe, in my soul, it did a man like him good; brightened his
eyes, swept the cobwebs out of his brain, and regulated his pulse.
But the worst of it was, that sometimes he drank too much, and a more
obstreperous fellow than Jermin in his cups, you seldom came across.
He was always for having a fight; but the very men he flogged loved
him as a brother, for he had such an irresistibly good-natured way of
knocking them down, that no one could find it in his heart to bear
malice against him. So much for stout little Jermin.

All English whalemen are bound by-law to carry a physician, who, of
course, is rated a gentleman, and lives in the cabin, with nothing
but his professional duties to attend to; but incidentally he drinks
"flip" and plays cards with the captain. There was such a worthy
aboard of the Julia; but, curious to tell, he lived in the forecastle
with the men. And this was the way it happened.

In the early part of the voyage the doctor and the captain lived
together as pleasantly as could be. To say nothing of many a can they
drank over the cabin transom, both of them had read books, and one of
them had travelled; so their stories never flagged. But once on a
time they got into a dispute about politics, and the doctor,
moreover, getting into a rage, drove home an argument with his fist,
and left the captain on the floor literally silenced. This was
carrying it with a high hand; so he was shut up in his state-room for
ten days, and left to meditate on bread and water, and the
impropriety of flying into a passion. Smarting under his disgrace, he
undertook, a short time after his liberation, to leave the vessel
clandestinely at one of the islands, but was brought back
ignominiously, and again shut up. Being set at large for the second
time, he vowed he would not live any longer with the captain, and
went forward with his chests among the sailors, where he was received
with open arms as a good fellow and an injured man.

I must give some further account of him, for he figures largely in the
narrative. His early history, like that of many other heroes, was
enveloped in the profoundest obscurity; though he threw out hints of
a patrimonial estate, a nabob uncle, and an unfortunate affair which
sent him a-roving. All that was known, however, was this. He had gone
out to Sydney as assistant-surgeon of an emigrant ship. On his
arrival there, he went back into the country, and after a few months'
wanderings, returned to Sydney penniless, and entered as doctor
aboard of the Julia.

His personal appearance was remarkable. He was over six feet high--a
tower of bones, with a complexion absolutely colourless, fair hair,
and a light unscrupulous gray eye, twinkling occasionally at the very
devil of mischief. Among the crew, he went by the name of the Long
Doctor, or more frequently still, Doctor Long Ghost. And from
whatever high estate Doctor Long Ghost might have fallen, he had
certainly at some time or other spent money, drunk Burgundy, and
associated with gentlemen.

As for his learning, he quoted Virgil, and talked of Hobbs of
Malmsbury, beside repeating poetry by the canto, especially Hudibras.
He was, moreover, a man who had seen the world. 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; and about these places, and a
hundred others, he had more anecdotes than I can tell of. Then such
mellow old songs as he sang, in a voice so round and racy, the real
juice of sound. How such notes came forth from his lank body was a
constant marvel.

Upon the whole, Long Ghost was as entertaining a companion as one
could wish; and to me in the Julia, an absolute godsend.



CHAPTER III.

FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE JULIA

OWING to the absence of anything like regular discipline, the vessel
was in a state of the greatest uproar. The captain, having for some
time past been more or less confined to the cabin from sickness, was
seldom seen. The mate, however, was as hearty as a young lion, and
ran about the decks making himself heard at all hours. Bembo, the
New Zealand harpooner, held little intercourse with anybody but the
mate, who could talk to him freely in his own lingo. Part of his time
he spent out on the bowsprit, fishing for albicores with a bone hook;
and occasionally he waked all hands up of a dark night dancing some
cannibal fandango all by himself on the forecastle. But, upon the
whole, he was remarkably quiet, though something in his eye showed he
was far from being harmless.

Doctor Long Ghost, having sent in a written resignation as the ship's
doctor, gave himself out as a passenger for Sydney, and took the
world quite easy. As for the crew, those who were sick seemed
marvellously contented for men in their condition; and the rest, not
displeased with the general licence, gave themselves little thought
of the morrow.

The Julia's provisions were very poor. When opened, the barrels of
pork looked as if preserved in iron rust, and diffused an odour like
a stale ragout. The beef was worse yet; a mahogany-coloured fibrous
substance, so tough and tasteless, that I almost believed the cook's
story of a horse's hoof with the shoe on having been fished up out of
the pickle of one of the casks. Nor was the biscuit much better;
nearly all of it was broken into hard, little gunflints, honeycombed
through and through, as if the worms usually infesting this article
in long tropical voyages had, in boring after nutriment, come out at
the antipodes without finding anything.

Of what sailors call "small stores," we had but little. "Tea,"
however, we had in abundance; though, I dare say, the Hong merchants
never had the shipping of it. Beside this, every other day we had
what English seamen call "shot soup"--great round peas, polishing
themselves like pebbles by rolling about in tepid water.

It was afterward told me, that all our provisions had been purchased
by the owners at an auction sale of condemned navy stores in Sydney.

But notwithstanding the wateriness of the first course of soup, and
the saline flavour of the beef and pork, a sailor might have made a
satisfactory meal aboard of the Julia had there been any side
dishes--a potato or two, a yam, or a plantain. But there was nothing
of the kind. Still, there was something else, which, in the estimation
of the men, made up for all deficiencies; and that was the regular
allowance of Pisco.

It may seem strange that in such a state of affairs the captain should
be willing to keep the sea with his ship. But the truth was, that by
lying in harbour, he ran the risk of losing the remainder of his men
by desertion; and as it was, he still feared that, in some outlandish
bay or other, he might one day find his anchor down, and no crew to
weigh it.

With judicious officers the most unruly seamen can at sea be kept in
some sort of subjection; but once get them within a cable's length of
the land, and it is hard restraining them. It is for this reason that
many South Sea whalemen do not come to anchor for eighteen or twenty
months on a stretch. When fresh provisions are needed, they run for
the nearest land--heave to eight or ten miles off, and send a boat
ashore to trade. The crews manning vessels like these are for the most
part villains of all nations and dyes; picked up in the lawless ports
of the Spanish Main, and among the savages of the islands. Like
galley-slaves, they are only to be governed by scourges and chains.
Their officers go among them with dirk and pistol--concealed, but
ready at a grasp.

Not a few of our own crew were men of this stamp; but, riotous at
times as they were, the bluff drunken energies of Jennin were just
the thing to hold them in some sort of noisy subjection. Upon an
emergency, he flew in among them, showering his kicks and cuffs right
and left, and "creating a sensation" in every direction. And as
hinted before, they bore this knock-down authority with great
good-humour. A sober, discreet, dignified officer could have done
nothing with them; such a set would have thrown him and his dignity
overboard.