And This Happened
Not Once, Nor Twice, But Time After Time.
Strange to say, it never
grew monotonous.
I know that I, for one, came through each brush
with the undiminished zest of a man flying from sudden death. No;
the pilgrim from Taiohae to Typee will never suffer from ennui on
the way.
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?
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