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: "I
was 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.
