ment of the crew, and of his non-fulfilment of
agreements. Under these considerations, Melville decided to abandon the
vessel on reaching the Marquesas Islands; and the narrative of 'Typee'
begins at this point. However, he always recognised the immense
influence the voyage had had upon his career, and in regard to its
results has said in 'Moby Dick,'--

'If I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small but high hushed
world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I
shall do anything that on the whole a man might rather have done than to
have left undone... then here I prospectively ascribe all the honour
and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my
Harvard.'

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. He was enabled to
discover himself again to Mr. Melville through the publication of the
present volume, and their acquaintance was renewed, lasting for quite
a long period. I have seen his portrait,--a rare old daguerrotype,--and
some of his letters to our author. One of his children was named for the
latter, but Mr. Melville lost trace of him in recent years.

With the author's rescue from what Dr. T. M. Coan has styled his
'anxious paradise,' 'Typee' ends, and its sequel, 'Omoo,' begins. Here,
again, it seems wisest to leave the remaining adventures in the South
Seas to the reader's own discovery, simply stating that, after a sojourn
at the Society Islands, Melville shipped for Honolulu. There he remained
for four months, employed as a clerk. He joined the crew of the American
frigate United States, which reached Boston, stopping on the way at one
of the Peruvian ports, in October of 1844. Once more was a narrative
of his experiences to be preserved in 'White Jacket; or, the World in
a Man-of-War.' Thus, of Melville's four most important books, three,
'Typee,' 'Omoo,' and 'White-Jacket,' are directly aut