to remove our uncomfortable garments, which were
saturated with rain. They scanned the whiteness of our limbs, and seemed
utterly unable to account for the contrast they presented to the swarthy
hue of our faces embrowned from a six months' exposure to the scorching
sun of the Line. They felt our skin, much in the same way that a silk
mercer would handle a remarkably fine piece of satin; and some of them
went so far in their investigation as to apply the olfactory organ.

Their singular behaviour almost led me to imagine that they never before
had beheld a white man; but a few moments' reflection convinced me that
this could not have been the case; and a more satisfactory reason for
their conduct has since suggested itself to my mind.

Deterred by the frightful stories related of its inhabitants, ships
never enter this bay, while their hostile relations with the tribes in
the adjoining valleys prevent the Typees from visiting that section of
the island where vessels occasionally lie. At long intervals, however,
some intrepid captain will touch on the skirts of the bay, with two or
three armed boats' crews and accompanied by interpreters. The natives
who live near the sea descry the strangers long before they reach their
waters, and aware of the purpose for which they come, proclaim loudly
the news of their approach. By a species of vocal telegraph the
intelligence reaches the inmost recesses of the vale in an inconceivably
short space of time, drawing nearly its whole population down to
the beach laden with every variety of fruit. The interpreter, who is
invariably a 'tabooed Kanaka'*, leaps ashore with the goods intended for
barter, while the boats, with their oars shipped, and every man on his
thwart, lie just outside the surf, heading off the shore, in readiness
at the first untoward event to escape to the open sea. As soon as the
traffic is concluded, one of the boats pulls in under cover of the
muskets of the others, the fruit is quickly thrown into her, and the
transient visitors precipitately retire from what they justly consider
so dangerous a vicinity.

* The word 'Kanaka' is at the present day universally used in the South
Seas by Europeans to designate the Islanders. In the various dialects
of the principal groups it is simply a sexual designation applied to
the males; but it is now used by the natives in their intercourse with
foreigners in the same sense in which the latter employ it.

A 'Tabooed Kanaka