gold-beating process, to any degree of
thinness required. In this way the cloth is easily made to vary in
strength and thickness, so as to suit the numerous purposes to which it
is applied.

When the operation last described has been concluded, the new-made tappa
is spread out on the grass to bleach and dry, and soon becomes of a
dazzling whiteness. Sometimes, in the first stages of the manufacture,
the substance is impregnated with a vegetable juice, which gives it
a permanent colour. A rich brown and a bright yellow are occasionally
seen, but the simple taste of the Typee people inclines them to prefer
the natural tint.

The notable wife of Kamehameha, the renowned conqueror and king of the
Sandwich Islands, used to pride herself in the skill she displayed in
dyeing her tappa with contrasting colours disposed in regular figures;
and, in the midst of the innovations of the times, was regarded, towards
the decline of her life, as a lady of the old school, clinging as she
did to the national cloth, in preference to the frippery of the
European calicoes. But the art of printing the tappa is unknown upon the
Marquesan Islands. In passing along the valley, I was often attracted by
the noise of the mallet, which, when employed in the manufacture of
the cloth produces at every stroke of its hard, heavy wood, a clear,
ringing, and musical sound, capable of being heard at a great distance.
When several of these implements happen to be in operation at the same
time, near one another, the effect upon the ear of a person, at a little
distance, is really charming.

CHAPTER TWENTY

HISTORY OF A DAY AS USUALLY SPENT IN TYPEE VALLEY--DANCES OF THE
MARQUESAN GIRLS

NOTHING can be more uniform and undiversified than the life of the
Typees; one tranquil day of ease and happiness follows another in quiet
succession; and with these unsophisicated savages the history of a
day is the history of a life. I will, therefore, as briefly as I can,
describe one of our days in the valley.

To begin with the morning. We were not very early risers--the sun would
be shooting his golden spikes above the Happar mountain, ere I threw
aside my tappa robe, and girding my long tunic about my waist, sallied
out with Fayaway and Kory-Kory, and the rest of the household, and bent
my steps towards the stream. Here we found congregated all those who
dwelt in our section of the valley; and here we bathed with them. The
fresh morning air and the cool f