ely, with all their worldly wealth around them, in
houses the doors of which were never fastened. The disquieting ideas of
theft or assassination never disturbed them. Each islander reposed beneath
his own palmetto-thatching, or sat under his own bread-fruit, with none to
molest or alarm him. There was not a padlock in the valley, nor anything
that answered the purpose of one: still there was no community of goods.
This long spear, so elegantly carved and highly polished, belongs to
Warmoonoo--it is far handsomer than the one which old Marheyo so greatly
prizes--it is the most valuable article belonging to its owner. And yet I
have seen it leaning against a cocoa-nut tree in the grove, and there it
was found when sought for. Here is a sperm-whale tooth, graven all over
with cunning devices--it is the property of Kurluna. It is the most
precious of the damsel's ornaments. In her estimation, its price is far
above rubies; and yet there hangs the dental jewel, by its cord of braided
bark, in the girl's house, which is far back in the valley; the door is
left open, and all the inmates have gone off to bathe in the stream.(5)

So much for the respect in which such matters are held in Typee. As to the
land of the valley, whether it was the joint property of its inhabitants,
or whether it was parcelled out among a certain number of landed
proprietors, who allowed everybody to roam over it as much as they
pleased, I never could ascertain. At any rate, musty parchments and
title-deeds there were none in the island; and I am half inclined to
believe that its inhabitants hold their broad valleys in fee simple from
nature herself.

Yesterday I saw Kory-Kory hie him away, armed with a long pole, with
which, standing on the ground, he knocked down the fruit from the topmost
boughs of the trees, and brought them home in his basket of cocoa-nut
leaves. To-day I see an islander, whom I know to reside in a distant part
of the valley, doing the self-same thing. On the sloping bank of the
stream were a number of banana trees. I have often seen a score or two of
young people making a merry foray on the great golden clusters, and
bearing them off, one after another, to different parts of the vale,
shouting and tramping as they went. No churlish old curmudgeon could have
been the owner of that grove of bread-fruit trees, or of these gloriously
yellow bunches of bananas.

From what I have said, it will be perceived that there is a vast
diffe