Herman Melville - Mariner and Mystic by Raymond M. Weaver

Author:Raymond M. Weaver [Weaver, Raymond M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

In 1855

RICHARD TOBIAS GREENE

Editor of the Sandusky Mirror

On the morrow, with as much tobacco, ship’s biscuit and calico as they could stow in the front of their frocks, Melville and Toby made off for the interior of Nukuheva,—but not before Melville “lingered behind in the forecastle a moment to take a parting glance at its familiar features.” Their five days of marvellous adventures that landed them finally in the valley of Typee has abidingly tried the credulity of Melville’s readers—though never for an instant their patience. After reading these adventures, Stevenson expressed his slangy approval by hailing Melville as “a howling cheese.” It has been questioned in passing whether or not the number of days that two strong male humans, going through incredible exertion, can support themselves upon a hunk of bread soaked in sweat and ingrained with shreds of tobacco, must not be fewer than Melville makes out. And did they, in sober verity, critics have asked, lower themselves down the cliff by swinging from creeper to creeper with horrid gaps between them—was it as steep as Melville says, and the creepers as far apart? And did they, on another occasion, as Melville asserts, break a second gigantic fall by pitching on the topmost branches of a very high palm tree? During these thrilling and terrible five days, hardship runs hard on the heels of hardship, and each obstacle as it presents itself, seems, if possible, more unsurmountable than the last. There is no way out of this, one says for the tenth time: but the sagacity and fearless confidence of Toby—to whom let glory be given—and the manful endurance of Melville through parching fever and agonising lameness, disappoint the lugubrious reader. On the third day after their escape, their ardour is cooled to a resolve to forego futile ramblings for a space. They crawled under a clump of thick bushes, and pulling up the long grass that grew around, covered themselves completely with it to endure another downpour. While the exhausted Toby slept through the violent rain, Melville tossed about in a raging fever, without the heart to wake Toby when the rain ceased. Chancing to push aside a branch, Melville was as transfixed with surprised delight as if he had opened a sudden vista into Paradise. He “looked straight down into the bosom of a valley, which swept away in long wavy undulations to the blue waters in the distance. Midway towards the sea, and peering here and there amidst the foliage, might be seen the palmetto-thatched houses of its inhabitants glistening in the sun that had bleached them to a dazzling whiteness. The vale was more than three leagues in length, and about a mile across its greatest width. Everywhere below me, from the base of the precipice upon whose very verge I had been unconsciously reposing, the surface of the vale presented a mass of foliage, spread with such rich profusion that it was impossible to determine of what description of trees it consisted. But

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