A Voyage from San Francisco to Tahiti 



417 



that it was the hand with which she ate 

 ' ' poee. ' ' A boy ' ' walked " up a tree 

 ^nd knocked down half a dozen cocoa- 

 nuts, the milk of one of which I drank. 

 I have tried to get some breadfruit 

 ■cooked and some fresh iish; so far un- 

 successfull}\ I have returned to lunch 

 and am writing this on the deck, not 

 meaning to return to the shore. 



Four large boats are coming round 

 the eastern point, sounding conch- 

 .shells and beating drums. They are 

 from a neighboring valley and come, to 

 the number of fifty or more natives, to 

 •execute a dance for our party, which I 

 .am not going on shore again to see. The 

 300 natives whom it was advertised the 

 ship would take to Papeete have not 

 appeared. We are told that they had 

 made great preparations for going, but 

 that the governor had changed his 

 mind. 



And Typee ! The proprietor of the 

 "Typee Valley, Mr. G., is on board. He 

 ■describes it as having two or three fam- 

 ilies living on it and some wild cattle, as 

 -containing two or three square miles, 

 :and as being five or six miles long. It 

 must be much as it was in Melville's 

 time, but without the inhabitants. The 

 path to it, leading over the mountains, 

 is visible from the ship It is a slow 

 ■ride, two hours long, or about six miles 

 from the harbor, although Melville wan- 

 dered for days in getting to it. It is de- 

 -^cribed as having the most considerable 

 stream of the island running through it 

 (but without the little lake Melville 

 mentioned) and as being lined with 

 ancient "Ti's." 



The mouth of the bay where the Typee 

 Valley enters the ocean and where Mel- 

 ville escaped, is visible from the ship, 

 eight miles away, and the Happar Val- 

 ley must be between us and it. So 

 near — and we sail at 4 ! 



Got, with Mr. K. (a merchant of Pa- 

 peete and a passenger), a basket of beau- 

 tiful fresh fish, alive, of varied colors — 

 :Some pure crimson, some striped with 



green, etc. Mr. K. sent a man to get 

 them, or we should have had none, the 

 natives being too lazy to catch any. 



We took on four horses which were 

 swum out to the ship. It was curious 

 to see the naked natives diving under 

 the kicking beasts to attach the hoisting 

 gear. We took on two or three French- 

 men and as many natives (instead of the 

 300 !) and sailed at 5 o'clock. 



July 7. — Nothing to record. 



Jiily 8. — After a somewhat rough 

 night, a beautiful morning. The vessel 

 (at 8) is passing an "atoll" some 30 

 miles long and, I suppose, 8 or 10 broad 

 from rim to rim, the low beach being 

 covered with trees, but a few of which 

 are cocoa-palms. They say that the 

 natives of these atolls have all the pearl- 

 fishing in their own hands, the French 

 government not allowing the competition 

 of diving machines. The great gain is 

 not in the pearls, but in the shells, which 

 bring a hundred times as much profit, on 

 the whole, being very large and worth 

 in Tahiti about 90 cents in American 

 money per kilo. They sell in lyondon 

 for ^300 sterling the ton, so that for 

 once the natives get a fair share of the 

 profit, some of them making, in the best 

 season, 30 or 40 Chile dollars (the Chile 

 dollar is as large as our silver dollar, but 

 passes for only 40 cents) a day at the 

 opening of the fishing. 



The greatest depth an expert diver 

 can go is about 70 feet, and the extreme 

 time he can stay under water is said to 

 be a little over two minutes. 



We are through with the dangers of 

 the night, and are enjoying the prospect 

 of landing tomorrow morning. 



TAHITI 



July p. — We arrived off Tahiti early 

 in the morning. It is a pile of moun- 

 tains clothed with green to the summits, 

 more than 7,000 feet high, with a narrow 

 strip of low land between their feet and 

 the sea, in which narrow space nearly 



