an honoured guest in broad-cloth, not a despised merchant seaman in
canvass frock and hat of tarpaulin. We shall not dwell on these small
inconsistencies and oversights in an amusing book. We prefer
accompanying the Julia's crew to Tahiti, where they were put on shore
contrary to their expectations, and not altogether to their
satisfaction, since they had anticipated a rapid run to Valparaiso, the
fag-end of a cruise in an English man-of-war, and a speedy discharge at
Portsmouth. Paper Jack and Consul Wilson had other designs, and still
hoped to reclaim them to their duty on board the crazy Julia. On their
stubborn refusal, they were given in charge to a fat, good-humoured, old
Tahitian, called Captain Bob, who, at the head of an escort of natives,
conveyed them up the country to a sort of shed, known as the Calabooza
Beretanee or English jail, used as a prison for refractory sailors. This
commences Typee's shore-going adventures, not less pleasant and original
than his sea-faring ones; although it is with some regret that we lose
sight of the vermin-haunted barque, on whose board such strange and
exciting scenes occurred.
Throughout the book, however, fun and incident abound, and we are
consoled for our separation from poor little Jule, by the curious
insight we obtain into the manners, morals, and condition of the gentle
savages, on whom an attempted civilisation has brought far more curses
than blessings.
"How pleasant were the songs of Toobonai,"
how gladsome and grateful the rustle of leaves and tinkle of rills, and
silver-toned voices of Tahitian maidens, to the rough seamen who had so
long been "cabined, cribbed, confined," in the Julia's filthy
forecastle! Not that they were allowed free range of the Eden of the
South Seas. On board the Reine Blanche their ankles had been manacled to
an iron bar; in the Calabooza, (from the Spanish _calabozo_, a dungeon,)
they were placed in rude wooden stocks twenty feet long, constructed for
the particular benefit of refractory mariners. There they lay, merry men
all of a row, fed upon _taro_ (Indian turnip) and bread-fruit, and
covered up at night with one huge counterpane of brown _tappa_, the
native cloth. It was owing to no friendly indulgence on the part of Guy
and the consul, that their diet was so agreeable and salutary. Every
morning Ropey came grinning into the prison, with a bucket full of the
old worm-eaten biscuit from the Julia. It was a huge treat to the
unfortunate Cockney, thus to be instrumental in the annoyance of his
former persecutors; and lucky for him that their limbo'd legs prevented
their rewarding his visible exultation otherwise than by a shower of
maledictions. They swore to starve rather than consume the maggoty
provender. Luckily the natives had it in very different estimation. They
did not mind maggots, and held British biscuit to be a piquant and
delicious delicacy. So in exchange for their allotted ration, the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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