ion, of great basaltic
slabs, impregnable from the beach side. He saw that if he had tried
that entrance to the valley again, he would have failed as before.
Only heavy artillery could have conquered that mighty stronghold.

From the beach the Americans climbed by an easier ascent into the
mountains, leaving a desolated valley behind them, and after
feasting with the Hapaas, they marched back to Tai-o-hae almost dead
with fatigue.

The Typees sued for peace, and when asked for four hundred hogs sent
so many that Porter released five hundred after branding them. He
had made peace between all the tribes; war was at an end; and with
the island subdued, Porter sailed again to make war on British
shipping.

He left behind him three captured ships in charge of three officers
and twenty men, with six prisoners of war, ordering them to remain
five months and then go to Chile if no word came from him. Within a
few days the natives began again to show the spirit of resistance
and were brought to courtesy by a show of force. Then another
difficulty arose. All but eight of the crew joined with the English
prisoners in seizing the officers, and put Lieutenant Gamble, the
commander, with four loyal seamen, adrift in a small boat, while the
mutineers went to sea in one of the English ships.

The five men reached another of the ships in the bay, where they
learned that Wilson had instigated the mutiny. The worst had not come,
for very soon the natives, perhaps also urged on by the Englishman,
murdered all the others but Gamble, one seaman, one midshipman, and
five wounded men. Of the eight survivors, only one was acquainted
with the management of a ship, and all were sufferings from wounds
or disease. With these men Lieutenant Gamble put to sea.

After incredible hardship, he succeeded in reaching Hawaii, only to
be captured by a British frigate which a few weeks earlier had
assisted in the capture of the _Essex_ and Captain Porter. The
United States never ratified Porter's occupation of Nuka-hiva, and
it was left for the French thirty years later to seize the group. At
about the same time Herman Melville, an American sailor, ventured
overland into Typee Valley, and was captured and treated as a royal
guest by the Typee people. He lived there many months, and heard no
whisper of the havoc wrought by his countrymen a little time before.
The Typees had forgiven and forgotten it; he found them a happy,
healthy, beautiful race, livi