se of the adjoining bay of Happar, should never have manifested
itself in any warlike encounter. Although the valiant Typees would often,
by gesticulations, declare their undying hatred against their enemies, and
the disgust they felt at their cannibal propensities; although they
dilated upon the manifold injuries they had received at their hands, yet,
with a forbearance truly commendable, they appeared patiently to sit down
under their grievances, and to refrain from making any reprisals. The
Happars, entrenched behind their mountains, and never even showing
themselves on their summits, did not appear to me to furnish adequate
cause for that excess of animosity evinced towards them by the heroic
tenants of our vale, and I was inclined to believe that the deeds of blood
attributed to them had been greatly exaggerated.

On the other hand, as the clamours of war had not up to this period
disturbed the serenity of the tribe, I began to distrust the truth of
those reports which ascribed so fierce and belligerent a character to the
Typee nation. Surely, thought I, all these terrible stories I have heard
about the inveteracy with which they carried on the feud, their deadly
intensity of hatred, and the diabolical malice with which they glutted
their revenge upon the inanimate forms of the slain, are nothing more than
fables, and I must confess that I experienced something like a sense of
regret at having my hideous anticipations thus disappointed. I felt in
some sort like a 'prentice boy who, going to the play in the expectation
of being delighted with a cut-and-thrust tragedy, is almost moved to tears
of disappointment at the exhibition of a genteel comedy.

I could not avoid thinking that I had fallen in with a greatly traduced
people, and I moralized not a little upon the disadvantage of having a bad
name, which in this instance had given a tribe of savages, who were as
pacific as so many lambkins, the reputation of a confederacy of
giant-killers.

But subsequent events proved that I had been a little too premature in
coming to this conclusion. One day, about noon, happening to be at the Ti,
I had lain down on the mats with several of the chiefs, and had gradually
sunk into a most luxurious siesta, when I was awakened by a tremendous
outcry, and starting up, beheld the natives, seizing their spears and
hurrying out, while the most puissant of the chiefs, grasping the six
muskets which were ranged against the bamboos, foll