e this bay?"

Had I been pierced simultaneously by three Happar spears, I could not have
started more than I did at hearing these simple questions. For a moment I
was overwhelmed with astonishment, and then answered something, I know not
what; but as soon as I regained my self-possession, the thought darted
through my mind that from this individual I might obtain that information
regarding Toby which I suspected the natives had purposely withheld from
me. Accordingly, I questioned him concerning the disappearance of my
companion, but he denied all knowledge of the matter. I then inquired from
whence he had come? He replied, from Nukuheva. When I expressed my
surprise, he looked at me for a moment, as if enjoying my perplexity, and
then, with his strange vivacity, exclaimed,--"Ah! me taboo,--me go
Nukuheva,--me go Tior,--me go Typee,--me go everywhere,--nobody harm
me,--taboo."

This explanation would have been altogether unintelligible to me, had it
not recalled to my mind something I had previously heard concerning a
singular custom among these islanders. Though the country is possessed by
various tribes, whose mutual hostilities almost wholly preclude any
intercourse between them, yet there are instances where a person having
ratified friendly relations with some individual belonging to the valley,
whose inmates are at war with his own, may, under particular restrictions,
venture with impunity into the country of his friend, where, under other
circumstances, he would have been treated as an enemy. In this light are
personal friendships regarded among them, and the individual so protected
is said to be "taboo" and his person, to a certain extent, is held as
sacred. Thus the stranger informed me he had access to all the valleys in
the island.

Curious to know how he had acquired his knowledge of English, I questioned
him on the subject. At first, for some reason or other, he evaded the
inquiry, but afterwards told me that, when a boy, he had been carried to
sea by the captain of a trading vessel, with whom he had stayed three
years, living part of the time with him at Sydney, in Australia, and that,
at a subsequent visit to the island, the captain had, at his own request,
permitted him to remain among his countrymen. The natural quickness of the
savage had been wonderfully improved by his intercourse with the white
men, and his partial knowledge of a foreign language gave him a great
ascendancy over his less accomplis