soon becomes of a
dazzling whiteness. Sometimes, in the first stages of the manufacture, the
substance is impregnated with a vegetable juice, which gives it a
permanent colour. A rich brown and a bright yellow are occasionally seen,
but the simple taste of the Typee people inclines them to prefer the
natural tint.

The notable wife of Kammahammaha, the renowned conqueror and king of the
Sandwich Islands, used to pride herself in the skill she displayed in
dyeing her tappa with contrasting colours disposed in regular figures;
and, in the midst of the innovations of the times, was regarded, towards
the decline of her life, as a lady of the old school, clinging as she did
to the national cloth, in preference to the frippery of the European
calicoes. But the art of printing the tappa is unknown upon the Marquesan
Islands.

In passing along the valley, I was often attracted by the noise of the
mallet, which, when employed in the manufacture of the cloth, produces at
every stroke of its hard, heavy wood, a clear, ringing, and musical sound,
capable of being heard at a great distance. When several of these
implements happen to be in operation at the same time, and near one
another, the effect upon the ear of a person, at a little distance, is
really charming.

CHAPTER XIX

History of a day as usually spent in the Typee valley--Dances of
the Marquesan girls.

Nothing can be more uniform and undiversified than the life of the Typees;
one tranquil day of ease and happiness follows another in quiet
succession; and with these unsophisticated savages the history of a day is
the history of a life. I will therefore, as briefly as I can, describe one
of our days in the valley.

To begin with the morning. We were not very early risers--the sun would be
shooting his golden spikes above the Happar mountain, ere I threw aside my
tappa robe, and girding my long tunic about my waist, sallied out with
Fayaway and Kory-Kory, and the rest of the household, and bent my steps
towards the stream. Here we found congregated all those who dwelt in our
section of the valley; and here we bathed with them. The fresh morning air
and the cool flowing waters put both soul and body in a glow, and after a
half-hour employed in this recreation, we sauntered back to the
house--Tinor and Marheyo gathering dry sticks by the way for firewood; some
of the young men laying the cocoa-n