Chapter Twenty-five

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

GENERAL INFORMATION GATHERED AT THE FESTIVAL--PERSONAL BEAUTY OF
THE TYPEES--THEIR SUPERIORITY OVER THE INHABITANTS OF THE OTHER
ISLANDS--DIVERSITY OF COMPLEXION--A VEGETABLE COSMETIC AND
OINTMENT--TESTIMONY OF VOYAGERS TO THE UNCOMMON BEAUTY OF THE
MARQUESANS--FEW EVIDENCES OF INTERCOURSE WITH CIVILIZED
BEINGS--DILAPIDATED MUSKET--PRIMITIVE SIMPLICITY OF GOVERNMENT--
REGAL DIGNITY OF MEHEVI

ALTHOUGH I had been unable during the late festival to obtain
information on many interesting subjects which had much excited
my curiosity, still that important event had not passed by
without adding materially to my general knowledge of the
islanders.

I was especially struck by the physical strength and beauty which
they displayed, by their great superiority in these respects over
the inhabitants of the neighbouring bay of Nukuheva, and by the
singular contrasts they presented among themselves in their
various shades of complexion.

In beauty of form they surpassed anything I had ever seen. Not a
single instance of natural deformity was observable in all the
throng attending the revels. Occasionally I noticed among the
men the scars of wounds they had received in battle; and
sometimes, though very seldom, the loss of a finger, an eye, or
an arm, attributable to the same cause. With these exceptions,
every individual appeared free from those blemishes which
sometimes mar the effect of an otherwise perfect form. But their
physical excellence did not merely consist in an exemption from
these evils; nearly every individual of their number might have
been taken for a sculptor's model.

When I remembered that these islanders derived no advantage from
dress, but appeared in all the naked simplicity of nature, I
could not avoid comparing them with the fine gentlemen and
dandies who promenade such unexceptionable figures in our
frequented thoroughfares. Stripped of the cunning artifices of
the tailor, and standing forth in the garb of Eden--what a sorry,
set of round-shouldered, spindle-shanked, crane-necked varlets
would civilized men appear! Stuffed calves, padded breasts, and
scientifically cut pantaloons would then avail them nothing, and
the effect would be truly deplorable.

Nothing in the appearance of the islanders struck me more
forcibly than the whiteness of their teeth. The novelist always
compares the masticators of his heroine to ivory; but I boldly
pronounce the teeth of the Typee to be far more beautiful than
ivory itself. The jaws of the oldest graybeards among them were
much better garnished than those of most of the youths of
civilized countries; while the teeth of the young and
middle-aged, in their purity and whiteness, were