Chapter Twenty-nine

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

NATURAL HISTORY OF THE VALLEY--GOLDEN LIZARDS--TAMENESS OF THE
BIRDS--MOSQUITOES--FLIES--DOGS--A SOLITARY CAT--THE CLIMATE--THE
COCOANUT TREE--SINGULAR MODES OF CLIMBING IT--AN AGILE YOUNG
CHIEF--FEARLESSNESS OF THE CHILDREN--TOO-TOO AND THE COCOANUT
TREE--THE BIRDS OF THE VALLEY

I THINK I must enlighten the reader a little about the natural
history of the valley.

Whence, in the name of Count Buffon and Baron Cuvier, came those
dogs that I saw in Typee? Dogs!--Big hairless rats rather; all
with smooth, shining speckled hides--fat sides, and very
disagreeable faces. Whence could they have come? That they were
not the indigenous production of the region, I am firmly
convinced. Indeed they seemed aware of their being interlopers,
looking fairly ashamed, and always trying to hide themselves in
some dark corner. It was plain enough they did not feel at home
in the vale--that they wished themselves well out of it, and back
to the ugly country from which they must have come.

Scurvy curs! they were my abhorrence; I should have liked
nothing better than to have been the death of every one of them.
In fact, on one occasion, I intimated the propriety of a canine
crusade to Mehevi; but the benevolent king would not consent to
it. He heard me very patiently; but when I had finished, shook
his head, and told me in confidence that they were 'taboo'.

As for the animal that made the fortune of the ex-lord-mayor
Whittington, I shall never forget the day that I was lying in the
house about noon, everybody else being fast asleep; and happening
to raise my eyes, met those of a big black spectral cat, which
sat erect in the doorway, looking at me with its frightful
goggling green orbs, like one of those monstrous imps that
torment some of Teniers' saints! I am one of those unfortunate
persons to whom the sight of these animals are, at any time an
insufferable annoyance.

Thus constitutionally averse to cats in general, the unexpected
apparition of this one in particular utterly confounded me. When
I had a little recovered from the fascination of its glance, I
started up; the cat fled, and emboldened by this, I rushed out of
the house in pursuit; but it had disappeared. It was the only
time I ever saw one in the valley, and how it got there I cannot
imagine. It is just possible that it might have escaped from one
of the ships at Nukuheva. It was in vain to seek information on
the subject from the natives, since none of them had seen the
animal, the appearance of which remains a mystery to me to this
day.

Among the few animals which are to be met with in Typee, there
was none which I looked upon with more interest than a beautiful
golden-hued