Herman Melville: Typee

8. CHAPTER EIGHT (continued)

'Descend into that same valley we descried yesterday.' rejoined Toby, with a rapidity and loudness of utterance that almost led me to suspect he had been slyly devouring the broadside of an ox in some of the adjoining thickets. 'What else,' he continued, 'remains for us to do but that, to be sure? Why, we shall both starve to a certainty if we remain here; and as to your fears of those Typees--depend upon it, it is all nonsense.'

'It is impossible that the inhabitants of such a lovely place as we saw can be anything else but good fellows; and if you choose rather to perish with hunger in one of these soppy caverns, I for one prefer to chance a bold descent into the valley, and risk the consequences'.

'And who is to pilot us thither,' I asked, 'even if we should decide upon the measure you propose? Are we to go again up and down those precipices that we crossed yesterday, until we reach the place we started from, and then take a flying leap from the cliffs to the valley?'

'Faith, I didn't think of that,' said Toby; 'sure enough, both sides of the valley appeared to be hemmed in by precipices, didn't they?'

'Yes,' answered I, 'as steep as the sides of a line-of-battle ship, and about a hundred times as high.' My companion sank his head upon his breast, and remained for a while in deep thought. Suddenly he sprang to his feet, while his eyes lighted up with that gleam of intelligence that marks the presence of some bright idea.

'Yes, yes,' he exclaimed; 'the streams all run in the same direction, and must necessarily flow into the valley before they reach the sea; all we have to do is just to follow this stream, and sooner or later it will lead us into the vale.'

'You are right, Toby,' I exclaimed, 'you are right; it must conduct us thither, and quickly too; for, see with what a steep inclination the water descends.'