Others on the Marquesas

These are excerpts from two of the books I read preparing for our trip to the Marquesas. Herman Melville’s “Typee” is an adventure story that takes place in the Marquesas where he had an adventure of his own on the island of Nuka Hiva. It is an exciting look at the early nineteenth century customs there.

Paul Theroux is a travel writer with an edge to him and can be brutally honest in his assessments of people, places, and things, usually sarcastic but interesting as well.

Others:

“Those who for the first time visit the South Seas, generally are surprised at the appearance of the islands when beheld from the sea. From vague accounts we sometimes have of their beauty, many people are apt to picture themselves enameled and softly swelling plains, shaded over with delicious groves, and watered by purling brooks. The reality is very different, bold rockbound coasts, with surf beating high against the lofty cliffs, and broken here and there into deep inlets, which open to the view of thickly wooded valleys, separated by the spurs of mountains clothed with tufted grass, and sweeping down from the sea from an elevated and furrowed interior.”

Herman Melville, Typee

“The fact that few people go there is one of the most persuasive reasons for traveling to a place.”

“The Marquesas have a reputation for being the most beautiful islands on the face of the earth.”

Paul Theroux, Happy Isles of Oceana