 write against them. My reflections, however,
on those facts may not be free from error. If such be the case, I claim no
further indulgence than should be conceded to every man whose object is to do
good.
 

                                 Chapter XXVII

    The Social Condition and General Character of the Typees.
 
I have already mentioned that the influence exerted over the people of the
valley by their chiefs was mild in the extreme: and as to any general rule or
standard of conduct by which the commonalty were governed in their intercourse
with each other, so far as my observation extended, I should be almost tempted
to say that none existed on the island, except, indeed, the mysterious taboo be
considered as such. During the time I lived among the Typees, no one was ever
put upon his trial for any offence against the public. To all appearances there
were no courts of law or equity. There was no municipal police for the purpose
of apprehending vagrants and disorderly characters. In short, there were no
legal provisions whatever for the well-being and conservation of society, the
enlightened end of civilised legislation. And yet everything went on in the
valley with a harmony and smoothness unparalleled, I will venture to assert, in
the most select, refined, and pious associations of mortals in Christendom. How
are we to explain this enigma? These islanders were heathens! savages! ay,
cannibals! and how came they, without the aid of established law, to exhibit, in
so eminent a degree, that social order which is the greatest blessing and
highest pride of the social state?
    It may reasonably be inquired, how were these people governed? how were
their passions controlled in their everyday transactions? It must have been by
an inherent principle of honesty and charity toward each other. They seemed to
be governed by that sort of tacit common-sense law which, say what they will of
the inborn lawlessness of the human race, has its precepts graven on every
breast. The grand principles of virtue and honour, however they may be distorted
by arbitrary codes, are the same all the world over; and where these principles
are concerned, the right or wrong of any action appears the same to the
uncultivated as to the enlightened mind. It is to this indwelling, this
universally diffused perception of what is just and noble, that the integrity of
the Marquesans in their intercourse with each other is to be attributed. In the
darkest nights they slept securely, with all their worldly wealth around them,
in houses the doors of which were never fastened. The disquieting ideas of theft
or assassination never disturbed them
