{"id":"01KG8AM7A1VA4ZQMD11A6GXCED","cid":"bafkreic7zqw3vrorqcx3c7cdlottiskamvouqcdwzl7nlqucjgqae7yecy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":9130,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:25.203Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JYRSHWXR7JM0HYS9D4","start_line":9066,"text":"CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE\r\n\r\nNATURAL HISTORY OF THE VALLEY--GOLDEN LIZARDS--TAMENESS OF THE\r\nBIRDS--MOSQUITOES--FLIES--DOGS--A SOLITARY CAT--THE CLIMATE--THE\r\nCOCOANUT TREE--SINGULAR MODES OF CLIMBING IT--AN AGILE YOUNG\r\nCHIEF--FEARLESSNESS OF THE CHILDREN--TOO-TOO AND THE COCOANUT TREE--THE\r\nBIRDS OF THE VALLEY\r\n\r\n\r\nI think I must enlighten the reader a little about the natural history\r\nof the valley.\r\n\r\nWhence, in the name of Count Buffon and Baron Cuvier, came those dogs\r\nthat I saw in Typee? Dogs!--Big hairless rats rather; all with smooth,\r\nshining speckled hides--fat sides, and very disagreeable faces. Whence\r\ncould they have come? That they were not the indigenous production of\r\nthe region, I am firmly convinced. Indeed they seemed aware of their\r\nbeing interlopers, looking fairly ashamed, and always trying to hide\r\nthemselves in some dark corner. It was plain enough they did not feel at\r\nhome in the vale--that they wished themselves well out of it, and back\r\nto the ugly country from which they must have come.\r\n\r\nScurvy curs! they were my abhorrence; I should have liked nothing\r\nbetter than to have been the death of every one of them. In fact, on one\r\noccasion, I intimated the propriety of a canine crusade to Mehevi; but\r\nthe benevolent king would not consent to it. He heard me very patiently;\r\nbut when I had finished, shook his head, and told me in confidence that\r\nthey were ‘taboo’.\r\n\r\nAs for the animal that made the fortune of the ex-lord-mayor\r\nWhittington, I shall never forget the day that I was lying in the house\r\nabout noon, everybody else being fast asleep; and happening to raise\r\nmy eyes, met those of a big black spectral cat, which sat erect in the\r\ndoorway, looking at me with its frightful goggling green orbs, like one\r\nof those monstrous imps that torment some of Teniers’ saints! I am one\r\nof those unfortunate persons to whom the sight of these animals are, at\r\nany time an insufferable annoyance.\r\n\r\nThus constitutionally averse to cats in general, the unexpected\r\napparition of this one in particular utterly confounded me. When I had\r\na little recovered from the fascination of its glance, I started up; the\r\ncat fled, and emboldened by this, I rushed out of the house in pursuit;\r\nbut it had disappeared. It was the only time I ever saw one in the\r\nvalley, and how it got there I cannot imagine. It is just possible that\r\nit might have escaped from one of the ships at Nukuheva. It was in vain\r\nto seek information on the subject from the natives, since none of them\r\nhad seen the animal, the appearance of which remains a mystery to me to\r\nthis day.\r\n\r\nAmong the few animals which are to be met with in Typee, there was none\r\nwhich I looked upon with more interest than a beautiful golden-hued\r\nspecies of lizard. It measured perhaps five inches from head to tail,\r\nand was most gracefully proportioned. Numbers of those creatures were\r\nto be seen basking in the sunshine upon the thatching of the houses, and\r\nmultitudes at all hours of the day showed their glittering sides as they\r\nran frolicking between the spears of grass or raced in troops up and\r\ndown the tall shafts of the cocoanut trees. But the remarkable beauty\r\nof these little animals and their lively ways were not their only claims\r\nupon my admiration. They were perfectly tame and insensible to fear.\r\nFrequently, after seating myself upon the ground in some shady place\r\nduring the heat of the day, I would be completely overrun with them.\r\nIf I brushed one off my arm, it would leap perhaps into my hair: when I\r\ntried to frighten it away by gently pinching its leg, it would turn for\r\nprotection to the very hand that attacked it.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJRVDQACFD93TNSK7H6EN","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JYRSHWXR7JM0HYS9D4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM79N4QDBYG7MSRGCPZY4","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:30.017Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:42.415Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}