? ? ? ? So much for the respect in which such matters are held in Typee. As to the land of the valley, whether it was the joint property of its inhabitants, or whether it was parcelled out among a certain number of landed proprietors, who allowed everybody to roam over it as much as they pleased, I never could ascertain. At any rate, musty parchments and tide-deeds there were none in the island; and I am half inclined to believe that its inhabitants hold their broad valleys in fee simple from nature herself.
? ? ? ? Yesterday I saw Kory-Kory hie him away, armed with a long pole, with which, standing on the ground, he knocked down the fruit from the topmost boughs of the trees, and brought them home in his basket of cocoa-nut leaves. To-day I see an islander, whom I know to reside in a distant part of the valley, doing the self-same thing. On the sloping bank of the stream were a number of banana trees. I have often seen a score or two of young people making a merry foray on the great golden clusters, and bearing them off, one after another, to different parts of the vale, shouting and tramping as they went. No churlish old curmudgeon could have been the owner of that grove of bread-fruit trees, or of these gloriously yellow bunches of bananas.
? ? ? ? From what I have said, it will be perceived that there is a vast difference between "personal property" and "real estate" in the valley of Typee.
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