Grove Koger
This entry from my series “Sea Fever” deals with a later work by American writer Herman Melville, who died September 28, 1891.
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The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles; in The Piazza Tales (Dix & Edwards, 1856)
The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles originally appeared as sketches in Putnam’s Magazine in 1854 and were subsequently collected with several other short works in The Piazza Tales two years later. There are ten pieces in all, ranging in length from a page (in my paperback edition) to more than a dozen, and while they deal with the geology, flora and fauna of what we know as the Galápagos Islands, they’re impressionistic rather than scientific.
Located more than 500 miles west of South America and straddling the equator, the volcanic Galápagos Islands number 21 in all and were annexed by Ecuador in 1832. Melville’s actual experience of the group seems to have been limited to a few days in late 1841, when the whaling ship he was aboard anchored near one of the easternmost islands of the group, San Cristobal (or Chatham), to allow the crew to capture giant tortoises for food. A few months later, Melville jumped ship in the Marquesas, islands that provided the material for his idyllic (and popular) romances Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846) and Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (1847).
By the time Melville wrote The Encantadas, however, his vision was no longer idyllic. Those who have visited the Galápagos know that their appearance is severe, but other factors were at work in Melville’s case. His ambitious novel Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851) had received a mixed reception and Pierre; or, The Ambiguities (1852) a distinctly negative one. Thus it’s no surprise that his treatment of the Galápagos is dark. In the first sketch, he refers to their “looking much as the world at large might, after a penal conflagration.” And, “It is to be doubted whether any spot of earth can, in desolateness, furnish a parallel to this group.”
After disposing with the islands’ appearance and (to a very limited extent) plant and animal life, Melville goes on to write about buccaneers, adventurers, and hapless castaways. The longest and best sketch, “Norfolk Isle and the Chola Widow,” recounts the harrowing story of a woman of mixed race from the mainland who, along with her husband and her brother, is tricked into taking passage to one of the islands to render oil from the carcasses of giant tortoises. Within a short time, both men perish before the woman’s eyes, and she is left alone on the island for years with only a band of dogs for company. Another long sketch, “Hood’s Isle and the Hermit Oberlus,” describes a “beastlike” old man, a deserter who establishes a kind of mad empire made up of other sailors he has managed to kidnap.
Despite their dark tone, The Piazza Tales fared reasonably well with critics and readers, due in large part, I’d argue, to their brevity. Over time, Melville had adopted an inflated and self-consciously “literary” style, but these sketches’ narrow compass compelled him to write more succinctly, producing a work pleasing to both his contemporaries and to subsequent generations.
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The image at the top of todays post is a 1961 airmail stamp from Ecuador, while the second image reproduces an 1893 print of giant Galápagos tortoises. The photograph of Melville (reproduced courtesy of Wikiwand) shows Melville in 1861, a few years after the publication of The Encantadas.
World Enough 