Most famous for his novel Moby Dick, Herman Melville actually found popularity with the public with his first novel, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life. At the age of 22, Melville had enlisted as a crew member of the Acushnet. He and a fellow sailor jumped ship after the Acushnet landed on the Marquesas Islands (present-day French Polynesia). He related his experiences on the Acushnet and in the islands in Typee, which was published in 1846.
Those who for the first time visit the South Sea[s], generally are surprised at the appearance of the islands when [seen] from the sea. From the [general] accounts we sometimes have of their beauty, many people are apt to picture to themselves [bright] and softly swelling plains, shaded over with delicious groves, and watered by [rippling] brooks, and the entire country but little elevated above the surrounding ocean. The reality is very different; bold rock-bound coasts, with the 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 [ridges] of mountains clothed with tufted grass, and sweeping down towards the sea from an elevated and [deeply carved] interior, [are what] form the principal features of these islands.