Herman Melville journeyed to exotic places and wrote about them. In the book, Typee, Melville writes:
.... entering their valley as I did, under the most erroneous impressions of their character, I was soon led to exclaim in amazement: "Are these the ferocious savages, the bloodthirsty cannibals of whom I have heard such frightful tales? They deal more kindly with each other, and are more humane, than many who study essays on virtue and benevolence ...." I will frankly declare that after passing a few months in this valley of the Marquesas I formed a higher estimate of human nature than I had ever before entertained.
