dazzling white

About a mile from the village we came to a halt. 

It was a beautiful spot. A mountain stream here flowed at the foot of a verdant slope; on one hand, it murmured along until the waters, spreading themselves upon a beach of small, sparkling shells, trickled into the sea; on the other, was a long defile, where the eye pursued a gleaming, sinuous thread, lost in shade and verdure. 

The ground next the road was walled in by a low, rude parapet of stones; and, upon the summit of the slope beyond, was a large native house, the thatch dazzling white, and, in shape, an oval. 

"Calabooza! Calabooza Beretanee!" (the English Jail), cried our conductor, pointing to the building.  --Omoo, 1847

As he was being secured to the gratings, and the shudderings and creepings of his dazzlingly white back were revealed, he turned round his head imploringly; but his weeping entreaties and vows of contrition were of no avail. --White-Jacket, 1850

His face was deeply brown and burnt, making his white teeth dazzling by the contrast; while in the deep shadows of his eyes floated some reminiscences that did not seem to give him much joy.  --Moby-Dick, 1851

 At length the breathless hunter came so nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling hump was distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated thing, and continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, greenish foam. He saw the vast involved wrinkles of the slightly projecting head beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-rugged waters, went the glistening white shadow from his broad, milky forehead, a musical rippling playfully accompanying the shade; and behind, the blue waters interchangeably flowed over into the moving valley of his steady wake; and on either hand bright bubbles arose and danced by his side. . . .  --Moby-Dick, The Chase—First Day

This day we first came in sight of the drifting white sand-hills, which border the southern side of the river for one or two hundred miles, of fantastic changing shapes, often dazzling white, and supporting a few stunted cedars and plum bushes: their air of desolation does not at all prevent them from pleasing the eye, whilst a certain wildness in their appearance excites the imagination. Indeed, I know them as the refuge and ambush of beasts of prey, and of wilder and fiercer men.

--Scenes Beyond the Western Border, August 1853; and
Scenes and Adventures in the Army

You may say the phrase "dazzling white" is the veriest commonplace, something out of a toothpaste commercial. True, but notice if you would please two things: one, that Melville likes it; and two, that other journalists of the 1845 Rocky Mountain expedition of U. S. dragoons don't write like that about what they saw on the same day.

For example, the 1845 journal of William B. Franklin:

 Aug. 2. ... On the 3rd we marched 19 miles. On the opposite side of the river Sand hills began to appear; a few buffalo were seen during the day, and one was killed. At intervals there is a little timber along the river, but as a general thing from the Big Timber down as far as we went, it may be said to be very badly timbered.  --March to South Pass, p30

Wonder what Henry S. Turner had to say for the same day?  Let's go to fold3 and find out. There they are, those same sand hills Franklin observed, and nothing about their whiteness:

Camp No. 75. August 3. Soon after leaving camp this morning the Sand hills, which extend along the river for several hundred miles on the Mexican side, made their appearance. As seen across the river they are composed of loose sand, wholly destitute of vegetation. Encamped on the left bank near a rudely constructed “Medicine” lodge, which seems to have been constructed by the Indians within the last 12 months. Distance 19 miles. Direction S. E. by E. A tremendous rain this evening, much thunder & lightning.

--Letters Received by the Adjutant General, 1845 Kearny, S. W. (K 113) page 88.