“On the open window-sill of the universal soul the ancient æolian harp awakes.”— Andrew Millar , Robes of Pan ....

THOUGH the adventures recorded in this book may set up the impression that I am a kind of Don Quixote of the South Seas, I do not claim to have sought to redress wrongs done to beauteous dusky maidens. It was the ardent, adventurous spirit of youth that brought me to the side of such original characters as Fae Fae, Soogy, and Fanga, and gave me the charming friendship of those pagan chiefs who have inspired me to write this book. It is possible that many stay-at-homes will think I have romanced,

Author’s Heritage—Arrives at Samoa—Disillusioned—Illusive Romance—Golden-skinned Polynesian Maids—Meets great Heathen Philosophers—The Samoan Chief, O Le Tao. EVEN the wind, my boon companion—for are we not both born roamers?—seems to blow chunks of old memories through the moonlit, tossing pines that are sighing to-night outside this wayside inn. It’s here that we rest awhile, my fiddle and I, as I take up my pen to record some of the incidents from my early travels. Time, in its everlasting hu

I ship with a genuine Old-time Crew—Poetic Nightmares—Tattooed Manuscripts of the Seas!—I learn the Art of Forcible Expression—Tar-pots—The Storm—Washed Overboard—Papeete—Pokara—How the first Coco-nuts came—Star Myths. THERE are many sceptics who may disbelieve my account of the crew of the “Zangwahee,” but away with such people! About a week after losing sight of Pango-Pango I went across to Savaii Isle. I had heard that there was an old sailing-ship anchored off Matautu, and that she was bound

Pokara tells me how the first Idol came to be Worshipped. WHEN I opened my eyes, the morning parrots were wheeling away in screaming droves over the slopes. Pokara was already awake and busy cooking yams for our breakfast on a little fire in the open. “Good-morning, O mighty Pokara!” Pokara, who loved to be addressed thus, saluted me in his fascinating theatrical style. “Did we travel together under the moani ali (sea) last night, and watch a beautiful goddess walk the midnight skies with stars

The Hut in the Mountains—A Modern Fairy—The Escape—Love’s Hospitality—The Stranger from the Infinite Seas! IN this chapter I will tell a true fairy story that is directly connected with Pokara’s and my own experiences. Indeed, I imagine it to be one of the most realistic fairy-tales that it was my lot to hear and witness in its most full-blooded stage; I also deem that it will be interesting, in an educational sense, to students of modern mythology, since it quaintly distinguishes the difference

I meet O’Hara—The Emotional Irish Temperament—The Tahitian Temperament—O’Hara and I go Pearl-hunting—Tapee, the Old-time Idol-worshipper. PONDERING over my experiences of idol-worship and my further adventures in Tahiti, the incidents connected with the whole matter seem sufficiently interesting for me to give the story in detail. Not the least important part of the matter was the headstrong Irish youth, my companion; indeed, I might say that he was the prime mover in the whole business. First,

O’Hara in Love—Fae Fae’s Midnight Elopement—Chased—A Melodramatic Race for Life—The Innocence of Eve—Temptation—The Lost Bride—The Madness of Romance—Outbound for Honolulu. I HAD just returned from an engagement where I had performed violin solos at the French Presidency concert, when I met O’Hara again. I was sitting in the wooden café at Selao at the time. “Well, what’s the matter now?” I said, as O’Hara greeted me. I noticed that he looked rather mournful. “Pal, I’m not going to be done; I’ve

Tangalora the Samoan Scribe—Where the Gods and Goddesses first met in Council—The Materials of which the first Mortal Children were Fashioned—The first Wondering Men—The first Women—How the first Babies came to their Mothers. IT was nearly three months before I found myself in Samoa again. O’Hara had shipped from Hawaii for the Solomon Isles, and I had signed on as “deckhand” on a fore-and-aft schooner that was bound for Apia. I missed the society of my Irish comrade; but we met long after, as w

A Heathen Monastery—A scene of Primitive Heathenism—My unsolicited Professional Engagement—I imbibe Kava—I am made “Taboo”—Things that I may not Confess—My escape—Fanga Loma—A Native Village—The Enchantress of the Forest—Temptation—In Suva again. I RECALL that, though my profession has never burdened me with wealth till it seemed an encumbrance, my violin has enabled me to delve without harm into the most secretive, dangerous heathen societies and sacred festivals. Where a white man would have b

A Goddess in the Garb of Mortality—A Garden of Eden—Temptation—Kasawayo and Kora the Mortal—The Battle—Flight to Shadowland. AGES ago a goddess of shadowland sickened of the sacred halls of the passionless gods. One day a great desire to be a mortal entered her heart, for she had once been a mortal herself and had had the desires of mortality, but knew it not. She was sitting by her cavern door, gazing across the starlit singing seas of paradise, when she made up her mind to desert shadowland. “

A Pagan Poet—Influence of Byron and Keats—Star-myths—Enchanted Crab. IN the shadowland regions of a barbarian poet’s brain flows the river Lethe that murmurs the most subtle music of sentient Nature. Of such a poet I shall tell in the following pages, one whom I instinctively understood. For I also have stood in the primeval forest and “heard the silent thunders of the leaves” and seen the lightnings of a wild bird’s eyes, and God’s hand carving a thousand pillars for the temples of Nature, pain

O Le Langi’s Influence—Heathen Magic—Poetic Aspirations—Ramao and Essimao-Samoan Types—Robert Louis Stevenson and the “Beautiful White Woman”—O Le Langi becomes a Part of the Forest—“Here Lies O Le Langi”—A Great Truth. AH, sublime poet O Le Langi! It was your elemental poetic genius, more than the inspirations of the poets of my own land, that first turned my thoughts to the magic of the seas, skies, travelling stars, and the strange look in men’s eyes. ’Twas you who made me hear the ineffable

A Child of American Democracy—Rajah Barab—Barbarossa—Brown-Slave traffic Methods—Motavia’s Grave—The Magic Casement—The Splendour of Rose-coloured Spectacles—Mohammedanistic Desires—Giovanni’s Love Affairs—Exit Barab. I WAS more than pleased to make the acquaintance of Giovonni as I wandered about Apia. This newfound comrade was a clever artist on the guitar, and our kindred tastes and mutual cashlessness was the direct cause of our forming a trio for troubadour purposes. To our great satisfacti

In Tai-o-hae—I come across a Widowed Marquesan Queen—Am received with Dignity—The Artistic Tattoo on Loi Vakamoa’s Royal Person—The Queen tells how she was married to a certain Martin Smith of New South Wales—An aged Queen’s Vanity—A Heathen Necropolis. I RECALL the memory of a Marquesan royal person who stands out in my recollection with unusual vividness. Whilst wandering, during one of my troubadouring expeditions north-west of Tai-o-hae, I came across a small, semi-pagan, tribal citadel of h

Impressionistic Scene in Nuka Hiva—Tissemao listens to the Luring Voice of a Cuttle-fish—The Love-Stricken Cuttle-fish—When Crabs are Brave. THE pagan city of Nuka Hiva was silent. The tired sentinel stars were creeping homeward. Dawn had already arisen from her silvery couch, her soft robe, cut out of the warm western winds, wrapped around her, her sandals dipped in light as she stood on the skyline, a few stars still plucking her dusky hair. Then that wonderful enchantress, who awakens the age

I fall from Space—Court Violinist—Arrive in Fiji—With the Great Missing. I WAS hanging by one foot from a mystical cloud, lesiurely travelling across the tropic sky, then I lost my grip and fell! I distinctly recall the awful sensation of that noiseless dive through space, ere I arrived with a crash! I had apparently fallen through the roof of a grog-shanty on a Pacific Isle. Many may doubt the aforesaid assertion of mine, and say that such a mishap was a physical impossibility. But I would say

The Wild White Girl—The Wagner of Storms—A Pagan Citadel—Pagan Democracy—Ye Old Britisher—A Battle in the Dark. FIRST I must state that G—— was a casual member of the Charity Organization, an Englishman, and, from the general run of his conversation and manner, gave one the impression that he had seen better days. But there was nothing wonderful about that, for it is a fact that many of the apparent rogues of those days betrayed something of past polish, and possessed a personality infinitely mo

Poetry’s Legitimate Child—Music’s Fairyland—A Civilized Old Man of the Sea—A Clerical Hat is the Symbol of Modern Religion. HAD it not been for men like D—— and many other striking personalities who enlivened the Organization, we should have cleared out of it sooner than we did. We were considerably in debt to the host of that Sailors’ Home, too. There were no certified bailiffs in the South Seas, but if one’s account was overdue, credit was taken out of the debtor in a novel manner. Bones disco

The Modern Old Man of the Sea—Fifty Pounds!—A Human Octopus—Adrift at Sea—Sorrow—Saved—In Tonga—Our Old Man’s last Hiding-place—Retrospect. THE perspective of things as seen after a lapse of years seems gifted with a visionary light that has no relation to the normal outlook of the intellect. The most commonplace objects and incidents, when seen and thought over in the pale light of memory, become tinged with that indefinable glamour, that something which men call poetry. A wind-blown ship far a