I A OR A NA! 



This is a simple record of my days and nights, my 

 thoughts and dreams, in the mystic isles of the South 

 Seas, written without authority of science or exactitude 

 of knowledge. These are merely the vivid impressions 

 of my life in Tahiti and Moorea, the merriest, most fas- 

 cinating world of all the cosmos; of the songs I sang, 

 the dances I danced, the men and women, white and 

 tawny, with whom I was joyous or melancholy; the ad- 

 ventures at sea or on the reef, upon the sapphire lagoon, 

 and on the silver beaches of the most beautiful of tropics. 



In this volume are no discoveries unless in the heart 

 of the human. I went to the islands below the equator 

 with one thought — to play. All that I have set down 

 here is the profit of that spirit. 



The soul of man is afflicted by the machine he has fash- 

 ioned through the ages to achieve his triumph over mat- 

 ter. In this light chronicle I would offer the reader an 

 anodyne for a few hours, of transport to the other side 

 of our sphere, where are the loveliest scenes the eyes may 

 find upon the round of the globe, the gentlest climate 

 of all the latitudes, the most whimsical whites, and the 

 dearest savages I have known. 



"Mystic Isles of the South Seas" precedes in experi- 

 ence my former book, "White Shadows in the South 



