hundred years behind our own times. I wish I had the space and the permission 

 to relate the intimate histories of some waifs and strays as well as of some 

 idealists whose acquaintance I made during my sojourn in Central Polynesia. 

 The objection of publishing the recitals would be the raising of doubts as to 

 their reality, whether such individuals live within the realms of fact or 

 fiction. So, I would say, nothing any South Sea romancer may write is likely 

 to transcend the limits of the possible so long as he deals with human 

 beings '. 



Of course we were much interested in and always on the watch for a sight 

 of an albatross , Ever since the days that we were set the task of 'learning 

 by heart' the immortal "Rime" E. and I had him in mind, and now we were about 

 to see him in the flesh*. The Pacific coast is occasionally the resort of 

 four humble members of the family, but hot of "the bird that made the wind 

 to blow." He, the Wandering Albatross ( D iomed ea exu lans ) , is almost pure 

 white; the back showing narrow, transverse, wavy dark lines, the quills of 

 the wing feathers being black. Some writers probably exaggerate this bird's 

 spread of wing; Ridgway says that it is about eleven feet (from 125 to 130 

 inches). The bill is yellow, becoming orange at the base* 



l£any are the descriptions of the wonderful powers of flight shown by this 

 denizen of the southern ocean. For instance, Greenbie is moved to use the 

 following language:- "But chill and melancholy as was that Southern sea, 

 there hovered over it a creature whose call upon one's interest was more 

 than compensating. Swooping with giant wings in careless ease, the albatrosses 

 follow us day in and day out. Always on the wing, awake or asleep, in sun- 

 shine or in storm, the air his home as water is to fish, and earth to mammal. 

 Even the ship was no lure to him by way of support. He followed it, accept- 

 ed whatever was thrown him from it, but as for dependence upon it,-- no 

 such weakness . Swift, huge, glorious, unconsciously majestic, he is indeed 

 a bird of good omen* How he floats with never a sign of effort*. How he glides 

 atop the waves, skims them, yet is never reached by their flame-like leapings; 

 simultates their motion without the exhaustion into which they sink inces- 

 santly. He does not gorge himself as does the sea-gull, nor is he ever heard 

 to screech that selfish, hungry, insatiable screech. Silent, sadly voiceless, 

 rhythmic, symbolic without being restrained by pride of art, he exemplifies 

 right living. He is our link between shores, the «one dream of reality on an 

 ocean of opiate loveliness wherein there is little of earth's confusion and 

 pain. For the traveller he keeps the balance between the deadly stability of 

 land life and the dream-like mystery of the sea. But for him it were impos- 

 sible to come so easily out of an experience of a long voyage. Away down 

 there he is the only reminder of reality, Which explains the reverence sailors 

 have for him and the superstitious dread of killing him. Land nay be said 

 to begin where the albatross is seen to depart. He knows, and off he swoops, 

 ship or no ship to follow or to guide; back over the thousand miles of 

 watery waste, to measure the infinite with his sixteen-foot (sic ) wings, 

 glide by glide, with the speed of a twin-screw turbine. Only when the female 

 enters the breeding season does she seek a lost island to rear her young. 

 Independent of the sea, these birds are utter ly confined to it, a mystery float- 

 ing within mystery." 



-10- 



