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Title: White Shadows in the South Seas

Author: Frederick O'Brien

Release Date: December 20, 2004 [eBook #14384]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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WHITE SHADOWS IN THE SOUTH SEAS

by

FREDERICK O'BRIEN

With Many Illustrations from Photographs

T. Werner Laurie, Ltd.

1919

[Illustration: Village of Atuona, showing peak of Temetiu
The author's house is the small white speck in the center]

FOREWORD

There is in the nature of every man, I firmly believe, a longing to
see and know the strange places of the world. Life imprisons us all
in its coil of circumstance, and the dreams of romance that color
boyhood are forgotten, but they do not die. They stir at the sight
of a white-sailed ship beating out to the wide sea; the smell of
tarred rope on a blackened wharf, or the touch of the cool little
breeze that rises when the stars come out will waken them again.
Somewhere over the rim of the world lies romance, and every heart
yearns to go and find it.

It is not given to every man to start on the quest of the rainbow's
end. Such fantastic pursuit is not for him who is bound by ties of
home and duty and fortune-to-make. He has other adventure at his own
door, sterner fights to wage, and, perhaps, higher rewards to gain.
Still, the ledgers close sometimes on a sigh, and by the cosiest
fireside one will see in the coals pictures that have nothing to do
with wedding rings or balances at the bank.

It is for those who stay at home yet dream of foreign places that I
have written this book, a record of one happy year spent am