Mystic Isles of the South Seas

Ia Ora 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
fascinating 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 adventures 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 fashioned through
the ages to achieve his triumph over matter. 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 experience my former book,
"White Shadows in the South Seas," and will be followed by "Atolls of
the Sun," which will be the account of a visit to, and a dwelling on,
the blazing coral wreaths of the Dangerous Archipelago, where the
strange is commonplace, and the marvel is the probability of the hour.

These three volumes will cover the period I spent during three
journeys with the remnants of the most amazing of uncivilized races,
whose discovery startled the old world, and whom another generation
will cease to know.

Tirara!

Maru-tané.