My Tahiti

For the water, shoaling under our board, became changed in a moment to
surprising hues of blue and grey; and in the transparency the coral
branched and blossomed, and the fish of the inland sea cruised visibly
below us, stained and striped, and even beaked like parrots. I have paid
in my time to view many curiosities; never one so curious as that first
sight over the ship's rail in the lagoon of Fakarava.

The room was cold and damp, the air tainted with the musty smell of
former inhabitants; the ceiling was cracked, the wallpaper faded, and
stained in streaks of yellow.

A streetcar clattered past, the last one of the night; from far across
the city I could hear the whistle of an engine as it pulled into the
yards. In another hour the early morning train would leave for San
Francisco--a port of departure! The thought was troubling. The smell of
the room nauseated me. I could hear Anderson, who worked with me on the
Morning Republican, breathing heavily in the room next to mine. The damp
cold settled on my face and hands, and crept under the covers to give a
clammy feeling to my skin.

I turned over a few pages and read:--

But it was most of all on board, in the dead hours, when I had been
better sleeping, that the spell of Fakarava seized and held me. The moon
was down. The harbour lantern and two of the greater planets drew
varicolored wakes on the lagoon. From shore the cheerful watch-cry of
cocks rang out at intervals above the organ-point of surf. And the
thought of this depopulated capital, this protracted thread of annular
island with its crest of coco-palms and fringe of breakers, and that
tranquil inland sea that stretched before me till it touched the stars,
ran in my head for hours with delight.

Nukuhiva, Apemama, Fakarava! Those islands that Stevenson had sketched so
deftly that I could close my eyes for the moment and forget the
colorlessness of civilized life while visualizing fans of coconut palms
waving before the fresh south-east trade, moonlight glinting on long
coral strands; and seem to hear even the distant mutter of the surf
pounding along the barrier reef!

An island attracts one strangely and inexplicably. In our youngest days
few pleasures have been so great as exploring some tiny bank formed by
the forking of a stream, or of dreaming that some day we shall sail to an
island in the

. . . moonlit solitudes mild
Of the mid-most ocean . . . .

And as we grow older the fascination is not lost. Any man with a spark of
poetry in his soul will stand on the deck of a ship to stare, captivated,
at an island, while a mainland, even though it be more beautiful, will
command but a passing glance.