IN THE SOUTH SEAS

PART 1: THE MARQUESAS

CHAPTER I--AN ISLAND LANDFALL

For nearly ten years my health had been declining; and for some

while before I set forth upon my voyage, I believed I was come to

the afterpiece of life, and had only the nurse and undertaker to

expect. It was suggested that I should try the South Seas; and I

was not unwilling to visit like a ghost, and be carried like a

bale, among scenes that had attracted me in youth and health. I

chartered accordingly Dr. Merrit's schooner yacht, the Casco,

seventy-four tons register; sailed from San Francisco towards the

end of June 1888, visited the eastern islands, and was left early

the next year at Honolulu. Hence, lacking courage to return to my

old life of the house and sick-room, I set forth to leeward in a

trading schooner, the Equator, of a little over seventy tons, spent

four months among the atolls (low coral islands) of the Gilbert

group, and reached Samoa towards the close of '89. By that time

gratitude and habit were beginning to attach me to the islands; I

had gained a competency of strength; I had made friends; I had

learned new interests; the time of my voyages had passed like days

in fairyland; and I decided to remain. I began to prepare these

pages at sea, on a third cruise, in the trading steamer Janet

Nicoll. If more days are granted me, they shall be passed where I

have found life most pleasant and man most interesting; the axes of

my black boys are already clearing the foundations of my future

house; and I must learn to address readers from the uttermost parts

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