Wine-Dark Seas and Tropic Skies: Reminiscences and a Romance of the South Seas

I lead a Gaff-house Orchestra—News of Waylao—The Matafas—Tamafanga’s Love Songs—My Sacred Gift to my Host and Hostess—I sail with Tamafanga for Nuka Hiva—The Storm—The End of Ta...

Waylao leaves the Matafas in Apia—She drifts a Castaway at Sea—Her Sufferings—The Canoe beaches on an Uninhabited Isle—The Natural Guest of her Sorrow arrives—Death—Strange Visi...

I seek Waylao—The Heart of Fiji—I discover Traces of the Fugitive—The Bathing Parade—The Knut’s Indiscretion—A Submerged Toilette—The Knut as Travelling Companion—A Philosopher—...

REFERRING to my diary notes, I see that the _Sea Swallow_ was due to sail on the 6th September, but did not sail till the 7th. This gave me one day more in Nuka Hiva. I remember...

It appeared that Waylao had been feeling sick for several weeks, and had become strangely absent-minded. Night after night the girl had gone off to get her mother’s stores and h...

Men who shaved their Beards off—Grog Shanty Sympathy—The Dead who returned on the Tide—Indian-like Men from the Malay Archipelago—The Little Carpet Bag and its Hidden Potentiali...

GRIMES and I returned once more to the grog shanty, penniless. We had been away on a short cruise with a South Sea crank. This particular crank—the South Seas abound with them—w...

The Weaving Hands of Fate in Mrs Matafa’s Knitted Shawl—Waylao tries to kill Herself—Snatched from Death—The Terrible Scourge—The Hulk disappears—The Compact of Death—The Lovers...

Tai-o-hae by Night—The Bowels of the Old Hulk—The Figurehead—A Mad Escape—South Sea Grog Shanty Barmen up to date—Men who shave their Beards off—Mrs Ranjo’s Blush—The Potentiali...

ONE can imagine that I did not weep when at last we sighted the wild shores of Nuka Hiva and entered the beautiful rugged bay of Tai-o-hae. Though I had signed on for the trip t...

TWO days after I had lost sight of Waylao I was sitting in the shadows of the banyans near the Broom Road. Grimes was laid up in the hulk with a sprained ankle, through some wil...

He often spoke to me of his boyhood as we sat beneath the orange grove by his little mission-room bungalow. I learnt then that his mother was Irish and his father French.

IT so happened that the following day Grimes and I went off fishing in the lagoons round the coast. I knew it not at the time, but as we fished we were in close proximity to Rim...

South Sea Helen of Troy—A Barbarian Queen’s Lovers—Grimes and I pay Obeisance to the Reformed Queen—The Old Heathen Amphitheatre and the end of Impassioned Hearts—Descendants of...

IN this chapter I will take the reader to one of the many beautiful caverns of natural subterranean architecture that are to be found in the Marquesan Group, both in the mountai...

Impecunious Youth—In Sydney—Once more I go Seaward—In Fiji—Lose my Comrade—I arrive off Tai-o-hae—The Isles of Romance—French Officials and Convicts—I am welcomed by a Pretty Ch...

Grimes and I fishing—Fish enjoy the Joke—Grog Shanty Chorus and Incidents—The Drunken Settler—The Steaming of Romantic Brains—On the Old Hulk—I cannot sleep—My Romance of the Fi...

FOR several days Grimes and I sweated away unloading a schooner that arrived from Papeete with stores and lay in Hatiaeu Bay. Being cashless, we were obliged to work at times. T...

AFTER the passing of Odysseus I met another good comrade, B——. He proved an estimable pal, and was of Scottish descent, consequently his mental equipment was valuable and enable...

My characters are all taken from life, both the settlers and the natives. I have striven to give an account of native life, modes and codes, and to describe the general characte...

THAT dance of Waylao’s in the grog shanty created a strange impression in my mind. Henceforth I looked upon her as some half-wild faery creature of the forest. I do not wish to...

I CANNOT recall the history of that derelict hulk, from what port it sailed, or whether its crew found a refuge on that shore, or slumbered till the trump of doom beneath the su...

I see by the last entry that Waylao had some mad idea of going up to Naraundrau, which was a native town not far from the coast and the source of the Rewa river. She thought tha...

It appeared that she waited and waited my return in absolute faith that it was no fault of mine that I had not turned up. I cannot describe her feelings as the days went by and...

A DAY or so after the events of the preceding chapter I became chummy with the inhabitants of the beach. I had seen them before, but had kept slightly aloof. Finding me a musica...

WAYLO returned home after her experience in that harem mosque with several of her illusions slightly damaged. But though the materialisation of her dreams did not correspond wit...

IT may strike one as rather overdrawn that a girl of Waylao’s age should interrogate a priest, or worry about religion at all. But the maids of southern climes must not be judge...