Produced by Chris Whitehead, Linda Cantoni, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE ROMANTIC ADVENTURES OF A MODERN DON QUIXOTE IN THE SOUTHERN SEAS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“On the open window-sill of the universal soul the ancient æolian harp awakes.”—ANDREW MILLAR, _Robes of Pan_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THOUGH the adventures recorded in this book may set up the impression that I am a kind of Don Quixote of the South Seas, I do not claim to have sought to redress wrongs done to beauteous dusky maidens. It was the ardent, adventurous spirit of youth that brought me to the side of such original characters as Fae Fae, Soogy, and Fanga, and gave me the charming friendship of those pagan chiefs who have inspired me to write this book. It is possible that many stay-at-homes will think I have romanced, will think it incredible that such characters as I have attempted to portray really existed. Well, all I can say is, that my greatest literary effort in the following pages has been to keep to the truth of the whole matter, even though such frankness should leave me, at the end of this volume, with a blackened name.
As I have introduced several Polynesian legends and myths in this book, I would like to make a few remarks with reference thereto. In recording my memories of Island folk-lore I have to use, of course, my own order of intelligence—as compared with that of the wild people who told the stories—when I attempt to recreate the legendary lore, the poetry, and the loveliness of the natural world as it must have appeared to the imagination of primitive minds believing in them. In doing this I merely accept the inevitable transmutation which all legends and myths of primitive peoples must undergo when written down.