[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]
PREFACE
THIS book is a collection of sketches written on lonely
evenings during my voyage; some of them have
been published in daily papers, and were so kindly
received by the public as to encourage me to issue
them in book form. In order to retain the freshness
of first impressions, the original form has been but
slightly changed, and only so much ethnological
detail has been added as will help to an understand-
ing of native life. The book does not pretend to
give a scientific description of the people of the New _
Hebrides; that will appear later; it is meant simply
to transmit some of the indelible impressions the
traveller was privileged to receive,—impressions both
stern and sweet. The author will be amply repaid
if he succeeds in giving the reader some slight idea
of the charm and the terrors of the islands. He will
be proud if his words can convey a vision of the in-
comparable beauty and peacefulness of the glittering
lagoon, and of the sublimity of the virgin forest; if
the reader can divine the charm of the native when
gay and friendly, and his ferocity when gloomy and
hostile. I have set down some of the joys and some
