e a fortune in the Pacific Islands; it
afforded me considerable reflection, mixed with a keen regret that I
had squandered over a quarter of a century of my life in the most
stupid manner, by ignoring the golden opportunities that must have been
jostling me wherever I went. The articles were very cleverly penned, and
really made very pretty reading--so pretty, in fact, that I was moved
to briefly narrate my experience of the subject in the columns of the
_Westminster Gazette_ with the result that many a weary, struggling
trader in the Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides and other groups of
islands in the South Pacific rose up and called me blessed when they
read my article, for I sent five and twenty copies of the paper to as
many traders. Others doubtless obtained the journal from the haughty
brass-bound pursers (there are no "supercargoes" now) of the Sydney and
Auckland steamers. For the steamers, with their high-collared, clerkly
pursers, have supplanted for good the trim schooners, with their
brown-faced, pyjama-clad supercargoes, and the romance of the South Seas
has gone. But it has not gone in the imagination of some people.

I must mention that my copies of the _Westminster Gazette_ crossed no
less than nine letters written to me by old friends and comrades from
various islands in the Pacific, asking me to do what I had done--put the
true condition of affairs in Polynesia before the public, and help
to keep unsuitable and moneyless men from going out to the South Sea
Islands to starve. For they had read the illuminating series of articles
to which I refer, and felt very savage.

In a cabin-trunk of mine I have some hundreds of letters, written to
me during the past ten years by people from all parts of the world,
who wanted to go to the South Seas and lead an idyllic life and make
fortunes, and wished me to show them how to go about it. Many of these
letters are amusing, some are pathetic; some, which were so obviously
insane, I did not answer. The rest I did. I cannot reproduce them in
print. I am keeping them to read to my friends in heaven. Even an old
ex-South Sea trader may get there--if he can dodge the other place.
_Quien sabe?_

Twenty-one of these letters reached me in France during February, March
and April of last year. They were written by men and women who had been
reading the above-mentioned series of brilliant articles. (I regret to
state that fourteen only had a penny stamp thereon, and I had to