had killed him. Was it that happiness was a delusion never to be
realized? If the pundit had bribed the immigration authorities, as
I had known many to do, he might now have been studying the strange
religion and ethics which had caused the whites to steal so much of
China, to force opium upon it at the cannon's mouth, to kill tens
of thousands of yellow men, and to raise to dignities the soldiers
and financiers whom he despised, as had Confucius and Buddha. And if
that white of the sandals had kept his shirt on in Tahiti, he might
be lying under his favorite palm and eating breadfruit and bananas.

People have come to be afraid to say or even to think they are
happy for a bare hour. We fear that the very saying of it will
rob us of happiness. We have incantations to ward off listening
devils--knocking on wood, throwing salt over our left shoulders,
and saying "God willing."

What was I to find in Tahiti? Certainly not what Loti had with Rarahu,
for that was forty years ago, when the world was young at heart, and
romance was a god who might be worshiped with uncensored tongue. But
was not romance a spiritual emanation, a state of mind, and not people
or scenes? I knew it was, for all over the earth I had pursued it,
and found it in the wild flowers of the Sausalito hills in California
more than among the gayeties of Paris, the gorges of the Yangtse-Kiang,
or in the skull dance of the wild Dyak of Borneo.



Chapter II

The Discovery of Tahiti--Marvelous isles and people--Hailed by a