or use them as stepping stones. I have written this book so that they
may easily be leaped over by the hasty, but he will lose much enjoyment
by doing so; I would urge him to pronounce them as he goes. Marquesan
words have a flavor all their own; much of the simple poetry of the
islands is in them. The rules for pronouncing them are simple;
consonants have the sounds usual in English, vowels have the Latin
value, that is, a is ah, e is ay, i is ee, o is oh, and u is oo.
Every letter is pronounced, and there are no accents. The Marquesans
had no written language, and their spoken tongue was reproduced as
simply as possible by the missionaries.




WHITE SHADOWS IN THE SOUTH SEAS



CHAPTER I

Farewell to Papeite beach; at sea in the _Morning Star_; Darwin's
theory of the continent that sank beneath the waters of the South
Seas.


By the white coral wall of Papeite beach the schooner _Fetia
Taiao_ (_Morning Star_) lay ready to put to sea. Beneath the
skyward-sweeping green heights of Tahiti the narrow shore was a mass
of colored gowns, dark faces, slender waving arms. All Papeite,
flower-crowned and weeping, was gathered beside the blue lagoon.