White Shadows in the South Seas. By Frederick O'Brien. (Werner
Laurie. 25s. net.)—The Marquesas have fascinated many a traveller. Mr. O'Brien, who describes the islands and their people in this attractive and well-illustrated, book, came under the spell as Herman Melville and Stevenson, Gauguin and other European visitors had done before him. But he sees the tragic side too. Drink and idleness—but chiefly drink—are
destroying the Marquesans. In Melville's once populous valley of Types there are now but a handful of poor folk. The author foresees a similar fate for the rest. The importation of manufac- tured goods has deprived the natives of all incentive to ply their old handicrafts: The French law forbids the sale of drink to the natives, but it is not enforced. Mr. O'Brien met a Frenchman who had known Gauguin. "He never worried. He painted. The dealer in Paris sent him five hundred francs a month, and he gave away everything. He cared only for paint." Absinthe and morphia were the undoing of that eccentric genius. He lies buried in the native cemetery called Calvary, but in a nameless grave. The author relates many curious folk-tales. Cannibal- ism, he says, was- due among the Marquesans to a desire for revenge. A white man was seldom eaten ; "they said he was too salty."
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