I did notaltogether believe my eyes. The days that had passed since I left Wellingtonseemed extraordinary and unusual. Wellington is trim and neat and English; itreminds you of a seaport town on the South Coast. And for three days afterwardsthe sea was stormy. Gray clouds chased one another across the sky. Then thewind dropped, and the sea was calm and blue. The Pacific is more desolate thanother seas; its spaces seem more vast, and the most ordinary journey upon ithas somehow the feeling of an adventure. The air you breathe is an elixir whichprepares you for the unexpected. Nor is it vouchsafed to man in the flesh toknow aught that more nearly suggests the approach to the golden realms of fancythan the approach to Tahiti. Murea, the sister isle, comes into view in rockysplendour, rising from the desert sea mysteriously, like the unsubstantialfabric of a magic wand. With its jagged outline it is like a Monseratt of thePacific, and you may imagine that there Polynesian knights guard with strangerites mysteries unholy for men to know. The beauty of the island is unveiled asdiminishing distance shows you in distincter shape its lovely peaks, but itkeeps its secret as you sail by, and, darkly inviolable, seems to fold itselftogether in a stony, inaccessible grimness. It would not surprise you if, asyou came near seeking for an opening in the reef, it vanished suddenly fromyour view, and nothing met your gaze but the blue loneliness of the Pacific.

我不太敢相信自己的眼睛。自从离开威灵顿以后，日子似乎过得非常奇特。威灵顿整齐有序，富于英国风味，使人想到英国南岸的一座滨海城市。这以后我在海上航行了三天，波浪滔天，乌云在空中互相追逐。三天以后风停了，大海变得非常寂静，一片碧蓝。太平洋看来比别的海洋更加荒凉，烟波浩渺，即使在这个水域上作一次最普通的旅行也带有冒险意味。你吸到胸中的空气象是补身的甘香酒，叫你精神振奋，准备经历一些你从来未料到的事。但是你除了知道已经驶进塔希提，朦胧中感到走近一块黄金的国土外，它绝不向你泄露别的秘密。与塔希提构成姊妹岛的莫里阿岛进入你的视野，危崖高耸，绚烂壮丽，突然从茫茫的海水里神秘地一跃而出，象魔棍召唤出的一幅虚无飘渺的彩锦。莫里阿巉岩嶙峋，有如蒙特塞拉特岛①被移植到太平洋中。面对这幅景象，你会幻想波利尼西亚的武士正在那里进行奇特的宗教仪式，用以阻止世俗凡人了解某些秘密。当距离逐渐缩小，美丽的峰峦形状愈加真切时，莫里阿岛的美丽便完全呈现出来，但是在你的船只从它旁边驶过时，你会发现它仍然重门深锁，把自己闭合为一堆人们无法接近的阴森可怖的巨石，没有人能闯入它那幽森的奥秘中去。谁也不会感到惊奇：只要船只驶到近处，想在珊瑚礁寻觅一个入口，它就会突然从人们的视线里消失，映入你眼帘的仍是太平洋一片茫茫碧波。

①   蒙特塞拉特岛是英属西印度群岛中的一个岛屿。