The Three Sirens by Irving Wallace Read Free Book Online Page A

like being in the garden of Eden … Everything is reminiscent and suggestive of love. The native girls have no complex about it. Everything around them invites them to follow their heart’s inclination or the call of nature”?
    This was enough for Daniel Wright, Esq. Beyond Australia lay a new and uninhibited civilization, practicing love and marriage in a manner compatible with his own best ideas. There, far from the wretched, restrictive practices of the West, he would combine his ideals with the similar practices of the Polynesians, and develop his perfect world in microcosm.
    Wright bought passage for his company on a small but seaworthy brig that was heading into the South Seas for trading purposes, with Otaheite, as the English then called Tahiti, its final destination. Wright asked the captain of the vessel if, for additional payment above the fares, he would journey beyond Tahiti, touching on half a dozen obscure, uncharted isles, until one was found where Wright, his family, and followers might remain. The captain was agreeable.
    The captain of the brig kept to his word. After the voyage to Tahiti, and an anchorage of two weeks, the captain continued far southward through Polynesia. Three times the brig lay offshore, while Wright and two male companions explored the small islands. One was made useless by mangrove forests, another lacked springs for drinking water and had not any fertile soil, and the third was infested with head-hunters. Wright urged the captain to resume his search. Two days later they sighted the island group shortly to be christened The Three Sirens.
    A day’s exploration of the main island convinced Wright that he had found his earthly Eden. The situation of a haven, which was off the trade routes and which possessed no natural harbor or deep anchorage, gave high promise of privacy. The interior of the island had abundant flora and fauna, clear streams, and other natural resources. Above all, Wright had come upon a village of forty Polynesians, and they proved gracious and hospitable.
    Through a native interpreter brought from Tahiti, Wright was able to speak at length with Tefaunni, Chief of the tribe. Wright learned the villagers were descendants of a Polynesian kin group of long ago who had gone colonizing in deep sea canoes and had found a refuge in this place. The Chief, who had never encountered a white man before or been the recipient of such magical gifts (a metal hatchet, for one thing, a whale oil lamp, for another), was in complete awe of Wright. He considered it great mana—a word Wright learned to mean, among many meanings, “prestige”—to have his visitor share the island and its rule with him. Taking Wright on a tour of the village, Tefaunni explained the habits of his people. In his journal, Wright would note that the people were “gay, free, sensible yet joyous of life and loving” and that their attitudes and manners would have “gladdened Bougainville’s heart.” The following day, Wright’s family and disciples, eight in all, himself included, were set ashore with their possessions, consisting also of several dogs, goats, chickens, and sheep. The brig sailed away, and Wright joined Tefaunni to set into being Eden Resurrected .
    There is much, much more to this unusual history, Dr. Hayden, but the details you will learn for yourself, if you are of that frame of mind. Within the limitations of this letter, I should prefer to devote the remainder of it to the customs of the society that ultimately developed from 1796 to the present day.
    A month after Wright and his company had physically settled into the Polynesian community, he undertook a serious study of their tribal traditions, rites, and practices. He noted these carefully, and alongside these he committed to paper his own ideas on how life should be lived on The Three Sirens. In the matter of government, the Polynesians believed in a hereditary chief. Wright believed in a committee of three men or women, who