Isles of the Frigate Bird

London, UK: Michael Joseph, 1975. Hardcover. Good/Good. h/b 235 pages, condition is good, this is an ex library book with the usual stamps. 'Nobody seems to know much about the Cook Islands,' said the amiable librarian at the British Museum. To an Irish biographer with a taste for travel, this was a challenge which could not be ignored, and Ronald Syme set out forthwith for the South Pacific. There he stayed, getting to know the islands and their Polynesian inhabitants, until his yearning for 'a cottage, a pig, a few hens and a bit of decent fishing' finally overcame his half-hearted attempts to give up this easy and pleasant life, and he settled down for good in the small but beautiful island of Rarotonga. Today, twenty years later, he has acquired the cottage, the hens and the fishing. (He had a pig, too, but it got eaten last Christmas.) Unexpectedly he also acquired a lovely Polynesian wife and an equally attractive daughter. Mr Syme has thus been able to study at first hand the fascinating, infuriating, beguiling and always entirely feminine ways of Polynesian womanhood. He says he can now understand why Captain James Cook - of whom he recently published an illustrated biography - had trouble dealing with his crew in the South Seas. The traditional culture of the Islands stood strong against the world of the white man for many years; but change cannot be resisted indefinitely. Writing with insight and humour, the author tells his personal story of a way of life which is already vanishing and may soon be gone for ever.