Crichton's Life in Tahiti

Crichton had been living at Tahiti for more than a year, on the lookout for just such an opportunity as Ruau offered him. Although only twenty-eight, he was in the tenth year of his wanderings and had almost despair to finding the place he had so long dreamed of and searched for. The fact is an illuminating commentary on his character. He was one of those men who make few or no friends, one of those lonely spirits without the ties, or the kindly human associations which make life pleasant to most of us. One reads of them now and then in fiction, and if they live in fiction it is because of men like Crichton, their prototypes in reality