This contained
genuine adventures of a kinsman, my oldest and most intimate friend,
who has passed much of his life in the Pacific, mainly in a foreign
colony, and in the wild New Hebrides. My friend is a man of
education, an artist, and a student of anthropology and ethnology.
Engaged on a work of scientific research, he has not committed any of
his innumerable adventures, warlike or wandering, to print. The
following "yarn" he sent to me lately, in a letter on some points of
native customs. Of course the description of the Beach-comber, in the
book referred to, is purely fictitious. The yarn of "The Thumbless
Hand" is here cast in a dialogue, but the whole of the strange
experience described is given in the words of the narrator. It should
be added that, though my friend was present at some amateur seances,
in a remote isle of the sea, he is not a spiritualist, never was one,
and has no theory to account for what occurred, and no belief in
"spooks" of any description. His faith is plighted to the theories of
Mr. Darwin, and that is his only superstition. The name of the
principal character in the yarn is, of course, fictitious.
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