My brother's letters, written close on very fine paper, continued to reach us from time to time; he could only send them to us by sailing vessels bound in our direction which lay-to in that part of the world where he was stationed.

Some of them were written particularly for me, and these were long, and filled with never-to-be-forgotten descriptions.
I already knew several words of the sweet and liquid language of Oceanica, and often in my dreams I saw the exquisite island he described and roamed over it; it haunted my imagination as does a chimerical realm, ardently desired, but as inaccessible as if situated upon another planet.
During my visit to my cousins my father forwarded me a letter from my brother addressed to me.

I went up to the garret roof, on the side where the plums were drying, to read it.

He wrote of a place called Fataua which was situated in a deep valley and surrounded by steep mountains.
"A perpetual twilight," he wrote, "reigns here under the great exotic trees, and the spray of the cascade keeps the carpet of rare ferns fresh." Yes; I could picture that scene to myself very well, now that I had about me mountains and moist glens luxuriant with ferns.

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