Travel to distant, exotic places with this classic travel book.This digital edition containing 538 pages and about the same number of fascinating illustrations, has everything the armchair traveler could wish for and more. Originally written as a contribution to the Australian Centennial in 1888, this delightful work is based on the author's intimate knowledge of the areas visited and on painstaking historical and scientific research.About one-third of this engrossing work is concerned with Hawaii and the other Polynesian areas of the Pacific. The author draws a charming picture of Honolulu and Oahu in the idyllic latter years of the Hawaiian monarchy. He follows this with a carefully detailed description of Tahiti at the very time Gauguin was painting his masterpieces of native life there. The travel and culture book, however, is chiefly concerned with the Australian region, an is the first illustrated book describing Australia and the neighboring colonies, Tasmania and New Zealand, written by an American and published by an American printer.Here is humor, especially in many of the illustrations, nostalgia and escapism. The book is an invaluable contribution toward a better understanding of Victorian Australia and Polynesia.