Atolls of the Sun
Publisher: The Century Co.
Published: 1922
Place of publication: Toronto
Description: "The wind was fluttering wildly the fronds of the cocoanut trees and the surf was heavy as we rowed through the passage and moat and struck the breakers on the outer reef. From the sea for a few minutes the lanterns in the houses were like fireflies in the cane, but soon darkness hid them, and I saw only the black shadow of the motus, and the gleam of the foaming crests of the waves in the faint starlight."
Frederick O'Brien's final installment to his trilogy of South Seas wanderings. For his final foray he left Tahiti aboard the islander trader, Marara, bound to the little known, but much feared, Paumotu Atolls, today called the Tuamotus. Feared then and now for the number of unseeable coral reefs and treacherous currents that threatened and destroyed unwary ships. But a brilliant allure, none the less, because of the presence of lagoon grown pearls, particularly the black pearl. 
O'Brien found the low Paumotu atolls a very different environment than the lofty high islands of Tahiti and the Marquesas. Nothing more than a ring of coral sand, no more than 3' above the sea was the support for atoll life. Fresh water was always at a premium and obtaining food from the lagoon was a much more dangerous undertaking than on the high islands. The atoll islanders were not as lighthearted or carefree as their Tahitian cousins. But as O'Brien wrote, "...life is harder but simpler and sweeter than elsewhere in the world."
What O'Brien observed and reported were the legends of atoll life. He witnessed a deadly combat between a giant octopus and several Paumotuans, heard from survivors of a recent cyclone that totalled and decimated the atoll with a mammoth storm surge, he heard about the viciousness and unpredictability of the atoll sharks, the wonderous beauty of the lagoon marine life, and the dangers and difficulties of wrestling food from those waters.
O'Brien covered the local commerce, of making money with copra and the ins and outs of the pearl diving business.
Of particular interest in O'Brien's book are two chance meetings he had. The first was a meeting with an island missionary who's home island was Pitcairn Island, of Bounty fame. This meeting took place 30 years before Hall/Nordhoff wrote their fictionalized account of the Bounty affair. The public of that time was less sympathetic about the event. The missionary related to O'Brien the island perspective on the Bounty mutiny and the little known murderous history that the mutineers unleashed on themselves.
The other encounter he had at the pearl diving lagoon of Takaroa. He met a ship captain who had lived for a period of time on Rapa Nui, also called Easter Island. He told of the island's eerie mystery, it's gloomy sadness, and painful history. Even for island traders, Easter Island was remote, mysterious, isolated, and rarely visited.
O'Brien eventually returned to the Marquesas to await passage home. While waiting, he wrote about the local characters and personalities, he found one of the last practitioners of the high art of Marquesan tattooing and delved deeply into that mystery. He spent a bit of time on the difference of the Polynesian language as spoken between islands.
As compared to the other two books, Atolls of the Sun is a bit more factful. Probably because atoll life was so elemental. O'Brien wrote about what he saw. Consequently, this book seems to better finish off his trilogy with a fuller understanding of what living on an island or atoll was like in 1910.