Large inscription on front endpage.

When Dawes finally came ashore in New Zealand after wandering across the Pacific in an emigrant ship, he found a country that was both familiar and strange, like a weary dream. Where the inhabitants had eaten of the fruit of the lotus tree which made them forget their former friends, relations and homes and lose all desire of returning to their native country, their only wish being to live in luxurious idleness in Lotus-land.