Part 1

Editor's Preface

I present here, for the first time, both to the general public and the scientific community, a faithful transcription of a set of three remarkable documents which I happened to find, entirely by chance, in a small antique book store in Trieste, on one of my recent visits to this town. These three documents were a letter, a short essay, and a literary text in verses. All three documents were written in what seems to be the same hand on the same type of paper, the folded sheets were tied together by a string. Unfortunately, the envelope that once had contained these sheets was not included.

I am not a scholar, and can not decide, or even form a strong opinion, whether the letter and the accompanying texts are genuine, or a forgery, or possibly a hoax. Assuming they are authentic, here is what little, without further studies, we can tell:

The author of the letter and the essay, and the translator of the verses, is an English lady whose first name begins with "A"; the three documents were posted in New Zealand in May 1890 (for whatever reasons, the exact date is not given); and the addressee, though he is addressed only by the initials "RB", can be no other than Sir Richard Francis Burton, explorer, adventurer, author, translator of "The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night" and, at the time, British consul to Trieste.

Burton died from a heart attack on October 20, 1890. The letter with its two attachments obviously reached Trieste, but whether before or after Burton's death, I have no way to decide. We know that Burton's widow, Isabel, destroyed most of his unpublished manuscripts, disapproving of their erotic content and fearing that they might cause a scandal. The verses of the third document would, from this point of view, certainly also have deserved destruction — why they escaped it, and how they finally ended up in a dark store room of an antique book shop, is at present entirely unknown.

I restrict myself here to presenting the content of the documents which I have found, and refrain from any further comments, and from any attempts at evaluating them, for which I am not qualified. I am, of course, willing to provide the original sheets of paper for serious scientific examination, but even before we have heard the opinion of the scientists I can say that this opera libretto, whatever the historical truth behind it may be, is a fascinating work of literature, unique in its kind, and I hope that it will find the readership and the attention that it deserves. Be warned, though, that, even by today's standards, the libretto contains rather extreme descriptions of violence and sexuality, and also of cannibalism — if any of those may offend you, I would advise you not to read on.

The Letter by Lady A. to RB

Wellington, May 1890.

Dear RB,

I hope you have received my previous letter, written during the days aboard the ship that took me back to New Zealand from Brinala, in which I have given you a detailed account of, as I call them, my two years among the Cannibals, even though, as I have stated, I have never actually put a foot on one of the Cannibal islands — had I done so, I would probably not be sitting here in my hotel room now, writing to you. Nonetheless, in the archipelago you are never far away from them, and often, either standing at a ship's guardrail or on a lookout close to the shore, I have seen naked Cannibal warriors of both sexes, paddling their elegant and seagoing outrigger canoes with powerful strokes. And more than once have I felt a tingle, not only down my spine, from an appraising glance, quickly cast at me out of such a canoe, as it swiftly passed...

From that previous letter you already know how it came that I wound up in Brinala, how I fared there, how I learned the language, and how I secured my journey back to our civilization, and much of what I have learned about the archipelago, its geography, its history, and its inhabitants and their culture. What I have not mentioned in that letter, though, is a matter of some curiosity, which during my stay has been exerting an ever increasing fascination upon me, and which, judging from what I know about your own interests, may also attract your attention. This curious matter, something that no one would ever expect to find in such a remote and savage part of the Pacific, is the Brinali opera! What I hope to achieve, though, is more than just to arouse your interest in this curiosity — my enthusiasm, which hopefully you will come to share at least to a degree after you have looked into the papers that I send you here, goes so far that I actually want to organize a performance, back home in England, with the necessary participation of native Brinali musicians, actors and singers!