The sense of an extraterrestrial experience is heightened by a line of yellow lights twinkling on the horizon, like a lone settlement on a hostile planet.
Within the span of several centuries, the Lapita stretched the boundaries of their world from the jungle — clad volcanoes of Papua New Guinea to the loneliest coral outliers of Tonga.
It must not be inferred from his introspection, his absent - mindedness, his secrecy and his solitude that he lacked aptitude for affairs when he chose to exercise it.