r little adventure into the
Waverley Novels.--I am, your affectionate cousin,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

Observe the stealth with which I have blotted my signature, but we must
be political _a outrance_.

TO THE COUNTESS OF JERSEY

MY DEAR COUSIN,--I send for your information a copy of my last letter to
the gentleman in question. 'Tis thought more wise, in consideration of
the difficulty and peril of the enterprise, that we should leave the
town in the afternoon, and by several detachments. If you would start
for a ride with the Master of Haggard and Captain Lockhart of Lee, say
at three o'clock of the afternoon, you would make some rencounters by
the wayside which might be agreeable to your political opinions. All
present will be staunch.

The Master of Haggard might extend his ride a little, and return through
the marsh and by the nuns' house (I trust that has the proper flavour),
so as a little to diminish the effect of separation.--I remain your
affectionate cousin to command,

O TUSITALA.

_P.S._--It is to be thought this present year of grace will be
historical.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

This letter tells without preface the story of the expedition planned
in the preceding.

[_Vailima, August 1892._]

MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is Friday night, the (I believe) 18th or 20th
August or September. I shall probably regret to-morrow having written
you with my own hand like the Apostle Paul. But I am alone over here in
the workman's house, where I and Belle and Lloyd and Austin are pigging;
the rest are at cards in the main residence. I have not joined them
because "belly belong me" has been kicking up, and I have just taken 15
drops of laudanum.

On Tuesday, the party set out--self in white cap, velvet coat, cords and
yellow half boots, Belle in a white kind of suit and white cap to match
mine, Lloyd in white clothes and long yellow boots and a straw hat,
Graham in khakis and gaiters, Henry (my old overseer) in blue coat and
black kilt, and the great Lafaele with a big ship-bag on his saddle-bow.
We left the mail at the P.O., had lunch at the hotel, and about 1.50 set
out westward to the place of tryst. This was by a little shrunken brook
in a deep channel of mud, on the far side of which, in a thicket of low
trees, all full of moths of shadow and butterflies of sun, we lay down
to await her ladyship. Whisky and water, then a sketch of the encampment
for which we all posed to Bel