re there of his own health, partly by a bad outbreak of cholera
which occurred in the old Provencal town about the time he left it.
After consultation with several doctors, all of whom held out hopes of
ultimate recovery despite the gravity of his present symptoms, he moved
to Bournemouth. Here he found in the heaths and pinewoods some distant
semblance of the landscape of his native Scotland, and in the sandy
curves of the Channel coast a passable substitute for the bays and
promontories of his beloved Mediterranean. At all events, he liked the
place well enough to be willing to try it for a home; and such it became
for all but three years, from September 1884 to August 1887. These,
although in the matter of health the worst and most trying years of his
life, were in the matter of work some of the most active and successful.
For the first two or three months the Stevensons occupied a lodging on
the West Cliff called Wensleydale; for the next five, from mid-November
1884 to mid-April 1885, they were tenants of a house named Bonallie
Towers, pleasantly situated amid the pinewoods of Branksome Park, and
by its name recalling familiar Midlothian associations. Lastly, about
Easter 1885, they entered into occupation of a house of their own, given
by the elder Mr. Stevenson as a special gift to his daughter-in-law, and
renamed by its new occupants Skerryvore, in reminiscence of one of the
great lighthouse works carried out by the family firm off the Scottish
coast.

During all the time of Stevenson's residence at Bournemouth he was
compelled to lead the life, irksome to him above all men, but borne with
invincible spirit and patience, of a chronic invalid and almost constant
prisoner to the house. A great part of his time had perforce to be spent
in bed, and there almost all his literary work was produced. Often for
days, and sometimes for whole weeks together, he was forbidden to speak
aloud, and compelled to carry on conversation with his family and
friends in whispers or with the help of pencil and paper. The few
excursions to a distance which he attempted--most commonly to my house
at the British Museum, once to Cambridge, once to Matlock, once to
Exeter, and once in 1886 as far as Paris--these excursions generally
ended in a breakdown and a hurried retreat to home and bed.
Nevertheless, he was able in intervals of comparative ease to receive
and enjoy the visits of friends from a distance both old and new--among
the most