ed to prolong his experiences in yet
more remote archipelagoes of the same ocean. He started accordingly from
Honolulu in June 1889 on a trading schooner, the _Equator_, bound to the
Gilberts, one of the least visited and most primitively mannered of all
the island groups of the Western Pacific; emerged towards Christmas of
the same year into semi-civilisation again at Apia, on the island of
Upolu in Samoa, where he wrote his first Polynesian story, _The Bottle
Imp_. Enchanted with the scenery and the people, he stayed for six
weeks, first in the house of Mr. H. J. Moors, a leading American trader,
then with his family in a separate cottage not far off; bought an estate
on the densely wooded mountain side above Apia, with the notion of
making there, if not a home, at least a place of rest and call on later
projected excursions among the islands; and began to make collections
for his studies in recent Samoan history. In February he went on to
Sydney to find his correspondence and consider future plans. It was
during this stay at Sydney that he was moved to give expression to his
righteous indignation at the terms of a letter concerning Father Damien
by the Rev. Dr. Hyde of Honolulu. Here also he fell once more seriously
ill, with a renewal of all his old symptoms; and the conclusion was
forced upon him that he must take up his residence for the rest of his
life in the tropics--though with occasional excursions, as he then
hoped, at least half-way homeward to places where it might be possible
for friends from England to meet him. In order to shake off the effects
of this attack, he started with his party on a fresh sea voyage from
Sydney, this time on a trading steamer, the _Janet Nicoll_, which took
him by a very devious course to the Gilberts again, the Marshalls, and
among many other remote islands during the months of April-August 1890.
During the voyage he began to put into shape the notes for a volume on
the South Seas which he had been compiling ever since he left San
Francisco. Unfortunately, he persisted in the endeavour to make his work
impersonal and full of information, or what he called "serious
interest," exactly in the manner which his wife had foreseen before they
left Honolulu, and from which she had wisely tried to dissuade him (see
her letter printed on pp. 347 foll.). On the return voyage Stevenson
left the _Janet Nicoll_ to land in New Caledonia, staying for some days
at Noumea before he went on to Sydn