ey, where he spent four or five weeks
of later August and September. Thence he returned in October to take up
his abode for good on his Samoan property, where the work of clearing,
planting, and building a habitable cottage had been going on busily
during his absence.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

It should be remembered that the Marquesas, the Paumotus, and the
Tahitian group are all dependencies of France.

_Yacht Casco, Anaho Bay, Nukahiva, Marquesas Islands [July 1888]._

MY DEAR COLVIN,--From this somewhat (ahem) out of the way place, I write
to say how d'ye do. It is all a swindle: I chose these isles as having
the most beastly population, and they are far better, and far more
civilised than we. I know one old chief Ko-o-amua, a great cannibal in
his day, who ate his enemies even as he walked home from killing 'em,
and he is a perfect gentleman and exceedingly amiable and simple-minded:
no fool, though.

The climate is delightful; and the harbour where we lie one of the
loveliest spots imaginable. Yesterday evening we had near a score
natives on board; lovely parties. We have a native god; very rare now.
Very rare and equally absurd to view.

This sort of work is not favourable to correspondence: it takes me all
the little strength I have to go about and see, and then come home and
note, the strangeness around us. I shouldn't wonder if there came
trouble here some day, all the same. I could name a nation that is not
beloved in certain islands--and it does not know it! Strange: like
ourselves, perhaps, in India! Love to all and much to yourself.

R. L. S.

TO CHARLES BAXTER

_Yacht Casco, at sea, near the Paumotus,
7 A.M., September 6th, 1888, with a dreadful pen._

MY DEAR CHARLES,--Last night as I lay under my blanket in the cockpit,
courting sleep, I had a comic seizure. There was nothing visible but the
southern stars, and the steersman there out by the binnacle lamp; we
were all looking forward to a most deplorable landfall on the morrow,
praying God we should fetch a tuft of palms which are to indicate the
Dangerous Archipelago; the night was as warm as milk, and all of a
sudden I had a vision of--Drummond Street. It came on me like a flash of
lightning: I simply returned thither, and into the past. And when I
remember all I hoped and feared as I pickled about Rutherford's in the
rain and the east wind; how I feared I should make a mere shipwreck, and
yet timidly hoped