y near all night waiting to see where the _Casco_ would go ashore,
and with my diary all ready--simply the most entertaining night of my
life. Withal I still have colds; I have one now, and feel pretty sick
too; but not as at home: instead of being in bed, for instance, I am at
this moment sitting snuffling and writing in an undershirt and trousers;
and as for colour, hands, arms, feet, legs, and face, I am browner than
the berry: only my trunk and the aristocratic spot on which I sit retain
the vile whiteness of the north.

Please give my news and kind love to Henley, Henry James, and any whom
you see of well-wishers. Accept from me the very best of my affection:
and believe me ever yours,

THE OLD MAN VIRULENT.

_Papeete, Taiti, October 7th, 1888._

Never having found a chance to send this off, I may add more of my news.
My cold took a very bad turn, and I am pretty much out of sorts at this
particular, living in a little bare one-twentieth-furnished house,
surrounded by mangoes, etc. All the rest are well, and I mean to be
soon. But these Taiti colds are very severe and, to children, often
fatal; so they were not the thing for me. Yesterday the brigantine came
in from San Francisco, so we can get our letters off soon. There are in
Papeete at this moment, in a little wooden house with grated verandahs,
two people who love you very much, and one of them is

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO CHARLES BAXTER

_Taiti, as ever was, 6th October 1888._

MY DEAR CHARLES,-- ... You will receive a lot of mostly very bad proofs
of photographs: the paper was so bad. Please keep them very private, as
they are for the book. We send them, having learned so dread a fear of
the sea, that we wish to put our eggs in different baskets. We have been
thrice within an ace of being ashore: we were lost (!) for about twelve
hours in the Low Archipelago, but by God's blessing had quiet weather
all the time; and once in a squall, we cam so near gaun heels ower
hurdies, that I really dinnae ken why we didnae a'thegither. Hence, as
I say, a great desire to put our eggs in different baskets, particularly
on the Pacific (aw-haw-haw) Pacific Ocean.

You can have no idea what a mean time we have had, owing to incidental
beastlinesses, nor what a glorious, owing to the intrinsic interest of
these isles. I hope the book will be a good one; nor do I really very
much doubt that--the stuff is so curious; what I wonder is,