has attended this
trip, but I must confess more pleasure. Nor should I ever complain, as
in the last few weeks, with the curing of my illness indeed, as if that
were the bursting of an abscess, the cloud has risen from my spirits and
to some degree from my temper. Do you know what they called the _Casco_
at Fakarava? The _Silver Ship_. Is that not pretty? Pray tell Mrs.
Jenkin, _die silberne Frau_, as I only learned it since I wrote her. I
think of calling the book by that name: _The Cruise of the Silver
Ship_--so there will be one poetic page at least--the title. At the
Sandwiches we shall say farewell to the _S. S._ with mingled feelings.
She is a lovely creature: the most beautiful thing at this moment in
Taiti.

Well, I will take another sheet, though I know I have nothing to say.
You would think I was bursting: but the voyage is all stored up for the
book, which is to pay for it, we fondly hope; and the troubles of the
time are not worth telling; and our news is little.

Here I conclude (Oct. 24th, I think), for we are now stored, and the
Blue Peter metaphorically flies.

R. L. S.

TO WILLIAM AND THOMAS ARCHER

Stevenson addresses a part of this letter, as well as the whole of
another later on, to a young son of Mr. Archer's, but rather to amuse
himself than his nominal correspondent, who was then aged three

_Taiti, October 17th, 1888._

DEAR ARCHER,--Though quite unable to write letters I nobly send you a
line signifying nothing. The voyage has agreed well with all; it has had
its pains, and its extraordinary pleasures; nothing in the world can
equal the excitement of the first time you cast anchor in some bay of a
tropical island, and the boats begin to surround you, and the tattooed
people swarm aboard. Tell Tomarcher, with my respex, that hide-and-seek
is not equal to it; no, nor hidee-in-the-dark; which, for the matter of
that, is a game for the unskilful: the artist prefers daylight, a
good-sized garden, some shrubbery, an open paddock, and--come on,
Macduff.

TOMARCHER, I am now a distinguished litterytour, but that was not the
real bent of my genius. I was the best player of hide-and-seek going;
not a good runner, I was up to every shift and dodge, I could jink very
well, I could crawl without any noise through leaves, I could hide under
a carrot plant, it used to be my favourite boast that I always _walked_
into the den. You may care to hear, Tomarcher, about the child