co_, Oakland,
Cal.--In haste,

R. L. S.

TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE

_Honolulu, April 6th, 1889._

MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--Nobody writes a better letter than my Gamekeeper:
so gay, so pleasant, so engagingly particular, answering (by some
delicate instinct) all the questions she suggests. It is a shame you
should get such a poor return as I can make, from a mind essentially and
originally incapable of the art epistolary. I would let the
paper-cutter take my place; but I am sorry to say the little wooden
seaman did after the manner of seamen, and deserted in the Societies.
The place he seems to have stayed at--seems, for his absence was not
observed till we were near the Equator--was Tautira, and, I assure you,
he displayed good taste, Tautira being as "nigh hand heaven" as a
paper-cutter or anybody has a right to expect.

I think all our friends will be very angry with us, and I give the
grounds of their probable displeasure bluntly--we are not coming home
for another year. My mother returns next month. Fanny, Lloyd, and I push
on again among the islands on a trading schooner, the _Equator_--first
for the Gilbert group, which we shall have an opportunity to explore
thoroughly; then, if occasion serve, to the Marshalls and Carolines; and
if occasion (or money) fail, to Samoa, and back to Tahiti. I own we are
deserters, but we have excuses. You cannot conceive how these climates
agree with the wretched house-plant of Skerryvore: he wonders to find
himself sea-bathing, and cutting about the world loose, like a grown-up
person. They agree with Fanny too, who does not suffer from her
rheumatism, and with Lloyd also. And the interest of the islands is
endless; and the sea, though I own it is a fearsome place, is very
delightful. We had applied for places in the American missionary ship,
the _Morning Star_, but this trading schooner is a far preferable idea,
giving us more time and a thousandfold more liberty; so we determined to
cut off the missionaries with a shilling.

The Sandwich Islands do not interest us very much; we live here,
oppressed with civilisation, and look for good things in the future. But
it would surprise you if you came out to-night from Honolulu (all
shining with electric lights, and all in a bustle from the arrival of
the mail, which is to carry you these lines) and crossed the long wooden
causeway along the beach, and came out on the road through Kapiolani
park, and seeing a gate in