ng (August 23rd or 24th), You should have seen the crone
with a noble masculine face, like that of an old crone [_sic_], a body
like a man's (naked all but the feathery female girdle), knotting
cocoanut leaves and muttering spells: Fanny and I, and the good captain
of the _Equator_, and the Chinaman and his native wife and
sister-in-law, all squatting on the floor about the sibyl; and a crowd
of dark faces watching from behind her shoulder (she sat right in the
doorway) and tittering aloud with strange, appalled, embarrassed
laughter at each fresh adjuration. She informed us you were in England,
not travelling and now no longer sick; she promised us a fair wind the
next day, and we had it, so I cherish the hope she was as right about
Sidney Colvin. The shipownering has rather petered out since I last
wrote, and a good many other plans beside.

Health? Fanny very so-so; I pretty right upon the whole, and getting
through plenty work: I know not quite how, but it seems to me not bad
and in places funny.

South Sea Yarns:

1. _The Wrecker_ } R. L. S.
2. _The Pearl Fisher_ } by and
3. _The Beachcombers_ } Lloyd O.

_The Pearl Fisher_, part done, lies in Sydney. It is _The Wrecker_ we
are now engaged upon: strange ways of life, I think, they set forth:
things that I can scarce touch upon, or even not at all, in my travel
book; and the yarns are good, I do believe. _The Pearl Fisher_ is for
the New York Ledger: the yarn is a kind of Monte Cristo one. _The
Wrecker_ is the least good as a story, I think; but the characters seem
to me good. _The Beachcombers_ is more sentimental. These three scarce
touch the out-skirts of the life we have been viewing; a hot-bed of
strange characters and incidents: Lord, how different from Europe or the
Pallid States! Farewell. Heaven knows when this will get to you. I burn
to be in Sydney and have news.

R. L. S.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

The following, written in the last days of the sail southwards from
the Gilberts to Samoa, contains the full plan of the South Sea book
as it had now been conceived. In the issue, Part I. (so far as I
know) was never written; Parts II. and III. appeared serially in the
New York Sun, and were reprinted with corrections in the volume
called _In the South Seas_; Part IV. was never written; Part V. was
written but has not been printed, at least in this country; Part VI.
(and far the most successful) c