Francisco. These seem all elements of success. There is,
besides, a character, Jim Pinkerton, of the advertising American, on
whom we build a good deal; and some sketches of the American merchant
marine, opium smuggling in Honolulu, etc. It should run to (about) three
hundred pages of my MS. I would like to know if this tale smiles upon
you, if you will have a vacancy, and what you will be willing to pay. It
will of course be copyright in both the States and England. I am a
little anxious to have it tried serially, as it tests the interest of
the mystery.

_Pleasure._--We have had a fine time in the Gilbert group, though four
months on low islands, which involves low diet, is a largeish order; and
my wife is rather down. I am myself, up to now, a pillar of health,
though our long and vile voyage of calms, squalls, cataracts of rain,
sails carried away, foretopmast lost, boats cleared and packets made on
the approach of a p. d. reef, etc., has cured me of salt brine, and
filled me with a longing for beef steak and mangoes not to be depicted.
The interest has been immense. Old King Tembinoka of Apemama, the
Napoleon of the group, poet, tyrant, altogether a man of mark, gave me
the woven corselets of his grandfather, his father and his uncle, and,
what pleased me more, told me their singular story, then all manner of
strange tales, facts, and experiences for my South Sea book, which
should be a Tearer, Mr. Burlingame: no one at least has had such stuff.

We are now engaged in the hell of a dead calm, the heat is cruel--it is
the only time when I suffer from heat: I have nothing on but a pair of
serge trousers, and a singlet without sleeves of Oxford gauze--O, yes,
and a red sash about my waist; and yet as I sit here in the cabin, sweat
streams from me. The rest are on deck under a bit of awning; we are not
much above a hundred miles from port, and we might as well be in
Kamschatka. However, I should be honest: this is the first calm I have
endured without the added bane of a heavy swell, and the intoxicated
blue-bottle wallowings and knockings of the helpless ship.

I wonder how you liked the end of _The Master_; that was the hardest job
I ever had to do; did I do it?

My wife begs to be remembered to yourself and Mrs. Burlingame. Remember
all of us to all friends, particularly Low, in case I don't get a word
through for him.--I am, yours very sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO CHARLES BAXTER

T