This is especially the case with Popocatepetl in Mexico, a beautiful volcanic cone rising gradually above the plateau about ten thousand feet, its snow-capped summit being over seventeen thousand feet above sea-level. Having tried in vain from several places near by, I finally succeeded in obtaining a fair view of it from the roof of the Hotel Jardin in the city of Puebla, about thirty miles or more from the peak [pp. 466-67]. Desiring to take the only train for Oaxaca, leaving Puebla at 5.30 in the morning, I was compelled to photograph the mountain rather early, and the atmosphere was not at that time in the best condition, so that the reader would have needed a field-glass to see the mountain clearly. To obtain good results with the telephoto attachment a clear atmosphere is a sine qua non.
Not only does this apply to mountain subjects but to many others alike. What remarkable pictures of the naval battle of Santiago, the chase of the Cristobal Colon, or the gallant rescue of the despairing Spaniards from their burning ships, might have been obtained from the battle-ship New York, with a lens of this description, even at long range! I believe it will be of inestimable value for the purpose of securing views of the batteries and fortifications of an enemy's harbor, which might be done at a safe distance from their guns.
While this attachment is of great value in photographing things miles away, it is even more useful in obtaining photographs of choice bits of landscape which are on the opposite side of a river or lake, and are just beyond the working capacity of an ordinary lens. Odd things are always turning up at unexpected moments, and are frequently just out of reach.
A particular instance of this kind is illustrated in the two views made of a stork's nest [p. 457] which I happened to see while sauntering along one of the picturesque old canals near Dordrecht in Holland. Of course the nest was on the wrong side of the canal, and a nearer approach was impossible without a ducking; so one view was made with a twelve-inch lens and then the telephoto was used, although not much was expected, for there was a stiff Holland breeze blowing, which is not conducive to perfect results, and moreover the storks seemed inclined to greater activity than well-behaved birds of this species generally exhibit. The exposure was almost instantaneous and the result a surprise to the operator.
Another example of the curious uses to which this lens may be put is seen in the illustration of the beautiful memorial column at West Point [p. 468]. The general view was taken at a distance of about three hundred feet in the ordinary way and then a telephoto was made of the bronze figure of Victory which surmounts the column.
Inaccessible parts of fine architecture offer an endless series of subjects for telephoto work, where remarkable results may be obtained. The cathedral at Milan, since the removal of the buildings which formerly obstructed the view, now appears to great advantage when viewed from the opposite side of the piazza. The two views of this beautiful structure [pp. 458-59] were made from a second story window on the opposite side of the piazza. I chose this point of view because of the enormous dimensions of the building. I first used the ordinary lens, obtaining the general view, and then telephotographed various portions of it.
The cathedral at Florence is so shut in by adjacent buildings that it must receive other treatment. The vast amount of work upon the façade is lost to the casual observer because of the propinquity of the baptistery, which completely destroys the effect of this wonderful mosaic. Standing on the sidewalk, as far from the façade as the other buildings would permit, I made the general view of it with a lens of four inches focus, then retreating still farther, till a corner of the baptistery began to interfere, I used the telephoto attachment on the central rose-window, the camera being about a hundred yards from it [pp. 460-61]. Then taking a position beside the baptistery I telephotographed the mosaic over the central door. It will be noticed that in the telephotographs there is less distortion than in the ordinary view, for although the rose-window is over a hundred feet above the pavement it was photographed from such a distance that only a slight inclination of the camera was necessary, and the picture appears as if taken from an elevation, whereas it was actually made from the sidewalk. The delicate carving and mosaic work about the central door are distinctly brought out, and it is one of the best examples of telephoto work the attachment has made.
At Venice one turns instinctively toward the grand Piazza, the Mecca of many a traveller as well as of the Venetians themselves. St. Mark's Cathedral offers many studies for the camera, and for many years the glass mosaics upon the upper part of the front of the building were a perplexing problem to me, for the balcony was too near and the pavement below was too far away for successful work with the ordinary lens; and if taken from a near position below they were so distorted as to be useless. The problem was not solved till the advent of the telephoto attachment, which procured the studies with ease. After making a picture of the whole front of the cathedral from the centre of the piazza in the ordinary way, the camera was moved a little to the right, so that one of the large flag-poles would not interfere, and the upper left-hand mosaic, representing the "Descent from the Cross," was telephotographed [pp. 466-67]. The result is about the same as that which might have been obtained in the ordinary way from the top of a scaffold fifty feet high and about forty feet from the mosaic.
As all the illustrations mentioned were made with the idea of reproducing them as lantern slides, which are only about three inches square, they do not indicate the full power of the attachment in a single case. Therefore I placed my camera near a window in one of my rooms and photographed the row of dwellings across the back yards [p. 465]. The actual distance from the camera to the first dwelling is one hundred and thirty feet; to the chimney, one hundred and fifty-four feet. Then, after putting on the telephoto attachment and extending the front of the camera as far as the bellows would permit, I telephotographed one of the chimneys on the third house, the only change in the camera being a slight inclination so that the chimney would be in the centre of the plate. This picture, when compared with that taken with the ordinary lens, shows an enlargement of nearly sixteen diameters, which is considerably more than the capacity or power of a very large field-glass.
Although some of the detail is lost in half-tone reproduction, yet the vast difference between the ordinary photograph and the telephotograph is well shown. The telegraph wires and the other details which are not visible in the former are clearly brought out in the latter. The exposure with the ordinary lens was about one-thirtieth of a second, while that with the attachment was one-fourth of a second. One-fourth of a second may seem to be a very short period of time, but it is entirely too long for many subjects that are very desirable.
Left Mosaic of the Cathedral, Venice, from Piazza at a Distance of More than 200 Feet—Telephoto Lens.
The shortest exposure I have ever made with the attachment was upon a very fruitful specimen of the cocoanut-tree on the island of St. Kitts, one of the emerald gems of the Lesser Antilles, belonging to Great Britain. After making an instantaneous picture in the ordinary way, I used the attachment on the cocoanuts, making use of a drop-shutter giving an exposure of about one-tenth of a second. As the tree was swaying with the strong trade-wind a very quick exposure was necessary, and thanks to the intense light the plate responded to the application of a powerful developer [p. 464].
With a new combination of very thin lenses now in process of construction, I hope to be able to diminish the time of exposure so that moving objects may be photographed without difficulty. If successful, this new lens will be invaluable for the purpose of obtaining pictures of birds and wild animals in their natural haunts, long before they become aware of the approach of their enemy. It would enable one to photograph domestic animals in their natural picturesque attitudes, which are almost always lost as soon as the camera is observed, and only too often the owner of the camera is compelled to beat a hasty retreat, sometimes with the loss of everything but honor.
The improvement in photographic lenses in the last few years has been very remarkable, and if the telephoto receives the attention it deserves of the best lens makers, the accompanying telephoto illustrations may be but harbingers of better things to come. Instead of being compelled to carry heavy unwieldy cameras and a battery of lenses, the wandering photographer will be able to accomplish even more with a compact camera and a little telephoto tube, no larger than the single barrel of a small field-glass.
IT was on July 26, 1888, that Stevenson started from the harbor of San Francisco on what was intended to be a health and pleasure excursion of a few months' duration, but turned into a voluntary exile prolonged until the hour of his death. The trading party consisted, besides himself, of his wife, his mother, his stepson, Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, and the servant Valentine. They sailed on board the schooner yacht Casco, Captain Otis, and made straight for the Marquesa dropping anchor on July 28th in the harbor of Nukahiva. The magic effect of this first island landfall on his mind he has described in the opening chapter of his book The South Seas. After spending six weeks in this group they sailed southeastward, visiting (a somewhat perilous piece of navigation) several of the coral atolls of the Paumotus or Low Archipelago. Thence they arrived in the first week of October at the Tahitian group or "Society Islands." In these their longest stay was not at the chief town, Papeete, but in a more secluded and very beautiful station, Tautira, where they were detained by the necessity of re-masting the schooner, and where Stevenson and one of the local chiefs, Ori a Ori, made special friends and parted with heartfelt mutual regret. Thence sailing due northward through forty degrees of latitude, they arrived about Christmas at Honolulu, the more than semi-civilized capital of the Hawaiian group (Sandwich Islands), where they paid off the yacht Casco and made a stay of nearly six months. There the elder Mrs. Stevenson left them to return to Scotland, and only rejoined her son's household when it was fairly installed two years later at Vailima. From Honolulu Stevenson made several excursions, including one, which profoundly impressed him, to the leper settlement at Molokai, the scene of Father Damien's ministrations and death.
The result of this first year's voyaging and residence among the Pacific Islands had been so encouraging a renewal of health, and so keen a zest added to life by the restored capacity for outdoor activity and adventure, that Stevenson determined to prolong his experiences in yet more remote archipelagoes of the same ocean. He started accordingly from Honolulu in June, 1889, on a trading schooner, the Equator, bound to the Gilberts, one of the least visited and most primitively mannered of all the island groups of the Western Pacific; emerged toward Christmas of the same year into semi-civilization again at Samoa; stayed there for six weeks, enchanted with the scenery and the people; bought a property, the future Vailima, on the mountain-side above Apia, with a view to making it, if not a home, at least a place of rest and call on later projected excursions among the islands; and began to make collections for his studies in recent Samoan history. In February he went on to Sydney to find his correspondence and consider future plans. It was during this stay at Sydney that his righteous indignation was aroused by the publication of a letter in depreciation of Father Damien, written by the Rev. Dr. Hyde of Honolulu. Here also he fell once more sharply ill, with a renewal of all his old symptoms, and the conclusion was forced upon him that he must make his home for the rest of his life in the tropics—though with occasional excursions, as he then thought, at least half-way homeward to places where it might be possible for friends from England to meet him. With a view to shaking off the effects of his fresh attack, he started with his party on a fresh sea voyage from Sydney, this time on a trading steamer, the Janet Nicoll, which took him by a very devious course among many remote islands during the months of April-August, 1890. During this journey he began to put into shape the notes for a comprehensive book on the South Seas—not one of incidents and impressions only, which was what his readers craved from him, but one of studious inquiry and research—which he had been compiling ever since he left San Francisco. On the return voyage of the Janet Nicoll he left her at New Caledonia, staying for some days at Noumea before he went on to Sydney, where he spent four or five weeks of later August and September; and in October he came to take up his abode for good on his Samoan property, where the work of clearing and planting had been going on busily during his absence.
The letters in the following section are selected from those which reached his correspondents in England and the United States at intervals, necessarily somewhat rare, during the first part of these voyages—that is, from the Marquesas, Paumotus, and the Tahitian and Hawaiian groups—down to June, 1889.
Yacht Casco, Anaho Bay, Nukahiva, Marquesas Islands. [July, 1888.]
My dear Colvin,—From this somewhat (ahem) out of the way place, I write to say how d'ye do. It is all a swindle: I chose these isles as having the most beastly population, and they are far better, and far more civilised than we. I know one old chief Ko-o-amua, a great cannibal in his day, who ate his enemies even as he walked home from killing 'em, and he is a perfect gentleman and exceedingly amiable and simple-minded: no fool, though.
The climate is delightful; and the harbour where we lie one of the loveliest spots imaginable. Yesterday evening we had near a score natives on board; lovely parties. We have a native god; very rare now. Very rare and equally absurd to view.
This sort of work is not favourable to correspondence; it takes me all the little strength I have to go about and see, and then come home and note the strangeness around us. I shouldn't wonder if there came trouble here some day, all the same. I could name a nation[M] that is not beloved in certain islands—and it does not know it! Strange: like ourselves, perhaps, in India! Love to all and much to yourself.
R. L. S.
Yacht Casco, at sea, near the Paumotus, 7 a.m., September 6th, 1888.
My dear Charles [Baxter],—Last night as I lay under my blanket in the cockpit, courting sleep, I had a comic seizure. There was nothing visible but the southern stars, and the steersman there out by the binnacle lamp; we were all looking forward to a most deplorable landfall on the morrow, praying God we should fetch a tuft of palms which are to indicate the Dangerous Archipelago; the night was as warm as milk, and all of a sudden I had a vision of—Drummond Street. It came on me like a flash of lightning; I simply returned thither, and into the past. And when I remember all I hoped and feared as I pickled about Rutherford's in the rain and the east wind; how I feared I should make a mere shipwreck, and yet timidly hoped not; how I feared I should never have a friend, far less a wife, and yet passionately hoped I might; how I hoped (if I did not take to drink) I should possibly write one little book, etc. etc. And then now—what a change! I feel somehow as if I should like the incident set upon a brass plate at the corner of that dreary thoroughfare for all students to read, poor devils, when their hearts are down. And I felt I must write one word to you. Excuse me if I write little: when I am at sea, it gives me a headache; when I am in port, I have my diary crying, 'Give, give.' I shall have a fine book of travels, I feel sure; and will tell you more of the South Seas after very few months than any other writer has done—except Herman Melville perhaps, who is a howling cheese. Good luck to you, God bless you.—Your affectionate friend,
R. L. S.
Taiti, as ever was, 6th October, 1888.
My dear Charles [Baxter],
... 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, if the public will rise to it. A copy of my journal, or as much of it as is made, shall go to you also; it is, of course, quite imperfect, much being to be added and corrected; but O, for the eggs in the different baskets.
All the rest are well enough, and all have enjoyed the cruise so far, in spite of its drawbacks. We have had an awfae' time in some ways, Mr. Baxter; and if I wasnae sic a verra patient man (when I ken that I have to be) there wad hae been a braw row; and ance if I hadnae happened to be on deck about three in the marnin', I think there would have been murder done. The American Mairchant Marine is a kent service; ye'll have heard its praise, I'm thinkin'; an' if ye never did, ye can get Twa Years Before the Mast, by Dana, whaur forbye a great deal o' pleisure, ye'll get a' the needcessary information. Love to your father and all the family.—Ever your affectionate friend,
Robert Louis Stevenson.
[Miss Boodle had made Mr. Stevenson a present of a paper-cutter when he left Bournemouth; and it is in the character of the paper-cutter that he now writes to her:]
Taiti, October 10th, 1888.
Dear Giver,—I am at a loss to conceive your object in giving me to a person so locomotory as my proprietor. The number of thousand miles that I have travelled, the strange bed-fellows with which I have been made acquainted, I lack the requisite literary talent to make clear to your imagination. I speak of bed-fellows; pocket-fellows would be a more exact expression, for the place of my abode is in my master's right-hand trouser-pocket; and there, as he waded on the resounding beaches of Nukahiva, or in the shallow tepid water on the reef of Fakarava, I have been overwhelmed by and buried among all manner of abominable South Sea shells, beautiful enough in their way, I make no doubt, but singular company for any self-respecting paper-cutter. He, my master—or as I more justly call him, my bearer; for although I occasionally serve him, does not he serve me daily and all day long, carrying me like an African potentate on my subject's legs?—he is delighted with these isles, and this climate, and these savages, and a variety of other things. He now blows a flageolet with singular effects; sometimes the poor thing appears stifled with shame, sometimes it screams with agony; he pursues his career with truculent insensibility. Health appears to reign in the party. I was very nearly sunk in a squall. I am sorry I ever left England, for here there are no books to be had, and without books there is no stable situation for, dear Giver, your affectionate
Wooden Paper-Cutter.
A neighbouring pair of scissors snips a kiss in your direction.
[The ballad referred to in the letter which follows is the Feast of Famine (published with others in the collection of 1890; "Ballads," Chatto & Windus). I never very much admired his ballads for any quality except their narrative vigor; thinking them unequal and uncertain both in metre and style.]
Taiti, October 16th, 1888.
My Dear Colvin,—The cruiser for San Francisco departs to-morrow morning bearing you some kind of a scratch. This much more important packet will travel by way of Auckland. It contains a ballant; and I think a better ballant than I expected ever to do. I can imagine how you will wag your pow over it, and how ragged you will find it, etc., but has it not spirit all the same? and though the verse is not all your fancy painted it, has it not some life? And surely, as narrative, the thing has considerable merit! Read it, get a type-written copy taken, and send me that and your opinion to the Sandwiches. I know I am only courting the most excruciating mortification; but the real cause of my sending the thing is that I could bear to go down myself, but not to have much MS. go down with me. To say truth, we are through the most dangerous; but it has left in all minds a strong sense of insecurity, and we are all for putting eggs in various baskets.
We leave here soon, bound for Uahiva, Reiatea, Bora-Bora, and the Sandwiches.
O, how my spirit languishes
To step ashore on the Sanguishes;
For there my letters wait,
There shall I know my fate.
O, how my spirit languidges
To step ashore on the Sanguidges.
18th.—I think we shall leave here if all is well on Monday. I am quite recovered, astonishingly recovered. It must be owned these climates and this voyage have given me more strength than I could have thought possible. And yet the sea is a terrible place, stupefying to the mind and poisonous to the temper, the sea, the motion, the lack of space, the cruel publicity, the villainous tinned foods, the sailors, the captain, the passengers—but you are amply repaid when you sight an island, and drop anchor in a new world. Much trouble 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.
[The second part of this letter is addressed to a young son of Mr. Archer's, with whom Stevenson, as with almost every boy he met, was on terms of special and private understanding.]]
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 favorite boast that I always walked into the den. You may care to hear, Tomarcher, about the children in these parts; their parents obey them, they do not obey their parents; and I am sorry to tell you (for I daresay you are already thinking the idea a good one) that it does not pay one halfpenny. There are three sorts of civilisation, Tomarcher: the real old-fashioned one, in which children either had to find out how to please their dear papas, or their dear papas cut their heads off. This style did very well, but is now out of fashion. Then the modern European style: in which children have to behave reasonably well, and go to school and say their prayers, or their dear papas will know the reason why. This does fairly well. Then there is the South Sea Island plan, which does not do one bit. The children beat their parents here; it does not make their parents any better; so do not try it.
Dear Tomarcher, I have forgotten the address of your new house, but will send this to one of your papa's publishers. Remember us all to all of you, and believe me, yours respectably,
Robert Louis Stevenson.
[The following is the draft of a proposed dedication to the South Sea travel book which was to be the fruit of the present voyages; as is explained in a note at foot.]
November 11, 1888.
To J. A. Symonds.
One November night, in the village of Tautira, we sat at the high table in the hall of assembly, hearing the natives sing. It was dark in the hall, and very warm; though at times the land wind blew a little shrewdly through the chinks, and at times, through the larger openings, we could see the moonlight on the lawn. As the songs arose in the rattling Tahitian chorus, the chief translated here and there a verse. Farther on in the volume you shall read the songs themselves; and I am in hopes that not you only, but all who can find a savour in the ancient poetry of places, will read them with some pleasure. You are to conceive us, therefore, in strange circumstances and very pleasing; in a strange land and climate, the most beautiful on earth; surrounded by a foreign race that all travellers have agreed to be the most engaging; and taking a double interest in two foreign arts.
We came forth again at last, in a cloudy moonlight, on the forest lawn which is the street of Tautira. The Pacific roared outside upon the reef. Here and there one of the scattered palm-built lodges shone out under the shadow of the wood, the lamplight bursting through the crannies of the wall. We went homeward slowly, Ori a Ori carrying behind us the lantern and the chairs, properties with which we had just been enacting our part of the distinguished visitor. It was one of those moments in which minds not altogether churlish recall the names and deplore the absence of congenial friends; and it was your name that first rose upon our lips. "How Symonds would have enjoyed this evening!" said one, and then another. The word caught in my mind; I went to bed, and it was still there. The glittering, frosty solitudes in which your days are cast, arose before me: I seemed to see you walking there in the late night, under the pine-trees and the stars; and I received the image with something like remorse.
There is a modern attitude towards fortune; in this place I will not use a graver name. Staunchly to withstand her buffets and to enjoy with equanimity her favours was the code of the virtuous of old. Our fathers, it should seem, wondered and doubted how they had merited their misfortunes: we, rather how we have deserved our happiness. And we stand often abashed, and sometimes revolted, at those partialities of fate by which we profit most. It was so with me on that November night: I felt that our positions should be changed. It was you, dear Symonds, who should have gone upon that voyage and written this account. With your rich stores of knowledge, you could have remarked and understood a thousand things of interest and beauty that escaped my ignorance; and the brilliant colors of your style would have carried into a thousand sickrooms the sea air and the strong sun of tropic islands. It was otherwise decreed. But suffer me at least to connect you, if only in name and only in the fondness of imagination, with the voyage of the Silver Ship.
Robert Louis Stevenson.
Dear Symonds,—I send you this (November 11th), the morning of its completion. If I ever write an account of this voyage, may I place this letter at the beginning? It represents—I need not tell you, for you too are an artist—a most genuine feeling, which kept me long awake last night; and though perhaps a little elaborate, I think it a good piece of writing. We are in heaven here. Do not forget
R. L. S.
Please keep this: I have no perfect copy.
Tautira, on the peninsula of Tahiti.
Tautira, Island of Tahiti
[November, 1888].
Dear Tomarcher,—This is a pretty state of things! seven o'clock and no word of breakfast! And I was awake a good deal last night, for it was full moon, and they had made a great fire of cocoanut husks down by the sea, and as we have no blinds or shutters, this kept my room very bright. And then the rats had a wedding or a school-feast under my bed. And then I woke early, and I have nothing to read except Virgil's Æneid, which is not good fun on an empty stomach, and a Latin dictionary, which is good for naught, and by some humorous accident, your dear papa's article on Skerryvore. And I read the whole of that, and very impudent it is, but you must not tell your dear papa I said so, or it might come to a battle in which you might lose either a dear papa or a valued correspondent, or both, which would be prodigal. And still no breakfast; so I said 'Let's write to Tomarcher.'
This is a much better place for children than any I have hitherto seen in these seas. The girls (and sometimes the boys) play a very elaborate kind of hopscotch. The boys play horses exactly as we do in Europe; and have very good fun on stilts, trying to knock each other down, in which they do not often succeed. The children of all ages go to church and are allowed to do what they please, running about the aisles, rolling balls, stealing mamma's bonnet and publicly sitting on it, and at last going to sleep in the middle of the floor. I forgot to say that the whips to play horses, and the balls to roll about the church—at least I never saw them used elsewhere—grow ready made on trees; which is rough on toy-shops. The whips are so good that I wanted to play horses myself; but no such luck! my hair is grey, and I am a great, big, ugly man. The balls are rather hard, but very light and quite round. When you grow up and become offensively rich, you can charter a ship in the port of London, and have it come back to you entirely loaded with these balls; when you could satisfy your mind as to their character, and give them away when done with to your uncles and aunts. But what I really wanted to tell you was this: besides the tree-top toys (Hush-a-by, toy-shop, on the tree-top!), I have seen some real made toys, the first hitherto observed in the South Seas.
This was how. You are to imagine a four-wheeled gig; one horse; in the front seat two Tahiti natives, in their Sunday clothes, blue coat, white shirt, kilt (a little longer than the Scotch) of a blue stuff with big white or yellow flowers, legs and feet bare; in the back seat me and my wife, who is a friend of yours; under our feet, plenty of lunch and things; among us a great deal of fun in broken Tahitian, one of the natives, the sub-chief of the village, being a great ally of mine. Indeed we have exchanged names; so that he is now called Rui, the nearest they can come to Louis, for they have no l and no s in their language. Rui is six feet three in his stockings, and a magnificent man. We all have straw hats, for the sun is strong. We drive between the sea, which makes a great noise, and the mountains; the road is cut through a forest mostly of fruit trees, the very creepers, which take the place of our ivy, heavy with a great and delicious fruit, bigger than your head and far nicer, called Barbedine. Presently we came to a house in a pretty garden, quite by itself, very nicely kept, the doors and windows open, no one about, and no noise but that of the sea. It looked like a house in a fairy-tale, and just beyond we must ford a river, and there we saw the inhabitants. Just in the mouth of the river, where it met the sea waves, they were ducking and bathing and screaming together like a covey of birds: seven or eight little naked brown boys and girls as happy as the day was long; and on the banks of the stream beside them, real toys—toy ships, full rigged, and with their sails set, though they were lying in the dust on their beam ends. And then I knew for sure they were all children in a fairy-story, living alone together in that lonely house with the only toys in all the island; and that I had myself driven, in my four-wheeled gig, into a corner of the fairy-story, and the question was, should I get out again? But it was all right; I guess only one of the wheels of the gig had got into the fairy-story; and the next jolt the whole thing vanished, and we drove on in our sea-side forest as before, and I have the honor to be Tomarcher's valued correspondent, Teriitera, which he was previously known as
Robert Louis Stevenson.
Yacht Casco, At Sea, 14th January, 1889.
My dear Colvin,—20 days out from Papeete. Yes, sir, all that, and only (for a guess) in 4° north or at the best 4° 30', though already the wind seems to smell a little of the North Pole. My handwriting you must take as you get, for we are speeding along through a nasty swell, and I can only keep my place at the table by means of a foot against the divan, the unoccupied hand meanwhile gripping the ink-bottle. As we begin (so very slowly) to draw near to seven months of correspondence, we are all in some fear; and I want to have letters written before I shall be plunged into that boiling pot of disagreeables which I constantly expect at Honolulu. What is needful can be added there.
We were kept two months at Tautira in the house of my dear old friend, Ori a Ori, till both the masts of this invaluable yacht had been repaired. It was all for the best: Tautira being the most beautiful spot, and its people the most amiable, I have ever found. Besides which, the climate suited me to the ground; I actually went sea-bathing almost every day, and in our feasts (we are all huge eaters in Taiarapu) have been known to apply four times for pig. And then again I got wonderful materials for my book, collected songs and legends on the spot; songs still sung in chorus by perhaps a hundred persons, not two of whom can agree on their translation; legends, on which I have seen half-a-dozen seniors sitting in conclave and debating what came next. Once I went a day's journey to the other side of the island to Tati, the high chief of the Tevas—my chief that is, for I am now a Teva and Teriitera at your service—to collect more and correct what I had already. In the meanwhile I got on with my work, almost finished the Master of Ballantrae, which contains more human work than anything of mine but Kidnapped, and wrote the half of another ballad, the 'Song of Rahero,' on a Taiarapu legend of my own clan, sir—not so much fire as the Feast of Famine, but promising to be more even and correct. But the best fortune of our stay at Tautira was my knowledge of Ori himself, one of the finest creatures extant. The day of our parting was a sad one. We deduced from it a rule for travellers: not to stay two months in one place—which is to cultivate regrets.
At last our contemptible ship was ready; to sea we went, bound for Honolulu and the letter bag, on Christmas Day; and from then to now have experienced every sort of minor misfortune, squalls, calms, contrary winds and seas, pertinacious rains, declining stores, till we came almost to regard ourselves as in the case of Vanderdecken. Three days ago our luck seemed to improve, we struck a leading breeze, got creditably through the doldrums, and just as we looked to have the N.E. trades and a straight run, the rains and squalls and calms began again about midnight, and this morning, though there is breeze enough to send us along, we are beaten back by an obnoxious swell out of the north. Here is a page of complaint, when a verse of thanksgiving had perhaps been more in place. For all this time we must have been skirting past dangerous weather, in the tail and circumference of hurricanes, and getting only annoyance where we should have had peril, and ill-humour instead of fear.
I wonder if I have managed to give you any news this time, or whether the usual damn hangs over my letter? 'The midwife whispered, Be thou dull!' or at least inexplicit. Anyway I have tried my best, am exhausted with the effort, and fall back into the land of generalities. I cannot tell you how often we have planned our arrival at the Monument: two nights ago, the 12th January, we had it all planned out, arrived in the lights and whirl of Waterloo, hailed a hansom, span up Waterloo Road, over the bridge, etc., etc., and hailed the monument gate in triumph and with indescribable delight. My dear Custodian, I always think we are too sparing of assurances: Cordelia is only to be excused by Regan and Goneril in the same nursery; I wish to tell you that the longer I live, the more dear do you become to me, nor does my heart own any stronger sentiment. If the bloody schooner didn't send me flying in every sort of direction at the same time, I would say better what I feel so much; but really if you were here, you would not be writing letters, I believe; and even I, though of a more marine constitution, am much perturbed with this bobbery and wish—O ye gods, how I wish—that it was done, and we had arrived, and I had Pandora's Box (my mail bag) in hand, and was in the lively hope of something eatable for dinner instead of salt horse, tinned mutton, duff without any plums, and pie fruit, which now make up our whole repertory. O Pandora's Box! I wonder what you will contain. As like as not you will contain but little money; if that be so, we shall have to retire to 'Frisco in the Casco, and thence by sea viâ Panama to Southampton, where we should arrive in April. I would like fine to see you on the tug: ten years older both of us than the last time you came to welcome Fanny and me to England. If we have money, however, we shall do a little differently: send the Casco away from Honolulu empty of its high-born lessees, for that voyage to 'Frisco is one long dead beat in foul and at last in cold weather; stay awhile behind, follow by steamer, cross the States by train, stay awhile in New York on business, and arrive probably by the German Line in Southampton. But all this is a question of money. We shall have to lie very dark awhile to recruit our finances: what comes from the book of the cruise, I do not want to touch until the capital is repaid.
R. L. S.