Part 10

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.

THE

LETTERS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Edited by Sidney Colvin

THE VOYAGE OF THE CASCO: HONOLULU (JULY, 1888-JUNE, 1889)

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.'