Scribner's Magazine, Volume 26, October 1899Various
History
Scribner's Magazine, Volume 26, October 1899
Various
American periodicals
One stirring day was that in which we sighted Hawaii. It blew fair, but
very strong; we carried jib, foresail, and mainsail, all single-reefed,
and she carried her lee rail under water and flew. The swell, the
heaviest I have ever been out in—I tried in vain to estimate the height,
_at least_ fifteen feet—came tearing after us about a point and a half
off the wind. We had the best hand—old Louis—at the wheel; and, really,
he did nobly, and had noble luck, for it never caught us once. At times
it seemed we must have it; Louis would look over his shoulder with the
queerest look and dive down his neck into his shoulders; and then it
missed us somehow, and only sprays came over our quarter, turning the
little outside lane of deck into a mill race as deep as to the cockpit
coamings. I never remember anything more delightful and exciting. Pretty
soon after we were lying absolutely becalmed under the lee of Hawaii, of
which we had been warned; and the captain never confessed he had done it
on purpose, but when accused, he smiled. Really, I suppose he did quite
right, for we stood committed to a dangerous race, and to bring her to
the wind would have been rather a heart-sickening manœuvre.
R. L. S.
[At Honolulu Stevenson found awaiting him among the accumulations of
the mail-bag, two letters of friendly homage—the first, I think, he had
received from any foreign _confrère_—addressed to him by a distinguished
young French scholar and man of letters, M. Marcel Schwob.]
HONOLULU, SANDWICH ISLANDS,
February 8th, 1889.
M. SCHWOB.
DEAR SIR,—I thank you—from the midst of such a flurry as you can
imagine, with seven months' accumulated correspondence on my table—for
your two friendly and clever letters. Pray write me again. I shall
be home in May or June, and not improbably shall come to Paris in the
summer. Then we can talk; or in the interval I may be able to write,
which is to-day out of the question. Pray take a word from a man of
crushing occupations, and count it as a volume. Your little _conte_ is
delightful. Ah yes, you are right, I love the eighteenth century; and
so do you, and have not listened to its voice in vain.—The Hunted One,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
HONOLULU, April 2nd, 1889.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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