her and blow the conch shell continuously from the moment she leaves one house until the moment she enters another. Did you ever blow the conch shell? I presume not; but the sweat literally hailed off that man, and I expected every moment to see him burst a blood-vessel. We were entertained to kava in the guest-house with some very original features. The young men who run for the _kava_ have a right to misconduct themselves _ad libitum_ on the way back; and though they were told to restrain themselves on the occasion of our visit, there was a strange hurly-burly at their return, when they came beating the trees and the posts of the houses, leaping, shouting, and yelling like Bacchants. I tasted on that occasion what it is to be great. My name was called next after the captain’s, and several chiefs (a thing quite new to me, and not at all Samoan practice) drank to me by name. And now, if you are not sick of the _Curaçoa_ and Manu’a, I am, at least on paper. And I decline any longer to give you examples of how not to write. By the by, you sent me long ago a work by Anatole France, which I confess I did not _taste_. Since then I have made the acquaintance of the _Abbé Coignard_, and have become a faithful adorer. I don’t think a better book was ever written. And I have no idea what I have said, and I have no idea what I ought to have said, and I am a total ass, but my heart is in the right place, and I am, my dear Henry James, yours, R. L. S. TO MR. MARCEL SCHWOB _Vailima_, _Upolu_, _Samoa_, _July_ 7, 1894.