The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 24Stevenson, Robert Louis
General
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 24
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Authors, Scottish -- 19th century -- Correspondence; Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894 -- Correspondence
DEAR, long neglected, though never forgotten Custodian, I write you from
fairyland, where we are living in a fairy story, the guests of a
beautiful brown princess. We came to stay a week, five weeks have
passed, and we are still indefinite as to our time of leaving. It was
chance brought us here, for no one in Papeete could tell us a word about
this part of the island except that it was very fine to look at, and
inhabited by wild people--"almost as wild as the people of Anaho!" That
touch about the people of Anaho inclined our hearts this way, so we
finally concluded to take a look at the other side of Tahiti. The place
of our landing was windy, uninhabited except by mosquitoes, and Louis
was ill. The first day Lloyd and the Captain made an exploration, but
came back disgusted. They had found a Chinaman, a long way off, who
seemed to have some horses, but no desire to hire them to strangers, and
they had found nothing else whatever. The next morning I took Valentine
and went on a prospecting tour of my own. I found the Chinaman,
persuaded him to let me have two horses and a wagon, and went back for
the rest of my family. When asked where I wished to go, I could only say
to the largest native village and the most wild. Ill as Louis was, I
brought him the next day, and shall never cease to be thankful for my
courage, for he has gained health and strength every day. He takes sea
baths and swims, and lives almost entirely in the open air as nearly
without clothes as possible, a simple pyjama suit of striped light
flannel his only dress. As to shoes and stockings we all have scorned
them for months except Mrs. Stevenson, who often goes barefoot and
never, I believe, wears stockings. Lloyd's costume, in which he looks
remarkably well, consists of a striped flannel shirt and a pareu. The
pareu is no more or less than a large figured blue and white cotton
window curtain twisted about the waist, and hanging a little below the
bare knees. Both Louis and Lloyd wear wreaths of artificial flowers,
made of the dried pandanus leaf, on their hats.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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