by a Chinese. At the point of the opposing corner another
habitation stands on a tall paepae. The surf runs there exceeding heavy,
seas of seven and eight feet high bursting under the walls of the house,
which is thus continually filled with their clamour, and rendered fit
only for solitary, or at least for silent, inmates. Here it is that Mr.
M'Callum, with a Shakespeare and a Burns, enjoys the society of the
breakers. His name and his Burns testify to Scottish blood; but he is an
American born, somewhere far east; followed the trade of a
ship-carpenter; and was long employed, the captain of a hundred Indians,
breaking up wrecks about Cape Flattery. Many of the whites who are to be
found scattered in the South Seas represent the more artistic portion of
their class; and not only enjoy the poetry of that new life, but came
there on purpose to enjoy it. I have been shipmates with a man, no
longer young, who sailed upon that voyage, his first time to sea, for
the mere love of Samoa; and it was a few letters in a newspaper that
sent him on that pilgrimage. Mr. M'Callum was another instance of the
same. He had read of the South Seas; loved to read of them; and let
their image fasten in his heart; till at length he could refrain no
longer--must set forth, a new Rudel, for that unseen homeland--and has
now dwelt for years in Hiva-oa, and will lay his bones there in the end
with full content; having no desire to behold again the places of his
boyhood, only, perhaps--once, before he dies--the rude and wintry
landscape of Cape Flattery. Yet he is an active man, full of schemes;
has bought land of the natives; has planted five thousand coco-palms;
has a desert island in his eye, which he desires to lease, and a
schooner in the stocks, which he has laid and built himself, and even
hopes to finish. Mr. M'Callum and I did not meet, but, like gallant
troubadours, corresponded in verse. I hope he will not consider it a
breach of copyright if I give here a specimen of his muse. He and
Bishop Dordillon are the two European bards of the Marquesas.

"Sail, ho! Ahoy! _Casco_,
First among the pleasure fleet
That came around to greet
These isles from San Francisco.

And first, too; only one
Among the literary men
That this way has ever been--
Welcome, then, to Stevenson.

Please not offended be
At this little notice
Of the _Casco_, Captain Otis
With the novelist's family.

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