d the
difficulties of the ascent to be present at the sad offices. But his last
home is beautiful; by day the trees innumerable round his lonely grave are
musical with the fanfare of the glorious tradewinds, while at times the
sound of

"The league-long roller thundering on the reef"

is borne across the waving forest. The view by day is superb; mountain,
valley, reef and palm, with the gleam of the sunlight on the breaking surf
around the distant reef, while overhead the solitary tropic bird wings its
silent flight through the dazzling azure of the skies. No more beautiful
spot for a grave can be imagined; the majestic voice of those southern
seas he loved so well makes melody in the very air around his grave. No
spot more typical of the Pacific could have been found; and I turned away
with a feeling of relief that one whose nature was so allied to that he
wrote of should in his death not have been divided from the scenes he made
familiar to so many thousands of admirers.

A PEN PORTRAIT

Robert Louis Stevenson, the author, really does look like the watermelon
portrait of him in one of the magazines. He sat in a Long Branch car on
Tuesday on his way from Manasquan to New York.

He has a long, narrow face, and wears his long brown hair parted in the
middle and combed back. It is just such straight, coarse hair as General
Roger A. Pryor's, but much lighter in color. Stevenson sat in a forward
corner of the car, with his hat off, and the cape of his coat up behind
his head like a monk's cowl. His black velvet coat and vest showed
plainly, and over his legs he wore a black and white checked shawl. His
Byronic collar was soft and untidy, and his shirt was unlaundered, but his
clothes were scrupulously clean. On the long, thin, white fingers of his
left hand he wore two rings, and he kept these fingers busy constantly
pulling his drooping moustache. His face is slightly freckled and a little
hollow at the cheek, but it has a good bit of Scotch color in it.

Mr. Stevenson presented such an odd figure that all in the car stared at
him, particularly when a rumor of who he was ran among the people. But he
seemed unconscious of the interest he aroused. He was reading a book, and
every now and then he would fix a sentence in his mind, close the book on
one finger, look at the ceiling and muse. When a sentence pleased him, he
smiled at it, and then read it again. At the Jersey City depot he threw
off his shawl and s