interest. I cannot tell you his age, but the very first
time I saw him (when I was at dinner yesterday) I was very much struck
with his appearance. There is something very leonine in his face, with a
dash of the negro especially, if I remember aright, in the mouth. He has
a great quantity of dark hair, curling in great rolls, not in little
corkscrews, and a pair of large, dark, and very steady, bold, bright
eyes. His manners are those of a prince. I felt like an overgrown
ploughboy beside him. He speaks English perfectly, but with, I think,
sufficient foreign accent to stamp him as a Russian, especially when his
manners are taken into account. I don't think I ever saw any one who
looked like a hero before. After breakfast this morning I was talking to
him in the court, when he mentioned casually that he had caught a snake
in the Riesengebirge. "I have it here," he said; "would you like to see
it?" I said yes; and putting his hand into his breast-pocket, he drew
forth not a dried serpent skin, but the head and neck of the reptile
writhing and shooting out its horrible tongue in my face. You may
conceive what a fright I got. I send off this single sheet just now in
order to let you know I am safe across; but you must not expect letters
often.

R. L. STEVENSON.

_P.S._--The snake was about a yard long, but harmless, and now, he
says, quite tame.

TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

_Hotel Landsberg, Frankfurt, Monday, 29th July 1872._

... Last night I met with rather an amusing adventurette. Seeing a
church door open, I went in, and was led by most importunate
finger-bills up a long stair to the top of the tower. The father smoking
at the door, the mother and the three daughters received me as if I was
a friend of the family and had come in for an evening visit. The
youngest daughter (about thirteen, I suppose, and a pretty little girl)
had been learning English at the school, and was anxious to play it off
upon a real, veritable Englander; so we had a long talk, and I was shown
photographs, etc., Marie and I talking, and the others looking on with
evident delight at having such a linguist in the family. As all my
remarks were duly translated and communicated to the rest, it was quite
a good German lesson. There was only one contretemps during the whole
interview--the arrival of another visitor, in the shape (surely) the
last of God's creatures, a wood-worm of the most unnatural and hideous
appearance, with