ld not repay the money spent upon it for at least five or six years.

All great changes and large undertakings are fraught with difficulty,
and the Vailima venture was no exception to the rule. The Samoan home
meant much pleasure to its owner, but it entailed keen anxiety also.

Nevertheless the mental worry of those later months was by no means
justified by the facts. Mr Stevenson's literary work had long been paid
according to its merits, so that each book brought him in a satisfactory
sum; while the future of the _Edinburgh Edition_ of his works gave cause
for sincere satisfaction to the friends who were seeing it through the
press, and whose letters gave assurance of its success. The cloud was
therefore due to internal, not to external causes, and in the state of
Mr Stevenson's health was, alas! to be found the explanation of this sad
change from the gay bravery with which he had hitherto faced the world.
Suspected by his doctors, feared by his friends, but unknown to himself,
for at this time he constantly wrote of his improved health, a new
development in his illness was nearing its fatal crisis, and these
symptoms of mental distress and irritation were only the foreshadowing
of the end.

In these last days his life had many pleasures; he was enjoying the
Samoan climate and the free unconventional existence to the full; he was
surrounded by all his loved home circle; and in the October of 1894, two
months before his death, the Samoan chiefs, in whose imprisonment he had
proved his friendship to them, gave him a tribute of their love and
gratitude which was peculiarly pleasing and valuable to him. An account
of this and of the very beautiful speech he made in return appeared in
the home papers at the time, and are to be found in an appendix to _The
Vailima Letters_. The chiefs, who knew how much store he set by
road-making as a civilising element in Samoa, as elsewhere, themselves
went to him and offered their services to make a road to join his
property to the main highway. They, as well as their young men, worked
at it with picks and spades, and when it was finished they presented it
to their beloved 'Tusitala' as an abiding remembrance of their grateful
regard. It was a noble tribute to a noble nature, and one the value of
which can only be fully appreciated by those who realise what the
personal manual labour meant to these proud island chiefs so wholly
unaccustomed to exertion of any kind, and so imbued with