, there is a
passage in my mother's letter which puzzles me as to a date. Is it next
Christmas you are coming? or the Christmas after? This is most
important, and must be understood at once. If it is next Christmas, I
could not go to Ceylon, for lack of gold, and you would have to adopt
one of the following alternatives: 1st, either come straight on here and
pass a month with us; 'tis the rainy season, but we have often lovely
weather. Or (2nd) come to Hawaii and I will meet you there. Hawaii is
only a week's sail from S. Francisco, making only about sixteen days on
the heaving ocean; and the steamers run once a fortnight, so that you
could turn round; and you could thus pass a day or two in the States--a
fortnight even--and still see me. But I have sworn to take no further
excursions till I have money saved to pay for them; and to go to Ceylon
and back would be torture unless I had a lot. You must answer this at
once, please; so that I may know what to do. We would dearly like you to
come on here. I'll tell you how it can be done; I can come up and meet
you at Hawaii, and if you had at all got over your sea-sickness, I could
just come on board and we could return together to Samoa, and you could
have a month of our life here, which I believe you could not help
liking. Our horses are the devil, of course, miserable screws, and some
of them a little vicious. I had a dreadful fright--the passage in my
mother's letter is recrossed and I see it says the end of /94: so much
the better, then; but I would like to submit to you my alternative plan.
I could meet you at Hawaii, and reconduct you to Hawaii, so that we
could have a full six weeks together and I believe a little over, and
you would see this place of mine, and have a sniff of native life,
native foods, native houses--and perhaps be in time to see the German
flag raised, who knows?--and we could generally yarn for all we were
worth. I should like you to see Vailima; and I should be curious to know
how the climate affected you. It is quite hit or miss; it suits me, it
suits Graham, it suits all our family; others it does not suit at all.
It is either gold or poison. I rise at six, the rest at seven; lunch is
at 12; at five we go to lawn tennis till dinner at six; and to roost
early.

A man brought in a head to Mulinuu in great glory; they washed the black
paint off, and behold! it was his brother. When I last heard he was
sitting in his house, with the head upon his la