. L. S.

TO CHARLES BAXTER

Finished on the way to Honolulu for a health change which turned out
unfortunate. With the help of Mr. J.H. Stevenson and other
correspondents he had now, as we have seen, been able (regretfully
giving up the possibility of a Macgregor lineage) to identify his
forbears as having about 1670 been tenant farmers at Nether Carsewell
in Renfrewshire. The German government at home had taken his
_Footnote to History_ much less kindly than his German neighbours on
the spot, and the Tauchnitz edition had been confiscated and
destroyed and its publisher fined.

[_Vailima, and s.s. Mariposa, September 1893._]

MY DEAR CHARLES,--Here is a job for you. It appears that about 1665, or
earlier, James Stevenson {in / of} Nether Carsewell, parish of Neilston,
flourished. Will you kindly send an able-bodied reader to compulse the
parish registers of Neilston, if they exist or go back as far? Also
could any trace be found through Nether-Carsewell? I expect it to have
belonged to Mure of Cauldwell. If this be so, might not the Cauldwell
charter chest contain some references to their Stevenson tenantry?
Perpend upon it. But clap me on the judicious, able-bodied reader on the
spot. Can I really have found the tap-root of my illustrious ancestry at
last? Souls of my fathers! What a giggle-iggle-orious moment! I have
drawn on you for L400. Also I have written to Tauchnitz announcing I
should bear one-half part of his fines and expenses, amounting to L62,
10s. The L400 includes L160 which I have laid out here in land. Vanu
Manutagi--the vale of crying birds (the wild dove)--is now mine: it was
Fanny's wish and she is to buy it from me again when she has made that
much money.

Will you please order for me through your bookseller the _Mabinogion_ of
Lady Charlotte Guest--if that be her name--and the original of Cook's
voyages lately published? Also, I see announced a map of the Great North
Road: you might see what it is like: if it is highly detailed, or has
any posting information, I should like it.

This is being finished on board the _Mariposa_ going north. I am making
the run to Honolulu and back for health's sake. No inclination to write
more.--As ever,

R. L. S.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

On a first reading of the incomplete MS. of _The Ebb Tide_, without
its concluding chapters, which are the strongest, dislike of the
three detestable--or rather tw