e leisurely through Europe by
calm waterways. He had gone yachting one summer with a sea-loving
brother advocate up the west coast of Scotland. The memory of that
trip inhabited his mind, and he made his hero, David Balfour, when
"Kidnapped" sail by the self-same islands and seas. Louis was
persuaded by his boating friend, the following season, to embark
with him on a canoe trip through Belgium; and the log of that tour
became immortalised as An Inland Voyage, Stevenson's first book. His
travels did not end when he left his frail craft at Pontoise, for,
returning to Gretz, on the skirts of Fontainebleau, he first met his
future wife, and that led a few years later to his following her to
San Francisco, when she was free to remarry.

He crossed the Atlantic and America as an Emigrant. That mode of
life proved too hard for him. He had sailed and paddled without hurt
in his fleet and footless beast of burden, the Arethusa. In the
ensuing year (1877), he travelled "Through the Cevennes with a
Donkey," slept under starry skies, or camped in plumping rain. Often
at home he buckled on his knapsack and tramped along the open road,
but in these trips, as in his two longer outdoor journeys, he had
the heavens above him. The Emigrant was crowded with his fellows, so
Louis arrived sick and sorry on the other side of the Atlantic,
where he had to support himself, having left his home against his
father's wishes. The rising author found his market value in America
low-priced, and his curiosity as to how it felt to be ill and
penniless was satisfied. After his marriage in 1880, Louis, his
wife, and her son became "Silverado Squatters," which proved a
happier venture, both for purse and constitution, than being an
"Amateur Emmigrant"; also, Mr Stevenson generously settled an income
on his son.

In a perpetual pursuit of health, the writer and his hostages to
fortune rambled from the snows of Switzerland to the vineyards of
France, and finally settled for three years at Bournemouth.
Stevenson's undermined health grew worse; but he laboured on at his
work, from his sick bed. Some summers he spent in Scotland, and at
Braemar wrote Treasure Island: then Jekyll and Hyde brought him
notoriety. He was anxious to return to his Alma Mater, and be there
a Professor of History. A house in the cup-like dell of Colinton,
where every twig had a chorister, would have sheltered him from the
purgatorial climate; and the College, like the Courts, all