----; although I was
_annoyed at the circumstance_--a very different thing. But it is
difficult to conduct life by letter, and I continually feel I may be
drifting into some matter of offence, in which my heart takes no part.

I must now turn to a point of business. This new cruise of ours is
somewhat venturesome; and I think it needful to warn you not to be in a
hurry to suppose us dead. In these ill-charted seas, it is quite on the
cards we might be cast on some unvisited, or very rarely visited,
island; that there we might lie for a long time, even years, unheard of;
and yet turn up smiling at the hinder end. So do not let me be "rowpit"
till you get some certainty we have gone to Davie Jones in a squall, or
graced the feast of some barbarian in the character of Long Pig.

I have just been a week away alone on the lee coast of Hawaii, the only
white creature in many miles, riding five and a half hours one day,
living with a native, seeing four lepers shipped off to Molokai, hearing
native causes, and giving my opinion as _amicus curiae_ as to the
interpretation of a statute in English; a lovely week among God's
best--at least God's sweetest works--Polynesians. It has bettered me
greatly. If I could only stay there the time that remains, I could get
my work done and be happy; but the care of my family keeps me in vile
Honolulu, where I am always out of sorts, amidst heat and cold and
cesspools and beastly _haoles_.[31] What is a haole? You are one; and
so, I am sorry to say, am I. After so long a dose of whites, it was a
blessing to get among Polynesians again even for a week.

Well, Charles, there are waur haoles than yoursel', I'll say that for
ye; and trust before I sail I shall get another letter with more about
yourself.--Ever your affectionate friend,

R. L. S.

TO W. H. LOW

The allusions in the latter half of this letter are to the departure
for Europe of the young Hawaiian princess Kaiulani (see the poem
beginning "When from her land to mine she goes," in _Songs of
Travel_), and to the circumstances of the great hurricane at Apia on
March 15th, 1889.

_Honolulu, (about) 20th May '89._

MY DEAR LOW,-- ... The goods have come; many daughters have done
virtuously, but thou excellest them all.--I have at length finished
_The Master_; it has been a sore cross to me; but now he is buried, his
body's under hatches,--his soul, if there is any hell to go to, gone to
hell; an