terial for a book on the South Seas. The ship's life suited
him admirably; every strange fish and new star interested him, and he
grew stronger hourly in the warm air.

"Since the fifth day," he wrote, "we were left behind by a full-rigged
English ship ... bound round the Horn, we have not spied a sail, nor a
land bird, nor a shred of sea-weed. In impudent isolation, the toy
schooner has plowed her path of snow across the empty deep, far from all
track of commerce, far from any hand of help; now to the sound of
slatting sails and stamping sheet blocks, staggering in the turmoil of
that business falsely called a calm, now, in the assault of squalls
burying her lee-rail in the sea.... Flying fish, a skimming silver rain
on the blue sea; a turtle fast asleep in the early morning sunshine;
the Southern Cross hung thwart the forerigging like the frame of a
wrecked kite--the pole star and the familiar plough dropping ever lower
in the wake; these build up thus far the history of our voyage. It is
singular to come so far and see so infinitely little."

The squalls that came very quickly, frequently broke the monotony of the
trip. One moment the _Casco_ would be sailing along easily and the "next
moment, the inhabitants of the cabin were piled one upon another, the
sea was pouring into the cockpit and spouting in fountains through
forgotten deadlights, and the steersman stood spinning the wheel for his
life in a halo of tropical rain."

After twenty-two days at sea they sighted their first island, Nukahiva,
one of the Marquesan group, and were all on deck before dawn anxiously
watching for it. They not only looked forward eagerly to the sight of
land again after so many days on the open ocean, but it was indeed an
adventure to come to a country totally strange to all of them, where
few white people had been before.

"Not one soul aboard the Casco had set foot upon the Islands," says
Stevenson, "or knew except by accident one word of any of the island
tongues; and it was with something perhaps of the same anxious pleasure
as thrilled the bosom of the discoverers that we drew near these
problematic shores.

"Before yet the anchor plunged a canoe was already paddling from the
hamlet. It contained two men: one white, one brown and tattooed across
the face with bands of blue, both immaculate with white European
clothes.... Canoe followed canoe till the ship swarmed with stalwart,
six foot men in every stage of undress ... the m