vable and intelligent of
animals."

Joshua Slocum was a magnificent specimen of strength and health, and
his manly figure was well set off by the clothing--or, rather, the
lack of it--used in the tropics. When Mrs. Stevenson met him
afterwards in New York she was much struck by the change caused in his
appearance by the wearing of a conventional black suit, and regretted
that he had to hide his real beauty--his lithe, strong figure--in ugly
broadcloth. She had a great and sincere admiration for him, as she
always had for physical courage in any form. In her preface to _The
Wrong Box_ she says, "Some time after Louis's death Captain Joshua
Slocum, on his way round the world alone in the little sloop _Spray_,
came to the house at Vailima. Here, I thought, was a mariner after my
husband's own heart. Who had a better right to the directories
[studied by Stevenson at Saranac when planning for the South Sea
cruise] than this man who was about to sail those very seas with no
other guide than the stars and a small broken clock that served in
place of a chronometer? Captain Slocum received the volumes with
reverence, and used them, as he afterwards told me, to his great
advantage."

From his own book, _Sailing Alone Around the World_, I have taken the
following account of his meeting with Mrs. Stevenson:

"The next morning after my arrival, bright and early, Mrs. Robert
Louis Stevenson came to the _Spray_ and invited me to visit Vailima
the following day. I was of course thrilled when I found myself, after
so many days of adventure, face to face with this bright woman, so
lately the companion of the author whose books had delighted me on the
voyage. The kindly eyes, that looked me through and through, sparkled
when we compared notes of adventure. I marvelled at some of her
experiences and escapes. She told me that along with her husband she
had voyaged in all manner of rickety craft among the islands of the
Pacific, reflectively adding, 'Our tastes were similar.' Following the
subject of voyages she gave me the four beautiful volumes of sailing
directories for the Mediterranean, writing on the fly-leaf of the
first, 'To Captain Slocum. These volumes have been read and re-read
many times by my husband, and I am very sure that he would be pleased
that they should be passed on to the sort of sea-faring man that he
liked above all others. Fanny V. de G. Stevenson.' Mrs. Stevenson also
gave me a great directory of the Indian Ocea