FANNY V.DE G.STEVENSON.
Mrs.Stevenson also gave me a great directory of the Indian Ocean.

It was not without a feeling of reverential awe that I received the books so nearly direct from the hand of Tusitala, "who sleeps in the forest." Aolele, the _Spray_ will cherish your gift.
[Illustration: Vailima, the home of Robert Louis Stevenson.] The novelist's stepson, Mr.Lloyd Osbourne, walked through the Vailima mansion with me and bade me write my letters at the old desk.

I thought it would be presumptuous to do that; it was sufficient for me to enter the hall on the floor of which the "Writer of Tales," according to the Samoan custom, was wont to sit.
Coming through the main street of Apia one day, with my hosts, all bound for the _Spray_, Mrs.Stevenson on horseback, I walking by her side, and Mr.and Mrs.Osbourne close in our wake on bicycles, at a sudden turn in the road we found ourselves mixed with a remarkable native procession, with a somewhat primitive band of music, in front of us, while behind was a festival or a funeral, we could not tell which.

Several of the stoutest men carried bales and bundles on poles.
Some were evidently bales of tapa-cloth.

The burden of one set of poles, heavier than the rest, however, was not so easily made out.