A GLIMPSE OF R.L.S.

Otago Witness, Issue 3875, 19 June 1928, Page 26

A GLIMPSE OF R.L.S.

By

G. L. D.

In August, 1893, my wife and I were passengers by s.s. Mariposa from Auckland to San Francisco. Approaching Apia, the capital of Samoa, I asked the chief officer if there was any chance of meeting R. L. Stevenson, and was told that he occasionally visited incoming steamers. As we neared the land he pointed out on the hillside the gleaming walls of Vailima, the well-known residence. of Stevenson, at which I gazed with interest. As soon as we anchored a good looking Samoan “ boy ” came on board carrying a basket of temptinglooking fresh fruit, and I asked him '■ Is it for sale ? ” A lady near by, who had also come on board, replied, I thought, with a little brusqueness, “ No, it belongs to me.” I promptly apologised, explaining that my question was prompted by my desire to obtain some fresh fruit for my wife, who had been ill throughout the voyage. The lady’s manner changed at once, and most kindly she took the matter up. She asked me to send for a tumbler and a bottle of soda water, and w'hen they appeared she told the boy to knock off the top of a fresh coconut, poured the milk into the glass and added the soda water. It proved a most refreshing and beneficial beverage. The lady was Mrs Stevenson, who had come to see her husband off as a passenger to Honolulu, and I was delighted to discover that R. L. S. was to be a fellow voyager for a week.

During the week I had the pleasure and privilege of sundry talks with him, for although his health was so poor that he was in a measure a recluse, he paced the deck notwithstanding, most of the day, and was generally accompanied by his cousin, in whose charge he was. This was a stalwart young Scot, Balfour by name, and the contrast between him and the emaciated figure of the famous author was both striking and pathetic. Among my talks with Stevenson I recollect the following scraps:— I told him that the first of his books that interested me was Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. He smiled and told me he dreamed the story, and ere it was finished was awakened by his wife. He was annoyed, but went to sleep and dreamed again. When he got up he wrote it down. (This incident is mentioned in his biography.) He added, with a smile and a twinkle, “ Before this story was published I had to run after my publishers.. After that they ran after me.”

Having lived during the last year before I left home as a farm pupil in the little village of Ballantrae, in Ayrshire, I asked R. L. S. how he came to name one of his best known novels “ The Master of Ballantrae.” He replied, the only connection he had with the village was that in a walking tour he had passed through it. He noticed the name and took a note of it.

On arriving at Honolulu, he and his cousin went to an hotel a little way along the coast, called Sans Souci, the other passengers going to the Hawaiian Hotel. After dinner a few of us hired a waggonette and drove through the lovely island to Stevenson’s quarters to bid him good-bye. I should have said that one evening during the voyage Stevenson consented to give us a reading from one of his books, and I well remember his thin figure standing in the saloon reading us a striking description of the great storm at Apia a year or two previously, which he had witnessed. It was a beautiful piece of pen painting, and I am sorry I did not discover the name of the. book from which it was taken.

One could not help noticing what an inveterate cigarette smoker Stevenson was. He made his own cigarettes, and his thin fingers were discoloured by the constant contact with tobacco.

Poor Stevenson, as is well known, died in 1894, the year following my brief acquaintanceship with him.