He revelled in the beautiful woods so often devastated by forest fires. On one occasion, he says, he came perilously near lynching, for he applied a match to the dry moss which clings to the bark of the trees to see if it were so peculiarly ignitable as to be an important factor in the rapid spread of a fire. In a moment flames broke out all over the tree, and he found to his horror that he had started a fresh fire of his own very difficult to put out, and exceedingly likely to arouse the indignation of the men who were struggling to beat out the existing conflagration, to the point of lynching the too officious stranger.
The solemn boom of the Pacific was a constant delight to him, and he gloried in the ever-changing lights and shadows on the sea. If he did not attain to permanent good health while at San Francisco and Monterey he at least found there something else which made for the lasting happiness of his life, as it was there that he married his wife.
After spending about seven years of married life at Bournemouth he again, in 1887, tried a visit to America. His health, however, did not improve, and, during the winter of 1887 and 1888, when he was at Saranac Lake, he speaks of himself, in _The Vailima Letters_, as having been--in the graphic Scots words--'far through'; and the idea occurred to him of chartering a yacht and going for a voyage in the South Seas. His mother on this occasion accompanied the family party, and between 1888 and 1890 they sailed about among the lovely islands of the South Sea, visiting Honolulu, and finally touching at Apia in Samoa, where they promptly fell in love with the beauty of the scenery and the charm of the climate.
On this voyage, as always, Mr Stevenson made friends wherever he went, and had much pleasant intercourse with wandering Europeans, missionaries and natives.
On her return to Edinburgh, after this cruise with him, his mother used to give most entertaining accounts of the feasts given in their honour by the native kings and chiefs, and of the quaint gifts bestowed on them. At an afternoon tea-party at 17 Heriot Row, shortly before the home there was finally broken up, she put on for our benefit the wreath--still wonderfully green--that had been given to her to wear at one of those island festivities. She had promised the sable majesty who gave it to her to be photographed with it on, and to send him one of the copies. One of these photographs is beside me now, and is an excellent likeness. Close to it is the graceful one of her son, taken at Bournemouth, wearing his hair long, and one of the velvet coats that he loved, and it is a most curious contrast to the sturdy Scotsman, his father, who looks out at it from his frame, in conventional broadcloth and with the earnest gravity so characteristic of his face in repose.