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 Ocean. It was not without a feeling of reverential awe that I received the books so nearly directly from the hand of Tusitala, 'who sleeps in the forest.' Aolele, the _Spray_ will cherish your gift!