Excerpt from Letters and Miscellanies of Robert Louis Stevenson Before setting out on his Pacific travels, the author had contracted to write an account of them in the form of letters for serial publica tion. The plan by and by changed in his mind into that of a book partly of travel and partly Of research, which Should combine the te suits of much careful Observation and inquiry upon matters of island history, custom, belief, and tradition, with some account of his own experiences and those of his traveling companions. Under the nom inal title of Letters he began to compose the chapters of such a book on board the Janet Nicoll, and continued the task during the first ten months of his residence in Samoa (october, 1890, to July, These chapters were sent home in fulfilment of his promise. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.