Introduction: Robert Louis Stevenson and Hawaii
INTRODUCTION ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON AND HAWAII he foreign author most beloved by the people of Hawaii first came to the islands in 1889. The graceful yacht Casco, with Robert Louis Bal- four Stevenson and his family aboard, had left Tahiti on Christmas Day, 1888, on a "most disastrous" pas- sage, with "calms, squalls, head sea, waterspouts of rain, hurricane weather all about." 1 After almost a month, the vessel sighted the "Big Island" of Hawaii. A fair, strong wind blew, and the Casco, carrying jib, foresail, and mainsail—all single-reefed—flew along with her lee rail under. A heavy swell, the highest that Stevenson had ever seen, came tearing after them about a point and a half off the wind, but fortunately never crashed once upon the hull of the speeding Casco. The wind then died down, and for two days the anxious passengers lay becalmed off the Kona Coast NOTE : All the editor's notes for this introduction are numbered and appear at the end of this section. xi INTRODUCTION while their food supply, except for salt beef and biscuit, gave out. When the wind did come, it swept them past the islands of Maui and Molokai and into Honolulu Harbor at an alarming speed. Stevenson got his first view of the city, with its busy wharfs, low buildings, and background of swelling green mountains. At three o'clock on the afternoon of Fri- day, January 24, 1889, the Casco anchored. Even here, in mid-Pacific, reporters came out to interview the celebrated visitor, whose vessel had been so long overdue that it had been given up for lost.
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