_Taiti_, _October_ 10_th_, 1888.
DEAR GIVER,—I am at a loss to conceive your object in giving me to a
person so locomotory as my proprietor. The number of thousand miles that
I have travelled, the strange bed-fellows with which I have been made
acquainted, I lack the requisite literary talent to make clear to your
imagination. I speak of bed-fellows; pocket-fellows would be a more
exact expression, for the place of my abode is in my master’s righthand
trouser-pocket; and there, as he waded on the resounding beaches of
Nukahiva, or in the shallow tepid water on the reef of Fakarava, I have
been overwhelmed by and buried among all manner of abominable South Sea
shells, beautiful enough in their way, I make no doubt, but singular
company for any self-respecting paper-cutter. He, my master—or as I more
justly call him, my bearer; for although I occasionally serve him, does
not he serve me daily and all day long, carrying me like an African
potentate on my subject’s legs?—_he_ is delighted with these isles, and
this climate, and these savages, and a variety of other things. He now
blows a flageolet with singular effects: sometimes the poor thing appears
stifled with shame, sometimes it screams with agony; he pursues his
career with truculent insensibility. Health appears to reign in the
party. I was very nearly sunk in a squall. I am sorry I ever left
England, for here there are no books to be had, and without books there
is no stable situation for, dear Giver, your affectionate