_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _November_ 5_th_, 1893.
MY DEAR STEVENSON,—A thousand thanks for your voluminous and delightful
collections. Baxter—so soon as it is ready—will let you see a proof of
my introduction, which is only sent out as a sprat to catch whales. And
you will find I have a good deal of what you have, only mine in a
perfectly desultory manner, as is necessary to an exile. My uncle’s
pedigree is wrong; there was never a Stevenson of Caldwell, of course,
but they were tenants of the Muirs; the farm held by them is in my
introduction; and I have already written to Charles Baxter to have a
search made in the Register House. I hope he will have had the
inspiration to put it under your surveillance. Your information as to
your own family is intensely interesting, and I should not wonder but
what you and we and old John Stevenson, ‘land labourer in the parish of
Dailly,’ came all of the same stock. Ayrshire—and probably
Cunningham—seems to be the home of the race—our part of it. From the
distribution of the name—which your collections have so much extended
without essentially changing my knowledge of—we seem rather pointed to a
British origin. What you say of the Engineers is fresh to me, and must
be well thrashed out. This introduction of it will take a long while to
walk about!—as perhaps I may be tempted to let it become long; after all,
I am writing _this_ for my own pleasure solely. Greetings to you and
other Speculatives of our date, long bygone, alas!—Yours very sincerely,