The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls

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hamlet. It contained two men: one white, one brown and tattooed across
the face with bands of blue, both immaculate with white European
clothes.... Canoe followed canoe till the ship swarmed with stalwart,
six foot men in every stage of undress ... the more considerable
tattooed from head to foot in awful patterns ... all talking and we
could not understand one word; all trying to trade with us who had no
thought of trading, or offering us island curios at prices palpably
absurd."

All this charmed and delighted Stevenson, who had dreamed many times of
witnessing just such a scene. He wrote to Cummie that he was living all
over again many of the stories she had read to him and found them coming
true about himself.

For six weeks they cruised about among these islands, frequently
dropping anchor and going ashore for several days. When the natives were
convinced that they had neither come to trade or to make trouble, but