The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls

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Stevenson showed his sympathy and kindliness toward the island people
regardless of who they were or their rank. White or half-caste priest,
missionary, or trader, all were treated the same. No bribe, he said,
would induce him to call the natives savages.

Mr. Johnstone, an English resident in the South Seas at the time of
Stevenson's visit, says: "His inborn courtesy more than any of his other
good traits, endeared him to his fellows in the Pacific ... in the
hearts of our Island people he built a monument more lasting than stone
or brass."

The recollection of the history of his own wild Scottish Islands, the
people and conditions his grandfather found among them, helped him to
understand these people and account for many of their actions. Though at
opposite ends of the earth, many of their customs and legends
corresponded. The dwellers in the Hebrides in the old days likewise
lived in clans with their chief and struggled to retain their