The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls

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together later on.

Samoa was a place he was eager to visit. King Kalakaua at Honolulu had
already told him much of its troubled history. The group of thirteen
islands lay about four thousand two hundred miles southwest of San
Francisco. At that time they were under the control of England, Germany,
and the United States according to a treaty entered into in 1889. These
countries appointed a chief justice, a president of the municipal
council, three consuls, and three land commissioners. A native king was
likewise recognized on each island.

This triple control proved most unsatisfactory and for years past there
had been constant friction among the officials and warlike outbreaks
among the natives.

These complications interested Stevenson. His first idea had been to
stop there but a short time. He now found he wanted to remain in Samoa