JAN. 1ST, '92.


For a day or two I have sat close and wrought hard at the
HISTORY, and two more chapters are all but done. About
thirty pages should go by this mail, which is not what should
be, but all I could overtake. Will any one ever read it? I
fancy not; people don't read history for reading, but for
education and display - and who desires education in the
history of Samoa, with no population, no past, no future, or
the exploits of Mataafa, Malietoa, and Consul Knappe?
Colkitto and Galasp are a trifle to it. Well, it can't be
helped, and it must be done, and, better or worse, it's
capital fun. There are two to whom I have not been kind -
German Consul Becker and English Captain Hand, R.N.

On Dec. 30th I rode down with Belle to go to (if you please)
the Fancy Ball. When I got to the beach, I found the
barometer was below 29 degrees, the wind still in the east
and steady, but a huge offensive continent of clouds and
vapours forming to leeward. It might be a hurricane; I dared
not risk getting caught away from my work, and, leaving
Belle, returned at once to Vailima. Next day - yesterday -
it was a tearer; we had storm shutters up; I sat in my room
and wrote by lamplight - ten pages, if you please, seven of
them draft, and some of these compiled from as many as seven
different and conflicting authorities, so that was a brave
day's work. About two a huge tree fell within sixty paces of
our house; a little after, a second went; and we sent out