was very much struck with his appearance. There is something very
leonine in his face, with a dash of the negro especially, if I
remember aright, in the mouth. He has a great quantity of dark
hair, curling in great rolls, not in little corkscrews, and a pair
of large, dark, and very steady, bold, bright eyes. His manners
are those of a prince. I felt like an overgrown ploughboy beside
him. He speaks English perfectly, but with, I think, sufficient
foreign accent to stamp him as a Russian, especially when his
manners are taken into account. I don't think I ever saw any one
who looked like a hero before. After breakfast this morning I was
talking to him in the court, when he mentioned casually that he had
caught a snake in the Riesengebirge. 'I have it here,' he said;
'would you like to see it?' I said yes; and putting his hand into
his breast-pocket, he drew forth not a dried serpent skin, but the
head and neck of the reptile writhing and shooting out its horrible
tongue in my face. You may conceive what a fright I got. I send
off this single sheet just now in order to let you know I am safe
across; but you must not expect letters often.

R. L. STEVENSON.

P.S. - The snake was about a yard long, but harmless, and now, he
says, quite tame.



Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON