A Cruise in the Janet Nicoll.

Early in February of 1890, soon after the then forest - covered site of Vailima had been bought and orders given to clear it for a home, Stevenson and his wife and Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, his stepson, left Apia for Sydney. It was the much-travelled and greatly - suffering novelist's intention to visit England, but fate disposed otherwise. He caught a cold in Sydney, and there was nothing for it but to take to the tropics again on a lung-strengthening or at any rate lung-easing cruise. Mrs. Stevenson heard of a trading steamer about to leave on a long voyage among the Pacific Islands. After much trouble she persuaded the charterers of the steamer, the great South Sea trading firm of Henderson and Macfarlane, to take them as passengers.

The vessel was going on a business cruise, with one of the characters, Mr. Harry Henderson, on board, inspecting the nrm's stations throughout the mid-Pacific, and passengers were not at first welcome. But the Stevensons' immediately won the hearts of the Janet Nicoll; and it was the saving of the sick man's life; at any rate he was a comparatively well man in a few weeks.