to Dr. Scott

Apia, Samoa, January 20th, 1890.

MY DEAR SCOTT,—Shameful indeed that you should not have heard of me before!  I have now been some twenty months in the South Seas, and am (up to date) a person whom you would scarce know.  I think nothing of long walks and rides: I was four hours and a half gone the other day, partly riding, partly climbing up a steep ravine.  I have stood a six months’ voyage on a copra schooner with about three months ashore on coral atolls, which means (except for cocoanuts to drink) no change whatever from ship’s food.  My wife suffered badly—it was too rough a business altogether—Lloyd suffered—and, in short, I was the only one of the party who ‘kept my end up.’

I am so pleased with this climate that I have decided to settle; have even purchased a piece of land from three to four hundred acres, I know not which till the survey is completed, and shall only return next summer to wind up my affairs in England; thenceforth I mean to be a subject of the High Commissioner.

Now you would have gone longer yet without news of your truant patient, but that I have a medical discovery to communicate.  I find I can (almost immediately) fight off a cold with liquid extract of coca; two or (if obstinate) three teaspoonfuls in the day for a variable period of from one to five days sees the cold generally to the door.  I find it at once produces a glow, stops rigour, and though it makes one very uncomfortable, prevents the advance of the disease.  Hearing of this influenza, it occurred to me that this might prove remedial; and perhaps a stronger exhibition—injections of cocaine, for instance—still better.

If on my return I find myself let in for this epidemic, which seems highly calculated to nip me in the bud, I shall feel very much inclined to make the experiment.  See what a gulf you may save me from if you shall have previously made it on anima vili, on some less important sufferer, and shall have found it worse than useless.

How is Miss Boodle and her family?  Greeting to your brother and all friends in Bournemouth, yours very sincerely,

Robert Louis Stevenson.