The latest volume, the 17th, of the "Vailima'"' edition of Stevenson is entirely occupied by The Wrecker," which appears with a prefatory note by Mrs. Stevenson, who recalls the circumstances which suggested the story. The Stevensons were at Honolulu preparing for a South Sea voyage which it was intended would carry them to China and eventually to England, when a number of castaways picked up on Midway -Island were landed at the port. The story told by the Captain of the wrecked yessed, the barque "Wandering Minstrel,' was that "he had fitted out his. vessel in Hongkong for the purpose of catching sharks. He meant, he said, to make spurious cod-liver oil from the livers of. the sharks, and sell the dried fins to the Chinese. There were many discrepancies and evasions in his tale that I have forgotten; but it was plain
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.