Telephoto of the Bronze Figure of Victory on Memorial Column at West Point.
(Distance 100 Yards.)
With a new combination of very thin lenses now in process of construction, I hope to be able to diminish the time of exposure so that moving objects may be photographed without difficulty. If successful, this new lens will be invaluable for the purpose of obtaining pictures of birds and wild animals in their natural haunts, long before they become aware of the approach of their enemy. It would enable one to photograph domestic animals in their natural picturesque attitudes, which are almost always lost as soon as the camera is observed, and only too often the owner of the camera is compelled to beat a hasty retreat, sometimes with the loss of everything but honor.
The Memorial Column, West Point. (Distance 100 Yards.)
The improvement in photographic lenses in the last few years has been very remarkable, and if the telephoto receives the attention it deserves of the best lens makers, the accompanying telephoto illustrations may be but harbingers of better things to come. Instead of being compelled to carry heavy unwieldy cameras and a battery of lenses, the wandering photographer will be able to accomplish even more with a compact camera and a little telephoto tube, no larger than the single barrel of a small field-glass.
THE LETTERS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Edited by Sidney Colvin
THE VOYAGE OF THE CASCO: HONOLULU (JULY, 1888-JUNE, 1889)
IT was on July 26, 1888, that Stevenson started from the harbor of San Francisco on what was intended to be a health and pleasure excursion of a few months' duration, but turned into a voluntary exile prolonged until the hour of his death. The trading party consisted, besides himself, of his wife, his mother, his stepson, Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, and the servant Valentine. They sailed on board the schooner yacht Casco, Captain Otis, and made straight for the Marquesa dropping anchor on July 28th in the harbor of Nukahiva. The magic effect of this first island landfall on his mind he has described in the opening chapter of his book The South Seas. After spending six weeks in this group they sailed southeastward, visiting (a somewhat perilous piece of navigation) several of the coral atolls of the Paumotus or Low Archipelago. Thence they arrived in the first week of October at the Tahitian group or "Society Islands." In these their longest stay was not at the chief town, Papeete, but in a more secluded and very beautiful station, Tautira, where they were detained by the necessity of re-masting the schooner, and where Stevenson and one of the local chiefs, Ori a Ori, made special friends and parted with heartfelt mutual regret. Thence sailing due northward through forty degrees of latitude, they arrived about Christmas at Honolulu, the more than semi-civilized capital of the Hawaiian group (Sandwich Islands), where they paid off the yacht Casco and made a stay of nearly six months. There the elder Mrs. Stevenson left them to return to Scotland, and only rejoined her son's household when it was fairly installed two years later at Vailima. From Honolulu Stevenson made several excursions, including one, which profoundly impressed him, to the leper settlement at Molokai, the scene of Father Damien's ministrations and death.