Stevenson wrote on the first page of this manuscript:

‘For nearly ten years my health had been declining: and for some while before I set forth upon my voyage, I believed I was come to the afterpiece of life, and had only the nurse and undertaker after to expect. It was suggested that I should try the South Seas; and I was not unwilling to visit like a ghost, and be carried like a bale, among scenes that had attracted me in youth and health. I chartered accordingly Dr Merrit’s schooner yacht, the Casco, 74 tons register; sailed from San Francisco towards the end of June 1888 … I begin to prepare these pages at sea, on a third cruise, in the trading steamer Janet Nicoll; if more days are granted me, they shall be passed where I have found life most pleasant and man most interesting; the axes of my black boys are already clearing the foundations of my future house; and I must learn to address readers from the uttermost parts of the sea …’