Nobody needs to be told that tourism is big in Hawaii, and people in the know know that Robert Louis Stevenson is good for tourism. Sir Edmund Gosse, author and scholar, had been a close friend of the famous invalid author from Scotland and had outlived him long enough to have become one of four British Representatives of the Stevenson Society of America in Saranac Lake, to which he wrote a letter from his home in England, in 1923. Among the things he had to say, he said this about the good old days: “If someone had told us then that the name of Robert Louis Stevenson would within half a century be honored and loved in every quarter of the globe, I should have received the prophecy with incredulity and he with derision. But so it is …”

“Treasure Island,” “A Child’s Garden of Verses” and “the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” have been translated into every known language and assimilated into every culture, making Robert Louis Stevenson a world class figure of the timeless kind. Those books will always be around because they embody the essence of true art, a gift from the fountain of creative genius. Like the music of the composers of genius, it will be played till Doomsday and never get stale. And so it is with no surprise, that in Hawaii, Louis is good for tourism. The 50th state has a large store of Stevenson lore but the piece that sells best is the friendship of Robert Louis Stevenson and Princess Ka’iulani.

Princess Ka’iulani was a hybrid in the sense that a dictionary describes as “(2) a person whose background is a blend of two diverse cultures or traditions.” Archibald S. Cleghorn, a native of Scotland, had made his way to the Islands as a merchant doing business in Honolulu before becoming Collector General of Customs. Having made friends with King David Kalakaua, he went on to marry one of the King’s sisters, Princess Miriam Likelike, who died in 1887. Their daughter, Victoria Ka’iulani, was born in 1875. As the last heiress-apparent to the throne, she is to this day the Princess of Hawaiian tourism, enhanced by her friendship with Robert Louis Stevenson.

Mrs. Isobel Field — ‘Belle’ — published her autobiography, “This Life I’ve Loved,” in 1934. As the stepdaughter of RLS, she was still Mrs. Joseph Dwight Strong, and already living in Hawaii when her famous stepfather arrived on his chartered yacht Casco in January, 1894. Belle shares it all in her book: “Henry Poor lent Louis his house at Waikiki and, with the help and advice of Mrs. Bush, the family gave a grand ‘luau’ (native feast) in the Hawaiian fashion to Kalakaua and his sister, the Princess Liliuokalani. It was at this party that Louis presented the King with a large golden pearl, still adhering to its delicate shell, with a poem that he read aloud.

“The Polynesian he admired most of all was a ‘little royal maiden’ then 13 years old. Near the entrance to Kapiolani Park was the handsome estate belonging to Mr. Cleghorn, a Scotsman who had married the King’s youngest sister. His daughter, the Princess Ka’iulani, was a very important person in Honolulu of those days, for if anything happened to her aunt, Liliuokalani, she would succeed Kalakaua to the throne of Hawaii.

“Strolling over to call on Mr. Cleghorn for a talk with a fellow Scotsman, Louis was introduced to the ‘little princess’ and was charmed with her simple grace and beauty. Many a talk the three of them had together in the garden under the banyan tree, where Ka’iulani poured tea in the English fashion. She asked Louis many questions about Scotland, which he praised to the skies, until he learned that Mr. Cleghorn was arranging to send his daughter to school in Edinburgh. He protested that the sudden change from the climate of Hawaii to that of Scotland would be too severe for an Island child. But the plans were made and, much to Louis’ regret, the little Princess left for Scotland. Before going, Louis wrote in her autograph album, the poem ‘To Princess Ka’iulani’ and added this note: ‘Written in April to Ka’iulani in the April of her age; and at Waikiki within easy walk of Ka’iulani’s banyan! When she comes to my land and her father’s and the rain beats against the window (as I fear it will) let her look at this page; it will be like a weed gathered and pressed at home, and she will remember her own islands, and the shadow of the mighty tree; and she will hear the peacock screaming in the dusk, and the wind blowing in the palms; and she will think of her father sitting there alone.’

“Unfortunately, Mr. Cleghorn did not listen to Louis’ advice, for the climate was all that he predicated and the little Princess died in Edinburgh of pneumonia.”

Somewhere along the way Belle had picked up this piece of misinformation, seeming to fulfill her stepfather’s warning and presenting him with an “I told you so” opportunity if he were the type. In fact, the princess did die young, but not in Scotland.

After completing her English education under the care of Mrs. T.R. Walker, wife of the British vice-consul, and getting to meet all the big shots, including Queen Victoria, the princess returned to her home islands and her uncle’s Iolani Palace. Following the death of King Kalakaua in 1891, the princess became heiress-apparent to the throne, after her aunt, Queen Liliuokalani.

In 1893, the Queen was deposed in a bloodless revolution led by pro-American annexationists and that was the end of the monarchy. Six years later, Princess Ka’iulani died of pneumonia at Ainahau, her Waikiki home and under an American flag at age 28.

Nicholas Rankin is a writer and historian who lives today in Ramsgate, England. “Ian Fleming’s Commandos,” “Churchill’s Wizards” and “Defending the Rock–How Gibraltar Defeated Hitler” are three of his books about World War II. There are more books, but before all that, he had a BBC radio program called Meridian and before that, he showed up in Saranac Lake without warning. Rankin had hitchhiked into town on Aug. 11, 1984, where his ride dropped him off at Waterhole #3, where his passenger could refresh himself with something cold, he was told, being fresh off the trail on a hot, hazy summer day. Therein he posed the question to the afternoon shift: “How do I get to the Robert Louis Stevenson Cottage?”

“Who?” says a patron.

“Isn’t that the bed and breakfast just before Quesnell’s?” says another.

Someone did know who volunteered to take him there and soon Rankin, looking like a tramp with beer on his breath, was explaining his purpose which was received with skepticism by museum personnel. The stranger with an accent said he was writing his first book about a fascinating historical figure, the title to be “Dead Man’s Chest — Travels After Robert Louis Stevenson.” Those travels had brought him to Saranac Lake, he said. But who was to say that here wasn’t just another limy con artist trying to hustle a gullible rural custodian into a free room for the night? Or a week?

When he mentioned Belle for the first time, such thoughts evaporated. What were the chances that a bar-hopping drifter would know about Belle? Mr. Rankin became this generation’s British Representative of the Stevenson Society of America and has twice returned here. After spending four days in Saranac Lake the first time, Rankin went directly to Hawaii and the following observation is from his book published in 1987 by Faber & Faber, London: “Waikiki’s favourite commercial adjectives are ‘ancient,’ ‘authentic’ and ‘traditional.’ One gem of the manufactured past intrigued me.

“When the old Cleghorn estate ‘Ainahau’ was sold off in lots in 1917, Commander Rachel Payne of the Salvation Army bought one of the huts in the grounds ‘whose walls were constructed entirely of plaited grass.’ She had it moved almost three miles north, setting it up as a tourist attraction, suitably embroidered with legends of Princess Ka’iulani and Robert Louis Stevenson.

“The hut deteriorated under the sun, rain and wind, and by the 1970s had become ‘dangerous for elderly people’; accordingly, it was ‘reconstructed.’ What emerged was broader, higher and lighter with added windows and a veranda. It is one of the ‘authentic’ sights of Honolulu–a fake replica of a house Stevenson was probably never in, standing behind the Waioli Tea Rooms at a place he never visited. Tourists happily take pictures of it and feel close to the spirit of the author of Treasure Island. A t-shirt costs $12, and says: “Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Grass House Waioli Tea Rooms Honolulu.”

“Authentic” is the only word one needs to describe the Saranac Lake Stevenson memorial and everything in it.