Mead to Boas - August 29, 1925 (handwritten en route from Honolulu to Pago Pago, Samoa, on the S.S. Sonoma):

Dear Professor Boas,

My two week stay in Honolulu was thoroughly pleasant and profitable. Dr. Gregory was very hospitable and kind and with his aid and that of Dr. Schopke(?) director of the museum of Vienna, I learned a great deal about the flora and fauna of Oahu.

I went through the literature on Samoa which I had not seen and also through the collections, which are amazingly inadequate, in spots hardly better than the South Seas collections in the American Museum. Dr. Handy gave me several hours a day on the structure of the language and the Museum loaned me a copy of Pratt’s dictionary. I was able to make a great many contacts in Honolulu which will facilitate my work in Samoa, including getting a letter from David Kahanamoku, the Hawai’ian Olympic swimmer, who is ceremonial brother of the chief of Manu’a and will make it very easy for me if I want to work on that island. 

The monograph on [?] arrived just as I was leaving Honolulu and have not yet had time to read it. But I look forward with interest in doing so. Thank-you so much for sending it to me.

I shall write further to you of my plans, as soon as I know them myself.

With very best wishes for your stay in Europe and the returned voyage, I am,

Most sincerely,

Margaret Mead

P.S. I forgot to say that I have been very well - my health overrides[?] so little on my consciousness that I forgot to mention it.