Friday, January 29, 1909.
I am wearing a lava-lava only, and feel as if I'd like to discard it—not from heat, but it seems wicked to wear anything such a night as this. Those two mystical islands we have been heading for ever since we left the Solomons are just ahead about five miles—Belonna and Rennell. In an hour we will have to go about on the other tack to keep from cutting off a few hundred feet of Rennell. If I had my way, I should heave-to until morning, then go ashore, for these people are the most primitive in the world—no stranger has ever reported setting foot ashore here, unless a man named Stephens, who, when we left Sydney, was just getting up an expedition to visit these p352 two islands, has been here by now. I am anxious to see Stephens about it.
But what a night! I can't get over it. The sails are just drawing comfortably, and there is no sound except the swish of the water around the bow as we cut through it. It seems as if millions of stars are trying to help the moon in making things lighter; and the Southern Cross is just overhead. Henry has gone to the wheel, and sits gazing at the stars and singing South Sea songs—now of Samoa, now of Hawaii, and now of Tahiti, taking me back to the good times we had in those islands. The Snark really needs no steering to-night, but someone must be at the wheel.
And this is my last of the South Seas for perhaps a long time, perhaps forever. Those tall cocoanut trees on Rennell, which we can plainly see, are the last links of the islands. The next trees we see will be of the white man's country. I'm almost sorry to get back, although the last few months among the South Sea islands have played havoc with the crew of the Snark. My legs have scars that will never disappear—a sure sign I am not welcomed here. Yes, it is better that we are leaving.