THE TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE OF 1883
AN ASTRONOMERS VOYAGE TO FAIRY-LAND.
(From The Atlantic Monthly, May, 1890.)
By PROF. E.S. HOLDEN.
In 1883 calculations showed that a solar eclipse of unusually long duration (5 minutes, 20 seconds) would occur in the South Pacific Ocean. The track of the eclipse lay south of the equator, but north of Tahiti. There were in fact only two dots of coral islands on the charts in the line of totality, Caroline Island, and one hundred and fifty miles west Flint Island (longitude 150 west, latitude 10 south). Almost nothing was known of either of these minute points. The station of the party under my charge (sent out by the United States government under the direction of the National Academy of Sciences) was to be Caroline Islands.
Every inch of that island (seven miles long, a mile or so broad) is familiar now; but it is almost ludicrous to recollect with what anxiety we pored over the hydrographic charts and sailing instructions of the various nations, to find some information, however scanty, about the spot which was to be our home for nearly a month. All that was known was that this island had formerly been occupied as a guano station. There was a landing then.
After the personnel of the party had been decided on, there were the preparations for its subsistence to be looked out for. How to feed seventeen men for twenty-one days? Fortunately the provisions that we took, and the fresh fish caught for us by the natives, just sufficed to carry us through with comfort and with health.
In March of 1883 we sailed from New York, and about the same time a French expedition left Europe bound for the same spot. From New York to Panama, from Panama to Lima, were our first steps. Here we joined the United States steamship Hartford, Admiral Farragut's flagship, and the next day set sail for our destined port,—if a coral reef surrounded by a raging surf can be called a port. About the same time a party of French observers under Monsieur Janssen, of the Paris Academy of Sciences, left Panama in the Eclaireur.
It was an ocean race of four thousand miles due west. The station Caroline Islands was supposed to be more desirable than Flint Island. Admiral Wilkes's expedition had lain off the latter several days without being able to land on account of the tremendous surf, so that it was eminently desirable to "beat the Frenchman," as the sailors put it. With this end in view our party had secured (through a member of the National Academy in Washington) the verbal promise of the proper official of the Navy Department that the Hartford's orders should read "to burn coal as necessary." The last obstacle to success was thus removed. We were all prepared, and now the ship would take us speedily to our station.
Imagine our feelings the next day after leaving Callao, when the commanding officer of the Hartford opened his sealed orders. They read (dated Washington, in February), "To arrive at Caroline Islands (in April) with full coal-bunkers!"
Officialism could go no further. Here was an expedition sent on a slow-sailing ship directly through the regions of calms for four thousand miles. It was of no possible use to send the expedition at all unless it arrived in time. And here were our orders "to arrive with full coal-bunkers."
Fortunately we had unheard-of good-luck. The trade-wind blew for us as it did for the Ancient Mariner, and we sped along the parallel of 12° south at the rate of one hundred and fifty miles a day under sail, while the Eclaireur was steaming for thirty days a little nearer the equator in a dead calm. We arrived off the island just in time, with not a day to spare. It was a narrow escape, and a warning to all of us never to sail again under sealed orders unless we knew what was under the seal.
Here we were, then, lying off the island and scanning its sparse crown of cocoanut palms, looking for a French flag among their wavy tufts. There was none in sight. We were the winners in the long race. Directly a whale-boat was lowered, and rowed around the white fringe of tremendous surf that broke ceaselessly against the vertical wall of coral rock. There was just one narrow place where the waves rolled into a sort of cleft and did not break. Here was the "landing," then.
Landing was an acrobatic feat. In you went on the crest of a wave, pointing for the place where the blue seas did not break into white. An instant after, you were in the quiet water inside of the surf. Jump out everybody and hold the boat! Then it was pick up the various instruments, and carry them for a quarter of a mile to high-water mark and beyond, over the sharp points of the reef.
In one night we were fairly settled; in another the Hartford had sailed away, leaving us in our fairy paradise, where the corals and the fish were of all the brilliant hues of the rainbow, and where the whiteness of the sand, the emerald of the lagoon, and the turquoise of the ocean made a picture of color and form never to be forgotten.
But where are the Frenchmen? The next morning there is the Eclaireur lying a mile or so out, and there is a boat with the bo'sun—maître d'équipage—pulling towards the surf. I wade out to the brink. He halloes:
"Where is the landing, then?"
"Mais ici"—Right here,—I say.
"Yes, that's all very well for persons, but where do you land les bagages?"
"Mais ici" I say again, and he says, "Diable!"
But all the same he lands both persons and baggage in a neat, sailor-like way. In a couple of days our two parties of fifty persons had taken possession of this fairy isle. Observatories go up, telescopes, spectroscopes, photographic cameras are pointed and adjusted. The eventful day arrives. Everything is successful. Then comes the Hartford and takes us away, and a few days later comes the Eclaireur, and the Frenchmen are gone. The little island is left there, abandoned to the five natives who tend the sickly plantation of cocoa-palms, and live from year to year with no incident but the annual visit of "the blig" (Kanaka for brig), which brings their store of ship biscuit and molasses.
Think of their stupendous experience! For years and years they have lived like that in the marvellous, continuous charm of the silent island. The "blig" had come and gone away this year, and there will be no more disturbance and discord for a twelve-month longer.
"Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind, and wave, and oar,
Then rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more!"
Not so! for here comes a great warship out of the East under a press of canvas. What event is this? See! she clews up her light sails and fires an eleven-inch gun! One of those guns of Mobile Bay. Then swarms out the starboard watch, one hundred and sixty strong, and a fleet of boats brings ashore these pale astronomers with those useless tubes that they point at the sky every night. But there are useful things too; cooking-stoves, and lumber, and bricks.
What is all this? No sooner are these established than comes another ship and fires its gun! and another set of hardy sailormen pours out, and here is another party of madmen with tubes,—yes, and with cooking-stoves and lumber, too. Then comes the crowning, stupendous, and unspeakable event. The whole sun is hidden and the heavens are lighted up with pearly streamers! In the name of all the Polynesian gods, what is the meaning of all this?
And then in a few days all these are gone. All the madmen. They have taken away the useless tubes, but they have left their houses standing. Their splendid, priceless, precious cook-stoves are here. See! here is a frying-pan! here are empty tin cans! and a keg of nails! They must have forgotten all this, madmen as they are!
And the little island sinks back to its quiet and its calm. The lagoon lies placid like a mirror. The slow sea breaks eternally on the outer reef. The white clouds sail over day by day. The seabirds come back to their haunts,—the fierce man-of-war birds, the gentle, soft-eyed tern. But we, whose island home was thus invaded—are we the same? Was this a dream? Will it happen again next year? every year? What indeed was it that happened,—or in fact, did it happen at all? Is it not a dream, indeed?
If we left those peaceful Kanakas to their dream, we Americans have brought ours away with us. Who will forget it? Which of us does not wish to be in that peaceful fairyland once more? That is the personal longing. But we have all come back, each one with his note-books full; and in a few weeks the stimulus of accustomed habit has taken possession of us again. Right and wrong are again determined by "municipal sanctions." We have become useful citizens once more. Perhaps it is just as well. We should have been poor poets, and we do not forget. So ends the astronomer's voyage to fairyland.
