“Ka Olali o kapeni maka kila.”
“By the point of his pen his genius conquered all prejudice and gave out to the world at large true facts concerning the Hawaiian people and other nations of the South Seas.”
The First Return
We came back, as we had always known we should.
The Snark’s voyage ended untimely in 1909—because we paid too little heed to Dr. E. S. Goodhue’s warnings against “speeding up” in the tropics. Jack’s articles, collected under the title of “The Cruise of the Snark” and my journal book, “The Log of the Snark,” tell the story of the wonderful traverse as far as it attained. To this day, friend and stranger alike occasionally write from the South Seas that the little Snark, now schooner-rigged, has put in at this bay or that in the New Hebrides, under the flag of our French Allies—Snark Number One of a fleet of Snarks trading and recruiting in the cannibal isles.
We came back: and on the wharf at Honolulu that morning of the Matsonia’s arrival, March 2, 1915, in the crowd we thrilled to meet the eyes of many friends who had kept us a-tiptoe for days aboard ship with their welcoming wireless Alohas and invitations.
An amusing incident did much to mellow the pleasure-pang of our meeting. Nearest the stringer-piece of the pier stood a brown-tanned girl in an adorable bonnet of roses, her dark eyes searching the high steamer rail.
“Gee! what a pretty girl!” exclaimed a voyage acquaintance at our elbow. “Wouldn’t you take her for at least half-white?” Jack, following the directing gesture, enthusiastically agreed that she must be “all of hapa-haole,” and added:
“Furthermore, I’ll show you something; I’ll throw her a kiss, see? and I’ll bet you ‘even money’ that she’ll respond. Is it a go?—you just watch.”
And the conspicuous wafted caress arresting her eye, the young woman answered with blown kisses and outstretched brown arms.