We never tired of looking "forward" at the path of foam which we cut cleanly asunder in those dark-blue depths, throwing it up to either side of us, or of the green feathery bubbles left aft by the revolutions of the screw. I have seen in the afternoon the most lovely little rainbows, just reflected for one minute on the foam of the crest of the wave as it rose up to break away. Then in the evening, after we had entered the tropical latitudes, there was always the phosphorescence on the water, looking like a multitude of glow-worms, appearing and disappearing, and twinkling under the darkness of the ocean. For the first few days out we were followed by flights of gulls and albatross, wheeling and circling around us with their powerful wings, which outstretched measure some four feet across from tip to tip. But after we had come beyond even their range, we were left with nothing to look upon but that wonderful circular line, almost imperceptible, where sea touches sky,—left alone on that vast expanse of water those ten thousand miles of ocean which were to the right hand and to the left of us, which lay down below us in a straight line down, down to the depth of three miles. Then we were made to realize the extraordinary lonely, yet exalted, feeling that comes over you as you raise your eyes to the only boundary, the only limit to the sea—the horizon. Lonely, I say, you must feel because you are the one living thing "that moves upon the face of the Waters," and exalted because you know you are feeling to your inmost soul God's most wonderful creation.
We were a little family collected together from all parts of the earth, thrown together very closely for the time, very soon to be separated and to go each our own way; all travelling on different errands, for different reasons—some for business, some for pleasure, some in search of health, some even in search of love, like the three young ladies we were bringing over to Sydney to be married! We had the American Consul at Auckland, Mr. Griffin, on board, step-uncle to Miss Mary Anderson, and who gave us a most interesting account of his adventures at Tutuila, one of the group of Navigator Islands, when he was left there virtually a prisoner for ten months, unable during that time to communicate with his government. We met at meals, and then dispersed about, so much so that going up on the decks, and finding them nearly deserted, you wondered where everybody did go to. In the afternoon, and immediately after luncheon, there was the sort of quiet and lazy cessation from work that sometimes comes unconsciously even on shore, when I believe many took a nap, and then by four there would come a gradual awakening and stirring up, with a sharp turn and brisk walk before the dressing-bell at 5.30, and once more the re-assembling for dinner.
We had a particularly nice set of officers; and Captain Guest was most agreeable and well-informed, very solicitous for the comfort and amusement of his passengers. We sat one on each side of him, with Mr. Davidson on my other side, and there was always a good deal of information flying across me between them. We also all had the advantage of being waited on partly by "Tonga," his Chinese servant, dressed in national costume.
All the sailors were Chinese, with English quarter-masters. They make most efficient, hard-working tars, and are allowed to wear their native dress, rolling up their pigtails under their skull-caps when at work.
September 4th.—It was beginning to get rather warm, as we had entered the Tropic of Cancer.
The captain's patent windsail in the saloon was brought into use with great success, except on one very hot night, when its canvas sails hung limp and flabby, and there was absolutely not one breath of wind to swell it to its usually large dimensions.
We were now within the influence of the trade winds, those hot damp winds that flow on either side of the Equator within a radius of three days' steaming. Whilst they lasted we were never dry; we lived in a perpetual Turkish bath, everything we touched was damp and sticky, the awning dripped in the early morning or after sundown as if there was a heavy dew; scissors, razors, knitting-needles, even the very pins in the pin-cushion became rusted.
Saturday, September 5th.—A blurred outline against the sky seen since early morning, growing into the arid island of Molokai, the place of banishment of six hundred lepers, exiled there to live and die by inches, was the first island of the Sandwich group which we saw. There are eleven in all, only six of which are habitable; these are Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lauai, Mani, and Hawaii, which contains the volcano of Kilauea. By the afternoon we were passing under the lee of the island of Oahu, on which lies the capital of the group, Honolulu. Oahu has a magnificent outline of jagged peaks, seared and scored by volcanic action; whose precipices dark and gloomy run sheer down into the sea, and form at their base a rocky breakwater against which the sea vainly lashes itself into fury, rising into the air in a cloud of foam. The promontory called Diamond Head stands boldly out into the sea, and rising from the centre of the island is the sharp mountain peak of Pali.
The mouths of extinct craters can be easily traced by the utter barrenness around, and in sharp contrasts to the lava and scoria are the rich valleys running up into the interior of the island, where all grows in tropical luxuriance. There were patches of deep brown on the mountain sides, alternating with others of yellow-green grass; tall straggling cocoa-nut palms waving their feathery arms along the shore, where the intensely blue line of the sea touches the fringe of yellow sand. In a quiet little cove we distinguished a tall manufacturing chimney standing in the midst of its sugar-cane plantation, and further on we passed Waikiki, the favourite watering-place of the Hawaiians, with its vast cocoa-nut grove growing to the water's edge. Amongst them we could see a few flat roofs, with the grey palace of the king standing out prominently. We are going now round the frowning brow of Cape Diamond, and Honolulu comes in sight. It lies on a very dead level, and is a long-drawn-out collection of flat-roofed houses, famous for its many spires.