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All morning and most of the afternoon we coasted along about a mile from a low coral reef, on which the surf thundered and pounded. The strip of land was only about a quarter of a mile wide, but one hundred miles in circumference, forming an atoll with a large lagoon in the centre. We sailed within a mile of the low sandy beach before we could make out an opening, and Captain Y—— finally decided that this was not the lagoon we were looking for, but that the one ahead was, so we sailed up the coast of this island, so close that we could plainly make out the remains of a schooner that had been wrecked upon the reef. Perhaps this old hull was the monument of human lives, the last relict of those who had sailed her. This did not prove to be the atoll we were looking for, nor did the next, or the next; we were getting among p185 islands so thick that it was necessary to carry double watches at night on deck. Captain Y—— acted like a man driven crazy, for the ship was in his care, and the currents and squalls were so deceptive during this time that he was almost entirely deprived of sleep. One day we had sighted several small sails to the leeward of us; on trying to get to them we found our way blocked by a reef just on a level with the water, so low that had it been night nothing could have saved us from being wrecked. While we were trying to get round the reef, the sails disappeared beneath the sky-line, and we were still in a dangerous position. Little islands scarcely large enough to bear one cocoanut tree would spring up ahead, and then we must spend valuable time beating around them. It was not the island itself that we were most afraid of, it was the reef that we knew always surrounded the island, sometimes over a mile from the land.

Large merchant ships have spent weeks and weeks trying to get out of this group. Little pearling luggers pile up on the white coral by the hundreds, every year. Something like two thousand of these small pearling vessels are scattered through these islands. Pearl shell is the only article of value to be found. Every season, scores of lives are lost in the hurricanes that sweep over the islands; the sand, being so close to the water, will often be levelled off to the water-line. The only safe place during such storms is on some sort of boat in the centre of the lagoon. p186

The atolls are all about the same shape—that is, circular. The land, about a quarter of a mile in width, will sometimes form in such a large circle that it will be impossible to see across the lagoon. However, we could see the whole of the atoll of the ones we sailed past.

We had been tangled up among these islands for seven days. There was no sun, no stars, from which to work our observations. We had now given up all thought of anchoring anywhere in the Archipelago—if we could only get away, far away, we would be more than satisfied. Even had we wanted to anchor, it seemed impossible, for the openings made by the run of the tide as it ebbed and flowed were too small for us to enter, and the reefs around the outside of the atolls were too rough for us to give a thought to. We knew that if we worked to the south, we would eventually get out. Had the islands been properly charted we could easily have located our position, but as it was, all was confusion and guess-work. In this duty, as in most others, the French had been very remiss. It was too late in the season for many pearling boats, and very few traders ever attempted these passages, although I afterward saw in Papeete several old Kanaka captains who had worked through these lagoons as the Indians used to locate themselves in America—more by instinct than through any practical knowledge.

It was on the seventh day out that we saw clear p187 water ahead. That night we sailed out of the reach of any cross-currents, and we now had clear water ahead to Papeete. All sail was crowded on, for the barometer was still acting queerly, and we did not relish the idea of being caught in a hurricane in so small a vessel. During this trip, we had not tasted one bit of meat. The fruit of every variety, and the yams and taro, made food that, for health, in the tropics has no equal.

Nakata was the biggest banana-eater I ever saw. He would keep his Japanese stomach filled with bananas all the time. Once he made a bet with Jack that he could eat twenty bananas in half an hour. He managed to eat a dozen with no difficulty, but after that he had to force them down, and he got stalled on his eighteenth banana. He just could not force down another one. One night, while it was his watch on deck, he got hold of a tin of salmon which gave him ptomaine poisoning. He was doubled up on deck for several hours while I poured mustard down him, but next day he was all right again.

On the morning of the ninth day we sighted the island of Tahiti, and raised a signal for a pilot. A Frenchman came out in a large whale-boat, manned by twelve big Tahitians. The wind was light, so that we did not get inside Papeete Bay until nearly noon. Papeete Bay is more like a lagoon with a narrow passage, than it is like a bay. About one mile across, the water is so deep close to the shore p188 that a ship can make fast to a cocoanut tree on the beach.