Like shadows over streams.
The good, the brave, the beautiful,
How dreamless is their sleep,
Where rolls the dirge-like music
Of the ever-tossing deep!”
Tuesday, June 9. Last evening, while it was yet some three hours to sunset, the cry of “Land ho!” rang from mast-head. It was the island of Hawaii boldly breaking the line of the horizon over our larboard bow. We were now near our port, but not sufficiently near to reach our anchorage by daylight. We were running ten knots, and orders were given to take in sail, that we might not shoot too far ahead.
Night, and the hour of slumber came on, and our dreams were filled with the flowers and fruit of sunny isles. Day broke over the steeps of Oahu, and threw its light into the port of Honolulu. Here at last we let go our anchors, and once more clewed up our sails. We had made one of the shortest passages on record from Callao. We had run for the last seven days an average of two hundred and thirty-five miles. We had sailed about six thousand miles, and had hardly disturbed a royal or studding-sail, and the sea had been smooth as the slumbering surface of an inland lake. Give me the Pacific and the trade winds. You have here a quiet ocean, a steady breeze, and an even temperature. In the Atlantic you are in squalls or calms; in the one you plunge about, and in the other you sleep.
Here we are to part with our passengers, Mr. Ten Eyk, our commissioner to the Sandwich Islands, with his lady, children, and Miss J——; and with Judge Turrell, our consul to these islands, with his lady, children, and Mr. H. They have been with us since we sailed from Norfolk. Their society has helped to relieve the monotony of a sea-life. They have manifested no impatience at our delays, and have cheerfully conformed, in all respects, to the usages of a man-of-war. The consequence has been, an uninterrupted harmony between them and the officers, and an interchange of all those civilities on which the happiness of our social condition depends. They are to be landed under the salute to which their rank entitles them. They carry with them our esteem and our best wishes. May a kind Providence be their guardian and friend.
“Farewell! a word that may be and hath been,
A sound that makes us linger—yet, farewell!”