The Sandwich Islands were at length reached, and we brought up off Honolulu, in the island of Oahu. We were more struck with the beauty of the scenery than with that of the female portion of the inhabitants; but as the islands have been so often described, I will not attempt to do so; merely remarking that they are eleven in number, some of them about a hundred miles in circumference. Hawaii, formerly known as Owhyhee, is very much the largest, being eighty-eight miles in length by sixty-eight in breadth; and it contains two lofty mountains, each upwards of thirteen thousand feet in height—one called Mauna Kea, and the other Mauna Loa, which latter is for ever sending forth its volcanic fires, while it casts its vast shadow far and wide over the ocean.
After leaving Honolulu, which in those days was a very different place to what it is now, we brought up in the Bay of Kealakeakua, celebrated as the place where Captain Cook lost his life. As we entered the bay we could see in the far distance the towering dome of Mauna Loa. The whole country round bore evidence of the volcanic nature of the soil; broken cliffs rose round the bay, on the north side of which a reef of rocks offers the most convenient landing-place. It was here that Captain Cook was killed, while endeavouring to reach his boat. A few yards from the water stands a cocoa-nut tree, at the foot of which he is said to have breathed his last. The Imogene carried away the top of the tree; and her captain had a copper plate fastened on to the stem, the lower part of which has been thickly tarred to preserve it. On the plate is a cross, with an inscription—“Near this spot fell Captain James Cook, the renowned circumnavigator, who discovered these islands, A.D. 1778.”
Tamaku having been allowed to remain on shore during the time we were here, came off again of his own free will, and expressed his readiness to continue on board.
We again sailed to the southward. The commander had been directed to visit the archipelagoes on the western side of the Pacific, but he wished first to make a survey of the island on which we had so nearly run during the gale on our course northward.
I have, by-the-by, said very little about my messmates, except Mr Worthy, Peter Mudge (who acted as my Mentor, as he was likewise that of all the youngsters), and my chum Tommy Peck. There was another mate, who had lately passed,—Alfred Stanford, a very gentlemanly, pleasing young man. We had, besides, a surgeon, a master’s assistant, the captain’s clerk and the purser’s clerk, who made up the complement in our berth. My chief friend among the men was Dick Tillard, an old quartermaster, to whom I could always go to get instruction in seamanship, with the certainty that he would do his best to enlighten me. He had been at sea all his life, and had scarcely ever spent a month on shore at a time. He was a philosopher, in his way; and his philosophy was of the best, for he had implicit confidence in God’s overruling providence. If anything went wrong, his invariable remark was,—“That’s our fault, not His who rules above; trust him, lads, trust him, and he will make all things right at last.”
I have very little to say about our second lieutenant, or the master, or surgeon, or purser,—who, as far as I knew, were respectable men, not above the average in intellect, and got on very well together in the gunroom; so that our ship might have been looked upon as a happy one, as things go, though I confess that we cannot expect to find a paradise on board a man-of-war.
I must not omit to mention our boatswain, a person of no small importance on board ship. So, at all events, thought Mr Fletcher Yallop, as he desired to be called; and if we youngsters ever wanted him to do anything for us, we always thus addressed him—though, of course, the commander and officers called him simply Mr Yallop. If the men addressed him as Mr Yallop, he invariably exclaimed,—“Mr Fletcher Yallop is my name, remember, my lad; and I’ll beg you always to denominate me by my proper appellation, or a rope’s end and your back will scrape acquaintance with each other.”
He explained his reasons to me in confidence one day. “You see, Mr Rayner, I expect before I die to come into a fortune, when I shall be, of course, Fletcher Yallop, Esquire. I can’t make the men call me so now, because I am but a simple boatswain; but I like the sound; it keeps up my spirits. When I get out of sorts, I repeat to myself: ‘Fletcher Yallop, Esquire, be a man; be worthy of your future position in society when you take your place among the nobility of the land, and perhaps write M.P. after your name,’—and in an instant I am myself again, and patiently bear the rubs and frowns to which even warrant-officers are subjected. In truth, though I wish you not to repeat it, Mr Rayner, I may become a baronet; and I always look with trembling interest at the Gazette, to see if a certain person, whose heir I am, has been raised to that dignity.”
I ventured to ask the boatswain on what he grounded his hopes of fortune.
“That is a secret, Mr Rayner,” he replied, “which I must not divulge, even to you; but you would not doubt my word, I am sure. That must be sufficient for the present; and I must request you not to make the matter a subject of conversation among your messmates. They would not enter into my feelings as you do.”