held en route to the Hawaiian Islands, with fines ranging from five to twenty-five dollars.
Our voyage across the Pacific was uneventful. The weather was extremely calm, the horizon appearing as a circular brink of a tremendous cataract, over which the surging billows thundered in pensive solitude. An occasional albatross was sighted winging its flight through the aerial regions. Under the leeward shrouds, groups of soldiers congregated, spinning yarns or playing at cards, while others on the windward side inhaled the health-giving ozone of the salt-sea breeze. A Japanese mail-steamer, and several merchant marines were sighted from our course, en route to points in Australia and the Orient.
Several hours before our arrival in Honolulu, it was whispered about the deck that our shore privileges were to be restricted, and, sure enough, the disappointment was realized, due, it was said, to those who had overstayed their privileges in Japan. To be kept a prisoner in Mariveles was bad enough, but to be prevented from mingling
with the throng in the “Garden of the Gods,” the “Paradise of the Pacific,” Honolulu, was more than the boys could stand. As we entered the harbor, dotted here and there with bell-buoys, fishing-smacks, yachts, and vessels of the merchant marine, we saw the new naval station off our port side, and the camp of the United States marines extending to the coral reefs to starboard. From the spar deck we could gaze on the beautiful city of Honolulu, with its white stone buildings bathed in tropical luxuriance, and the contour of its mountainous inland towering to the clouds. It was with a feeling of relief, as the vessel moored to the wharf, that a chance could be taken on getting ashore.
The wharf was studded with people, mostly tourists and native venders, though a large concourse of officers’ families had come to greet their relatives. As the gangway was lowered, the band struck up an inspiring air, and only those who have seen an American transport loaded with soldiers returning home from that far-off jungle land, the Philippines and Sulu, can form any conception
of the passionate display of enthusiasm manifested on these occasions.
Vendors of beautiful wreaths of flowers, curios, and succulent fruit greet the visitor on all sides. These flower wreaths are worn around the band of the hat and around the neck; they are a traditional necessity, without which you are staged, in this city of the Pacific, in a class by yourself.
Pineapples, pineapples, pineapples, everywhere you look; the most delicious pineapples in the world come from Hawaii, the bulk of the exportation to the United States being marketed along the Pacific slope.
The shore privileges of the battalion being restricted, we had to be content with taking observations from the taffrail. I had been to Honolulu several times while in the navy, and had stopped here en route to the islands with the Twenty-ninth Infantry, so that I naturally felt disappointed at my inability to go ashore,—so much, in fact, that I decided to eradicate the feeling at the risk of a court-martial.
Having anticipated making a social call, besides expecting mail addressed to the