But it
wasn't. That land we saw was the summit of Haleakala, the House of
the Sun, the greatest extinct volcano in the world. It towered ten
thousand feet above the sea, and it was all of a hundred miles away.
We sailed all night at a seven-knot clip, and in the morning the
House of the Sun was still before us, and it took a few more hours
of sailing to bring it abreast of us. "That island is Maui," we
said, verifying by the chart. "That next island sticking out is
Molokai, where the lepers are. And the island next to that is Oahu.
There is Makapuu Head now. We'll be in Honolulu to-morrow. Our
navigation is all right."
CHAPTER V - THE FIRST LANDFALL
"It will not be so monotonous at sea," I promised my fellow-voyagers
on the Snark. "The sea is filled with life. It is so populous that
every day something new is happening. Almost as soon as we pass
through the Golden Gate and head south we'll pick up with the flying
fish. We'll be having them fried for breakfast. We'll be catching
bonita and dolphin, and spearing porpoises from the bowsprit. And
then there are the sharks - sharks without end."
We passed through the Golden Gate and headed south. We dropped the
mountains of California beneath the horizon, and daily the surf grew
warmer. But there were no flying fish, no bonita and dolphin. The
ocean was bereft of life. Never had I sailed on so forsaken a sea.
Always, before, in the same latitudes, had I encountered flying
fish.
"Never mind," I said. "Wait till we get off the coast of Southern
California. Then we'll pick up the flying fish."
We came abreast of Southern California, abreast of the Peninsula of
Lower California, abreast of the coast of Mexico; and there were no
flying fish. Nor was there anything else. No life moved. As the
days went by the absence of life became almost uncanny.
"Never mind," I said. "When we do pick up with the flying fish
we'll pick up with everything else. The flying fish is the staff of
life for all the other breeds. Everything will come in a bunch when
we find the flying fish."
When I should have headed the Snark south-west for Hawaii, I still
held her south. I was going to find those flying fish. Finally the
time came when, if I wanted to go to Honolulu, I should have headed
the Snark due west, instead of which I kept her south. Not until
latitude 19 degrees did we encounter the first flying fish. He was
very much alone. I saw him. Five other pairs of eager eyes scanned
the sea all day, but never saw another. So sparse were the flying
fish that nearly a week more elapsed before the last one on board
saw his first flying fish. As for the dolphin, bonita, porpoise,
and all the other hordes of life - there weren't any.
Not even a shark broke surface with his ominous dorsal fin. Bert
took a dip daily under the bowsprit, hanging on to the stays and
dragging his body through the water. And daily he canvassed the
project of letting go and having a decent swim. I did my best to
dissuade him. But with him I had lost all standing as an authority
on sea life.
"If there are sharks," he demanded, "why don't they show up?"
I assured him that if he really did let go and have a swim the
sharks would promptly appear. This was a bluff on my part. I
didn't believe it. It lasted as a deterrent for two days. The
third day the wind fell calm, and it was pretty hot. The Snark was
moving a knot an hour. Bert dropped down under the bowsprit and let
go. And now behold the perversity of things. We had sailed across
two thousand miles and more of ocean and had met with no sharks.
Within five minutes after Bert finished his swim, the fin of a shark
was cutting the surface in circles around the Snark.
There was something wrong about that shark. It bothered me. It had
no right to be there in that deserted ocean. The more I thought
about it, the more incomprehensible it became. But two hours later
we sighted land and the mystery was cleared up. He had come to us
from the land, and not from the uninhabited deep. He had presaged
the landfall. He was the messenger of the land.
Twenty-seven days out from San Francisco we arrived at the island of
Oahu, Territory of Hawaii. In the early morning we drifted around
Diamond Head into full view of Honolulu; and then the ocean burst
suddenly into life. Flying fish cleaved the air in glittering
squadrons. In five minutes we saw more of them than during the
whole voyage. Other fish, large ones, of various sorts, leaped into
the air. There was life everywhere, on sea and shore. We could see
the masts and funnels of the shipping in the harbour, the hotels and
bathers along the beach at Waikiki, the smoke rising from the
dwelling-houses high up on the volcanic slopes of the Punch Bowl and
Tantalus. The custom-house tug was racing toward us and a big
school of porpoises got under our bow and began cutting the most
ridiculous capers. The port doctor's launch came charging out at
us, and a big sea turtle broke the surface with his back and took a
look at us. Never was there such a burgeoning of life. Strange
faces were on our decks, strange voices were speaking, and copies of
that very morning's newspaper, with cable reports from all the
world, were thrust before our eyes. Incidentally, we read that the
Snark and all hands had been lost at sea, and that she had been a
very unseaworthy craft anyway.
