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. And while we read this information a
wireless message was being received by the congressional party on
the summit of Haleakala announcing the safe arrival of the Snark.
It was the Snark's first landfall - and such a landfall! For twenty-
seven days we had been on the deserted deep, and it was pretty hard
to realize that there was so much life in the world. We were made
dizzy by it. We could not take it all in at once. We were like
awakened Rip Van Winkles, and it seemed to us that we were dreaming.
On one side the azure sea lapped across the horizon into the azure
sky; on the other side the sea lifted itself into great breakers of
emerald that fell in a snowy smother upon a white coral beach.
Beyond the beach, green plantations of sugar-cane undulated gently
upward to steeper slopes, which, in turn, became jagged volcanic
crests, drenched with tropic showers and capped by stupendous masses
of trade-wind clouds. At any rate, it was a most beautiful dream.
The Snark turned and headed directly in toward the emerald surf,
till it lifted and thundered on either hand; and on either hand,
scarce a biscuit-toss away, the reef showed its long teeth, pale
green and menacing.
Abruptly the land itself, in a riot of olive-greens of a thousand
hues, reached out its arms and folded the Snark in. There was no
perilous passage through the reef, no emerald surf and azure sea -
nothing but a warm soft land, a motionless lagoon, and tiny beaches
on which swam dark-skinned tropic children.
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