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.
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