And For
Four Hours I Had Exposed The Tender Backs Of My Legs, At Right-
Angles, To That Perpendicular Hawaiian Sun.
It was not until after
I got ashore that I discovered the sun had touched me.
Sunburn at
first is merely warm; after that it grows intense and the blisters
come out. Also, the joints, where the skin wrinkles, refuse to
bend. That is why I spent the next day in bed. I couldn't walk.
And that is why, to-day, I am writing this in bed. It is easier to
than not to. But to-morrow, ah, to-morrow, I shall be out in that
wonderful water, and I shall come in standing up, even as Ford and
Freeth. And if I fail to-morrow, I shall do it the next day, or the
next. Upon one thing I am resolved: the Snark shall not sail from
Honolulu until I, too, wing my heels with the swiftness of the sea,
and become a sun-burned, skin-peeling Mercury.
CHAPTER VII - THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI
When the Snark sailed along the windward coast of Molokai, on her
way to Honolulu, I looked at the chart, then pointed to a low-lying
peninsula backed by a tremendous cliff varying from two to four
thousand feet in height, and said: "The pit of hell, the most
cursed place on earth." I should have been shocked, if, at that
moment, I could have caught a vision of myself a month later, ashore
in the most cursed place on earth and having a disgracefully good
time along with eight hundred of the lepers who were likewise having
a good time.
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