A PACIFIC TRAVERSE
_Sandwich Islands to Tahiti_.—_There is great difficulty in making this
passage across the trades_. _The whalers and all others speak with
great doubt of fetching Tahiti from the Sandwich islands_. _Capt. Bruce
says that a vessel should keep to the northward until she gets a start
of wind before bearing for her destination_. _In his passage between
them in November_, 1837, _he had no variables near the line in coming
south_, _and never could make easting on either tack_, _though he
endeavoured by every means to do so_.
So say the sailing directions for the South Pacific Ocean; and that is
all they say. There is not a word more to help the weary voyager in
making this long traverse—nor is there any word at all concerning the
passage from Hawaii to the Marquesas, which lie some eight hundred
miles to the northeast of Tahiti and which are the more difficult to
reach by just that much. The reason for the lack of directions is, I
imagine, that no voyager is supposed to make himself weary by
attempting so impossible a traverse. But the impossible did not deter
the _Snark_,—principally because of the fact that we did not read that
particular little paragraph in the sailing directions until after we
had started. We sailed from Hilo, Hawaii, on October 7, and arrived at
Nuka-hiva, in the Marquesas, on December 6. The distance was two
thousand miles as the crow flies, while we actually travelled at least
four thousand miles to accomplish it, thus proving for once and for
ever that the shortest distance between two points is not always a
straight line. Had we headed directly for the Marquesas, we might have
travelled five or six thousand miles.
Upon one thing we were resolved: we would not cross the Line west of
130° west longitude. For here was the problem. To cross the Line to the
west of that point, if the southeast trades were well around to the
southeast, would throw us so far to leeward of the Marquesas that a
head-beat would be maddeningly impossible. Also, we had to remember the
equatorial current, which moves west at a rate of anywhere from twelve
to seventy-five miles a day. A pretty pickle, indeed, to be to leeward
of our destination with such a current in our teeth. No; not a minute,
nor a second, west of 130° west longitude would we cross the Line. But
since the southeast trades were to be expected five or six degrees
north of the Line (which, if they were well around to the southeast or
south-southeast, would necessitate our sliding off toward
south-southwest), we should have to hold to the eastward, north of the
Line, and north of the southeast trades, until we gained at least 128°
west longitude.
I have forgotten to mention that the seventy-horse-power gasolene
engine, as usual, was not working, and that we could depend upon wind
alone. Neither was the launch engine working. And while I am about it,
I may as well confess that the five-horse-power, which ran the lights,
fans, and pumps, was also on the sick-list. A striking title for a book
haunts me, waking and sleeping. I should like to write that book some
day and to call it “Around the World with Three Gasolene Engines and a
Wife.” But I am afraid I shall not write it, for fear of hurting the
feelings of some of the young gentlemen of San Francisco, Honolulu, and
Hilo, who learned their trades at the expense of the _Snark’s_ engines.
It looked easy on paper. Here was Hilo and there was our objective,
128° west longitude. With the northeast trade blowing we could travel a
straight line between the two points, and even slack our sheets off a
goodly bit. But one of the chief troubles with the trades is that one
never knows just where he will pick them up and just in what direction
they will be blowing. We picked up the northeast trade right outside of
Hilo harbour, but the miserable breeze was away around into the east.
Then there was the north equatorial current setting westward like a
mighty river. Furthermore, a small boat, by the wind and bucking into a
big headsea, does not work to advantage. She jogs up and down and gets
nowhere. Her sails are full and straining, every little while she
presses her lee-rail under, she flounders, and bumps, and splashes, and
that is all. Whenever she begins to gather way, she runs ker-chug into
a big mountain of water and is brought to a standstill. So, with the
_Snark_, the resultant of her smallness, of the trade around into the
east, and of the strong equatorial current, was a long sag south. Oh,
she did not go quite south. But the easting she made was distressing.
On October 11, she made forty miles easting; October 12, fifteen miles;
October 13, no easting; October 14, thirty miles; October 15,
twenty-three miles; October 16, eleven miles; and on October 17, she
actually went to the westward four miles. Thus, in a week she made one
hundred and fifteen miles easting, which was equivalent to sixteen
miles a day. But, between the longitude of Hilo and 128° west longitude
is a difference of twenty-seven degrees, or, roughly, sixteen hundred
miles. At sixteen miles a day, one hundred days would be required to
accomplish this distance. And even then, our objective, 128° west
longitude, was five degrees north of the Line, while Nuka-hiva, in the
Marquesas, lay nine degrees south of the Line and twelve degrees to the
west!
There remained only one thing to do—to work south out of the trade and
into the variables. It is true that Captain Bruce found no variables on
his traverse, and that he “never could make easting on either tack.” It
was the variables or nothing with us, and we prayed for better luck
than he had had. The variables constitute the belt of ocean lying
between the trades and the doldrums, and are conjectured to be the
draughts of heated air which rise in the doldrums, flow high in the air
counter to the trades, and gradually sink down till they fan the
surface of the ocean where they are found. And they are found where
they are found; for they are wedged between the trades and the
doldrums, which same shift their territory from day to day and month to
month.
We found the variables in 11° north latitude, and 11° north latitude we
hugged jealously. To the south lay the doldrums. To the north lay the
northeast trade that refused to blow from the northeast. The days came
and went, and always they found the _Snark_ somewhere near the eleventh
parallel. The variables were truly variable. A light head-wind would
die away and leave us rolling in a calm for forty-eight hours. Then a
light head-wind would spring up, blow for three hours, and leave us
rolling in another calm for forty-eight hours. Then—hurrah!—the wind
would come out of the west, fresh, beautifully fresh, and send the
_Snark_ along, wing and wing, her wake bubbling, the log-line straight
astern. At the end of half an hour, while we were preparing to set the
spinnaker, with a few sickly gasps the wind would die away. And so it
went. We wagered optimistically on every favourable fan of air that
lasted over five minutes; but it never did any good. The fans faded out
just the same.
But there were exceptions. In the variables, if you wait long enough,
something is bound to happen, and we were so plentifully stocked with
food and water that we could afford to wait. On October 26, we actually
made one hundred and three miles of easting, and we talked about it for
days afterwards. Once we caught a moderate gale from the south, which
blew itself out in eight hours, but it helped us to seventy-one miles
of easting in that particular twenty-four hours. And then, just as it
was expiring, the wind came straight out from the north (the directly
opposite quarter), and fanned us along over another degree of easting.
In years and years no sailing vessel has attempted this traverse, and
we found ourselves in the midst of one of the loneliest of the Pacific
solitudes. In the sixty days we were crossing it we sighted no sail,
lifted no steamer’s smoke above the horizon. A disabled vessel could
drift in this deserted expanse for a dozen generations, and there would
be no rescue. The only chance of rescue would be from a vessel like the
_Snark_, and the _Snark_ happened to be there principally because of
the fact that the traverse had been begun before the particular
paragraph in the sailing directions had been read. Standing upright on
deck, a straight line drawn from the eye to the horizon would measure
three miles and a half. Thus, seven miles was the diameter of the
circle of the sea in which we had our centre. Since we remained always
in the centre, and since we constantly were moving in some direction,
we looked upon many circles. But all circles looked alike. No tufted
islets, gray headlands, nor glistening patches of white canvas ever
marred the symmetry of that unbroken curve. Clouds came and went,
rising up over the rim of the circle, flowing across the space of it,
and spilling away and down across the opposite rim.
The world faded as the procession of the weeks marched by. The world
faded until at last there ceased to be any world except the little
world of the _Snark_, freighted with her seven souls and floating on
the expanse of the waters. Our memories of the world, the great world,
became like dreams of former lives we had lived somewhere before we
came to be born on the _Snark_. After we had been out of fresh
vegetables for some time, we mentioned such things in much the same way
I have heard my father mention the vanished apples of his boyhood. Man
is a creature of habit, and we on the _Snark_ had got the habit of the
_Snark_. Everything about her and aboard her was as a matter of course,
and anything different would have been an irritation and an offence.
There was no way by which the great world could intrude. Our bell rang
the hours, but no caller ever rang it. There were no guests to dinner,
no telegrams, no insistent telephone jangles invading our privacy. We
had no engagements to keep, no trains to catch, and there were no
morning newspapers over which to waste time in learning what was
happening to our fifteen hundred million other fellow-creatures.
But it was not dull. The affairs of our little world had to be
regulated, and, unlike the great world, our world had to be steered in
its journey through space. Also, there were cosmic disturbances to be
encountered and baffled, such as do not afflict the big earth in its
frictionless orbit through the windless void. And we never knew, from
moment to moment, what was going to happen next. There were spice and
variety enough and to spare. Thus, at four in the morning, I relieve
Hermann at the wheel.
“East-northeast,” he gives me the course. “She’s eight points off, but
she ain’t steering.”
Small wonder. The vessel does not exist that can be steered in so
absolute a calm.
“I had a breeze a little while ago—maybe it will come back again,”
Hermann says hopefully, ere he starts forward to the cabin and his
bunk.
The mizzen is in and fast furled. In the night, what of the roll and
the absence of wind, it had made life too hideous to be permitted to go
on rasping at the mast, smashing at the tackles, and buffeting the
empty air into hollow outbursts of sound. But the big mainsail is still
on, and the staysail, jib, and flying-jib are snapping and slashing at
their sheets with every roll. Every star is out. Just for luck I put
the wheel hard over in the opposite direction to which it had been left
by Hermann, and I lean back and gaze up at the stars. There is nothing
else for me to do. There is nothing to be done with a sailing vessel
rolling in a stark calm.
Then I feel a fan on my cheek, faint, so faint, that I can just sense
it ere it is gone. But another comes, and another, until a real and
just perceptible breeze is blowing. How the _Snark’s_ sails manage to
feel it is beyond me, but feel it they do, as she does as well, for the
compass card begins slowly to revolve in the binnacle. In reality, it
is not revolving at all. It is held by terrestrial magnetism in one
place, and it is the _Snark_ that is revolving, pivoted upon that
delicate cardboard device that floats in a closed vessel of alcohol.
So the _Snark_ comes back on her course. The breath increases to a tiny
puff. The _Snark_ feels the weight of it and actually heels over a
trifle. There is flying scud overhead, and I notice the stars being
blotted out. Walls of darkness close in upon me, so that, when the last
star is gone, the darkness is so near that it seems I can reach out and
touch it on every side. When I lean toward it, I can feel it loom
against my face. Puff follows puff, and I am glad the mizzen is furled.
Phew! that was a stiff one! The _Snark_ goes over and down until her
lee-rail is buried and the whole Pacific Ocean is pouring in. Four or
five of these gusts make me wish that the jib and flying-jib were in.
The sea is picking up, the gusts are growing stronger and more
frequent, and there is a splatter of wet in the air. There is no use in
attempting to gaze to windward. The wall of blackness is within arm’s
length. Yet I cannot help attempting to see and gauge the blows that
are being struck at the _Snark_. There is something ominous and
menacing up there to windward, and I have a feeling that if I look long
enough and strong enough, I shall divine it. Futile feeling. Between
two gusts I leave the wheel and run forward to the cabin companionway,
where I light matches and consult the barometer. “29-90” it reads. That
sensitive instrument refuses to take notice of the disturbance which is
humming with a deep, throaty voice in the rigging. I get back to the
wheel just in time to meet another gust, the strongest yet. Well,
anyway, the wind is abeam and the _Snark_ is on her course, eating up
easting. That at least is well.
The jib and flying-jib bother me, and I wish they were in. She would
make easier weather of it, and less risky weather likewise. The wind
snorts, and stray raindrops pelt like birdshot. I shall certainly have
to call all hands, I conclude; then conclude the next instant to hang
on a little longer. Maybe this is the end of it, and I shall have
called them for nothing. It is better to let them sleep. I hold the
_Snark_ down to her task, and from out of the darkness, at right
angles, comes a deluge of rain accompanied by shrieking wind. Then
everything eases except the blackness, and I rejoice in that I have not
called the men.
No sooner does the wind ease than the sea picks up. The combers are
breaking now, and the boat is tossing like a cork. Then out of the
blackness the gusts come harder and faster than before. If only I knew
what was up there to windward in the blackness! The _Snark_ is making
heavy weather of it, and her lee-rail is buried oftener than not. More
shrieks and snorts of wind. Now, if ever, is the time to call the men.
I _will_ call them, I resolve. Then there is a burst of rain, a
slackening of the wind, and I do not call. But it is rather lonely,
there at the wheel, steering a little world through howling blackness.
It is quite a responsibility to be all alone on the surface of a little
world in time of stress, doing the thinking for its sleeping
inhabitants. I recoil from the responsibility as more gusts begin to
strike and as a sea licks along the weather rail and splashes over into
the cockpit. The salt water seems strangely warm to my body and is shot
through with ghostly nodules of phosphorescent light. I shall surely
call all hands to shorten sail. Why should they sleep? I am a fool to
have any compunctions in the matter. My intellect is arrayed against my
heart. It was my heart that said, “Let them sleep.” Yes, but it was my
intellect that backed up my heart in that judgment. Let my intellect
then reverse the judgment; and, while I am speculating as to what
particular entity issued that command to my intellect, the gusts die
away. Solicitude for mere bodily comfort has no place in practical
seamanship, I conclude sagely; but study the feel of the next series of
gusts and do not call the men. After all, it _is_ my intellect, behind
everything, procrastinating, measuring its knowledge of what the
_Snark_ can endure against the blows being struck at her, and waiting
the call of all hands against the striking of still severer blows.
Daylight, gray and violent, steals through the cloud-pall and shows a
foaming sea that flattens under the weight of recurrent and increasing
squalls. Then comes the rain, filling the windy valleys of the sea with
milky smoke and further flattening the waves, which but wait for the
easement of wind and rain to leap more wildly than before. Come the men
on deck, their sleep out, and among them Hermann, his face on the broad
grin in appreciation of the breeze of wind I have picked up. I turn the
wheel over to Warren and start to go below, pausing on the way to
rescue the galley stovepipe which has gone adrift. I am barefooted, and
my toes have had an excellent education in the art of clinging; but, as
the rail buries itself in a green sea, I suddenly sit down on the
streaming deck. Hermann good-naturedly elects to question my selection
of such a spot. Then comes the next roll, and he sits down, suddenly,
and without premeditation. The _Snark_ heels over and down, the rail
takes it green, and Hermann and I, clutching the precious stove-pipe,
are swept down into the lee-scuppers. After that I finish my journey
below, and while changing my clothes grin with satisfaction—the _Snark_
is making easting.
No, it is not all monotony. When we had worried along our easting to
126° west longitude, we left the variables and headed south through the
doldrums, where was much calm weather and where, taking advantage of
every fan of air, we were often glad to make a score of miles in as
many hours. And yet, on such a day, we might pass through a dozen
squalls and be surrounded by dozens more. And every squall was to be
regarded as a bludgeon capable of crushing the _Snark_. We were struck
sometimes by the centres and sometimes by the sides of these squalls,
and we never knew just where or how we were to be hit. The squall that
rose up, covering half the heavens, and swept down upon us, as likely
as not split into two squalls which passed us harmlessly on either side
while the tiny, innocent looking squall that appeared to carry no more
than a hogshead of water and a pound of wind, would abruptly assume
cyclopean proportions, deluging us with rain and overwhelming us with
wind. Then there were treacherous squalls that went boldly astern and
sneaked back upon us from a mile to leeward. Again, two squalls would
tear along, one on each side of us, and we would get a fillip from each
of them. Now a gale certainly grows tiresome after a few hours, but
squalls never. The thousandth squall in one’s experience is as
interesting as the first one, and perhaps a bit more so. It is the tyro
who has no apprehension of them. The man of a thousand squalls respects
a squall. He knows what they are.
It was in the doldrums that our most exciting event occurred. On
November 20, we discovered that through an accident we had lost over
one-half of the supply of fresh water that remained to us. Since we
were at that time forty-three days out from Hilo, our supply of fresh
water was not large. To lose over half of it was a catastrophe. On
close allowance, the remnant of water we possessed would last twenty
days. But we were in the doldrums; there was no telling where the
southeast trades were, nor where we would pick them up.
The handcuffs were promptly put upon the pump, and once a day the water
was portioned out. Each of us received a quart for personal use, and
eight quarts were given to the cook. Enters now the psychology of the
situation. No sooner had the discovery of the water shortage been made
than I, for one, was afflicted with a burning thirst. It seemed to me
that I had never been so thirsty in my life. My little quart of water I
could easily have drunk in one draught, and to refrain from doing so
required a severe exertion of will. Nor was I alone in this. All of us
talked water, thought water, and dreamed water when we slept. We
examined the charts for possible islands to which to run in extremity,
but there were no such islands. The Marquesas were the nearest, and
they were the other side of the Line, and of the doldrums, too, which
made it even worse. We were in 3° north latitude, while the Marquesas
were 9° south latitude—a difference of over a thousand miles.
Furthermore, the Marquesas lay some fourteen degrees to the west of our
longitude. A pretty pickle for a handful of creatures sweltering on the
ocean in the heat of tropic calms.
We rigged lines on either side between the main and mizzen riggings. To
these we laced the big deck awning, hoisting it up aft with a sailing
pennant so that any rain it might collect would run forward where it
could be caught. Here and there squalls passed across the circle of the
sea. All day we watched them, now to port or starboard, and again ahead
or astern. But never one came near enough to wet us. In the afternoon a
big one bore down upon us. It spread out across the ocean as it
approached, and we could see it emptying countless thousands of gallons
into the salt sea. Extra attention was paid to the awning and then we
waited. Warren, Martin, and Hermann made a vivid picture. Grouped
together, holding on to the rigging, swaying to the roll, they were
gazing intently at the squall. Strain, anxiety, and yearning were in
every posture of their bodies. Beside them was the dry and empty
awning. But they seemed to grow limp and to droop as the squall broke
in half, one part passing on ahead, the other drawing astern and going
to leeward.
But that night came rain. Martin, whose psychological thirst had
compelled him to drink his quart of water early, got his mouth down to
the lip of the awning and drank the deepest draught I ever have seen
drunk. The precious water came down in bucketfuls and tubfuls, and in
two hours we caught and stored away in the tanks one hundred and twenty
gallons. Strange to say, in all the rest of our voyage to the Marquesas
not another drop of rain fell on board. If that squall had missed us,
the handcuffs would have remained on the pump, and we would have busied
ourselves with utilizing our surplus gasolene for distillation
purposes.
Then there was the fishing. One did not have to go in search of it, for
it was there at the rail. A three-inch steel hook, on the end of a
stout line, with a piece of white rag for bait, was all that was
necessary to catch bonitas weighing from ten to twenty-five pounds.
Bonitas feed on flying-fish, wherefore they are unaccustomed to
nibbling at the hook. They strike as gamely as the gamest fish in the
sea, and their first run is something that no man who has ever caught
them will forget. Also, bonitas are the veriest cannibals. The instant
one is hooked he is attacked by his fellows. Often and often we hauled
them on board with fresh, clean-bitten holes in them the size of
teacups.
One school of bonitas, numbering many thousands, stayed with us day and
night for more than three weeks. Aided by the _Snark_, it was great
hunting; for they cut a swath of destruction through the ocean half a
mile wide and fifteen hundred miles in length. They ranged along
abreast of the _Snark_ on either side, pouncing upon the flying-fish
her forefoot scared up. Since they were continually pursuing astern the
flying-fish that survived for several flights, they were always
overtaking the _Snark_, and at any time one could glance astern and on
the front of a breaking wave see scores of their silvery forms coasting
down just under the surface. When they had eaten their fill, it was
their delight to get in the shadow of the boat, or of her sails, and a
hundred or so were always to be seen lazily sliding along and keeping
cool.
But the poor flying-fish! Pursued and eaten alive by the bonitas and
dolphins, they sought flight in the air, where the swooping seabirds
drove them back into the water. Under heaven there was no refuge for
them. Flying-fish do not play when they essay the air. It is a
life-and-death affair with them. A thousand times a day we could lift
our eyes and see the tragedy played out. The swift, broken circling of
a guny might attract one’s attention. A glance beneath shows the back
of a dolphin breaking the surface in a wild rush. Just in front of its
nose a shimmering palpitant streak of silver shoots from the water into
the air—a delicate, organic mechanism of flight, endowed with
sensation, power of direction, and love of life. The guny swoops for it
and misses, and the flying-fish, gaining its altitude by rising,
kite-like, against the wind, turns in a half-circle and skims off to
leeward, gliding on the bosom of the wind. Beneath it, the wake of the
dolphin shows in churning foam. So he follows, gazing upward with large
eyes at the flashing breakfast that navigates an element other than his
own. He cannot rise to so lofty occasion, but he is a thorough-going
empiricist, and he knows, sooner or later, if not gobbled up by the
guny, that the flying-fish must return to the water. And
then—breakfast. We used to pity the poor winged fish. It was sad to see
such sordid and bloody slaughter. And then, in the night watches, when
a forlorn little flying-fish struck the mainsail and fell gasping and
splattering on the deck, we would rush for it just as eagerly, just as
greedily, just as voraciously, as the dolphins and bonitas. For know
that flying-fish are most toothsome for breakfast. It is always a
wonder to me that such dainty meat does not build dainty tissue in the
bodies of the devourers. Perhaps the dolphins and bonitas are
coarser-fibred because of the high speed at which they drive their
bodies in order to catch their prey. But then again, the flying-fish
drive their bodies at high speed, too.
Sharks we caught occasionally, on large hooks, with chain-swivels, bent
on a length of small rope. And sharks meant pilot-fish, and remoras,
and various sorts of parasitic creatures. Regular man-eaters some of
the sharks proved, tiger-eyed and with twelve rows of teeth,
razor-sharp. By the way, we of the _Snark_ are agreed that we have
eaten many fish that will not compare with baked shark smothered in
tomato dressing. In the calms we occasionally caught a fish called
“haké” by the Japanese cook. And once, on a spoon-hook trolling a
hundred yards astern, we caught a snake-like fish, over three feet in
length and not more than three inches in diameter, with four fangs in
his jaw. He proved the most delicious fish—delicious in meat and
flavour—that we have ever eaten on board.
The most welcome addition to our larder was a green sea-turtle,
weighing a full hundred pounds and appearing on the table most
appetizingly in steaks, soups, and stews, and finally in a wonderful
curry which tempted all hands into eating more rice than was good for
them. The turtle was sighted to windward, calmly sleeping on the
surface in the midst of a huge school of curious dolphins. It was a
deep-sea turtle of a surety, for the nearest land was a thousand miles
away. We put the _Snark_ about and went back for him, Hermann driving
the granes into his head and neck. When hauled aboard, numerous remora
were clinging to his shell, and out of the hollows at the roots of his
flippers crawled several large crabs. It did not take the crew of the
_Snark_ longer than the next meal to reach the unanimous conclusion
that it would willingly put the _Snark_ about any time for a turtle.
But it is the dolphin that is the king of deep-sea fishes. Never is his
colour twice quite the same. Swimming in the sea, an ethereal creature
of palest azure, he displays in that one guise a miracle of colour. But
it is nothing compared with the displays of which he is capable. At one
time he will appear green—pale green, deep green, phosphorescent green;
at another time blue—deep blue, electric blue, all the spectrum of
blue. Catch him on a hook, and he turns to gold, yellow gold, all gold.
Haul him on deck, and he excels the spectrum, passing through
inconceivable shades of blues, greens, and yellows, and then, suddenly,
turning a ghostly white, in the midst of which are bright blue spots,
and you suddenly discover that he is speckled like a trout. Then back
from white he goes, through all the range of colours, finally turning
to a mother-of-pearl.
For those who are devoted to fishing, I can recommend no finer sport
than catching dolphin. Of course, it must be done on a thin line with
reel and pole. A No. 7, O’Shaughnessy tarpon hook is just the thing,
baited with an entire flying-fish. Like the bonita, the dolphin’s fare
consists of flying-fish, and he strikes like lightning at the bait. The
first warning is when the reel screeches and you see the line smoking
out at right angles to the boat. Before you have time to entertain
anxiety concerning the length of your line, the fish rises into the air
in a succession of leaps. Since he is quite certain to be four feet
long or over, the sport of landing so gamey a fish can be realized.
When hooked, he invariably turns golden. The idea of the series of
leaps is to rid himself of the hook, and the man who has made the
strike must be of iron or decadent if his heart does not beat with an
extra flutter when he beholds such gorgeous fish, glittering in golden
mail and shaking itself like a stallion in each mid-air leap. ’Ware
slack! If you don’t, on one of those leaps the hook will be flung out
and twenty feet away. No slack, and away he will go on another run,
culminating in another series of leaps. About this time one begins to
worry over the line, and to wish that he had had nine hundred feet on
the reel originally instead of six hundred. With careful playing the
line can be saved, and after an hour of keen excitement the fish can be
brought to gaff. One such dolphin I landed on the _Snark_ measured four
feet and seven inches.
Hermann caught dolphins more prosaically. A hand-line and a chunk of
shark-meat were all he needed. His hand-line was very thick, but on
more than one occasion it parted and lost the fish. One day a dolphin
got away with a lure of Hermann’s manufacture, to which were lashed
four O’Shaughnessy hooks. Within an hour the same dolphin was landed
with the rod, and on dissecting him the four hooks were recovered. The
dolphins, which remained with us over a month, deserted us north of the
line, and not one was seen during the remainder of the traverse.
So the days passed. There was so much to be done that time never
dragged. Had there been little to do, time could not have dragged with
such wonderful seascapes and cloudscapes—dawns that were like burning
imperial cities under rainbows that arched nearly to the zenith;
sunsets that bathed the purple sea in rivers of rose-coloured light,
flowing from a sun whose diverging, heaven-climbing rays were of the
purest blue. Overside, in the heat of the day, the sea was an azure
satiny fabric, in the depths of which the sunshine focussed in funnels
of light. Astern, deep down, when there was a breeze, bubbled a
procession of milky-turquoise ghosts—the foam flung down by the hull of
the _Snark_ each time she floundered against a sea. At night the wake
was phosphorescent fire, where the medusa slime resented our passing
bulk, while far down could be observed the unceasing flight of comets,
with long, undulating, nebulous tails—caused by the passage of the
bonitas through the resentful medusa slime. And now and again, from out
of the darkness on either hand, just under the surface, larger
phosphorescent organisms flashed up like electric lights, marking
collisions with the careless bonitas skurrying ahead to the good
hunting just beyond our bowsprit.
We made our easting, worked down through the doldrums, and caught a
fresh breeze out of south-by-west. Hauled up by the wind, on such a
slant, we would fetch past the Marquesas far away to the westward. But
the next day, on Tuesday, November 26, in the thick of a heavy squall,
the wind shifted suddenly to the southeast. It was the trade at last.
There were no more squalls, naught but fine weather, a fair wind, and a
whirling log, with sheets slacked off and with spinnaker and mainsail
swaying and bellying on either side. The trade backed more and more,
until it blew out of the northeast, while we steered a steady course to
the southwest. Ten days of this, and on the morning of December 6, at
five o’clock, we sighted land “just where it ought to have been,” dead
ahead. We passed to leeward of Ua-huka, skirted the southern edge of
Nuka-hiva, and that night, in driving squalls and inky darkness, fought
our way in to an anchorage in the narrow bay of Taiohae. The anchor
rumbled down to the blatting of wild goats on the cliffs, and the air
we breathed was heavy with the perfume of flowers. The traverse was
accomplished. Sixty days from land to land, across a lonely sea above
whose horizons never rise the straining sails of ships.