[Illustration: A QUIET INLET ON THE COAST OF SAMOA]
IN THE
TRACKS OF THE TRADES
THE ACCOUNT OF A FOURTEEN THOUSAND
MILE YACHTING CRUISE TO THE HAWAIIS,
MARQUESAS, SOCIETIES, SAMOAS AND FIJIS
BY
LEWIS R. FREEMAN
Author of "Many Fronts," "Stories of the Ships,"
"Sea-Hounds," "To Kiel in
the 'Hercules.'"
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
BY THE AUTHOR
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920,
BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY
BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK
TO
THE MEMORY OF
'THE COMMODORE'
THE LATE H. H. SINCLAIR
"THE TRACKS OF THE TRADES"
Take me back, take me back to the Tracks of the Trade!
Let me wander again in the coco palms' shade,
Where the drums of the ocean, in pulsating roar,
Beat time for the waltz of the waves on the shore;
Where sunlight and starlight and moonlight conspire
To speed the gay hours on the Wings of Desire;
Let me clamber again through the orchid-bright glade--
Take me back, take me back to the Tracks of the Trade!
Oh, the hot flame of sunset, the tremulous light
When the afterglow fades to the velvet of night!
The star-stencilled headland in blank silhouette
Where the moonbeams are meshed in the flamboyant's net!
Oh, the purple of midnight, the grey mists of dawn,
And the amber flood after the darkness has gone!
The slow-heaving ocean of gold-spangled jade,
When the sun wakes the day in the Tracks of the Trade!
Let my heart thrill again as the tom-tom's dull boom
Floats out from the bush in the flower-fragrant gloom,
And the shriek of the conches, the _hi-mi-ne's_ swell,
Brings word of the feast in the depths of the dell.
Lead my footsteps again to that forest crypt dim,
Where firelight throws shadows on bosom and limb
Of the billowing forms of the trim tropic maids,
When the song wakes the dance in the Tracks of the Trades!
Let my hands close again on the hard-kicking wheel,
As the schooner romps off on a rollicking reel,
To the humming of back-stay and sharp-slatting sail,
And the hiss of the comber that smothers the rail.
Oh, the cadenced lament of the chorusing shroud,
As the spindrift sweeps aft in a feathery cloud!
Oh, the storm-tumbled sea-ways traversed unafraid,
As the squalls spin the spume down the Tracks of the Trade!
Take me back, take me back to the Tracks of the Trade!
For 'tis weary I am of the city's parade,
Of the dust of the traffic, the grey cheerless skies,
And the long lines of people with spiritless eyes.
Take me back to my green sunny islands again,
Away from this treadmill of sorrow and pain,
Away from this tinsel and gilt masquerade--
Let me live, let me die in the Tracks of the Trade!
L. R. F.
Pasadena,
July, 1920.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I SAN PEDRO TO HILO AND HONOLULU 1
II HONOLULU TO TAIO-HAIE 26
III THE MARQUESAS TODAY 52
IV HUNTING IN THE MARQUESAS 72
V THE PASSION PLAY AT UAHUKA 99
VI TAIO-HAIE TO PAPEETE 110
VII CIRCLING TAHITI 134
VIII SOCIETY IN THE SOCIETIES 151
IX THE SONG AND DANCE IN TAHITI 160
X BY THE ABSINTHE ROUTE 182
XI PAPEETE TO PAGO PAGO 195
XII IN PAGO PAGO BAY 212
XIII SAMOAN CRICKET: FAUGA-SA
V. PAGO PAGO 232
XIV A VISIT TO APIA 246
XV KAVA AND THE SIVA 262
XVI PAGO PAGO TO SUVA 283
XVII IN SUVA AND MBAU 296
XVIII "SHARKS" 320
XIX "HIS WONDERS TO PERFORM" 334
XX SUVA TO HONOLULU 357
XXI HONOLULU TO SAN PEDRO 368
ILLUSTRATIONS
A quiet inlet on the coast of Samoa _Frontispiece_
PAGE
_Lurline_ in drydock before sailing 8
"The Commodore laboriously squinted out his
first sights" 9
"Full-and-by" 9
Waiohae Beach, Island of Hawaii 20
Hula dancer with Eukalele 21
"All of the images were covered with moss" 62
"A hardened old offender who preferred white
man to native meat" 63
The best surviving example of Marquesan
tattooing 68
"Into it were thrown the bones of the victims
after the feast was over" 69
"The part of Christ is taken by a native
called Lurau" 102
Marquesan mother and child 103
"Pontius Pilate has been played for twenty
years by an old chief--a quondam cannibal" 108
"Just in time to respond to his 'cue' in the
John the Baptist tableau" 109
"Hatiheu, the most sublime combination
of mountain, vale and sea that my eyes
have ever rested on" 112
A Marquesan fisherman of Hatiheu 113
Native woman washing on the beach,
Tahiti 158
A Mission bathing suit. Before the
bath--and after 159
The inevitable end of every South Sea
trading schooner 200
A Tahitian couple 201
"A naval station at Pago Pago has placed
the United States, strategically, in the
strongest position in western Polynesia" 214
Chief Tufeli in the uniform of a sergeant
of _Fita-fitas_ 215
Faa-oo-pea, chieftainess of Pago Pago,
making _kava_ 222
Seuka, _taupo_ of Pago Pago, illustrating
a movement in the _Siva_ 223
A Samoan house in the course of
construction 226
"Chief Tufeli came over for the express
purpose of buying the yacht" 227
"Chief Mauga squared away to face the
bowling of Chief Malatoba" 236
To-a, who made the best score for Pago
Pago, facing the bowler 237
"Whirling and yelling like dervishes they
made a circuit of the ground" 244
"A sinewy brown figure starts clambering
up the tree" 245
_Lurline_ at anchor in Bay of Apia, Samoa 250
"The London Missionary Society steamer,
_John Williams_, lay near us" 251
Maid of honour to the _Taupo_ of Apia 258
A Samoan sunset 259
The sitting _Sivas_ are essentially dances
of the arms 274
"Never were seen such arms as in Samoa" 275
Fanua, who danced the swimming _Siva_
by the light of the phosphorescent waves 280
Dancer with head knife 281
Forty years ago the Fijis were in a
complete state of savagery 298
A Fijian head hunting canoe 299
"_Lurline's_ cutter finished a
poor second" 304
"Thakambau's great war canoe, over
a hundred feet in length, formerly
launched over human bodies" 305
Shark on the beach at Mbau 324
Fijian boys boxing 325
Weaving the walls of a Fijian house 342
Interior of a Fijian house, showing
how it is bound together with coco
fibre 343
A Fijian warrior 362
Reefing the mainsail 363
Untying a reef in the mainsail 363
IN THE TRACKS OF THE TRADES
IN THE TRACKS OF THE TRADES
CHAPTER I
SAN PEDRO TO HILO AND HONOLULU
The Weather Bureau, which for several weeks had been issuing bulletins
of the "Possibly Showers" order, came out unequivocally with "Rain" on
the morning of February 4th, and this, no less than the lead-coloured
curtain that veiled the Sierra Madres and the windy shimmers in
the tails of the clouds that went rushing across the zenith before
the gushing east wind, made it plain that the elements, not to be
outdone by our amiable friends, were getting together for a special
demonstration on their own account in honour of _Lurline's_ departure.
The nature of this elemental diversion developed in good time.
Personal good-byes began at the Pasadena station and continued down
through Los Angeles to the San Pedro quay. From there, out through
the inner harbour, bon voyages became general, and from the engineer
of the government dredge, who blew his whistle off with the force of
his farewell toots, to the deck hand on a collier who, in lieu of a
handkerchief, waved the shirt he was washing, everybody took a hand in
the parting demonstration.
Rounding the jetty opposite Deadman's Island, _Lurline_ was sighted
lying a half mile to the westward in the backsweep of the outer bay.
The crew stood at attention as the Commodore, with a score or more
of friends who had come off for a final farewell, stepped aboard,
immediately to turn to stowing the small mountain of hand luggage
which had come off with the launch. Soon visitors began arriving
from the other yachts of the South Coast fleet, and these, reinforced
by several press representatives and a number of shore visitors from
San Pedro, swelled the farewell party to a size that taxed the standing
room capacity of quarter deck and cabin to the utmost.
Just before the sailing hour arrived presentation was made to the
Commodore of a large silver loving cup, and this being filled, each
visitor, ere he stepped down the gangway, proposed some appropriate
toast and drank to a prosperous voyage and safe return.
Meanwhile the sail covers had been removed and the stops cast off, and
as the last of the visitors stepped back aboard their waiting launches,
all hands tailed on to the main throat and peak halyards and the big
sail was smartly hoisted and swayed to place. Foresail, forestay-sail
and jib followed. Finally the anchor, clinging tenaciously to the last
California mud it was destined to hook its flukes into for many months,
was broken out, and, close-hauled on the starboard tack to a light
breeze, _Lurline_ swung off past the breakwater and out of the harbour.
At four o'clock Point Firmin Light, distant five miles, bore N.W. by
W., and at the same hour the barometer, which had risen rapidly since
noon, registered 30.40, about the normal for the southern California
coast. The gentle southerly breeze cleared the western sky toward
evening and a warm hued sunset blazed out in defiance of the
threatening signs of the morning. The yacht slipped easily through
the light swell of the channel, her regular curtesies serving only to
spangle her glossy sides with sparkling drops of brine and to
punctuate her wake at even intervals with swelling knots of foam
like the marks on a trailed sounding line.
"Fairweather sunset," said the mate; "but--" and he finished by shaking
his head dubiously and proceeding to give orders for swinging the boats
inboard and adding extra lashings to the spare spars and water-butts on
the forward deck.
Early in the first watch, and not long after the thin wisp of a new
moon had slipped down behind the jagged peaks of Catalina, the wind
hauled suddenly to the southeast. Blowing with steadily increasing
force, it drove a heavy pall of sooty clouds before it. This, quickly
spreading out across the sky, rendered the night so dark that, beyond
the ghostly reflections from the binnacle lamps, nothing was visible
save the phosphorescent crests of the rapidly rising seas. With this
slant of wind the best that we could do on the starboard tack was dead
east, and this direction was held until the imminent loom of Point San
Juan, and a not-overly-distant roar of breakers, warned us to put about
and head off southwesterly between San Clemente and Catalina.
At midnight the barometer was well below 30, and the wind and sea were
still rising. The mainsail and foresail were single reefed when the
watch came on deck, and while sail was being shortened a heavy sea
came aboard just forward of the beam and crashed through the galley
skylight. The water rushed in with the roar of a miniature Niagara, but
beyond washing the Japanese cook off the transom on which he had
composed himself for sleep and bouncing him against the stove, no
serious harm was done.
At two in the morning, with no abatement of force, the wind went
back to S.S.W., and with Clemente rising darkly ahead the yacht was
again put about. The barometer was down to 29.80, and the half-gale
that met us as we came out from under the lee of the island quickly
made it evident that further shortening of sail was imperative. The
watch was called, and with no little difficulty two more reefs were
tied in the mainsail, bringing it down almost to the proportions of
a storm trysail. The foreboom was being hauled amidships preparatory
to close-reefing the foresail, when a solid wall of green water came
combing over the port bow and swept the deck like an avalanche. One
of the sailors--Gus, a big Swede--who had been bracing a foot against
the lee rail, lost his balance in the sudden lurch and, missing a
frantic clutch at a shroud, went over the side. A rush was made
for the life-buoys, but, before one could be thrown over, the lost
man reappeared, coolly drawing himself in, hand over hand, on the
foresheet, a bight of which he had carried with him in his fall.
"_Mein Gott_, der rain he stop not yet, _hein_!" was his only comment
as he returned to the interrupted attack on the flopping foreboom.
One would have thought that he had been gone ten hours instead of ten
seconds.
After subduing and triple-reefing the threshing foresail the watch
went below, but only to be called again almost immediately to take the
bonnet out of the staysail, a measure made necessary by the fierce
southwesterly squalls which kept winding into the now fully developed
"sou'easter." Finally, as the storm showed no signs of abating, the
forestay-sail was hauled to windward and, head-reaching, the yacht
made good weather of the last hours of the night.
Day broke, cold and cloudy, and showed the bare, brown, rounded hills
of Clemente ten miles distant on the starboard quarter. Towering,
weighty seas, unbroken now by the islands, came charging up out of
the southwest in billowing ranks, but so buoyant was the schooner
under her shortened sail that the grey light of the morning showed the
brine of the last wave that had swept her decks before she was put to
head-reaching spangled in frost-like _repouseé_ along the lee scuppers.
Toward midday the wind shifted suddenly to northwest, and though still
blowing a gale it was deemed best to risk a little more sail in an
endeavour to get away from the islands before night closed down again.
Accordingly, the reefs were shaken out of foresail and forestay-sail,
and under these and a close-reefed mainsail twenty-four miles were
run off in the afternoon watch. At four o'clock, when the barometer
touched its minimum of 29.60, a nasty swell from the northeast, due to
another shifting of the wind, began to make itself felt, and, though
nothing carried away, the vicious twist of the cross surges made so bad
a seaway that we were forced to reef down again and ride out the night
head-reaching in a southwesterly direction.
By morning of the 6th the gale had blown itself out, and at the change
of watch all the reefs were untied and the yacht appeared under all
plain lower sail for the first time since the evening of departure.
Toward noon the clouds began to break up and let filter through
streaks of pale sunlight to dapple the olive-green hollows of the sea
with vagrant patches of golden yellow. The chill of the air gradually
melted away as the day advanced, and the opportunity to open
skylights and portholes was warmly welcomed by the Mater and
Claribel who had been kept to the cabin for nearly two days. A couple
of the light sails were set at noon and carried until a heavy squall,
working around from the northwest just before dark, was responsible
for sending them down by the run. The runs to noon of the 5th and 6th,
respectively, were sixty-three and ninety miles, in a course that
approximated W.S.W.
Fair weather and light breezes were taken advantage of on the morning
of the 7th to install a much-needed safety device in the form of a wire
rail run all the way round the yacht at a height of eighteen inches
above the main rail, a precaution the imperative necessity of which had
been shown when one of the sailors had been thrown overboard during
the storm. The yacht's rail, only two feet in height, while of some
protection at the bows and stern, was almost useless amidships, where
the deckhouse, separated from it by only a narrow passage, rose to an
equal height. Three-quarter inch steel stanchions were set at intervals
of eight feet along the rail, and through these a quarter-inch wire
cable was run. The stanchions were fastened by a bolt on the under side
of the rail in such a manner as to be easily removed, thus permitting
the whole affair to be expeditiously taken down and stowed while in
port. This simple and inexpensive precaution proved of incalculable
value in insuring the safety of the decks on stormy nights, a
usefulness which was put to the test many times in the course of the
months that followed.
Clearing skies and a smoothing sea on the third day out brought the
Mater and Claribel--two pathetic bundles of rugs--up on deck, where the
sun and fresh air began the slow task of reviving in them an interest
in life. All day they drooped in hollow-eyed wretchedness with their
white faces turned toward the paradise of a terra firma beyond the
eastern horizon which every moment was receding farther away. Through
all of the bright noontide and the sparkling afternoon they kept their
ceaseless vigil, and even when twilight came, with a freshening wind
and heavier seas, they still refused to go below. Day and night were
all the same to them now, they said. An hour later a black-visaged
squall came boring down out of the night ahead, and the raindrops and
the driving spray began to drum a duet to the accompaniment of the
rising blasts of the wind.
"You'll be shivering with cold before long if you stay here,"
admonished the Commodore gently; "best get up and go below now."
"There is no heat or cold any more," one muttered listlessly, and they
both drew their rugs closer and curled the tighter into the curve of
the transoms.
A high-headed maverick of a comber came crashing over the weather rail
and swept the muffled figures into a vortex of spinning foam where a
ton of green water washed about the cockpit. We sprang to help them,
but they only shuddered resignedly back into the wash of the clearing
scuppers and disdained to move.
"You're both soaking wet," protested the Commodore; "please go below
now and get into some dry clothes."
"There is no wet nor dry any more," bubbled the starboard bundle; "let
us alone."
"A wave like that last one has been known to kill a strong man,"
ventured the Commodore weakly, at his wit's end for an argument that
would have some effect. "Here's another coming now. Please--"
"There is no life nor death any more," broke in a sputter from the port
bundle; "and even if there was we wouldn't--"
We picked up the two dripping bundles and bore them gently below just
as a second comber, running wildly amuck, banged its head off against
the rail and turned the cockpit into another maelstrom.
Save for shortening periods of introspective languor induced by whiffs
from the galley or the clink of dishes, matters were better the next
day, and the day following the sufferers were sufficiently revived
to begin unpacking and--as they called it--"putting things trig and
shipshape below." After that things began falling into the even
routine which, save for its occasional disturbance in stormy weather,
characterized our life at sea to the end of the voyage. But there never
came a time when, for the Mater and Claribel, the first three or four
days out of port did not hold the menace of that chaotic state in which
there was no night or day, heat or cold, wetness or dryness, and in
which if there was to have been a choosing between life and death the
latter would have been the less bitter portion. A Pacific yachting
cruise is not all an idyllic pleasaunce to the _mal-de-mer_ subject, for
the ocean which has not been pacific for many hours at a time since
the day it was discovered and christened does not temper its moods
for the small craft.
[Illustration: _Lurline_ IN DRYDOCK BEFORE
SAILING]
[Illustration: "THE COMMODORE LABORIOUSLY
SQUINTED OUT HIS FIRST SIGHTS"]
[Illustration: "FULL-AND-BY"]
In spite of restricted quarters, the days which followed seemed never
long enough to do all we laid out for them. The Commodore was the
busiest of us. To him it became evident before we were fairly out of
sight of land that his pleasure cruise was going to have to be enjoyed
to the accompaniment of a lot of hard work, for _Lurline's_ former
sailing master--whom he had shipped as mate and whom he subsequently
let go in Honolulu--was absolutely incompetent as a navigator and only
fairly so in the actual sailing of the yacht. This came as a very
disconcerting surprise, for the man had been well recommended, and
his incompetence meant that all of the work--to say nothing of the
responsibility--of navigating the yacht through some of the stormiest
and worst charted latitudes of the Seven Seas was to be thrown on the
Commodore, whose deep-sea sailoring had been confined to a voyage
around the Horn on a clipper when he was in his teens.
I have still a vivid mind picture of the Commodore when, after he had
laboriously squinted out his first sights and was ready to try to
figure the position of the yacht, he disappeared into his cabin behind
an armful of tables and books on navigation and slammed and locked the
door. The iterated luncheon call elicited only a grunt of impatience
from the depths of the sanctum, and likewise the summons to tea and
dinner. The Mater's timid knocking at bedtime brought no answer at all,
and we were gathered in perplexed colloquy on deck as to what the next
move would be, when a booming "Got it!" thundered out from the locked
cabin, and a moment later the door was burst open by a pajama-clad
figure, waving a slip of paper above its towel-bound head.
"Observation checks Dead-reckoning at last," cried the Commodore. "Give
me some dinner."
Between mouthfuls he explained to us that the first time he worked
out the sights they showed the yacht to be somewhere in Tibet. All
the rest of the morning she kept turning up in various parts of Asia,
Africa, Australia and Europe, the only time she was in the water being
after a reckoning which gave the latitude and longitude of Victoria
Nyanza. Shortly after noon the figuring in of some allowances hitherto
neglected jumped the elusive craft into the Western Hemisphere, but as
near as might be to a perch on the summit of Aconcagua. Tea time had
her in the Klondike, and several other Canadian points were visited
before Nebraska was reached at the call for dinner. An hour later she
was actually in the Pacific, but floundering helplessly off the coast
of Peru, from where she worked north in an encouraging fashion until a
sudden jump landed her in the Colorado desert. She was perilously near
being stranded on Catalina at the end of the second dog-watch, and it
was the reckoning after this one--magnetic variation and a few other
essentials being finally included--that checked with the Dead-reckoning
and put the poor wanderer where she belonged. Day by day, navigation
became simpler work after that titanic struggle, until, the morning we
sighted the island of Hawaii, I saw the Commodore take and work out in
ten minutes an observation which told him in which direction the
harbour of Hilo was located.
Besides navigating and directing the sailing of the yacht, the
Commodore always stood one of the night watches and at other times
held himself ready to appear on deck at any emergency. It was a stiff
undertaking, having suddenly to face the prospect of eight or ten
months of day and night work on a small schooner in the treacherous
South Pacific; but the Commodore buckled down to it with the enthusiasm
of a youngster and carried it through with flying colours, as will be
seen.
My own work was confined to the nominal duties of Volunteer Weather
Observer for the U. S. Hydrographic Office,--a branch of the Bureau
of Equipment of the Navy--occasional tricks at the wheel, and falling
into line now and then at the tail of a sheet or halyard when "all
hands and the cook" failed to muster sufficient power amongst them.
As Weather Observer I became for eight months a small cog in the very
comprehensive system by which the Hydrographic Office is gathering data
on currents, winds, clouds, waves, storms, temperatures, etc., from
all of the sailed-in sea-ways of the world to assist in perfecting
its monthly weather charts on which--as the result of the accumulated
observations of many years--the probable meteorological conditions
likely to prevail at any given point are recorded. Twice a day I took
the temperature of the air and water, recorded the direction and
force of the wind--the latter on a scale of 1 to 10, from a calm to
a full gale--the set and height of the seas, and on a circular chart
of the heavens indicated which of the various kinds of clouds--nimbus,
cirrus, cumulus, etc.--prevailed at the time in each of the twelve
divisions into which it was divided. The difference between the
position of the yacht by Dead-reckoning--that is, figured by the log
and compass--and the position by Observation gave the direction
and speed of the ocean current at that point. These data were set
down in a little booklet, containing a page for each day of the month,
which, when filled, was mailed to the San Francisco branch of the
Hydrographic Office. (The monthly weather charts for the Pacific, with
which we had been supplied through the courtesy of this office, proved
most valuable for those latitudes which were crossed by regular trade
routes, and in which, as a consequence, comprehensive observations
extending over some years had been taken; but in the little-sailed
latitudes of the South Pacific--many stretches of which are still
unploughed by a keel for years at a time--they were, naturally,
fragmentary and of little practical use.)
We often have been asked if time did not hang very heavily on our hands
in the long, unbroken fifteen, twenty and even thirty day intervals
between ports. Perhaps this will be as good a place as any to answer
that question. For the Commodore and myself I will register an emphatic
"No," while a partial list of the activities of the ladies, will, I
think, answer for the balance of the passengers.
In comparison with Claribel, once those dreadful spells of post-departure
indisposition had trailed away into bad memories, every one on the
yacht--not excepting the cook and the Commodore--was a drone and
loafer. Her quenchless energy found expression in musical, linguistic,
literary, culinary and manual activities throughout the voyage. A guitar
and a banjo held the boards to Hawaii, where a _eukelele_ was
annexed and mastered, after which, group by group and island by island,
every form of native musical instrument from hollow-tree tom-toms and
war conches to coco shell rattles and shark's hide tambourines was
taken up in turn and blown, beaten, shaken or twanged into yielding
its full capacity of soul-stirring harmony. Most of these instruments
she even rebuilt or imitated with good success. Vocally (Claribel has
a really fine voice) simple ballads of the "tenderness-and-pathos,
pull-at-the-heart-strings" type were favoured until our arrival at
Hilo, where "Aloha-oe" and various swinging _hulas_ had their turn;
these giving way to plaintive Marquesan sonatas, rollicking Tahitian
_himines,_ lilting Samoan serenades and booming Fijian war-chants,
as, one after another, these various isles of enchantment were put
behind us. Her terpsichorean achievements were equally varied and
multitudinous, for there were few poses in the primer postures of the
_hula-hula_ and the _siva-siva_ that she did not imitate and embroider
upon in a manner to awaken the envy of the nimble Fof-iti, the
_première danseuse_ of the court of King Pomare, or even of the sinuous
Seuka, the peerless _taupo_ who led the dance in the thatch palace of
Chief Mauga at Pago-Pago.
When I mention that in addition to these things the indefatigable
Claribel also set up a "native crafts" shop in the starboard lifeboat,
where she produced wooden gods, shark-tooth necklaces, tortoise-shell
combs (genuine shell), war clubs and axes, carved coco shells, tappa
cloth and similar "tourist" curios of a character to defy detection
(by us) and at a cost (figuring her time as worth nothing) effectively
to defy native competition; that she read Goethe and Heine (complete)
in German, and all of the 200 or more volumes in the yacht's library,
including several works on navigation, ship-building and astronomy, as
well; that she made herself a dozen or more tropical dresses (not
native, but full-sized garments); that she mastered the technique of
my typewriter and wrote a voluminous journal upon it, manifolding some
scores of copies to send to friends at home; that she played the
gramophone for us whenever the yacht was steady enough to allow that
sensitive instrument to keep an even keel;--when I mention all of
these various spheres of activity in which Claribel circulated, and
then admit that I have still left the list incomplete for want of
space, it will readily be seen that time had little chance to hang
heavily on her nimble hands and that she had scant opportunity to
learn the meaning of that hackneyed term, "the monotony of the voyage."
The Mater, when she was not being whirled in the back-wash of the
comet-like wake of Claribel's multudinous activities, spent her time
in quiet dignity with knitting or embroidery, reading and solitaire;
but when the demon of _ennui_ threatened to raise its Gorgon head in
the form of an interval of idleness, the both of them would turn to
and write "items of interest" for the "Ladies' Log," a diurnal record
of feminine _impressions de voyage_ which spared no one in the cabin,
galley or fo'c'sl'--not even the editors themselves--in its trenchant
columns of comment. I shall have occasion, doubtless, not infrequently
to quote from its scintillant pages.
On the run from San Pedro to Hawaii our course was at first directed
somewhat more southerly than the straight one to Hilo in the hope of
the sooner intercepting the Northeast Trades, which, according to the
government weather charts, should ordinarily be met with somewhere in
the vicinity of the 27th parallel. During the morning watch of the 8th
our expectations appeared to be realized. Just as the rising sun broke
through a shoal of silver clouds a crackling breeze from the E.N.E.
came humming over the taffrail, and, heeling the yacht over until the
hissing brine curled off by her forefoot kissed the starboard rail,
sent her spinning through the water at a good ten-knot gait.
"Northeast Trades!" chuckled the starboard watch to the port watch as
the latter came on deck; "Northeast Trades--cheer up, the Hilo girls
have got the tow-line!"
"Northeast Trades--now for a big day's run!" bellowed the mate to the
Commodore, as he ordered the kites run up and the backstays set and
tautened; and "Northeast Trades!" mused the cook to the bacon; and
"Northeast Trades" chirped the ladies to their mirrors; and "Northeast
Trades" hummed the sails to the sheets and the halyards to the shrouds.
The air was vibrant with the good news, the sea was a-dance because of
it, and the sun, when he awoke to a full realization of the import of
what was on, broke into a smile so expansive and warm that the hovering
mists of the morning took up their tents and hurried away.
This felicitous state of affairs lasted until eight o'clock, when the
wind veered around through east and south, finally to settle itself
comfortably so near S.S.W. that it kept the headsails flapping and the
mainsails a-shiver at the mast to hold the yacht's head up to W.S.W.,
a good two points north of a course which, normally, we should have
sailed "wing-and-wing." And that was the last we saw of the
much-vaunted Northeast Trades until, five months afterwards on the
run back to Hawaii from Fiji, they met us at the equator and headed
us all the way to Honolulu.
For the remainder of the run the breeze, except in occasional squalls,
blew steadily and with moderate force from all points between southeast
and southwest. Several times, for a few hours at a stretch, it hauled
around as far as W.S.W., and even west, on which occasions the booms
were jibed to port and a few miles of the much-needed southing
run off. A half dozen times we ran free for an hour or two when a
favourable slant of wind offered, but oftener it was "full-and-by," or
"by-the-wind," with the booms almost amidships in an endeavour to steal
the last fraction of a point from the obstinate turncoat of a wind.
Most of the time the yacht was too close to the wind to admit of the
advantageous use of the main topmast staysail, but either our large or
small sail of that class, as well as the club and jib topsails, were
used whenever opportunity offered.
Runs of close to 190 miles were made on the 9th, 13th and 14th, and
on the 19th the best run of the passage, 198 miles, was logged. On
the 16th and 21st frequent squalls and light baffling airs were
responsible for the shortest runs, fifty-seven and seventy-seven miles
respectively. The average for the other days was in the vicinity of
130 miles. The general direction of the currents encountered was
unfavourable, the prevailing one, which had a northeasterly set of
about ten miles a day, having apparently hooked up with the
contrary winds to cut down our southing and westing. Long before
entering the torrid zone, which was done on the night of the 19th,
the weather in its fitful uncertainty as well as in its mildness,
savoured strongly of the tropics. There was no fog nor even the
shortest periods in which the sky was completely overcast. There was
only one occasion when the zenith was sufficiently obscured to make a
latitude sight impossible at noonday, and no day whose morning was too
cloudy for a longitude observation but which made amends with a clear
afternoon.
No heavy seas were encountered after the storm of the first two days
had been left astern. This was principally due to the fact that the
constantly shifting wind never blew up a sea from one direction
before it veered off to another and beat it down again. The resulting
succession of cross swells was annoying, but never heavy enough really
to be troublesome. The temperature of the water increased slowly but
with almost absolute regularity as we approached the lower latitudes,
while that of the air, though likewise increasing, was more variable,
tending to jump up and down incessantly in the intervals of sunshine
and squalls.
On the morning of the 15th a striking and unusual arrangement of clouds
on the western horizon was responsible for no small excitement. A dull,
dark line of stratus, hanging low above the water, was topped by a
vivid, clean-lined triangle of frosty-white cirro-cumulus, producing
an effect so wonderfully like a snow-capped mountain that the mate,
without stopping to reflect that our position at noon of the previous
day left us still almost a thousand miles from Hawaii, the nearest
charted point where even so much as a rock pushed above the bosom of
the Pacific, burst forth with a lusty cry of "Land on the starboard
bow!" The look the Commodore gave the mate when, aroused from one of
his short spells of sleep, he rushed on deck to discover this nebulous
"landfall," was more eloquent than vocal expression. It was my
impression that nothing was said, but I find that the "Ladies' Log"
records that "Some words passed between the officers, most of them
going in one direction." So it is just possible that the Commodore
was not able to restrain his pent-up feelings after all.
The next day Claribel set to music a verse of Henry Lawson, the New
Zealand poet, which goes something like this:
For the Southeast lands are dread lands
To the sailor in the shrouds,
When the low clouds loom like headlands,
And the headlands blur like clouds;
choosing the time of the mate's watch to come out upon the quarter deck
and practise it. Wolfe, blushing furiously, retreated to the lee of
the foresail for shelter, not to reappear until the watch was called
at noon. He could never see a white cloud near the horizon after that
without looking ashamed, which was very awkward in the tropics where it
was cloudy all the time; yet our real landfall came in form so similar
to the cloud island which had so completely deceived that functionary
a week previously that every one--including the Commodore--gazed,
silent and mistrustful, and waited for some one else to shout the news.
Our Dead-reckoning showed us to be a hundred miles off shore at
daybreak, and it seemed impossible that even the mountain tops could
show so clearly at so great a distance. But as the morning sun gained
strength the opaque sheets of strati along the horizon began to thin,
and gradually out of the dissolving mists, clear as cut alabaster
against the brilliant turquoise of the tropic sky, the funicular cone
of a great snow-capped volcano took unmistakable shape, and we knew it
for the mighty Mauna Kea, famous as one of the loftiest island mountain
peaks in the world.
"Could we make Hilo by dark?" was now the question. The mate answered
in the negative and advised proceeding under half sail and standing
off-and-on till daybreak. But the Commodore, noting the strengthening
breeze which since midnight had been working back into the east where
it belonged, deemed the effort worth making, and accordingly ordered
the sheets slacked off and more sail set. Up fluttered the big main
topmast staysail, up the jib topsail and the flying jib, and up the
main and fore gaff-topsails, every one of them drawing beautifully in
the steady breeze that came gushing over the starboard quarter, and
each after the other, as it was hoisted and filled, doing its full
measure of work in forcing the yacht's lee rail deeper into the yeasty
run of foam churned up by her lunging bows and driving her faster
toward her goal.
When the great turtle-backed Mauna Loa, lying to the south of and
beyond Mauna Kea, was sighted at noon we had been bowling along for
three hours at a gait that had brought the black lava belts under the
snowline above the horizon, and below these, still dim and indistinct
as the figures on ancient tapestry, the perspectives of the gently
undulating lower reaches of the windward slope of the largest of the
Hawaiian Islands.
All through the afternoon watch the wind freshened until, from an
average of ten knots in the morning, we increased to eleven in each
of the hours from twelve to two, ran just over twelve knots from
two to three, and but slightly under thirteen from three to four.
Fortunately such sea as was running was with us, and though there was
a constant smoke of spray about the bows, and though the sails, filled
hard as sand bags, strained on the masts till the backstays sang like
over-strung fiddles, no green water came aboard and nothing carried
away.
At four-thirty the masts of ships were sighted a couple of points off
the port bow, and taking in the light sails we headed up for what we
knew must be Hilo harbour. Ten minutes after the course was altered
a black squall which had been chasing the yacht passed astern of her
and broke upon the land, its course being as clearly traceable across
the velvet verdance of the rippling cane fields as across the heavens.
Down the coast it raced us, gradually passing inland and leaving behind
it a wake of freshness that glistened like a green satin ribbon in
the last rays of the sun that was setting behind a shoulder of the
towering Mauna Kea. There are several experiences in life that mark
with indelible impression the pages of memory, but none to compare with
the sensations that throng upon one at his first close-in sight of a
tropical island.
[Illustration: WAIOHAE BEACH, ISLAND OF HAWAII]
[Illustration: HULA DANCER WITH EUKALELE]
As the yacht stood into the entrance of Hilo harbour, which is little
more than an open roadstead partially protected by the submerged
Broom Reef, the wind hauled to the south and several short tacks
were necessary to make a favourable anchorage that offered a couple
of cables' length to the landward of a big 12,000-ton steamer of the
American-Hawaiian fleet which was loading sugar. The anchor was let go
in seven fathoms of water at a few minutes before six o'clock, the log,
which had been taken in at the entrance of the harbour, registering
2,430 miles from San Pedro breakwater.
* * * * *
The praises of Hilo itself, of its kind and hospitable people, its
unique and picturesque Japanese quarter, its avenues of palms and
mangoes and its streams and waterfalls, have been sung so often and
so well that I reluctantly forego more than the briefest mention
here. Further along on the cruise there were occasions when we met
with more sumptuous entertainment, saw harbours more picturesque and
better protected, and mountains clothed in an even more reckless riot
of tropical vegetation; but we found no place that ever seriously
rivalled Hilo for first place in our hearts. It was our first love;
our first tropical experience; the gateway to those mystical latitudes
of enchantment, the South Pacific. During the ten days which _Lurline_
lay in Hilo Bay visits were made to Kilauea, the largest active volcano
in the world, to the peerless Onomea Gulch and to several interesting
sugar mills and plantations. Our stay was a continuous round of _luaus_
or native feasts, luncheons, dinners, teas and drives. On the yacht we
evening of fireworks and music, and an afternoon sail, the latter event
being recorded in the irreverent "Ladies' Log" as a "Mal de Mer Party."
Early in the afternoon of the 26th two of the sailors, pulling ashore
to bring off some visitors, ran into a nasty combination of surf and
tide rip at the bar of the Wiluki River and upset. One of the men was
caught under the boat, and but for the timely assistance of a Japanese
who had been fishing from his sampan nearby, would undoubtedly have
been drowned. While the plucky Jap was endeavouring to secure the
painter of the overturned boat, his sampan drifted inside the breakers
and was on the verge of being itself upset when rescued by a tug sent
out from the landing stage.
At four A. M. of March 2nd anchor was tripped and sail made for the run
to Honolulu. The wind at first was light and baffling, as a result of
which but twenty-one miles up the coast of the island were run off by
noon. After passing Alea Point, however, the change of course made it
possible to slack off the sheets, and under all plain lower sail the
yacht bowled along at a nine-knot gait until well after dark. For the
next three or four hours heavy squalls were encountered, but midnight
showed a clear sky, with the opaque mass of Maui, looming darkly,
abeam to starboard. This big island, the second in size of the Hawaiian
group, is famous for its extinct volcano of Haleakala, the crater of
which, ten miles in diameter and with rims that rise in places to an
altitude of 10,000 feet, is believed to be the largest that has existed
in any era of the world's geological history.
Morning of the 3rd showed the gaunt, forbidding cliffs of Molokai on
the port beam, and our glasses readily located the spot where, shut in
by unscalable rock walls behind and cut off by cordons of breakers in
front, the unfortunate inhabitants of the leper settlement of Kalaupapa
drag out their sad existences.
The island of Oahu was sighted at nine, and shortly afterward we
headed into Molokai Channel, said to be one of the deepest places in
the Pacific Ocean, and, in the matter of baffling winds and waves and
currents, undoubtedly one of the most treacherous and uncertain, as we
were to learn on the return voyage. A strong breeze increased to a half
gale by noon, and under double-reefed main and foresails the yacht made
not any too good weather of it in the vicious cross tumble of waters
that assailed her. About noon the smooth, round summit of Coco Head
began to peer above the foam-tipped crests of the in-racing seas, and
an hour later the sharp, incisive outline of Diamond Head showed clear
against the northeastern skyline. As we brought its tall lighthouse
abeam the beach and reef of Waikiki, with rows of white hotels and
bungalows, and the odd looking crater of the Punchbowl tilted above
Honolulu in the background, began to open up beyond. The Jack at the
fore brought the pilot boat, rowed by a crew of stalwart, bare-chested
Kanakas, out from the Head through a tortuous passage in the Reef, and,
watching his chance, the pilot leapt to a footing on the ladder and
clambered aboard without absorbing so much as a drop of the swinging
comber which at the same instant swept and half swamped his plunging
cutter.
Our next three miles to the entrance of Honolulu Harbour was over the
regular track of the transpacific liners, and the unfolding panorama,
like the unrolling of an ever-changing piece of rich Oriental brocade,
has furnished the inspiration for descriptions,--good, bad and
indifferent,--by every traveller not abashed by its beauty and grandeur
who has sailed that way since the time of Cook. I throw up my hands
and admit the futility of adequate description at the outset; but none
the less eagerly love to turn back the pages of memory to a
picture--blurred and impressionistic in detail, but unfading in the
brilliancy of its colours--of that leeward stretch of Oahu between
Diamond Head and Honolulu as it appeared on that gusty afternoon
of our first arrival, a harmony in blues and greens--the sombre indigo
of the cloud-shadowed sea, the lapis-lazuli above the coils of the
hidden reefs, the sheeny verdancy of the palms and bananas along the
foreshore, the _verte emaraude_ of the slope up to where Tantalus and
the Pali were lost in their crowns of cumulus and nimbus; and above
all the transparent azure of the tropic sky.
The pilot took _Lurline_ in through the narrow reef which constitutes
the entrance to Honolulu Harbour under foresail and jib, handling her
with consummate skill in the maze of cross currents and eddies which
make the passage a dangerous one even for steamers. Immediately on
gaining still water we were boarded by the harbour-master, who moored
us neatly and expeditiously in a natural slip in the reef called
"Rotten Row," scarce a cable's length from the docks of the Pacific
Mail and the Australian liners. Here the yacht lay for three weeks,
provisioning and refitting for the arduous months ahead in some of
the almost unsailed corners of the South Pacific, while we--the Mater,
Claribel, the Commodore and myself--lived ashore, enjoying to our
utmost the hospitality of the gayest, richest, loveliest and most
fascinating of all the Pacific island capitals.