he sea in these special regions, its vast
extent and fabulous depths, the huge monsters and the tiny creatures
occupying it, the speed of the ship, her exact tonnage and the trade in
which she had been engaged since she was launched on the Clyde,--all
these items became of vital importance to the voyagers, but their detail
would seem prosy to the general reader. It was really surprising to see
how earnest intelligent people become over matters which under ordinary
circumstances and on shore would not have received a moment's
consideration.

The distance which we expected to accomplish was referred to daily, and
was thus formulated: From San Francisco to Honolulu is twenty-one
hundred miles; from Honolulu to Auckland is thirty-eight hundred miles;
from Auckland to Sydney is twelve hundred and eighty miles. The ship's
run was daily recorded and posted up for the general satisfaction, the
result being promptly deducted from the aggregated figures as above.

It was on the eighth day of the voyage that we made the Sandwich
Islands. A glance at the map will show the reader that these volcanic
upheavals lie on the bosom of the North Pacific, in a slight curve, and
number thirteen in all. The total area combined does not exceed
sixty-five hundred square miles, seven of them being mere islets, and
six only are inhabited. The largest of the group is Hawaii, situated
the farthest south, being in round numbers a hundred miles long by
eighty broad, and with the natives gives its name to the whole group, as
they are here officially called the Hawaiian Islands,--though Captain
Cook, on their first being discovered, about a hundred years ago, gave
them the name of the Sandwich Islands, after the then first Lord of the
English Admiralty, and by this latter name they are generally known on
the maps and in geographies.

The chain of islands which form the group are but a series of volcanic
peaks rising abruptly from a depth of three miles below the sea-level to
as great a height above it, being, so to speak, natural chimneys from
the tops of which vast internal fires in former ages have found vent.

We made the island of Oahu, passing along the windward shores of Maui
and Molokai in the early gray of a soft June morning, and doubling the
lofty promontory known as Diamond Head, which rears its precipitous
front seven hundred feet above the sea. We ran along the coast while the
sun rose and beautified the mountain-tops, the green slopes,