TIME AND CHANGE 



world they lie in his memory after his return, bask 

 ing there in that tropical sunlight, forever fanned by 

 those cooling trade winds, and encompassed by that 

 morning-glory sea. With my mind s eye I behold 

 them rising from that enormous abyss of the Pa 

 cific, fire-born and rain-carved, vast volcanic moun 

 tains miles deep under the sea, and in some cases 

 miles high above it, clothed with verdure and teem 

 ing with life, the scene of long-gone cosmic strife 

 and destruction, now the abode of rural and civic 

 peace and plenty. 



The Pacific treated me so much better than the 

 Atlantic ever had that I am probably inclined to 

 overestimate everything I saw on the voyage. It 

 was the first trip at sea that ever gave me any pleas 

 ure. The huge vessels are in themselves a great 

 comfort, and in the placid waters and the sliding 

 down the rotund side of the great globe under 

 warmer and warmer skies one gains a very agree 

 able experience. The first day s run must have car 

 ried us out and over that huge Pacific abyss, the 

 Tuscarora Deep, where there were nearly four miles 

 of water under us. Some of our aeroplanes have 

 gone up half that distance and disappeared from 

 sight. I fancy that our ship, more than six hundred 

 feet long, would have appeared a very small object v 

 floating across this briny firmament, could one have 

 looked up at it from the bottom of that sea. 



The Hawaiian Islands rise from the border of that 

 120 



