THE DREAM SHIP 



4U 



Ship headed for Palmerston Island, a 

 mere speck on the chart, 600 miles dis- 

 tant. 



LIZARD MEN LIVED ON MUREA 



On the way, we called in for water at 

 Murea, a fairy isle of fantastic volcanic 

 peaks and fertile valleys, where legends 

 still live. There were lizard men on 

 Murea in the old days, it appears — an 

 agile race of dwarfs, who lived on the 

 inaccessible ledges of the mountain range 

 and descended periodically on the coast 

 dwellers, bearing off their wives and 

 other valuables. They carried a short 

 staff in either hand, giving them the ap- 

 pearance of lizards, as they scrambled 

 back to their fastnesses where none could 

 follow. 



To prove his words, the Murean na- 

 tive of today will point out uniform rows 

 of banana plants growing in clefts of 

 rock among the clouds, the crops of the 

 lizard men ! How otherwise came they 

 to be there? He would be a wise man 

 who could find the answer. 



Leaving Murea, the Dream Ship passed 

 close to the wreck of a French gunboat 

 piled high on the reef (page 50) as a 

 warning to others not to tamper with 

 coral, and stood away for Palmerston. 



December to April is the hurricane sea- 

 son in this part of the Pacific, when the 

 schooner skippers from Rarotonga and 

 other places in the direct path of the 

 cyclonic disturbance flee to the compara- 

 tive safety of Papeete, and the Dream 

 Ship left in April. 



Luckily we escaped hurricanes, but for 

 three days violent wind and rain squalls 

 burst upon us, with no warning from the 

 barometer, and we experienced the first 

 real discomforts of the voyage. 



A DELEGATION FROM "MISTER MASTERS" 



Palmerston Island was a welcome sight, 

 as welcome as it was unique. It is doubt- 

 ful if such another gem adorns the earth. 

 Neither atoll nor island, it is a perfect 

 combination of both, a natural necklace 

 of surf-pounded coral strung with six. 

 equidistant, verdant islets, the whole in- 

 closing a shallow lagoon slashed with 

 unbelievable color. 



Such was Palmerston as we approached 

 it before a stiff southeast "trade," to be 



welcomed by a fleet of amazingly fast 

 luggers and their astonished crews. 

 "Who were we? Where had we sprung 

 from? Had we any matches?" 



To our own astonishment, the ques- 

 tions were fired at us in English and, 

 what was more, English of a vaguely 

 familiar pattern. It is a strange thing to 

 hear one's own tongue fluently bandied 

 among a brown-skinned people on an 

 isolated speck of earth ici mid-Pacific. 

 But there was no opportunity of solving 

 the riddle just then. 



"Let go !" "She's set." "Lower the 

 peak ; lower the main !" 



The Dream Ship had come to anchor 

 on the northwest side of the reef, well 

 sheltered from the almost eternal south- 

 east "trades" of these latitudes, and the 

 pilot, a six-foot figure of bronze sketchily 

 attired in a converted flour sack, was ad- 

 dressing us with a courtesy as unusual 

 as it was refreshing. 



"With our permission, he would take 

 us ashore at once. Mister Masters him- 

 self had given instructions." 



PALMERSTON ISLAND, THE PLACE TO WAIT 

 FOR THE END 



The "Mister Masters himself" settled 

 it. We tumbled into one of the luggers, 

 tumbled out at the reef, and stood knee- 

 deep in swirling waters, while the pilot 

 and his crew towed their craft against a 

 ten-knot current through a tortuous boat 

 passage. Then aboard once more, and 

 away at an eight-knot clip through a 

 maze of coral mushrooms, bumping, 

 grazing, ricochetting, until finally sliding 

 to rest on a glistening coral beach. 



"Mister Masters himself," a dignified 

 old gentleman with a flowing white beard 

 and the general air of a patriarch, met 

 us at the veranda steps of his spacious 

 home, and inside of ten minutes we were 

 sitting down to a meal of meals. 



I have Palmerston Island securely 

 pigeonholed in my own mind as the spot 

 of all others in which, when the time 

 comes, to sit down and wait for the end. 



The outside world, in the shape of a 

 schooner from the Cook sroup, intrudes 

 itself but once a year. The lagoon and 

 the neighborhood islets are a mine of 

 interest to the naturalist or sportsman. 

 and the people have a simple charm that 

 is all their own. 



