WHALING VOYAGE. 
235 
voyage from Monta Christa and straining every sail for 
about five weeks ; we had seen no land during that 
time— not even the Galapagos, to which we passed so 
near, but in the night,— and the land which we were 
now approaching presented features to us entirely new. 
People of somewhat our own complexion had as yet 
been our welcomers wherever we had touched, and 
clothed somewhat like ourselves ; but now we were about 
to land among savages, dark and different in feature, 
and as dissimilar in dress and manners,— we w r ere about 
visiting the bay of Karakakoa, the borders of which are 
stained with the blood of the immortal Cook. 
If I could feel so great an excitement in beholding 
the exceedingly beautiful scenery of this place, what 
must the discoverers have felt when they first found these 
islands ? Lying in the midst of the vast North Pacific 
Ocean, after having cruised in search of land week after 
week, month after month, at length almost despairing, 
all on board dull and melancholy — nothing new, nothing 
seen to disturb the monotony on board— all at once 
rises to their astonished and delighted sight a chain of 
romantic and magnificent islands, with a new people, 
having a new language to any yet known, new manners 
and customs for their observation ; no one can describe 
the feelings which they must have enjoyed on that great 
occasion. 
