THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 
161 
On the 15th, having arrived near the meridian of the Hawaiian Islands, we shaped 
our course towards the south ; but with the approach to the tropics we lost the breezes which 
had hitherto favoured us, and during the next ten days but little progress was made. Since 
our departure from Japan we had been sailing night and day in the company of a flock of 
albatrosses, numbering about a score. Being readily caught with line and baited hook, these 
afforded a never-failing source of amusement to our sportsmen. The graceful flight of this 
bird constantly arrests attention, attracted by the mystery which still surrounds the powers 
by which it is enabled literally to ride upon the storm, or else to suspend its ponderous 
body in mid-air with outstretched, almost motionless wings. We noticed that, on getting 
into the warmer water of the tropics, the albatross left us on the same day that the shark 
made its appearance for the first time. Thus the king of sea-birds and the tyrant of the 
waves have divided the ocean-world between them, and the boundary-line which separates 
their respective kingdoms is a certain limit of temperature. The albatross may have another 
reason for avoiding the regions inhabited by the shark. The bird often rests for hours on 
the surface of the sea, and probably sleeps in that position, so that it runs the risk of being 
snapped up by a shark while in a dormant state. 
During this long cruise of several thousand miles we sighted only one vessel, one of 
the regular line of steamers running between San Francisco and Yokohama. 
o o 
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THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 
“ Groves that bloom in endless spring 
Are rustling to the radiant wing 
Of birds, in various plumage bright 
As rainbow hues, or dawning light. 
Soft-falling showers of blossoms fair 
Float ever on the fragrant air, 
Like showers of vernal snow; 
And from the fruit-tree spreading tall 
The richly-ripened clusters fall 
Oft as sea-breezes blow.” 
The rising sun of the 27th July presented to us the little island-world rendered familiar 
to every reader through the accounts of Cook, La Perouse, Vancouver, and other illustrious 
navigators. To our right we saw the long serrated ridge of Oahu ; in front, the island of 
Molokai ; while far to the south-east the towering mass of Mauna Haleakala, the extinct 
volcano of Maui Island, was just visible beneath the morning clouds. At the first glance 
the land looked barren and desolate, especially Molokai, which seemed to be a heap of 
volcanic mud thrown up only yesterday from the bottom of the sea. On approaching nearer, 
a faint tinge of green—the first sign of vegetation—began to overspread the red slopes of 
Oahu. The eastern end of the latter island is fringed with several small extinct craters, 
and, having rounded one of these, known under the name of Diamond Hill, we entered 
the harbour of Honolulu. 
