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beside my unseen and most unsavory companion, the dead rat.

But there are plenty of living and very lively rats too. One night a big fellow ran over my face, and in a fright I cried out. But use is every thing, and in the course of a few more nights I got quite rid of my childish astonishment and fear at rats running over my face. Have you ever heard rats sing? I assure you they sing in a very lively chorus, though I confess I have heard much pleasanter music in my time.

Amid all these little troubles the ship went steadily on. During the second night after leaving Auckland the wind began to blow pretty fresh, and the hatch was closed. It felt very close and stuffy below that night. The light went out, and the rats had it all their own way. On the following day it was impossible to go on deck without getting wet through, so we were forced to stick down below. The rolling of the ship was also considerable.

Next day was fine, but hot. The temperature sensibly and even rapidly increases as we approach the Line. We see no land, though we have passed through among the Friendly Islands, with the Samoa or Navigator's Islands lying to the west. It is now a clear course to Honolulu. Not being able to go on deck in the heat of the day at risk of sunstroke, I wait until the sun has gone down, and then slip on deck with my rug and pillow, and enjoy a siesta under the stars. But sometimes I am disturbed by a squall, and have to take refuge below again.

As the heat increases, so do the smells on board. In passing from the deck to our cabin I pass through seven distinct perfumes: 1st, the smell from the galley smoke;

2d, the perfume of decaying vegetables stored on the upper deck; 3d, fowls; 4th, dried fish; 5th, oil and steam from the engine-room; 6th, meat undergoing the process of cooking; 7th, the galley by which I pass; until I finally enter No. 8, our own sweet cabin, with the butter, the rats, and the German Jews.

We are again in the midst of the flying fish, but they interest me nothing like so vividly as they did when I first saw them in the Atlantic. Some of them take very long flights, as much as thirty or forty yards. Whole shoals of them fly away from the bows of the ship as she presses through the water.

On the 19th of January we crossed the Line, in longitude about 160°. We continue on a straight course, making an average of about 240 miles a day. It already begins to get cooler, as we are past the sun's greatest heat. It is a very idle, listless life, and I lie about on the hen-coops all day, reading, or sitting down now and then to write up this log, which has been written throughout amid discomfort and under considerable difficulties.

One of my fellow-passengers is enraged at the manner in which newspapers are treated while in transit. If what he says be true, I can easily understand how it is that so many newspapers miscarry-how so many numbers of "Punch" and the "Illustrated News" never reach their destination. My informant says that when an officer wants a newspaper, the mail-bag is opened, and he takes what he likes. He might just as well be permitted to have letters containing money. Many a poor colonial who can not write a letter buys and dispatches a newspaper to his friends at home to let them know he is alive, and this is the careless and unfaithful way in which the

missive is treated by those to whom its carriage is intrusted. I heard many complaints while in Victoria of newspapers containing matter of interest never reaching their address, from which I infer that the same practice more or less prevails on the Atlantic route. It is really too bad.

As we steam north the weather grows fine, and we begin to have some splendid days and glorious sunsets; but we are all longing eagerly to arrive at our destination. At length, on the morning of the 24th of January, we discerned the high land of the island of Hawaii about seventy miles off, on our beam. That is the island where Captain Cook was murdered by the natives in 1779. We saw distinctly the high, conical volcanic mountain of Mauna Loa, 14,000 feet high, its peak showing clear above the gray clouds.

We steamed on all day, peering ahead, looking out for the land. Night fell, and still our port was not in sight. At length, at about ten, the light-house on the reef which stretches out in front of Honolulu shone out in the darkness. Then began a little display of fire-works, and rockets and blue-lights were exchanged between our ship and the shore. A rocket also shot up from a steamer to seaward, and she was made out to be the "Moses Taylor," the ship that is to take us on to San Francisco.

At about one in the morning we take our pilot on board, and shortly after my German friends rouse me with the intelligence that we are alongside the wharf. I am now, however, getting an "old bird;" my enthusiasm about novelty has gone down considerably, and I decline the pleasure of accompanying them on shore at this early hour. Honolulu will doubtless wait for me until morning.

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The Harbor of Honolulu.-Importance of its Situation.-The City.Churches and Theatres.-The Post-office.-The Suburbs.-The King's Palace. The Nuuanu Valley.-Poi.-People coming down the Valley.-The Pali.-Prospect from the Cliffs.-The Natives (Kanakas). -Divers.-The Women.-Drink Prohibition.-The Chinese.-Theatricals. Musquitoes.

WHEN I came on deck in the early morning the sun was rising behind the mountains which form the background of Honolulu as seen from the harbor, tipping them with gold and red, and bathing the landscape in beauty. I could now survey at leisure the lovely scene.

I found we had entered a noble harbor, round which

the town of Honolulu is built, with its quays, warehouses, and ship-yards. Looking seaward, I observe the outer bay is nearly closed in at its lower extremity by the long ridge-like hill called Diamond Head. Nearer at hand, behind the town, is a remarkable eminence called Punchbowl Hill, evidently of volcanic origin, crowned with a battery, and guarding the entrance to the smaller bay which forms the harbor.

The entrance to the harbor is through a passage in one of the coral reefs which surround the island, the coral insects building upward from the submerged flanks of the land until the reefs emerge from the waves more or less distant from the shore. As the water at the shallowest part of the entrance is only about twenty-two feet, vessels of twenty-feet draught and over have to remain outside, where, however, there is good anchorage and shelter, unless when the wind blows strong from the south. The water inside the reefs is usually smooth, though the waves outside may be dashing themselves to foam on their crests.

A glance at the situation of the Sandwich Islands on the map will serve to show the important part they are destined to play in the future commerce of the Pacific. They lie almost directly in the course of all ships passing from San Francisco and Vancouver to China and Japan, as well as to New Zealand and Australia. They are almost equidistant from the coasts of Russia and America, being rather nearer to the American coast, from which they are distant about 2100 miles. They form, as it were, a stepping-stone on the great ocean highway of the Pacific between the East and the West-between the Old World and the New-as well as between the

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