The Hawaiian archipelago : six months among the palm groves, coral reefs, & volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands / by Isabella L. Bird.
- Isabella Bird
- Date:
- 1890
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The Hawaiian archipelago : six months among the palm groves, coral reefs, & volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands / by Isabella L. Bird. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![LETTER 1.] CALMS IN THE TROPICS. ik beautifully polished long black claws, with which he hangs ons I'ead downwards. His body is about twice the size of that of a very large rat, black and furry underneath, and with red, foxy- fur on the head and back. His face is pointed, with a very- black nose and prominent black eyes with a savage, remorse- less expression. His wings, when extended, measure forty- eight inches across, and his flying powers are prodigious. He snapped like a dog at first, but is now quite tame, and devours- quantities of dried figs, the only diet he will eat. We crossed the Equator in Long. 159° 44' W., but in con- sequence of the misty weather it was not till we reached Lat. 10° 6' N. that the Pole star, cold and pure, glistened far above the horizon, and two hours later we saw the coruscating Pleiades, and the starry belt of Orion, the blessed familiar constellations of auld lang syne, and a breath of the cool north, the first I have felt for five months, fanned the tropic night and the calm, silvery Pacific. From that time we have been indifferent to our crawling pace, except for the sick man's, sake. The days dawn in rose colour and die in gold, and through their long hours a sea of delicious blue shimmers beneath the sun, so soft, so blue, so dreamlike, an ocean, worthy of its name, the enchanted region of perpetual calm,, and an endless summer. Far off, for many an azure league,, rims of rock, fringed with the graceful coco palm, girdle still lagoons, and are themselves encircled by coral reefs on which the ocean breaks all the year in broad drifts of foam. Myriads, of flying fish, and a few dolphins and Portuguese men-of-war flash or float through the scarcely undulating water. But we \ook in vain for the sails of silk and ropes of sendal whicK are alone appropriate to this dream-world. The Pacific in this, region is an indolent, blue expanse, pure and lonely, an almost untraversed sea. We revel in these tropic days of transcendent glory, in the balmy breath which just stirs the dreamy blue, in. the brief, fierce crimson sunsets, in the soft splendour of the nights, when the moon and stars hang like lamps out of a lofty and distant vault, and in the pearly crystalline dawns, when the sun rising through a veil of rose and gold rejoices as a giant to run his course,'' and brightens by no pale gradations into the perfect day. P.S.---To-morrow morning we expect to sight land. In spite of minor evils, our voyage has been a singularly pleasant one» The condition of the ship and her machinery warrants the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21042305_0033.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
