her, things in other respects look better. She has a prepossessing set of officers, and as the first-cabin passengers are only about forty in number, there will evidently be plenty of room. A considerable part of the passengers appear to be minor French officials, but there are also some Californians, who promise pleasant company, and it appears that many of the passengers are not going to stay, but are on a pleasure trip. We are told that we are to stop at the Marquesas Islands, the scene of Herman Melville's adventures in Typee," there to take on 300 Marquesan savages, who are going to Tahiti to participate in the French fête on the 14th of July.

The vessel flies the French flag. We get under weigh very promptly at ten o'clock and pass through "the Golden Gate" into the Pacific, running for three or four hours directly down the coast and within a mile or so of it. A great black whale, a mile or two away, thrashing about and throwing up his tail, is an interesting object. The sea is not high, but comes freely onto the main deck, which is perhaps only six feet out of water! We are accompanied by an increasing number of "goonies," a dark brown bird, spreading five or six feet of long narrow wings, the notable character of which is that they are at all times, in sailing flight, carried below the body. It flapped and then sailed with extreme swiftness, constantly turning till the line joining the wings was almost vertical, and in this position the tip of the lower wing appeared to just graze the water, but I never saw it pick up anything in this flight.

The table is good for a vessel of the kind. There are some pleasant passengers, and there is an electric light and ice-making plant, so that the vessel is better than her looks.

June 27.-It is cold enough to make semi-winter clothing comfortable, and I turned in at 9.30 o'clock and slept for ten hours in spite of the occasional seas

which broke over the main deck in solid water, once striking against my stateroom window on the upper deck (starboard side) with a bang, as if they would stave it in. Our course was south, and even south by east. Vessel rolls less. It is still pleasantly cool; bright sun.

June 28.-Slightly overcast and misty; not as cool, but not hot; read and conversed with fellow-passengers.

June 29.-Today, about noon, we enter the tropics. The run has been 316 miles. The days are still cool; the weather is just right. I sit forward on the broad upper deck, beneath the awning, with four or five pleasant people; read, talk, sleep, and am content. Most of the passengers are on the port side of the main deck below, the vessel rocks lullingly, and there is an occasional mist. The last goony" left us today.

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"The Injian Ocean sets an' smiles,

So sof', so bright, so bloomin' blue; There aren't a wave for miles an' miles, Excep' the jiggle from the screw."

June 30.-Sunday; no observance. Day slightly warmer, but pleasant. We are about half way to the Marquesas, and no sight of a sail nor any sign of man, probably, until we get to them. One does not like to think of fire or an accident happening here.

The captain has an instrument, which he calls a Pelorus, for getting the true course of the vessel by the sun-something like a marine solar compass.

Got a list of Tahitian words from a lady passenger, Mrs. Hart, the wife of the Captain Hart mentioned in Stevenson's South Seas. Stevenson says that in 1878 (when he wrote) cannibalism was not yet extinct in the Marquesas, whose inhabitants he calls the most savage of the South Seas. Mrs. Hart confirms Stevenson's account of the massacre on her husband's plantation, and his account in general. He mentions that the natives were prevented by the French Government from carrying away whole the bodies of the slain

to eat, but, finding a lot of empty matchboxes, they cut up one body into small pieces and sent it as tid-bits in these little boxes over the island!

July 1. In the "Doldrums;" much warmer. A white gull with a long feather in its tail (the "tropic bird") and sundry flapping and diving birds accompany the vessel.

July 2.-Frequent showers; warm. July 3.-Vessel rolls a great deal, many sick, but I am exempt. wind and very pleasant.

Cool

July 6.-Awoke at 5.30, dressed, and went on deck. It was a quarter of an hour before sunrise, but only the eastern sky was bright. The boat's engine had stopped, and the bow was pointed to a great mass of rock of jagged outline, yet covered with green nearly to the summit, all laying to the north of us. The sun below the horizon seemed to radiate greenish-blue fan-shaped streamers, the sky between and below which shifted rapidly between these and primrose tints, or what was not primrose, but some nameless shade of delicate quickening color, that we all looked at in delight. Just before the sun arose the bright light struck between the awning and the deck and lit up the groups of passengers on a dark background with an effect like that of the lime-light at a play. It was perfect, unless it might have been charged with being a bit theatrical!

The vessel anchored half a mile from the shore. The harbor of Tyowai is on the south of the island. We waited two or more hours, apparently until the French official in charge had finished his breakfast, and only at 9 o'clock we

went ashore. I believe A. was the only one who remained on board. He prophesied intolerable sand flies and heat for us, but we found neither.

The old queen, who was the last authentic relic of the ancient sovereignty, had died 24 days before, so there was nothing to see but the mission. The nuns gave us something they called lemonade a mildly fermented sort of drink.

The shore was covered with cocoanut, breadfruit, and orange trees. There were no native houses, only 30 to 40 European-built wooden ones, and everything, except perhaps the mission, had an air of shabby decay. The island's population is said to have dwindled from 18,000 to 350. The missionaries, I understand, whether Catholic or Protestant, feel obliged to admit that as a rule they have been able to change the natives' lives in external form only. Clothing is worn and hymns are sung instead of savage songs; marriage is nominal, and underneath this everything is absolutely as it was in pagan times.

A little outrigged boat, with one man, had come out with a few bananas and "vees,' a sort of small mango, pearshaped, with a thin banana-like skin and a very juicy interior, having a mild pineapple taste. But this was the only thing good save the cocoanuts, of whose water we drank abundantly. We had been expected for long; our arrival was what might be called the great event of their year, but no one paid any attention to it. No one got anything ready to sell or came off to see the ship, except the man in the little boat, until just before we were leaving.

The natives wear European dress, when they wear anything, the women being in very gaudy French calicoes. The men, especially the elder, are tattooed, the effect being that of uniform bands of olive-greenish color across the face, rather than any design. One old lady, however, had her left hand and wrist elaborately tattooed, and I was told

that it was the hand with which she ate

"poee." A boy walked" up a tree and knocked down half a dozen cocoanuts, the milk of one of which I drank. I have tried to get some breadfruit cooked and some fresh fish; so far unsuccessfully. I have returned to lunch and am writing this on the deck, not meaning to return to the shore.

Four large boats are coming round the eastern point, sounding conchshells and beating drums. They are from a neighboring valley and come, to the number of fifty or more natives, to execute a dance for our party, which I am not going on shore again to see. The 300 natives whom it was advertised the ship would take to Papeete have not appeared. We are told that they had made great preparations for going, but that the governor had changed his mind.

And Typee! The proprietor of the Typee Valley, Mr. G., is on board. He describes it as having two or three families living on it and some wild cattle, as containing two or three square miles, and as being five or six miles long. It must be much as it was in Melville's time, but without the inhabitants. The path to it, leading over the mountains, is visible from the ship It is a slow ride, two hours long, or about six miles from the harbor, although Melville wandered for days in getting to it. It is described as having the most considerable stream of the island running through it (but without the little lake Melville mentioned) and as being lined with ancient “Ti's.”

The mouth of the bay where the Typee Valley enters the ocean and where Melville escaped, is visible from the ship, eight miles away, and the Happar Valley must be between us and it. So near-and we sail at 4!

Got, with Mr. K. (a merchant of Papeete and a passenger), a basket of beautiful fresh fish, alive, of varied colors— some pure crimson, some striped with

green, etc. Mr. K. sent a man to get them, or we should have had none, the natives being too lazy to catch any.

We took on four horses which were swum out to the ship. It was curious to see the naked natives diving under the kicking beasts to attach the hoisting gear. We took on two or three Frenchmen and as many natives (instead of the 300!) and sailed at 5 o'clock.

July 7.-Nothing to record.

July 8.-After a somewhat rough night, a beautiful morning. The vessel (at 8) is passing an "atoll" some 30 miles long and, I suppose, 8 or 10 broad from rim to rim, the low beach being covered with trees, but a few of which are cocoa-palms. They say that the natives of these atolls have all the pearlfishing in their own hands, the French government not allowing the competition. of diving machines. The great gain is not in the pearls, but in the shells, which bring a hundred times as much profit, on the whole, being very large and worth in Tahiti about 90 cents in American money per kilo. They sell in London for 300 sterling the ton, so that for once the natives get a fair share of the profit, some of them making, in the best season, 30 or 40 Chile dollars (the Chile dollar is as large as our silver dollar, but passes for only 40 cents) a day at the opening of the fishing.

The greatest depth an expert diver can go is about 70 feet, and the extreme time he can stay under water is said to be a little over two minutes.

We are through with the dangers of the night, and are enjoying the prospect of landing tomorrow morning.

TAHITI

July 9.-We arrived off Tahiti early in the morning. It is a pile of mountains clothed with green to the summits, more than 7,000 feet high, with a narrow strip of low land between their feet and the sea, in which narrow space nearly

I

all the natives live, the whole lofty interior being uninhabited. In the center is a fantastic group called "The Diadem," and opposite, 15 miles away, is a most picturesque island, Mourea. take the first boat ashore and am rewarded by reaching K.'s store at 9.45 a. m., in time to order some clothes (to be done tonight) before every one has gone to his (French) breakfast, after which all business ceases for two or three hours.

The town is stretched along the shore, and has nothing of interest. It has no hotel, and no markets of any kind, except for the things which nature furnishes the natives gratis; not so much as fresh eggs are to be thought of, the

only eggs being brought by our own ship from San Francisco.

The rest of the day is passed on the ship, while Mr. K., our general provider, and immediate agent of Providence, is trying to get horses and vehicles for an excursion around the island. In the evening he reports that he has gathered four or five conveyances, sufficient for a party of twenty to go around the island. That number join (two-thirds of the party being ladies), and I, seeing nothing else, join with them on the understanding that I do not go all the way around, but have a carriage to myself and leave at the neck."

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July 1o.-The party starts from K.'s store at about 9. Mr. K. has sent