In the South Seas

Excerpt.....For nearly ten years my health had been declining; and for some while, before I set forth upon my voyage, I believed I was come to the afterpiece of life and had only the nurse and undertaker to expect.- It was suggested that I should try ... Read more

Excerpt.....For nearly ten years my health had been declining; and for some while, before I set forth upon my voyage, I believed I was come to the afterpiece of life and had only the nurse and undertaker to expect.- It was suggested that I should try the South Seas; and I was not unwilling to visit like a ghost, and be carried like a bale, among scenes that had attracted me in youth and health.- I chartered accordingly Dr. Merrit's schooner yacht, the Casco, seventy-four tons register; sailed from San Francisco towards the end of June 1888, visited the eastern islands, and was left early the next year at Honolulu.- Hence, lacking courage to return to my old life of the house and sick-room, I set forth to leeward in a trading schooner, the Equator, of a little over seventy tons, spent four months among the atolls (low coral islands) of the Gilbert group, and reached Samoa towards the close of '89.- By that time gratitude and habit were beginning to attach me to the islands; I had gained a competency of strength; I had made friends; I had learned new interests; the time of my voyages had passed like days in fairyland, and I decided to remain.- I began to prepare these pages at sea, on a third cruise, in the trading steamer Janet Nicoll.- If more days are granted me, they shall be passed where I have found life most pleasant and man most interesting; the axes of my black boys are already clearing the foundations of my future house, and I must learn to address readers from the uttermost parts of the sea. Less