Southern Cross and the stately sheen of
the superb constellation of the Scorpion. It is a pity to have to say
that the Cross of the South is a disappointment--has to be explained
and made impressive by a diagram. It is more like a kite than a
cross; has a superfluous star at one corner, and no support at all
of the idea of being like a cross unless it is worked up and picked
into the fancy. The North Star shines on the other side of the ship,
and the Great Dipper dips its pointers after midnight, into the mass
of darkness that is the sea when the sun and moon are gone.

The voyage from Honolulu to the farther Pacific was not so long that we
forgot the American send-off we got in that Yankee city. The national
airs sounded forth gloriously and grand. Flags and hankerchiefs
fluttered from dense masses of spectators, and our colors were radiant
above the roofs. There was, as usual, a mist on the mountains, and
over Pearl Harbor glowed the arch of the most vivid rainbow ever
seen, and Honolulu is almost every day dipped in rainbows. This
was a wonder of splendor. The water changed from a sparkling green
to a darkly luminous blue. From the moment the lofty lines of the
coast--our mountains now--faded, till the birds came out of the west,
the Pacific Ocean justified its name. The magnificent monotony of its
stupendous placidity was not broken except by a few hours of ruffled
rollers that tell of agitations that, if gigantic, are remote.

The two thousand and one hundred miles from California to Honolulu
seemed at first to cover a vast space of the journey from our Pacific
coast to the Philippines, but appeared to diminish in importance
as we proceeded and were taught by the persistent trade winds that
blew our way, as if forever to waft us over the awful ocean whose
perpetual beauty and placidity were to allure us to an amazing abyss,
from which it was but imaginative to presume that we, in the hands of
infinite forces, should ever be of the travelers that return. Similar
fancies beset, as all the boys remember--the crews of the caravels
that carried Columbus and his fortunes. There were the splendors of
tropical skies to beguile us; the sea as serene as the sky to enchant
us! What mighty magic was this that put a spell upon an American army,
seeking beyond the old outlines of our history and dreams, to guide
us on unfamiliar paths? What was this awakening in the soft mornings,
to the thrilling notes of the bugle? The cloud