all the centuries, uninfluenced
by the fall of empires or the wreck of human hopes and beliefs.

On the night of the 20th of June the hundred and eightieth meridian was
crossed, and the 21st of June was dropped into the sea, so to speak. We
had no Tuesday that week; Wednesday followed Monday,--a natural
experience in going round the world, which has often been explained. We
had been losing time daily in sailing south and west, until this change
of date became necessary to regulate the ship's time in accordance with
that of Greenwich. An ungeographical Englishman whom we had on board our
steamer refused to alter the time of his watch from the first, saying
that he only knew that it would come right of itself when he got back to
London, which was true enough, though he could not explain why.

Twenty-one days from San Francisco the light at Tiri-tiri Point, on the
coast of New Zealand, was sighted, twenty miles distant from Auckland.
We entered the harbor early in the morning, and were soon moored at the
Union Company's wharf, at the foot of Queen Street. Here the ship not
only had freight to discharge, but two or three hundred tons of coal to
take on board; so we enjoyed a whole day wherein to stroll about the
city, and in the evening we witnessed the "Pirates of Penzance" at
Abbott's Opera House. The play was admirably performed by an itinerant
company, which regularly makes the rounds of the colonial cities of both
Australia and New Zealand.

The outer and inner harbors of Auckland are very beautiful, having
picturesque headlands, dominated by volcanic mountains and extinct
craters,--indeed the city stands upon the lava vomited from the bowels
of Mount Eden. The first land made on coming from the Samoan group was
great Barrier Island, which separates the ocean eastward from the
Hauraki Gulf, upon which Auckland is situated.

As we shall return in future chapters to this interesting country, no
more need be said of its northern metropolis in this connection.

Early on the morning after our arrival the "Zealandia" was again under
way, steering north-northeast, until the most northerly point of New
Zealand was doubled, then an exact due-west course sped the good ship on
her way to Sydney, Australia, twelve hundred and eighty miles distant.
It is a stormy ocean that lies between these two countries, and it is
useless to disguise the fact that the voyager who crosses it must make
up his mind to great and unavoidable dis