ea parted silently to let the boat
pass through, and then closed behind it with no laugh or ripple of
water to speed it onward, breathlessly still nights of fathomless
darkness. The ship's master, burdened with visions of coral reefs
on a chartless coast, failed to appreciate the aesthetic beauty of
sailing unknown seas in limitless darkness, and either anchored on
such nights, or paced back and forth upon his bridge, longing for
electric lighted heavens that would not play him such scurvy tricks.

And there were gray days, too, which only served to make more golden
the sun-kissed ones; days when no observations could be taken with the
sextant, to the huge disgust of the officer in charge of such work;
days when the distant mountains loomed spectre-like through the mist,
their sharp outlines vignetted into the sky. Occasionally the fog would
lift a bit, just enough to reveal the rain-drenched islands around us,
and then suddenly wipe them out of existence again, leaving the ship
alone on a gray and shoreless sea.

As for amusements, these were not lacking, what with reading, writing,
bag-punching, and playing games with the small girl while under way;
and when at anchor there was always shooting, hunting, and fishing
for the men, and for us all swimming off the ship's side. This last
was often done in shark-ridden waters, to the great disapproval of the
ship's officers, some of whom would stand on the well-deck, revolver
in hand, while more than once a swift bullet was sent shrilling over
our heads at some great fin rising out of the sea beyond. On our
trip to and from Bongao, one of the Tawi Tawi Islands, on a wrecking
expedition to save the launch _Maud_, stranded there on a coral reef,
all the Signal Corps officers were at liberty, too, which made life
on the ship even more agreeable, the delightful experience being
again repeated on our return trip to Manila from Pasacao, Luzon.

When one considers that the ship laid approximately five hundred
knots of cable, and travelled over three thousand knots on the trip,
which does not include the Bongao wrecking expedition, it will be
seen how difficult the work was, in that in every instance, save from
Zamboanga, Mindanao, to Sulu, on the island of Sulu, we had to make a
preliminary trip, sounding and taking observations, before the cable
could be laid, the Spanish charts being worse than unreliable. Then,
too, a government transport dragged our cable with her anchor at o