given about the boats, remarked to my
mother, "Isn't that nice? We shall soon be ashore!" Thus does the female
mind unconsciously skirt along the verge of eternity. Our voyage up here
was most disastrous--calms, squalls, head sea, waterspouts of rain,
hurricane weather all about, and we in the midst of the hurricane
season, when even the hopeful builder and owner of the yacht had
pronounced these seas unfit for her. We ran out of food, and were quite
given up for lost in Honolulu: people had ceased to speak to Belle[29]
about the _Casco_, as a deadly subject.

But the perils of the deep were part of the programme; and though I am
very glad to be done with them for a while and comfortably ashore, where
a squall does not matter a snuff to any one, I feel pretty sure I shall
want to get to sea again ere long. The dreadful risk I took was
financial, and double-headed. First, I had to sink a lot of money in the
cruise, and if I didn't get health, how was I to get it back? I have got
health to a wonderful extent; and as I have the most interesting matter
for my book, bar accidents, I ought to get all I have laid out and a
profit. But, second (what I own I never considered till too late), there
was the danger of collisions, of damages and heavy repairs, of
disablement, towing, and salvage; indeed, the cruise might have turned
round and cost me double. Nor will this danger be quite over till I hear
the yacht is in San Francisco; for though I have shaken the dust of her
deck from my feet, I fear (as a point of law) she is still mine till she
gets there.

From my point of view, up to now the cruise has been a wonderful
success. I never knew the world was so amusing. On the last voyage we
had grown so used to sea-life that no one wearied, though it lasted a
full month, except Fanny, who is always ill. All the time our visits to
the islands have been more like dreams than realities: the people, the
life, the beachcombers, the old stories and songs I have picked up, so
interesting; the climate, the scenery, and (in some places) the women,
so beautiful. The women are handsomest in Tahiti, the men in the
Marquesas; both as fine types as can be imagined. Lloyd reminds me, I
have not told you one characteristic incident of the cruise from a
semi-naval point of view. One night we were going ashore in Anaho Bay;
the most awful noise on deck; the breakers distinctly audible in the
cabin; and there I had to sit below, entertaining in my b