The Log of the Snark (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: under a drowning moon. Roscoe 's optimistic brain does not consider the change of course necessary, but Jack's brass- tack judgment says we could not clear Molokai on the other course, with this wind holding all night, and for the first time since San Francisco he, as captain, has over-ridden the sailing master with a positive command. Aboard the Snark, off Oahu, Hawaiian Islands, Sunday, May 19, 1907. Jack set double watches again last night, Tochigi and I taking the first, from eight until twelve. It was eerie, watching forward in the grey light of the moon struggling through the murk, and ever and again I would seem to see land looming close ahead, only to find it was the huddling dark clouds on the horizon. I would stay there for an hour, then relieve Tochigi at the wheel and send him forward to watch. At 5:30 this morning, Jack jibed the boat over, and I came on deck, to find the Island of Oahu, upon which is the city of Honolulu, right ahead. As we sailed nearer, the land looked very familiar, accustomed as we have been to pictures of it. The waters are deserted; it does seem as if we ought to sight some sort of a vessel, so near to Honolulu. Such an incidentless voyage?although I forgot to tell that I found one flea the other day. Where he had been hibernating I do not know. And this morning a horsefly came aboard. The sea is transparent; one can see into illimitable depths of sun-shot blue. And of all the Inconceivable and Monstrous things yet, here we are drifting toward the reef of Oahu in a dead calm. The trades are supposed to blow here almost the year around, especially at this season. But we have had unusual variable weather all the way. Oh! for the big engine now?we could be in landlocked Pearl Harbor in a couple of hours. Of course, if the engine were i...