from a bounded lake these mighty waters that wash the newest and oldest
of lands. It seemed as if all the world was only water and us. The
ship was as steady in her element as a plane in those upper strata
of the ether where the winds and clouds no longer have domain. The
company in a week had found themselves, and divided into groups in
which each sought protection from boredom, ease of familiar manners,
and opportunity to talk or to listen.

Often when all had left the deck I sat alone in the passage before the
surgeon's cabin to drink in the coolness of the dark, and to wonder at
the problem of life. If a man had not his dream, what could life give
him? In his heart he might know by experience that it never could come
true, but without it, false as it might be, he was without consolation.

One night, the equator behind, I saw the Southern Cross for the first
time on the voyage, its glittering crux, with the alpha and beta
Centaur stars, signaling to me that I was beyond the dispensation
of the cold and constant north star, and in the realm of warmth and
everchanging beauty.

Tahiti, the second Sunday out, was a day off. I arose Monday with
a feeling of buoyancy and expectancy that grew with the morning. I
was as one who looks to find soon in reality the ideal on earth his
fancy has created. The day became older, and the noontide passed. I
had gone forward upon the forecastle head to seize the first sign
of land, and was leaning over the cathead, watching the flying-fish
leaping in advance of the bow, and the great, shining albacore throwing
themselves into the rush of our advance, to be carried along by the
mere drive of our bows.