happened more than once. It was a pleasant way of spending the early
morning in the bright sunshine, peering into the dark blue and light
green depths below.

Breakfast was ready by the time we returned on board, and soon
afterwards I went on shore to pay some visits and to do some shopping.
We went first to the fish-market, which presented a most animated
scene, owing not only to the abundance of the dead produce of air,
earth, and sea, which it contained, but to the large number of gaily
attired purchasers.

Saturday is a half-holiday in Oahu, and all the plantation and mill
hands came galloping into Honolulu on horseback, chattering and
laughing, dressed in the brightest colours, and covered with flowers.
The latter are not so plentiful nor so beautiful as in Tahiti, but
still, to our English eyes, they appear very choice. For fruit, too,
we have been spoilt in the South Seas. The fish-market here, however,
is unrivalled.

Fish--raw or cooked--is the staple food of the inhabitants, and almost
everybody we saw had half-a-dozen or more brilliant members of the
finny tribe, wrapped up in fresh green banana leaves, ready to carry
home. Shrimps are abundant and good. They are caught both in salt and
fresh water, and the natives generally eat them alive, putting them
into their mouths, ana either letting them hop down their throats, or
crushing them between their teeth while they are still wriggling
about. It looks a very nasty thing to do, but, after all, it is not
much worse than our eating oysters alive.

[Illustration: Chalcedon Imperator.]