than not to. But to-morrow, ah, to-morrow, I shall be out in that
wonderful water, and I shall come in standing up, even as Ford and
Freeth. And if I fail to-morrow, I shall do it the next day, or the
next. Upon one thing I am resolved: the Snark shall not sail from
Honolulu until I, too, wing my heels with the swiftness of the sea,
and become a sun-burned, skin-peeling Mercury.



CHAPTER VII--THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI



When the Snark sailed along the windward coast of Molokai, on her
way to Honolulu, I looked at the chart, then pointed to a low-lying
peninsula backed by a tremendous cliff varying from two to four
thousand feet in height, and said: "The pit of hell, the most
cursed place on earth." I should have been shocked, if, at that
moment, I could have caught a vision of myself a month later, ashore
in the most cursed place on earth and having a disgracefully good
time along with eight hundred of the lepers who were likewise having
a good time. Their good time was not disgraceful; but mine was, for
in the midst of so much misery it was not meet for me to have a good
time. That is the way I felt about it, and my only excuse is that I
couldn't help having a good time.

For instance, in the afternoon of the Fourth of July all the lepers
gathered at the race-track for the sports. I had wandered away from
the Superintendent and the physicians in order to get a snapshot of
the finish of one of the races. It was an interesting race, and