"Good. I'll go."

In this short interview I obtained my captain for what was to prove
the most momentous voyage of my life.

The papers were signed forthwith in the parlor of Hop Long's
Pearl-of-the-Orient Cafeteria and dawn of the following day saw us
beyond the Golden Gate.

I will omit the narration of the eventful but ordinary occurrences
which enlivened the first six months of our trip and ask my reader to
transport himself with me to a corner with which he is doubtless already
familiar, namely, that formed by the intersection of the equator with
the 180th meridian.

This particular angle bears the same relation to the Southern Pacific
that the corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue does to the
Atlantic Seaboard. More explorers pass a given point in a given time
at this corner than at any other on the globe. [Footnote: See L. Kluck.
_Traffic Conditions in the South Seas_, Chap. IV., pp. 83-92.]

It was precisely noon, daylight-saving time, on July 4th, 1921, when
I stood on the corner referred to and, strange to say, found it
practically deserted. To be more accurate, I stood on the deck of my
auxiliary yawl, the Kawa, and she, the Kawa, wallowed on the corner
mentioned. To all intents and purposes our ship's company was alone. We
had the comforting knowledge that on our right, as one faced the bow,
were the Gilbert and Marshall groups (including the Sandwiches), on our
left the Society, Friendly and Loyalty Archipelagoes, back of us the
Marquesas and Paumotus and, directly on our course, the Carolines and