A Triton horn was sounded to let us know when the beverage was ready, and in response we all clapped hands.

The bout being in honor of the _Spray_, it was my turn first, after the custom of the country, to spill a little over my shoulder; but having forgotten the Samoan for "Let the gods drink," I repeated the equivalent in Russian and Chinook, as I remembered a word in each, whereupon Mr.Osbourne pronounced me a confirmed Samoan.

Then I said "Tofah!" to my good friends of Samoa, and all wishing the _Spray_ _bon voyage_, she stood out of the harbor August 20, 1896, and continued on her course.

A sense of loneliness seized upon me as the islands faded astern, and as a remedy for it I crowded on sail for lovely Australia, which was not a strange land to me; but for long days in my dreams Vailima stood before the prow.
The _Spray_ had barely cleared the islands when a sudden burst of the trades brought her down to close reefs, and she reeled off one hundred and eighty-four miles the first day, of which I counted forty miles of current in her favor.

Finding a rough sea, I swung her off free and sailed north of the Horn Islands, also north of Fiji instead of south, as I had intended, and coasted down the west side of the archipelago.
Thence I sailed direct for New South Wales, passing south of New Caledonia, and arrived at Newcastle after a passage of forty-two days, mostly of storms and gales.
One particularly severe gale encountered near New Caledonia foundered the American clipper-ship _Patrician_ farther south.