Then the west became as a forest of amazing growth, and the ship entered its dusky recesses like a hunter for game such as the world never saw--and we looked upon the slow-fading purple islands that are the northern fringes of the greater one of the Philippines, and studied the rather faint and obscure Southern Cross and the stately sheen of the superb constellation of the Scorpion.

It is a pity to have to say that the Cross of the South is a disappointment--has to be explained and made impressive by a diagram.

It is more like a kite than a cross; has a superfluous star at one corner, and no support at all of the idea of being like a cross unless it is worked up and picked into the fancy.

The North Star shines on the other side of the ship, and the Great Dipper dips its pointers after midnight, into the mass of darkness that is the sea when the sun and moon are gone.
The voyage from Honolulu to the farther Pacific was not so long that we forgot the American send-off we got in that Yankee city.

The national airs sounded forth gloriously and grand.