The magnificent monotony of its stupendous placidity was not broken except by a few hours of ruffled rollers that tell of agitations that, if gigantic, are remote.
The two thousand and one hundred miles from California to Honolulu seemed at first to cover a vast space of the journey from our Pacific coast to the Philippines, but appeared to diminish in importance as we proceeded and were taught by the persistent trade winds that blew our way, as if forever to waft us over the awful ocean whose perpetual beauty and placidity were to allure us to an amazing abyss, from which it was but imaginative to presume that we, in the hands of infinite forces, should ever be of the travelers that return.

Similar fancies beset, as all the boys remember--the crews of the caravels that carried Columbus and his fortunes.

There were the splendors of tropical skies to beguile us; the sea as serene as the sky to enchant us! What mighty magic was this that put a spell upon an American army, seeking beyond the old outlines of our history and dreams, to guide us on unfamiliar paths?
What was this awakening in the soft mornings, to the thrilling notes of the bugle?
The clouds were not as those we knew in other climes and years.

We saw no penciling of smoke on the edges of the crystal fields touched up with dainty ripples too exquisite to be waves--that which is a delight for a moment and passes but to come again, in forms too delicate to stay for a second, save in those pictures that in the universe fill the mind with memories that arc like starlight.

The glancing tribes of flying fish became events.