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Such is the life on the leper settlement of Molokai; a precipitous cliff at its back two thousand feet high; the ocean, looking here bluer and lovelier than ever I saw it look elsewhere on three sides of it; the soft trade-wind blowing across the lava-covered plain; eternal sunshine; a mild air; horses; and the weekly excitement of the arrival of the schooner from Honolulu with letters.
These are all supposed to have been driven by the north-west monsoon to the coast of New Holland, and thence to these islands by the south-east trade-wind. Large masses of Java teak and Yellow wood have also been found, besides immense trees of red and white cedar, and the blue gum-wood of New Holland, in a perfectly sound condition.
The language of the people was said to be very similar to that or the Navigator's islands, from which, their ancestors are supposed to have emigrated. And thus much being said, all has been related that I then knew of the islands in question. Enough, however, that they existed at all; and that our path thereto lay over a pleasant sea, and before a reliable Trade-wind.
Most of us were of opinion that, having been permitted to come thus far without interference, we were now safe, and that with a strong trade-wind wafting along even the slowest coaches among us, at a pace of from six to seven knots an hour, our troubles were all over. But the more knowing ones shook their heads, smiled compassionately at our ignorance, and said, "Wait a bit!" And they were right.
Our captain, a young man, and a perfect gentleman, never refused any indulgence to the men compatible with discipline and the safety of the ship: and as the regular trade-wind blew, there was no danger of sudden squalls.
A very interesting and, from the point of view of the navigator, important peculiarity of these whirls is that at their centre there is a calm, similar in origin and nature to the calm under the equator between the trade-wind belts.
I lay the pen down, and a hundred of her sayings ring in my ears, with my own contradictious comments, that I was doomed so soon to repent; a hundred visions of her start to my eyes; and there is the trade-wind singing in the rigging, and loosening a tress of my darling's hair, till it flies like a tiny golden streamer in the tropic sun. There, it is out!
This principal lower current first touches the earth's surface beyond the tropical calms, and having lost its relative eastward motion and now tending westward, it appears as the trade-wind, very regular and constant; while the upper secondary current returns, without reaching the tropics, as an undercurrent, and in our latitude appears as the prevailing northeastward wind, a very feeble motion, usually lost in the weather winds and other disturbances, and only appearing distinctly in the general average.
Finally, they sailed from the treasure island on the fifth day of May, 1570, and working their way to the north-east between the islands of Cuba and San Domingo, hit the Gulf Stream, which swept them to windward as they struggled northward against the north-east trade-wind.
Luckily, although there was a considerable amount of swell, which burst upon the reef with a continuous sound of thunder, and threw up a wall of diamond spray some twenty feet high into the clear, sun-lit air, the trade-wind was blowing but a moderate breeze, and there was consequently not much sea.
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