Educational assistance, American -- Philippines; Philippines -- Description and travel
The ball on the tower of the Ferry Building in San Francisco had just
fallen, announcing the hour of noon on the one hundred and twentieth
meridian, when the propellers began revolving and the United States
Army Transport "Thomas" swung out into the middle of the bay, where it
dropped anchor for a few moments while some belated boxes of lemons
and a few other articles were added to the equipment of the steward's
department.
The anchor was again on its way to the surface when a row-boat driven
by four oarsmen with drawn muscles and clenched teeth glided in under
the bow of the ship. Its passenger, a belated teacher who at the last
moment had wandered from the pier, was shouting for some one to throw
him a rope, and a few moments later our last passenger whose silvery
hair little indicated the probability of such a blunder was landed in
a heap on the deck. Our ship was now under way and soon passed out of
the Golden Gate bearing on and between her decks the largest number of
teachers as well as the largest cargo of pedagogical equipment that
any vessel in the history of the world ever bore to a foreign land to
instruct an alien people. Late in the afternoon five whales came up
and spouted and played around us. We passed on and as their fountains
of spray disappeared in the distance the sun sank down to pay his
wonted devotion before the shrine of night. We were alone.
By good fortune we went by way of the Hawaiian Islands and touched at
Honolulu. We entered the harbor in the first faint light of the coming
morn while the moon still shone with resplendent glory just above the
nearer rim of the old extinct volcanic crater lying just behind the
town. High points of land lay around us on three sides, while across
the bay soft billowy clouds completed an enchanting circle from the
spell of which none of us wished ever to escape.
No traveler who lands at Honolulu will feel unrequited for his time
and his money should he visit two places in the vicinity of the town.
The first is the _Pali_ and the second, the Bishop Museum of
Polynesian Ethnology.
The first is a gigantic precipice, reached by a few hours ride from
the city by horse. As one reaches the precipice, there spreads out
before him at a dizzying depth below a verdant plain, bounded in the
distance by an emerald sea. The wind which always blows in tropical
countries is gathered in between the long projecting arms of a
mountain chain and rushes over the face of cliff with such force that
it is said by travelers to be one of the strongest continual winds on
the globe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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