These inter-island voyages of extreme detention, rolling
on a lazy swell in tropical heat, or beating for days against the
strong trades without shelter from the sun, and without anything
that could be called accommodation, were among the inevitable
hardships to which the missionaries' wives and children were exposed
in every migration for nearly forty years.
When I reached the wharf at Honolulu the sight of the Jenny, the
small sixty-ton schooner by which I was to travel, nearly made me
give up this pleasant plan, so small she looked, and so cumbered
with natives and their accompaniments of mats, dogs, and calabashes
of poi. But she is clean, and as sweet as a boat can be which
carries through the tropics cattle, hides, sugar, and molasses. She
is very low in the water, her deck is the real "fisherman's walk,
two steps and overboard;" and on this occasion was occupied solely
by natives. The Attorney General and Mrs. Judd were to have been my
fellow voyagers, but my disappointment at their non-appearance was
considerably mitigated by the fact that there was not stowage room
for more than one white passenger! Mrs. Dexter pitied me heartily,
for it made her quite ill to look down the cabin hatch; but I
convinced her that no inconveniences are legitimate subjects for
sympathy which are endured in the pursuit of pleasure.
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