Koamalu : a story of pioneers on Kauai, and of what they built in that island garden / by Ethel M. Damon. [Vol. 1, no. 2]

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KOA M A L U

Jan. 16. Unusual excitement today. We caught four Albatrosses, large beautiful birds they were too.
Jan. 17. Just one month since we left Honolulu. We have a
fair wind and go quite fast.
Jan. 22. Fair wind, clear blue sky and warm sunshine. It
does our hearts good after the rainy, dismal weather.
Jan. 25. It is cold, bitter cold, and it nearly kills me.
Feb. 13. Great news! We are in sight of land and really off
Cape Horn. We do not see the Cape itself, but some little islands
near it. We may now anticipate that our voyage is nearly half
way over.
Feb. 15. Cape Horn is passed at last and we are now sailing
north in the Atlantic. Last night the thermometer was 40, the
lowest it has been, and very cold to us.
Feb. 18. The eldest Nun, who is slightly crazy, commences
to grow worse and worse. She cannot speak straight at all, and
time hangs heavy on her hands. For change she wears the left
shoe on her right foot, and vice versa.
Feb. 27. She sometimes makes remarks hardly in keeping with
the dignity of a Nun. She proposed at table the other day that
we all get up and play catch. Today they had to haul up a spar
and tie it to the foremast which was split. They had to pull down
all the sails which of course produced great excitement.
Feb. 28. Sunday. We girls wore our new gingham wrappers.
It was a beautiful bright day and we all felt happy.
March 10. Great Excitement!! Almost the most exciting day
we have ever yet had. We have seen seven ships and one, an
Italian ship, came so near that we made signals to it, but it would
make no answer. Mamma, Capt. Winters and the Captain's wife
had a great religious argument with Marie Stanislaus, the French
Nun, which produced quite an excitement afterwards. The Steward had a great argument with the poor crazy German Sister. The
Captain caught a large shark and a frightful object it was, with
four sets of teeth and the flesh still quivering and throbbing after
it had been all hacked up by the sailors. Yesterday they tied ropes
around the dogs and threw them overboard to bathe. Some sailors