group, changing the name from Marquesas to Madison. Leaving there as a garrison six sailors, who desired to stay, Porter sailed for Valparaiso, where meeting with two British war vessels, which had been sent to capture him, the frigate Phabe, 36 guns, Captain Hillyar, and the Cherub, 22 guns, Porter's superior in every respect, after a severe engagement in which 150 of the 225 Americans were killed, and their ship in a sinking condition, Porter lowered his flag. The sailors left at the Marquesas were killed by the natives. In 1842 France took possession of the islands and still holds them; area 480 square miles, population 6,000.

Eli Jennings shipped at Sag Harbor as a sailor on a South sea whaler some time in the fifties. Dropping himself into the sea as the ship sailed one day from Navigator island, he was picked up by a native boat and carried ashore. He traded in cocoanut oil and sandal-wood, married a native wife, and bought Quiros island, of the Samoan group, with gin at a shilling bottle the square mile, which is more than France is willing to pay for China in missionaries. Wealth came, also children. And this is how a Yankee sailor found his paradise. in the Pacific.

Part of paradise is under water, that is to say the streets of pearl. In the South sea pearl-fishing is an occupation, a hundred divers sometimes living together on a schooner for five months in the year. From the schooner they used in early times to go out in different directions in small boats, from which they would dive, or drop themselves into the water. The naked Ceylon diver uses a sinker; the Australian sits on the edge of his dinghy vigorously inflating his lungs for a few moments before letting himself into the water, when he quietly works himself to the bottom, where he remains from one to three minutes. Pearling is now done by dress-divers, who have the advantages of going deeper and remaining longer under water. At a depth of from three to eight fathoms, with modern appliances, dress-divers can remain at their work for one or two hours; at eighteen fathoms he finds ten minutes quite long enough, owing to the pressure of the water and the difficulty of breathing.

Pearl-diving is a perilous occupation, the danger being constant of entanglements at the bottom, and the cutting of airpipes by the coral banks, not to mention liability to deafness,

paralysis, or death. As the boat above is drifting, and the diver is hastening hither and thither, not unfrequently his lines get fouled on the reefs, and means of communication with the upper world is cut off, and he remains tied to the bottom of the sea until death relieves him.

A Frenchman, Louis de Rougemont, landed one day in 1898 on the coast of Australia, with a strange tale of how he had lived for thirty years among savages in a country which had never been explored. It was the tale of a modern Robinson Crusoe, but upon close investigation as to its truthfulness it was pronounced by competent judges as not impossible, though probably false.

Malietoa, king of the Samoan islands, who died in September, 1898, was a man of picturesque personality. Mild in disposition, though the immediate descendant of savage ancestors, more Christian in forbearance, justice, and piety than the Christians themselves, his life was a lesson to priests on piety and to politicians on patriotism. He loved his country, and to see it caught up in a whirlwind of the world's avarice was to him worse than any destruction which might accrue from the tempests of the tropics.

Among the others of recent acquisition there is the Mohammedan paradise, so lately the paradise of pirates, which it is well in its way to have, and so with the orthodox and heathen Edens complete the variety. The sultan of Sulu, with his harem of sultans, and his 100,000 Mussulman subjects, should be a happy man, even though slavery and polygamy are not permitted in the United States, and his people are of the off color in which no American citizen may appear. For 300 years Spain fought the Sulus, and succeeded in subjugating them only in 1877. Maybun, in the island of Sulu, the largest of the archipelago, in which there are about 150 isles and islets, half of them inhabited, is the Mohammedan metropolis of these parts, and the home of the sultan, who there resides in his palace of bamboo. An hereditary monarchy under the salic law, the sultanate is still subordinate to the supreme religious authority of the sultan of Turkey, which brings the pilgrimage to Mecca within the category of duties.

One who saw the sultan says: "His excellency was dressed in very tight silk trousers, fastened partly up the sides with showy chased gold or gilt buttons, a short Eton-cut olive

green jacket with an infinity of buttons, white socks, ornamented slippers, a red sash around his waist, a kind of turban and a kris at his side. One could almost have imagined him to be a Spanish bull-fighter with an oriental finish off. We all bowed low, and the sultan, surrounded by his sultanas, put his hands to his temples, and on lowering them he bowed at the same time. There was a pause and the sultan motioned to us to repose on cushions on the floor, and we did so. The cushions, covered with rich silk, were very comfortable. Servants in fantastic costumes were constantly in attendance, serving betel-nut.”

Call to mosque is made by beating on a box, or striking two sticks together, the temple being of bamboo. The Sulus wear a turban head-dress, even though they wear nothing else. They gather fruit, catch fish, trade in pearls, shells, and shark-fins.

One sings the isles of Greece, another the vales of Cashmere, but no spot of earth is fitter as a specimen of paradise than parts of the South sea isles, where hills and valleys are feathered by foliage, where forest and streams subdue the tropical heat, and all the region round is fanned and freshened by ocean breezes breathing perpetual spring. Then, mounting higher into the cooler air, look away over the eternity of ocean; note where on every side the sea and sky meet, and what is seen there, and beyond, and still and forever beyond, depends on the sight and soul of the beholder. Paradise, yet not without its Satan, else it could not be Eden. When the gentle winds rise to whirlwinds, there is a demon in them. When the mountains belch forth fire and death, and the valleys open wide the mouth of destruction, know that evil cometh, and if possible propitiate it. The serpent likewise, turned out of his old Eden, in this new Eden pluralizes himself in a multitude of mammoth and fantastic forms. It would seem that the contiguity of hades does not detract from the pleasures of paradise. Because of the deadly elements, and the poisonous beasts and insects, the people are none the less free from care or full of happiness. What if fire comes down from heaven, or shoots up from earth, or the tornado sweeps towns to destruction, or the deluge drowns whole districts? the sun shines presently as bright as ever, and though a few thousand are killed there are plenty of people

left. The air of all these isles has remarkable medicinal virtues if we can find them out. Many go there to be healed; some return. Every thing is of strategic value now, and is wanted for a coal station and navy yard; possibly for a cable telegraph station. The time will come however when some of the lands of the Pacific will be reserved to benefit the living, and not all of them be devoted to war and subject to diplomacy.

CHAPTER XXX

STORY OF CALAFIA, QUEEN OF CALIFORNIA

IN 1535 Hernan Cortés set out to explore the western boundary of his conquest, and coming presently upon a great island, which might prove indeed to be a peninsula, he bethought him of his Amadis de Guala, the fifth book of that immortal romance, entitled Las Sergas del Cavallero Esplandíno, published in 1510, wherein is given the story of Calafia, queen of California, and a description of the island, said to be situated on the right hand of the Indies, near the Terrestrial Paradise.

Now, as every one knows, Amadis was to Gaul what king Arthur was to Britain, a hero of romance, round whom were grouped adventurous knights, defenders of the faith and of fair women, and delighting in deeds of chivalry. In the Sergas de Esplanadian is told how king Amadis, his brother Galaor, his son Esplandian, and an army of Christian knights and retainers, go to Constantinople, there to assist the Greeks against the infidel Turks. Esplandian was a brave and chivalrous warrior, who in infancy had been seized and carried off by a lioness while those in charge of him were passing through a forest. The lioness, rebuked by a hermit, is turned to kindness, and suckles and fosters the child, until rescued by King Lisuarte, in whose court Esplandian is brought up and receives knighthood. Arrived in the land of the Turks, Amadis, Galaor, and Esplandian, called the black knight from his armor and the Great Serpent from his wisdom, fight under the protection of the enchantress Urganda, while the infidels are assisted by her rival Melia. Being in great danger at one time, Urganda saves the Christians by throwing them into a deep sleep, until possession of a certain magic sword should be obtained with which to rescue them.

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