RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
officer, and Mrs. Branagan, and several private secretaries with their families.
The voyage from San Francisco to Honolulu was quite perfect. As we sailed toward the tropics the weather gradually grew warmer and the sheltered decks became the most attractive part of the ship. The promenade deck of the Hancock reaches from bow to stern. I believe there is a regular term to describe such ship construction,—“decked over all” is it? but to me it was just a very long deck which served unusually well for exercise. The Commission held regular business sessions in a cabin which had been fitted up for the purpose, but when work was over they would start on a long march around and around the deck, covering many miles each day. My husband was especially industrious and walked one man after another “off his feet” until, finally, he was obliged to finish his long tramp alone. He set himself the task of so many miles a day, so many times around the deck being a mile, and to keep count of laps requires some concentration. His quiet persistence in this kind of exercise was calculated to make the lazy onlooker intensely nervous, and when I had done my modest little turn I was always glad to indulge in a sort of counter-concentration at a whist table, or at General Wright's ever constant pinochle.
Altogether the days passed very pleasantly and we were a very merry and friendly party by the time we reached Honolulu.
At Honolulu I got my first glimpse of real tropics, and I was enchanted. It was a glorious sensation for me that April morning when I saw these mid-Pacific islands, for the first time, rise before me out of a white-capped sea; clear-cut in an atmosphere which seems never to be blurred by mist.
American energy, ambition and initiative have wrought great material changes in the islands and these, which were even then important, were brought to our admiring attention
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