RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
The first thing we were to learn when our ship came up into the harbour was that the bubonic plague had been epidemic in Honolulu for a long time. It was our first encounter with this terror of the East. There had been seventy-one cases in all, and sixty-one deaths. Six Europeans had contracted the disease and of these four had died. When we dropped anchor we were at once boarded by the local health officer, Dr. Carmichael of the Marine Hospital Service, who was accompanied by United States Minister Sewell and Consul General Hayward. They wanted us to land, of course, and we were very anxious to do so, but as the quarantine was not yet raised they could not answer for the attitude of the Japanese health officers when we got to Yokohama. Our going ashore might result in a long detention in quarantine for ourselves and, aside from the discomfort of this, we could not afford the delay. There was no particular danger for us personally, since no new cases had been reported for twenty-four days, but it was all a question of being able to land later in Japan. It was really too much of a disappointment; there was not a dissenting voice on that score, and Honolulu kept getting more and more attractive as the possibility dawned on us that we might not see it at all. But it was arranged. We sent for the Japanese vice-Consul and explained matters to him and he finally agreed to hold himself responsible for our breaking the quarantine, in so far as it concerned Japan, if we would keep our ship out in the stream instead of tying up at the dock, and permit no member of the crew to go ashore during our stay. This we readily agreed to do and made our plans accordingly. We, too, were to live on board the Hancock, but there were any number of harbour launches put at our disposal.
We were received by the Americans in Honolulu with the utmost cordiality and immediately found ourselves sharing the exhilarating suspense with which the people were then
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