The captain, too, appeared to share this
opinion, and I was the only person who regretted not having formed a
more intimate acquaintance with them.
28th May. For some days we had been fortunate enough to be visited,
from time to time, with violent showers; a most remarkable thing for
the time of year in this climate, where the rainy season commences
in January and lasts for three months, the sky for the remaining
nine being generally cloudless. This present exception was the more
welcome from our being just on the Line, where we should otherwise
have suffered much from the heat. The thermometer stood at only 81
degrees in the shade, and 97 degrees in the sun.
Today at noon we crossed the Line, and were once more in the
northern hemisphere. A Tahitian sucking-pig was killed and consumed
in honour of our successful passage, and our native hemisphere
toasted in real hock.
On the 4th of June, under 8 degrees North latitude, we beheld again,
for the first time, the lovely polar star.
On the 17th of June, we passed so near to Saypan, one of the largest
of the Ladrone Islands, that we could make out the mountains very
distinctly.
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