Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/71

Rh CHAPTER III.

HOSE who have followed the Boy Travellers in their journeys in other parts of the world will remember that their plans were often changed by circumstances which could not be foreseen. At Honolulu one of these changes took place, and this is how it happened:

"When the Alameda entered the harbor on her arrival from San Francisco our friends observed at anchor a trim-looking yacht displaying the English flag. They were too busy with the novelties of the place to give her any attention, and her presence was soon forgotten.

On the morning of their return from Molokai Doctor Bronson encountered in the breakfast-room of the hotel an old friend, Doctor Macalister, of Cambridge, England. Their greetings were cordial, and all the more so as neither had the least idea that the other was in the Hawaiian Islands or anywhere else in the Pacific Ocean. In almost the same breath each exclaimed,

"What are you doing here?"

Doctor Bronson explained briefly how he came to Honolulu, and where he was going, to which Doctor Macalister responded,

"I came here on the yacht Pera; she belongs to Colonel Bush, formerly of her Britannic Majesty's army, but for several years in the service of the Turkish Government. I am the colonel's guest, and we came here by way of India, China, and Japan. We leave to-morrow for the South Pacific, where we are to cruise about for several months, visiting the most interesting of the island groups. We go first to the Marquesas Islands, and then—"