up this afternoon very suddenly, but in five minutes we were admiring the rainbow that accompanied it.
We have a wonderful country in the United States,
but we pay very little attention to ships. I heard the
captain say at dinner today that the United States
sends only twelve passenger ships to foreign countries,
the "Sonoma" being one of them, whereas England
sends eleven thousand. Germany comes next with
five thousand, and little Japan has five hundred. Our
decline in shipping began with the Civil War; we have
given our attention to building up the country, and neglected
ship-building. The captain says that many of
our rich men are interested in foreign ship lines, and
that they impudently maintain a lobby in Washington
to fight every measure intended to benefit domestic
shipping. Our financiers will in time gain control of
many of the big foreign ship companies; this, in the
captain's judgment, will be the final solution of the
problem.
The Atlantic ocean is small compared with the great
bulk of the Pacific. Immense fields of water never
parted by the cut-water of a ship or steamer lie between
the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. Perhaps
half of the Pacific is as yet unexplored and uncharted.
In the lonely South Seas lie the Samoa islands, two of
which belong to the United States. The "Sonoma"
stopped at one of these on the 29th, and we found
the harbor at Pago Pago exceedingly pretty. The
captain said we should reach Pago Pago at 4 P. M., and
at 3:50 P. M. we went ashore. The "Sonoma" makes
