5 - Rainbows

Summary

Shortly we came in sight of that spot whose history is so familiar to every school-boy in the wide world — Kealakekua Bay — the place where Captain Cook, the great circumnavigator, was killed by the natives, nearly a hundred years ago. The setting sun was flaming upon it, a Summer shower was falling, and it was spanned by two magnificent rainbows. Two men who were in advance of us rode through one of these and for a moment their garments shone with a more than regal splendor. Why did not Captain Cook have taste enough to call his great discovery the Rainbow Islands? These charming spectacles are present to you at every turn; they are common in all the islands; they are visible every day, and frequently at night also — not the silvery bow we see once in an age in the States, by moonlight, but barred with all bright and beautiful colors, like the children of the sun and rain. I saw one of them a few nights ago.

Mark Twain, Roughing It

Unweaving the rainbow

How many rainbows have you seen recently, say in the last six months? Not many, I'll wager. The fact is that, unless you live somewhere where the conditions that favour their formation occur on an almost daily basis, such as an oceanic island like Hawaii, you probably don't often get the chance to see a rainbow.