The Cruise of the Snark - Forgotten Books

TH E CRUISE O F THE

SNARK

JACK LONDON

AUTHOR or“311 1111 1 110 DAYLIGHT,

”MARTIN ED EN,

”

“THE CALL OF THE mm ,

”

ILLUSTRATED

Jfidn iguk

THE MACM ILLAN COM PANY

1 9 1 1

Allrig ht: reserv ed

COPYRIGHT,1 908,

BY HARPER 8: BROTHERS.

Cowaxcm '

, 1 906,

BY THE INTERNATIONAL MAGA! INE CO .

Cowmcm'

,1 907 , 1 908 , AND 1 909 ,

BY THE CROWELL PUBLISH ING COMPANY

Cowmcu ‘

r, 1 9 1 1 ,

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY .

Se t up and electrotyped. Published J u n e ,1 9 1 1 .

Norboob31 19!J . Cash ing Co . Berwick 61 Smith 00.

Norwood, Mum», U S .A.

CHARMIAN

THE MATE OF THE SNARK

WHO TOOK THE WHEEL, NIGHT OR D AY, WHEN ENTERING

OR LEAVING PORT OR RUNNING A PASSAGE, WHO

THE WHEEL IN EVERY EMERGENCY, AND WHO WEPT

AFTER TWO YEARS OF SAIL ING , WHEN THE

VOYAGE WAS D ISCONTINUED

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I . FOREwORD

II . THE INCONCEWARLE AND MONSTROUS

III . ADVENTURE

IV. a mc On E’s WAY ABOUT

V . THE PwaT LANDPALL

VI . A ROYAL SPORT

VII . THE LERERs or MOLox Ax

VIII . THE HOUSE 0? THE SUN

IX. A PAcmc TRAVERsE

X. TYREE

XI . THE NATURE MAN

XII . THE HIGH SEAT OR ABUNDANCE

XIII . STONE-PISHING OE BORA BORA

XIV. THE AMATEUR N Av1cATOR

XV . CRUlsmc m THE SOLOMONS

XVI . BECHE DE MER En cu su

XVII . THE AMATEUR M .D .

BACKWORD

PAGE

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Frou tijpiete in rolorr

1 The Buildin g of the Su rf

The Su rf Set UpIn terior View of Frame

Hullof the Smart

Charmian and the SkipperTakin g on Stores at Oaklan d City WharfOur Head-sailsThe Two Boats, on Deck, left Little RoomThe Best Adven turer of them AllOn a Level SeaThe Doldrums

Doin g her TrickThe Dark Secrets ofNavigationLan d Ho !

Our First Gun yA Big Wave that ts liable to stealthe Horiz onIn the Heel of the Northeast TraderThe Smart at her First AnchorageThe Wharf that wouldn ’

t stan d StillTropic LootDream HarborComin g in on a Wave

Leviathan and the Saar}

Good Morn in gStan din g up and lyin g downBeatin g the Break of the Wave

PAGE

LIST OF I LLUSTRATIONS

The Wave that Everybody CaughtMolokai. Horribles on Morn in g of ju ly Fourth .

They are Al l LepersMolokai, Pa 11 Riders on Morn in g of Fourth ofjulyMolokai, a Pa-u RiderMolokai Leper Fishermen in their Boats at Boat Lan din gMolokai. Village ofKalaupapa. The Pali , or Precipice,in the Backgroun d varies in Height between TwoThousan d and Four Thousand Feet

Molokai . Lookin g down Damien RoadMolokai . Father Damien ’

s ChurchMolokai. Father Damien ’

s GraveOn e Pack-horse carried Twen ty Gal lon s ofWater in Five

gallon BagsWe had a Lun ch ofjerked Beef and Hard Poi in a Ston e

CorralO n the Crater’ s RimThe Cin der Con es, the Smallest over Four Hundred Feetin Height, the Largest over Nin e Hun dred , on the Floorof the Crater, n early Half a M ile Ben eath

A Lope across a Level Stretch to the Mouth of a Con

ven ien t Blow-holeOur Way led past a Bottomless PitThat En terin g Wedge of Cloud 13 a M ile and

.

a HalfWidein the Gap itself, while beyon d the Gap 11 is a VeritableOcean

And through the Gap Ukiukiu vain ly strove to drive hisFleecy Herds ofTrade win d Clouds

A Man -eater

Through the Shark’s JawsA DolphinAn Unwillin g Pose

LIST OF I LLUSTRATIONS xi

PAGE

A Four-foot Seven -inch DolphinGrass-housesThe Goddess of the PoolThe Tropics after the Adven t ofMoralityA Cocoanut GroveThe Camera in the Marquesas

Un der the Ban an a TreeBehin d the Bulwark of the Reef .

O n e of the In st of a Mighty RaceUn der the Cocoan utsThe Nature Man comes on Board theThe Abbreviated Fish-n et ShirtThe Nature Man

’s Plan tation

In the Sweat of his BrowBreakfast fi'orn the Breadfi'

uit TreeThe sai l was impossibleTehciA South Sea Islan d HomeVisitors on Board the Snark at Raiatea

In a Double-can oe paddled by a Doz en Strappin g Amaz on s 2 20

The Laun ch attracted much Atten tionThe Polyn esian barge in which we were to ride

The Ston e-throwerFlower-crown ed maiden s, han d in han d and two bytwo

The Leader of the Drive sign aling his Comman dsThe Circle began to Con tractThe palisade of legs

One of the FishermenThe Gen darme of Bora Bora, paddled by his Prison ersThe Kin d of Fish we did n ot Catch

x ii

[ 0 2

LIST OF I LLUSTRATIONS

The Famous Broom Road , TahitiPaumotan Natives

Sitar} at Suva Fiji Islan dsSouth Sea Islan d Beauties ridin g in the Si ms-P : LaunchA South Sea Islan derTaupous, or Village Maiden s, Islan d of Savan , Samoan

GroupBetween Black Diamon ds. (Girls of Savau, Samoa)Maids of the Village , Sava n, SamoaA Samoan PolicemanMan -eaters

Typical Coast Scen e Solomon sCoast at Maravovo, Guadalcan er

Four Old RascalsThe Two Han dsomest Men in the Solomon sIslan d of Uru Han d-man ufactured MalaitaThe Islan d of Lan ga, built up from the Sea by the Saltwater Men

A Salt-water Fastn essThe Islan d ofAuki, built up from the Sea by Salt-waterMen

The Market — composed.

whol ly ofWomenAn Island in Process ofMan ufacture

Solomon Islands Can oeMen ofKewm Solomon sBush-women goin g to Market, Malu, MalaitaSalt-water Women on their Way to Market, Malu,Malaita

A Malaita Man

A Malaita MaryVella Lavella Man

From Fin Bori Malaita

PAGE

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii

PAGE

A Beau ofMalaitaHe kn ew the San dal wood Traders and the Béche de

Mer FishermenHe might have been Gladston e .

Old Woman of Vella LavellaMarys

”

Pul lin g my Fi rst ToothCareen in g the Saar}A War CanoeVisitors comin g alon gside , Merin ge Lagoon , Ysabe l,Solomon Islan ds

Village of the Etc—Etc, Ugi , Solomon sCharmian does some Photographin gThe Su rf : Complemen t in the Solomon s after we lostthe Cook and gain ed a German Mate

Laun dry Bills are not amon g his Vex ation s. His Garb,however, is a Concession to Civiliz ation . Lord HoweAtol l

The Trader’s House at Lua Nua,Lord Howe Atol l

You have heard the beat of the offshore win d,And the thresh of the deep-sea rain

You have heard the son g — how lon g how lon g !Pullout on the trailagain l”

THE CRU ISE OF THE SNARK

CHAPTER I

Foreword

IT began in the swimming pool at Glen Ellen .

Between swims it was ou r wont to come out and lie i nthe sand and let our skins breathe the warm air andsoak in the sunshine . Roscoe was a yachtsman . Ihad followed the sea a bit . I t was inevitable that weshould talk about boats . We talked abou t smal l boats

,

and the seaworthiness of small boats . We instancedCaptain Slocum and his three years ’ voyage aroundthe world in the Spray .

We asserted that we were not afraid to go aroundthe world i n a smal l boat, say forty feet long. Weasserted furthermore that we wou ld like to do it . Weasserted finally that there was nothin g in this worldwe

’

d l ike better than a chance to do it.Let us do it

,we said in fu n .

Then I asked Charmian privi ly if she ’d real lycare to do it, and she said that it was too good to betrue .The next time we breathed our skins in the sand by

the swimming pool I said to Roscoe,Let us do it .

I was in earnest,and so was be

,for he said

When shall we start ?I had a house to build on the ranch

,also an orchard

,

a vineyard , and several hedges to plant, and a numberof other things to do . We thought we would start in

B I

9. THE CRUISE‘

O F THE SNARK

four or five years . Then the lure of the adventurebegan to grip us . Why not start at once? We

’

d

never be young er, any of us . Let the orchard,vine~

yard, and hedg es be growing up whi le we were away .

When we came back, they would be ready for us, andwe could live 1n the barn while we bui lt the house.So the trip was decided upon , and the bui lding of

the Snark began . We named her the Snark becausewe could not think of any other name— th is information is given for the benefi t of those who otherwisemight think there is something occul t i n the name .Our friends cannot understan d why we make this

voyage . They shudder,and moan

,and raise thei r

hands . No amount of explanation can make themcomprehend that we are moving along the line of leastres istance ; that i t i s easier for us to go down to thesea in a small ship than to remain on dry land, just asi t is easier for them to remain on dry land thah to godown to the sea in the smal l ship” This state of mindcomes of an undue prominence of the ego . Theycannot get away from themselves . They cannot comeout of themselves long enough to see that their l i neof least resistance is not necessari ly everybody else’sline of least resistance . They make of their ownbundle of desires

,l ikes

,and dislikes a yardstick

wherewith to measure the desires , l ikes , and disl ikesof all creatures . This is unfair. I tel l them so .

But they can not get away from thei r own miserableegos long enough to hear me . They thi nk I amcrazy . I n return

,I am sympathetic . I t is a state of

mind fami liar to me . We are all prone to think thereis something wrong with the mental processes of the

man who disagrees with us .

FOREWORD 3

The u l timate word is I LIKE. I t l ies beneath philosophy, and is twined about the heart of l ife. When

philosophy has maundered ponderously for a month ,tel li ng the i ndividual what he must do, the individualsays, i n an instan t, I L IKE, and does something else,and philosophy goes glimmering. I t is I t E thatmakes the dru nkard drink and the martyr wear a hairs hirt ; that makes one man a revel ler and another manan anchorite ; that makes one man pursue fame,an other gold, another love, and another God . Philosophy 15 very often a man ’s way of explaining hisown I LIKE.

Bu t to return to the Snark, and why I , for one, wan tto journey in her around the world . The th i ngs I l ikeconsti tute my set of valu es t The thing I like mostof all is personal achievement — n ot achievement forthe world’s applause

,bu t achievement for my own

delight: I t is the old “ 1 did it ! 1 did it ! With myown hands I did i t ! But personal achievement

,with

me,must be concrete . . I ’d rather win a water-fight i n

the swimming pool, or remai n astride a horse that istrying to get out

‘

from under me,than write the great

American novel . Each 'man to his l iking. Someo ther fellow wouId prefer writing the great Americann ovel to win ning the water- fight or mastering thehorse .Possibly the proudest achievemen t of my life, my

moment of highest living,occurred when I was seven

teen . I was in a three-masted schooner off the coastof Japan . We were in a typhoon . All hands hadbeen on deck most of the night. I was called frommy bunk at seven in the mornin g to take the wheel .Not a stitch of canvas was set. We were run n ing be

4 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK

fore i t under bare poles , yet the schooner fairly torealong . The seas were al l of an eighth of a mile apart

,

and the wind snatched the whitecaps from their summits

,fi l l i ng the air so thick with driving spray that it

was impossible to see more than two waves at a time .The schooner was almost unmanageable

,rollin g her

rai l u nder to starboard and to port,veering and yawing

anywhere between southeast and southwest, and threaten in g , when the huge seas lifted under her quarter, tobroach to . Had she broached to , she would ultimatelyhave been reported lost with al l hands and n o tidi ngs .I took the wheel . The sai ling-master watched me

for a space . He was afraid of my youth , feared that Ilacked the strength and the nerve. But when he sawme successfully wrestle the schooner through severalbouts

,he went below to breakfast . Fore and aft

,all

hands were below at breakfast . Had she broached to ,n ot one of them would ever have reached the deck .

For forty mi nutes I stood there alon e at the wheel,i n

my grasp the wi ldly careering schooner and the lives oftwenty- two men . Once we were poo

tped. I saw it

coming,and, half-drowned, with tons 0 water crushing

me,I checked the schooner’s rush to broach to . At

the end of the hour,sweating and played out, I was

rel ieved . But I had done it ! With my own hands Ihad done my trick at the wheel and guided a hundredtons ofwood and iron through a few million ton s ofwind andwaves .My delight was i n that I haddone it— not i n the fact

that twen ty- two men knew I had done it . Withi n theyear over half of them were dead and gone, yet mypride in the thing performed was not diminished byhalf. I am wil ling to confess

,however

,that I do l ike

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(6 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK

moments of living . Bear with me a moment and lookat it. Here am I , a li ttl e animal cal led a man a bit ofvital ized matter

,one hun dred and sixty-five pounds of

meat and blood,nerve, sinew, bones , and brain , — all

of it soft and tender, susceptible to hurt, fall ible, andfrai l . I strike a l ight back- handed blow on the noseof an obstreperous horse, and a bone i n my hand isbroken . I put my head under the water for five minutes

,and I am drowned . I falltwenty feet through

the ai r,and I am smashed . I am a creature of tem~

perature . A few degrees one way, and my fingersand ears and toes blacken and drop OR. A few degrees the other way

,and my ski n blisters and shrivels

away from the raw,quivering flesh . A few addi tion al

degrees either way,and the l ife and the l ight in me go

out. A drop of poison injected into my body from asnake

,and I cease to move —forever I cease to move .

A splin ter of lead from a rifle enters my head , and Iam wrapped around in the eternal blackness .Fallible and frail , a bit Of pulsati ng, jel ly- l ike life

it is al l I am . Abou t me are the great naturalforcescolossal menaces , Titans of destruction

,u n se n ti

mental monsters that have less concern for me than Ihave for the grain of sand I crush under my foot.They have no concern at all for me . They do notknow me . They are un conscious

,unmerciful

,and

unmoral . They are the cyclones and tornadoes,l ight

ning flashes and cloud- bursts,tide- rips and tidal waves

,

u ndertows and waterspouts , great whirls and sucks andeddies , earthquakes and volcanoes

, surfs that thunderon rock- ribbed coasts and seas that leap aboard thelargest crafts that float, crushing humans to pulp orlicki ng them ofl

'

i nto the sea and to death — and these

FOREWORD 7

in sen sate monsters do not know that tiny sensi tivecreature, al l nerves and weaknesses , whom men cal lJack London , and who himself thinks he is allrightand quite a superior being

, ”

I n the maze and chaos of the confl ict of these vastand draugh ty Titan s, i t is for me to thread my precarion s way . The bit of life that is I wi l l exult overthem . The bit of l ife that is I

,in so far as i t succeeds

in bafllin g them or in hittin g them to its service, wil limagine that it is godlike . I t is good to ride the tempest and feel godlike . I dare to assert that for a fin i te speck of

pulsating jelly to feel godlike is a far

more gloriou s eeli ng than for a god to feel godl ike .Here is the sea, the wind, and the wave . Here are

the seas, the winds , and the waves of al l the world .

Here is ferocious environment . And here is diffi cul tadjustment, the achievement of which is delight to thesmall quivering vanity that is I . I like . I am somade . I t is my own particu lar form of vanity

,that is

all .There is also another side to the voyage of the

Snark. Being alive , I want to see, and al l the world isa bigger thing to see than one small town or val ley .

We have done littl e outli nin g of the voyage . Onlyone thin is definite , and that is that our first port ofcall wil l e Honolulu . Beyond a few general ideas, wehave n o thought of our next port after Hawaii . Weshal l make up our minds as we get nearer . I n a generalway we know that we shal l wander through theSouth Seas , take in Samoa, New ! ealand , Tasmania,Austral ia, New Guinea, Borneo, and Sumatra

,and

go on up through the Philippines to Japan . Thenwill come Korea, China, I ndia, the Red Sea, and the

8 THE CRU ISE OF THE SNARK

Mediterranean . After that the voyage becomes toovague to describe, though we know a number of thin gswe shall surely do, and we expect to spen d from one toseveralmonths in every country in Europe .The Snark is to be sai led . There wi ll be a gasol ’eneengine on board, bu t i t wi ll be used only in case of

emergency,such as in bad water among reefs and

shoals, where a sudden calm in a swift current leaves asai li ng-boat helpless . The rig of the Sn ark is to bewhat is called the ketch .

” The ketch rig is a com

promise between the yawland the schoon er . Of lateyears the yawl rig has proved the best for cruising.

The ketch retains the cruisi ng virtues of the yaw], andi n addition manages to embrace a few of the sail ingvirtu es of the schoon er . The foregoing must be takenwith a pinch of salt. I t is all theory in my head . I ’venever sai led a ketch

,nor even seen one . The theory

commends itself to me . Wait ti l l I get out on theocean

,then I ’ l l be able to tell more about the cru ising

and saili ng qual ities of the ketch .

As originally planned,the Snark was to be forty

feet long on the water- l i ne . But we discovered therewas no space for a bath- room ,

and for that reasonwe have in creased her length to forty-five feet . Her

greatest beam is fifteen feet . She has no house and noold . There is six feet of headroom , and the deck is

u nbroken save for two companionways and a hatchfor

’

ard. The fact that there is no house to break thestrength of the deck wil l make us feel safer in casegreat seas thunder their tons of water down on board .

A large and i'oomy cockpit, sunk beneath the deck,with high rai l and self-bai l ing

,wil l make our rough

weather days and nights more comfortab le .

FOREWORD

1 0 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK

There wi l l be no crew . Or,rather

,Charmian

,

Roscoe,and I are the crew . We are going to do the

thing with our own hands . With our own handswe’re going to circumnavigate the globe . Sai l her orsi nk her

,with our own hands we ’ l l do it . Of course

there wi l l be a cook and a cabin—boy . Why should westew over a stove, wash dishes , and set the table ?We could stay on lan d if we wanted to do thosethings . Besides

,we ’ve got to stand watch and work

the ship . A nd also, I’ve got to work at my trade of

writing in order to feed us and to get new sails andtackle and keep the Snark i n eflicien t working order.And then there ’s the ranch ; I

’ve got to keep the vineyard, orchard , and hedges growin g.

When we i ncreased the length of the Snark i n orderto get space for a bath- room ,

we found that al l thespace was not required by the bath- room . Because ofthis

,we i ncreased the size of the engine . Seventy

horse-power our engin e is,and since we ex pect i t to

drive us along at a nine-knot cl ip,we do not know the

name of a river wi th a current swift enough to defy

We expect to do a lot of i n land work. The smallness of the Snark makes this possible . When we enterthe land

,out go the masts and on goes the engine .

There are the canals of China,and the Yang- tse River .

We shal l spend months on them if we can get permission from the government. That will be the oneobstacle to our in land voyaging — governmental permission . But if we can get that permission , thereis scarcely a l imit to the i nland voyaging we can do .

When we come to the Nile, why we can go up theNile . We can go up the Danube to Vienna, up the

FOREWORD 1 1

Thames to London , and we can go up the Seine toParis and moor opposite the Lati n Quarter with abow- l i ne out to Notre Dame and a stern - l ine fast tothe Morgue . We can leave the Mediterranean andgo up the RhOn e to Lyons, there enter the Sadn e ,cross from the SaOn e to the Marne through theCanal de Bourgogne, and from the Marne enter the

The S n ark Set Up .

Seine and go out the Seine at Havre . When wecross the Atlantic to the United States, we can go upthe Hudson

,pass through the Erie Canal , cross the

Great Lakes,leave Lake Mich igan at Chicago , gain

the Mississippi by way of the I ll inois River and theconnecting canal

,and go down the Mississippi to the

Gu lf ofMexico . And then there are the great riversof South America . We ’l l know somethi n g about geography when we get back to Californ ia .

People that bui ld houses are Often sore perplexed ;bu t if they enjoy the strain of it, I

’ l l advise them to


build a boat like the Snark. Just consider, for a moment

,the strain of detail . Take the engine . What

is the best kind of engine the two cycle ? three cyle ? four cycle ? M y l ips are muti lated with al l kindsof strange jargon , my mind is muti lated with stil lstranger 1deas and is foot- sore and weary from travelling in new and rocky realms of thought. — Ignition

In terior View of Frame .

methods ; shall i t be make- and-break or jump-spark ?Shall dry cells or storage batteries be u sed ? A storage battery commends itself, bu t i t requires a dynamo .

H ow powerful a dynamo ? And when we have instal led a dynamo and a storage battery, i t is simplyridiculous not to light the boat with electrici ty . Thencomes the discussion of how many lights and howmany candle- power. I t is a splendid idea . But electric l ights wi l l demand a more powerful storage battery,which

,i n turn , demands a more powerful dynamo .

1 4 THE CRUISE O F THE SNARK

gallons of it — what are the safest ways to tank it andpipe it ? and which is the best fire-extinguisher for agasolene fire ? Then there is the pretty problem of

the life- boat and the stowage of the same . And whenthat is finished, come the cook and cabin - boy to confront one with nightmare possibi li ties . I t is a smal lboat, and we

’ l l be packed close together. The ser

Hu l l of the S n ark .

vant—girl problem Of landsmen pales to in sig n ificance .

We did select one cabin- boy , and by that mu ch wereour troubles eased . And then the cabin-boy fel l i nlove and resigned .

And in the meanwhile how is a fel low to find timeto study navigation — when he is divided betweenthese problems and the earnin g of the money wherewith to settle the problems ? Neither Roscoe nor Iknows anything about navigation , and the summer isgone

,and we are about to start, and the problems are

thicker than ever, and the treasury is stuffed with

FOREWORD 1 5

empti ness. Well, anyway, i t takes years to learn seamanship

,and both of us are seamen . Ifwe don ’t find

the time, we

’ l l lay in the books and instruments andteach ourselves navigation on the ocean between SanFrancisco and H awaxi .There is one unfortunate and perplexing phase of

the voyage of the Snark. Roscoe, who is to be myco~n avigator, is a follower of one, Cyrus R . Teed .

Now Cyrus R . Teed has a different cosmology fromthe one general ly accepted , and Roscoe shares hisviews . Wherefore Roscoe believes that the surface ofthe earth is concave and that we live on the inside ofa hollow sphere . Thus, though we shal l sail on theone boat, the Snark, Roscoe wi l l journey around theworld on the inside

,whi le I shal l j ourney around on

the outside . Bu t of this , more anon . We threatento be of the one mi nd before the voyage is completed .

lam confident that I shall convert him into makingthe jou rney on the outside, while he is equal ly con fi

dent that before we arrive back in San Francisco Ishallbe on the i nside of the earth . How he is goingto get me through the crust I don ’ t know

,bu t Roscoe

is ay a masterful man .

P .S. That engin e ! While we ’ve got it,and the

dynamo, and the storage battery, why not have an icemachine ? Ice in the tropics ! I t is more necessarythan bread . Here goes for the ice-machine Now Iam plunged into chemistry , and my lips hurt, and mymi nd hurts, and how am I ever to find the time tostudy navigation ?

CHAPTER I I

The Inconceivable and Monstrous

SPARE no money , I said to Roscoe . Leteverythi ng on the Snark be of the best. And nevermind decoration . Plain pine boards is good enoughfinishing for me . But put the money into the con

stru ction . Let the Sn ark be as stanch and strong asany boat afloat. Never mind what it costs to makeher stanch and strong ; you see that she is madestanch and strong and I ’ l l go on writing and earni ngthe money to pay for 1t.A nd I did . as well as I could ; for the Snarkate up money faster than I could earn it . I n fact,every li ttle while I had to borrow money with whichto supplement my earnings . Now I borrowed onethousan d dol lars, now I borrowed two thousand dol lars,and n ow I borrowed five thousand dol lars . And allthe time I went on working every day and sinking theearnings i n the venture . I worked Sundays as well

,

and I took no holidays . But it was worth it. Everytime I thought of the Snark I knew she was worth it .For know, gentle reader, the stanchness of the

Snark. She 1s forty-five feet long on the water-l ine .Her garboard strake 13 three inches thick ; her planking two an d one- half inches thick ; her deck-plankingtwo inches thick ; and m al l her planking there are nobutts . I know , for I ordered that planking especial lyfrom Puget Sound . Then the Snark has four watertight compartments

,which is to say that her length is

1 6

INCONCEIVABLE AND MONSTROUS 1 7

broken by three water- ti ht bulkheads . Thus,no

matter how large a leak t e Snark may spring,only

one compartment can fi l l with water. The other threecompartments wil l keep her afloat anyway

, and, besides,wil l enab le us to mend the leak . There is anothervirtu e in these bu lkheads . The last compartment ofall , in the very stern , conta ins six tanks that carry overone thousand ga l lons of gasolene . Now gasolene IS avery dangerous arti cle to carry in bulk on a smal lcraft far ou t on the wide ocean . But when the six

tanks that do not leak are themselves contai ned i n acompartment hermetical ly sealed off from the rest ofthe boat

,the danger wil l be seen to be very small

indeed .

The Snark is a sai l-boat. She was buil t primari ly tosai l . But incidentally, as an aux i l iary, a seventy

-horsepower engine was i nstal led . This i s a good , strongengi ne . I ought to know . I paid for H to come outallthe way from New York City . Then , on deck ,above the engine, is a W indlass . I t IS a magnificentaffair. I t weighs several hundred pounds and takesup n o end of deck- room . You see

,i t is ridiculous to

hoist up anchor by hand-power when there IS a seventyhorse-power engine on board . So we instal led theW indlass

,transmitting power to it from the engine by

means of a gear and casti ngs special ly made in a SanFrancisco foundry .

The Snark was made for comfort, and no expen sewas spared in th is regard. There is the bath- room , for

i nstance,small and compact

,i t is true

,but containing

allthe conveniences of any bath- room upon land . Thebath room is a beautiful dream of schemes and devices,pumps, and levers, and sea-valves . Why , 1n the cou rse

1 8 THE CRU ISE OF THE SNARK

of i ts building, I used to lie awake nights thinking aboutthat bath- room . And next to the bath- room come thelife- boat and the launch . They are carried on deck

,

and they take up what l ittle space might have been leftus for exercise . But then

,they beat l ife i nsurance ;

and the prudent man,even if he has buil t as stanch

and strong a craft as the Snark, will see to it that hehas a good life-boat as wel l . And ours is a good one .I t is a dandy . I t was stipulated to cost one hun dredand fifty dollars , and when I came to pay the bil l , itturned ou t to be three hundred and ninety-five dol lars .That shows how good a life- boat i t is .I could go on at great length relating the various

vi rtues and excel lences of the Sn ark, but I refrain . Ihave bragged enough as it i s

,and I have bragged to a

purpose, as wi ll be seen before my tale is ended . Andplease remember its title

,

“ The I nconceivable andMonstrous .” I t was planned that the Snark shouldsai l on October 1

,1 906 . That she did not so sai l

was inconceivable and monstrous . There was no validreason for not sai l ing except that she was not ready tosail

,and there was no conceivable reason why she was

not ready . She was promised on November first, onNovember fifteenth

,on December first ; and yet she

was never ready . On December first Charmian and Ileft the sweet, clean Sonoma country and came downto live in the stifl i ng city — but not for long, Oh , no,only for two weeks, for we wou ld sail on December fifteenth . A nd I guess we ought to know, forRoscoe said so

,and it was on his advice that we

came to the c i ty to stop two weeks. Alas, the twoweeks went by

, four weeks went by , six weeks wentby

,eight weeks went by

,and we were farther away

INCONCE IVABLE AND MONSTROUS 1 9

from sai li ng than ever . Explain it ? Who ?— me ?I can ’

.t I t IS the one thing 1n allmy life that I havebacked down on . There IS n o explain ing it ; if therewere, I

’d do it. I , who am an artisan of speech ,confess my inabil i ty to ei tplain why the Snark was notready . As I have said , and as I must repeat, i t wasinconceivable and monstrous .The eight weeks became sixteen weeks , and then ,

one day, Roscoe cheered us up by sayi ng“ If we don ’t sail before April first, you can use my

head for a foot- ball .Two weeks later he said , “ I ’m getting my head in

training for that match .

”

Never mind,” Charmian and I said to each other ;

think of the wonderful boat i t is going to be when itis completed .

”

Whereat we would rehearse for our mutual en couragemen t the manifold virtues and excel lences of theSnark. Also, I would borrow more money, and I wouldget down closer to my desk and write harder, and Irefused heroical ly to take a Sunday 05 and go out i ntothe hi l ls with my friends . I was bui ldi n g a boat

,and

by the eternal it was going to be a boat,and a boat

spe l led out al l in capitals B—O—A—T ; and no mat

ter what it cost I didn ’ t care,so long as i t was a

B O A T .

And,oh

,there 13 one other excel lence of the Snark,

upon which I must brag,namely

,her how. No sea

could ever come over i t. I t laughs at the sea,that

bow does ; i t chal len ges the sea i t snorts defiance atthe sea. And withal i t is a beautifu l bow ; the l inesof it are dreaml ike ; I doubt if ever a boat was blessedwith a more beautiful and at the same time a more ca


pable bow . I t was made to punch storms . To touchthat how is to rest one ’s hand on the cosmic nose ofthings . To look at i t is to real ize that expense cut nofigure where i t was concerned . And every time oursai ling was delayed , or a new ex pense was tacked on ,we thought of that wonderful bow and were content .The Snark 1s a small boat. When I figured seven

thousand dollars as her generous cost, I was both generous and correct . I have buil t barns and houses

,and

I know the pecu liar trait such things have of runningpast their estimated cost. This knowledge was mine,was already mine, when I estimated the probable costof the bu i lding of the Snark at seven thousand dollars .Well

,she cost thirty thousand. Now don ’ t ask me,

please . I t is the truth . I signed the checks and Iraised the money . Of course there 18 no explain ing it .I nconceivable and monstrous is what it is, as you wil la

,gree I know,

ere my tale ls done.Then there was the matter of delay . I dealt wi th

forty- seven different kinds of union men and with onehundred and fifteen different firms . And not one unionman and not one firm of al l the u n ion men and al lthe firms ever delivered anything at the time agreedupon , nor ever was on time for anything except payday and bi ll- col lection . Men pledged me their immortal souls that they wou ld deliver a certain thingon a certain date ; as a rule, after such pledging, theyrarely exceeded being three months late in delivery .

And so it went,and Charmian and I consoled each

other by saying what a splendid boat the Snark was, sostanch and strong ; also , we would get into the smal lboat and row around the Sn ark, and gloat over herunbel ievably wonderful bow .

THE CRU ISE OF . THE SNARK

stubborn . I bet, and I bet, and I continued to bet ;and I paid them al l . Why

,the womenkind of my

friends grew so brave that those among them whonever bet before began to bet with me . And I paidthem

,too .

Never mind,said Charmian to me ; just think

of that bow and of being hove to on the China Seas .You see ,

” I said to my friends, when I paid thelatest bunch of wagers , “ neither trouble nor cash isbeing spared i n making the Sn ark the most seaworthycraft that ever sailed out through the Golden Gatethat is what causes al l the delay .

I n the meantime editors and publishers with whomI had contracts pestered me with demands for explanations . But how could I explain to them,

when I wasunable to explain to myself

,or when there was nobody

,

not even Roscoe,to explain to me ? The newspapers

began to laugh at me, and to publish rhymes anentthe Sn ark’

s departure with refrai ns like, Not yet butsoon .

” And Charmian cheered me up by remindingme of the bow, and I went to a banker and borrowedfive thou sand more . There was one recompense forthe delay

,however. A friend of mine

,who happen s

to be a criti c,wrote a roast of me, of all I had done,

and of al l I ever was going to do ; and he planned tohave it publ ished after I was out on the ocean . I wasstil l on shore when it came out

,and he has been busy

explaining ever since .

And the time continued to go by . O n e thin g wasbecoming apparent

,namely

,that it was impossible to

finish the Sn ark i n San Francisco . She had been so

long in the bui lding that she was beginn ing to breakdown and wear out. I n fact, she had reached the

INCONCEIVABLE AN D MONSTROUS 23

stage where she was breaki ng down faster than shecould be repaired . She had become a joke . Nobodytook her seriously ; least of al l the men who workedon her . I said we wou ld sai l just as she was and fi n ishbuilding her in Honolu lu . Promptly she sprang aleak that had to be attended to before we cou ld sai l .I started her for the boat-ways . Before she got tothem she was caught between two huge barges and re

ce ived a vigorous crushing . We got her on the ways,

and,part way along, the ways spread and dropped her

through , stern-first, in to the mud .

I t was a pretty tangle, a job for wreckers, not boatbuilders . There are two high tides every twenty- fourhou rs, and at every high tide , night and day, for aweek , there were two steam tugs pu l ling and haulingon the Snark. There she was

,stuck

,fallen between

the ways and standing on her stern . Next,and while

sti l l in that predicament,we started to use the gears

and castings made 1n the local foundry whereby powerwas conveyed from the engine to the W indlass . I t wasthe first time we ever tried to use that W indlass . Thecastings had flaws ; they shattered asunder, the gearsground together, and the Wi ndlass was out of commission . Following upon that, the seventy- ho -tse-powerengine went out of commission . This engine camefrom N ew York ; so did its bed-plate ; there was aflaw m the bed-plate there were a lot of flaws in thebed-plate ; and the seventyhorse-power engine brokeaway from its shattered foun dations , reared up in theair

,smashed al l connections and fastenin gs, and fe ll

over on i ts side . And the Sn ark conti nued to stickbetween the spread ways, and the two tugs conti nuedto haul vain ly upon her .


N ever mind , said Charmian ,“ think of what a

stanch,strong boat she is .”

Yes,

” said I,and of that beautiful bow .

So we took heart and went at i t again . The ruinedeng i ne was lashed down on its rotten foundation thesmashed castings and cogs of the power transmissionwere taken down and stored away — al l for the purposeof taking them to Honolu lu where repairs and n ewcasti ngs cou ld be made . Somewhere in the dim pastthe Snark had received on the outside one coat of whitepai nt . The intention of the color was sti l l evident,however

,when one got it in the right light. The

Snark had never received any pain t on the inside . Onthe contrary, she was coated inches thick with thegrease and tobacco-ju ice of the multi tudinous mechanicswho had toi led upon her. Never mind, we said ; thegrease and fi l th could be planed off, and later, whenwe fetched Honolu lu

,the Sn ark could be painted at

the same time she was being rebu i l t .By main strength and sweat we dragged the Snark

off from the wrecked ways and laid her alongside theOakland City Wharf. The drays brought all theoutfit from home, the books and blankets and personalluggage . Along with this

,everything else came on

board in a torrent of confusion wood and coal,water

and waten tan ks, vegetables , provisions, oil , the l ife-boatand the launch, all our friends , al l the friends of ourfriends and those who claimed to be thei r frien ds , to saynothing ofsome ofthe friends ofthe friends ofthe friendsof our crew . Also there were reporters

,and photogra

phers, and strangers, and cranks , and finally,and over

al l , clouds of coal- dust from the wharf.We were to sai l Sunday at eleven , and Saturdav after

INCONCE IVABLE AND MONSTROUS 25

noon had arrived . The crowd on the wharf and thecoal-dust were thicker than ever . I n one pocket Icarried a check-book, a fountain- pen , a dater, and ablotter ; in another pocket I carried between one andtwo thou sand dollars in paper money and gold . I wasready for the creditors, cash for the smal l ones and

Takin g on Stores at Oak land City Wharf.

checks for the large ones, and was wai ting only for Roscoe to arrive with the balances of the accounts of thehundred and fifteen firms who had delayed me so manymonths . And thenAnd then the inconceivable and monstrous happened on ce more . Before Roscoe cou ld arrive therearrived another man . He was a United Statesmarshal . He tacked a notice on the Snark’s brave


mast so that al l on the wharf could read that the Sn arkhad been libel led for debt . The marshal left a l ittle oldman in charge of the Sn ark, and himself went away .

I had no longer any control of the Snark, nor of herwo‘nderfu l how. The l i ttle old man was now her lordand master

,and I learned that I was pay ing him three

dollars a day for being lord and master . Also, I learnedthe name of the man who had l ibel led the Sn ark. I twas Sel lers ; the debt was two hundred and thirty- twodollars ; and the deed was no more thanwas to be expectedfrom the possessor ofsu ch a name . Sel lers Ye gods !Sel lersBut who under the sun was Sel lers ? I looked in

my check- book and saw that two weeks before I hadmade him out a check for five hun dred dollars . Othercheck- books showed me that during the many monthsof the bui lding of the Sn ark I had paid him severalthousand dollars . Then why i n the name of commondecency hadn ’t he tried to collect his miserable l i ttlebalance instead of li bel ling the Snark? I thru st myhands into my pockets, and in on e pocket encounteredthe check- book and the dater and the pen , and in theother pocket the gold money and the paper money .

There was the wherewithal to settle his pitiful accounta few score of times and over — why hadn

’t he givenme a chance ? There was no explanation ; i t wasmerely the inconceivable and monstrous .To make the matter worse

,the Sn ark had been l i

be l led late Saturday aftern oon ; and though I sent law

yers and agents al l over Oakland and San Fran cisco,ne i ther United States judge, nor Un i ted States marshal

,nor Mr . Sel lers , n or Mr . Sel lers ’ attorney, nor

anybody could be found . They were all ou t of town

INCONCEIVABLE AND MONSTROUS 27

for the week end . And so the Sn ark did not sai l Sundaymorning at eleven . The li ttle old man was stil l i ncharge

,and he said no . And Charmian and I walked

out on an opposite wharf and took consolation i n theSn ark

’

swonderful bow and thought of al l the gales andtyphoons i t would proudly punch .

A bourgeois tri ck,

” I said to Charmian , speakingofMr . Sellers and his l ibel ; “ a petty trader’s panic .But never mind ; our troubles wi l l cease when once weare away from this and out on the wide ocean .

”

And in the end we sai led away, on Tuesday morn ing,April 23, 1 907 . We started rather lame, I confess .We had to hoist anchor by hand , because the powertransmission was a wreck . Also , what remained ofourseventy- horse-power engine was lashed down. for ballast ou the bottom of the Snark. But what of suchthings ? They could be fixed in Honolulu , and in themeantime thi nk of the magnificent rest of the boat !I t is true

,the engine in the launch wouldn ’t run, and

the l ife-boat leaked like a sieve ; but then they weren’ t

the Sn ark they were mere appurtenances . The thingsthat cou nted were the watertight bulkheads , the sol idplanking wi thout bu tts

,the bath- room devices — they

were the Sn ark. And then there was, greatest of al l,

that noble,wind- punching bow .

We sai led out through the Golden Gate and set ourcourse south toward that part of the Pacific where wecould hope to pick up wi th the northeast trades . A nd

right away th ings began to happen . I had calculatedthat youth was the stuff for a voyage like that of theSnark, and I had taken three youths — the engineer,the cook

,and the cabin - boy . M y calculation was

only two- thirds off ; I had forgotten to calcu late on


seasick youth , and I had two of them , the cook andthe cabi n- boy . They immediately took to their bunks ,and that was the end of their usefulness for a week tocome . I t wil l be understood, from the foregoing, thatwe did not have the hot meals we might have had, norwere things kept clean and orderly down below. Butit did not matter very much anyway

,for we

quickly discovered that our box of oranges had atsome time been frozen ; that our box of apples wasmushy and spoi ling ; that the crate ofcabbages, spoi ledbefore i t was ever del ivered to us

,had to go overboard

instanter ; that kerosene had been spil led on the carrots ,and that the turnips were woody an d the beets rottenwhile the kindling was dead wood that wouldn ’ t burn ,and the coal

,delivered in rotten potato-sacks

,had spil led

all over the deck and was washing through the scuppers .But what did it matter ? Such things were mere ac

cessories. There was the boat — she was al l right,wasn’ t she ?I strol led alon g the deck and in one minutecou nted fourteen butts i n the beautifu l planking or

dered special ly from Puget Sound i n order that thereshould be no butts in it . Also, that deck leaked, and itleaked badly . I t drowned Roscoe out ofhis bunk andruined the tools i n the engine- room

,to say nothing of

the provisions it ruined in the galley . Also, the sides ofthe Snark leaked

,and the bottom leaked

,and we had to

pump her every day to keep her afloat. The floor ofthe gal ley is a couple of feet above the inside bottomof the Sn ark ; and yet I have stood on the floor of th

’egalley

,tryi ng to snatch a cold bite

,and been wet to the

knees by the water churning around inside four hoursafter the last pumping.


but the Lord must have loved us,for we had calm

weather i n which to learn that we must pump everyday i n order to keep afloat, and that more trust couldbe placed in a wooden toothpick than in the mostmassive piece of Iron to be found aboard . As thestanchness and the strength of the Sn ark went glimmering

,Charmian and I pinned our faith more and

more to the Snark’s won derful bow . There was nothing else left to pin to . I t was al l i nconceivable andmonstrous

,we knew, but that how,

at least,was ra

tion al. And then , one evening, we started to heaveto .

How shall I describe it ? First of all , for the benefit of the tyro

,let me explain that heaving to is that

sea manmuvre which,by means of short and balanced

canvas,compels a vessel to ride bow- on to wind and

sea . When the wind is too strong,or the sea is too

high,a vessel of the size of the Snark can heave to

with ease, whereupon there is no more work to do on

deck . Nobody needs to steer . The lookout is superflous. All hands can go below and sleep or play whist .Well , i t was blowing half of a small summer gale

,

when I told Roscoe we ’

d heave to . Night was coming on . I had been steerin g nearly al l day

,and

al l hands on deck (Roscoe and Bert and Charmian )were tired , whi le al l hands below were seasick . I t

happened that we had already put two reefs in thebig mainsai l . The flyin -

j1b and the jib were takenin, and a reef put in the Forestaysai l . The mizzen wasalso taken in . About this time the flying i boomburied itself In a sea and broke short off. I started toput the wheel down In order to heave to . The Snarkat the moment was rol li ng in the trough . She contin


u ed rol ling in the trough . I put the spokes downharder and harder . She n ever budged from thetrough . (The trough , gentle reader, is the mostdangerou s posi tion of all i n which to lay a vessel . )I put the wheel hard down

,and stil l the Snark rolled

in the trough . Eight points was the nearest I couldget her to the wi n d . I had Roscoe and Bert come

Our Head-sails.

i n on the mainsheet . The Snark rolled on i n the

trough,n ow putti ng her rai l under on one side and

now u n der on the other side .Again the i nconceivable and monstrous was showing

i ts grizzly head . I t was grotesque,impossible . I re

fu sed to be lieve it . Under double - reefed mainsail andsi ngle- reefed staysai l the Snark refused to heave to .

We flattened the mainsai l down . I t did n ot alter theSn ark

’

s course a ten th of a degree . We slacked themainsai l off with no more resul t . We set a storm


trysai l on the miz zen , and took in the mai nsail . Nochange . The Snark rolled on in the trough . Thatbeautifu l bow of hers refused to come up and face thewind .

Next we took in the reefed staysai l . Thus, theonly hit of canvas left on her was the storm trysail onthe mizzen . If anything would bring her how up tothe wind, that would . Maybe you won ’ t believe mewhen I say it fai led, but I do say it fai led.

'

And I sayit fai led because I saw i t fai l , and not becau se I believei t fai led . I don ’ t believe it did fai l . I t is unbelievable,and I am not tel ling you what I believe ; I am tel l ing

you what I saw.

N ow, gentle reader, what would you do if you were

on a smal l boat,rol l ing in the trough of the sea

,a try

sai l on that smallboat’s stern that was unable to swingthe bow up into the wind ? Get out the sea-anchor .I t’s just what we did . We had a patent one

,made to

order and warranted not to dive . Imagine a hoop of

steel that serves to keep open the mou th of a large,

conical,canvas bag, and you have a sea-anchor . Well,

we made a line fast to the sea- anchor and to the bowof the Sn ark, and then dropped the sea-anchor overboard. It promptly dived . We had a tripping l ineon it

,so we tripped the sea- anchor and hau led it in .

We attached a big timber as a floa t,and dropped the

sea-anchor over again . This time it floated . Thel ine to the bow grew tau t . The trysail on the mizzentended to swing the bow in to the wind, but, i n spite ofthis tendency

,the Snark calmly took that sea- anchor

in her teeth,and went on ahead

,dragging i t after her,

sti l l i n the trough of the sea . And there you are .We even took in the trysail

,hoisted the fu l l mizzen


i n i ts place, and hau led the fu l l mizzen down flat, and

the Sn ark wallowed in the trough and dragged the seaanchor behindher. Don ’ t believe me. Idon ’ t bel ieve itmyself. I ammerely tel l ing

you what I saw.

Now I leavei t to you . Whoever heard of

a sai ling-boatthat wou ldn ’ theave to thatwouldn ’ t heaveto with a seaanchor to helpi t ? Out of mybrief experiencewi th boats I

know I neverdid . And Istood on deckand looked 0 11

the naked faceof the incon ceivable and mons t r o u s t h eSnark that wouldn ’ t heave to . A stormy night withbroken moonlight had come on . There was a splashof wet in the air

,and up to windward there was a prom

ise of rain-squalls ; and then there was the trough of

The two boats. on deck , left little room.


the sea, cold and cruel in the moonl ight , in which theSnark complacently rolled . And then we took in thesea- anchor and the mizzen

,hoisted the reefed staysail

,

ran the Snark off before it,and went below — not to

the hot meal that should have awaited us,but to skate

across the slush and sl ime on the cabin floor,where

cook and cabin -boy lay like dead men i n their bunks ,and to lie down in our own bu nks

,with our clothes on

ready for a cal l,and to listen to the bilge-water spout

ing knee- high on the gal ley floor .I n the Bohemian Club of San Francisco there are

some crack sai lors . I know, because I heard thempass judgment on the Snark during the process of herbui lding . They found only one vital thing the matterwith her, and on th is they were al l agreed , namely , thatshe could not run . She was al l right in every particular, they said, except that I

’d never be able to runher before it i n a stiff wind and sea . Her l ines,

”

they explained enigmatically, “ i t is the fault of herlines . She simply cann ot be made to run

,that is al l .”

Well,I wish I ’d on l y had those crack sailors of the

Bohemian Club on board the Sn ark the other nigh t forthem to see for themselves thei r one , vital , unanimousjudgment absolu tely reversed . Run I t is the one thingthe Snark does to perfection . Ru n ? She ran with asea- anchor fast for’ard and a full mizzen flattened downaft. Run ? At the present moment, as I write this ,we are bowling along before it

,at a six- kn ot clip , i n the

northeast trades . Quite a tidy bi t of sea is runnin g .

There is nobody at the wheel , the whee l is n ot evenlashed and is set over a half- spoke weather he lm . Tobe precise

,the wind is northeast ; the Sn ark

’

s mizzen isfurled, her mainsail is over to starboard, her head


sheets are hauled flat ; and the Sn ark’

s course is southsouthwest. And yet there are men who have sai ledthe seas for forty years and who hold that no boat canru n before it without being steered . They ’ l l cal l me al iar when they read this ; It

’

s what they called CaptainSlocum when he said the same of his Spray .

As regards the future of the Snark I ’m al l at sea . Idon ’ t know . If I had the money or the credit, I

’dbui ld another Snark that would heave to . But I am atthe end of my resources . I ’ve got to put up with thepresent Sn ark or quit — and I can ’t qu it. So I guessI ’ l l have to try to get along with heavin g the Snarkto stern-first. I am wai ting for the next gale to seehow it

'

will work . I thi nk it can be done. I t al ldepends on how her stern takes the seas . And whoknows but that some wild morning on the Chi na Sea,some gray-beard skipper wi l l stare

,rub his incredulous

eyes and stare again,at the spectacle of a weird

,smal l

craft, very much like the Sn ark, hove to stern-first andriding ou t the gale

P .S. On my return to California after the voyage,I learned that the Snark was forty- three feet on thewater- l i ne instead of forty-five . This was due tothe fact that the builder was not on speaking termswi th the tape- li ne or two-foot ru le .

CHAPTER I I

Adventure

N0 adventure is not dead, and in spite of the steamengine and ofThomas Cook 8: Son . When the ann oun cemen t of the contemplated voyage of the Sn arkwas made

,youn g men of roving disposition proved

to be legion,and young women as wel l to say nothing

of the elderly men and women who volunteered for thevoyage . Why, among my personal friends there wereat least half a dozen who regretted their recent orimminent marriages ; and there was one marria e Iknow of that almost fai led to come off becau se 0 theSnark.

Every mai l to me was burdened with the letters ofapplican ts who were su ffocating in the “ man-stifledtowns ,

” and it soon dawned upon me that a twentiethcentury Ulysses required a corps of stenographers toclear his correspondence before setting sai l . No , adventure is certain ly not dead not while one receivesletters that begin “ There is no doubt that whenyou read this soul-plea from a female stranger in NewYork City

,

” etc . and wherein one learns,a l ittle farther

on,that this female stranger weighs on ly ninety pou nds

,

wants to be cabin-boy , and yearns to see the countriesof the world .

”

The possession of a passionate fondness for geography, was the way one appl icant expressed the wander- lust that was in him ; whi le another wrote, Iam cu rsed with an eternal yearning to be always on the

36


Some were rather vague i n thei r own minds concerning the work to be done on the Snark ; as , for i nstance,the one who wrote : I am takin the l iberty of writi ng you this note to find out i there would be anypossibi li ty ofmy going with you as one of the crew of

your boat to make sketches and il lustrations . Several,

unaware of the needful work on a smal l craft like theSnark, offered to serve, as one of them phrased it, asassistant i n fi l ing materials col lected for books and

n ovels That’s what on e gets for being prolific .Let me give my qualifications for the job

,wrote

one. I am an orphan living with my uncle, who is

a hot revolutionary socialist and who says a man without the red blood of adventure is an animated dish - rag .

”

Said another I can swim some,though I don ’ t know

any of the new strokes . But what is more importantthan strokes, the water is a friend of mine .

” “ If Iwas put alone i n a sail-boat

,I cou ld get her anywhere

I wanted to go,

” was the qualification of a third anda better ualification than the one that follows, “ I havealso watdii ed the fish- boats unload .

” But possibly theprize shou ld go to this one

,who very subtly conveys

his deep knowledge of the world and life by sayingMy age

,i n years

,is twenty-two .

”

Then there were the simple,straight-out

,homely

,

and unadorned letters of you ng boys,lacking in the

felici ties of expression , i t is true, but desiring greatlyto make the voyage . These were the hardest of all todecl ine, and each time I declined one it seemed as if Ihad struck Youth a slap in the face . They were soearnest

,these boys

,they

‘

wanted so much to go . Iam sixteen but large formy age ,

” said one ; and another,Seventeen but large and healthy .

” “ I am as stron g

ADVENTURE 39

at least as the average boy of my size,said an evident

weakling. Not afraid of any ki nd of work,

”was

what many said,while one i n particular

,to lure me no

doubt by in expensiveness,wrote : “ I can pay my way

to the Pacific coast,so that part would probably be

acceptable to you .

” Going around the world is tkeon e thing I want to do ,

” said one,and it seemed to be

the on e thing that a few hundred wanted to do .

“ Ihave no one who cares whether I go or not,

” was thepatheti c n ote sounded by another. One had sen t hisphotograph , and speaking of i t, said, I ’m a homelylookin g sort of a chap, but looks don

’t always count .”

And I am confident that the lad who wrote the following would have tu rned out al l right My age i s 1 9years, but I am rather smal l and consequently won

’ ttake up much room, but I

’m tough as the devi l .And there was one thirteen-year- old applicant thatCharmian and I fell in love with

,and it nearly broke

our hearts to refuse him .

But it must not be imagin ed that most ofmy volu nteers were boys ; on the contrary, boys constituted avery smal l proportion . There were men and womenfrom every walk i n life . Physicians

,surgeons

,and

dentists offered in large numbers to come along,and

,

l ike al l the professional men,offered to come without

pay , to serve in any capaci ty , and to pay, even, for theprivi lege of so servi ng.

There was no end of compositors and reporters whowanted to come, to say nothing of experienced valets

,

chefs , and stewards . Civi l engineers were keen on thevoyage ; “ lady companions galore cropped up forCharmian ; while I was deluged with the applicationsof would-be private secretaries . Many high school


and university students yearned for the voyage, andevery trade in the working class developed a fewapplicants, the machinists, electricians, and engineers being

especial ly strong onthe trip . I was surprised ar the number,who, i n musty law of

fices, heard the cal l ofadventure ; and I wasmore than surprised bythe number of elderlyand reti red sea captainswho were stil l th ral lsto the sea. Severalyoung fellows, withmill ion s coming tothem later on

,were

wi ld for the adventure,as were also severalcounty superintendents of schools .Fathers and sons

wanted to come, andmany men with theirwives , to say n othin g

On a Levelsea ,of the young womans t e n og r a p h e r w h o

wrote : “Write immediately if you n eed me . I shal lbring my typewriter on the first train . But the bestof all is the following— observe the delicate way inwhich he worked in his wife : “ I thought I woulddrop you a line of inquiry as to the possibi li ty of

making the trip with you , am 24 years of age,mar

ADVENTURE 4 1

ried and broke, and a trip of that kind wou ld be justWhat we are lookin g for.

”

Come to think of i t, for t he average man it must befairly diflicult to write an honest letter of self- recommendation . One ofmy correspondents was so stumpedthat he began his letter with the words , This is a hardtask and, after vain ly tryin g to describe his goodpoints

,he wound up with , “ I t is a hard job writing

about one’s self.” Nevertheless, there was one whogave himself a most glowing and lengthy character

,

and i n conclusion stated that he had greatly enjoyedwr1t1n g 1t.

But suppose this : your cabin-boy could ru n yourengine

,cou ld repair it when out of order. Suppose he

cou ld take his tu rn at the wheel, cou ld do any carpenter or machinist work . Suppose he is stron g, healthy,and wil li ng to work . Would you n ot rather have himthan a kid that gets seasick and can’ t do anything butwash dishes ?” I t was letters of this sort that I hatedto decline . The wri ter of i t, self- taught i n English ,had been only two years in the United States , and, ashe said

,I am not wishing to go with you to earn my

living,but I wish to learn and see .” At the time of

writing to me he was a designer for one of the b igmotor manufactu ring companies ; he had been to sea

quite a bi t, and had been used al l his life to the handlmg of smal l boats .

I have a good posi tion , but i t matters not so withme as I prefer travell ing, wrote another. As to salary

,look at me

,and if I am worth a dollar or two , all

right,and if I am not, nothing said . As to my honesty

and character, I shal l be pleased to show you my em

ployers. Never dri nk, no tobacco , but to be honest, I

42 THE CRUISE O F THE SNARK

myself,after a little more experience, want to do a little

e tIn g .

”

“ I can assure you that I am eminently respectable,but find other respectable people ti resome . Theman who wrote the foregoing certainly had me guessing

,and I am sti ll wondering whether or not he

’dhave found me tiresome, or what the deuce he didmean .

“ I have seen better days than what I am passingthrough to-day

,

” wrote an old salt,bu t I have seen

them a great deal worse also .

But the wil l ingness to sacrifice on the part of theman who wrote the following was so touchi ng that Icould not accept : I have a father

,a mother, brothers

and sisters,dear friends and a lucrative position , and

yet I wi ll sacrifice al l to become one of your crew .

”

Another volunteer I could never have accepted wasthe finicky young fellowwho

,to Show me how n eces

sary i t was that I shou ld give him a chance, pointedout that to go in the ordinary boat

,be it schooner or

steamer,would be impracticable

,for I would have to

mix among and live with the ordinary type of seamen ,which as a rule is not a clean sort of l ife .”

Then there was the young fel low of twenty- six,who

had run through the gamut of human emotions,

” andhad done everything from cooking to attending Stanford University, and who, at the present writi ng , wasA vaquero on a fifty- five—thousand-acre range .

” Quitei n contrast was the modesty of the one who said

,I

am not aware of possessing any particular quali ties thatwou ld be likely to recommend me to you r con sidcration . But should you be impressed

,you might

consider i t worth a fewminu tes ’ time to answer . Other;

ADVENTURE 43

wise, there’s always work at the trade . Not expecti ng

,

but hoping, I remain , etc .”

But I have held my head in both my han ds eversince

,try ing to figure out the i ntel lectual kinship be

tween myself and the one who wrote : Long before Iknew of you

,I had mixed pol itical economy and

hi story and deducted therefrom many of your conclusions in concrete .”

Here,i n its way

,is one of the best, as it is the brief

est,that I received : “ If any of the present company

signed on for cruise happens to get cold feet and youneed one more who understands boating, engines , etc . ,would l ike to hear from you

,etc .” Here is another

brief one : Point blank,would like to have the job

of cabin - boy on your trip around the world,or an y

other job on board . Am nineteen years old,weigh

one hundred and forty pounds,and am an American .

And here is a good one from a man a “ l ittle overfive feet long “ When I read about your manlyplan of sailing around the world in a smal l boat withMrs . London

,I was so much rejoiced that I felt I was

planning i t myself,and I thought to write you about

fi l l i ng either position of cook or cabin- boy myself,but

for some reason I did not do i t,and I came to Denver

from Oakland to join my friend’s bu siness last month,but everything is worse and unfavorable . But fortun ately you have postponed your departu re on accountof the great earthquake, so I finally decided to proposeyou to let me filleither of the positions . I am notvery strong, bein a man of a li ttle over five feet long ,although I am of

gsound health and capabili ty .

”

I think I can add to your ou tfi t an addi tionalmethod of utilizing the power of the wind

,

” wrote a


wel l-wisher,which

,while not interfering with ordinary

sai ls in l ight breezes, wil l enable you to use the wholeforce of the win d in its mightiest blows

,so that even

when its force is so great that you may have to take inevery inch of canvas u sed i n the ordin ary way

,you may

carry the ful lest spread with my method With myattachmen t your craft cou ld not be U PSET.

The foregoing letter was written in San Franciscounder the date ofApril 1 6, 1 906. And two days later

,

on Apri l 1 8, came the Great Earthquake . A nd that’swhy I ’ve got it in for that earthquake

,for it made a

refugee out of the man who wrote the letter,and pre

vented us from ever getti ng together.Many ofmy brother socialists objected to my mak

ing the cru ise, of which the followin

fg is typical The

Social ist Cause and the mi ll ions o oppressed victimsof Capitalism has a righ t and claim upon your l ife andservices . If, however, you persist, then , when youswal low the last mouthful of salt chuck you can holdbefore sinking

,remember that we at least protested .

”

One wan derer over the world who cou ld,if oppor

tu n ity afforded, recount many unusual scenes andevents

,spent several pages ardently trying to get to

the poin t of his letter,and at last achieved the follow

ing : Sti l l I am neglecting the point I set out towrite you abou t. So wil l say at once that it has beenstated in print that you and one or two others aregoing to take a cruize around the world in a li ttle fiftyor sixty-foot boat. I therefore can n ot get myself tothink that a man of your attainments and experiencewou ld attempt such a proceedi ng, which is nothin

gless

than courti ng death in that way . A nd even i youwere to escape for some time, you r whole Person , and


trip,wou ld l ike to know if you would like a good

crew,as there is six of us boys al l good sailor men,

with good discharges from the Navy and M erchantService, al l tru e Americans al l between the ages of 20

and 22,and at present are employed as riggers at the

Union I ron Works,and would like very mutch to sai l

wi th you . I t was letters like this that made meregret the boat was not larger .A nd here writes the one woman in al l the worldoutside of Charmian — for the cruise : “ If you havenot succeeded in getting a cook I wou ld l ike verymuch to take the trip i n that capaci ty . I am a womanof fifty, healthy and capable, and can do the work forthe smal l company that compose the crew of the Snark.

I am a very good cook and a very good sailor,and

something of a travel ler,and the length of the voyage

,

if of ten years ’ duration , would suit me better thanone . Referen ces

,etc .

Some day , when I have made a lot of money, I’m

going to bui ld a big ship,with room i n i t for a thou

sand volunteers . They wil l have to do al l the workof navigating that boat arou nd the world

,or they ’ ll

stay at home . I bel ieve that they ’ l l work the boatarou nd the world , for I know that Adventu re is notdead . I know Adventu re is not dead because Ihave had a long and intimate correspondence withAdventure .

CHAPTER IV

F inding One ’s Way About

BUT,our frien ds objected, how dare you go to

sea without a navigator on board ? You ’re not a navigator

,are you ?

I had to con fess that I was n ot a navigator,that I

had never looked through a sextant in my l ife, andthat I doubted if I cou ld tell a sextant from a nauticalalmanac. And when they asked if Roscoe was a navigator, I shook my head . Roscoe resented this . Hehad glanced at the Epitome ,

” bought for our voyage,

knew how to use logarithm tables, had seen a sextan t atsome time

,and

,what of this and of his seafaring an ces

try,he concluded that he did kn ow navigation . But

Roscoe was wrong, I sti l l i nsist. When a you n g boyhe came from Maine to Californ ia by way of the I sthmus of Panama, and that was the only time in his lifethat he was out of sight of land . He had never goneto a school ofnavigation , n or passed an examination inthe same ; nor had he sai led the deep sea and learnedthe art from some other navigator. Hewas a San F rancisco Bay yachtsman , where land is always only severalmiles away and the art ofnavigation is never employed .

So the Snark started on her long voyage without anav igator. We beat through the Golden Gate on Apri l23, and headed for the Hawaiian I slands , twen ty-onehundred sea-miles away as the gul l fl ies . And theoutcome was our justification . We arrived . And wearrived

,furthermore, without any trouble, as you shal l

4 8 THE CRUISE O F THE SNARK

see ; that is, without any trouble to amount to anything. To begi n with , Roscoe tackled the navigating.

He had the theory al l right,but it was the first time

he had ever applied it,as was evidenced by the erratic

behavior ofthe Snark. Not but what the Snark was per

Doin g her Trick.

fectly steady on the sea ; the pranks she cut were onthe chart. On a day with a light breeze She wouldmake a jump on the chart that advertised

“ a wet sai land a flowing sheet,

” and on a day when She just racedover the ocean

,she scarcely changed her posi tion on

the chart. Nowwhen one ’s boat has logged six knotsfor twenty-four consecutive hours

,it is i ncontestable that

she has covered one hundred and forty-four miles of

FIND ING ONE ’

S WAY ABOUT 49

ocean . The ocean was allright,and so was the paten t

log ; as for speed, one saw it with his own eyes . Therefore, the thing that was not al l right was the figuringthat refused to boost the Snark along over the chart.Not that this ha pened every day

,but that i t did happen .

And it was per ectly proper and no more than was tobe expected from a first attempt at applying a theory .

The acquisi tion of the knowledge of navigation hasa strange effect on the minds of men . The averagenavigator speaks of navigation with deep respect. Tothe layman n avigation is a deep and awful mystery,whichfeeling has been generated i n him by the deep and awfulrespect for navigation that the layman has seen displayedby navigators . I have known frank

,i ngenuous

,and mod

est young men , open as the day, to learn n avigationand at on ce betray secretiveness

,reserve

,and self- im

portance,as if they had achieved some tremendous in

tellectualattai nment. The average navigator impressesthe layman as a priest of some holy ri te . With batedbreath

,the amateu r yachtsman navigator invites on e i n

to look at his chronometer. And so it was that ourfriends suffered such apprehension at our sail ing withou t a navigator.During the bu i lding of the Snark

,Roscoe and I had

an agreement,something like this : “ I ’ l l furnish the

books and instruments,

” I said,and do you study up

n avigation now . I ’ l l be too busy to do any studying .

Then , when we get to sea, you can teach me what youhave learned . Roscoe was delighted . Furthermore,Roscoe was as frank and ingenuous and modest asthe young men I have described . But when we gotout to sea and he began to practise the holy ri te,while I looked on admiri ngly, a change, subtle and dis


tin ctive , marked his bearing. When he shot the su nat noon

,the glow of achievement wrapped him in lam

bent flame . When he went below,figured out his ob

servation,and then returned on deck and announced

our latitude and longitude, there was an authoritativering in his voi ce that was n ew to al l of us . But thatwas not the worst of i t. He became fi l led with in commu n icable i nformation . And the more he discoveredthe reasons for the erratic jumps of the Snark over thechart, and the less the Snark u ,

mped the more incommunicable and holy and aw ulbecame his i nformation . M y mild suggestions that It was about time thatI began to learn

,met with no hearty response

,wi th no

offers on his part to help me . He displayed not thesl ightest Intention of l iving up to our agreement .Now thiswas not Roscoe ’S fault , he could not help

i t. He had merely gone the way of al l the men wholearned navigation before him . By an understandab leand forgivable confusion of values

,plus a loss of orien

tation , he fel t weighted by responsibi lity , and e x peri

e n ced the possess ion of p ower that was like unto thatof a god. All his life Roscoe had lived on land , andtherefore In Sight of land . Be ing constantly In Sight ofland, with landmarks to guide him ,

he had managed ,with occasional diffi culties

,to steer his body around and

about the earth . Now he found himse lf on the sea ,wide- stretchin g

,bounded only by the eternal circle of

the Sky . This circle looked always the same . Therewere no landmarks . The sun rose to the east and setto the west and the stars wheeled through the night .But who may look at the sun or the stars and say ,My place on the face of the earth at the presentmoment is four and three- quarter miles to the west

FIND ING ONE ’

S WAY ABOUT 51

of Jones’ Cash Store of Smithersville or “ I knowwhere I am now

,for the Little Dipper informs me that

Boston is three mi les away on the second turnin g to theright ”? And yet that was precisely what Roscoe did.

That he was astounded by the achievement, is pu ttingit mi ldly . He stood in reverential awe of himself ; hehad performed a miraculous feat. The act of findinghimself on the face of the waters became a ri te

,and

he fel t himself a superior being to the rest of us whoknew not this rite and were dependent on him for bei ng shepherded across the heaving and l imitless waste

,

the briny highroad that connects the continents andwhereon there are n o mile- stones . So

,with the sextan t

he made obeisance to the sun -god,he con sulted ancient

tomes and tables of magic characters, muttered prayersin a strange tongue that sounded like I ndex errorpara/laxrefraction , made cabalistic Signs on paper, added andcarried one

,and then

,on a piece of holy script cal led

the Grai l — I mean, the Chart — he placed his fingeron a certain space conspicuous for its blankness andsaid

,

“Here we are.” When we looked at the blankspace and asked

,

“And where is that ? he answered inthe cipher- code of the higher priesthood, 3I I 5

—47

north,133 5 30 west.

” And we said “ Oh,and

felt mighty small .So I aver, i t was not Roscoe

’s fault . He was l ikeunto a 0d, and he carried us i n the hollow of his handacross t e blank spaces on the chart . I experienced a

great respect for Roscoe ; this respect grew so proou nd that had he commanded , Knee]down and worship me,

” I know that I should have flopped down onthe deck and yammered . But

,one day

,there came a

sti l l smal l thought to me that said : “ This is not a

54 THE CRU ISE OF TH E SNARK

Martin ’s self- abasing and worshipfu l “ Oh . AS for

Charmian , I fe lt that in a n ew way I had proved myright to her ; and I was aware of another feeling

,

namely , that she was a most fortunate woman to havea man like me .I cou ldn ’ t help it . I tel l i t as a vindication of

Roscoe and all the other navigators . The poison of

power was working in me .

I was not as other menmost o ther me n ; I knewwhat they did n ot know

,

the mystery of the heavens,

that poi nted ou t the wayacross the deep . A nd thetaste of power I had receiveddrove me on . I steered at

the whee l lon g hours wi th onehan d

,and Studied mystery

with the other . By the e nd

of the week , teach in g myself,I was able to do divers thi n gs .For instance

,I shot the North

Lan d Ho , Star,at night

,of course ; got

its altitude , corrected for index error

,dip

,etc .

,and found ou r latitude . And

this lati tude agreed with the lati tude of the previou snoon corrected by dead recko n ing u p to that moment . Proud ? Well

,I was even prouder with

my n ext miracle . I was goin g to tu rn in at ni n eo ’clock . I worked ou t the problem

,se lf- in stru cted ,

and learned what star of the first magnitude would bepassing the meridian around half- past eight. ThisStar proved to be Alpha Cru

'

cis . I had never heard

FIND ING ONE ’

S WAY ABOUT 55

of the star before . I looked it u p o n the star map .

I t was one of the stars of the Southe rn Cross . What !thought I ; have we been sail ing with the Sou thernCross i n the Sky of nights and never known it ?Dolts that we are ! Gudgeons and moles ! I couldn ’ tbelieve it . I went over the problem agai n , and verified i t. Charmian had the wheel from eight ti l l tenthat evening . I told her to keep her eyes open andlook due south for the Southern Cross . And when thestars came out

,there shone the Southern Cross low

on the horizon . Proud ? No medicin e man norhigh priest was ever prouder. Furthermore , with theprayer-wheel I shot Alpha Crucis and from its altitude worked out our latitude . And sti l l furthermore, I shot the North Star, too , and i t agreedwith what had been told me by the Southern Cross .Proud ? Why, the language of the stars was mine

,

and I l istened and heard them tel li ng me my wayover the deep .

Proud ? I was a worker ofmiracles . I forgot howeasi ly I had taught myself from the printed page . Iforgot that al l the work (and a tremendous work , too)had been done by the master—minds before me, theastronomers and mathematicians

,who had discovered

and elaborated the whole science of navigation andmade the tables in the Epitome I rememberedonly the everlasti n g miracle of it — that I had listenedto the voices of the stars and been told my place u ponthe highway of the sea. Charmian did not know,

Martin did not know,Tochigi

,the cabin - boy

, did notknow . But I told them . I was God ’s messenger .I stood between them and in fin ity . I translated thehigh celestial speech i nto terms of the i r ordinary


understandin g. We were heaven-directed, and it wasI who could read the sign-post of the sky — I I

And now, i n a cooler moment, I hasten to blabthe whole simplicity of i t, to blab on Roscoe and the

other navigators and the rest of the priesthood,al l

for fear that I may become even as they,secretive

,

immodest, and in flated wi th self esteem . And I wantto say this now : any young fellow with ordin ary graymatter

,ordin ary education

,and with the slightest trace

of the student-mind , can get the books , and charts,and instruments and teach himself navigation . Now Imust not be misunderstood. Seamanship Is an entirelydifferent matter . I t is not learned in a day, nor inmany days ; i t requires years . Also, navigating bydead reckon ing requ i res long study and practice . Butnavigating by obse rvation s of the sun , moon , andstars , thanks to the astronomers and mathematicians ,is chi ld ’s play . A n y average young fel low can teachhimself in a week . And yet again I must not be misunderstood . I do not mean to say that at the end of aweek a young fellow could take charge of a fifteen - thousand- ton steamer, driving twenty knots an hour throughthe brine, racin g from land to land, fair weather andfou l , clear sky or cloudy , steering by degrees onthe compass card and making landfalls with mostamazing precision . But what I do mean is just thisthe average youn g fellow I have described can get intoa staunch sai l boat and put out across the ocean

,with

out knowing anything about navigation,and at the end

of the week he wil l know enough to know where heis on the chart. He will be able to take a meridianobservation with fair accuracy

,and from that observa

tion , with ten minutes of figuri ng,work out his lati

FIND ING ONE ’

S WAY ABOUT 57

tude and longitude . And,carrying neither freight nor

passengers , bein g under no press to reach his destin ation ,

he can jog comfortably along,and if at any time

he doubts his own navigation and fears an imminen tlan dfal l, he can heave to al l night and proceed In themormn g .

Joshua Slocum sai led around the world a few years

Our First Guny .

ago in a thirty- seven- foot boat al l by himself. I shall

never forget,i n his narrative of the voyage

,where he

hearti ly in dorsed the idea of youn g men , i n simi larsmall boats

,makin g similar voyage . I promptly in

dorsed his idea, and so hearti ly that I took my wifealon g. While i t certainly makes a Cook ’s tour lookl ike th irty cents

,on top of that, and on top of the fu n

and pleasure,i t is a splen did education for a youn g

man — oh,not a mere education i n the things of the


world outside,of lands

,and peoples

,and cl imates

,bu t

an education in the world i nside , an education in one’s

self,a chance to learn one’s own self

,to get on Speak

ing terms with one ’8 soul . Then there is the traini ngand the discipl ining of i t . First

,natu rally

,the young

fel low wi lllearn his limi tations ; and next, inevitably ,he wil l proceed to press back those l imitations . Andhe cannot escape returni ng from such a voyage a biggerand better man . And as for sport

,it is a king’s sport,

taking one ’s self around the world , doing it with one’s

own han ds , dependin g on no on e but one’s self, and atthe end

,back at the starting- point, contemplating with

inner vision the planet rushing through space, and sayi ng

,

“ I did i t ; with my own hands I did it . I wentclear aroun d that whirli ng sphere , and I can travelalon e , wi thout any n urse of a sea- captain to guide mySteps across the seas . I may not fly to other stars, butof this star ,

I myself am master .”

As I write these lines I l ift my eyes and look seaward . I am on the beach ofWaikiki on the island of

Oahu . Far,in the azure Sky, the trade-wind clouds

drift low over the blue-green turquoise of the deep sea.Nearer

,the sea is eme rald and l ight olive-green . Then

comes the reef, where the water is allS laty purpleflecked with red . Sti l l nearer are brighter greens andtans

,lying I n al ternate stripes and Showi ng where sand

beds lie between the livi n g coral banks . Through andover and out of these wonderful colors tumbles andthu n ders a magnifice n t surf. As I say , I lift my eyesto all this

,and through the white crest of a breaker

suddenly appears a dark figure , erect, a man - fish or asea- god

, on the very forward face of the crest wherethe top falls over and down , drivin g in toward Shore,

FINDING ONE ’

S WAY ABOUT 59

buried to his loins i n smoking spray,caught up by the

sea and flung landward,bodi ly

,a quarter of a mile . I t

is a Kanaka on a surf—board . And I know that whenI have finished these lines I shall be out in that riot ofcolor and poun ding surf, try i ng to bit those breakerseven as he

,and failing as he never fai led

,bu t l iving life

as the best of us may live it. And the picture of thatcolored sea and that flying sea-god Kanaka becomesan other reason for the youn g man to go west, andfarther west

,beyond the Baths of Su n set, and sti l l west

til l he arrives home again .

Bu t to return . Please do not think that I al readyknow it all . I know on ly the rudiments of navigation .

There is a vast deal yet for me to learn . O n theSnark there is a score of fascin ating books on navigation waiti ng for me . There is the danger- angle of

Lecky,there is the l ine of Sumner, which, when you

know least of all where you are,shows most conclu

sively where you are, and where you are not . Thereare dozens and dozens of methods of finding one ’ s location on the deep , and one can work years before hemasters it al l i n al l its fineness .Even i n the l ittle we did learn there were slips that ac

counted for the apparently antic behavior of the Snark.

O n Thursday,May 1 6, for i nstan ce , the trade wind

fai led u s. Durin g the twenty -four hours that endedFriday at noon

,by dead reckoni ng we had not sailed

twenty mi les . Yet here are our positions,at noon for

the two days,worked out from our observations

Thursday 20°

57’

9” N

1 52°

40’

30” W

2 10

I 5,

33/l N

1 54°

1 2’ W


The difference between the two position s was something l ike eighty miles . Yet we knew we hadn ot travelled twen ty mi les . Now our figuring was al lright. We went over it several times . What waswrong was the observations we had taken . To take acorrect observation requires practice and Skil l

,and

especial ly so on a small craft l ike the Sn ark. The violen tly movin g boat and the closeness of the observer

’seye to the surface of the water are to blame . A bigwave that l ifts up a mile off is l iab le to steal the horizon away .

But in our particular case there was another perturbing factor. The sun , in i ts annual march north throughthe heavens

, was i ncreasing its decl in ation . On thelg th parallel of north lati tude in the middle of Maythe sun is nearly overhead . The angle ofme was between eighty- eight and eighty- nine degrees . Had itbeen ninety degrees i t would have been straight overhead . It was on another day that we learned a fewthings about taking the alti tude of the almost perpen ~

dicular su n . Roscoe started in drawing the sun downto the eastern horizon

,and he stayed by that point of

the compass despite the fact that the sun would passthe meridian to the south . I

,on the other hand

,

started in to draw the sun down to southeast andstrayed away to the southwest . You see, we wereteaching ourselves . As a result, at twenty—five minutespast twelve by the Ship ’s time , I cal led twelve o

’clockby the su n . Now this signified that we had changedour location on the face of the world by twenty-fivemin utes

,which was equal to something like six degrees

of longitude,or three hundred and fifty miles . This

showed the Sn ark had travelled fifteen knots per hour


watch one even i ng,Charmian and I sat down on the

forecastle- head for a rubber of cribbage . Chancing toglance ahead

,I saw cloud- capped moun tains ri s i ng

from the sea . We were rejoiced at the sight of land ,but I was in despa ir over our navigation . I thoughtwe had learned something

,yet our pos i tion at noon ,

plus what we had run s ince , did n ot put us withi n ahundred miles of land . But there was the land , fadi n g away before our eyes i n the fires of sunset . Theland was al l right. There was no disputing i t . Therefore our nav igation was al l wrong . But it wasn ’ .tThat land we saw was the summit of Haleakala, theHouse of the Su n , the greatest exti nct volcano I n theworld . I t towered te n thousand feet above the sea, andit was all of a hundred miles away . We sailed al l nightat a seven- knot clip

,and in the morning the House

of the Su n was still before us , and i t took a few morehou rs of sail in

gto bring it abreast of us . “ That is

land 18 M aui,

”we said, verifying by the chart.

“ Thatnext island sticki ng out is Molokai , where the lepeI sare . And the i sland next to that Is Oahu . There Is

M akapuu Head now . We ’ l l be in Honolu lu to m- or

row . Our navigation is al l right .”

CHAPTER V

The First Landfal l

IT willnot be so monotonous at sea,I promised

my fel low- voyagers on the Snark. The sea is fi l ledwith life . I t is so populous that every day somethin gn ew is happen ing. Almost as soon as we pass throughthe Golden Gate and head south we ’ l l pick up with theflying fish . We ’ l l be having them fried for breakfast.We ’ l l be catching bon i ta and dolphin

,and speari ng

porpoises from the bowspri t. And then there are thesharks sharks without end .

We passed through the Golden Gate and headedsouth . We dropped the mountains of Californiabeneath the horizon

,and dai ly the sun grew warmer.

But there were no flyi ng fish, no bonita and dolphi n .

The ocean was bereft of l ife . Never had I sai led onso forsaken a sea . Always , before, i n the same latitudes, had I encountered flyin g fish .

“ Never mind,I said .

“Wait ti ll we get off thecoast of Southern Cal ifornia . Then we ’ l l pick up theflying fish .

”

We came abreast of Southern Californ ia, abreast ofthe Peninsu la of Lower Cal ifornia

,abreast of the coast

of Mexico ; and there were no flying fish . Nor wasthere anything else . No life moved. As the dayswent by the absence of life became almost uncanny .

“ N ever mi nd,

” I said . When we do pick upwith the flyi ng fish we ’ l l pick up wi th everything else .

The fly ing fish is the staff of life for all the other63


breeds . Everything wil l come in a bun ch when wefind the flying fish .

When I shou ld have headed the Snark southwest forH awaii, I sti ll held her south . I was going to findthose flying fish . Finally the time came when , if Iwanted to go to Honolu lu

,I Should have headed the

Snark due west . I nstead of which I kept her south.

in the Heelof the North-east Trades .

Not untillati tude 1 9° did we en counter the first flying

fish. He was very much alone . I saw him . Fiveother pairs of eager eyes scann ed the sea al l day , butnever saw another . So sparse were the flying fish thatnearly a week more elapsed before the last one on boardsaw his first flying fish . AS for the dolph in , bonita,porpoise

,and all the other hordes of l ife — there

weren ’t any .

Not even a shark broke surface with his ominousdorsal fin . Bert took a dip daily under the bowsprit,han ging on to the stays and draggin g his body through

THE FIRST LANDFALL 65

the water. And daily he canvassed the project ofletting go and having a decent swim . I did my bestto dissuade him. But with h im I had lost al l Standingas an authori ty on sea l ife .

“ If there are Sharks,” he demanded, “ why don ’t

they Show uI assured im that if he real ly did let go and have a

swim the sharks would promptly appear. This was abluff on my part . I didn ’ t bel ieve i t. I t lasted asa deterrent for two days . The third day the wind fel lcalm ,

and i t was pretty hot . The Snark was mov i nga knot an hour. Bert dropped down under the bowspri t and let go . And n ow behold the perversity of

things . We had sailed across two thousand miles andmore of ocean and had met with no sharks . Withinfive minutes after Bert finished his swim , the fin of a

shark was cuttin g the surface in circles around theSn ark.

There was something wrong abou t that shark . I tbothered me . I t had no right to be there i n thatdeserted ocean . The more I thought about it, themore incomprehensible i t became . But two hourslater we sighted land and the mystery was cleared u p .

He had come to u s from the lan d , and not from the

uninhabi ted deep . He had presaged the landfal l . He

was the messenger of the land .

Twenty- seven days out from San Fran cisco we arrived at the island of Oahu, Territory of Hawaii . I nthe early morning we drifted around Diamond Headinto full v iew of Honolulu and then the ocean burstsudden ly into l ife . Flying fish cleaved the air in gl ittering squadrons . I n five minutes we saw more ofthem than during the whole voyage . Other fish, large


on es, of various sorts , leaped into the air . Therewas l ife. everywhere, on sea and shore . We could seethe masts and fun nels of the shipping in the harbor

,

the hotels and bathers along the beach at Waikiki,the

smoke rising from the dwel l ing-houses high up on thevolcanic slopes of the Punch Bowl and Tantalus .The custom- house tug was racing toward us and a

The S n ark at her First Anchorag e .

big school of porpoises got under our bow and begancutting the most ridiculous capers . The port doctor’slau n ch came charging out at us, and a big sea turtlebroke the surface with his back and took a look at us .Never was there such a burgeonin g of life . Strange .

faces were on ou r decks, strange voices were speaking,and copies of that very morning’s newspaper, withcable reports from all the world , were thru st before oureyes . I ncidentally

,we read that the Sn ark and al l

hands had been lost at sea,and that She had been a

very unseaworthy craft anyway . And while we read

THE FIRST LANDFALL 67

this i nformation a wireless message was being receivedby the congressional party on the summi t ofHaleakalaannouncing the safe arrival of the Snark.

I t was the Snark’

s first landfall and such a landfal l For twenty- seven days we had been on the deserted deep , and it was pre tty hard to real ize that there

The Wharf that wou ldn ’t stan d S til l .

was so much l ife in the world . We were made diz z yby it . We could not take i t al l i n at once . We werelike awakened Rip Van Winkles

,and it seemed to u s

that we were dreaming . On on e side the azu re sealapped across the horizon into the azure sky ; on theother side . the sea lifted itself i nto great breakers of

emerald that fel l in a snowy smother u pon a whitecoral beach . Beyond the beach

,gree n plantations of

sugar-cane undulated gently upward to steeper slopes,


which,in turn , became jagged volcanic crests, drenched

with tropic showers and capped by stupendous massesof trade-wind clouds . At any rate, it

!was a mostbeautiful dream . The Sn ark turned and headeddirectly in toward the emerald surf

,til l i t l ifted and

thundered on either hand and on either hand,scarce

a biscuit- toss away,the reef showed its long teeth

,

pale green and menacing .

Abruptly the land i tself, in a riot of O l ive reen s ofa thousand hues , reached out its arms and olded theSn ark In . There was no perilous passage through thereef

,no emerald su rf and azure sea nothin g but a

warm soft land,a motionless lagoon

,and tiny beaches

on which swam dark- ski nned tropic children . Thesea had disappeared . The Sn ark’: anchor rumbled thechain through the hawse-pipe

,and we lay withou t

movement on'

a l in eless , level floor .” I t was al l so

beau tiful and Strange that we could not accept i t asreal . On the chart this place was cal led Pearl Harbor,but we cal led it Dream Harbor.A launch came off to us ; i n i t were members of theHawaiian Yacht Club , come to greet us and make u swelcome, with true Hawai ian hospital i ty, to alltheyhad . They were ordinary men , flesh and blood andal l the rest ; but they did not tend to break our dreami ng. Our last memories of men were of United Statesmarshals and of panicky li ttle merchants with rustydol lars for souls, who, i n a reeking atmosphere of sootand coal-dust

,laid grimy hands upon the Snark and

held her back from her world adventure . But thesemen who came to meet us were clean men . A healthytan was on their cheeks

,and their eyes were not daz

z led and be-spectacled from gazing overmuch at

THE F IRST LANDFALL 7 1

was l ike al l the rest of our landfal l , unreal . I t was adream . At any moment, like Shifti ng vapor

,it might

dissolve away . The thought entered my head thatperhaps it was my fault, that my head was swimmingor that someth ing I had eaten had disagreed with me .But I glanced at Charmian and her sad walk, and even asI glanced I saw her stagger and bump into the yachtsman by whose side she walked . I Spoke to her, andshe complained about the an tic behavior of the land .

We walked across a spacious, wonderfu l lawn and

down an avenue of royal palms,and across more won

derfullawn in the gracious Shade ofstately trees . Theair was fi l led with the songs of b irds and was heavywith ri ch warm fragrances — wafture from great l i l ies

,

and blazing blossoms of hibiscus , and other strangegorgeous tropic flowers . The dream was becomingalmost impossibly beau tiful to us who for so long hadseen naught but the restless

,salty sea . Charmian

reached out her hand and clung to me — for supportagains t the in efl

'

able beauty of it, thought I . Bu t no .

As I supported her I braced my legs , while the flowersand lawns reeled and swung around me . I t was l ikean earthquake

,only it quick ly passed without doing

any harm . I t was fairly diflicult to catch the land

playing these tricks . AS long as I kept my mi nd onIt, nothing happened . But as soon as my attentionwas distracted, away it went, the whole panorama,swin ging and heavin g and ti lting at al l sorts of angles .Once

,however, I turned my head sudden ly and caught

that stately line of royal palms swin ging in a great arcacross the sky . But it stopped , just as soon as Icaught it

,and became a placid dream again .

Next we came to a hou se of coolness, with great

72 THE CRUISE OF TH E SNARK

sweeping veranda,where lotus- eaters might dwell .

Windows and doors werewide open to the breeze,and

the songs and fragrances blew lazily in and out. Thewalls were hung with tapa- cloths . Cou ches with grasswoven covers i nvi ted everywhere

,and there was a gran d

piano,that played, I was sure , nothing more exci ting

than lu l labies . Servan ts — Japanese maids in nativecostume drifted around and abou t, noiselessly, l ikebutterfl ies . Everything was pre ternatu ral ly cool . Herewas n o blazing down of a tropic sun upon an unshrinking sea . I t was too good to be true . Bu t itwas not real .I t was a dream-dwell ing . I knew,

for I turned suddenly and caught the grand piano cavorting in aspacious corner of the room . I did not say anyth ing

,

for j ust then we were being rece ived by a graciouswoman

,a beautiful Madonna

,clad in flowing white

and shod with san dals, who greeted us as though She

had known us always .We sat at table on the lotus-eating veranda, served

by the butterfly maids, and ate strange foods and partook of a nectar cal led poi . Bu t the dream threatenedto dissolve . I t shimmered and trembled l ike an iridescent bubble about to break . I was just glancingout at the green grass and stately trees and b lossomsof hibiscus

,when suddenly I felt the table move .

The table,and the Madonna across from me, and the

veranda of the lotus-eaters,the scarlet hibiscus

,the

green sward and the trees al l lifted and ti lted beforemy eyes

,and heaved and sank down into the trough

of a monstrou s sea . I gripped my chair convulsivelyand held on . I had a fee l i ng that I was holdi ng onto the dream as well as the chair. I should not havebeen surprised had the sea rushed in and drowned all

THE FIRST LANDFALL


that fairy land and had I found myself at the wheel ofthe Sn ark just looking up casual ly from the study oflogari thms . But the dream persisted . I looked covertl yat the Madonn a and her husband . They evidenced noperturbation . The dishes had not moved upon thetable . The hibiscus and trees and grass were sti l lthere . Nothing had changed . I partook of moren ectar, and the dream was more real than ever .Will you have some iced tea? asked the Madonna ;

and then her S ide of the table sank down gently and Isaid yes to her at an angle offorty- five degrees .

Speakin g of Sharks ,” said her husband, “ up at

N IIhau there was a man And at that moment thetable lifted and heaved

,and I gazed upward at him at

an angle of forty-five degrees .SO the luncheon went on

,and I was glad that ]did

not have to bear the affl iction of watching Charmianwalk . Suddenly

,however

,a mysteriou s word of fear

broke from the l ips of the lotus-eaters “ Ah,ah

,

thought I,

“ now the dream goes glimmering .

” Iclutched the chair desperate ly, resolved to drag back tothe reality of the Snark some tangib le vestige of thislotus land . I fel t the whole dream lurching and pullingto be gon e . Just then the mysteriou s word of fearwas repeated . I t sounded like R eporters. I lookedand saw three of them coming across the lawn . Oh ,blessed reporters ! Then the dream was indisputablyreal after al l . I glanced ou t across the Shin in g waterand saw the Sn ark at anchor

,and I remembered that

I had sai led in her from San Francisco to Hawaii , andthat this was Pearl Harbor , and that even then I wasacknowledgin g in trodu ctions and saying , in reply tothe fi rst question ,

Yes,we had del ightful weather al l

the way down .

”

CHAPTER VI

A Royal Sport

THAT 13 what it is, a royal sport for the natural kingsof earth . The grass grows ri ht down to the water atWaikiki Beach

,and withi n fi ty feet of the everlastin

sea. The trees also grow down to the salty edge 0?thi ngs

,and one sits in their shade and looks seaward

at a majestic surf thu ndering In on the beach to one’3very feet . Half a mi le out, where is the reef, thewhite-headed combers thrust siIddenly skyward out ofthe placid turquoise- blue and come roll in g In to shore .One after another they come

,a mile long

,with smok

ing crests,the whi te battalions of the infin i te army of

the sea. And on e sits and listens to the perpetualroar

,and watches the unending procession

,and feels

ti ny and fragi le before this tremendous force expressing itself i n fury and foam and sound . I ndeed,on e feels microscopically small

,and the thought that

on e may wrestle with this sea raises in one ’S imagi nationa thri l l of apprehension , almost of fear. Why, they ,

are a mile long,these bul l mouthed monsters

,and they

weigh a thousand tons , and they charge in to shorefaster than a man can run . What chance? N O chanceat al l

,is the verdict of the shrinking ego ; and one Si ts,

and looks, and l isten s, and th inks the grass and theshade are a pretty good place in which to be .And sudden ly

,out there where a big smoker l ifts

Skyward , risi ng like a sea god from out of the welterof spume and churning white

,on the giddy , toppl ing,

7S


overhanging and downfal l ing,

recariou s crest appearsthe dark head of a man . Swi rly he rises through therushin g white . His black shoulders , his chest, his loins,his l imbs — all is abruptly projected on one’s vision .

Where but the moment before was only the wide desolation and invincible roar

,is now a man

,erect

,full

statu red , not strugglin g frantical ly in that wi ld

Comin g In on a Wave .

movement,not bu ried and cru shed and buffeted by

those mighty monsters , but standing above them all,

calm and superb,poised on the giddy summit, his feet

buried in the churning foam, the sal t smoke rising to

his knees,and al l the rest of him in the free air and

flashing sunl ight,and he is flyi ng through the air,

flying forward,flying fast as the surge on which he

stands . He is a Mercury — a brown Mercury . Hisheels are winged

,and in them is the swiftness of the

sea . I n truth,from out of the sea he has leaped upon

the back of the sea,and he is riding the sea that roars

7 8 THE CRUISE O F TH E SNARK

at you who sit i n the shade of the Shore . He is aKanaka — and more , he is a man , a member of thekingly species that has mastered matter and the brutesand lorded it over creation .

And one S i ts and thinks ofTristram ’s last wrestlewith the sea on that fatal morning ; and one thinksfurther, to the fact that that Kanaka has done whatTristram never did

,and that he knows a joy of the sea

that Tristram never knew . And sti l l fu rther one thinks.

I t is al l very wel l , S itti ng here in cool shade of the

beach,but you are a man , one of the ki ngly species,

and what that Kanaka can do,you can do you rself. Go to .

Strip off you r clothes that are a nuisance in this mel lowclime . Get in and wrestle with the sea ; wing yourheels with the skil l and power that reside i n you ; bitthe sea ’s breakers

,master them

,and ride upon thei r

backs as a king Should .

And that is how it came about that I tackled surfriding . And now that I have tackled it, more thanever do I hold it to be a royal sport . But first let meexplain the physics of it . A wave is a communicatedagitation . The water that composes the body of a wavedoes not move . If it did , when a ston e is thrown intoa pond and the ripples spread away in an ever wideningcircle

,there would appear at the centre an ever in creas

i ng hole . No , the water that composes the body of awave is stationary . Thus , you may watch a particularportion of the ocean ’s surface and you will see the samewater rise and fal l a thousand times to the agi tationcommu n icated by a thousand successive waves . Nowimagine this co

’

mmunicated agitation moving shoreward .

As the bottom Shoals, the lower portion of the wavestrikes land first and is stopped . But water is fluid,

A ROYAL SPORT 79

and the upper portion has not stru ck anything, wherefore it keeps on communicating its agitation, keeps ongoing. And when the top of the wave keeps ongoing

, whi le the bottom of i t lags behind,something

is bound to happen .

The bottom of thewave drops out fromu nder and the top ofthe wave falls over,forward, and down ,cu rl ing and crestingand roaring as itdoes so . I t is thebottom of a wavestriking against thetop of the land thatis the cause of al lsurfs .But the trans

formation from asmooth undulationto a breaker is notabrupt except wherethe bottom shoalsabruptly . Say thebottom shoals gradual ly for from quarter of a mile toa mi le

,then an equal distance wil l be occupied by the

transformation . Such a bottom is that off the beachofWaikiki , and it produces a splendid surf- ridin g surf.One leaps u pon the back of a breaker just as i t beginsto break, and stays on i t as it continues to break allthe way i n to shore .And n ow to the particu lar physics of surfriding.

Good Morn In g .


Get out on a flat board, six feet long, two feet wide,and roughly oval in shape . Lie down upon it l ike asmall boy on a coaster and paddle with your handsout to deep water

,where the waves begin to crest . Lie

out there quietly on the board . Sea after sea breaksbefore

,beh ind

,and under and over you , and rushes in

to shore,leaving you behind . When a wave crests, it

ets steeper . Imagine yourself, on your board, on theFace of that steep slope . If i t stood stil l, you wou ldsl ide down just as a boy slides down a hi ll on hiscoaster. But

,you Ob

'

ect, the wave doesn’t stand

sti l l .” Very true,but t e water composing the wave

stands sti l l,and there you have the secret . If ever

you start S liding down the face of that wave, you’ l l

keep on sl iding and you ’ l l never reach the bottom .

Please don ’t laugh . The face of that wave may beon ly six feet

,yet you can slide down it a quarter of a

mile,or half a mile

,and not reach the bottom . For

,

see,since a wave is only a communicated agitation or

impetu s, and since the water that composes a wave ischanging every instant, new water is rising into thewave as fast as the wave travels . You slide down thisnew water

,and ye t remain in your old position on the

wave,sl iding down the sti l l newer water that is risi ng

and forming the wave . You slide precisely as fast asthe wave travels . If i t travels fifteen miles an hour

,

you slide fifteen miles an hour . Between you andshore stretches a quarter of mi le of water. As thewave travels

,this water obI Ig in gly heaps itself i nto the

wave , gravi ty does the rest, and down you go , sl idingthe whole length of i t . If you sti l l cherish the notion ,while sliding , that the water is moving with you , thrustyour arms into it and attempt to paddle ; you wil l find

A ROYAL SPORT 8 I

that you have to be remarkably quick to get a stroke,for that water is dropping astern just as fast as you arerushing ahead .

And now for another phase of the physics of surfriding . All rules have their exceptions . I t is truethat the water in a wave does not travel forward . Butthere is what may be called the send of the sea. The

S tandin g up and ly in g down .

water in the overtopplin g crest does move forward , as

you wil l speedily realize if you are S lapped in the faceby it

,or if you are caught under it and are pounded

by one mighty blow down u nder the surface pantingand gaspi ng for half a minute . The water in the topof a wave rests upon the water i n the bottom of thewave . But when the bottom of the wave Strikes theland

,i t stops

,while the top goes on . I t no longer has

the bottom of the wave to hold i t up . Where wassolid water beneath i t, is n ow air, and for the first time


i t feels the grip of gravity,and down it falls

,at the

same time being torn asun der from the lagging bottom of the wave and flu n g forward . A nd i t is because Of this that riding a surf- board is somethingmore than a mere placid sl iding down a hi l l . I II truth

,

one is caught up and hurled shoreward as by someTitan ’s hand .

I deserted the cool shade, put on a swimming suit,and got hold ofa su rf- board . I t was too small a board .

But I didn ’ t know, and nobody told me . I joined

some little Kanaka boys in Shal low water,where the

breakers were well spent and small — a regular kinder

garten school . I watched the li ttle Kanaka boys .When a likely- looking breaker came along

,they

flopped upon their stomachs on their boards , kickedlike mad with thei r feet

,and rode the breaker in to

the beach . I tried to emulate them . I watched them ,

tried to do everything that they did,and failed u tterly .

The breaker swept past, and I was n ot on it . I triedagain and again . I kicked twice as madly as they did,and fai led . Half a dozen would be around . Wewould all leap on our boards i n front of a goodbreaker . Away our feet wou ld churn l ike the sternwheels of river Steamboats , and away the l ittle rascalswould Scoot while I remained in disgrace behind .

I tried for a sol id hour,and not one wave could I

persuade to boost me shoreward . And then arrived afriend

,A lexan der Hume Ford

,a globe trotter by pro

fession , bent ever on the pu rsuit of sensation . Andhe had found it at Waikiki . H eading for Au stralia,he had stopped Off for a week to find ou t if the re wereany thri lls in surfriding

,and he had become wedded to

it . He had been at i t every day for a month and could

A ROYAL SPORT 83

not yet see any symptoms of the fascination lessen ingon him. He spoke with authority .

Get ofl" that board , he said .

“ Chuck It away atonce . Look at the way you

’re tryi ng to ride it. If

ever the nose of that board hits bottom , you’ l l be dis

embowel led . Here, take my board . I t’s a man ’sS Iz e .

I am always humb le when confronted by knowledge.Ford knew . He showed me how properly to mounthis board . Then he waited for a good breaker, gaveme a shove at the right moment, and started me in .

Ah,delicious moment when I felt that breaker rip and

fl i ng me . O n I dashed, a hundred and fifty Feet, andsubsided with the breaker on the sand . From thatmoment I was lost. I waded back to Ford with hisboard . I t was a large one , several i nches thick, andweighed al l of seventy-five pounds . He gave meadvice

,much of i t. He had had no one to teach him

,

and al l that he hadlaboriously learned i n several weekshe communicated to me in half an hour. I reallylearned by proxy . And inside of half an hour I wasable to start myself and ride in . I did i t time aftertime, and Ford applauded and advised . For instance,he told me to get just so far forward on the boardand no farther. Bu t I must have got some farther

, for

as I came charging in to land,that miserable board

poked its nose down to bottom,stopped abruptly, and

turned a somersaul t, at the same time violently severi ng our relations . I was tossed through the air l ike achip and buried ignominious ly under the downfall i ngbreaker . And I real ized that if i t hadn ’ t been forFord

,I ’d have been disembowelled . That particu lar

risk is part of the sport,Ford says . M aybe he’ l l have


it happen to him before he leaves Waikiki , and then , Ifeel confiden t

,his yearning for sensation wil l be satis

fied for a time .When all is said and done

,i t is my steadfast belief

that homicide is worse than suicide, especially if, i n theformer case, i t is a woman . Ford saved me from being a homicide . “ Imagine your legs are a rudder

,

he said Hold them close together,and steer with

Beatin g the Break oi the Wave .

them A few minutes later I came charging In on acomber . AS I neared the beach

,there

,i n the water

,

up to her waist,dead in front of me

,appeared a

woman . How was I to stop that comber on whoseback I was ? I t looked like a dead woman . The

board weighed seventy- five pounds,I weighed a

hu ndred and sixty-five . The added weight had avelocity of fifteen mi les per hour . The board and Iconstituted a pr

qjectile . I leave it to the physicists to

figure out the orce of the impact upon that poor,tender woman . A nd then I remembered my guardianangel

,Ford .

“ Steer wi th you r legs !” rang throughmy brain . I steered with my legs, I steered sharply ,abruptly

,with al l my legs and with al l my might . The

board Sheered arou nd broadside on the crest. Manythings happened simul taneously . The wave gave me a


fulwater, salt as old ocean i tself, pure and crystal- clear.When the nature of the water is considered

,i t i s not so

remarkable after al l that the Kanakas are one of themost expert of swimming races .So i t was, next morni ng, when Ford came along,that I plunged into the wonderful water for a Swlm of

i ndeterminate length . Astride of our surfboards,or

,

rather, flat down upon them on our stomachs, wepaddled ou t through the kindergarten where the l i ttleKanaka boys were at play . Soon we were out i n deepwater where the big smokers came roaring in . Themere struggle with them

,facing them and paddling

seaward over them and through them,was sport

enough I n i tself. One had to have his w i ts about him ,

for i t was a battle In which mighty blows were struck,on one S ide, and In which cu n n In g was used on theother side a struggle between i nsensate force and In

telligen ce . I soon learned a bit . When a breakercurled over my head, for a swift i nstant I could see thelight of day through its emerald body ; then downwou ld go my head , and I would clutch the board withall my strength . Then would come the blow

,and to

the onlooker on shore I would be blotted ou t. I nreali ty the board and lhave passed through the crestand emerged In the respite of the other side . I shou ldnot recommend those smashing b lows to an inval id ordelicate person . There 13 weight behind them

,and the

impact of the driven water 13 like a sand blast. Sometimes one passes through halfa dozen combers I n u ick

succession , and it is just about that time that(

he isliable to discover new merits i n the stable land and n ewreasons for being on shore .Out there in the midst of such a succession of big

A ROYAL SPORT 87

smoky ones, a third man was added to our party , oneFreeth . Shaking the water from my eyes as I emergedfrom one wave and peered ahead to see what the nextone looked like, I saw him tearin g in on the back of i t

,

standing uprigh t on his board,carelessly poised

,a young

god bronzed wi th sunburn . We went through thewave on the back of which he rode . Ford called tohim . He turned an airsprin g from his wave, rescuedhis board from its maw

,paddled over to us and joined

The Wave that Everybody Caught.

Ford i n showing me things . One thing in particu larI learned from Freeth , namely, how to encounter theoccasional breaker of exceptional size that rolled in .

Such breakers were real ly ferocious , and it was u n safeto meet themon top ofthe board . But Freeth showedme

,so that when ever I saw one of that caliber rol lin g

down on me,I sl id off the rear end of the board and

dropped down ben eath the surface,my arms overmy head

and holding the board. Thus, if the wave ripped theboard out ofmy hands and tried to strike me with it (acommon trick ofsuch waves) , there would be a cushionof water a foot or more in depth , between my head andthe blow . When the wave passed , I cl imbed upon


the board and paddled on . Many men have beenterribly injured

,I learn

,by being struck by their

boards .The whole method of surfriding and surf-fighting ,I learned, is one of non resistance . Dodge the blowthat Is struck at you . Dive through the wave that Istrying to Slap you in the face . Si nk down

,feet first

,

deep u nder the surface , and let the big smoker that Istrying to smash you go by far overhead . Never berigid . Relax. Yield yourself to the waters that areripping and tearing at you . When the undertowcatches you and drags you seaward alon g the bottom,

don ’t struggleagai nst i t . Ifyou do , you areliable to bedrowned, for It is stronger than yo .u Yield yourselfto that undertow . Swim wi th i t

,not against i t

,and

you willfind the pressure removed . And,swimming

with it, fooling i t so that i t does not hold you , swimupward at the same time . I t wi l l be no trouble at al lto reach the surface .The man who wants to learn surf- ridin g must be astrong swimmer, and he must be used to going underthe water. After that, fair strength and common- senseare al l that 13 required . The force of the big comber 13rather unexpected . There are mix-ups in which boardand rider are torn apart and separated by several hundred feet. The surf- rider must take care of h imself.No matter how many riders swim out with him

,he

cannot depend upon an y of them for aid . The fanciedsecurity I had in the presence of Ford and Freeth mademe forget that i t was my first swim out in deep wateramong the big ones . I recollected, however, andrather suddenly

, for a big wave came in , and away wentthe two men on its back allthe way to shore . I


i ng,I shifted my weight back , but shifted i t too far

and fel l down the rear slope of the wave.I t was my second day at surf- ridi ng, and I was quite

proud ofmyself. I stayed out there four hours, and whenIt was over, I was resolved that on the morrow I

’d comein standing up . But that resolution paved a distantp lace . On the morrow I was i n bed. I was not sick

,

but I was very unhap y,and I was in bed. When

describing the wonder ulwater of Hawaii I forgot todescribe the wonderfulsun of Hawai i . I t is a tropicsun

,and

, furthermore , i n the first part ofJune, i t is anoverhead sun . I t is also an insidious, deceitful sun .

For the first time in my life I was sunburned unawares .My arms

,shoulders

,and back had been burned many

times in the past and were tough but not so my legs .And for four hours I had exposed the tender backs ofmylegs

,at right-angles

,to that perpendicular Hawaiian sun .

I t was not unti l after I got ashore that I discovered thesun had touched me . Su nburn at first is merely warmafter that i t grows intense and the b l isters come out.Also, the

'

oi nts,where the skin wrinkles

,refuse to bend .

That is why I spent the next day in bed . I couldn ’ twalk . And that is why, to-day, I am writing this inbed . I t is easier to than not to . But to-morrow

,ah

,

to-morrow, I shall be out i n that wonderfu l water, andI shall come in standing up

,even as Ford and Freeth .

A nd if I fai l to-morrow,I shal l do it the next day , or

the next . Upon one thing I am resolved : the Snarkshal l not sail from Honolulu unti l I , too , wing myheels with the swiftness of the sea, and become a sunburned

,skin-peeling Mercury .

CHAPTER VI I

The Lepers of Molokai

WHEN the Snark sailed along the windward coast ofM olokai , on her way to Honolulu , I looked at thechart

,then pointed to a lowly ing peninsu la backed

by a tremendous cliff vary ing from two to four thousand feet in heig ht, and said : The pit of hell

,the

most cursed place on earth I should have beenshocked

,if, at that moment, I could have caught a

vision of myself a month later, ashore i n the mostcursed place on earth and having a disgracefu l ly goodtime along with eight hundred of the lepers who werelikewise having a good time . Their good time wasnot disgraceful ; but mine was , for i n the midst of somuch misery it was not meet for me to have a goodtime . That is the way I felt about it, and my onlyexcuse is that I cou ldn ’t help having a good time.For instance

,i n the afternoon of the Fourth of

Ju ly all the lepers gathered at the race- track for thesports . I had wandered away from the Superin te nden t and the physicians in order to get a snapshot ofthe finish of one of the races . I t was an interestingrace

,and partisanship ran high . Three horses were

entered, one ridden by a Chinese, one by an H awaIIan ,

and one by a Portuguese boy . All three riders werelepers ; so were the judges and the crowd . The racewas twice around the track . The Chinese and theHawan an got away together and rode neck an d neck ,the Portuguese boy toil in g alon g two hundred feet


behind . Around they went in the same position s.

Halfway around on the second and fina l lap the

Chinese pul led away and got one length ahead of the

Hawai ian . At the same time the Portuguese boy wasbeginning to crawl up . But it looked hopeless . Thecrowdwent wi ld. All the lepers were passionate loversof horseflesh . The Portuguese boy crawled nearerand nearer. I went wild, too . They were on the

home stretch . The Portuguese boy assed the H a

waiian . There was a thunder of hoofs)

,a rush of the

three horses bunched together,the jockeys plying

their whips,and every last onlooker bursting his

throat,or hers, with shouts and yells . Nearer, nearer,

inch by inch , the Portuguese boy crept up, and passed,yes

,passed

,winning by a head from the Chinese . I

came to myself i n a group of lepers . They wereyell i ng

,tossing their hats, and danci ng around like

fiends . So was I . When I came to I was waving myhat and murmuring ecstatical ly : By golly

,the boy

wins ! The boy winsI tried to check myself. I assured myself that I

was witnessi ng one of the horrors of Molokai, and

that i t was shameful for me, u nder such circumstances,to be so light- hearted and light- headed . But it wasno u se . The next event was a donkey - race

,and it was

just starting ; so was the fu n . The last donkey inwas to win the race, and what complicated the affairwas that no rider rode his own donkey . They rodeone another’s donkeys, the resul t of wh ich was thateach man strove to make the donkey he rode beat h isown don key ridden by some on e else . Naturally

,on ly

men possessing very s low or extreme ly obstreperousdonkeys had entered them for the race. One donkey


had been trained to tuck in its legs and lie down whenever its rider touched its s ides with his heels . Somedonkeys strove to tu rn around and come back ; Othersdeveloped a penchant for the side of the track

,where

they stuck their heads over the rai ling and stopped ;while all of them dawdled . Halfway around thetrack one donkey got in to an argument wi th its rider.When al l the rest of the donkeys had crossed the wire

,

that particu lar donkey was sti l l argui ng. He won therace, though his rider lost i t and came in on foot.And al l the while nearly a thousand lepers were laughing uproariously at the fu n . Anybody in my placewould havejoin ed with them i n having a good time .All the foregoing is by way of preamble to the state

ment that the horrors of M olokai, as they have beenpainted in the past

,do not ex ist. The Settlemen t has

been wri tten up repeatedly by sensationalists, andusual ly by sensational ists who have never laid eyes onit. Of course

,leprosy is leprosy

,and i t is a terrible

thing ; but so much that is lurid has been writtenabout Molokai that neither the lepers

,nor those who

devote their lives to them,have received a fair deal .

Here is a case in point. A newspaper writer, who , ofcourse

,had never been near the Settlement

,vividly

described Superintendent M cVe igh, crouching in agrass hut and being besieged nightly by starving leperson their knees

,wai li ng for food . This hair-raising ac

count was copied by the press allover the UnitedStates and was the cause of many i ndignant and protesting editorials . Well , I lived and S lept for fivedays in Mr . M cVeigh

’

s grass hut (which was a comfortable wooden cottage, by the way ; and there isn

’ t agrass house in the whole Settlement) , and I heard

THE LEPERS OF M OLOKAI 95

the lepers wai l ing for food— only the wail ing was

peculiarly harmon Ious and rhythmic, and it was aecom

pan ied by the music of stringed instrumen ts, violins,guitars

,ukuleles

,and banjos . Also , the wai li ng was

of variou s sorts . The leper brass band wailed,and

two singing societies wailed , and lastly a quintet of excellen t voices wailed . So much for a lie that shouldnever have been prin ted . The wai ling was the serenadewhich the lee clubs always give Mr . M cVeigh whenhe returns From a trip to Honolulu .

Leprosy is not so contagious as is imagined . I wentfor a week ’s visi t to the Settlement

,and I took my

wife along — all of wh i ch wou ld not have happenedhad we had any apprehension of contracti ng the disease.Nor did we wear long

,gau ntleted gloves and keep

apart from the lepers . On the contrary , we mingledfreely with them , and before we left, knew scores of

them by sight and name. The precautions of simplecleanl iness seem to be allthat are necessary . On re

turning to their own houses,after having been among

and handling lepers, the non - lepers, such as the physician s and the superintendent, merely wash their facesand hands with mildly antiseptic soap and change thei rcoats .That a leper is unclean , however, shou ld be insisted

upon ; and the segregation of lepers,from what l i ttle

is known of the disease, should be rigidly maintain ed .

On the other hand,the awful horror with which the

leper has been regarded i n the past,and the frightful

treatment he has received,have been unnecessary and

cruel . I n order to dispel some of the popular misapprehensions of leprosy

,I wan t to tel l something of the

relations between the lepers and non- lepers as I oh


served them at Molokai . On the mornin g after ourarrival Charmian and I attended a shoot of theKalaupapa Rifle Club

,and caught our first glimpse of

the democracy of affliction and alleviation that obtai ns .The club was ju st begin ning a prize shoot for a cupput up by Mr. M cVe igh, who is also a member of theclub, as also are Dr . Goodhue and Dr . Hollmann , theresident physicians (who, by the way , l ive i n the Settle

Molokai. Pa—u R iders on Morn in g of Fourth of J uly .

ment with their wives) . All about us, i n the shootingbooth

,were the lepers . Lepers and non- lepers were

u sing the same gu n s,and al l were rubbing Shoulders

i n the confined space . The majority of the leperswere Hawaiians . Si tti ng beside me on a bench was aNorwegian . Directly in fron t of me

,i n the stand

,

was an American , a veteran of the Civil War, who hadfought on the Confederate side . He was sixty-fiveyears of age

,but that did n ot prevent him from run

n ing up a good score . Strappin g Hawaiian pol icemen ,lepers

,khaki clad , were also shooting , as were Portu

guese , Chinese , and kokua J — the latter are n ativehelpers in the Settlement who are non- lepers . Andon the aftern oon that Charmian and I climbed thetwo- thousand- foot pa/i and looked our last upon the

9 8 THE CRU ISE OF TH E SNARK

is examin ed by the Board of Examining Physicians,

five In number. If found by them to be a leper, heis so declared, which finding 15 later officially confirmedby the Board ofHealth , and the leper i s ordered sentto Molokai . Furthermore

,during the thorough trial

that is given his case , the patient has the right to berepresented by a physician whom he can select andemploy for himself. Nor, after having been declareda leper

,i s the patient immediately rushed Off to M O

lokai . He is given ample time, weeks , and evenmonths

,sometimes

,durin g which he stays at Kalihi

and winds up or arranges al l h is business affairs . AtMolokai

,i n turn

,he may be visi ted by his relatives,

business agents,etc .

,though they are not permitted to

eat and sleep in his house . Visitors ’ houses,kept

clean,are maintained for this purpose .

I saw an i l lustration of the thorough trial given thesuspect

,when I visited Kal ihi with Mr. Pinkham

,

president of the Board of Health . The suspect wasan Hawaiian

,seventy years of age, who for thirty- four

years had worked i n Honolu lu as a pressman i n aprinting offi ce . The bacteriologist had decided thathe was a leper, the Examining Board had been unableto make up i ts mind

,and that day al l had come out to

Kal ihi to make another examin ation .

When at M olokai,the declared leper has the priv

i lege of reexamination, and patien ts are continually

coming back to Honolu lu for that purpose. Thesteamer that took me to Molokai had on board tworeturning lepers

,both you n g women

,one ofwhom had

come to Honolu lu to settle up some property she owned ,and the other had come to Hon olulu to see her sickmother . Both had remain ed at Kal ihi for a month .

THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI 99


The Settlemen t of M olokai enjoys a far more delightful climate than even Honolu lu

,being situated on

the windward side of the island in the path of the freshnortheast trades . The scenery is magnificent ; on oneside is the blue sea, on the other the wonderful wall ofthe pali, receding here and there into beautifu l mountain valleys . Everywhere are grassy pastures overwhich roam the hundreds of horses which are ownedby the lepers . Some of them have their own carts

,

rigs,and traps . I n the li ttle harbor of Kalaupapa l ie

fishing boats and a Steam launch,al l of which are pri

vately owned and operated by lepers . Their boundsupon the sea are, of course , determined ; otherwise norestriction is put upon thei r seafaring . Their fish theysel l to the Board of Hea l th

,and the money they re

ceive i s their own . While I was there,one night’s

catch was four thousand pounds .And as these men fish

,others farm . Alltrades are

fol lowed . One leper,a pure HawaIIan

,is the boss

painter . He employs eight men,and takes contracts

for painting buildings from the Board ofHealth . Heis a member of the Kalau apa Rifle Club

,where I met

him , and I must confess t at he was far better dressedthan I . Another man

,similarly situated

,is the boss

carpenter . Then,i n addition to the Board of Health

store,there are little privately owned stores

,where

those with shopkeeper’s souls may exercise theirpeculiar instincts . The Assistant Superi ntendent,Mr . Waiamau , a finely educated and able man , is apure Hawaiian and a leper . Mr . Bartlett, who is thepresent storekeeper

,i s an American who was i n busi

ness in Honolulu before he was struck down by thedisease . All that these men earn is that much i n their


They are so contented down there, M r. Pinkhamtold me

,that you can ’ t drive them away with a shot

gun .

”

This I later verified for myself. I n January of thiscar

,eleven of the lepers

,on whom the disease , after

having comm itted certain ravages,showed no further

Molokai. Leper Fishermen in the ir Boats at Boat Landin g .

signs of activity , were brought back to Honolulu forreexamination . They were loath to come ; and, onbeing asked whether or not they wanted to go freeif found clean ofleprosy, one and all answered , Backto Molokai .”

In the old days, before the discovery of the leprosybaci l lus

,a smal l number of men and women , suffering

from various and whol ly different diseases,were ad

judged lepers and sent to Molokai . Years afterwardthey suffered great consternation when the bacteriologists declared that they were not afllicted with leprosy

THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI 1 03

and never had been . They fought against being sentaway from M olokai , and in one way or another, ashelpers and nurses , they got jobs from the Board ofHealth and remained . The present jailer is one of

these men . Declared to be a non- leper,he accepted

,

on salary,the charge of the jail

,i n order to escape

being sent away .

At the present moment, i n Honolulu , there is a bootblack. H e is an American negro . M r. McVeigh toldme about him. Long ago, before the bacteriologicaltests

,he was sent to Molokai as a leper. As a ward of

the state he developed a superlative degree of independence and fomented much petty mischief. And then

,

one day, after having been for years a perennial sourceof minor annoyances, the bacteriological test was applied,and he was declared a non- leper.

Ah,ha !

” chortled Mr . Mcveigh .

“ Now I ’vegot you Out you go on the next steamer and goodriddance !But the negro didn ’t want to go . Immediately he

married an old woman,in the last stages of leprosy

,

and began petition ing the Board of Health for permission to remain and nurse his Sick wife . There wasno one

,he said pathetically ,who could take care of his

poor wife as wel l as he could . But they saw throughhis game

,and he was deported on the steamer and

g iven the freedom of the world . But he preferredM olokai . Landin g on the leeward side of Molokai

,

he sneaked down the pali one night and took up hisabode in the Settlement . He was apprehended , triedand convicted of trespass, sentenced to pay a small fi n e,and again deported on the steamer with the warnin gthat if he trespassed again , he would be fined one hun


dred dol lars and be sent to prison i n Honolu lu . Andn ow, when Mr . M cVeigh comes up to Honolulu , thebootblack shi nes his shoes for him and says

Say, Boss , I lost a good home down there . -Yes,

sir,I lost a good home .” Then his voice sinks to acon fi

dentialwhisper as he says,Say, Boss, can

’t I go back?Can ’t you fix it for me so as I can go back ?He had lived n ine years on Molokai , and he had

Molokai . Vi llage of Kalaupapa . The Fall, or Precipice , in the Back

ground varies in He ight between Two Thousand and Four Thousand Feet.

had a better time there than he had ever had , beforeand after

,on the outside .

AS regards the fear of leprosy itself,nowhere in the

Settlement among lepers , or non - lepers, did I see any signof i t . The ch ief horror of leprosy obtai ns i n theminds of those who have never seen a leper and who donot know anything about the disease . At the hotelatWaikiki a lady expressed shuddering amazement atmy having the hardihood to pay a visit to the Settlement . On talking with her I learned that she hadbeen born in Honolulu , had l ived there al l her life,and had never laid eyes on a leper. That was morethan I could say ofmyself i n the Uni ted States

,where

the segregation of lepers is loosely enforced and where


always , over the brows of hil ls and across the grassylevel stretches, appearing and disappearing, were the

groups of men and women , gayly dressed, on gallopingorses, horses and riders flower-bedecked and flowergarlanded, si nging, and laugh in g, and ridin g like thewind . And as I stood in the judge ’s stand and lookedat allthis

,there came to my recollection the lazar house

ofHavana, where I had once beheld some two hundredlepers, prisoners inside four restricted walls unti l they

Molokai. Lookin g down Damien Road.

died . No, there are a few thousand places I wot of i nthis world over which I would select Molokai as aplace of permanent residen ce . In the evening we wentto one of the leper assembly halls, where, before acrowded audience

,the singi ng societies contested for

prizes,and where the night wound up with a dance .

I have seen the Hawaiians l iving i n the S lums of

Honolulu,and

,having seen them

,I can readi ly under

stand why the Iepers , brought up from the Settlementfor reexamination , shouted one and al l, “ Back toM olokai !”

One thin g 13 certain . The leper In the Settlementis far better ofl”than the leper who lies I n hiding outside . Such a leper Is a lonely outcast, living I n constant

THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI 1 07

fear of discovery and slowly and su rely rotti ngaway .

The action of leprosy is not steady . I t lays old of

i ts victim,commits a ravage

,and then lies dormant for

an i ndeterminate period . I t may not commit anotherravage for five years

,or ten years, or forty years,

and the patient may enjoy unin terrupted good health .

Rarely,however

,do these first ravages cease of them

selves . The skil led surgeon is required , and the ski l ledsurgeon cannot be called in for the leper who is i nhiding . For i nstance, the first ravage may take theform of a perforating ul cer in the sole of the foot.When the bone is reached

,necrosis sets in . If the

leper is in hiding,he cannot be operated upon, the

necrosis wi ll continue to eat its way up the bone ofthe le and in a brief and horrible time that leper wi lldie 0?gangrene or some other terrible compl ication .

On the other hand,if that same leper is in M olokai,

the surgeon wil l operate upon the foot, remove theulcer, cleanse the bone , and put a complete stop tothat particular ravage of the disease . A month afterthe operation the leper wil l be out riding horseback

,

running foot races,swimming in the breakers

,or cl imb

ing the giddy sides of the val leys for mountain apples .And as has been stated before

,the disease

,ly in g dor

mant,may not again attack him for five

,ten

,or forty

years .The old horrors of leprosy go back to the conditions

that obtained before the days of antiseptic surgery, andbefore the time when physicians like Dr. Goodhue andDr. Hollmann went to l ive at the Settlement . Dr.Goodhue is the pioneer surgeon there , and too muchpraise cannot be given him for the noble work he hasdone . I spent one morning in the Operating room


with him and of the three operations he performed,

two were on men,newcomers

, who had arrived on thesame steamer with me . I n each case

,the disease had

attacked in one spot only . One had a erforat

i ng u lcer in the ankle,well advanced

,and t e other

man was suffering from a simi laraffli ction

,wel l advanced

,under

his arm. Both cases were welladvanced because the man hadbeen on the outside and had notbeen treated . I n each case

,Dr.

Goodhue put an immediate andcomplete stop to the ravage, andin four weeks those two men wi llbe as well and able-bodied as theyever were i n their l ives . Theon ly difference between them andyou or me is that the disease islyin g dormant in their bodies andmay at any future time commitanother ravage .

Leprosy Is as Old as history . References to i t arefound In the earliest written records . And yet to-day

practicall nothing more is , known about i t than wasknown t en . This much was known then , namely ,that i t was con tagious and that those afllicted by itshould be segregated . The difference between thenand now is that to-day the leper is more rigidly segregated and more humanely treated . But leprosy i tselfSti l l remains the same awful and profound mystery . Areading of the reports of the physician s and special istsof all countries reveals the baffling nature of the disease .These leprosy specialists are unan imous on no one

Molokai . Father Dami

en’s Church .

1 1 0 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK

An Austrian physician has inoculated himself and hisassistants with leprosy and fai led to catch i t. Butthis is not conclusive, for there is the famou s case ofthe H awaIIan murderer, who had h is sen te n ce of deathcommuted to l ife imp risonment on his agreeing to be

inoculated with the bacillus leprce . Some timeafter inoculation , leprosymade its appearance, andthe man died a leper onMolokai . Nor was thisconclusive, for i t was discovered that at the timehe was i noculated severalmembers of his familywere already sufferingfrom the disease on Molokai . He may have contracted the disease fromthem

,and it may have

been well along in itsmysterious period of In

Cubation at the time hewas offi cially i nocu lated .

Then there is the case ofthat hero of the Church,

Father Damien , who went to Molokai a cl ean manand died a leper . There have been many theories asto how he contracted leprosy

,but nobody knows .

He never knew himself. But every chance that heran has certainly been run by a woman at present living i n the Settlement ; who has l ived there manyyears ; who has had five leper husbands

,and had

Molokai . Father Damien ’s Grave .

THE LEPERS OF MOLOKA I 1 1 1

chi ldren by them ;

’

and who is to- day, as she alwayshas been

,free of the disease .

As yet no light has been shed upon the mystery of

leprosy . When more is learned about the disease,a

cure for i t may be expected . Once an effi cacious serumis discovered

,and leprosy, because it is so feeb ly con

tag ious, wil l pass away swiftly from the earth . Thebattle waged with i t wi ll be short and sharp . I n themeantime, how to discover that serum ,

or some otherunguessed weapon ? I n the presen t i t is a seriousmatter . I t is estimated that there are half a millionlepers , not segregated , i n I ndia alone . Carnegie l ibrari es

,Rockefeller un iversi ties, and many similar bene

factions are al l very wel l ; but one cannot help thinkinghow far a few thousands of dol lars would go , say i n

the leper Settlement ofMolokai . The residents thereare accidents of fate, scapegoats to some mysteriousnatural law of which man knows nothing, isolated forthe welfare of their fellows who else might catch thedread disease

,even as they have caught it

,nobody

kn ows how. Not for their sakes merely , but for thesake of future generations

,a few thousands of dol lars

would go far i n a legi timate and scientific search aftera cure for leprosy , for a serum , or for some undreameddiscovery that willenable the medical world to exterminate the bacillus lepm . There ’s the place for yourmoney

,you philanthropists .

CHAPTER VI I I

The House of the Su n

THERE are hosts of people who journey like restlessspirits round and about this earth in search of seascapesand landscapes and the wonders and beauties of nature.They overrun Europe in armies ; they can be met indroves and herds in Florida and the West Indies

,at

the pyramids , and on the slopes and summits of theCanadian and American Rockies ; but in the Houseof the Su n they are as rare as live and wrigglin g dinosaurs . Haleakala is the Hawaiian name for the houseof the sun . I t is a noble dwel l ing, situated on theisland ofMaui ; but so few tourists have ever peepedinto it, much less entered it, that their number maybe practical ly reckoned as zero . Yet I venture tostate that for n atu ral beau ty and won der the naturelover may see dissimi lar things as great as Haleakala,but no greater

,while he will never see elsewhere any

thing more beautiful or wonderful . Honolu lu is sixdays ’ steaming from San Francisco ; Maui is a night

’srun on the steamer from Honolulu ; and six hoursmore if he is in a hurry

,can bring the travel ler to KO

l ikoli,which is ten thousand and thirty- two feet above

the sea and which stands hard by the entrance portalto the House of the Su n . Yet the tourist comes not,and Haleakala s leeps on in lon ely and unseen grandeur.Not being tourists

,we of the Snark went to H alea

kala . On the S lopes of that monster mountain thereis a cattle ranch of some fifty thousand acres, where we

1 1 2

TH E HOUSE OF TH E SUN ” 5

twisting, the confl ict made visible by the cloud-massesplucked from the heavens and hurled back and forthin squadrons, battal ions, armies , and great mountainranges . Once i n a while

,U k iukiu ,

i n mighty gusts,

flin gs immense cloud-masses clear over the summit ofHaleakala ; whereupon Naulu crafti ly captures them ,

l i nes them up i n n ew battle-formation , and with themsmites back at his ancient and eternal antagonist.Then U k iukiu sends a great cloud—army around theeastern side of the mountain . I t IS a flanking movement

,well executed . But Naulu

,from his lair on the

leeward side, gathers the flanking army in , pullin g andtwisting and draggin g it, hammerin g i t i nto shape

,and

sends It charging back against U k iuk iu around thewestern side of the mountain . And al l the whi le

,

above and below the main battle-field, high up theslopes toward the sea

,U k iu k iu and Naulu are contin

u ally sending ou t l i ttle wisps of cloud , i n ragged skirmish l ine

,that creep and crawl over the ground

,among

the trees and through the canyons,and that spri n g

upon and capture one another in sudden ambuscadesand sorties . A nd sometimes Ukiuk iu or Nau lu,abruptly sendin g out a heavy charging column

,cap

tures the ragged li ttle skirmishers or drives themSkyward, turn i ng over and over, i n vertical whirls,thousands of feet In the air .But I t is on the western slopes ofHaleakala that the

main battle goes on . Here Naulu masses his heaviestformations and wi ns his greatest v ictories. Uk iukiu

grows weak toward late afternoon,which Is the way of

all trade-winds,and is driven backward by Naulu .

N aulu’

s generalship is excel lent . All day he has beengathering and packin g away immense reserves . As


the afternoon draws on , he welds them into a solidcolumn, sharp-pointed, miles in length , a mile i nwidth

,and hundreds of feet thick . This column he

slowly thrusts forward into the broad battle- front ofUkiukiu , and slowly and surely Ukiukiu

,weakening

fast, is spli t asunder. But it i s not al l bloodless . Attimes Ukiukiu struggles wildly , and with fresh accessions of strength from the l imitless northeast

,smashes

away half a mi le at a time of Naulu’

s column andsweeps i t ofl" and away toward West M aui . Sometimes, when the two charging armies meet end- ou , atremendous perpendicular whirl results

,the c loud

masses, locked together, mounting thousands of feetinto the air and tu rning over and over. A favoritedevice of Ukiukiu is to send a low

,squat formation

,

densely packed , forward along the ground and underNaulu . When Ukiukiu is under, he proceeds to buck.

Naulu’

s mighty middle gives to the b low and bendsupward, but usual ly he turns the attack ing column backupon itself and sets i t mi l ling . And al l the whi le theragged li ttle skirmishers

,stray and detached

,sneak

through the trees and canyons, crawl along and throughthe grass, and surprise one another with unexpectedleaps and rushes ; while above, far above, serene andlonely in the rays of the setting sun , Haleakala looksdown upon the confl ict. And so

,the night. Bu t i n

the morning, after the fashion of trade-winds, Uk iukiugathers stren

gth and sends the hosts of Naulu rol l ing

back in con usion and rout. And one’

day is l ikeanother day in the battle of the clouds, where U kiuk iuand Naulu strive eternally on the slopes of Haleakala.Again in the mornin g, i t was boots and saddles,cow-boys and packhorses, and the c limb to the top be

THE HOUSE OF THE SUN 1 1 9

bottom of an inverted cone situated in the centre of anawful cosmic pi t, we found that we were at neith ertop n or bottom . Far above us was the heaven - towering horizon , and far beneath us , where the top of themountain shou ld have been

,was a deeper deep, the

great crater,the House of the Su n . Twenty- three

miles around stretched the dizzy wall s of the crater .We stood on the ed e of the nearly vertical westernwal l, and the floor ofthe crater lay nearly half a milebeneath . This floor, broken by lava-flows and cindercones, was as red and fresh and uneroded as if i t werebut yesterday that the fires went out . The cin dercones, the smallest over four hundred feet in heightand the largest over n ine hundred

,seemed no more

than puny little sand-hi lls,so mighty was the magn i

tude of the setting . Two gaps,thousands of feet deep

,

broke the rim of the crater,and through these Uk iuk iu

vain ly strove to drive h is fleecy herds of trade-windclouds . As fast as they advanced through the gaps, theheat of the crater dissipated them into thin air

,and

though they advanced always,they got nowhere .

I t was a scene of vast bleakness and desolation,stern

,

forbidding, fascinati ng . We gazed down upon a placeof fire and earthquake . The tie- ribs of earth lay barebefore us . I t was a workshop of natu re sti ll clutteredwith the raw beginnings of world-making . Here andthere great dikes of primordial rock had thrust themselves up from the bowels of earth , straight throughthe molten surface-ferment that had evidently cooledonly the other day . I t was al l un real and u nbelievable . Looking upward

,far above us (i n real ity be

neath us) floated the cloud- battle of Uk iuk iu andNaulu . And higher up the slope of the seeming


abyss , above the cloud- battle, i n the air and sky, hungthe islands of Lanai and M olokai . Across the crater,to the southeast, sti l l apparently looking upward, wesaw ascen ding

,first

,the turquoise sea

,then the white

surf- l ine of the shore of Hawaii ; above that the bel tof trade- clouds

,and next, eighty mi les away, rearing

their stupendous bu lks out of the azure sky , tippedwith snow

,wreathed with cloud, trembling like a

mirage,the peaks of Mauna Kea and M auna Loa

hung poised on the wal l of heaven .

I t is told that long ago , one Maui , the son of Hina,l ived on what is n ow known as West M aui . Hismother

,Hina

,employed her time in the making of

kapas. She must have made them at night, for herdays were occupied i n trying to dry the kapas. Eachmorning

,and all morning

,she toiled at spreading them

out in the sun . But no sooner were they out, than shebegan taking them in , i n order to hav e them al l undershelter for the night . For know that the days wereshorter then than n ow. Maui watched his mother’sfu ti le toil and felt sorry for her. He decided to dosomething— oh , no , not to help her hang out and takein the kapas. He was too clever for that . His ideawas to make the su n go slower. Perhaps he was thefirst Hawaiian astronomer . At any rate

,he took a

series of observations of the sun from various parts ofthe is land . His con clusion was that the sun ’s pathwas directly across Haleakala. Unlike Joshua, hestood in no need of divine assistance . He athered ahuge quan ti ty of cocoanuts , from the fiber 0 which hebraided a stout cord

,and in one end of which he made

a noose,even as the cow-boys of Haleakala do to this

day . Next he climbed into the House of the Sun and


laid in wait. When the su n came tearing along thepath

,bent on completin g its j ourney in the shortest

time possible, the valiant youth threw his lariat aroundone of the sun ’s largest and strongest beams . Hemade the sun slow down some ; also, he broke thebeam short off. And he kept on roping and breakingoff beams til l the sun said it was wil ling to listen toreason . Maui set forth his terms of peace, which thesun accepted

,agreeing to go more slowly thereafter .

Wherefore Hina had ample time in which to dry herkapas, and the days are longer than they used to be,which last is quite in accord with the teachings of modern astronomy .

We had a lunch of j erked beef and hard poi in astone corral

,used of old time for the night- impounding

of cattle being driven across the island . Then weskirted the rim for half a mi le and began the descentinto the crater . Twenty-five hundred feet beneath laythe floor

,and down a steep slope of loose volcanic cin

ders we dropped,the sure- footed horses sl ipping and

slidin g,but always keeping their feet . The black sur

face of the Ci nders, when broken by the horses’ hoofs ,

turned to a yel low ochre dust,viru lent in appearance

and acid of taste, that arose in clouds . There was agal lop across a level stretch to the mouth of a conven ien t blow-hole

,and then the descent continued in

clouds of volcanic dust, winding in and out amongcinder- cones , brick- red

,old rose, and purplish black

of color. Above us , h igher and higher, towered the

crater-walls,while we journeyed on across innumerable

lava-flows, turning and twisting a devious way amongthe adamantine bi llows of a petrified sea . Saw- toothedwaves of lava vexed the surface of this weird ocean ,

THE HOUSE O F THE SUN 1 23

whi le on ei ther hand arose jagged crests and spiraclesof fantastic shape . Our way led on past a bottomlesspit and along and over the main stream of the latestlava-flow for seven miles .At the lower end of the crater was our campin g

spot,in a small grove of olapa and kolea trees , tucked

away in a corner of the crater at the base of wal ls thatrose perpendicularly fifteen hundred feet. Here was

The Cinder Og n es , the Sma l lest over Four Hundred Feet in He ight, theLargest over N ine Hundred, on the Floor of the Crater, n early Halfa MIle Ben eath .

pasturage for the horses, but no water, and first weturned aside and picked our way across a mile of lavato a known water- hole in a crevi ce in the crater-wall.The water- hole was empty . But on climbin g fifty feetup the crev ice, a pool was found containing half a dozenbarrels of water . A pail was carried up, and soon asteady stream of the precious liquid was running downthe rock and fi l ling the lower pool

,while the cow-boys

below were busy fighting the horses back,for there

was room for one only to drink at a time . Then itwas on to camp at the foot of the wal l

,up which herds

of wild goats scrambled and blatted,while the tent

arose to the sound of rifle - firin g . Jerked beef, hard


poi, and broiled kid was the menu . Over the crest ofthe crater

,just above our heads, rol led a sea of clouds,

driven on by Uk iukiu . Though this sea rolled overthe crest un ceasingly , i t never blotted out nor dimmedthe moon

, for the heat of the crater dissolved the cloudsas fast as they rolled in . Through the moonlight

,at

tracted by the camp- fire , came the crater cattle to peerand challenge . They were roll ing fat, though theyrarely drank water, the morning dew on the grass taking its place . I t was because of this dew that the tentmade a welcome bedchamber, and we fel l asleep to thechanting oflzulas by the unwearied Hawaiian cow- boys

,

in whose veins , no doubt, ran the blood ofM aui,their

valiant forebear.The camera cannot do justice to the House of the

Su n . The sublimated chemistry of photography maynot lie, but it certainly does not tell allthe truth . TheKoolau Gap is fai thfully reproduced,ju st as it impin gedon the retina of the camera

,yet i n the resulting picture

the gigantic scale of th ings is missing. Those wallsthat seem several hundred feet in height are almost asmany thousand ; that entering wedge of cloud is a mileand a half wide i n the gap itself, while beyond the gapit is a veri table ocean ; and that foreground of cindercone and volcanic ash, mushy and colorless in appearance

,is i n truth gorgeous- hued in brick- red , terra- cotta,

rose,yellow ochre

,and purplish black . Also, words

are a vain thing and drive to despair . To say that acrater-wall is two thousand feet high is to say just precisely that i t is two thousand feet high ; but there is avast deal more to that crater-wal l than a mere statistic.The su n i s n inety- three mil lions of miles distant

,but

to mortal conception the adj oining county is farther


volcanic sand,over which i t darted like a startled

jackrabbit,kicking up behind i t a ti ny trail of yel low

dust . Stone and dust diminished in siz e, unti l someof the party said the stone had stopped . That wasbecause they could not see it any longer . I t hadvanished into the distance beyond their ken . Otherssaw it rolling farther on — I know I did ; and i t is myfirm conviction that that stone is sti l l rol ling .

Our last day in the crater, Uk iuk iu gave us a tasteof his strength . He smashed Naulu back al l alongthe l i ne

,fi lled the House of the Su n to overflowing

with clouds , and drowned us ou t . Our rain—gaugewas a pint cup under a tiny hole in the ten t . Thatlast night of storm and rain fi l led the cup

,and there

was no way of measu ring the water that spill ed overinto the blankets . With the rain-gauge out of businessthere was no longer any reason for remaining ; so webroke camp in the wet- gray of dawn , and plungedeastward across the lava to the Kaupo Gap . EastMaui is nothing more or less than the vast lava streamthat flowed long ago through the Kaupo Gap ; anddown th is stream we picked our way from an alti tudeof six thousand five hundred feet to the sea . Thiswas a day ’s work in itself for the horses ; but neverwere there such horses . Safe in the bad places

,never

rushing,never losing their heads

,as soon as they

found a trail wide and smooth enough to run on,they

ran . There was no stopping them unti l the trail became bad agai n

,and then they stopped of themselves .

Continuously, for days, they had performed the hardestkind ofwork

,and fed most of the time on grass foraged

by themselves at night while we slept,and yet that day

they covered twenty- eight leg-breaking miles and gal

THE HOUSE OF THE SUN 1 27

loped i nto Hana like a bunch of colts . A lso,there

were several of them, reared in the dry region on the

leeward side of Haleakala,that had never worn shoes

in al l their lives . Day after day,and al l day long

,

unshod, they had travelled over the sharp lava, withthe extra weight of a man on their backs

,and their

hoofs were i n better condition than those of the shodhorses .The scenery between Vieiras’s (where the KaupoGap empties in to the sea) and Hana, which we covered

Our Way led past a Bottomless F it.

i n half a day, is wel l worth a week or a month ; bu t,wildly beautiful as i t is

,i t becomes pale and smal l i n

comparison with the wonderland that l ies beyond therubber plantations between Hana and the H on oman uGulch . Two days were required to cover this marvellous stretch , which l ies on the windward side ofH aleakala. The people who dwel l there cal l it the “ di tchcountry

,

” an unprepossessing name,bu t i t has no

other. Nobody else ever comes there . Nobody elseknows anything abou t it . With the exception of ahandfulof men , whom business has brought there,nobody has heard of the ditch country of M aui . N owa ditch is a ditch , assumably muddy, and usual ly travers


in g uninteresting and monotonous landscapes . But theNahiku Ditch is not an ordinary ditch . The windwardside of Haleakala is serried by a thousand precipitousgorges

,down which rush as many torrents, each tor

rent of which achieves a score of cascades and waterfalls before it reaches the sea . More rain comes downhere than in any other region in the world . I n 1 904 theyear’s downpour was four hundred and twenty i nches .Water means sugar, and sugar is the backbone of theterritory of H awaII, wherefore the Nahiku Ditch ,which is not a ditch

,but a chai n of tunnels . The water

travels un derground,appearing only at i ntervals to

leap a gorge,travel li ng high in the ai r on a giddy

flume and plun ging in to and through the opposingmountain . This magnificent waterway is called aditch

,

” and with equal appropriateness can Cleopatra’sbarge be called a box-car.There are no carriage roads through the ditch coun

try, and before the ditch was bui lt, or bored , rather,there was no horse-trai l . Hundreds of inches of rainannual ly

,on ferti le soi l

,under a tropic sun

,means a

steaming ju n gle of vegetation . A man , on foot, cutting his way through , might advance a mi le a day , butat the end of a week he would be a wreck

,and he

would have to crawl hastily back if he wanted to getout before the vegetation overran the passage way hehad cut. O

’

Shaughn essy was the daring engineer whoconquered the jungle and the gorges

,ran the ditch

,

and made the horse-trail . He bui lt enduringly,i n

concrete and masonry,and made one of the most te

markable water-farms in the world . Every li ttle runle tand dribble is harvested and conveyed by subterraneanchannels to the main di tch . But so heavily does i t


ram and they wi l l gallop with their hind feet sl ippingover the edge if you let them . I advise only thosewith steady nerves and cool heads to tackle the NahikuDitch tra i l . One of our cow- boys was noted as the

strongest and bravest on the big ranch . He hadridden mountain horses al l his l ife on the ruggedwestern s lopes of Haleakala . He was first i n the

horse-breaking ; and when the others hung back, as amatter of course , he wou ld go in to meet a wi ld bu l l inthe cattle- pen . He had a reputation . But he hadnever ridden over the N ahiku Ditch . I t was therehe lost his reputation . When he faced the first flume

,

spanning a hair- raising gorge , narrow,without raili ngs

,

with a bel lowing waterfall above,another below

,and

directly beneath a wi ld cascade,the air fi l led with driving

spray and rocking to the clamor and rush of sou n d andmotion— well

,that cow- boy dismounted from his horse

,

explained briefly that he had a wife and two chi ldren ,and crossed over on foot

,leading the horse behind him .

The only relief from the flumes was the precipices ;and the on ly relief from the precipices was the flumes ,except where the ditch was far under ground, in whichcase we crossed one horse and rider at a time, on primitive log- bridges that swayed and teetered an d threatened to carry away . I confess that at first I rode suchplaces with my feet loose in the sti rrups , and that on thesheer wal ls I saw to it

,by a definite

,conscious act of

will,that the foot in the outside stirrup, overhanging

the thousand feet of fal l , was ex ceedi ngly loose . I sayat firs t for

,as in the crater itself we quickly lost

our conception ofmagnitude , so , on the Nahiku Ditch ,we quickly lost ou r apprehension of depth . Theceaseless iteration of he ight and depth produced a state

THE HOUSE OF THE SUN 13:

of consciousness i n which height and depth were ac

cepted as the ordinary condItion s of existence ; andfrom the horse

’s back to look sheer down four hundredor five hundred feet became quite commonplace andnon-productive of thri lls . And as carelessly as thetrai l and the horses , we swung along the dizzy heightsand ducked around or through the waterfalls .And such a ride ! Fall ing water was everywhere.

We rode above the clouds, under the clouds, and

And through the Gap Ukiukiu va in ly strove to drive h is Fleecy Herds

of Trade-wind C louds.

through the clouds ! and every n ow and then a shaftof sunshine penetrated like a search- light to the depthsyawning beneath us , or flashed upon some pinnacle ofthe crater-rim thousands of feet above . At every turnof the trai l a waterfal l or a dozen waterfalls

,leapi ng

hundreds of feet through the air,burst upon our vision .

At our first n ight’s cam in the Keanae Gulch , wecou nted thirty- two water al ls from a single viewpoint .The vegetation ran riot over that wild land . Therewere forests ofkoa and kolea trees

,and candlenut trees ;

and then there were the trees called ohia- ai,which bore

red mountain apples , mellow and juicy and most excellent to eat. Wild bananas grew everywhere

,clinging


to the sides of the gor es,and

,overborne by their great

bunches of ripe fruit, fal ling across the trai l and blockin g the way . And over the forest surged a sea of greenlife, the climbers of a thousand varieties

,some that

floated airi ly, i n lacelike fi laments,from the tal lest

bran ches others that coi led and wound about the treesli ke hu e serpents ; and on e , the ei-ci, that was for allthe wor (I l ike a climbing palm ,

swinging on a thick stemfrom branch to branch and tree to tree and throttlinthe supports whereby it climbed . Through the sea ofgreen , lofty tree-ferns thrust their great delicate fronds,and the lehua flau n ted i ts scarlet blossoms . Underneath the climbers , i n no less profusion , grew the warmcolored

,strangely-marked plants that in the United

States one is accustomed to seeing preciously conservedin hot -houses . I n fact

,the ditch country ofMau i is

nothin g more nor less than a hu e conservatory . Everyfamiliar variety

'

of fern flou risies,'

and more varIetIes

that are unfami l iar,from the tiniest maidenhai r to the

gross and voracious staghorn,the latter the terror of the

woodsmen,interlacing with i tself in tangled masses five

or six feet dee and covering acres .Never was t ere su ch a ride . For two days it lasted,

when we emerged into rolling coun try , and , alon anactual wagon- road

,came home to the ranch at a ga lop .

I know it was cru el to gallop the horses after su ch along, hard journey but we blistered our hands in vaineffort to hold them in . That’s the sort of horses theygrow on Haleakala . At the ranch there was great festivalof cattle-driving

,brandin g, and horse- breakin

Overhead Uk iuk iu and Naulu battled val iantly, and ar

above,i n the sunshine

,towered the mighty summit of

Haleakala .


we actu al ly travel led at least four thousand miles to ac

complish i t,thus prov i ng for once and forever that the

shortest distance between two poi n ts is not always astraight li ne . Had we headed directly for the Mar

qu esas, we might have travelled five or six thousandmi les .Upon one thing we were resolved : we would not

cross the Line west of 130° west longitude . For here

was the problem . To cross the Line to the west ofthat point

,if the southeast trades were wel l around to

the southeast,would throw us so far to leeward of the

Marquesas that a head-beat would be maddeninglyimpossible . Also

,we had to remember the equatorial

current,which moves west at a rate of anywhere h'

om

twelve to seventy-five mi les a day . A pretty pickle,i ndeed

,to be to leeward of our destination with such a

curren t i n our teeth . No not a minute, nor a second,west of 1 30

° west longitude would we cross the Line .But since the southeast trades were to be expected fiveor six degrees north of the Line (which , if they werewell around to the southeast or south-southeast, wouldnecessi tate our s liding off toward southsouthwest) , weshould have to hold to the eastward , north of the Line,and north of the southeast trades , unti l we gained atleast 1 28° west longitude .I have forgotten to mention that the seventyhorse

power gasolene engine, as usual , was not working, andthat we could depen d upon wind alone . Ne i ther wasthe laun ch engine working. And whi le I am abou t i t,I may as well confess that the five- horse-power

,which

ran the lights , fans, and pumps, was also on the sicklist . A striki ng title for a book haunts me , waking andsleeping . I shou ld l ike to write that book some day

A PACI FIC TRAVERSE 135

and to cal l it Around the World with Three GasoleneEngines and a Wife . Bu t I am afraid I shal l notwrite i t, for fear of hurting the feelings of some of theyoung gentlemen ofSan Francisco,Honolulu , and Hilo,who learned thei r trades at the expense of the Sn ark’sengines .I t looked easy on paper. Here was H ilo and

there was our objective, 1 28° west longitude . With

the northeast tradeblowing we couldtravel a straightline between thetwo points , ande v e n s l a c k ou r

sheets off a goodlybit. But one of

the chief troubleswith the trades ist h a t o n e n e v e rknows just where he will pick them up and just inwhat direction they wil l be blowing. We picked upthe northeast trade right outside of Hi lo harbor, butthe miserable breeze was away around into the east .Then there was the north equatorial cu rrent settingwestward like a migh ty river . Furthermore, a smallboat

,by the wind and bucking into a big head

sea,does not work to advantage . She jogs up and

down and gets nowhere . Her sails are ful l and straining, every l ittle while she presses her lee- rai l under,she flou nders, and bumps , and splashes , and that isall . Whenever she begins to gather way , she runsker-chug into a big mountain of water and is broughtto a standsti l l . So, with the Sn a rk, the resultant of

A Man -eater.

136 TH E CRUISE OF THE SNARK

her smallness, of the trade aroun d into the east, and

of the strong equatorial curren t,was a long sag south .

Oh , she did not go quite south . But the castin g shemade was distressing . On October 1 1

,she made forty

mi les castin g ; October 1 2 , fifteen miles ; October 13,no castin g ; October 1 4, thirty mi les ; October 1 5,twenty- three miles ; October 1 6, eleven mi les ; and onOctober 1 7 , she actually went to the westward fourmiles . Thus, i n a week, she made one hundred andfifteen mi les castin g , which was equivalent to sixteenmiles a day . But

,between the longi tude ofHilo and

1 28° west longitude is a difference of twenty- seven degrees , or, roughly , sixteen hundred miles . At sixteenmiles a day

,one hundred days wou ld be required to ac

complish this distan ce . And even then,our objective,

1 28° west longitude, was five degrees north of the Line,whi le Nuka-hiva

,i n the Marquesas

,lay nine degrees

south of the Line and twelve degrees to the westThere remained only one thing to do — to work

south out of the trade and into the variables . I t is truethat Captain Bruce found no variables on his traverse,and that he never could make easting on either tack .

”

I t was the variables or nothing with us, and we prayedfor better luck than he had had . The variables constitu te the bel t of ocean ly ing between the trades andthe doldrums , and are conjectured to be the draughtsof heated air which rise in the doldrums, flow high inthe ai r counter to the trades

,and gradual ly sink down

ti l l they fan the surface of the ocean where they arefound . And they are fou n d where they arefound ; for they are wedged between the trades and thedoldrums

,which same shift their territory from day to

day and month to month .


th is traverse , and we found ourselves in the midst ofone of the loneliest of the Pacific solitudes . I n thesixty days we were crossing it we sighted no sai l , l iftedno steamer’s smoke above the horizon . A disabledvessel cou ld drift In th is deserted expanse for a dozengenerations , and there would be no rescue . The onlychance of rescue would be from a vessel l ike the Sn ark,and the Sn ark happened to be there prin cipal ly because

of the fact that thetraverse had beenbegun before thep a r t i c u l a r p a r agraph in the sai ling directions hadbeen read . Standing upright ondeck

,a straight line

drawn from theThrough the Shark

’

s J aws .eye to the horizonw o u l d m e a s u r e

three miles and a half. Thus,seven miles was the

diameter of the ci rc le of the sea in which we had ourcentre . Since we remained always in the centre, andsince we constantly were moving in some direction , welooked upon many circles . But al l Ci rcles lookedal ike . No tufted islets, gray headlands, nor glistenin

gpatches of white canvas ever marred the symmetry 0

that unbroken curve . Clouds came and went, risingup over the rim of the circle, flowing across the spaceof It

,and spill i ng away and down across the opposite

rim .

The world faded as the procession of the weeksmarched by . The world faded unti l at last there

A PACIFIC TRAVERSE 139

ceased to be any world except the l ittle world of theSn ark, freighted with her seven souls and floatin g onthe expanse of the waters . Our memories ofthe world

,

the great world, became like dreams of former l ives wehad l ived somewhere before we came to be born on theSn ark. After we had been out of fresh vegetables forsome time, we mentioned such things in much thesame way I have heard my father men tion the vanishedapples of his boyhood . Man is a creature of habit, andwe on the Sn ark had got the habit of the Sn ark.

Everything abou t her and aboard her was as a matterof course, and anything different would have been anirritation and an offence .There was no way by which the great world

could intrude. Our bel l rang the hours, but no caller everrang it. There were no guests to dinner, no telegrams,n o i nsistent telephone jangles invading our privacy .

We had no engagements to keep, no trains to catch ,and there were no morn ing newspapers over which towaste time in learning what was happening to ourfifteen hundred mi ll ion other fel low-creatures .But it was not dul l . The affairs of our l ittle world

had to be regu lated,and, u nlike the great world, ourworld

had to be steered in its journey through space . Also,

there were cosmic disturbances to be encountered andbaflied, such as do not afllict the big earth in its frictionlessorb i t through the windless void . And we never knew

,

from moment to moment,what was going to happen

next. There was spice and variety enough and tospare . Thus, at four i n the morning, I relieve Hermann at the wheel .East- northeast, he gives me the cou rse . She’s

eight points off, but she ain’ t s teering .

”


Smal l wonder. The vessel does not exist that canbe, steered in so absolute a calm .

“ I had a breeze a li ttle while ago— maybe i t will

come back again ,” Hermann says hopefu l ly, ere he

starts forward to the cabi n and his bunk.

The mizzen is in and fast furled . I n the ui ht,

what of the rol l and the absence of wind,i t ad

made life too hideous to be permitted to go on rasping atthe mast

,smashing at the tackles , and buffeting the

empty air into hol low outbursts of sound . But thebig mainsai l is sti l l on , and the staysail, j ib, andflyin gj ib are snapping and slash ing at their sheets with everyroll . Every star is out . Just for luck I put the wheelhard over in the opposite direction to which it had beenleft by Hermann , and I lean back and gaze up at thestars . There is nothing else for me to do . There isnothing to be done with a sai l i ng vessel roll ing in a starkcalm .

Then I feel a fan on my cheek,faint

,so faint

,that

I can just sense it ere i t is gone . But anothercomes , and another, unti l a real and ju st perceptiblebreeze is blowing. How the Sna rk’s sai ls manage tofeel i t is beyond me, but feel i t they do , as she doesas well , for the compass card begin s slowly to revolvein the binnacle . I n reali ty

,i t is not revolvin g at al l .

I t is held by terrestrial magnetism in one place,and it

is the Snark that i s revolv in pivoted upon that delicate cardboard device that oats in a closed vessel ofalcohol .So the Sn ark comes back on her course . The breath

increases to a ti ny puff. The Sn ark feels the weightof i t and actual ly heels over a trifle . There is flying scud overhead

,and I notice the stars being b lotted

1 42 TH E CRU ISE O F TH E SNARK

of i t, and I shal l have cal led them for nothing . I t isbetter to let them s leep . I hold the Sn a rk down toher task , and from out of the darkness, at right angles,comes a delu e of rain accompanied by shrieking wind .

Then everything cases except the blackness, and I re

joice in that I have n ot cal led the men .

No sooner does the wind case than the sea picksup . The combers are breaking now

,and the boat is

tossing like a cork .

Then out of theblackness the gustscome harder andfaster than before .If only I knewwhat was up thereto windward in theblackness TheSn a rk i s makin

A Dolphin .

heavy weather ofi t,and her lee- rai l

is buried oftener than n ot . More shrieks and snortsof wind . N ow

,if ever

,

‘

is the time to cal l the men .

I willcal l them ,I resolve . Then there is a burst

of rain,a slackening of the wind , and I do not call .

But i t is rather lonely , there at the wheel , steering alittle world through howli ng blackness . I t is quite aresponsibi lity to be allalone on the surface of a l ittleworld in time of stress , doin the th inking for i tssleeping inhabitants . I recoi l rom the responsibi lityas more gusts begi n to strike and as a sea l icks alongthe weather rai l and splashes over i nto the cockpit.The salt water seems strangely warm to my body andis shot through with ghostly nodules of phospho

A PACIFIC TRAVERSE 1 43

rescen t light. I shal l surely call al l hands to shortensai l . Why should they sleep ? I am a fool to haveany compunctions in

,

the matter . My intel lect isarrayed against my heart . I t was my heart that said,Let them sleep . Yes

,but i t was my intel lect that

backed up my heart i n that judgment. Let my intellect then reverse thejudgment ; and, whi le I am specu

lating as to what partIcular enti ty issued that commandto my intel lect

,the gusts die away . Solicitude formere

bodi ly comfort has no place i n practical seamanship, Iconclude sagely ; but study the feel of the next seriesof gusts and do not call the men . After al l, i t is myintel lect

,behind everything

,procrastinating

,measu ring

its knowledge of what the Sn ark can endu re against theblows bein g struck at her

,and waiting the cal l of all

hands against the striking of stil l severer blows .Dayl ight

,gray and violen t

,steals through the

cloud-pal l and shows a foaming sea that flattensunder the weight of recurrent and increasing squal ls .Then comes the rai n , fi l li ng the windy valleys of thesea with mi lky smoke and further flatten ing the waves ,which but wait for the easement of wind and rain toleap more wildly than before . Come the men ondeck, their sleep out, and among them H ermann , hisface on the broad grin in appreciation of the breeze ofwind I have picked up . I turn the wheel over toWarren and start to go below

,pausing on the

way to rescue the galley stovepipe which has goneadrift. I am barefooted , and my toes have had an excellen t education in the art of cl inging ; but, as the rai lburies i tself in a green sea, I suddenly Sit down on thestreaming deck . Hermann good- naturedly elects toquestion my selection of such a spot. Then comes


the next rol l, and he sits down , suddenly , and withoutpremeditation . The Snark heels over and down , therai l takes it green , and Hermann and I , clu tching theprecious stovepipe

,are swept down i nto the lee

scuppers . After that I finish my ou rn ey below, andwhile changing my clothes gri n wit satisfaction —theSnark Is maki ng castin g .

No,i t is not all monotony . When we had worried

along our eastin g to 1 26° west longitude, we left the

variables and headed sou th through the doldrums,where was much calm weather and where, takingadvantage of every fan of air

,we were often glad to

make a score ofmiles In as many hours . And yet, onsuch a day

,we might pass through a doz en squal ls and

be surrounded by dozens more . And every 3 uallwas to be regarded as a bludgeon capable of crushingthe Snark. We were struck sometimes by the centresand sometimes by the sides of these squal ls

,and we

never knew ju st where or how we were to be hit.The squal l that rose up

,covering half the heavens

,and

swept down upon us , as likely as not spl it in to twosqualls which passed us harmlessly on either side ;while the tiny , i nnocent- looking squal l that appearedto carry no more than a hogshead ofwater and a poundofwind , would abruptly assume cyclopean proportions,delug in us with rai n and overwhelming us with wind .

Then t ere were treacherous squal ls that wen t boldlyastern and sneaked back upon us from a mile to leeward .

A

fgain , two squalls would tear along

, one on each side0 us, and we wou ld get a fillip rom each of them .

Now a gale certainly grows tiresome after a few hours,

but squal ls never. The thousandth squall i n one’s ex

perien ce is as i nteresting as the first one, and perhaps a


degrees to the west of our longitude . A pretty picklefor a handful of creatures sweltering on the ocean inthe heat of tropic calms .We rigged l ines on either side between the main andmizzen riggings . To these we laced the big deckawning, hoisting It up aft with a sail in

gpennant so that

any rai n i t might collect would ru n orward where itcou ld be caught. Here and there squalls passed across

the circle of thesea . All day wewatched them , nowto port or starboard, and againahead or astern .

But never onecame near enoughto wet us . I n theafternoon a big one

An Unwillin g Pose .bore down uponus . I t spread out

across the ocean as it approached , and we could see itemptying countless thousands of gallons in to the saltsea . Extra attention was paid to the awning

,and

then we waited . Warren,Marti n , and Hermann

made a V ivid picture . Grouped together, holding onto the rigging, swaying to the roll , they were gazingintently at the squal l . S train , anxiety, and yearningwere in every postu re of their bodies . Beside themwas the dry and empty awning . But they seemedto grow l imp and to droop as the squall broke in half,one part passing on ahead

,the other drawing astern

and going to leeward .

But that night came rai n . Martin,whose psycho


logical th irst had compel led him to dri nk his uart ofwater early

,got his mouth down to the l ip of t e awn

ing and drank the deepest draught I ever have seendrunk . The precious water came down in bucketfulsand tubfiIls, and in two hours we caught and storedaway in the tanks one hundred and twenty gal lons .Strange to say, i n al l the rest of our voyage to theMarquesas n ot another drop of rain fell on board . If

that squal l had missed us, the handcuffs would haveremained on the pump, and we would have busied ourselves with uti lizing our surplus gasolene for distil lationpurposes .Then there was the fish ing. One did n ot have to

go in search of i t, for i t was there at the rai l . A three

i nch steel hook,on the end of a stout l ine, with a

piece ofwhite rag for bait,was al l that was necessary to

catch bonitas weighi ng from ten to twenty-five pounds .Boni tas feed on flyin g -fish , wherefore they are unaccustomed to n ibbli ng at the hook . They strike as

gamely as the gamest fish in the sea, and their first runis something that no man who has ever caught themwill forget. Also, bonitas are the veriest cannibals .The instant one is hooked he is attacked by his fell ows . Often and often we hauled them on board withfresh, clean- bitten holes in them the size of teacups .One school of bonitas, numbering many thousands ,

stayed with us day and night for more than three weeks .Aided by the Sn a rk, i t was great hunting ; for they cuta swath of destruction through the ocean half a milewide and fifteen hundred miles in length . They rangedalon abreast of the Sn a rk on either side

,pouncin g upon

theEying-fish her forefoot scared up . Si nce they werecontinual ly pursuing astern the flyin g-fish that survived


for several fl ights , they were always overtaking theSn a rk, and at any time one could glance astern and onthe front of a breaking wave see scores of their si lveryforms coasting down just under the su rface . Whenthey had eaten their fi l l , i t was their delight to get i nthe shadow of the boat, or of her sai ls , and a hundred orso were always to be seen lazily . sl iding along and keeping cool .But the poor flyin g -fish ! Pursued and eaten al ive

by the bonitas and dolphins , they sought fl ight in theair

,where the swooping seabirds drove them back into

the water. Under heaven there was no refuge for them.

Flying-fish do not play when they essay the air. I t isa life- and-death affair with them . A thousand times aday we could lift our eyes and see the tragedy playedout. The swift, broken circling of a guny might attract one ’s attention . A glance beneath shows theback of a dolphin break ing the surface i n a wild rush .

Just i n front of its nose a shimmering palpitant streakof si lver shoots from the water into the air a delicate,organic mechanism of flight, endowed with sensation ,power of direction , and love of l ife . The guny swoopsfor i t and misses

,and the flyin g -fish

,gainin g its alti

tude by rising,kite- l ike , against the wind , tu rns in a

half- circle and sk ims off to leeward, glidin on the

bosom of the wind . Be I'

I eath i t, the wake o the dolphin shows i n churn ing foam . So he fol lows , gazingupward with large eyes at the flash i ng breakfast thatnavigates an element other than his own . He cannotrise to so lofty occasion , but he is a thorough-goingempiricist

,and he knows

,sooner or later

,if not gobbled

up by the guny,that the flying-fish must return to the

water. And then — breakfast. We used to pity the


was good for them . The turtle was sighted to windward , calmly sleeping on the surface i n the midst of ahuge school of curious dolphins . I t was a deep- seaturtle of a surety, for the nearest land was a thousandmiles away . We put the Sn a rk abou t and went back

for him,Hermann driving

the granes into his headand neck . When hauledaboard

,numerous remora

were cl inging to his shel l,

and out of the hol lows atthe roots of his fl ipperscrawled several large crabs .I t did not take the crew of

the Sn a rk longer than thenext meal to reach the unanimous conclusion that itwould wil l ingly put theSn a rk about any time fora tu rtle .Bu t i t is the dolphin

that is the king of deep- seafishes . Never is his color

twice quite the same . Swimming in the sea , an ethereal creature of palest azu re, he displays in that oneguise a miracle of color. But it is nothin g comparedwith the displays of wh ich he is capable . At onetime he wi ll appear green pale green , deep green,phosphorescent green ; at another time blue — deepblue, electric blue, allthe spectrum of blue . Catchhim on a hook

,and he turns to gold , yellow gold , al l

gold . Haulhim on deck,and he excels the spectrum ,

passing through inconceivable shades of blues , greens,

A Four-foot Seven - inch Dolph in .


and yel lows , and then , suddenly , turning a ghostlywhite, i n the midst ofwhich are bright blue spots, an dyou suddenly discover that he IS speckled like a trout .Then back from white he goes

,through al l the range

of colors, final ly turning to a mother-of pearl .For those who are devoted to fishing, I can recom

mend no finer sport than catching dolphin . Of course,

i t must be done on a thi n line wi th reel and pole . ANo . 7 , O

’

Shaughnessy tarpon hook Is just the thing,baited with an enti re flyin g -fish . Like the bon ita

,the

dolphin ’s fare consists of flying-fish, and he strikes l ikel ightning at the bait. The first warning is when thereel screeches and you see the line smoking out atright angles to the boat . Before you have time toentertain anxiety con cernin g the length of your line ,the fish rises in to the air in a succession of leaps .Since he Is quite certain to be four feet long or over

,

the sport of l anding so gamey a fish can be real ized .

When hooked, he invariably turns golden . The idea

of the series of leaps is to rid himself of the hook,

and the man who has made the strike must be of Ironor decaden t if his heart does n ot beat with an extraflutter when he beholds such gorgeous fish

,gli tterin g

in golden mai l and shaking itself l ike a stal l ion In eachmid-air leap .

’Ware slack ! If you don ’ t,on one of

those leaps the hook wil l be flung ou t and twenty feetaway . No slack

,and away he will go on another run ,

cu lminatin g in another series of leaps . About thistime one begins to worry over the l in e , and to wishthat he had had ni ne hundred feet on the reel originally instead of six hundred . With careful playing theli ne can be saved

,and after an hour of keen excitement

the fish can be brought to gaff. One‘ such dolphin I


landed on the Sn ark measured four feet and seveninches .

'

Hermann caught dolphins more prosaically . Ahand- l ine and a chunk of shark-meat was all he needed .

His hand- l ine was very thick,but on more than one

occasion it parted and lost the fish . One day a dollphin ot away with a lu re of Hermann ’s manufacture,to w ich were lashed four O ’

Shaughn essy hooks .Within an hour the same dolphin was landed with therod

,and on dissecting him the fou r hooks were re

covered . The dolphins , which remained with u s overa month

,deserted us north of the li ne

,and not one

was seen during the remainder of the tfaverse .

So the days passed . There was so much to be donethat time never dragged . Had there been little to do,time could not have dragged with such wonderful seascapes and cloudscapes— dawns that were like burningimperial cities under rainbows that arched nearly to thezenith ; sunsets that bathed the pu rple sea in rivers ofrose- colored light

, flowin g from a sun whose diverging,heaven-climbing rays were ofthe purest blue . Overside,in the heat of the day , the sea was an azure sati ny fabri c,i n the depths ofwhich the sunshine focussed in fiI n n elsof l ight. Astern , deep down , when there was a breeze,bubbled a procession of milky- turquoise ghosts — thefoam flung down by the hu l l of the Sn a rk each timeshe flou ndered a ain st a sea. At night the wake wasphosphorescent re

,where the medusa sl ime resented

our passing bulk, whi le far down could be observedthe unceasi ng flight of comets , with long, undu lating,nebu lous tai ls — caused by the passage of the boni tasthrough the resentfulmedusa slime . And now andagain, from out of the darkness on either hand, just

CHAPTER X

Typee

To the eastward Ua- huka was bein g blotted out byan evening rai n—squall that was fast overtaking theSn ark. Bu t that l ittle craft, her big spinnaker fi l ledby the southeast trade, was making a good race of it.Cape Martin

,the southeasternmost point ofNuku-h iva

,

was abeam ,and Comptrol ler Bay was open ing up as

we fled past its wide entrance, where SailRock, for al lthe world like the spritsail of a Columbia River salmonboat

,was making brave weather of i t i n the smashing

southeast swel l .“ What do you make that out to be ?” I askedHermann

,at the wheel .

A fishin g-boat

,sir

,he answered after carefu l

scrutiny .

Yet on the chart i t was plainly marked,Sai l Rock .

But we were more interested in the recesses of

Comptroller Bay,where our eyes eagerly sought out

the three bights of land and centred on the midmostone

,where the gatheri ng twil ight showed the dim walls

of a val ley extending in land . How often we had poredover the chart and centred always on that midmostbight and on the val ley it opened the Valley of Typee . Taipi the chart spelled it

,and spel led it cor

rectly, but I prefer Typee ,” and I shal l always spel l

i t Typee . When I was a l ittle boy,I read a book

spelled in that manner Herman Melvi l le ’s Typee

and many long hours I dreamed over its pages . Nor

TYPER 1 55

was it al l dreaming. I resolved there and then , m ightily

,come what would, that when I had gained strength

andyears, I , too , wou ld voyage to Typee . For the wonder of the world was penetrating to my tiny conscious

Grass -houses.

n ess — the wonder that was to lead me to many lands,

and that leads and n ever palls . The years passed,but

Typee was n ot forgotten . Returned to San Franciscofrom a seven months’ cruise in the North Pacific

,I

decided the time had come . The brig Galilee wassailing for the Marquesas

,but her crew was complete


and I , who was an able seaman before the mast andyoung enough to be overweeningly proud of i t

, waswill in g to condescend to ship as cabin- boy in order tomake the pilgrimage to Typee . Of course

,the Galilee

would have sai led from the Marquesas without me,

for I was bent on findin another Fayaway and anotherKory-Kory . I doubt t at the captain read desertioni n my eye. Perhaps even the berth of cabin-boy wasalready fil led . At any rate, I did not get i t.Then came the rush of years

,filled brimming with

projects, achievements, and failures ; but Typee wasn ot forgotten, and here I was now, gazing at its mistyoutlines til l the squal l swooped down and the Sn arkdashed on into the driving smother Ahead

,we

caught a gl impse and took the compass bearing of

Sentinel Rock, wreathed with pounding surf. Thenit, too , was effaced by the rain and darkness . Westeered straight for i t, trustin g to hear the sound of

breakers in tIme to sheer clear . We had to steer forit. We had naught but a compass beari ng with whichto orientate ourselves

,and if we missed Sentinel Rock,

we missed Taiohae Bay , and we would have to throwthe Sn ark up to the wind and lie off and on the wholenight — no pleasant prospect for voya ers weary froma sixty days ’ traverse of the ‘

vast Pacific sol itude, andland-hungry , and fruit-hungry

,and hungry with an

appeti te of years for the sweet vale ofTypee .

Abruptly, wi th a roar of sound, Senti nel Rock

loomed through the rain dead ahead . We altered ourcourse , and , with mainsai l and spinnaker bellying tothe squal l

,drove past . Under the lee of the rock the

wind dropped us , and we rolled in an absolu te calm .

Then a puff of air struck us,right in our teeth

,out of


specu late upon depreciation in value caused by sawinghim in half. They treated the old fellow sacri legiously,digging their knives into him to see how hard he wasand how deep his mossy mantle

,and commanding him

The Goddess of the P001.

to rise up and save them trouble by walking down tothe ship himself. In lieu of which

,nineteen Kanakas

slung him on a frame of timbers and toted him to theship , where, battened down under hatches, even n owhe is cleaving the South Pacific Hornward and towardEurope the ul timate abiding-place for al l good

TYPEE 1 59

heathen idols, save for the few in America and onein particu lar who grins beside me as I write

,and who,

barring shipwreck , will gri n somewhere i n my neighborhood unti l I die. And he wi l l win out. He wil lbe gri nning when I am dust.A lso, as a preliminary, we attended a feast, where

one Taiara Tamarii, the son of an Hawai ian sai lor whodeserted from a whaleship, commemorated the deathof his Marquesan mother by roasting fourteen wholehogs and i nvi ting in the vi llage . So we came along

,

welcomed by a native herald , a young gi rl, who stoodon a great rock and chanted the i nformation that thebanquet was made perfect by our presence — whichinformation she extended impartial ly to every arrival .Scarcely were we seated, however, when she changedher tune, while the company manifested intense excitement . Her cries became eager and piercing. From adistance came answering cries, i n men

’s voices,which

blended into a wild, barbaric chant that sounded incredibly savage

,smacking of blood and war. Then

,

through vistas of tropical foliage appeared a processionof savages, naked save for gaudy loin- cloths . Theyadvanced S lowly , uttering deep gu tteral cries of

triumph and exaltation. Slung from young sapl ingscarried on their shoulders were mysterious objects ofconsiderable weight

,hidden from view by wrappings

of green leaves .Nothing but pigs , in nocently fat and roasted to a turn ,

were inside those wrappings , but the men were carrying them into camp in imi tation of old times whenthey carried in long-pig.

” Now long-pig is not pig.

Long-pig is the Polynesian euphemism for humanflesh ; and these descendants of man - eaters, a ki ng

’s


son at their head , brought in the pigs to table as ofold their grandfathers had brought in their slainenemies . Every n ow and then the procession haltedin order that the bearers shou ld have every advan tagein uttering particularly ferocious shouts of victory

, of

contempt for their enemies,and of gustatory desire .

So Melvill e , two generations ago, witnessed the bodiesof slain H appar warriors, wrapped i n palm- leaves

,car

ried to banquet -at the Ti . At another time

,at the

Ti , he observed a curiously carved vessel of wood,

and on looking into i t h is eyes “ fel l upon the disordered members of a human skeleton

,the bones stil l

fresh with moisture,and with particles of flesh cl inging

to them here and there .”

Cannibal ism has often been regarded as a fairy storyby ul tracivi l ized men, who dis like, perhaps, the notionthat their own savage forebears have somewhere in thepast been addicted to similar practices . Captain Cookwas rather sceptical upon the subject

,until

,one day

,

i n a harbor of New ! ealand,he del iberately tested the

matter. A native happened to have brought on board,for sale, a nice, su n -dried head . At Cook ’s ordersstrips of the flesh were cu t away and handed to then ative, who greedily devoured them . To say theleast

,Captain Cook was a rather thoroughgoing empit i

cist . At any rate , by that act he suppl ied one ascer

tain ed fact of which science had been badly in need .

Little did he dream of the existence of a certain groupof is lands , thousands of miles away , where in subse

quent days there would arise a curious suit at law,when an old chief of Maui would be charged withdefamation of character because he persisted i n asserting that his body was the living repository of Captain


gone, and huge trees sank their roots through the platorms and towered over the under- running jungle .These foundations are cal led pae—paes— the pi-pis ofM elvil le

,who spel led phonetically .

The Tropics— after the Adven t ofMorality .

The M arquesans of the present generation lack theenergy to hoist and place such huge stones . Also

,they

lack i ncentive . There are plenty of pae-

pa es to goaround, with a few thousand unoccupied ones left over.Once or twice , as we ascended the valley , we saw mag n ifi

cent pae-paes bearing on their general surface pi tiful little

TYPEE 1 63

straw huts,the proportions being similar to a voting booth

perched on the broad foundation ofthe pyramid ofCheops.For the M arquesans are perishing , and, to judge fromconditions at Taiohae , the one thing that retards theirdestru ction is the infusion of fresh blood. A pureMarquesan is a rari ty . They seem to be all half- bre edsand strange conglomerations ofdozens ofdifferent races .Nineteen able laborers are al l the trader at Taiohaecan muster for the loading of copra on shipboard, andin their veins runs the blood of English, American,Dane

,German , French , Corsican , Spanish, Portuguese,

Chinese,Hawaiian

,Paumotan , Tahitian , and Easter

I s lander. There are more races than there are persons, butit is awreckage ofraces at best. Life faints and stumblesand gasps itself away . I n this warm

,equable dime

a truly terrestrial paradise where are n ever extremesof temperatu re and where the air is l ike balm ,

kept everpure by the ozone- laden southeast trade

,asthma

,phthisis ,

and tubercu losis flourish as luxuriantly as the vegetation . Everywhere, from the few grass huts , arises theracking cough or exhausted groan of wasted lungs .Other horrible diseases prosper as well

,but the most

deadly of al l are those that attack the lungs . There isa form of consumption called “ gallopin g

,which is

especial ly dreaded . I n two months’ time it redu cesthe strongest man to a skeleton under a grave- cloth .

In val ley after valley the last inhabitant has passed andthe fertile soil has relapsed to jungle . I n Melvil le ’sday the valley of Hapaa (spel led by him Happar

”

)was peopled by a strong and warl ike tribe . A generation later

,i t contained but two hundred persons . To

day ir is an untenanted , howling, tropical wilderness .We cl imbed higher and higher in the valley, our


u nshod stal lions picki ng their steps on the disin tegrating trail

,which led in and out th rough the abandoned

pae—paes and i nsatiable jungle . The sight of red

mountai n apples , the ohias, fami liar to us from Hawaii,

A Cocoan ut Grove .

caused a native to be sent cl imbing after them . Andagain he cl imbed for cocoanuts . I have drunk the

cocoanuts of Jamaica and of H awaII , but I never knewhow delicious such draught could be ti ll I drank i there i n the Marquesas . Occasional ly we rode underwild l imes and oranges great trees which had survived


only way to get out of my way is to keep on going .

H ow that strIn g of horses kept their feet is a miracle ;but they dashed ahead

,over- running one another, gal

loping,trotting

,stumbl ing

,jumping

,scrambling, and

The Camera in the Marquesas.

kicking methodically Skyward every time a wasp landedon them . After a whi le we drew breath and countedour injuries . And this happened not once

,nor twice

,

but time after time . Strange to say, i t never grewmonotonous . I know that I , for on e , came througheach brush with the u ndiminished zest of a man flying

TYREE 1 67

from sudden death . No ; the pilgrim from Taiohae

to Typee will never suffer from en n u i on the way.

At last we arose above the vex ation of wasps . I t

was a matter of alti tude, however, rather than of fortitude . All about us lay the jagged back-bones of

ranges, as far as the eye could see, thrustin g their pinn acles i nto the trade-wind clouds . Under us, from theway we had come, the Sn ark lay like a tiny toy on thecalm water of Taiohae Bay . Ahead we could seethe inshore indentation of Comptrol ler Bay . Wedropped down a thousand feet, and Typee lay beneathu s. Had a glimpse of the gardens of paradise beenrevealed to me I could scarcely have been more ravishedwith the sight ” — so said M elvil le on the moment ofhis first view of the valley . He saw a garden . Wesaw a wi lderness . Where were the hundred groves ofthe breadfruit tree he saw ? We saw jungle, nothingbut jungle

,with the exception of two grass huts and

several clumps of cocoanuts breaking the primordialreen mantle . Where was the Ti of M ehevi , theFachelors’ hal l, the palace where women were taboo ,and where he ruled with his lesser Chieftains

,keeping

the half-dozen dusty and torpid ancients to remind themof the valorous past From the swift stream no soundsarose of maids and matrons pounding tapa . An d

where was the hut that o ld N arheyo eternal ly bui lded ?I n vain I looked for him perched ninety feet from theground in some tal l cocoanut, taking hismorn i ng smoke .We went down a zigzag trai l u nder overarching,

matted jun le , where great butterfl i es drifted by in thesi lence . £0 tattooed savage with club and javelinguarded the path and when we forded the stream , we

were free to roam where we pleased . No longer did

I


the taboo,sacred and merciless

,reign in that sweet vale .

Nay,the taboo sti l l did reign

,a n ew taboo, for when

we approached too near the several wretched n ativewomen

,the taboo was uttered warningly . And i t was

Under the Ban an a Tree .

well . They were lepers . The man who warned us wasaffl icted horribly with elephan tiasis . All were sufferi ngfrom lung trouble . The valley ofTypee was the abodeof death , and the dozen survivors of the tribe weregasping feebly the last pain ful breaths of the race .Certain ly the battle had n ot been to the strong

,for


tifulto behold . Figueroa, the chronicler of his voyage,said of them : I n complexion they were nearly white ;of good stature and finely formed .

” Captain Cookcal l ed the M arquesans the most splen did islanders inthe South Seas . The men were described as

“ i n almost every i nstance of lofty stature, scarcely ever lessthan six feet i n height.And n ow all this strength and beauty has departed ,

and the valley of Typee is the abode of some dozenwretched creatures, afllicted by leprosy , elephantiasis,and tuberculosis . Melvil le estimated the populationat two thousand, not taking i nto consideration the smalladjoining valley of Ho-o- umi . Life has rotted away inthIs wonderful garden spot, where the climate is as delightful and healthfu l as any to be found in the world .

Not alon e were the Typean s physically magnificen t ;they were pure . Their air did not contain the bacill iand germs and microbes ofdisease that fillour own air .And when the white men imported in their ships thesevarious microorganisms of dIsease, the Typean s crumpled up and went down before them .

When one considers the situation,one is almost

driven to the conclusion that the white race flourisheson impurity and corruption . Natural selection

,how

ever, gives the explanation . We of the white race arethe survivors and the descendants of the thousands ofgenerations of survivors in the war with the microorgan isms . Whenever one of us was born with a constitu tion pecu l iarly receptive to these minute enemies ,such a one promptly died . Only these of us survivedwho cou ld withstand them . We who are alive are theimmun e, the fit — the ones best constituted to live inaworld of hosti le microorganisms . The poor M arque

TYPEE 1 7 1

san s had un dergone n o such selection . They were notimmune . And they, who had made a custom of eatin g their enemies , were now eaten by enemies so microscopic as to be in visible

,and agai nst whom no war of

Behind the Bu lwark of the Reef.

dart and javeli n was possible . On the other hand,had

there been a few hundred thousand Marquesan s to begin with

,there might have been suffici ent survivors to

lay the foundation for a new race a regenerated race,

if a plunge into a festeri ng bath of organic poison canbe cal led regeneration .


We unsaddled our horses for lunch,and after we

had fought the stal lions apart — mine with severalfresh chunks bi tten out of his back — and afterwe hadvainly fought the sand-flies, we ate bananas and tinnedmeats, washed down by generous draughts of cocoanutmilk . There was l i ttle to be seen . The jungle hadrushed back and engulfed the puny works of man .

H ere and there pa i-pa is were to be stumbled upon , butthere were no inscriptions

,no hieroglyph ics

,n o clews

to the past they attested — only dumb stones,builded

and carved by hands that were forgotten dust . Outof the pa i-pa is grew great trees,jealous of the wroughtwork ofman

,splitting and scatteri ng the stones back

into the primeval chaos .We gave up the jungle and sought the stream with

the idea of evading the sand-flies. Vai n hope ! Togo in swimming one must take off his clothes . The

sand-flies are aware of the fact,and they lurk by the

riv‘er bank in countless myriads . I n the native theyare called the n au -n au

,which is pronounced now

now .

” They are certainly wel l named , for they arethe i nsistent present . There is no past nor fu tu rewhen they fasten upon one’ s epidermis , and I am wi l l i ngto wager that Omar Khayyam could never have writtenthe Rubaiyat i n the valley of Typee i t would havebeen psychological ly impossible . I made the strategicmistake ofundressing on the edge of a steep bank whereI could dive in but cou ld not cl imb out . When I wasready to dress

,I had a hundred yards’ walk on the

bank before I cou ld reach my clothes . At the firststep

, fu l ly ten thousand n a u -n au s landed upon me .At the second step I was walking in a cloud . By thethird step the su n was dimmed i n the sky . After that


for Mow-mow to receive the boat- hook fu l l in thethroat from Melvi l le

’s hands .We rode on to H o-o-u -mi. So closely was M el

vi l le guarded that he never dreamed of the existence

On e of the Last of a Mighty Race .

of this val ley,though he must conti nual ly have met its

inhabitants, for they belonged to Typee . We rodethrough the same abandoned pae—paes, but as we nearedthe sea we found a profusion of cocoanuts

,breadfruit

trees,and taro patches

,and fully a dozen grass dwell

ings . I n one of these we arranged to pass the night,

TYREE 1 75

and preparations were immediately put on foot for afeast . A young pig was promptly despatched, and

while he was being roasted among hot stones, andwhilechickens were stewing i n cocoanut milk

,I persuaded

one of the cooks to climb an unusually ta l l cocoanutpalm. The cluster of nuts at the to was fully onehu ndred and twenty-five feet from t ee grou nd, bu tthat native strode up to the tree, seized it i n bothhands

,jack-knived at the waist so that the soles of his

feet rested flatly again st the trunk, and then he walkedright straight up without stoppihg . There were nonotches In the tree . He had no ropes to help him.

He merely walked up the tree, one hundred andtwenty-five feet In the air, and cast down the nuts fromthe summit . Not every man there had the physicalstamina for such a feat, or the lungs , rather, for mostof them were coughing their l ives away . Some of thewomen kept up a ceaseless moaning and groaning, sobadly were their lungs wasted . Very few of either sexwere full-b looded Marquesans . They were mostlyhalf breeds and three-quarter

-breeds of French , English , Danish , and Ch i nese extraction . At the best

,

these in fiI sion s of fresh blood merely delayed the passin g

,and the results led on e to wonder whether it was

worth while .The feast was served on a broad pae—pae, the rear

portion ofwhich was occupied by the house in whichwe were to sleep . The first course was raw fish and

poi ,-

poz the latter sharp and more acrid of taste thanthe poi of H awaII

,which is made from taro . The

pox-

pox of the Marquesas is made from breadfru i t .The ripe fru it, after the core is removed , is p laced In acalabash and pounded with a stone pestle i nto a stiff,

CHAPTER XI

The Nature Man

I FI R ST met him on Market Street in San Francisco .

I t was a wet and drizzly afternoon , and he was striding along

,c lad solely in a pair of abbreviated knee

trousers and an abbreviated shirt, his bare feet goingslick-sl ick through the pavement- Slush . At his heelstrooped a score of excited gamin s . Every head— andthere were thousands — turned to glance curiously athim as he went by . And I turned, too . Never had Iseen such lovely sun burn . He was al l sunburn , of thesort a blond takes on when his ski n does not peel .His long yellow hair was burnt

,so was his beard

,which

sprang from a soil unploughed by any razor . He wasa tawny man , a golden- tawny man , al l glowing andradiant with the su n . Another prophet

,thought I

,

come up to town with a message that wil l save theworld .

A few weeks later I was wi th some friends in theirbungalow in the Piedmont hi lls overlooking San

Francisco Bay .

“ We ’ve got him,we ’ve got him

,

”

they barked . We caught him up a tree ; but he’s all

right now, he’ l l feed from the hand . Come on and see

him . So I accompanied them up a dizzy hil l,and in

a rickety shack i n the midst of a eucalyptus grovefound my sunburned prophet of the city pavements .He hastened to meet us

,arriving in the whirl and

blur of a handspring . He did not shake hands withus ; instead, his greeting took the form of stunts . He

1 78

THE NATURE MAN 1 79

turned more handsprings . He twisted his body si nuously, l ike a snake, unti l , having sufl'icien tly l imberedup , he bent from the hips, and, with legs straight andknees touching, beat a tattoo on the groun d with the

palms of his hands . He whirlig igged and pirouetted,dancing and cavorting round like an i nebriated ape .All the sun—warmth of his ardent life beamed in his face .I am so happy , was the song without words he sang .

He sang i t al l evening,ringing the . changes on it

with an endless variety of stunts . A fool a fool Imet a fool in the forest !” thought I . And a worthyfool he proved . Between handsprings and whirligigshe delivered his message that would save the world .

I t was twofold. First, let suffering humanity stripoff i ts clothing and run wild in the mountains andvalleys ; and, second , let the very miserable world .

adopt phonetic spell ing. I caught a glimpse of thegreat social problems being settled by the city population s swarming naked over the landscape

,to the

popping of shot-guns, the barking of ranch-dogs,

and countless assaults with pitchforks wielded by iratefarmers .The years passed, and, one sunny morning, the

Sn ark poked her nose into a narrow opening in a reefthat smoked with the crashing impact of the trade-windswel l , and beat slowly up Papeete harbor . Comingoff to us was a boat

,fly ing a yel low flag . We knew

it contai ned the port doctor . But quite a distance off,

i n its wake, was a ti ny outrigger canoe that puzzledus . I t was flying a red flag. I studied i t through theglasses, fearing that it marked some hidden danger tonavigation , some recent wreck or some buoy or beaconthat had been swept away . Then the doctor came on


board . After he had examined the state of our healthand been assured that we had no live rats hidden awayin the Sn ark, I asked him the meanin g of the red flag .

Oh, that is Darling, was the answer .And then Darling

,Ernest Darl ing

,flying the red

flag that is indicative of the brotherhood of man ,

Nature Man comes on Board the S n ark.

hai led us . Hello,Jack ! he cal led . Hello

,

Charmian ! He paddled swiftly nearer , and I saw

that he was the tawny prophet of the Piedmont hil ls .He came over the side

,a su n -god clad in a scarlet

loin- cloth,with presents of Arcady and greeting in

both his hands — a bottle of golden hon ey and a leafbasket fi l led with great golden mangoes

,golden banan as


the invitation . I n the meantime he went aboard theSn a rk and took possession of her library , del ighted bythe quan ti ty of scientific books

,and shocked

,as I

learned afterward,by the i nordinate amount of fiction .

The Nature Man never wastes time on fiction .

After a week or so, my con science smote me, and Ii nvited him to di nner at a downtown hotel . He arrived

,

looking unwontedly stiff and uncomfortable In a cottonjacket. When invited to peel it off

,he beamed his

gratitude and joy, and did so , revealing his sun-

goldskin , from waist to shoulder, covered only by a p ieceof fish net of coarse twine and large ofmesh . A scarlet loin- cloth completed his costume . I began myacquai ntance with him that night

,and during my long

stay in Tahi ti that acquaintance ripened into frien dship .

So you write books,” he said, one day when , tired

and sweaty,I finished my morning’s work .

I , too, write books,’ he announced .

Aha, thought I , now at last Is he going to pester me

with his l iterary efforts . M y soul was i n revolt . Ihad not come all the way to the South Seas to be a litcrary bureau .

This is the book I write, he explained , smashinghimselfa resounding blowon the chest with his clenchedfist . The goril la in the African jun gle pounds hischest ti l l the noise of i t can be heard half a mile away .

”

“ A pretty good chest,

” quoth I admiringly ; “ itwould even make a gori l la envious .And then

,and later, I learned the detai ls of the

marvellous book Ernest Darli ng had written . Twelveyears ago he lay close to death . He weighed butn i nety pounds

,and was too weak to speak . The doc

tors had given him up . His father, a practicing physi

THE NATURE MAN 1 83

eian,had given him up . Consu ltations with other

physicians had been held upon him . There was nohope for him . Overstudy (as a school- teacher and asa universi ty student) and two successive attacks of

pneumonia were responsible for his breakdown . Dayby day he was losing strength . He could extract n onutrition from the heavy foods they gave him ; norcould pellets and powders help his stomach to do thework of digestion . Not only was he a physicalwreck

,

but he was a men tal wreck . His mind was overwrought .He was sick and tired ofmedicin e, and he was sick andtired of persons . Human speech jarred upon him .

Human attentions drove him fran tIe . The thoughtcame to him that since he was going to die

,he might

as wel l die i n the Open,away from al l the bother and

irritation . And behind this idea lurked a sneakin g ideathat perhaps he wou ld not die after al l if only he couldescape from the heavy foods

,the medicines, and the

well- i ntentioned persons who made him frantic .So Ernest Darl ing, a bag of bones and a death ’shead

,a perambulati ng corpse, with just the dimmest

flutter of life in i t to make it perambulate, turned hisback upon men and the habitations ofmen and draggedhimself for five mi les through the brush , away from thecity of Portland

,Oregon . Of course he was crazy .

On ly a lunatic would drag himself out ofhis death- bed .

But i n the brush,Darling found what he was look

ing for— rest. Nobody bothered him with beefsteaksand pork . No physicians lacerated his tired nerves byfeeling his pulse

,nor tormented his tired stomach with

pellets and powders . He began to feel soothed . The

sun was shin ing warm,and he basked in it . He had

the feeling that the sun shi ne was an el ixir of health .


Then it seemed to h im that his whole wasted wreck of

a body was crying for the sun . He stripped off hisclothes and bathed in the sunshine . He felt better .I t had done him good the first relief i n weary monthsof pain .

As he grew ‘better, he sat up and began to take n otice . All about him were the birds flutteri ng and chirping

,the squirrels chatteri ng and playing. He envied

them their health and spirits , thei r happy, care-free existen ce . That he should contrast their con dition withhis was inevitable ; and that he should question whythey were splendidly V igorous while he was a feeble,dying wraith ofa man , was likewise inevitable . His conelusion was the very obv ious one, namely, that they livednatu rally

,while he l ived most un n aturally therefore, if

he intended to live,he must return to nature .

Alone, there in the brush , he worked out his problem and began to apply it . He stripped off his clothing and leaped and

glambolledabou t, ru n n in g on all fours ,

Cl imbi ng trees ; in s ort, doing physical stunts ,— and allthe time soaking in the sunshine . He imitated theanimals . He built a nest of dry leaves and grasses i nwhich to sleep at n ight

,covering it over with bark as

a protection against the early fall rai n s . Here is abeautiful exercise ,

” he told me,once

,flapping his arms

mightily against his Sides ; I learned it from watchingthe roosters crow .

” Another time I remarked theloud , sucking intake with which he drank cocoanu tmilk . He explain ed that he had noticed the cowsdri nking that way and concluded there must be something in i t. H e tried i t and found it good

,and there

after he drank only in that fashion .

He noted that the squirrels l ived on fruits and nuts .


back to the habitations of men . Not in three monthscould a ninety pound survivor of two attacks of pneumonia develop sufl‘icien t ruggedness to l ive through anOregon winter in the open .

H e had accomplished much , but he had been drivenin . There was no place to go but back to his father

’shouse

,and there

,living In close rooms with lun gs that

panted for allthe ai r of the open sky,he was brought

down by a third attack ofpneumon ia . He grew weakereven than before . I n that totteri ng tabernacle of flesh,his brain collapsed . He lay l ike a corpse

,too weak to

stand the fatigue of speaking,too irri tated and tired in

his miserable brain to care to listen to the speech of

others . The only act of will of which he was capablewas to stick his fingers in his ears and resolutely to refuse to hear a single word that was spoken to him .

They sent for the insani ty experts . He was adjudgedinsane

,and also the verdict was given that he would

not live a month .

By one such mental expert he was carted off to asan i tarium on M t . Tabor. Here, when they learnedthat he was harmless, they gave him his own way.

They no lon er dictated as to the food he ate,so he

resumed his fruits and nuts — ol ive oi l , peanut butter,and bananas the chief articles of his diet. As he re

ain ed his strength he made up his mind to live thenceforth his own life . If he lived like others

,according

to social conventions,he would surely die . And he

did not want to die . The fear of death was one of thestron gest factors in the genesis of the Nature Man .

To live,he must have a natural diet

,the open air, and

the blessed sunshine .Now an Oregon winter has no in ducements for those

THE NATURE MAN 1 87

who wish to return to Nature, so Darl ing started outin search of a cl imate . He mounted a bicycle andheaded south for the sunlands . Stanford Univers ityclaimed him for a year . Here he studied and workedhis way

,attending lectures In as scant garb as the au

thorities would allow and applying as much as possiblethe principles of l iving that he had learned In squirreltown . His favorite method of study was to go off In

the hil ls back of the University,and there to strip off

his clothes and lie on the rass,soaking in sunsh i ne and

heal th at the same time t at he soaked in knowledge .But Central California has her winters, and the quest

for a Nature Man ’s Cl imate drew him on . He tried LosAngeles and Southern California, being arrested a fewtimes and brought before the insanity commissions because, forsooth , his mode oflife was not modelled afterthe mode of l ife of his fel low-men . He tried Hawan ,where, unable to prove him i nsane, the authorities deported him . I t was not exactly a deportation . Hecou ld have remained by serving a year in prison . They

gave him his choice . Now pri son is death to the Nature Man , who thrives on ly in the open air and i n God

’ssunshine . The authorities of H awaII are not to beblamed . Darling was an undesirable citizen . Anyman is undesirable who disagrees with one . And thatany man should disagree to the ex ten t Darling did i nhis philosophy of the simple life is ample vindicationof the Hawaiian authorities ’ verdict of his undesirableness .So Darling went thence i n search of a cl imate which

would not only be desirable,but wherein he would not

be undesirable . And he found it,i n Tahiti , the garden

spot of garden- spots . And so it was, according to the


The Nature Man ’s Plan tation .


landed a straight right on his stomach . I t was a fearfulblow . The whole weight of my body was behin dit,and his body had been met as i t lunged forward . I

looked for him to crumple up and go down . I nsteadof which his face beamed approval , and he said ,

“ Th atwas beautiful . ’ The next i nstant I was covering upand striv ing to protect myself from a hurricane of

hooks,j olts

,and up ercu ts . Then I watched my

chance and drove in or the solar plexus . I hit themark . The Nature Man dropped his arms

,gasped ,

and sat down suddenly .

I ’ l l be all right,’ he said .

“ Just wait a moment.And inside thirty seconds he was on his feet— ay,

and returning the compliment,for he hooked me i n

the solar plexus , and I gasped , dropped my hands,and sat down just a trifle more sudden ly than he had.

Al l of which I submit as evidence that the man Iboxed with was a totally different man from the poor,ninety- pound wight of eight years before

,who

,given

up by physicians and al ienists,lay gaspin g his life

away in a closed room in Portland,Oregon . The

book that Ernest Darling has written is a good book,and the binding Is good

,too .

Hawaii has wailed for years her need for desirableimmigrants . She has spent much time , and thought,and money , i n importing desirable citizens, and shehas , as yet, nothing much to Show for it . Yet Hawaiideported the Nature Man. She refu sed to give him achan ce . So i t is , to chasten Hawan s proud spirit,that I take this opportunity to Show her what she haslost i n the Nature Man . When he arrived in Tahiti,he proceeded to seek out a piece of land on which togrow the food he ate . But land was difficu lt to find

THE NATURE MAN 1 9 1

— that is , i nexpensive land . The N atu i e Man wasnot roll ing in wealth . He spent weeks i n wanderingover the steep hills, until , high up the mountain , whereclustered several tiny canyons , he found eighty acresof bru sh-jungle which were apparently unrecorded asthe property of any one . The government oflicialstold him that if he would clear the land and ti l l i t forth irty years he wou ld be given a ti tle for i t .Immediately he set to work . And never was there

such work . Nobody farmed that high up . The landwas covered with matted jungle and overrun by wi ldpigs and countless rats . The view of Papeete and thesea was magnificent

,but the outlook was not en courag

ing . He spent weeks in building a road i n order tomake the plan tation accessible . The pigs and the ratsate up whatever he planted as fast as it s routed . Heshot the pigs and trap ed the rats . 0 the latter

,in

two weeks he caught fi teen hundred . Everything hadto be carried up on his back . He usually did h is

packhorse work at night.Gradual ly he began to win out. A grass-walled

house was bui lt . On the ferti le, volcanic soil he hadwrested from the jungle and jungle beasts, were growing five hundred cocoanut trees

,five hu ndred papaia

trees,three hundred mango trees , many breadfruit trees

and alligator- pear trees,to say nothing of vines , bushes,

and vegetables . He developed the drip of the hil ls inthe canyons and worked out an efficient i rrigationscheme, ditching the water from canyon to canyon andparallel ing the ditches at different alti tudes . His narrow canyons became botanical gardens . The aridshoulders of the hil ls

,where formerly the blazing su n

had parched the jungle and beaten it close to earth ,


b lossomed in to trees and shrubs and flowers . Notonly had the Nature Man become self- supporting, buthe was now a prosperous agricu l turist with produce tosel l to the city—dwellers of Papeete .Then it was discovered that his land

,which the gov

ernmen t oflicials had informed him was without an

In the Sweat of His Brow.

owner, real ly had an owner, and that deeds, descriptions , etc . , were on record . All his work bade fare tobe lost. The land had been valueless when he took itup, and the owner, a large landholder, was unaware of

the extent to which the Nature Man had developed i t .A just price was agreed upon

,and Darling’s deed was

official ly fi l ed .


we dragged ourselves up a Shelf of rock and sat down ,panting

,to rest. “ I

’

llget an air machine soon and foolthem. I

’m clearing a level space for a landing stagefor the airships

,and next time you come to Tahi ti you

wi llal ight right at my door.”

Yes,the Nature Man has some strange ideas besides

that of the gori lla poundin g his chest in the Africanjungle . The Nature Man has ideas about levitation .

“Yes,si r,

” he said to me, levitation is not impossible .And think ofthe glory of i t l ifti ng one’s self from theground by an act ofwil l . Think of it ! The astronomers tell us that our whole solar system is dying ; that,barri ng accidents

,i t wil l al l be so cold that no life can live

upon it. Very well . I n that day al l men wil l be accomplished levitation ists, and they wil l leave this perishing planet and seek more hospitable worlds . How canlevitation be accomplished By progressive fasts . Yes,I have tried them

,and toward the end I cou ld feel my

self actually gettin g l ighter.”

The man is a maniac, thou ht I .Of course,

” he added,t ese are only theories of

mine. I l ike to speculate upon the glorious future ofman . Levitation may not be possib le , but I l ike tothink of i t as possible .

O n e evening,when he yawned, I asked him how

much sleep he allowed himself.Seven hours

,

” was the answer. But in ten yearsI ’ l l be sleeping only six hours , and i n twenty yearsonly five hours . You see, I shallcut off an hour

’ss leep every ten years .Then when you are a hundred you won ’t be sleep

ing at all,

” I interjected .

Just that. Exactly that. When I am a hundred

THE NATURE MAN 1 95

I shallnot require sleep . Also, I shal l be l ivin g on

air. There are plants that l ive on air, you know.

But has any man ever succeeded in doing it ?He shook is head .

“ I never heard of him if he did . But it is on ly atheory of mine, this l iving on air . I t wou ld be fine

,

wouldn ’t i t ? Of‘

course it may be impossible mostlikely it is . You see, I am not unpractical . I neverfor et the presen t . When I soar ahead into the future,I afways l eave a string by which to find my way backa In .ga

I fear me the Natu re Man is a joker. At any ratehe lives the simple life . His laundry bi l l cannot belarge . Up on his plantation he lives on fruit the laborcost ofwhich , i n cash, he estimates at five cents a day .

At present, because of his obstructed road and becausehe is head over heels in the propaganda of socialism

,

he is livi ng in town , where his expenses , inc luding rent,are twenty-five cents a day . I n order to pay thoseexpenses he is running a night school for Chinese .The Nature Man is not bigoted . When there is

n othing better to eat than meat, he eats meat, as, for

in stance, when i n'

ai l or on shipboard and the nuts andfru its give out. Nor does he seem to crystallize intoanything except sunburn .

Drop anchor anywhere and the anchor wi l l dragthat is , if your soulis a l imitless , fathomless sea, aridn ot a dog- pound ,

" he quoted to me,then added : You

see, my anchor is always dragging. I l ive for humanhealth and progress, and I strive to drag my anchoralways i n that direction . To me, the two are identical .Dragging anchor is what has saved me . M y anchordid not hold me to my death- bed . I dragged anchor


Breakfast from the Breadfru it Tree .

into the brush and fooled the doctors . When I recovered health and strength

,I started

,by preaching

and by example,to teach the people to become nature

men and nature women . But they had deaf ears .

CHAPTER XI I

The High Seat of Abundance

On the arrival of stran gers, every man en deavored to obtain on e

as a fi iend and carry him off to his own habitation , where he is

treated with the greatest kin dn ess by the inhabitan ts of the district ;they place him on a high seat and feed him with abun dan ce of the

fin est food .

Polyn esian Researches.

THE Sn ark was lying at anchor at Raiatea, just offthe v i lla e of Uturoa . She had arrived the nightbefore, a ter dark, and we were preparing to pay ourfirst v isi t ashore . Early in the morni ng I had noticed atiny outrigger canoe

,with an impossible spritsail ,

skimming the surface of the lagoon . The canoei tself was coffin- shaped

,a mere dugout

,fourteen feet

long,a scant twelve in ches wide

,and maybe twenty

four inches deep . I t had no li nes,except i n so far

that i t was sharp at both ends . I ts sides were per

pendicular. Shorn of the outrig er,i t would have

capsized of i tself inside a tenth o a second . I t wasthe outrigger that kept i t right side up .

I have said that the sai l was impossibl e . I t was .I t was one of those th ings

,not that you have to see

to believe,but that you cannot believe after you

have seen it . The hoist of i t and the length of its

boom were sufficiently appal l ing ; but, not contentwith that

,i ts artificer had given it a tremendous

head . So large was the head that no common spritcould carry the strain of i t i n an ordinary breeze . So

1 98

THE H IGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE 1 99

a spar had been lashed to the canoe, pro'jecting aft

over the water . To this had been made ast a spritguy : thus, the foot of the sai l was held by the mainsheet

,and the peak by the guy to the spri t.

I t was not a mere boat,not a mere canoe, but a

sai l ing machine . A nd the man in i t sai led it by hisweight and his nerve — principally by the latter. I

The sa il was impossible .

watched the canoe beat up from leeward and ru n i ntoward the vi l lage

,i ts sole occupant far out on the

ou

gigger and lufli n g up and spil l ing the wind in the

pu S .

“Well , I know one thing, I announced ; “ I don ’tleave Raiatea ti l l I have a ride i n that canoe .A fewminutes later Warren cal led down the com

pan ionyvay,

“ Here ’s that canoe you were talkingabout ”

Promptly I dashed on deck and gave greetingto

ace,i ts owner,a tal l

,s lender Polynesian

,Ingenuous of


and with clear, sparkli ng, in tel ligent eyes . He wasclad in a scarlet loin - cloth and a straw hat . In hishands were presents— a fish , a bunch of greens , andseveral enormous yams . All of which acknowledgedby smi les (which are coi nage stil l i n isolated spots ofPolynesia) and by frequent repetitions of ma a ra a ra

(which is the Tahitian thank you I proceeded tomake signs that I desi red to go for a sai l i n hiscanoe .His face lighted with pleasure and he uttered thesingle word, “ Tahaa, turning at the same time andpointing to the lofty, cloud- draped peaks of an islandthree miles away the island of Tahaa . I t was fairwind over, but a head- beat back . Now I did not wantto go to Tahaa . I had letters to deliver in Raiatea,and officials to see

,and there was Charmian down

below gettin ready to go ashore . By insistent signsI indicated t at I desired no more than a short sail onthe lagoon . Quick was the disappointment in his face,yet smiling was the acquiescence .Come on for a sai l , I cal led below to Charmian .

But put on your swimming suit. I t ’s going to bewet.”

I t wasn ’t real . I t was a dream . That canoe slid overthe water l ike a streak of si lver . I climbed ou t on theoutrigger and supplied the weight to hold her down ,whi le Tehei (pronounced Tayhayee ) supplied the nerve.He, too, i n the puffs , cl imbed part way out on the ou trigger, at the same time steering with both hands on alarge paddle and holding the mainsheet with his foot .Read about he cal led .

I careffilly shifted my weight inboard in order tomaintain the equil ibrium as the sail emptied .


he by signs i nquired the destination of the Sn ark, and

when I had mentioned Samoa,Fij i

,New Guinea

,France

,

England,and California In thei r geographical sequence

,

he said “ Samoa,” and by gestures intimated that he

wanted to go along . Whereupon I was hard put toexplain that there was no room for him.

“ P etit

batea u” finally solved i t

,and again the disappointment

i n his face was accompanied by smi l i ng acquiescence, andpromptly came the renewed invitation to accompanyhim to Tahaa .Charmian and I looked at each other. The ex hila

ration of the ride we had taken was sti l l upon us . Forgotten were the letters to Raiatea, the offi cials we hadto visi t. Shoes

,a shirt, a pair of trousers , cigarettes ,

matches, and a book to read were hastily crammed in toa biscuit tin and wrapped in a rubber blanket, and wewere over the side and into the canoe .

“When shall we look for you ?” Warren called,

as the wind fi l led the sail and sent Tehci and mescurrying out on the outrigger.

“ I don ’ t know, I answered .

“ When we getback

,as near as I can figure it .”

And away we went. The wind had increased,and

with slacked sheets we ran off before i t . The freeboard of the canoe was no more than two and a halfi nches

,and the little waves conti nual ly lapped over the

side . This required baili ng . Now bai l ing is one ofthe principal functions of the vahme. Vahz n e is theTahitian for woman , and Charmian being the onlyvah I n e aboard , the bail ing fel l appropriately to her .Tehei and I could not very well do i t, the both of us

being perched part way out on the outrigger and busiedwith keeping the canoe bottom- side down . So Char

THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE 29 3

mian bailed, with a wooden scoop of primitive design ,and so wel l did she do it that there were occasionswhen she could rest off almost half the time .Raiatea and Tahaa are unique in that they l ie inside

the same encircl ing reef. Both are volcan ic islands,

ragged ofsky- l i ne, with heaven-aspiring peaks and minarets . Si nce Raiatea is thirty mi les i n Circumference, andTahaa fifteen miles

,some idea may be gained of the

magnitude of the reef that encloses them. Betweenthem and the reef stretches from one to two miles ofwater

,formi ng a beautiful lagoon . The huge Pacific

seas , extending in unbroken l ines sometimes a mi le orhalf as much agai n in length

,hurl themselves upon the

reef, overtowering and fall ing upon it with tremendouscrashes , and yet the fragi le coral structure withstandsthe shock and protects the land . Ou tside l ies destruction to the mightiest ship afloat . I nside reigns thecalm of untroubled water, whereon a canoe l ike ourscan sai l with no more than a couple of i nches of freeboard .

We flew over the water. And such water — clearas the clearest spring—water

,and crystall i ne i n i ts clear

n ess, al l i n tershot with a maddeni ng pageant of colorsand rainbow ribbons more magnificently gorgeous thanany rai nbow. Jade green alternated with turquoise,peacock b lue with emerald

,while now the canoe

skimmed over reddish purple pools,and again over

pools of dazzl ing,shimmering wh i te where pounded

coral sand lay beneath and upon which oozed monstrous sea- slugs . One moment we were above wondergardens of coral

,wherein colored fishes disported ,

fluttering like marine butterfl ies ; the next momentwe were dashing across the dark su rface of deep chan


nels , out of which schools of flying fish lifted the i rsi lvery fl ight ; and a third moment we were abov eother gardens of l iving coral

,each more wonderfu l

than the last. And above all was the tropic, tradewind sky with its fluffy clouds racing across the zenithand heaping the horizon with thei r soft masses .Before we were aware, we were close in to Tahaa (pro

n ou n ced Tah- hah-ah , with equal accents), and Tehciwas grinning approval of the vahin e ’s proficiency at baili ng . The canoe grounded on a shallow shore, twentyfeet from land

,and we waded out on a soft bottom where

big slugs curled and writhed under ou r feet and wheresmal l octopuses advertised their existence by their superlative softness when stepped upon . Close to the

beach , amid cocoanut palms and banana trees , erectedon sti lts , built of bamboo , with a grass- thatched roof,was Tehe i

’

s house . And out of the house cameTehei

’

s vahin e, a slender mite of a woman, kindly

eyed and Mongolian of feature— when she was n ot

North American I ndian . Bihaura,” Tebei cal led her

,

but he did not pronounce i t according to Englishnotions of spel li ng . Spel led “ Bihaura,

” i t soundedl ike Bee- ah- oo- rah , with every syl lable sharply emphasized .

She took Charmian by the hand and led her intothe house, leaving Tehei and me to follow . Here

,by

sign- language unmistakable,we were informed that al l

they possessed was ours . No h idalgo was evermore generou s in the expression of giving

,whi le I

am sure that few hidalgos were ever as generousin the actual practice . We quickly discoveredthat we dare not admire their possessions , for whenever we did admire a particu lar object i t was im

THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE 207

gracefiall ines from the shou lders to the ground . Sad

to see was the elephantiasis that afllicted some of

them . Here would be a comely woman of magnificentproportions, with the port of a queen , yet marred byon e arm four times — or a dozen times the size ofthe other . Beside her might stand a six- foot man

,

erect,migh ty-muscled , bronzed, with the body of a

god,yet with feet and calves so swollen that they ran

together, forming legs , shapeless , monstrous , that werefor allthe world l ike elephant legs .No one seems real ly to know the cause ofthe South

Sea elephantiasis . One theory is that it is caused bythe dri nking of polluted water . Another theory at

tributes it to inoculation through mosquito bi tes . Athird theory charges it to predisposi tion plus the process of accl imatization . On the other hand, no onethat stands i n finicky dread of i t and simi lar diseasescan afford to travel in the Sou th Seas . There wi ll beoccasions when such a one must drink water . Theremay be also occasions when the mosquitoes let upb iting. But every precaution of the finicky one wil l beuseless . If he runs barefoot across the beach to havea swim , he wil l tread where an elephantiasis case troda few minutes before . If he closets himself i n h is ownhouse

,yet every bi t of fresh food on his tab le will have

been subjected to the contamin ation,be it flesh

,fish

,

fowl , or vegetable . I n the public market at Papeetetwo known lepers run stal ls

,and heaven alone knows

through what channels arrive at that market the dai lysupplies of fish , fru i t, meat, and vegetables . The onlyhappy way to go through the South Seas is with acareless poise , without apprehension , and with a Christian Science- l ike faith in the resplendent fortune of


your own particular star. When you see a woman ,

affl icted with elephantiasis, wringing out cream fromcocoanut meat with her n aked hands , drink and reflecthow good is the cream ,

forgetting the hands that pressedit out. Also

,remember that diseases such as elephan

tiasis and leprosy do not seem to be caught by contac t .

We watched a Raraton gan woman , with swol len ,

distorted l imbs,prepare our cocoanut cream

,and then

went out to the cook- shed where Tebei and Bihau rawere cooking dinner . And then i t was served to u s

on a drygoods box i n the house . Our hosts waitedunti l we were done and then spread their table on the

floor . But our table ! We were certain ly in the highseat of abundance . First, there was glorious raw fish ,caught several hours before from the sea and steepedthe intervening time in l ime-juice diluted with water .

Then came roast chicken . Two cocoanuts,sharply

sweet,served for drink . There were bananas that

tasted like strawberries and that melted In the mouth,

and there was Iban an a-poi that made one regret that hisYankee forebears ever attempted puddings . Thenthere was boiled yam , boiled taro , and roasted feis ,which last are nothing more or less than large

,mealy ,

juicy , red- colored cooking bananas . We marvelled at

the abundance,and, even as we marvel led, a pig was

brought on,a whole pig

,a sucking pig

,swathed in

green leaves and roasted upon the hot stones ofa n ativeoven

,the most honorable and triumphant dish in the

Polynesian cuisine . And after that came coffee, blackcoffee

,delicious coffee

,native coffee grown on the hi l l

sides ofTahaa .Tehe i

’

s fishin g- tackle fascinated me

,and after we

arranged to go fishing, Charmian and I decided to re~


of Tahaa . I do not refer to the presents , the freehanded generousness

,the high abundance

,but to the

fineness of courtesy and consideration and tact, and to

the sympathy that was real sympathy in that i t wasu n derstanding . They did nothing they thought oughtto be done for us , according to their standards, bu tthey did what they divi ned we wanted to be done for us

,

while their div ination was most successful . I t wou ldbe impossible to enumerate the hundreds of l i ttle actsof consideration they performed during the fewdays ofour in tercourse . Let it suffi ce for me to say that ofall hospital ity and entertai nment I have known

,i n n o

case was theirs not only not excel led,but i n no case

was i t quite equal led . Perhaps the most delightfu l feature of i t was that i t was due to no training, to no complex social ideals

,but that i t was the untutored and

spontaneous outpouring from their hearts .The next morning we went fishing

,that is

,Tehe i

,

Charmian , and I did , i n the cofl'i n - shaped canoe ; bu tthis time the enormous sail was left behind . Therewas no room for sai ling and fishing at the same timei n that tiny craft . Several mi les away

,i nside the reef

,

i n a channel twenty fathoms deep,Tehei dropped h is

baited hooks and rock- sinkers . The bai twas chunks ofoctopus flesh , which he bit out of a l ive octopus thatwrithed in the bottom of the canoe . Nine of thesel ines he set, each line attached to one end of a sho rtlength of bamboo floating on the su rface . When a.

fish was hooked,the e nd of the bamboo was drawn

under the water . Natu ral ly , the other end rose up inthe air, bobbing and waving frantically for us to mak ehaste . And make haste we did

,with whoops and yells

and driving paddles , from one signall ing bamboo to

THE H IGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE 2 1 1

another, hauling up from the depths great glistenin gbeauties from two to three feet in length .

Steadily , to the eastward , an ominous squall hadbeen risi ng and blotti ng out the bright trade-wind sky .

And we were three mi les to leeward of home . We

started as the first wind-gusts whi tened the water .Then came the rain

,such rai n as only the tropics af

ford,when every tap and main in the sky is open

wide, and when , to top it al l , the very reservoir itselfspi l ls over in bli nding deluge . Wel l, Charmian wasin a swimming suit

,I was in pajamas

,and Tehci wore

only a loin- cloth. Bihaura was on the beach wai tingfor us, and she led Charmian into the house in muchthe same fashion that the mother leads in the naughtyli ttle girl who has been playing in mud- puddles .I t was a change of clothes and a dry and quiet smoke

while ka i-ka i was preparing . Ka i-ka i,by the way

,is

the Polynesian for food or to eat, or, rather, itis one form of the original root, whatever it may havebeen

,that has been distribu ted far and wide over the

vast area of the Pacific . I t is ka i in the Marquesas,Raraton ga, Manah iki , N iu é , Fakaafo, Tonga, New! ealand

,and Vate. In Tahiti “ to eat chan ges to

amu , i n Hawai i and Samoa to a i,in Bau to k

’

a n a,i n

N iua to ka in a,in N on gon e to kaka , and in New Cale

donia to ki . Bu t by whatsoever sound or symbol , i twas welcome to our ears after that long paddle in therain . Once more we sat in the high seat of abundanceunti l we regretted that we had been made unlike theimage of the giraffe and the camel .Again

,when we were preparing to return to the

Sn ark, the sky to windward turned black and anothersquall swooped down . But this time it was li ttle rain


and al l wind . I t blew hour after hour,moaning and

screeching through the palms,tearing and wrenchi ng

and shaking the frail bamboo dwelling , while the outerreef set up a mighty thundering as i t broke the forceof the swi nging seas. I nside the reef

,the lagoon

,she l

tered though it was , was white with fu ry , and not evenTehei

’

s seamanship could have enabled his s lendercanoe to live In such a welter .By sunset, the back of the squall had broken

,though

it was sti l l too rough for the canoe . SO I had Tebeifind a native who was wi l ling to venture his cutteracross to Raiatea for the outrageous sum of two dollars

,

Chili,which is equivalent in our money to nine ty

cents . Half the vil lage was told off to carry presen ts,

with which Tehei and Bihaura speeded their parti ng

guests— captive chickens , fishes dressed and swathed

i n wrappings of green leaves, great golden bu nches ofbananas

,leafy baskets spil l i ng over with oranges and

l imes,al l igator pears (the butter- fruit, also called the

avoca ), huge baskets of yams,bunches of taro and

cocoanuts,and last of all

,large branches and trunks of

trees— firewood for the Sn ark.

While on the way to the cu tter we met the onlywhite man on Tahaa, and of all men

,George Lufk in , a

native of New En gland ! Eighty six years of age h ewas

,sixty- odd of which

,he said

,he had spent In the

Society I slands , with occasional absences , such as th egold rush to Eldorado I n forty nine and a short periodof ranching In California near Tu lare . Given no morethan three months by the doctors to live, he had te

tu rned to his South Seas and lived to eighty - six and

to chuckle over the doctors aforesaid who were all i ntheir graves . F ee-fee he had, which is the

'

n ative for


which was riding i t out to two anchors,and drove

aground upon the in shore coral . Running the lon gest line on the Sn ark by mean s of the launch

,and after

an hour’s hard work, we heaved the cutter off and hadher lying safely astern .

The day we sai led for Bora Bora the windwas light,

and we crossed the lagoon under power to the poi ntwhere Tehci and Bihau ra were to meet us . As wemade in to the land between the coral banks , we vain lyscanned the shore for our friends . There was no Signof them.

We can ’t wait,I said . This breeze won ’t fetch

us to Bora Bora by dark , and I don’

t want to use anymore gasolene than I have to .

You see,gasolene in the South Seas is a problem .

One never knows when he wil l be able to replenish hissupply .

But just then Tehei appeared through the trees as hecame down to the water . He had peeled off his shi rtand was wi ldly waving it. Bihau ra apparently was notready . Once aboard

,Tebei informed us by signs that

we must proceed along the land til l we got opposite tohis house . He took the wheel and conned the Sn a rkthrough the coral , around point after poin t ti l l wecleared the last point of all . Cries ofwelcome went upfrom the beach , and Bihau ra, assisted by several of thevil lagers

,brought off two canoe- loads of abundance.

There were yams,taro

, feis, breadfruit, cocoanuts ,oran ges

,l imes

,pineapples , watermelons, al l igator pears ,

pomegranates, fish , chicken s galore crowing and cackl ing and layi ng eggs on our decks

,and a l ive pig that

s u ealed infernal ly and all the time in apprehensionof imminent slaughter .


Under the rising moon we came in through the

peri lous passage of the reef of Bora Bora and droppedanchor off Vaitape vil lage . Bihau ra, with housewifelyanxiety , could not get ashore too quickly to her house

VisItors on Board the Snark at Raiatea.

to prepare more abundance for us . While the launchwas taking her and Tehei to the l i ttle j etty , the soundof music and ofsinging drifted across the quiet lagoon .

Throughout the Socie ty Islands we had been continual lyinformed that we wou ld find the Bora Borans veryjol ly . Charmian and I went ashore to see , and on the


vi llage green,by forgotten graves on the beach , found

the youths and maidens dancing , flower-garlanded andflower- bedecked

,with strange phosphorescent flowers

in their hair that pulsed and dimmed and glowed inthe moonlight. Farther along the beach we cameupon a huge grass house

,oval - shaped , seventy feet in

length,where the elders of the vi llage were singing

himin es They,too

,were flower-garlanded and jol ly

,

and they welcomed us i nto the fold as li ttle lost sheepstrayi ng along from outer darkness .Early next morning Tehei was on board

,with a

strin of fresh- caught fish and an invitation to dinn erfor t at evening . On the way to dinner, we droppedi n at the kimin e hou se . The same elders were singing,with here or there a youth or maiden that we had notseen the previous night. From all the signs

,a feast

was in preparation . Towering up from the floor wasa mountain of fruits and vegetables, flanked O II eitherside by numerous chickens tethered by cocoanut strips .After several bimin es had been su ng

,one of the men

arose and made oration . The oration was made tous

,and though it was Greek to us

, we knew that insome way it connected us with that mountain of

provender.Can it be that they are presenting us with all that ?

Charmian whispered .

“ Impossible ,” I muttered back .

“ Why shou ldthey be

giving it to us Besides

,there is no room on

the Sn ar for it . We could not eat a ti the of i t . Therest would spoil . Maybe they are inv iting us to thefeast. At any rate, that they should give al l that tous is impossible .”

N evertheless we found ourselves once more i n the


were relieved that no fish were caught, else the Sn arkwould have sunk at her moorings .The days passed , but the abu n dance did not dimin

ish . On the day of departure, canoe after can oe putoff to us . Tehe i brought cucumbers and a young

papa ia tree burdened with splendid fruit . Also, forme he brought a ti ny

,double canoe with fishing ap

paratu s complete . Further,he brought frui ts and

vegetables with the same lav ishness as at Tahaa . Bi

haura brough t various special presents for Charmian,

such as silk- cotton pil lows,fans , and fancy mats . The

whole population brought fru i ts,flowers , and chickens .

And Bihau ra added a l ive sucking pig. Natives whomI did not remember ever having seen before strayedover the rail and presented me with such things as fishpoles , fish- l i nes , and fish- hooks carved from pearl- shel l .As the Sn ark sai led out through the reef, she had a

cutter in tow . This was the craft that was to take Bihaura back to Tahaa but not Tehci . I had yieldedat last, and he was one of the crew of the Sn a rk.

When the cutter cast off and headed east, and theSn a rk

’

s bow turned toward the west, Tebei kneltdown by the cockpit and breathed a si lent prayer, thetears flowing down his cheeks . A week later, whenMartin got around to developing and printing

,he

showed Tehei some of the photographs . And thatbrown- skinned son of Polynesia, gazing on the pictu red lineaments of his beloved Bihaura, broke downi n tears .But the abundance ! There was so much of i t.

We could not work the Sn a rk for the fruit that was inthe way . She was festooned with frui t . The life-boatand lau nch were packed with it . The awnin g-guys


groaned under their burdens . But once we struckthe fu l l trade-wind sea, the di sburdening began . Atevery rollthe Sn ark shook overboard a bunch or soof bananas and cocoanuts, or a basket of limes . Agolden flood of l imes washed about In the lee- scuppers .The big baskets of yams bu rst, and pineapples andpomegranates rol led back and forth . The chickenshad got loose and were everywhere, roostin g on theawnings, fluttering and squawking ou t on the j ib - ,

boomand essayi ng the perilous feat of balancing on the spinnaker boom . They were wi ld chickens, accustomedto fl ight. When attempts were made to catch them ,

they flew ou t over the ocean , circled about, and cameback . Sometimes they did not come back . And inthe confusion

,unobserved

,the little sucking pig got

loose and sl ipped overboard .

O n the arrival of strangers, every man en deavored to obtain on e asa fi en d and carry him of to his own habitation , where he is treatedwith the greatest kin dn ess by the in habitan ts of the district : they placehimon a high seat and feed himwith abun dance of the fin est foods.”

CHAPTER X I I I

The Stone-fishin g of Bora Bora

AT five in the morning the conches began to blow .

From all along the beach the eerie sounds arose,l ike

the ancient voice of War,cal l ing to the fishermen to

arise and prepare to go forth . We on the Sn ark l ikewise arose, for there cou ld be no sleep in that mad di nof conches . Also, we were going stone-fishin g , thoughour preparations were few.

Taura i-taora is the name for stone-fish i ng,ta u ta i

mean ing a fishing instrumen t .” And taora meaning

In a double canoe paddled by a doz en strappin g Amaz on s.

“ thrown . But tau ta i- taora,i n combination

,means

“ stone-fishin g ,”for a stone is the instrument that i s

thrown . Stone-fishin g is in real i ty a fish-drive, S imilar220


circle‘

beg in s to contract upon the shore,where the women ,standing in a long rowout into the sea, form a fence oflegs

,which serves to break any rushes of the fran tic

fish . At the right moment when the circle is sufficien tlysmall

,a canoe dashes out from shore

,droppin g over

board a long screen of cocoan ut leaves and en circlinthe circle, thus reenforcing the pal isade of legs . Ocourse

,the . fishing is always don e inside the reef i n the

lagoon .

Tres jolie, the gendarme said , after explaining bysi n s and gestures that thousands offish would be caughtOFal l sizes from minnows to sharks

,and that the

captured fish wou ld boi l up and u pon the very sandof the beach .

I t is a most successful method of fishing,while its

nature is more that of an outing festival,rather than of a

prosaic,food-getting task . Such fishing parties take

place about once a month at Bora Bora,and it is a

custom that has descended from old time . The manwho origi nated i t is not remembered . They alwaysdid this thing . But on e cannot h elp wondering aboutthat forgotten savage of the long ago ,

in to whose mindfirst flashed th is scheme of easy fishing

, of catchinghuge quanti ties of fish without hook

,or net

,or spear .

One thing about him we can know : he was a radical.Andwe can be sure that he was considered feather- brainedand anarchistic by his conservative tribesmen . Hisdiffi culty was much greater than that of the moderni nventor, who has to convince in advance on ly one ortwo capitalists . That early inven tor had to convincehis whole tribe in advance

,for without the codperation

of the whole tribe the device could n ot be tested . Onecan well imagine the nightly pow-wow- ings in that

STONE- F ISH ING OF BORA BORA 223


primitive island world, when he called his comradesantiquated moss-backs , and they called him a fool, afreak

,and a crank , and charged him with having come

from Kansas . Heaven alone knows at what cost ofgray hairs andexpletives he must final ly have succeededin winning over a suflicien t number to give his idea atrial . At any rate , the experimen t succeeded . I t stood

The S ton e -throwe r.

the test of tru th it worked ! And thereafter,we can

be confident,there was no man to be found who did

not know al l along that it was going to work .

Our good friends , Tehci and Bihau ra, who were giving the fishing i n our honor, had promised to come forus . We were down below when the callcame fromon deck that they were coming. We dashed up the

companionway,to be overwhelmed by the sight of the

Polynesian barge i n which we were to ride . I t was along double can oe , the canoes lashed together by timbers

STONE- FISH ING OF BORA BORA 227

cent . A young girl dropped her paddle , leaped to theplatform

,and danced a hu la

,i n the midst of which ,

stil l danci ng,she swayed and bent

,and imprinted on

our cheeks the kiss ofwelcome . Some of the songs,or himin es, were religious, and they were especiallybeautifu l

,the deep basses of the men min gling with

the altos and thi n Sopranos of the women and forminga combination of sound that irresistibly reminded oneof an organ . I n fact, kanaka organ is the scoffer’sdescription of the kimin e. On the other hand, someof the chants or ballads were very barbaric, havingcome down from pre—Christian times .And so

,sin ging, dan ci ng, paddling, these joyous

Polynesians took u s to the fishi ng. The gendarme,

who is the French ruler of Bora Bora, accompanied uswith his family in a double canoe of his own , paddledby his prison ers ; for not only is he gendarme andruler

,but he is j ailer as well

,and i n thisjolly land when

anybody goes fishing, al l go fishing . A score of singlecanoes, with outriggers, paddled along with us . Arounda point a big sai l ing-can oe appeared, ru nning beautifullybefore the wind as it bore down to greet us . Balanein

gprecariously on the outrig er

,three young men

sa u ted us with a wild rol li ng o drums .The next point, half a mile farther on , brought us

to the place ofmeeting . Here the launch, which hadbeen brought alon g by Warren and Marti n

,at

tracted much attention . The Bora Borans could notsee what made it go . The canoes were drawn uponthe sand, and al l hands went ashore to drink cocoanutsand sing and dance . Here our numbers were addedto by many who arrived on foot from near-by dwelli ngs

,and a pretty sight i t was to see the flower- crowned


all. You get up andmake a speech , selectingwhat fishyou want for yourself and presentin g allthe rest backagain . Then everybody says you are very generous .But what would be the resul t if I kept the whole

p resen t ?” I asked .

“ I t has n ever happened, was the answer .is the custom to give and give back again .

The pa lisade of legs .

The n ative minister started with a prayer for successin the fishing, and al l heads were bared . Next

,the

chief fishermen told off the canoes and allotted themtheir places . Then it was into the canoes and away .

No women , however, came along, with the exceptionof Bihau ra and Charmian . I n the old days even theywould have been tabooed . The women remained behind to wade out into the water and form the pal isadeof legs .The big double canoe was left on the beach

,and we

STONE—F ISH ING OF BORA BORAi

231

went in the launch . Half the canoes paddled off toleeward

,while we

,with the other half

,headed to wind

ward a mile and a half, unti l the end of our l ine was intouch with the reef. The leader of the drive occupied acanoe midway in our li ne . He stood erect, a fine figure of an old man , holding a flag in his hand . He directed the taki ng of positions andthe forming of the two lines byblowing on a conch . When allwas ready

,he waved his flag to

the right . With a single splashthe throwers in every canoe onthat side struck the water withtheir stones . While they werehauling them back — a matter ofa moment

,for the stones scarcely

sank beneath the surface— the flagwaved to the left

,and with admir

able precision every stone ou thatside struck the water . So i t went

,

back and forth,right and left ; with

every wave of the flag a long line of concussion smotethe lagoon . At the same time the paddles drove thecanoes forward ; and what was being don e

"

i n our l inewas being done i n the opposing li ne of canoes a mi leand more away .

On the bow of the lau n ch,Tebei

,with eyes fixed

on the leader, worked his stone in unison with theothers . Once , the stone sl ipped from the rope, andthe same i nstant Tebei went overboard after i t . I donot know whether or not that stone reached the bottom , but I do know that the next i nstan t Tehei brokesurface alongside with the stone i n his hand . I noticed

On e of the Fishermen .


this same accident occur several times among the nearby canoes

,but in each instance the thrower fol lowed

the stone and brought it back .

The reef ends ofour li nes accelerated, the shore endslagged

,all under the watchful supervision ofthe leader,

u nti l at the reef the two lines joined, forming the circle .Then the contraction of the circle began , the poor

The Gendarme oi Bora Bora paddled by his Prison ers.

frightened fish harried shoreward by the streaks of concu ssion that smote the water . I n the same fashionelephants are driven through the ju ngle by motes ofmen who crouch in the long grasses or behind treesand make strange noises. Already the palisade of legshad been built . We could see the heads of the women

,

i n a long line , dotting the placid surface of the lagoon .

lThe tal lest women went farthest out, thus, with theexception of those close inshore

,nearly allwere up to

their n ecks I n the water .


wog . Something must have been wrong with thatprayer ; or else, and more likely , as one grizzled fel lowput it

,the wind was not in i ts usual quarter and the

fish were elsewhere i n the lagoon . I n fact, there hadbeen no fish to drive .About once in five these drives are fai lures

,All i

cot consoled us .Well , i t was the stone-fishin g that had brought us

to Bora Bora, and it was our luck to draw the onechance in five. Had it been a raffle

,i t would have

been the other way about . This is not pessimism .

Nor is it an indictment of the plan of the universe .I t is merely that feeling which is famil iar to mostfishermen at the empty end of a hard day .

CHAPTER XIV

The Amateur Navigator

THERE are captains and captains, and some mightyfine captai ns

,I know ; but the ru n of the captains on

the Sn ark has been remarkably otherwise . My ex perience with them has been that it is harder to take careof one captain on a smal l boat than of two small babies .Of course, th is is no more than is to be expected . Thegood men have positions, and are not likely to forsaketheir one- thousand- to—fifteen - thousand- ton bil lets forthe Sn a rk with her ten tons net. The Sn a rk has hadto cul l her navigators from the beach

,and the naviga

tor on the beach is usually a congeni tal in eflicien tthe sort of man who beats about for a fortn ight tryingvainly to find an ocean isle and who returns with hisschooner to report the islan d sunk with al l on board,the sort of man whose temper or th i rst for strongwaters works him out of bi llets faster than he can

work into them .

The Sn ark has had three cap tains, and by thegrace of God she shal l have no more . The firstcaptain was so senile as to be unable to give a measu remen t for a boom-jaw to a carpenter. So utterlyagedly helpless was he

,that he was unable to order a

sailor to throw a fewbuckets of salt water on the Sn ark’sdeck . For twelve days

,at anchor

,u nder an over

head tropic sun , the deck lay dry . I t was a new deck .

I t cost me one hundred and thirty - five dollars torecalk it . The second captain was angry . He was

235

236 TH E CRUISE OF TH E SNARK

born angry.

“ Papa is always angry,was the de

scription given him by his half breed son . The thirdcaptain was so crooked that he couldn ’t hide behinda corkscrew . The truth was not i n him

,common

honesty was not in him,and he was as far away from

fair play and square-deali ng as he was from his propercourse when he n early wrecked the Sn ark on the R inggold I sles .I t was at Suva

,in the FIs , that I discharged my

third and last captai n and took up agai n the roleof amateur navigator . I had essayed it once before

,

under my first captain, who,

out of San F rancisco,jumped the Sn ark so amazingly over the chart that Ireal ly had to find out what was doing . I t was fairlyeasy to find out, for we had a run of twenty- one hundred miles before us . I knew nothing of navigation ;but

,after several hours of reading up and half an

hour ’s practice with the sextant, I was able to find theS

’

n ark s latitude by meridian observation and her longitude by the simple method known as “ equalaltitudes.

This IS not a correct method . I t i s not even a safemethod

,but my captai n was attempting to navigate by

it,and he was the only one on board who shou ld have

been able to tel l me that i t was a method to be es

chewed . I brought the Sn ark to Hawaii, but theconditions favored me. The su n was i n northerndecli nation and nearly overhead . The legitimatechronometer—sight ” method of ascertai ning thelongi tude I had not heard of yes

,I had heard of i t.

My first captain mentioned it vaguely , but after on e ortwo attempts at practice of It he mentioned it no more .I had time in the F1s to compare my chronometer

with two other chronometers . Two weeks previous,


in Suva, I compared the chronometer with the one onthe Atu a , an Australian steamer, and found that min ewas thirty-one seconds fast. Now thirty- one secondsof time

,converted into arc

,equals seven and one

quarter mi les . That is to say , if I were sai l ing west,i n the night- time, and my position , according to mydead reckoning from my afternoon chronometer sight

,

was shown to be seven miles off the land, why, at thatvery moment I would be crashing on the reef. NextI compared my chronometer with Captain Wooley ’3.

Captain Wooley,the harbormaster, gives the time to

Suva,firing a gun signal at twelve, noon , three times a

week . According to his chronometer mine was fiftynine seconds fast

,which Is to say

,that

,sai l ing west

,I

should be crashiIig on the reefwhen I thought I wasfifteen miles off from it .I compromised by subtracting th irty- one seconds

from the total of my chronometer’s losing error, andsai led away for Tanna , i n the New Hebrides, resolved ,when nosing around the land on dark nights

,to bear

in mind the other seven miles I might be out accordingto Captain Wooley ’S i n strument . Tanna lay some sixhundred miles west- southwest from the F1s and It wasmy belief that while coverin g that distance I cou ldquite easily knock into my head sufficient navigationto get me there . Well , I got there , but l isten first tomy troubles . Navigation is easy , I shall always conten d that ; but when a man i s taking three gasoleneengines and a wife around the world and is writing hardevery day to keep the en gin es supplied with gasoleneand the wife with pearls and vol can oes, he hasn

’ t muchtime left in which to study navigation . Also , i t isbound to be easier to study said science ashore

,where

THE AMATEUR NAVI GATOR 239

lati tude and longitude are u n changing,in a house

whose posi tion never alters, than it is to study navi

gation on a boat that is rushing along day and nighttoward land that one is trying to find and which he isliable to find disastrously at a moment when he leastexpects i t.To begi n with , there are the compasses and the set

ting of the courses . We sai led from Suva on Saturdayafternoon

,June 6

, 1 908, and it took us ti l l after darkto ru n the narrow, reef- ridden passage between theislands of Vi ti Levu and Mben gha. The open oceanlay before me . There was nothing in the way withthe exception of Vatu Lei le

,a miserable li ttle island

that persisted i n poking up through the sea sometwenty mi les to the west- southwest just where Iwan ted to go . Of course, i t seemed qu Ite simple toavoid i t by steering a course that would pass i t eight orten miles to the north . I t was a black n ight

,and we

were running before the wind . The man at the wheelmust be told what direction to steer i n order to missVatu Lei le . But what direction I turned me to thenavigation books . “ True Cou rse I lighted upon .

The very thing What I wanted was the true course.I read eagerly on

The True Course is the an gle made with the meridian by a straightlin e on the chart drawn to con n ect the ship ’ s position with the placeboun d to.

Just what I wanted . The Sn ark’s position was atthe western

'

entrance of the passage between Vi ti Levuand Mben gha . The immediate place she was boundto was a place on the chart ten miles north of VatuLeile . I pricked that place off on the chart with my


dividers,and with my paral lel rulers fou n d that west-by

south was the true course . I had but to give i t to theman at the wheel and the Sn ark would win her way tothe safety of the Open sea .

Paumotan Natives .

But alas and alack and lucky for me,I read on . I

discovered that the compass,that trusty

,everlasting

friend of the mariner, was not given to pointing north .

I t varied . Sometimes it pointed east of north,some

times west Of north , and on occasion i t even tu rned tai lon north and pointed south . The variation at the


tainly not the steering course . I kept the Sn arkup til l she was heading west-by- south- three- quarters

south on thestandard comp a s s , wh i c hgave

,on the

steerIn g comp a s a s o u t hwest-by—west .The forego

ing operationsconsti tute thes i m p l e l i t t l ematter of setting a course .And the worstof it is that onemust performevery step correctly or elsehe wil l hearB r e a k e r sahead !” somepleasant night

,

receive a n icesea-bath

,and

be given theS nark at S uva-F iji is lands .

d C 1 lg h t ( U ld i v e r s i o n of

fighti ng his way to the shore through a horde of maneating sharks .Just as the compass is tricky and strives to fool themari ner by point ing in al l direction s except north , so

THE AMATEUR NAV IGATOR 243

does that guide-post of the sky , the sun , persist in notbeing where it ought to be at a given time. Thiscarelessness of the su n is the cause of more troubleat least i t caused troub le for me . To find out whereone is on the earth ’s su rface, he must know, at precisely the same time, where the sun is in the heaven s .

That is to say,the sun, which is the timekeeper for

men,doesn ’t r un on time . When I discovered this, I

felli nto deep gloom and al l the Cosmos was fi l led withdoubt. Immutable laws

,such as gravitation and the

conservation of energy,became wobbly , and I was pre

pared to witness their violation at any moment and toremain unastonished . For see

,if the compass lied and

the sun did not keep its engagements, why should notobj ects lose their mutual attraction and why shouldnot a few bushel baskets of force be annihi lated ?Even perpetual motion became possible , and I was ina frame of mind prone to pu rchase Keeley-Motorstock from the first enterpris ing agent that landed on

the Sn a rk’

: deck . And when I discovered that theearth real ly rotated on its axis 366 times a year, whi lethere were on ly 365 sunrises and sunsets, I was readyto doubt my own identi ty.

This is the way of the sun . I t is so irregu lar thati t is impossible for man to devise a clock that wi l lkeep the sun ’s time . The sun accelerates and retardsas no clock could be made to accelerate and retard.

The sun is sometimes ahead of i ts schedule ; at othertimes it is lagging behind ; and at sti l l other times it isbreaking the speed limit in order to overtake itself, or,rather, to catch up with where it ought to be in thesky . I n this last case i t does not slow down qu ickenough, and, as a resu lt, goes dashing ahead of where


it ought to be. In fact, only four days in a year dothe sun and the place where the sun ought to be happen to coin cide . The remaining 36 1 days the su n ispotheri ng around al l over the shop . Man , being

South Sea Island Beauties ridin g in the S nark’

s Launch .

more perfect than the sun,makes a c lock that keeps

regu lar time . Also , he calcu lates how far the sun isahead of i ts schedule or behind . The difference between th e sun ’s position and the position where thesun ough t to be if i t were a decent, self- respecting su n ,man cal ls the Equation of Time . Thus, the navi

246 TH E CRU ISE O F THE SNARK

A .M . ,i t were P .M . , then 84} times seconds

would have to be,not added

,but subtracted; for, if, at

noon,the sun were 1 minute and 26 seconds behind

time,and if i t were catching up with where it ought

to be at the rate of seconds per hour, then atP .M i t wou ld be much nearer where it ought to

be than i t had been at noon .

So far, so good . But was that 8 . 25 of the chro

n ometer A .M . or P .M . I looked at the Sn ark’s clock .

I t marked 8 . 9 , and it was certain ly A .M . for I hadju st finished breakfast . Therefore, if i t was eight i nthe morning on board the Sn a rk, the eight o

’clock of

the chronometer (which was the time of the day atGreenwich) must be a different eight o

’clock from theSn ark

’

s eight 0 ’c .lock But what eight o ’clock was it ?I t can ’ t be the eight o ’clock of this morning, Ireasoned ; therefore , i t must be either eight o ’clockthis evening or eight o ’clock last night .I t was at this juncture that I fell Into the bottomless

pit of intel lectual chaos . We are in east longitude, Ireasoned

,therefore we are ahead of G reenwich . If we

are behind Greenwich,then to-day is yesterday ; if we

are ahead of Greenwich,then yesterday Is to-day , but

if yesterday Is to- day,what under the sun is to day !

to-morrow? Absurd! Yet It must be correct. WhenI took the su n this morning at 8 . 25, the sun

’s custodians at Greenwich were just arising from din ner lastn i ht .g

“ Then correct the Equation ofTime for yesterday ,says my logical mind .

“ But to-day is to-day , my li teral mind insists .I must correct the su n for to-day and n ot for yesterday .

”

THE AMATEUR NAV I GATOR 247

Yet to-day is yesterday, urges my logical mind .

That’s all very well , my literal mind continues .If I were i n Greenwich I might be in yesterday .

Strange thi ngs happen i n Greenwich . But I know as

A South Sea Islander.

sure as I am living that I am here,now

,i n to-day

,

June 7 , and that I took the sun here,now

,to-day

,

June 7 . Therefore, I must correct the sun here, now,

to-day,June 7 .

Bosh ! snaps my logical mind . Lecky saysNever mind what Lecky says

,i nterrupts my


literal mi nd . Let me tell you what the NauticalAlmanac says . The Nautical Almanac says that today, June 7 , the su n was 1 minute and 26 seconds behind time and catching up at the rate of secondsper hour. I t says that yesterday , June 6, the sun was1 minute and 36 seconds behind time and catchingup at the rate of 1 5.66 seconds per hour . You see,i t i s preposterous to think of correcting to-day ’8 sunby yesterday ’s time- table.”

F001 .

IdiotBack and forth they wrangle until my head is‘whirl

i ng around and I am ready to believe that I am in theday after the last week before next.I remembered a parting caution of the Suva harbor

master . I n east lon g i tude take from the N au tzealA1ma n ac the elemen ts for the precedz n g day.

’

Then a new thought came to me . I corrected theEquation ofTime for Su nday and for Saturday , making two separate operations of i t, and 10 , when theresu lts were compared

,there was a difference on ly

of four-tenths of a second . I was a changed man .

I had found my way out of the crypt . TheSn ark was scarcely big enough to hold me and myexperien ce . Four- tenths of a secon d wou ld makea difference of on ly one- tenth of a mile — a cablelength !All went merri ly for ten minutes , when I chanced

upon the following rhyme for nav igators

Greenwich time leastLon gitude east

Greenwich best,Lon gitude west.”


hours and nine minutes . No,there is no discussion ;

you are in west longitude .Then my literal mind triumphs .We sai led from Suva

,in the Fijis, didn

’t we ? it

demands , and logical mind agrees . And Suva is ineast longitude ?” Again logical mind agrees . “Andwe sailed west (which would take us deeper into eastlongitude) , didn

’t we ? Therefore and you can ’ tescape it

, we are in east longitude.“ Greenwich time best

,longitude west

,chants

my logical mind ;“ and you must grant that twenty

hours and twenty-five minutes is better than eighthou rs and nine minutes .All ri ht

,

” I break in upon the squabble ; “ we’ l lwork up t e sight and then we ’ l l see .And work it up I did, only to find that my longi

tude was 1 84° west .

“ I told you so,

” snorts my logical mind .

I am dumbfounded . So is my li teral mi nd , forseveral minutes . Then it enouncesBut there is no 1 84

° west longi tude,nor east

longitude,nor any other longi tude . The largest

meridian is 1 80° as you ought to know v ery wel l .Having got this far, li teralmind collapses from the

brai n strain,logical mind is dumb flabbergasted ; and

as for me, I get a bleak and wintry look in my eyesand go around won dering whether I am sailin g towardthe China coast or the Gu lf of Darien .

Then a thi n small voice,which I do not recognize,

coming from nowhere in particu lar i n my consciousness

,saysThe total number of degrees is 360 . Subtract the

1 84° west longitude from and you will get

1 76° east longitude .”

THE AMATEUR NAVIGATOR 251

That is sheer speculation,objects l iteral mind ;

and logical mind remonstrates . “ There is no ru le forIt

Darn the rules ! I exclaim .

“ Ain ’ t I here ?The th ing is self- evident

,I continue . 1 84

°

west lon itude means a lapping over in east longitude of our degrees . Besides I have been in eastlongitude al l the time . I sai led from Fiji , and Fij iis i n east longitude . Now I shal l chart my positionand prove it by dead reckoning.

Bu t'

other troubles and doubts awaited me . Hereis a sample of one . I n south lati tude

,when the sun

is i n northern decl ination,chronometer sights may be

taken early in the morning . I took mine at eighto ’clock . Now, one of the necessary elements in working up such a sight is lati tude . But one gets latitudeat twelve o ’clock

,n oon , by a meridian observation .

I t is clear that in order to work up my eight o ’clockchronometer sight I must have my eight o ’clock latitude . Of course

,if the Sn ark were sai l ing due west

at six knots per hour,for the in tervening four hours

her latitude would n ot change . But if she were sai lingdue south, her latitude would change to the tune of

twenty-four mi les . I n which case a simple additionor subtraction would convert the twelve o ’clock latitudein to ei

ght o ’clock lati tude . But suppose the Sn a rk

were saIlin g southwest . Then the traverse tables mustbe consu lted .

This is the i l lustration . At eight A .M . I took mychronometer sight . At the same moment the distancerecorded on the log was noted . At twelve M . , whenthe sight for lati tude was taken , I again noted the log,which showed me that since eight o ’clock the Sn a rk


had run 24 miles . Her true course had been west

it south . I entered Table I,in the distance column

,

on the page for 2point courses , and stopped at 24 , thenumber of mIles run . Opposue , In the next two col

Between B lack D iamonds .

(Girls of Swan , Samoa. )

umn s, I found that the Sn a rk had made mi les ofsouthi ng or latitude

,and that She had made miles

of westing . To find my eight O’clock latitude was

easy . I had but to subtract miles from my noonlatitude . All the elements being present, I worked upmy longitude .

254 THE CRUI SE O F TH E SNARK

should I have to change westi ng i nto longitude ? Andthen the whole beautifu l Si tuation dawned upon me .

The meridians of longi tude are 60 miles (nautical )apart at the equator . At the poles they run together .

Maids of the Vi l lage , Savaii , Samoa .

Thus,if I should travel up the 1 80° meridian of lon

g itude unti l I reached the North Pole , and ifthe astronomer at Greenwich travel led up the 0

° meridian of

longitude to the North Pole, then , at the North Pole,we cou ld shake hands with each other

,though before

we started for the North Pole we had been some thou

THE AMATEUR NAVIGATOR 255

sands ofmiles apart. Again : if a degree of longitudewas 60 mi l es wide at the equator, and if the samedegree, at the point of the Pole, had no width , thensomewhere between the Pole and the equator thatdegree would be half a mile wide

,and at other places

a mi le wide,two miles wide, ten miles wide, thirty

mi les wide,ay, and sixty miles wide .

All was plain again . The Sn a rk was i n 1 9° south

latitude . The world wasn ’t as big around there as atthe equator . Therefore, every mi le of westing at 1 9

°

south was more than a minute of longitude ; for sixtymiles were sixty miles

,but sixty minutes are sixty

mi les on ly at the equator. George Francis Train brokeJules Verne’s record of around the world . But anyman that wants can break George Francis Train ’srecord . Such a man would need only to go

,i n a fast

steamer, to the'

latitude of Cape Horn,and sail due

east all the way around . The world is very small i nthat latitude, and there is no land in the way to turnhin i out of his course . If his steamer maintained sixteen knots, he would circumnavigate the globe in justabout forty days .But there are compensations . On Wednesday even

ing, June 1 0, I brought up my noon position by deadreckoning to eight P .M . Then I projected the Sn a rk’ i°

course and saw that she would strike Futuna, one of theeasternmost of the N ewHebrides , a volcanic cone twothousand feet high that rose out of the deep ocean . Ialtered the course so that the Sn a rkwould pass te n milesto the northward . Then I spoke to Wada, the cook ,who had the wheel every mornin g from four to six .

Wada San,to-morrow morning

,your watch , you

look Sharp on weather- bow you see land .

”


And then I went to bed . The die was cast. I hadstaked my reputation as a navigator . Suppose, ustsuppose

,that at daybreak there was no land . T en ,

where would my navigation be ? And where wouldwe be ? And how would we ever find ourselves ? orfind any land ? I caught ghastly visions of the Sn arksai l ing for months through ocean sol itudes and seekingvain ly for land while we consumed our provisions andsat down with hagg ard faces to stare cannibalism In the

face .I confess my sleep was not

like a summer skyThat held the music of a lark.

Rather did I waken to the voiceless dark, and listento the creaking of the bulkheads and the rippling ofthe sea alongside as the Sn ark logged steadily her six

knots an hour. I wen t over my calculation s aga i n andagain , striving to find some mistake, unti l my brain wasin such fever that it discovered dozens of mistakes .Suppose

,i nstead of being sixty miles off Fu tu n a that

my navigation was all wrong and that I was only sixmi les off 9 I n which case my course would be wrong,too , and for all I knew the Sn ark might be runningstraight at Futuna . For al l I knew the Sn ark mightStrike Fu tu n a the next moment. I almost sprang fromthe bunk at that thought ; and , though I restrain edmyself

,I know that I lay for a moment, nervous and

tense,waiting for the shock .

My sleep was broken by miserable nightmares .Earthquake seemed the favorite affliction , though therewas one man

,wi th a bil l

, who persisted in dunningme throughout the night. Also

,he wanted to fight ;


That settled him,for he worried my dreams no

more ; and it settled me , too, for I woke up chucklingat the episode . I t was three in the morning. I wentup on deck . Henry

,the Rapa islander

,was steering .

I looked at the log. I t recorded forty- two miles . TheSn a rk had not abated her S ix -kn ot gait

,and she

had not struck Futuma yet . At half- past five Iwas again on deck . Wada, at the wheel , had seen noland . I sat on the cockpit rai l, a prey to morbiddoubt for a quarter of an hour. Then I saw land

,a

smal l,high piece of land , just where i t ought to be,

risi ng from the water on the weather- bow. At sixo ’clock I could clearly make it out to be the beau tifii lvolcanic cone of Fu tu n a. At eight o ’clock

,when it

was abreast,I took its distance by the sextant and

found it to be mi les away . And I had elected topass i t 1 0 miles away !Then

,to the south

,Anei teum rose out of the sea

,

to the north,Aniwa

,and, dead ahead, Tanna . There

was no mistaking Tanna,for the smoke of i ts volcano

was towering high in the Sky . I t was forty miles away,

and by afternoon , as we drew close , never ceasing to logour six knots

,we saw that it was a mountainous

,hazy

lan d , with no apparent openings in i ts coast- l i ne . Iwas looking for Port Resolution

,though I was qu ite

prepared to find that as an anchorage , i t had been destroyed . Volcanic earthquakes had l ifted its bottomdu ring the last forty years, so that where once the largest ships rode at anchor there was now

,by last reports

,

scarcely space and depth suffi cient for the Snark. Andwhy should not another con vulsion

,S i nce the last report,

have closed the harbor completel y ?I ran in close to the unbroken coast

,frin gedwith rocks

THE AMATEUR NAV IGATOR 259

awash upon which the crashing trade-wi nd sea burstwhi te and high . I searched with my glasses for mi les ,but could see no entrance . I took a compass bearing ofFu tu n a, anotherofAniwa, and laid them off on the chart.Where the two bearings crossed was bound to be theposi tion of the Sn ark. Then , with my paral lel rulers,I laid down a course from the Sn a rk’s position to PortResolution . Having corrected this course for variationand deviation , I went on deck , and lo , the course directed me towards that unbroken coast- l ine of burstingseas . To my Rapa islander’s great concern , I held onti l l the rocks awash were an eighth of a mile away .

No harbor th is place,” he announced, Shaking his

head ominously .

But I a l tered the course and ran along paral lel withthe coast. Charmian was at the wheel . Martin was atthe engine, ready to throw on the propeller. A narrowsl i t of an opening showed up suddenly . Through theglasses I cou ld see the seas breaking clear across . Henry,the Rapa man

,looked with troubled eyes so did Tehci,

the Tahaa man .

No passage there,said Henry .

“We go there, wefinish quick , sure .

”

I confess I thought so,too ; but I ran on abreast,

watching to see if the l i ne of breakers from one side theentrance did not overlap the l i ne from the other side .Sure enough

,i t did. A narrow place where the sea

ran smooth appeared . Charmian put down the wheeland steadied for the entrance . Martin threw on theengi ne, while al l hands and the cook sprang to takein sai l .A trader’s house showed up in the bight of the bay .

A geyser,on the shore

,a hundred yards away

,spouted

CHAPTER XV

Cruising in the Solomons

WHY not come along now said Capta in Jansento us

,at Pendu ffryn , on the is land of Gu adalcan ar.

Charmian and I looked at each other and debatedsi lently for half a minute . Then we nodded our headssimultaneously . I t is a way we have of making upour minds to do things ; and a very good way it iswhen one has no temperamental tears to shed over thelast tin of condensed milk when i t has capsized . (We

are l iving on tinned goods these days,and since mind

is rumored to be an emanation of matter,our similes

are naturally of the packing- house variety . )“ You ’d better bring your revolvers along

,and a

couple of rifles ,”said Captain Jansen . I ’ve got five

rifl es aboard,though the one Mauser is without am

munition . H ave you a few rounds to spare ?We brought our rifles on board

,several handfuls of

Mauser cartridges,and Wada and Nakata

,the Sn ark’I°

cook and cabin - boy respectively . Wada and Nakatawere in a bit of a funk . To say the least

,they were

not enthusiastic, though never did Nakata Show thewhite feather in the face of danger . The Solomon I slands had not dealt kindly with them . I n the first place

,

both had suffered from Solomon sores . So had the restof us (at the time, I was nursing two fresh ones on a dietof corrosive sublimate) but the two Japanese had hadmore than their Share . And the sores are not nice .They may be described as excessively active ulcers .

262

CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS 263

A mosquito bite,a cut, or the slightest abrasion , serves

for lodgment of the poison with which the air seems tobe fi l led . Immediately the u lcer commences to eat.I t eats in every direction

,consuming skin and muscle

with astounding rapidi ty . The pin- point ul cer of thefirst day 13 the size of a dime by the second day

,and

Typica l Coast Scen e — Solomon s .

by the end of the week a si lver dollar wil l not coverIt.

Worse than the sores,the two Japanese had been

affl i cted with Solomon Island fever . Each had beendown repeatedly with it, and in their weak , convalescentmomen ts they were wont to huddle together on theportion of the Sn a rk that happened to be nearest tofaraway Japan , and to gaze yearningly In that direction .

But worst of al l,they were now brought on board

the M in ota for a recruiting cruise along the savage


coast ofMalaita. Wada, who had the worse funk , wassure . that he would never see Japan again , and withbleak

,lack- lustre eyes he watched our rifles and am

munition going on board theM in ota . He knew aboutthe M z

'

n ota and her Malaita cru ises . He knew thatshe had been captured six months before on ' the Malaitacoast

,that her captain had

.

been chopped to pieceswith tomahawks

,and that

,according to the barbarian

sense of equity on that sweet isle, she ow'

ed two moreheads . Also, a laborer on Pendu ffryn Plantation , aM alaita boy

,had just died of dysentery , and Wada

knew that Pendu ffryn had been put i n the debt ofM alaita by one more head . Furthermore

,i n stowing

our luggage away i n the skipper’s tiny cabin, he saw

the axe gashes on the door where the triumphant bushmen had cut their way in . And, finally

,the gall ey

stove was without a pipe said pipe having been partof the loot.TheM I n ota was a teak bui lt

,Australian yacht

,ketch

rigged, long and lean , with a deep fin keel , and designed for harbor racing rather than for recruitingblacks . When Charmian and I came on board

,

found her crowded . Her doub le boat’S crew,i nclud

in g substitu tes , was fifteen , and She had a score andmore of return boys , whose time on the plantationswas served and who were bound back to their bushv i l lages . To look at, they were certain ly true headhunting cannibals . Their perforated nostri ls werethrust through with bone and wooden bodkins the sizeof lead- pencils . Numbers of them had punctured theextreme meaty point of the nose, from which protruded,straight out , spikes of turtle- She l l or of beads strungon stiff wire. A few had further punctured their noses


too accessible to boarders . So brass stanchions werescrewed into the rai l and a double row of barbed wirestretched around her from stem to stern and ' backagain . Which was all very well as a protection fromsavages , but i t was mighty uncomfortable to those onboard when the M z n ota took to jumping and plungingin a sea-way . When on e dislikes s liding down uponthe lee- rail barbed wire, and when he dares not catchhold of the weather- rai l barbed wire to save himselffrom sliding

,and when

,with these various disin clin a

tions , he finds himself on a smooth flush deck that Isheeled over at an angle of forty-five degrees

,some of

the del ights of Solomon I slands cruising may be comprehended . Also , i t must be remembered, the penal tyof a falli nto the barbed wire is more than the merescratches

,for each scratch is practical ly certain to be

come a venomous ulcer. That caution will not saveone from the wire was evidenced one fin e morningwhen we were running along the Malaita coast withthe breeze on our quarter. The wind was fresh

,and

a tidy sea was making . A black boy was at the wheel .Captain Jansen

,Mr . Jacobsen (the mate) , Charmian ,

and I had just sat down on deck to breakfast. Threeunusual ly large seas caught us . The boy at the wheellost his head . Three times the M in ata was swept.The breakfast was rushed over the lee- rail . Theknives and forks went through the scuppers ; a boyaft went clean overboard and was dragged back ; andour doughty skipper lay half inboard and half out,jammed In the barbed wire . After that, for the restof the cru ise

,our joint use of the several remain ing

eating utensi ls was a splendid example of prim i tivecommunism . On the Eug en ze, however, it was even

CRU ISING IN THE SOLOMONS 267

worse,for we had but one teaspoon among fou I° of us

— but the Eugen ie is another story.

Our first port was Su ’

u on the west coast ofMalai ta.The Solomon Islands are on the fri n e of things . I tis diflicult enough sai li ng on dark nig ts through reefspiked channels and across errati c currents where there

Four Old Rascals .

are no lights to guide (from northwest to southeast theSolomons extend across a thousand miles of sea, andon allthe thousands ofmi les of coasts there is not onel ighthouse) ; but the diffi culty is seriously enhancedby the fact that the land i tself is not correctly charted .

Su’

u is an example . On the Admiral ty chart of Malaita the coast at this point ru ns a straight

, u nbrokenline . Yet across this straight, unbroken li ne theM in ota


sail ed in twenty fathoms ofwater. Where the landwas al leged to be

,was a deep i ndentation . I nto this

we sai led , the mangroves closi ng about u s, ti l l wedropped anchor in a mirrored pond . Captain Jansendid not l ike the anchorage . I t was the first time hehad been there

,and Su ’

u had a bad reputation . Therewas no wi nd with which to g et away in case of

attack,while the crew could be bushwhacked to a

man if they attempted to( tow out in the whale- boat .

I t was a pretty trap , if trouble blew up .

“ Suppose the M z

’

n ota went ashore — what wouldyou do I asked.

She ’s not going ashore,was Captain Jan sen ’

s

answer.Bu tjust in case she did ? I insisted.

He considered for a moment and shifted his glancefrom the mate buckli ng on a revolver to the boat’s crewclimbing into the whale- boat each man with a rifle .We ’d get into the whale- boat

,and g et out of here

as fast as a God’

d let us ,” came the skipper ’s delayed

re ly.pH e explained at length that no white man was sure

of his Malaita crew i n a tight p lace ; that the bushmenlooked upon all wrecks as their personal property thatthe bushmen possessed plenty of Snider rifles ; andthat he had on board a dozen return boys for Su ’

u

who were certain to join i n with their friends and relativesashore when it came to looting the M in ota .

The first work of the whale-boat was to take thereturn boys and their trade- boxes ashore . Thus onedanger was removed . While this was being done, acanoe came alongside

.

manned by three naked savages .And when I say naked , I mean naked . Not one


But nothing resulted . No one recruited, nor were an yof our men lured ashore . A little later we caughtgl impses of a number of armed natives moving abouton the beach .

Outside of these rare glimpses, there was no tel l inghowmany might be lurking in the bush . There wasno penetrating that primeval jungle with the eye . I nthe afternoon , Captai n Jansen , Charmian , and I wentdynamiting fish . Each one of the boat’s crew carrieda Lee-En field. Johnny,

” the native recruiter,had a

Wi nchester beside h im at the steering sweep. We

rowed in close to a portion of the shore that lookeddeserted . Here the boatwas turned arou n d and backedin ; i n case of attack, the boat would be ready to dashaway . I n al l the time I was on Malaita I never saw a

boat land bow on . I n fact,the recruiti ng vessels use

two boats one to go in on the beach , armed, of course,and the other to lie Off several hundred feet and cover ”

the first boat . The M z

'

n ota , however, being a smallvessel , did not carry a covering boat.We were close in to the shore and working in closer

,

stern- first, when a school of fish was sighted . The

fuse was ign i ted and the stick of dynamite thrown .With the explos ion , the surface of the water was brokenby the flash of leaping fish . At the same instant thewoods broke into l ife . A score of naked savages,armed with bows and arrows, spears, and Sniders

,

burst out upon the shore . At the same moment ourboat’s crew lifted their rifles . And thus the opposingparties faced each other

,whi le our extra boys d ived

over after the stunned fish.

Three fruitless days were spent at Su ’

u . The

Min ata got no recruits from the bush , and the bush

Charmian Goes to Market.


M in ata ’

s flag and other of her gear had been recovered.

The drowning of the baby had come about through amisunderstan ding . Chief Johnny, of Binu

,had de

clin ed to guide the landing party in to the bush, n or

could any of his men be induced to perform that office .

Whereupon Captain Lewes, righteously in dignant, hadtold ChiefJ ohnny that he deserved to have his vil lage

Island of Uru Hand-manufactured Malaita.

burned . Johnny ’s b2che de mer English did not includethe word “ deserve . So his understanding of it wasthat his vi l lage was to be burned an yway . The immediatestampede of the inhabitants was so hurried that thebaby was dropped into the water. I n the meantimeChief Johnny hasten ed to Mr . Abbot . I nto his handhe put fourteen sovereigns and requested him to go onboard the Cambria n and buy Captain Lewes off.

Johnny ’s vi l lage was not burned. Nor did Captain


Lewes get the fourteen soverei n s, for I saw themlaterin J ohnny

’s possession whe nfi e boarded theM in ota .

The excuse Johnny gave me for not gu iding the landing party was a big boi l which he proudly revealed .

His realreason,however

,and a perfectly val id one

,

though he did not state it,was fear of revenge on the

part of the bushmen . Had he , or any of his men ,guided the mari nes, he could have looked for b loodyreprisals as soon as the Cambria n weighed anchor .AS an il lustration of conditions in the Solomons,

Johnny’s business on board was to turn over, for a

tobacco consideration,the sprit, mainsail , and j ib of a

whale- boat. Later in the day , a Chief Billy came onboard and turned over

,for a tobacco consideration , the

mast and boom . This gear belon ged to a whale-boatwhich Captai n Jansen had recovered the previous tripof the M i n ota . The whale-boat belonged to M eringePlantation on the island of Ysabel . Eleven contractlaborers

,M alaita men and bushmen at that

,had

decided to ru n away . Being bushmen,they knew

nothing of salt water nor of the way of a boat in thesea . So they persuaded two natives of San Cristoval ,sal t-water men , to ru n away with them . I t served theSan Cristoval men right. They shou ld have knownbetter . When they had safely navigated the stolenboat to Malaita

,they had their heads hacked off for

their pai ns . I t was this boat and gear that CaptainJansen had recovered .

Not for nothing have I j ourneyed al l the way to theSolomons . At last I have seen Charmian ’s proudspirit humbled and her emperious queendom of femin in ity dragged in the dust. I t happened at LangaLanga, ashore, on the manufactured is land which one

T


cannot see for the houses . Here surrounded by hundreds of unblu shing naked men

,women

,and children

,

we wandered about and saw the sights . We had ourrevolvers strapped on

,and the boat’s crew,

ful ly armed ,lay at the oars , stern in ; bu t the lesson of the man-ofwar was too recent for us to apprehend trouble . We

The Island of Lan ga Lan ga , bu ilt up from the Sea by the Sa lt-water Men .

walked about everywhere and saw everything untilatlast we approached a large tree trunk that served as abridge across a shal low estuary . The blacks formed awal l In front of us and refused to let us pass . Wewan ted to know why we were stopped . The blackssaid we could go on . We misunderstood

, and started.

Explanations became more definite . Captain Jansenand I

,being men , cou ld go on . Bu t no Mary was

allowed to wade around that bridge, much less cross it.Mary is beehe de mer for woman . Charmian was a


and since she did not — well,anyway, hers was the

size of a si lver dollar,and the pureness of her blood

enabled her to cure it after several weeks of strenuousnursing. She pins her fai th to corrosive sub l imate .

Martin swears by iodoform . Henry uses lime-juiceundiluted . An d I believe that when corrosive subli

A Sa lt-water Fastn ess.

mate is S low in taking hold,alternate dressi n gs of per

oxide of hydrogen are just the th ing. There arewhite men in the Solomons who stake al l upon boracicacid, and others who are prejudiced in favor of lysol .I also have the weakness of a panacea . I t is Cal ifornia .I defy any man to get a Solomon I slan d sore in Californ ia.

We ran down the lagoon from Langa Langa,between

mangrove swamps , through passages scarcely wider


than the M in ota , and past the reef vil lag es of Kalokaand Auki . Like the founders of Venice, these sal twater men were originally refugees from the mainland.

Too weak to hold their own in the bush, survivors ofvillage massacres, they fled to the sand-banks of thelagoon . These san d- banks they bui l t up into is lands .They were compel led to seek thei r proven der fromthe sea

,and in time they became salt-water men .

They learned the ways of the fish and the shel l-fish,and they i nvented hooks and lines , nets and fish- traps .They developed canoe-bodies . Unable to walk abou t,spending all their time in the canoes, they becamethick-armed and broad- shou ldered

,with narrow waists

and frai l spi ndly legs . Control l ing the sea- coast, theybecame wealthy , trade with the interior passing largelythrough their hands . But perpetual enmity existsbetween them and the bushmen . Practi cal ly theironly truces are on market-days, which occur at statedintervals

,usually twice a week . The bushwomen and

the sal t—water women do the bartering . Back in thebush

,a hundred yards away

, hIlly armed,lurk the

bushmen,while to seaward

,i n the canoes

,are the sal t

water men . There are very rare instances of themarket-day truces being broken . The bushmen liketheir fish too well , while the sal t-water men have an

organic crav i ng for the vegetab les they cannot growon their crowded islets .Thirty miles from Langa Langa brought us to thepassage between Bassakan n a I sland and the mainland.

Here,at nightfal l

,the wind left us

,and al l n ight

,with

the whale-boat towing ahead and the crew on boardsweating at the sweeps

,we strove to win through . But

the tide was agai nst us . At midnight, midway in the


passage, we came up with the Eugen ie, a big recruiting

schooner,towing wi th two whale-boats . Her sk ipper

,

Captain Keller, a sturdy young German of twenty- two,came on board for a gam , and thelatest news ofMalaitawas swapped back and forth . He had been in luck, having gathered i n twenty recruits at the vi l lage of Fin .

While lying there,one of the customary courageou s kill

ings had taken place . The murdered boy was what iscal led a sal t-water bushman that is

,a sal t-water man who

is halfbushman and who lives by the sea but does not l iveon an islet . Three bushmen came down to this manwhere he was working in his garden . They behavedin friendly fashion, and after a time suggested ka i-kai.Ka i-ka i means food . He bui lt a fire and started toboi l some taro . While bendi ng over the pot, on e of

the bushmen shot h im through the head . He fel lin to the flames

,whereupon they thru st a spear through

his stomach , turned it around, and broke It off.M y word,

” said Captain Kel ler, “ I don ’t wantever to be shot with a Snider. Spread ! You coulddrive a horse and carriage through that hole in hishead .

”

Another recen t courageous kil li ng I heard of on

M alaita was that of an old man . A bush chief haddied a natural death . Now the bushmen don ’t bel ievein n atural deaths . No one was ever known to die anatural death . The only way to die is by bul let, tomahawk

,or spear th ru st . When a man dies in any other

way,i t is a clear case of having been charmed to death .

When the bush chief died n aturally, his tribe placedthe gu i l t on a certai n family . Si nce it did n ot matterwhich one of the family was ki lled , they selected thisold man who lived by himself. This wou ld make i t

CRU ISING IN THE SOLOMONS 28 1

What murder are you talki ng about ? ’ he askedsuddenly

,In the midst of a confused conversation with

Captain Jansen .

Captain Jansen explained .

Oh , that’s not the one I have reference to

,quoth

Mr. Caulfeild. That’s old already . I t happenedtwo weeks ago .

I t was here at Malu that I atoned for all the exul tingan d gloati ng I had been gui l ty of over the Solomon

The Market— composedwhol ly of Women .

sore Charmian had collected at Langa Langa . M r.

Caulfeildwas i ndirectly responsible for my atonement.He presented us with a chicken , which I pursued intothe bush with a rifle . My intention was to cl ip off itshead . I succeeded , but in doing so fel l over a log andbarked my shin . Result . three Solomon sores . Thismade five al l together that were adorning my person .

Also,Captai n Jansen and Nakata had caught g a rI -g a n .

Literally translated, g a ri

-

g a ri is scratch- scratch . Buttranslation was not necessary for the rest of us . Theskipper’s and N akata

’

s gymnastics served as a tran slation without words .

(No, the Solomon Islands are not as heal thy as theymight be . I am writing this article on the island of


Ysabel,where we have taken the Sn ark to careen and

clean lier copper . I got over my last attack of feverthis morning

,and I have had only one free day

between attacks . Charmian ’s are two weeks apart.Wada Is a wreck from fever . Last n ight he showedal l the symptoms of coming down with pneumonia .Henry

,a strapping giant of a Tahitian , just up from

his last dose of fever, Is dragging around the deck likea last year’s crab- apple . Both he and Tehei haveaccumulated a praiseworthy display of Solomon sores.Also

,they have caught a new form of g ari

-

g ari , a sortof vegetable poison ing like poison oak or poison ivy .

But they are not un ique in this . A number of daysago Charmian

,M artin , and I went pigeon- shooting on

a smal l is land, and we have had a foretaste of eternaltorment ever Since . Also, on that smal l island, Martincut the soles of his feet to ribbons on the coral whi lechasing a shark — at least, so he says, but from theglimpse I caught of him I thought it was the otherway about . The coral-cuts have al l become Solomonsores . Before my last fever I knocked the skin offmy knuckles while heavi ng on a l ine, and I now havethree fresh sores . And poor Nakata ! For threeweeks he has been unable to si t down . He sat downyesterday for the first time , and mana ed to stay downfor fifteen minutes . He says cheergully that he expects to be cured of his g arI-g arz i n another month .

Furthermore,his g a rI

-

g arz , from too enthusiasticscratch- scratch ing, has furnished footholds for countless Solomon sores . Sti l l furthermore

,he has just

come down with his seventh attack of fever. If Iwere a king, the worst punishment I cou ld infl ict onmy enem ies wou ld be to banish them to the Solomon s .


Solomon sores in their feet so large that they can walkonly on their toes

,or with holes in their legs so terrible

that a fist could be thrust in to the bone . Bloodpoisoning is very frequ ent

,and Captai n Jansen

, wi thsheath- knife and sail needle, operates lavishly on on e

and al l . No matter how desperate the situation, afteropening and cleansing, he claps on a poultice of seabiscu i t soaked in water. Whenever we see a particularly horrible case, we retire to a

' corner and deluge ourown sores wi th corrosive sublimate . And so we l iveand eat and sleep on the M in ata

,taking our chance

and pretending it is good .

At Suava, an other artificial island, I had a secondcrow over Charmian . A big fel la marster belongSuava (wh ich means the high chief of Suava) came onboard . But first he sent an emissary to Capta inJansen for a fathom of cal ico with which to cover hisroyal nakedness . Meanwhile he lingered in the canoealongside . The regal dirt on his chest I swear washalf an i nch thick, whi le it was a good wager that theu nderneath layers were anywhere from ten to twentyyears of age. He sent his emissary on board again ,who explai ned that the big fel la matster belong Suavawas condescendingly wil l in g enough to shake handswith Captain Jansen and me and cadge a stick or so oftrade tobacco

,but that nevertheless his high-born sou l

was sti l l at so lofty an al ti tude that i t could not si nkitself to such a depth of degradation as to shake handswith a mere female woman . Poor Charmian ! Sinceher M alaita experiences she has become a changedwoman . Her meekness and humbleness is appal lin glybecoming

,and I should not be su rprised, when we

return to civi lization and stroll along a sidewalk,to see

CRU ISING IN THE SOLOMONS 285

her take her station,with bowed head, a yard in the

rear .Nothing much happened at Su ava . Bichu , the

native cook,deserted . The M in ota dragged anchor .

I t blew heavy squal ls of wind and rain . The mate,M r. Jacobsen , and Wada were prostrated with fever.

Solomon Islands Canoe .

Our Solomon sores increased and multiplied . And thecockroaches on board held a combined Fourth of Julyand Coronation Parade . They selected midnight forthe time , and our tin y cabin for the place . They werefrom two to three inches long ; there were hundreds ofthem

,and they walked al l over us . When we

attempted to pursue them , they left solid footing, roseup in the air, and fluttered abou t like hummin - birds .They were much larger than ours on the Sn ar Butours are young yet, and haven

’ t had a chan ce to grow .

286 THE CRU ISE I O F THE SNARK

Also,the Sn ark has centipedes

,big ones

,six inches

long . We ki ll them occasional ly,usual ly in Charmian ’s

bunk . I ’ve been bitten twice by them,both times

foully, whi le I was asleep . But poor M arti n had

worse luck . After being sick i n bed for three weeks,

the first day he sat up he sat down on one . Sometimes I th ink they are the wisest who never go toCarcassonne .Later on we returned to Malu

,picked up seven te

cru its, hove up anchor, and started to beat out thetreacherous entrance . The wind was chopping about,the current upon the ugly point of reef setting strong .

Just as we were on the verge of clearing it and inin gopen sea, the wind broke off four poin ts . The ifin otaattempted to go about, but missed stays . Two of her

anchors had been lost at Tulagi . Her one remain inganchor was let go . Chain was let out to give i t a holdon the coral . Her fin keel struck bottom

,and her

main topmast lurched and shivered as if about to comedown upon our heads . She fetched up on the slackof the anchor at the moment a big comber smashedher shoreward . The chain parted . I t was ou r on lyanchor . The M in ota swung around on her heel anddrove headlong into the breakers .Bedlam reigned . All the recrui ts below

,bushmen

and afraid of the sea,dashed panic- stricken on deck

and got i n everybody ’s way . At the same time theboat

’

s crew made a rush for the rifles . They knewwhat going ashore on Malai ta meant — one hand forthe ship and the other hand to fight off the natives .What they held on with I don ’t know,

and theyneeded to hold on as the M in ota l ifted, rolled , andpounded on the coral . The bushmen clung in the


under her to save her keel and bIlges, but the trunkswere gnawed and splintered and the ropes that heldthem frayed to fragments , and sti l l she pounded and

held together. But we were luckier than the Iva n hoe ,a b ig recruiting schooner

,which had gone ashore on

M alai ta several months previously and been promptly

Men of Kewm— Solomons.

rushed by the natives . The captain and crew suc

ceeded i n getting away in the whale-boats,and the

bushmen and salt-water men looted her clean of

everything portable .Squal l after squall

,driving wind and bli nding rai n

,

smote the M in ata , whi le a heavier sea was mak i ng.

The Eug en ie lay at anchor five mi les to windward , butshe was behi nd a point of land and cou ld not know


of our mishap . At Captain Jansen ’s suggestion , Iwrote a note to Captain Keller

,asking him to bring

extra anchors and gear to our aid . But not a canoecou ld be persuaded to carry the letter . I offered halfa case of tobacco

,but the blacks grinned and held

their canoes bow-on to the breaking seas . A half acase of tobacco was worth three pounds . I n twohours, even against the strong wind and sea, a mancou ld have carried the letter and received in paymentwhat he would have labored half a year for on a plantation . I managed to get in to a canoe and paddle outto where Mr . Caulfeild was running an anchor with h iswhale-boat. My idea was that he would have moreinfluence over the natives . He cal led the canoes up tohim , and a score of them clu stered around and heardthe offer of half a case of tobacco . No one spoke .

“ I know what you think,” the missionary called

out to them .

“ You think plenty tobacco on theschooner and you ’re going to get i t. I tel l youplenty rifles on schooner. You no get tobacco, youget bu l lets .At last

,one man

,alone in a small canoe, took the

letter and started . Waiting for relief, work wen t onsteadi ly on theM in ota . H er

‘

water- tanks were emptied,and spars

,sai ls

,and bal last started shoreward . There

were lively times on board when the M in ota rol led onebilge down and then the other

,a score of men leaping

for l ife and le s as the trade- boxes , booms , and eightypound pigs 0?i ron ballast rushed across from rai l torai l and back again . The poor pretty harbor yacht !Her decks and running rigging were a raffle . Downbelow everything was disrupted . The cabin floor hadbeen torn up to get at the bal last

,and rusty bi lge-water


toil ing,praying, i n another fashion , with purposefiIl

wil l and strength of arm .

That n ight Mr. Caulfeild brought off a warn i ng.

One of our recruits had a price on his head of fiftyfathoms of shell-money and forty pigs . Baflied i ntheir desire to captu re the vessel

,the bushmen decided

Salt-water Women on the ir Way to Market. Malu . Malaita.

to get the head of the man . When ki lling begins,there

is no tel lingwhere i t wi ll e nd, so Captain Jansen armeda whale- boat and rowed in to the edge of the beach .

Ugi,one of his boat’s crew, stood up and orated for

him . Ugi was excited . Captain Jansen ’s warningthat any canoe sighted that night wou ld be pumpedfull of lead

,Ugi turned into a bell i cose declaration of

war,which wound up with a peroration somewhat to the

following effect : “ You ki ll my captain,I dri nk his

blood and die'with him !

CRU ISING IN TH E SOLOMONS 293

The bushmen contented themselves wi th burning anu noccupied mission house, and sneaked back to thebush . The next day the Eug en ie sai led in and droppedanchor. Three da s and two nights the M in otapounded on the rec ; but She held together, and theshel l of her was pu iled off at last and anchored insmooth water. There we said good by to her and allon board

,and sai led away on the Eug en ie, bound for

Florida Is lan d .

1

1 To poin t out that we of the Snark are n ot a crowd of weaklin gs,which might be concluded from our divers affliction s, I quote the

followin g, which I glean ed verbatim from the Eug eme’: log andwhich

may be con sidered as a sample of Solomon Islan ds cruISIn g

Ulay a, Thursday , March 1 2 , 1 90 8 .

Boat wen t ashore in the morn ing . Got two loads ivory n ut,

4000 copra. Skipper down with fever.

Ulava, Friday , March I 3, 1 90 8 .

Buyin g n uts from bushmen , 19 ton . Mate and skipper down withfever.

Ulava, Saturday , March 1 4, 1 908 .

At n oon hove up and proceeded with a very light E.N .E. win d forNgora-Ngora. Anchored in 8 fathoms shellandcoral . Mate

down with fever.Ngora-Ngora, Sun day , March 1 5, 1 90 8 .

At daybreak foun d that the boy Bagua haddied durin g the n ight, on

dysen tery . He was about 1 4 days sick. At sun set, big N .W .

squal l . (Secon d anchor ready ) Lastin g on e hour and 30 min utes.

At sea, Monday , March 1 6, 1 90 8 .

Set course for Sikian a at 4. P . M . Win d broke off. Heavy squallsdurin g the n ight. Skipper down on dysen tery , also on e man .

At sea,Tuesday , March 1 7 , 1 90 8 .

Skipper and 2 crew down on dysen tery . Mate fever.

At sea, Wedn esday , March 1 8 , 1 90 8 .

Big sea. Lee-rail un der water all the time . Ship un der reefedmain sail , staysail , an d in n er jib. Skipper and 3 men dysen tery .

Mate fever.


At sea, Thursday , March 1 4, 1 90 8 .

Too thick to see an ythin g. Blowin g a livin g a gale allthe time .

Pump plugged up and bailin g with buckets. Skipper and five

boys down on dysen tery .

At sea, Friday , March 20 , 1 90 8 .

Durin g n ight squalls with hurrican e force. Skipper and six men

down on dysen tery .

At sea, Saturday , March 2 1 , 1 90 8 .

Turn ed back from Sikian a . Squalls allday with heavy rain and

sea . Skipper and best part of crew on dysen tery . Mat; fever.

And so, day by day, with the majority of allon board prostrated ,the Eag en ie

’: log goes on . The only variety occurred on March 31 ,

when the mate came down with dysen tery and the skipper was flooredby fever.


A Ma laita Man .

hunters,and the labor recrui ters . I n the Solomon s,

for instance, scores of languages and dialects are spoken .

Unhappy the trader who tried to learn them al l for

BECHE D E M ER ENGLISH

in the next group to which he might wander he wouldfind scores of additional tongues . A common language was necessary — a language so simple that achild could learn i t, with a vocabulary as l imited as theintel l igence of the savages upon whom it was to be used .

The traders did notreason this out. Béche

de mer En lish was theproduct of conditionsa n d c i r c u m s t a n c e s .Function precedes or

gan ; and the need fora universal Melanesianlingo preceded béchedemer English . Béche

de mer was purely fortu itous, but it was fortuitous in the determin istic way . Also,from the fact that outof the need the lin goarose, béche de merEnglish is a splendidargument for the Es

peran to enthusiasts .A Ma laita Mary .

A l imited vocabulary means that each word shal l beoverworked . Thus, fella , In beche de mer, means al lthat piecee does and quite a bit more, and Is used contin ually In every possible connection . Another overworked word 13 belon g . Nothing stands alone . Everything 13 related . The thin g desired IS i ndicated by Itsrelation ship with other things . A primitive vocabu

lary means primitive expression,thus

,the continuance


of rain is Cxpressed as ra in he stop. Su n he come upcannot possibly be misunderstood

,while the phrase

structu re itself can be used without men ta l exertion inten thousand different ways

,as

,for i nstance, a nativewho

desires to tel l you that there are fish in the water andwho says fish he stop .

It was while tradingon Ysabel island thatI learned the excel lenceofthis usage . lwan tedtwo or three pairs ofthe large clam

- shells

(measurIn g three feetacross) , but I did notwant the meat inside .Also

,I wanted the

meat of some of thesmaller clams to makea chowder. My in

struction to the n ativesfinal ly ripened into thefollowing : “You fellabring me fel la big fella

Ve l la Lave l la Man .Clam — ka i‘ ka i he nostop

,he walk about.

You fel la bring me fella smallfel la clam ka i—ka i heSto

Ea i-ka i is the Polynesian forfood, meat, eatin g , andto ea t ,

° but it would be hard to say whether i t was introduced i nto Melanesia by the sandalwood traders orby the Polynesian westward drift . Walk abou t is aquaint phrase . Thus, if one orders a Solomon sailorto put a tackle on a boom , he will suggest, That fel la


water, but he would tel l him to capsize i t. To rin gou t is to cry loudly

,to call out, or merely to speak .

Sing-sin g i s a song . The n ative Christian does not

think of God cal li ng for Adami n the Garden of Eden ; in then ative’s mind , God sings outfor Adam .

Saw ee or catchee are practical ly the only words which havebeen in troduced strai ht frompigeon Engl ish . O course

,

picka n in n y has happened along,but some of i ts uses are deli

cion s . Having boughta fowl from a native i na canoe, the nativeasked me if I wantedP i c k a n i n n y s t o palong him fel la .” I twas not unti l he showedme a handful of hen ’seggs that I understoodhIs meaning. Myword,as an exclamation witha thousand sig n ifi

cances, could have ar

Beau of Malaltarived from n owhereelse than old England .

A paddle, a sweep , or an oar, is cal led washee, andwashee is also the verb .

Here is a letter,dictated by one Peter

,a native

trader at Santa Anna,and addressed to his employer.

Harry, the schooner captain , started to write the letter,

BECHE D E M ER ENGLISH

but was stopped by Peter at the end of the secondsentence . Thereafter the letter runs in Peter’s ownwords

,for Peter was afraid that Harry gammoned too

much, and he wanted the straight story of his needs togo to headquarters .

SANTA ANNATrader Peter has worked 1 2 mon ths for your firm and has not

received an y pay yet. He hereby wan ts (At this poin tPeter began dictation ) . Harry he gammon alon g him all the

time too much . I like him 6 tin biscuit, 4 bag rice , 24 tin bullama

cow. Me like him 2 rifle , me savvee look out alon g boat, some placeme go man he no good, he kai-kai alon g me .

PaTsa .

Bullamacow means tinned beef. This word wascorrupted from the English language by the Samoans,and from them learned by the traders , who carriedit along with them into Melanesia . Captain Cookand the other early navigators made a practice of ih

troducin g seeds , plants , and domestic animals amon gstthe natives . I t was at Samoa that one such navigatorlanded a bulland a cow . This is a bull and cow,

”

said he to the Samoans . They thought he was givinthe name of the breed, and from that day to this, bee?on the hoof and beef i n the ti n is called bullamacow.

A Solomon islander cannot say fen ce, so, in béchede mer

,i t becomes fen n is ; store is sittore, and box is

bokkis. Just now the fashion in chests, which areknown as boxes , is to have a bel l arrangement on thelock so that the box can not be opened without sounding an alarm . A box so equipped is not spoken of asa mere box

,but as the bakkis belon g bell.

7right is the béche de mer for fear. If a nativeappears timid and one asks him the cause, he is l iable


to hear in reply : Me fright along you too much .

Or the native may be fright along storm ,or wild bush

,

or haunted places .Cross covers everyform of anger. Aman may be crossat one when he isfeelin g on ly petulant or he may becross when he isseeking to chopoff your head andmake a stew outof you . A recru i t

,

after having toi ledthree years on aplantation , was re

turned to his ownvillage on Malaita .He was clad in al lkinds of gay and

He kn ew the Sanda lwood Traders and the Sportivefiarmcn ts.

Béche de Mar F ishermen .

on his cad wasa top- hat . He possessed a trade- box fu l l of cal ico

,

beads,porpoise- teeth

,and tobacco . Hardly was the

anchor down,when the vil lagers were on board . The

recrui t looked anxiously for his own relatives,but

none was to be seen . One of the natives took thepipe out ofh is mouth . Another confiscated the strin gsof beads from around his neck . A third rel ieved himof his gaudy loin - cloth

,and a fourth tried on the top

hat and omi tted to retu rn it. Finally , one of themtook his trade-box ,

which represented three years ’ toi l,


plantations of Bougainvil le island,who are compelled

to learn beche de mer English in order to handle then ati ve laborers . I t Is to them an unscientific polyglot

,

and there are no text-books by which to study I

I t is a source of unholy delight to the other whitt

e

planters and traders tohear the German wrestl ing stol idly with thec i r cum l ocu ti o ns an dshort- cu ts of a languagethat has no grammarand no dictionary .

Some years ago largenumbers of Solomonislanders were recruitedto labor on the sugarplantations of !ueensland . A mission aryurged one of the laborers, who was a convert,to get up and preach asermon to a shipload ofSolomon islanders who

Old Woman of Vella Lave l la.had just arrived . He

chose for his subject theFall of M an , and the address he gave became a classici n al l Australasia . I t proceeded somewhat in the

following manner“ Altogether you boy belong Solomons you n o

savvee white man . Me fella me savvee him . Me

fella me savvee talk along white man .

Before long time altogether no place he stop . God

big fella matster belong white man, him fella He make’

m

BECHE D E MER ENGLISH 39 5

altogether. God big fel la matster belong white man,

He make ’m big fel la garden . He good fella too much .

A long garden plenty yam he stop, plen ty cocoanut,plenty taro, plenty kumara (sweet potatoes) , al togethergood fel la ka i-ka i too much .

Bimeby God big fella mat ster belong white manH e make ’

m one fella man and put ’

m alon g garden belong Him . He call ’

m th is fel la man Adam . Hen ame belong h im . He put him th is fel la man Adamalong garden , and He speak, This fel la garden he belong you .

’ And He look ’

m this fella Adam he walkabout too much . H im fella Adam allthe same sick ;he no savvee ka i—ka i ; he walk about all the time .And God He n o savvee . God big fel la mat ster belongwhite man

,He scratch ’

m head belon Him . Godsay : ‘What name ? M e no savvee wi at name thisfel la Adam he want . ’

Bimeby God He scratch ’

m head belong H im toomuch , and speak : Me fella me savvee, him fellaAdam him want ’

m M ary .

’

So He make Adam he

gt

!

) asleep, He take one fella bon e belongihim, and

e make ’

m one fel la Mary alon g bone . e call h imthis fel la Mary

,Eve . He give ’

m this fella Eve alongAdam

,and He speak along him fel la Adam : Close

up altogether along this fella garden belon g you twofel la . One fel la tree he tambo (taboo) along you altogether . This fel la tree belong apple . ’

“ So Adam Eve two fella stop along garden , andthey two fella have ’

m good time too much . Bimeby,one day , Eve she come alon

gAdam

,and she speak ,

More good you me two ella we eat ’

m this fellaapple . ’ Adam he speak , No,

’ and Eve she speak,

What name you no like ’

mme?’ AndAdam he speak,


Me like ’

m you too much,but me fright along God .

’

And Eve she speak,Gammon ! What name 9 God

He no savvee look along us two fel la all’

m time . Godbig fella marster, H e gammon along you .

’ But Adamhe speak, N O .

’ But Eve she talk,tal k, talk , allee

time — allee same Mary she talk along boy along

Queensland and make ’

m trouble along boy . And

bimeby Adam he ti red too much , and he speak, Allright . ’ So these two fella they go eat ’

m. When theyfinish eat ’

m,my word

,they fright like hell

,and they

go hide alon g scrub .

And God he come walk about along garden , andHe sin out, ‘Adam !’ Adam he no speak . He too

much right . My word And God He S i ng out‘Adam And Adam he speak

,You call ’

m me ?

CHAPTER XVI I

The Amateur M .D .

WHEN we sai led from San Francisco on the Sn arkI kn ew as much about sickness as the Admiral of theSwiss Navy knows about salt water. And here, at thestart

,let me advise any one who meditates going to

out-of- the-way tropic places . Go to a first- class druggist the sort that have specialists on the ir salary l istwho know everything . Talk the matter over wi thsuch an one. Note carefully allthat he says . Havea l ist made of allthat he recommen ds . Write out a

check for the total cost, and tear i t up .

I wish I had done the same . I shou ld have beenfar wiser, I know n ow,

if I had bought one of thoseready-made

,self-acting, fool- proofmedicine chests such

as are favored by fourth- rate ship-masters . I n such achest each bottle has a number . On the inside of thelid is placed a simple table of directi ons : No. 1 , toothache ; No . 2

,smallpox ; N o . 3, stomachache ; No . 4,

cholera ; No . 5, rheumatism ; and so on , through the

list’

of human i l ls . And I might have used it as dida certai n venerable skipper

,who, when No . 3 was

empty,mixed a dose from No . I and N O . 2 , or,

when No . 7 was all gone, dosed his crew with 4

and 3 ti l l 3 gave out, when he used 5 and 2 .

SO far,with the exception of corrosive sublimate

(which was recommended as an antiseptic i n surgicaloperations

,and which I have not yet used for that

purpose) , my medicine- chest has been useless . I t has308

THE AMATEUR M .D . 309

been worse than useless,for i t has occupied much space

which I could have used to advantage.With my surgical instruments i t is differen t. Whi leI have n ot yet had serious use for them, I do not regretthe space they occupy . The thought of them makesme feel good . They are so much life insurance, only,fairer than that last grim game, one is not supposed todie i n order to win . Of course, I don

’t know how touse them

,and what I don ’t know about surgery would

set up a dozen quacks in prosperous practice . But

needs must when the devil drives, and we of the Sn arkhave no warning when the devi l may take it i n to hishead to drive, ay, even a thousand miles from land andtwenty days from the nearest port.I did n ot know anything about dentistry , but a

friend fitted me ou t with forceps and similar weapons,and in Honolulu I picked up a book upon teeth . A lso

,

in that sub- tropical city I man aged to get hold of askul l, from which I extracted the teeth swiftly and painlessly . Thus equipped, I was ready, though not exactly eager, to tackle any tooth that got in my way .

I t was in Nuku- hiva, in the M ar n esas,that my first

case presented i tself i n the shape ofa l i ttle,old Chinese .

The first thing I did was to get the buck fever,and I

leave i t to any fair-minded person if buck'

fever, withits attendant heart-palpitations and arm-tremblings

,i s

the right condition for a man to be in who is endeavoring to pose as an old hand at the business . I did notfool the aged Chi naman . He was as frightened as Iand a bit more shaky . I almost forgot to be frightenedin the fear that he would bolt . I swear

, if he had triedto, that I would have tripped him up and sat on himuntil calmness and reason returned .


I wanted that tooth . Also, Martin wanted a snapshot of me getting it . Likewise Charmian got hercamera . Then the procession started . We were stopping at what had been the club house when Stevensonwas in the Marquesas on the Carco. On the veranda

,

where he had passed so many pleasant hours,the light

was not good for snapshots , I mean . I led on intothe garden , a chair in one hand, the other hand filledwith forceps of various sorts, my knees knocking together disgracefully . The poor old Chinaman camesecond , and he was shaking, too . Charmian andMartin brought up the rear, armed with kodaks . Wedived under the avocado trees, threaded our waythrough the cocoanut palms

,and came on a spot that

satisfied Marti n ’s photographic eye .I looked at the tooth , and then discovered that I

could not remember anything about the teeth I hadpulled from the skull five months prev iously . Did ithave one rong ? two prongs?or three prongs ? Whatwas left oftbe part that showed appeared very crumbly ,and I kn ew that I shou ld have to take hold of thetooth deep down in the gum . I t was very necessarythat I should know how many prongs that tooth had .

Back to the house I went for the book on teeth . Thepoor old victim looked like photographs I had seen offel low countrymen of his , criminals, on their knees,waiting the stroke of the beheading sword .

“ Don ’ t let him get away,

” I cautioned to M arti n .

I want that tooth .

I sure won ’ t,

” he replied with enthusiasm,from

behin d his camera .

“ I want that photograph .

”

For the first time I felt sorry for the Chinaman .

Though the book did n ot tel l me anything about pul l


I gave a pull . Ye gods ! The tooth was loose !Out it came on the instant. I was jubilant as I heldi t aloft in the forceps .Put it back, please, oh , put it back, M artin

pleaded . You were too quick for me .And the poor old Chinaman sat there while I putthe tooth back and pu lled over. M artin snapped thecamera . The deed was done . Elation ? Pride ? Nohunter was ever prouder of his first pronged buck thanI was of that three-pronged tooth . I did it ! I didit ! Wi th my own hands and a pair of forceps I didit,to say nothing of the forgotten memories of the dead

man ’s sku ll .M y n ex t casewas a Tahitian sai lor . He was a small

man , i n a state of col lapse from long days and nightsof jumping toothache . I lanced the gums first. Ididn ’t know how to lance them ,

but I lanced them justthe same . I t was a long pull and a strong pull . Theman was a hero . He roan ed and moaned, and Ithought he was going tofaint . But he kept his mouthopen and let me pul l . And then it came .After that I was ready to meet allcomers just the

proper state of mind for a Waterloo . And it came .I ts name was Tomi . He was a strapping giant of aheathen with a bad reputation . He was addicted todeeds of violence . Amon g other things he had beatentwo of his wives to death with his fists . His fatherand mother had been n aked cann ibals . When he sat

down and I put the forceps into his mouth,he was

nearly as tal l as I was standing up . Big men,prone

to violence, very often have a streak of fat i n theirmake-u p, so I was doubtfulof him . Charmian grabbedone arm and Warren grabbed the other. Then the


tug ofwar began . The Instant the forceps closed downon the tooth , his jaws closed down on the forceps .Also

,both his hands flew up and gripped my pu lli ng

hand . I held on,and he held on . Charmian and

Warren held on . We wrestled al l about the shop .

I t was three against one,and my hold on an aching

tooth was certain ly a fou l one ; but in spite of the

Careen in g the S n ark.

handicap he got away with us . The forceps sl ippedoff

,bangin g and grinding along against his upper teeth

with a nerve-scraping sound . Out of his mouth flewthe forceps , and he rose up in the air with a bloodcurdlin g yell . The three ofus fel l back . We ex pectedto be massacred . But that howling savage of sanguinary reputation sank back i n the chai r . He held hishead in both his hands

,and groaned and groaned and


groaned . Nor would he listen to reason . I was a

quack . M y pain less tooth-extraction was a delusionand a snare and a low advertisi ng dodge . I was so an xious to get that tooth that I was almost ready to bribehim . But that went against my professional pride andI let him depart with the tooth sti ll i ntact, the onlycase on record up to date of fai lure on my part whenonce I had got a grip . Since then I have never let atooth go by me . Only the other day I volunteeredto beat up three days to windward to ulla womanmissionar ’

S tooth . I expect, before t e voyage of

the Sn a rk)

is finished,to be doing bridge work and

putti n g on gold crowns .I don ’ t know whether they are yaws or n ot— a

physician in Fij i told me they were,and a missionary

in the Solomons told me they were not ; but at anyrate I can vouch for the fact that they are most u n comfortable . I t was my luck to ship in Tahiti a Frenchsai lor

,who

,when we got to sea

,proved to be affl icted

with a vile skin disease . The Sn ark was too small andtoo much of a family party to permit retaining him onboard ; but perforce, unti l we could reach land anddischarge him

,i t was up to me to doctor h im . I read

u

pthe books and proceeded to treat him , taking care

a terwards always to use a thorough antiseptic wash .

When we reached Tutu i la,far from getting rid of him ,

the port doctor declared a quarantine agai nst him andrefused to al low him ashore . But at Apia, Samoa, Imanaged to Ship him off on a steamer to New ! ealand .

Here at Apia my ankles were badly bitten by mos

qu itoes, and I confess to having scratched the bitesas I had a thousand times before . By the time Ireached the island of Savaii, a smallsore had developed

THE AMATEUR M .D . 31 7

me as vicious . Talk of fighting fire with fire ! I wasbeing consumed by a corros ive poison , and it appealedto my fancy to fight it with another corrosive poison .

After several days I alternated dressings of corrosivesublimate with dressings of peroxide of hydro en .

And behold,by the time we reached Fij i four 0 the

five ulcers were healed,whi le the remaining on e was

no bigger than a pea .I n ow fel t fiIlly qualified to treat yaws . Likewise I

had a wholesome respect for them . Not so the restof the crew of the Sn ark. I n their case

,seeing was

n ot believ in g. One and all, they had seen my dreadfulpredi cament ; and allof them ,

I am convinced, hada subcon scious certi tude that their own superb con stitutions and glorious personali ties would never al low lodgment of so vile a poi son in their carcasses as myanaemi c consti tution and mediocre personality had allowed to lodge in mine . At Port Resolution , i n theN ew Hebrides , M artin elected to walk barefooted inthe bush and returned on board with many cuts andabrasions, especial ly on his shins .

“ You ’d better be careful ,” I warned him.

“ I’ l l

mix up some corrosive sublimate for you to wash thosecuts with . An oun ce of prevention , you know .

But Martin smi led a superior smile . Though hedid not say so

,I nevertheless was given to understand

that he was not as other men (I was the only man hecou ld possibly have had referen ce to) , and that I n a coupleof days his cu ts would he healed . He also read me adissertation upon th e pecu l iar purity ofhis blood and hisremarkable heali ng powers . I fel t quite humble whenhe was done with me . Ey iden tly I was different fromother men in so far as puri ty of blood was concerned .

31 8 THE CRUISE OF TH E SNARK

Nakata,the cabin- boy

,while i roning one day, m is

took the calf of his leg for the ironing- block and

accumu lated a burn three inches in length and half aninch wide . He

,too

,smiled the superior smile when I

offered him corrosive subl imate and remin ded him of

my own cruel experience . I was given to understan d,with al l due suavity and courtesy

,that n o matter

Visitors comin g a lon gside , Merin ge Lagoon , Ysabe l. Solomon Islands.

what was the matter with my blood,his number-one

,

Japanese , Port-Arthur blood was allright and scornfulof the festive microbe .Wada, the cook, took part in a disastrous landin g

of the launch,when he had to leap overboard and

fend the launch off the beach in a smashing surf.By means of shel ls and coral he cu t his legs and feetup beautifully . I offered him the corrosive sublimatebottle . Once again I suffered the superior sm i le and


sympatheti c detailthe treatment that should be g iven .

Nakata followed instruction s implicitly,and day by

day his sores grew smaller . Wada was apathetic, andcured less .readIly . But M artin sti l l doubted

,and be

cause he did not cure immediately,he developed the

theory that whi le doctor ’s dope was al l right, i t did n ot

follow that the same kind of dope was efficacious witheverybody . As for himself, corrosive subl imate hadno effect. Besides

,how did I know that i t was the

right stuff ? I had had no experience . Just becauseI happened to get well while using i t was n ot proofthat i t had played any part in the cure . There weresuch things as coincidences . Without doubt there wasa dope that would cure the sores, and when he ran

across a real doctor he would find what that dope wasand get some of i t.About this time we arrived in the Solomon Islands.

NO physician would ever recommend the group forinvalids or sanitariums . I spent but l ittle time thereere I real ly and for the first time in my life comprehended how frai l and unstable is human tissue . Ou r

first anchorage was Port Mary,on the island of San ta

Anna. The one lone wh ite man,a trader, came along

side. Tom Butler was his name,and he was a beautiful

example ofwhat the Solomon s can do to a strong man .

He lay in his whale-boat with the helplessness of adying man . NO smile and little intel l igence i l luminedhis face . He was a sombre death ’s-head

,too far gone

to gri n . He , too, had yaws, big ones . We werecompel led to drag him over the rai l of the Sn ark.

He said that his heal th was good,that he had n ot had

the fever for some time,and that with the exception

of his arm he was al l right and trim . H is arm ap

THE AMATEUR M .D .


peared to be paralyzed . Paralysis he rejected withscorn . He had had it before , and recovered . I t wasa common native disease on Santa Anna

,he said, as he

was helped down the companion ladder,his dead arm

dropping, bump-bump

,from Step to step . He was

certaInly the ghastl iest guest we ever entertained, andwe ’ve had not a few lepers and elephantiasis victims onboard .

M artin inquired about yaws , for here was a manwho ought to know . He certai n ly did know, if wecould

'

udge by his soarred arms and legs and by thelive ulcers that corroded in the midst of the scars .Oh , one got used to yaws , quoth Tom Butler . Theywere never really serious until they had eaten deep intothe flesh . Then they attacked the wall s of the arteries,the arteries burst, and there was a funeral . Several ofthe natives had recen tly died that way ashore. Butwhat did it matter ? If i t wasn ’ t yaws , i t was something else — in the Solomons .I noticed that from this moment M artin displayed a

swiftly i n creasing interest in his own yaws . D osin gs

with corrosive sublimate were more frequent,whi le

,in

conversation,he began to revert wi th growing en

thusiasm to the clean cl imate of Kansas and al l otherthings Kansan . Charmian and I thought that Cal iforn ia was a l ittle bit of all right . Henry swore byRapa, and Tehci staked allon Bora Bora for his OWnblood ’s sake ; whi le Wada and Nakata sang the sanitary paean of Japan .

O n e evening, as the Sn a rk worked around the

southern end of the island of Ugi , looking for a re

pured anchorage, a Church of England missionary, aMr. Drew, bound in his whale- boat for the coast of


San Cristoval,came alon gside and stopped for dinn er.

Martin,his legs swathed in Red Cross bandages ti l l

they looked like a mummy ’s,turned the conversation

upon yaws . Yes , said Mr . Drew, they were quite common in the Solomons . All white men caught them .

And have you had them? Martin demanded,i n the

soul of him quite shocked that a Church of En glandmissionary could possess so vulgar an affl iction .

Mr. Drew nodded his head and added that not onlyhad he had them, but at that moment he was doctoring several .What do you use on them ? Martin asked lik e

a flash .

My heart almost stood stil l waiting the answer. Bythat answer my professional medical prestige stood orfel l . Marti n

,I could see

,was quite sure i t was goin g

to fal l . And then the answer O blessed answer !Corrosive subl imate

,

” said Mr . Drew .

Martin gave in handsomely,I ’ l l adn i it, and I am

confident that at that moment,if I had asked per

mission to pul l one of his teeth , he would not haveden ied me .All white men in the Solomons catch yaws, and

every cut or abrasion practical ly means another yaw.

Every man I met had had them ,and nine out of te n

had active ones . There was but one exception , ayoung fellow who had been in the islands five months

,

who had come down with fever ten days after he arrived

,and who had si nce then been down so often

with fever that he had had nei ther time nor Opportunity for yaws .Every one on the Sn a rk except Charmian came down

with yaws . Hers was the same egotism that Japan


and Kansas had displayed . She ascribed her immunityto the pureness of her blood, and as the days wen t byshe ascribed it more often and more loudly to the pureness of her blood . Privately I ascribed her immuni tyto the fact that, being a woman , she escaped most of thecu ts and abrasions to which we hard-working men weresubject in the course of working the Sn ark around theworld . I did not tell her so . You see, I did notwish to bruise her ego with brutal facts . Bei ng anM .D . ,

if only an amateur one, I knew more about thedisease than she , and I knew that time was my al ly .

But alas,I abused my al ly when it deal t a charming

little yaw on the shin . SO quickly did I apply antiseptic treatment, that the yaw was cured before she wasconvinced that she had one . Agai n

,as an M .D . ,

I waswithout honor on my own vessel ; and , worse thanthat, I was charged with having tried to mislead herin to the belief that she had had a yaw . The purenessof her blood was more rampant than ever, and I pokedmy nose into my navigation books and kept quiet .And then came the day . We were cruising along thecoast ofMalaita at the time .What’s that abaft your ankle-bone said I .

Nothi ng,” said she .

All right, said I ; but put some corrosivesublimate on it just the same . And some two orthree weeks from now, when it is wel l and you have ascar that you wil l carry to your grave, just forgetabout the purity of your blood and your ancestralh istory and tel l me what you think about yaws an ywa

It was as large as a S i lver dol lar, that yaw, and it tookall of three weeks to heal . There were times when


Charmian could not walk because of the hurt of It

and there were times upon times when she explainedthat abaft the ankle bone was the most painful place tohave a yaw . I explai ned

,i n turn , that, never havin g

experienced a yaw in that locali ty , I was driven to con

The S n ark’s Complemen t in the Solomons after we lost the Cook and

gain ed a German Mate who didn ’

t last.

e lude the hol low of the i n step was the most painful placefor yaw- culture . We left i t to Martin , who disagreedwith both of us and proclaimed passionately that theonly truly pain fu l place was the shin . No wonderhorse- raci n g is so popular .But yaws lose their novel ty after a time . At the

present moment of writi n g I have five yaws on my


bad funk . He was of the firm conviction that his starhad set and that the Solomons would receive his bones .He saw that l ife about himwas cheap . At Penduffrynhe saw the ravages of dysentery , and , un fortunately forhim

,he saw one victim carried out on a strip of galvan

iz ed sheet- iron and dumped without coffin or funerali nto a hole in the ground . Everybody had fever

,

everybody had dysen tery , everybody had everythin g.

Death was common . Here to-day and gone to-morrow— and Wada forgot all about to-day and made uphis mind that to-morrow had come .He was careless of his u lcers, neglected to sublimate

them,and by uncontrol led scratching spread them all

over his body . Nor would he follow instructions withfever

,and , as a resul t, would be down five days at a

time,when a day would have been suflicien t. Henry

,

who is a strappi ng giant of a man , was just as bad .

He refu sed point blank to take quin ine,on the ground

that years before he had had fever and that the pillsthe doctor gave him were of different size and colorfrom the quinine tablets I offered him . So Henryjoined Wada .But I fooled the pair of them

,and dosed them with

their own medicine,which was faith- cure . They had

faith in their funk that they were going to die . Islammed a lot of quinine down their throats and tooktheir temperatu re . I t was the first time I had u sedmy medicine- chest thermometer

,and I quickly dis

covered that it was worthless,that it had been produced

for profit and not for service . If I had let on to mytwo patients that the thermometer did not work

,there

would have been two funerals i n Short order. Theirtemperature I swear was I solemnly made one

TH E AMATEUR M .D . 329

and then the other smoke the thermometer,al lowed an

expression of satisfaction to irradiate my countenance,

and joyfully told them that their temperature wasThen I s lammed more quinine down thei r throats

,told

them that any sickn ess or weakness they might ex

perience would be due to the quinine, and left them toget wel l . A nd they did get well

,Wada i n spi te of

himself. If a man can die through a misapprehension,

is there any immorali ty i n making him live through amisapprehensionCommend me the white race when it comes to gri t

and surviving . One of our two Japanese and both ourTahitians fu nked and had to be slapped on the back andcheered up and dragged along by main strength towardlife . Charmian and Martin took thei r afflictIon s cheerfully

,made the least of them

,and moved with calm

certitude along the way of l ife . When Wada andHenry were convinced that they were goin to die , thefuneralatmosphere was too much for

gI

‘

ehei, whoprayed dolorously and cried for hours at a time .Martin , on the other hand, cu rsed and got well, andCharmian groaned and made plans for what she wasgoing to do when she got wel l again .

Charmian had been raised a vegetarian and a sanitarian . Her Aunt Netta, who brought her up andwho lived in a healthful cl imate, did not bel ieve indrugs . Neither did Charmian . Besides , drugs disagreed with her . Thei r effects were worse than the i l lsthey were supposed to alleviate . But she listened tothe argument in favor of quin ine, accepted it as thelesser evi l

,and in consequence had Shorter, less painfu l ,

and less frequent attacks of fever . We encountered aMr. Caulfeild

,a missionary, whose two predecessors


had died after less than six months ’ residence in theSolomons . Like them he had been a firm believer inhomeopathy , unti l after his first fever, whereupon ,unlike them , he made a grand s lide back to allopathyand quinine, catching fever and carryi ng on his Gospelwork .

But poor Wada The straw that broke the cook ’sback was when Charmian and I took him along on a

cruise to the can nibal island of Malaita, in a smallyacht

,on the deck of which the captain had been

murdered half a year before . Ka i-ka i means to eat,

and Wada was sure he was going to be ka i-ka i ’d.

We went about heavi ly armed,our vigi lance was u n

remitting,and when we went for a bath i n the mouth

of a fresh-water stream , black boys , armed with rifles ,did sentry duty about us . We encountered Englishwar vessels burning and shelling vi l lages in punishment for murders . Natives with prices on their headssought shel ter on board of us . Murder stalked abroadin the land . I n out-of- the-way places we receivedwarnings from friendly savages of impending attacks .Our vessel owed two heads to Malaita, which wereliable to be col lected any time . Then to cap it al l

,

we were wrecked on a reef, and with rifles in one han dwarned the canoes of wreckers off while with theother hand we toi led to save the ship . All of whichwas too much forWada

,who went daffy, and who final ly

guit the Sn a rk on the is land of Ysabel

,going ashore

or good in a driving rain- storm,between two attacks

of fever, while threaten ed with pneumonia. If heescapes being ka i—ka i’d

,and if he can su rvive sores and

fever which are riotous ashore,he can expect, if he is

reasonably lucky, to get away from that place to the


i n becoming a reputable M .D . ,i t won ’t be from lack

of practice .P .S. I t is now two weeks since the foregoi ng was

written,and Tebei, the only immune on board, has

been down ten days with far severer fever than any ofus and is sti l l down . His temperature has been re

peatedly as high as 1 04, and his pulse 1 I 5.

P .S. At sea, between Tas

man atoll and Man n ing Straits .Tehei

’

s attack developedin to black water fever — the

severest form of malarialfever,

wh ich,the doctor-book assures

me , is due to some outside infection as wel l . Having pul ledhim through his fever

,I am

now at my wit’s end, for hehas lost his wi ts altogether. Iam rather recent in practice totake up the cure of in sanity .

This makes the second lunacycase on this short voyage .

Laundry B il ls are n ot amon gh is Vex ations. HIS Garb,

P S Some day I Shallhowever, is a Con cession to write a book (for the profes

Howe sion) , and entitle it,“ Around

the World on the HospitalShip Sn a rk. Even our pets have not escaped . Wesai led from Merin ge Lagoon with two

,an I rish terrier

and a white cockatoo . The terrier fell down the cabincompanionway and lamed i ts nigh hin d leg

,then re

peated the man oeuvre and lamed its off fore leg . At thepresen t momen t i t has but two legs to walk on . Fortu

n ately, they are on opposi te sides and ends, so that she


can sti l l dot and carry two . The cockatoo was crushedunder the cabin skylight and had to be kil led . Thiswas our first funeral — though for that matter

,the

several chickens we had, and which would have madewelcome broth for the convalescents

,flew overboard

and were drowned . Only the cockroaches flourish .

Neither il l ness nor accident ever befal ls them,and they

grow larger and more carn ivorou s day by day, gnawingour fin ger- nails and toe-nails whi le we sleep .

P .S. Charmian is having another bout with fever.Martin

,i n despair

,has taken to horse-doctoring his

yaws with bluestone and to blessing the Solomons .As for me, in addition to navi ating, doctoring, andwriting short stories , I am far gom wel l . With theex ceptIon of the Insanity cases , I

’m the worstoffon board .

I shal l catch the n ext steamer to Austral ia andgo on theoperating table . Among my min or affliction s, I maymention a new and mysterious one . For the past weekmy han ds have been swell in g as with dropsy . I t is onlyby a painful effort that I can close them. A pullona rope is excruciating. The sen sation s are like thosethat accompany severe chilblains . Also

,the skin is

peel ing of both hands at an alarming rate, besideswhich the new skin undern eath is growin g hard and

thick . The doctor-book fai ls to mention this disease.Nobody knows what i t is .P .S. Well

,anyway , I

’ve cured the chronometer.After knocking about the sea for eight squally , rainydays

,most of the time hove to

,I succeeded in catching

a partial observation of the sun at midday . From thi sI worked up my latitude

,then headed by log to the

latitude ofLordH owe , andran both that latitude and theisland down together. Here I tested the chronometer


by longitude sights and found it something like threeminutes out . Si nce each minute is equivalent to fifteenmiles

,the total error can be appreciated . By repeated

observation s at Lord Howe I rated the chronometer,

The Trader’

s House at Lua Nua , Lord Howe Atol l .

fin ding i t to have a dai ly losing error of seven-tenthsof a second . N ow i t happens that a year ago

,when we

sai led from Hawaii,that selfsame chronometer had

that selfsame losi n g error of seven- tenths of a second .

Since that error was faithfu l ly added every day , and

BACKWORD

THE Sn ark was forty- three feet on the water-l ineand fifty- five over all

,with fifteen feet beam (tumble

home sides) and seven feet eight i nches draft. She wasketch-rigged , carrying flyin g

-j ib , j ib, fore-staysail, mai nsai l , mizzen , and spIn n aker. There were six feet ofhead-room below

,and she was crown-decked and flush

decked. There were four al leged wa ter-tig ht compartments . A seven ty- horse power auxiliary gas- enginesporadical ly furnished locomotion at an approximate costof twen ty dol lars per mi le . A five- horse power en gineran the pumps when it was in order, and on two occasionsproved capable of fu rnishi ng juice for the search- light .The storage batteries worked four or five times in thecourse of two years . The fou rteen-foot launch wasrumored to work at times, but it i nvariably broke downwhen ever I stepped on board .

Bu t the Sn a rk sai led . I t was the only way she couldget anywhere . She sailed for two years

,and never

touched rock,reef

,nor shoal . She had n o i nside ballast

,

her i ron keel weighed five tons,but her deep draft and

high freeboard made her very stiff. Caught u nder ful lsail i n tropic squal ls , She buried her rai l and deck manytimes

,bu tstubbornly refused to tu rn turtle . She steered

easi ly,and she could run day and night

, wi thout steering, close-by, full- and-by, and with the wind abeam .

Wi th the wind on her quarter and the sai ls properly336

BACKWORD 337

trimmed, she steered herself within two points , andwith the wind almost astern she required scarcely threepoints for self- steeri ng .

The Sn arkwas partly bui lt in San Francisco . Themorning her iron keel was to be cast was the mOrn in gof the great earthquake . Then came anarchy . Six

months overdue in the building,I sailed the shel l ofher

to Hawai i to be fi n ished, the engine lashed to the bottom ,

building materials lashed on deck . Had I remained inSan Francisco for completion , I

’d stil l be there . As it\\was

,partly bu i lt, she cost four times what she ought to

have cost.The Sn arkwas born unfortunately . She was l ibelled

i n San Francisco , had her checks protestedas fraudulen tin Hawan

,and was fined for breach of quarantine in the

Solomons . To save themselves, the newspapers couldnot tel l the truth about her. When I discharged an incompetent captain

,they said I had beaten him to a pu lp .

When one young man returned home to conti nue atcol lege, i twas reported that I was a regular WolfLarsen ,and that my whole crew had deserted because I hadbeaten it to a pulp . I n fact the only blow struck on theSn ark was when the cook was manhandled by a captainwho had shipped wi th me under false pretences , and whomI discharged in Fij i . Also , Charmian and I boxed forexercise ; bu t neither of us was seriously maimed .

The voyage was our idea of a good time . I buil tthe Sn ark and paid for i t

,and for all expenses . I con

tracted to wri te thirty-five thou sand words descriptiveof the trip for a magazine which was to pay me the samerate I received for stories written at home . Promptlythe magazine advertised that i t was sen din g me especially around the world for itself. I t was a weal thy


m azin e. And every man who had business deal ingswit the Sn ark charged three prices because forsooththe magaz ine could afford it. Down in the uttermostSouth Sea is le this myth obtained, and I paid accordin gly. To this day everybod bel ieves that the magazine paid for everything and that I made a fortune ou tof the voyage . I t is hard

,after such advertising, to

hammer i t into the human understanding that the wholevoyage was done for the fu n of i t.I went to Austral ia to go into hospital

,where I spent

five weeks . I spent five months miserably sick inhotels . The mysterious malady that afflicted my handswas too much for the Australian specialists . I t wasunknown in the li teratu re of medici ne . N0 case l ikeit had ever been reported . I t extended from my handsto my feet so that at times I was as helpless as a chi ld .

On occasion my hands were twice their natural size,with seven dead and dying skins peel ing off at the sametime. There were times when my toe- nai ls, i n twentyfour hours , grew as thick as they were long . Afterfi l i ng them Off

,inside another twenty-four hours they

were as thick as before .The Australian specialists agreed that the malady

was non-parasitic, and that,therefore

,i t must be

nervous . I t did not mend,and it was impossibl e for

me to continue the voyage . The only way I cou ldhave con tinued i t would have been by being lashed inmy bunk

,for i n my helpless condition , unabl e to clutch

wi th my hands , I could not have moved abou t on a

smal l rolli ng boat. Also , I said to myself that whilethere were many boats and many voyages

,I had bu t

one pair of hands and one set of toe- nai ls . Sti l l further ,I reasoned that in my own climate of California I had

349 THE CRUISE -OF THE SNARK

the news to Charmian that I must go back to Californ ia, the tears welled i nto her eyes . For two daysshe was wrecked and broken by the knowledge that thehappy, happy voyage was abandoned.

GLEN ELLEN , CALIFORN IA,April 7, 1 9 I I .

HE followin g pages con tain advertisemen tsof a few of the Macmil lan n ovels.

J ack London’

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Eack, cloth , illustrated, lzw , 81 50

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There is n o hesitan cy or un certain ty of touch . From th e

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”

Cour i er journ al.

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'

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