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THE-CRUISE OF THE
SNARK-
BY
JACK LONDON
t .
AUTHOR OF "BURNING DAYLIGHT," "MARTIN EDEN,"
"THE CALL OF THE WILD," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
gorfe
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1911
All rights reserved
L
c.
COPYRIGHT, 1908,
BY HARPER & BROTHERS.
COPYRIGHT, 1906,
BY THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1907, 1908, AND 1909,
BY THE CROWELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.
COPYRIGHT, 1911,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1911.
Xortoootj
J. 8. dishing Co. Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
CHARMIAN
THE MATE OF THE SNARK
WHO TOOK THE WHEEL, NIGHT OR DAY, WHEN ENTERING
OR LEAVING PORT OR RUNNING A PASSAGE, WHO
TOOK THE WHEEL IN EVERY EMERGENCY, AND WHO WEPT
AFTER TWO YEARS OF SAILING, WHEN THE
VOYAGE WAS DISCONTINUED
236289
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. FOREWORD .....
II. THE INCONCEIVABLE AND MONSTROUS
III. ADVENTURE .....
IV. FINDING ONE S WAY ABOUT
V. THE FIRST LANDFALL
VI. A ROYAL SPORT ....
VII. THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI
VIII. THE HOUSE OF THE SUN
IX. A PACIFIC TRAVERSE ....
X. TYPEE
XI. THE NATURE MAN ....
XII. THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE
XIII. STONE-FISHING OF BORA BORA
XIV. THE AMATEUR NAVIGATOR .
XV. CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS
XVI. BECHE DE MER ENGLISH
XVII. THE AMATEUR M.D.
BACKWORD
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Frontispiece in colors
PAGE
1 . The Building of the Snark ..... 9
2. The Snark Set Up . II
3. Interior View of Frame . . . . . .12
4. Hull of the Snark . 15
5. Charmian and the Skipper . . . . . .21
6. Taking on Stores at Oakland City Wharf . . .25
7. Our Head-sails 31
8. The Two Boats, on Deck, left Little Room . . 13
9. The Best Adventurer of them All . . . -37
10. On a Level Sea ....... 40
IT. The Doldrums ....... 45
12. Doing her Trick ....... 48
13. The Dark Secrets of Navigation . . . . .52
14. Land Ho ! 54
15. Our First Guny . . . . . . -57
1 6. A Big Wave that is liable to steal the Horizon Away . 61
17. In the Heel of the Northeast Trader .... 64
1 8. The Snark at her First Anchorage .... 66
19. The Wharf that wouldn t stand Still .... 67
20. Tropic Loot ........ 70
21. Dream Harbor . . . . . . 73
22. Coming in on a Wave ...... j6
23. Leviathan and the Snark . . . . . 77
24. Good Morning ....... 79
25. Standing up and lying down . . . . .81
26. Beating the Break of the Wave .... 84
ix
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
27. The Wave that Everybody Caught . . . .87
28. Molokai. "Horribles" on Morning of July Fourth.
They are All Lepers . . . . . 93
29. Molokai, Pa-u Riders on Morning of Fourth of July . 96
30. Molokai, a Pa-u Rider ...... 99
31. Molokai Leper Fishermen in their Boats at Boat Landing . 102
32. Molokai. Village of Kalaupapa. The Pali, or Precipice,
in the Background varies in Height between Two
Thousand and Four Thousand Feet . . . 104
33. Molokai. Looking down Damien Road . . .106
34. Molokai. Father Damien s Church . . . .108
35. Molokai. Father Damien s Grave . . . .no
36. One Pack-horse carried Twenty Gallons of Water in Five-
gallon Bags . . . . . . .114
37. We had a Lunch of Jerked Beef and Hard Poi in a Stone
Corral I 1 8
38. On the Crater s Rim 121
39. The Cinder Cones, the Smallest over Four Hundred Feet
in Height, the Largest over Nine Hundred, on the Floor
of the Crater, nearly Haifa Mile Beneath . . .123
40. A Lope across a Level Stretch to the Mouth of a Con
venient Blow-hole . . . . . .125
41. Our Way led past a Bottomless Pit . . . .127
42. That Entering Wedge of Cloud is a Mile and a Half Wide
in the Gap itself, while beyond the Gap it is a Veritable
Ocean . . . . . . . .129
43. And through the Gap Ukiukiu vainly strove to drive his
Fleecy Herds of Trade-wind Clouds . . .131
44. A Man-eater . . . . . . . .135
45. Through the Shark s Jaws . . . . . .138
46. A Dolphin . . . . . . . .142
47. An Unwilling Pose . . . . . . .146
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi
PAGE
48. A Four-foot Seven-inch Dolphin . . . . .150
49. Grass-houses . . . . . . . . 155
50. The Goddess of the Pool 158
51. The Tropics after the Advent of Morality . .162
52. A Cocoanut Grove ....... 164
53. The Camera in the Marquesas . . . . .166
54. Under the Banana Tree . . . . . .168
55. Behind the Bulwark of the Reef 171
56. One of the Last of a Mighty Race . . . 174
57. Under the Cocoanuts . . . . . .176
58. The Nature Man comes on Board the Snark . 180
59. The Abbreviated Fish-net Shirt . . . . .185
60. The Nature Man s Plantation 188
61. In the Sweat of his Brow . . . . . .192
62. Breakfast from the Breadfruit Tree . . . .196
63. " The sail was impossible " . -. . . .199
64. Tehei .201
65. A South Sea Island Home ..... 206
66. Visitors on Board the Snark at Raiatea . . . .215
67. " In a Double-canoe paddled by a Dozen Strapping Ama
zons" . . . . . . . .220
68. The Launch attracted much Attention . . . .221
69. "The Polynesian barge in which we were to ride" . 223
70. The Stone-thrower . . . . . . .224
71. "Flower-crowned maidens, hand in hand and two by
two" ........ 226
72. The Leader of the Drive signaling his Commands . . 228
73. The Circle began to Contract . . . . .229
74. "The palisade of legs " 230
75. One of the Fishermen . . . . . .231
76. The Gendarme of Bora Bora, paddled by his Prisoners . 232
77. The Kind of Fish we did not Catch . . . -233
xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
78. The Famous " Broom Road," Tahiti . . .237
79. Paumotan Natives ....... 240
80. Snark at Suva-Fiji Islands ..... 242
8 I. South Sea Island Beauties riding in the Snarl? s Launch . 244
82. A South Sea Islander . . . . . . 247
83. Taupous, or Village Maidens, Island of Savaii, Samoan
Group ........ 249
84. Between Black Diamonds. (Girls of Savaii, Samoa) . 252
85. Maids of the Village, Savaii, Samoa . . . .254
86. A Samoan Policeman . . . . . .257
87. Man-eaters ........ 260
88. Typical Coast Scene Solomons .... 263
89. Coast at Maravovo, Guadalcaner .... 265
90. Four Old Rascals ....... 267
91. The Two Handsomest Men in the Solomons . . 269
92. Island of Uru Hand-manufactured Malaita . . 272
93. The Island of Langa, built up from the Sea by the Salt
water Men ....... 274
94. A Salt-water Fastness ...... 276
95. The Island of Auki, built up from the Sea by Salt-water
Men . . 280
96. The Market composed wholly of Women . .281
97. An Island in Process of Manufacture , . . .283
98. Solomon Islands Canoe . . . . . .285
99. Men of Kewm Solomons . . . . .288
100. Bush-women going to Market, Malu, Malaita . . 290
1 01. Salt-water Women on their Way to Market, Malu,
Malaita . 292
102. A Malaita Man ....... 296
103. A Malaita " Mary " 297
104. Vella Lavella Man ....... 298
105. From Fin B or i Malaita ..... 299
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii
PAGE
106. A Beau of Malaita ....... 300
107. He knew the Sandal- wood Traders and the Beche de
Mer Fishermen ....... 302
1 08. He might have been Gladstone ..... 303
109. Old Woman of Vella Lavella 304
1 10. "Marys" ........ 306
111. Pulling my First Tooth . . . . . .311
112. Careening the Snark . . . . . 313
113. A War Canoe 316
1 1 4. Visitors coming alongside, Meringe Lagoon, Ysabel,
Solomon Islands . . . . . . .318
115. Village of the Ete-Ete, Ugi, Solomons . . .321
116. Charmian does some Photographing .... 323
li J. The Snark s Complement in the Solomons after we lost
the Cook and gained a German Mate . . .326
1 1 8. Laundry Bills are not among his Vexations. His Garb,
however, is a Concession to Civilization. Lord Howe
Atoll 332
1 19. The Trader s House at Lua Nua, Lord Howe Atoll . 334
You have heard the beat of the offshore wind,
And the thresh of the deep-sea rain ;
You have heard the song how long ! how long !
Pull out on the trail again !
xiv
THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
CHAPTER I
Foreword
IT began in the swimming pool at Glen Ellen.
Between swims it was our wont to come out and lie in
the sand and let our skins breathe the warm air and
soak in the sunshine. Roscoe was a yachtsman. I
had followed the sea a bit. It was inevitable that we
should talk about boats. We talked about small boats,
and the seaworthiness of small boats. We instanced
Captain Slocum and his three years voyage around
the world in the Spray.
We asserted that we were not afraid to go around
the world in a small boat, say forty feet long. We
asserted furthermore that we would like to do it. We
asserted finally that there was nothing in this world
we d like better than a chance to do it.
" Let us do it," we said ... in fun.
Then I asked Charmian privily if she d really
care to do it, and she said that it was too good to be
true.
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 he, 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 number
of other things to do. We thought we would start in
2 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
four or five years. Then the lure of the adventure
began to grip us. Why not start at once? We d
never be younger, any of us. Let the orchard, vine
yard, and hedges be growing up while we were away.
When we came back, they would be ready for us, and
we could live in the barn while we built the house.
So the trip was decided upon, and the building of
the Snark began. We named her the Snark because
we could not think of any other name this informa
tion is given for the benefit of those who otherwise
might think there is something occult in the name.
Our friends cannot understand why we make this
voyage. They shudder, and moan, and raise their
hands. No amount of explanation can make them
comprehend that we are moving along the line of least
resistance ; that it is easier for us to go down to the
sea in a small ship than to remain on dry land, just as
it is easier for them to remain on dry land than to go
down to the sea in the small ship. This state of mind
comes of an undue prominence of the ego. They
cannot get away from themselves. They cannot come
out of themselves long enough to see that their line
of least resistance is not necessarily everybody else s
line of least resistance. They make of their own
bundle of desires, likes, and dislikes a yardstick
wherewith to measure the desires, likes, and dislikes
of all creatures. This is unfair. I tell them so.
But they cannot get away from their own miserable
egos long enough to hear me. They think I am
crazy. In return, I am sympathetic. It is a state of
mind familiar to me. We are all prone to think there
is something wrong with the mental processes of the
man who disagrees with us.
FOREWORD 3
The ultimate word is I LIKE. It lies beneath phi- 1
losophy, and is twined about the heart of life. When
philosophy has maundered ponderously for a month,
telling the individual what he must do, the individual
says, in an instant, " I LIKE," and does something else,
and philosophy goes glimmering. It is I LIKE that
makes the drunkard drink and the martyr wear a hair
shirt; that makes one man a reveller and Another man
an anchorite ; that makes one man pursue fame,
another gold, another love, and another God. Phi
losophy is very often a man s way of explaining his
own I LIKE.
But to return to the Snark, and why I, for one, want
to journey in her around the world. The things I like
constitute my set of values. The thing I like most
of all is personal achievement not achievement for
the world s applause, but achievement for my own
delight. It is the old "I did it! I did it! With my
own hands I did it ! " But personal achievement, with
me, must be concrete. I d rather win a water-fight in
the swimming pool, or remain astride a horse that is
trying to get out from under me, than write the great
American novel. Each man to his liking. Some
other fellow would prefer writing the great American
novel to winning the water-fight or mastering the
horse.
.Possibly the proudest achievement of my life, my
moment of highest living, occurred when I was seven
teen. I was in a three-masted schooner off the coast
of Japan. We were in a typhoon. All hands had
been on deck most of the night. I was called from
my bunk at seven in the morning to take the wheel.
Not a stitch of canvas was set. We were running be-
4 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
fore it under bare poles, yet the schooner fairly tore
along. The seas were all of an eighth of a mile apart,
and the wind snatched the whitecaps from their sum
mits, filling 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, rolling her
rail under to starboard and to port, veering and yawing
anywhere between southeast and southwest, and threat
ening, when the huge seas lifted under her quarter, to
broach to. Had she broached to, she would ultimately
have been reported lost with all hands and no tidings.
I took the wheel. The sailing-master watched me
for a space. He was afraid of my youth, feared that I
lacked the strength and the nerve. But when he saw
me successfully wrestle the schooner through several
bouts, he went below to breakfast. Fore and aft, all
hands were below at breakfast. Had she broached to,
not one of them would ever have reached the deck.
For forty minutes I stood there alone at the wheel, in
my grasp the wildly careering schooner and the lives of
twenty-two men. Once we were pooped. I saw it
coming, and, half-drowned^ with tons of water crushing
me, I checked the schooner s rush to broach to. At
the end of the hour, sweating and played out, I was
relieved. But I had done it ! With my own hands I
had done my trick at the wheel and guided a hundred
tons of wood and iron through a few million tons of
wind and waves.
My delight was in that I had done it not in the fact
that twenty-two men knew I had done it. Within the
year over half of them were dead and gone, yet my
pride in the thing performed was not diminished by
half. I am willing to confess, however, that I do like
FOREWORD 5
a small audience. But it must be a very small audi
ence, composed of those who love me and whom I
love. When I then accomplish personal achievement,
I have a feeling that I am justifying their love for me.
But this is quite apart from the delight of the achieve
ment itself. This delight is peculiarly my own and
does not depend upon witnesses. When I *have done
some such thing, I am exalted. I glow all over. I
am aware of a pride in myself that is mine, and mine
alone. It is organic. Every fibre of me is thrilling
with it. It is very natural. It is a mere matter of sat
isfaction at adjustment to environment. It is success.
Life that lives is life successful, and success is the
breath of its nostrils. The achievement of a difficult
feat is successful adjustment to a sternly exacting en
vironment. The more difficult the feat, the greater
the satisfaction at its accomplishment. Thus it is with
the man who leaps forward from the springboard, out
over the swimming pool, and with a backward half-
revolution of the body, enters the water head first.
Once he left the springboard his environment became
immediately savage, and savage the penalty it would
have exacted had he failed and struck the water flat.
Of course, the man did not have to run the risk of the
penalty. He could have remained on the bank in a
sweet and placid environment of summer air, sunshine,
and stability. Only he was not made that way. In
that swift mid-air moment he lived as he could never
have lived on the bank.
As for myself, I d rather be that man than the fel
lows who sat on the bank and watched him. That is
why I am building the Snark. I am so made. I like,
that is all. The trip around the world means big
6 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
moments of living. Bear with me a moment and look
at it. Here am I, a little animal called a man a bit of
vitalized matter, one hundred and sixty-five pounds of
meat and blood, nerve, sinew, bones, and brain, all
of it soft and tender, susceptible to hurt, fallible, and
frail. I strike a light back-handed blow on the nose
of an obstreperous horse, and a bone in my hand is
broken. I put my head under the water for five min
utes, and I am drowned. I fall twenty feet through
the air, and I am smashed. I am a creature of tem
perature. A few degrees one way, and my fingers
and ears and toes blacken and drop off. A few de
grees the other way, and my skin blisters and shrivels
away from the raw, quivering flesh. A few additional
degrees either way, and the life and the light in me go
out. A drop of poison injected into my body from a
snake, and I cease to move forever I cease to move.
A splinter of lead from a rifle enters my head, and I
am wrapped around in the eternal blackness.
Fallible and frail, a bit of pulsating, jelly-like life
it is all I am. About me are the great natural forces
colossal menaces, Titans of destruction, unsenti
mental monsters that have less concern for me than I
have for the grain of sand I crush under my foot.
They have no concern at all for me. They do not
know me. They are unconscious, unmerciful, and
unmoral. They are the cyclones and tornadoes, light
ning flashes and cloud-bursts, tide-rips and tidal waves,
undertows and waterspouts, great whirls and sucks and
eddies, earthquakes and volcanoes, surfs that thunder
on rock-ribbed coasts and seas that leap aboard the
largest crafts that float, crushing humans to pulp or
licking them off into the sea and to death and these
FOREWORD 7
insensate monsters do not know that tiny sensitive
creature, all nerves and weaknesses, whom men call
Jack London, and who himself thinks he is all right
and quite a superior being.
In the maze and chaos of the conflict of these vast
and draughty Titans, it is for me to thread my preca
rious way. The bit of life that is I will exult over
them. The bit of life that is I, in so far as it succeeds
in baffling them or in bitting them to its service, will
imagine that it is godlike. It is good to ride the tem
pest and feel godlike. I dare to assert that for a fi
nite speck of pulsating jelly to feel godlike is a far
more glorious feeling than for a god to feel godlike.
Here is the sea, the wind, and the wave. Here are
the seas, the winds, and the waves of all the world.
Here is ferocious environment. And here is difficult
adjustment, the achievement of which is delight to the
small quivering vanity that is I. I like. I am so
made. It is my own particular form of vanity, that is
all.
There is also another side to the voyage of the
Snark. Being alive, I want to see, and all the world is
a bigger thing to see than one small town or valley.
We have done little outlining of the voyage. Only
one thing is definite, and that is that our first port of
call will be Honolulu. Beyond a few general ideas, we
have no thought of our next port after Hawaii. We
shall make up our minds as we get nearer. In a gen
eral way we know that we shall wander through the
South Seas, take in Samoa, New Zealand, Tasmania,
Australia, New Guinea, Borneo, and Sumatra, and
go on up through the Philippines to Japan. Then
will come Korea, China, India, the Red Sea, and the
8 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
Mediterranean. After that the voyage becomes too
vague to describe, though we know a number of things
we shall surely do, and we expect to spend from one to
several months in every country in Europe.
The Snark is to be sailed. There will be a gasolene
engine on board, but it will 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 a
sailing-boat helpless. The rig of the Snark is to be
what is called the "ketch." The ketch rig is a com
promise between the yawl and the schooner. Of late
years the yawl rig has proved the best for cruising.
The ketch retains the cruising virtues of the yawl, and
in addition manages to embrace a few of the sailing
virtues of the schooner. The foregoing must be taken
with a pinch of salt. It is all theory in my head. I ve
never sailed a ketch, nor even seen one. The theory
commends itself to me. Wait till I get out on the
ocean, then I ll be able to tell more about the cruising
and sailing qualities of the ketch.
As originally planned, the Snark was to be forty
feet long on the water-line. But we discovered there
was no space for a bath-room, and for that reason
we have increased her length to forty-five feet. Her
greatest beam is fifteen feet. She has no house and no
hold. There is six feet of headroom, and the deck is
unbroken save for two companionways and a hatch
for ard. The fact that there is no house to break the
strength of the deck will make us feel safer in case
great seas thunder their tons of water down on board.
A large and roomy cockpit, sunk beneath the deck,
with high rail and self-bailing, will make our rough-
weather days and nights more comfortable.
FOREWORD
io THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
There will 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 hands
we re going to circumnavigate the globe. Sail her or
sink her, with our own hands we ll do it. Of course
there will be a cook and a cabin-boy. Why should we
stew over a stove, wash dishes, and set the table ?
We could stay on land if we wanted to do those
things. Besides, we ve got to stand watch and work
the ship. And also, I ve got to work at my trade of
writing in order to feed us and to get new sails and
tackle and keep the Snark in efficient working order.
And then there s the ranch; I ve got to keep the vine
yard, orchard, and hedges growing.
When we increased the length of the Snark in order
to get space for a bath-room, we found that all the
space was not required by the bath-room. Because of
this, we increased the size of the engine. Seventy
horse-power our engine is, and since we expect it to
drive us along at a nine-knot clip, we do not know the
name of a river with a current swift enough to defy
us.
We expect to do a lot of inland work. The small-
ness of the Snark makes this possible. When we enter
the land, out go the masts and on goes the engine.
There are the canals of China, and the Yang-tse River.
We shall spend months on them if we can get permis
sion from the government. That will be the one
obstacle to our inland voyaging governmental per
mission. But if we can get that permission, there
is scarcely a limit to the inland voyaging we can do.
When we come to the Nile, why we can go up the
Nile. We can go up the Danube to Vienna, up the
FOREWORD
ii
Thames to London, and we can go up the Seine to
Paris and moor opposite the Latin Quarter with a
bow-line out to Notre Dame and a stern-line fast to
the Morgue. We can leave the Mediterranean and
go up the Rhone to Lyons, there enter the Saone,
cross from the Saone to the Marne through the
Canal de Bourgogne, and from the Marne enter the
The Snark Set Up.
we
Seine and go out the Seine at Havre. When
cross the Atlantic to the United States, we can go up
the Hudson, pass through the Erie Canal, cross the
Great Lakes, leave Lake Michigan at Chicago, gain
the Mississippi by way of the Illinois River and the
connecting canal, and go down the Mississippi to the
Gulf of Mexico. And then there are the great rivers
of South America. We ll know something about ge
ography when we get back to California.
People that build houses are often sore perplexed ;
but if they enjoy the strain of it, I ll advise them to
12 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
build a boat like the Snark. Just consider, for a mo
ment, the strain of detail. Take the engine. What
is the best kind of engine the two cycle ? three cy
cle ? four cycle ? My lips are mutilated with all kinds
of strange jargon, my mind is mutilated with still
stranger ideas and is foot-sore and weary from travel
ling in new and rocky realms of thought. Ignition
Interior View of Frame.
methods ; shall it be make-and-break or jump-spark ?
Shall dry cells or storage batteries be used ? A stor
age battery commends itself, but it requires a dynamo.
How powerful a dynamo? And when we have in
stalled a dynamo and a storage battery, it is simply
ridiculous not to light the boat with electricity. Then
comes the discussion of how many lights and how
many candle-power. It is a splendid idea. But elec
tric lights will demand a more powerful storage battery,
which, in turn, demands a more powerful dynamo.
FOREWORD 13
And now that we ve gone in for it, why not have a
searchlight? It would be tremendously useful. But
the searchlight needs so much electricity that when it
runs it will put all the other lights out of commission.
Again we travel the weary road in the quest after more
power for storage battery and dynamo. And then,
when it is finally solved, some one asks, "What if the
engine breaks down ? " And we collapse. There are
the sidelights, the binnacle light, and the anchor light.
Our very lives depend upon them. So we have to fit
the boat throughout with oil lamps as well.
But we are not done with that engine yet. The
engine is powerful. We are two small men and a
small woman. It will break our hearts and our backs
to hoist anchor by hand. Let the engine do it. And
then comes the problem of how to convey power for-
ard from the engine to the winch. And by the time
all this is settled, we redistribute the allotments of
space to the engine-room, galley, bath-room, state-rooms,
and cabin, and begin all over again. And when we
have shifted the engine, I send off a telegram of gib
berish to its makers at New York, something like this :
Toggle-joint abandoned change thrust-bearing accordingly
distance from forward side of flywheel to face of sternpost
sixteen feet six inches.
Just potter around in quest of the best steering gear,
or try to decide whether you will set up your rigging
with old-fashioned lanyards or with turnbuckles, if you
want strain of detail. Shall the binnacle be located in
front of the wheel in the centre of the beam, or shall it
be located to one side in front of the wheel ? there s
room right there for a library of sea-dog controversy.
Then there s the problem of gasolene, fifteen hundred
i 4 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
gallons of it what are the safest ways to tank it and
pipe it ? and which is the best fire-extinguisher for a
gasolene fire ? Then there is the pretty problem of
the life-boat and the stowage of the same. And when
that is finished, come the cook and cabin-boy to con
front one with nightmare possibilities. It is a small
boat, and we ll be packed close together. The
ser-
Hull of the Snark.
vant-girl problem of landsmen pales to insignificance.
We did select one cabin-boy, and by that much were
our troubles eased. And then the cabin-boy fell in
love and resigned.
And in the meanwhile how is a fellow to find time
to study navigation when he is divided between
these problems and the earning of the money where
with to settle the problems ? Neither Roscoe nor I
knows anything about navigation, and the summer is
gone, and we are about to start, and the problems are
thicker than ever, and the treasury is stuffed with
FOREWORD 15
emptiness. Well, anyway, it takes years to learn sea
manship, and both of us are seamen. If we don t find
the time, we ll lay in the books and instruments and
teach ourselves navigation on the ocean between San
Francisco and Hawaii.
There is one unfortunate and perplexing phase of
the voyage of the Snark. Roscoe, who is to be my
co-navigator, is a follower of one, Cyrus R. Teed.
Now Cyrus R. Teed has a different cosmology from
the one generally accepted, and Roscoe shares his
views. Wherefore Roscoe believes that the surface of
the earth is concave and that we live on the inside of
a hollow sphere. Thus, though we shall sail on the
one boat, the Snark, Roscoe will journey around the
world on the inside, while I shall journey around on
the outside. But of this, more anon. We threaten
to be of the one mind before the voyage is completed.
I am confident that I shall convert him into making
the journey on the outside, while he is equally confi
dent that before we arrive back in San Francisco I
shall be on the inside of the earth. How he is going
to get me through the crust I don t know, but Roscoe
is ay a masterful man.
P.S. That engine ! While we ve got it, and the
dynamo, and the storage battery, why not have an ice-
machine ? Ice in the tropics ! It is more necessary
than bread. Here goes for the ice-machine ! Now I
am plunged into chemistry, and my lips hurt, and my
mind hurts, and how am 1 ever to find the time to
study navigation ?
CHAPTER II
The Inconceivable and Monstrous
" SPARE no money," I said to Roscoe. " Let
everything on the Snark be of the best. And never
mind decoration. Plain pine boards is good enough
finishing for me. But put the money into the con
struction. Let the Snark be as stanch and strong as
any boat afloat. Never mind what it costs to make
her stanch and strong ; you see that she is made
stanch and strong and I ll go on writing and earning
the money to pay for it."
And I did ... as well as I could ; for the Snark
ate up money faster than I could earn it. In fact,
every little while I had to borrow money with which
to supplement my earnings. Now I borrowed one
thousand dollars, now I borrowed two thousand dollars,
and now I borrowed five thousand dollars. And all
the time I went on working every day and sinking the
earnings in the venture. I worked Sundays as well,
and I took no holidays. But it was worth it. Every
time I thought of the Snark I knew she was worth it.
For know, gentle reader, the stanchness of the
Snark. She is forty-five feet long on the water-line.
Her garboard strake is three inches thick ; her plank
ing two and one-half inches thick ; her deck-planking
two inches thick ; and in all her planking there are no
butts. I know, for I ordered that planking especially
from Puget Sound. Then the Snark has four water
tight compartments, which is to say that her length is
16
INCONCEIVABLE AND MONSTROUS 17
broken by three water-tight bulkheads. Thus, no
matter how large a leak the Snark may spring, only
one compartment can fill with water. The other three
compartments will keep her afloat anyway, and, besides,
will enable us to mend the leak. There is another
virtue in these bulkheads. The last compartment of
all, in the very stern, contains six tanks that carry over
one thousand gallons of gasolene. Now gasolene is a
very dangerous article to carry in bulk on a small
craft far out on the wide ocean. But when the six
tanks that do not leak are themselves contained in a
compartment hermetically sealed off from the rest of
the boat, the danger will be seen to be very small
indeed.
The Snark is a sail-boat. She was built primarily to
sail. But incidentally, as an auxiliary, a seventy-horse
power engine was installed. This is a good, strong
engine. I ought to know. I paid for it to come out
all the way from New York City. Then, on deck,
above the engine, is a windlass. It is a magnificent
affair. It weighs several hundred pounds and takes
up no end of deck-room. You see, it is ridiculous to
hoist up anchor by hand-power when there is a seventy-
horse-power engine on board. So we installed the
windlass, transmitting power to it from the engine by
means of a gear and castings specially made in a San
Francisco foundry.
The Snark was made for comfort, and no expense
was spared in this regard. There is the bath-room, for
instance, small and compact, it is true, but containing
all the conveniences of any bath-room upon land. The
bath-room is a beautiful dream of schemes and devices,
pumps, and levers, and sea-valves. Why, in the course
,A V5 ^
i8 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
of its building, I used to lie awake nights thinking about
that bath-room. And next to the bath-room come the
life-boat and the launch. They are carried on deck,
and they take up what little space might have been left
us for exercise. But then, they beat life insurance ;
and the prudent man, even if he has built as stanch
and strong a craft as the Snark, will see to it that he
has a good life-boat as well. And ours is a good one.
It is a dandy. It was stipulated to cost one hundred
and fifty dollars, and when I came to pay the bill, it
turned out to be three hundred and ninety-five dollars.
That shows how good a life-boat it is.
I could go on at great length relating the various
virtues and excellences of the Snark, but I refrain. I
have bragged enough as it is, and I have bragged to a
purpose, as will be seen before my tale is ended. And
please remember its title, " The Inconceivable and
Monstrous." It was planned that the Snark should
sail on October i, 1906. That she did not so sail
was inconceivable and monstrous. There was no valid
reason for not sailing except that she was not ready to
sail, and there was no conceivable reason why she was
not ready. She was promised on November first, on
November fifteenth, on December first ; and yet she
was never ready. On December first Charmian and I
left the sweet, clean Sonoma country and came down
to live in the stifling city but not for long, oh, no,
only for two weeks, for we would sail on Decem
ber fifteenth. And I guess we ought to know, for
Roscoe said so, and it was on his advice that we
came to the city to stop two weeks. Alas, the two
weeks went by, four weeks went by, six weeks went
by, eight weeks went by, and we were farther away
INCONCEIVABLE AND MONSTROUS 19
from sailing than ever. Explain it? Who? me?
I can t. It is the one thing in all my life that I have
backed down on. There is no explaining it ; if there
were, I d do it. I, who am an artisan of speech,
confess my inability to explain why the Snark was not
ready. As I have said, and as I must repeat, it was
inconceivable and monstrous.
The eight weeks became sixteen weeks, and then,
one day, Roscoe cheered us up by saying :
" 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 it is going to be when it
is completed."
Whereat we would rehearse for our mutual encour
agement the manifold virtues and excellences of the
Snark. Also, I would borrow more money, and I would
get down closer to my desk and write harder, and I
refused heroically to take a Sunday off and go out into
the hills with my friends. I was building a boat, and
by the eternal it was going to be a boat, and a boat
spelled out all in capitals B O A T ; and no mat
ter what it cost I didn t care, so long as it was a
BOAT.
And, oh, there is one other excellence of the Snark,
upon which I must brag, namely, her bow. No sea
could ever come over it. It laughs at the sea, that
bow does ; it challenges the sea ; it snorts defiance at
the sea. And withal it is a beautiful bow ; the lines
of it are dreamlike ; I doubt if ever a boat was blessed
with a more beautiful and at the same time a more ca-
20 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
pable bow. It was made to punch storms. To touch
that bow is to rest one s hand on the cosmic nose of
things. To look at it is to realize that expense cut no
figure where it was concerned. And every time our
sailing was delayed, or a new expense was tacked on,
we thought of that wonderful bow and were content.
The Snark is a small boat. When I figured seven
thousand dollars as her generous cost, I was both gen
erous and correct. I have built barns and houses, and
I know the peculiar trait such things have of running
past their estimated cost. This knowledge was mine,
was already mine, when I estimated the probable cost
of the building of the Snark at seven thousand dollars.
Well, she cost thirty thousand. Now don t ask me,
please. It is the truth. I signed the checks and I
raised the money. Of course there is no explaining it.
Inconceivable and monstrous is what it is, as you will
agree, I know, ere my tale is done.
Then there was the matter of delay. I dealt with
forty-seven different kinds of union men and with one
hundred and fifteen different firms. And not one union
man and not one firm of all the union men and all
the firms ever delivered anything at the time agreed
upon, nor ever was on time for anything except pay
day and bill-collection. Men pledged me their im
mortal souls that they would deliver a certain thing
on a certain date ; as a rule, after such pledging, they
rarely 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, so
stanch and strong ; also, we would get into the small
boat and row around the Snark, and gloat over her
unbelievably wonderful bow.
INCONCEIVABLE AND MONSTROUS 21
" Think," I would say to Charmian, "of a gale off the
China coast, and of the Snark hove to, that splendid
bow of hers driving into the storm. Not a drop will
come over that bow. She ll be as dry as a feather,
and we ll be all
below playing
whist while the
gale howls."
And Charmian
would press my
hand enthusiasti
cally and exclaim :
"It s worth every
bit of it the
delay, and ex
pense, and worry,
and all the rest.
Oh, what a truly
wonderful boat ! "
Whenever I
looked at the bow
of the Snark or
thought of her
water-tight com
partments, I was
encouraged. Nobody else, however, was encouraged.
My friends began to make bets against the various
sailing dates of the Snark. Mr. Wiget, who was left
behind in charge of our Sonoma ranch, was the first to
cash his bet. He collected on New Year s Day, 1907.
After that the bets came fast and furious. My friends
surrounded me like a gang of harpies, making bets
against every sailing date I set. I was rash, and I was
Charmian and the Skipper.
22 THE CRUISE .XMtViTHE SNARK
stubborn. I bet, and I bet, and I continued to bet ;
and I paid them all. Why, the womenkind of my
friends grew so brave that those among them who
never bet before began to bet with me. And I paid
them, 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 the
latest bunch of wagers, " neither trouble nor cash is
being spared in making the Snark the most seaworthy
craft that ever sailed out through the Golden Gate
that is what causes all the delay."
In the meantime editors and publishers with whom
I had contracts pestered me with demands for explana
tions. But how could I explain to them, when I was
unable 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 anent
the Snark s departure with refrains like, " Not yet but
soon." And Charmian cheered me up by reminding
me of the bow, and I went to a banker and borrowed
five thousand more. There was one recompense for
the delay, however. A friend of mine, who happens
to be a critic, wrote a roast of me, of all I had done,
and of all I ever was going to do ; and he planned to
have it published after I was out on the ocean. I was
still on shore when it came out, and he has been busy
explaining ever since.
And the time continued to go by. One thing was
becoming apparent, namely, that it was impossible to
finish the Snark in San Francisco. She had been so
long in the building that she was beginning to break
down and wear out. In fact, she had reached the
INCONCEIVABLE AND MONSTROUS 23
stage where she was breaking down faster than she
could be repaired. She had become a joke. Nobody
took her seriously ; least of all the men who worked
on her. I said we would sail just as she was and finish
building her in Honolulu. Promptly she sprang a
leak that had to be attended to before we could sail.
I started her for the boat-ways. Before she got to
them she was caught between two huge barges and re
ceived a vigorous crushing. We got her on the ways,
and, part way along, the ways spread and dropped her
through, stern-first, into the mud.
It was a pretty tangle, a job for wreckers, not boat-
builders. There are two high tides every twenty-four
hours, and at every high tide, night and day, for a
week, there were two steam tugs pulling and hauling
on the Snark. There she was, stuck, fallen between
the ways and standing on her stern. Next, and while
still in that predicament, we started to use the gears
and castings made in the local foundry whereby power
was conveyed from the engine to the windlass. It was
the first time we ever tried to use that windlass. The
castings had flaws ; they shattered asunder, the gears
ground together, and the windlass was out of commis
sion. Following upon that, the seventy-horse-power
engine went out of commission. This engine came
from New York ; so did its bed-plate ; there was a
flaw in the bed-plate ; there were a lot of flaws in the
bed-plate ; and the seventy-horse-power engine broke
away from its shattered foundations, reared up in the
air, smashed all connections and fastenings, and fell
over on its side. And the Snark continued to stick
between the spread ways, and the two tugs continued
to haul vainly upon her.
24 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
" Never 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 it again. The ruined
engine was lashed down on its rotten foundation ; the
smashed castings and cogs of the power transmission
were taken down and stored away all for the purpose
of taking them to Honolulu where repairs and new
castings could be made. Somewhere in the dim past
the Snark had received on the outside one coat of white
paint. The intention of the color was still evident,
however, when one got it in the right light. The
Snark had never received any paint on the inside. On
the contrary, she was coated inches thick with the
grease and tobacco-juice of the multitudinous mechanics
who had toiled upon her. Never mind, we said ; the
grease and filth could be planed off, and later, when
we fetched Honolulu, the Snark could be painted at
the same time she was being rebuilt.
By main strength and sweat we dragged the Snark
off from the wrecked ways and laid her alongside the
Oakland City Wharf. The drays brought all the
outfit from home, the books and blankets and personal
luggage. Along with this, everything else came on
board in a torrent of confusion wood and coal, water
and water-tanks, vegetables, provisions, oil, the life-boat
and the launch, all our friends, all the friends of our
friends and those who claimed to be their friends, to say
nothing of some of the friends of the friends of the friends
of our crew. Also there were reporters, and photogra
phers, and strangers, and cranks, and finally, and over
all, clouds of coal-dust from the wharf.
We were to sail Sunday at eleven, and Saturday after-
INCONCEIVABLE AND MONSTROUS 25
noon had arrived. The crowd on the wharf and the
coal-dust were thicker than ever. In one pocket I
carried a check-book, a fountain-pen, a dater, and a
blotter ; in another pocket I carried between one and
two thousand dollars in paper money and gold. I was
ready for the creditors, cash for the small ones and
Taking on Stores at Oakland City Wharf.
checks for the large ones, and was waiting only for Ros-
coe to arrive with the balances, of the accounts of the
hundred and fifteen firms who had delayed me so many
months. And then -
And then the inconceivable and monstrous hap
pened once more. Before Roscoe could arrive there
arrived another man. He was a United States
marshal. He tacked a notice on the Snark s brave
26 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
mast so that all on the wharf could read that the Snark
had been libelled for debt. The marshal left a little old
man in charge of the Snark, and himself went away.
I had no longer any control of the Snark^ nor of her
wonderful bow. The little old man was now her lord
and master, and I learned that I was paying him three
dollars a day for being lord and master. Also, I learned
the name of the man who had libelled the Snark. It
was Sellers; the debt was two hundred and thirty-two
dollars; and the deed was no more than was to be expected
from the possessor of such a name. Sellers ! Ye gods !
Sellers !
But who under the sun was Sellers ? I looked in
my check-book and saw that two weeks before I had
made him out a check for five hundred dollars. Other
check-books showed me that during the many months
of the building of the Snark I had paid him several
thousand dollars. Then why in the name of common
decency hadn t he tried to collect his miserable little
balance instead of libelling the Snark ? I thrust my
hands into my pockets, and in one pocket encountered
the check-book and the dater and the pen, and in the
other pocket the gold money and the paper money.
There was the wherewithal to settle his pitiful account
a few score of times and over why hadn t he given
me a chance ? There was no explanation ; it was
merely the inconceivable and monstrous.
To make the matter worse, the Snark had been li
belled late Saturday afternoon; and though I sent law
yers and agents all over Oakland and San Francisco,
neither United States judge, nor United States mar
shal, nor Mr. Sellers, nor Mr. Sellers attorney, nor
anybody could be found. They were all out of town
INCONCEIVABLE AND MONSTROUS 27
for the week end. And so theSnark did not sail Sunday
morning at eleven. The little old man was still in
charge, and he said no. And Charmian and I walked
out on an opposite wharf and took consolation in the
Snark s wonderful bow and thought of all the gales and
typhoons it would proudly punch.
" A bourgeois trick," I said to Charmian, speaking
of Mr. Sellers and his libel ; " a petty trader s panic.
But nevermind; our troubles will cease when once we
are away from this and out on the wide ocean."
And in the end we sailed away, on Tuesday morning,
April 23, 1907. We started rather lame, I confess.
We had to hoist anchor by hand, because the power
transmission was a wreck. Also, what remained of our
seventy-horse-power engine was lashed down for bal
last on the bottom of the Snark. But what of such
things ? They could be fixed in Honolulu, and in the
meantime think of the magnificent rest of the boat !
It is true, the engine in the launch wouldn t run, and
the life-boat leaked like a sieve ; but then they weren t
the Snark ; they were mere appurtenances. The things
that counted were the water-tight bulkheads, the solid
planking without butts, the bath-room devices they
were the Snark. And then there was, greatest of all,
that noble, wind-punching bow.
We sailed out through the Golden Gate and set our
course south toward that part of the Pacific where we
could hope to pick up with the northeast trades. And
right away things began to happen. I had calculated
that youth was the stuff for a voyage like that of the
Snark, and I had taken three youths the engineer,
the cook, and the cabin-boy. My calculation was
only two-thirds off; I had forgotten to calculate on
28 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
seasick youth, and I had two of them, the cook and
the cabin-boy. They immediately took to their bunks,
and that was the end of their usefulness for a week to
come. It will be understood, from the foregoing, that
we did not have the hot meals we might have had, nor
were things kept clean and orderly down below. But
it did not matter very much anyway, for we
quickly discovered that our box of oranges had at
some time been frozen ; that our box of apples was
mushy and spoiling ; that the crate of cabbages, spoiled
before it was ever delivered to us, had to go overboard
instanter ; that kerosene had been spilled on the carrots,
and that the turnips were woody and the beets rotten,
while the kindling was dead wood that wouldn t burn,
and the coal, delivered in rotten potato-sacks, had spilled
all over the deck and was washing through the scup
pers.
But what did it matter ? Such things were mere ac
cessories. There was the boat she was all right,
wasn t she ? I strolled along the deck and in one minute
counted fourteen butts in the beautiful planking or
dered specially from Puget Sound in order that there
should be no butts in it. Also, that deck leaked, and it
leaked badly. It drowned Roscoe out of his bunk and
ruined the tools in the engine-room, to say nothing of
the provisions it ruined in the galley. Also, the sides of
the Snark leaked, and the bottom leaked, and we had to
pump her every day to keep her afloat. The floor of
the galley is a couple of feet above the inside bottom
of the Snark ; and yet I have stood on the floor of the
galley, trying to snatch a cold bite, and been wet to the
knees by the water churning around inside four hours
after the last pumping.
INCONCEIVABLE AND MONSTROUS 29
Then those rtfagnificent water-tight compartments
that cost so muck time and money well, they weren t
water-tight after all. The water moved free as the air
from one compartment to another ; furthermore, a
strong smell of gasolene from the after compartment
leads me to suspect that some one or more of the half-
dozen tanks there stored have sprung a leak. The
tanks leak, and they are not hermetically sealed in their
compartment. Then there was the bath-room with its
pumps and levers and sea-valves it went out of com
mission inside the first twenty hours. Powerful iron
levers broke off short in one s hand when one tried to
pump with them. The bath-room was the swiftest
wreck of any portion of the Snark.
And the iron-work on the Snark^ no matter what its
source, proved to be mush. For instance, the bed-plate
of the engine came from New York, and it was mush ;
so were the casting and gears for the windlass that came
from San Francisco. And finally, there was the
wrought iron used in the rigging, that carried away in
all directions when the first strains were put upon it.
Wrought iron, mind you, and it snapped like macaroni.
A gooseneck on the gaff of the mainsail broke short
off. We replaced it with the gooseneck from the gaff
of the storm trysail, and the second gooseneck broke
short off inside fifteen minutes of use, and, mind you, it
had been taken from the gaff of the storm trysail, upon
which we would have depended in time of storm. At
the present moment the Snark trails her mainsail like a
broken wing, the gooseneck being replaced by a rough
lashing. We ll see if we can get honest iron in
Honolulu.
Man had betrayed us and sent us to sea in a sieve,
30 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
but the Lord must have loved us, for we had calm
weather in which to learn that we must pump every
day in order to keep afloat, and that more trust could
be placed in a wooden toothpick than in the most
massive piece of iron to be found aboard. As the
stanchness and the strength of the Snark went glim
mering, Charmian and I pinned our faith more and
more to the Snark s wonderful bow. There was noth
ing else left to pin to. It was all inconceivable and
monstrous, we knew, but that bow, at least, was ra
tional. And then, one evening, we started to heave
to.
How shall I describe it? First of all, for the bene
fit of the tyro, let me explain that heaving to is that
sea manoeuvre 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 super-
flous. All hands can go below and sleep or play whist.
Well, it was blowing half of a small summer gale,
when I told Roscoe we d heave to. Night was com
ing on. I had been steering nearly all day, and
all hands on deck (Roscoe and Bert and Charmian)
were tired, while all hands below were seasick. It
happened that we had already put two reefs in the
big mainsail. The flying-jib and the jib were taken
in, and a reef put in the forestaysail. The mizzen was
also taken in. About this time the flying jib-boom
buried itself in a sea and broke short off. I started to
put the wheel down in order to heave to. The Snark
at the moment was rolling in the trough. She contin-
INCONCEIVABLE AND MONSTROUS 31
ued rolling in the trough. I put the spokes down
harder and harder. She never budged from the
trough. (The trough, gentle reader, is the most
dangerous position of all in which to lay a vessel.)
I put the wheel hard down, and still the Snark rolled
in the trough. Eight points was the nearest I could
get her to the wind. I had Roscoe and Bert come
Our Head-sails.
in on the main-sheet. The Snark rolled on in the
trough, now putting her rail under on one side and
now under on the other side.
Again the inconceivable and monstrous was showing
its grizzly head. It was grotesque, impossible. I re
fused to believe it. Under double-reefed mainsail and
single-reefed staysail the Snark refused to heave to.
We flattened the mainsail down. It did not alter the
Snark s course a tenth of a degree. We slacked the
mainsail off with no more result. We set a storm
32 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
trysail on the mizzen, and took in the mainsail. No
change. The Snark rolled on in the trough. That
beautiful bow of hers refused to come up and face the
wind.
Next we took in the reefed staysail. Thus, the
only bit of canvas left on her was the storm trysail on
the mizzen. If anything would bring her bow up to
the wind, that would. Maybe you won t believe me
when I say it failed, but I do say it failed. And I say
it failed because I saw it fail, and not because I believe
it failed. I don t believe it did fail. It is unbelievable,
and I am not telling you what I believe ; I am telling
you what I saw.
Now, gentle reader, what would you do if you were
on a small boat, rolling in the trough of the sea, a try
sail on that small boat s stern that was unable to swing
the bow up into the wind ? Get out the sea-anchor.
It 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 mouth 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 bow
of the Snark, and then dropped the sea-anchor over
board. It promptly dived. We had a tripping line
on it, so we tripped the sea-anchor and hauled it in.
We attached a big timber as a float, and dropped the
sea-anchor over again. This time it floated. The
line to the bow grew taut. The trysail on the mizzen
tended to swing the bow into the wind, but, in spite of
this tendency, the Snark calmly took that sea-anchor
in her teeth, and went on ahead, dragging it after her,
still in the trough of the sea. And there you are.
We even took in the trysail, hoisted the full mizzen
INCONCEIVABLE AND MONSTROUS
33
in its place, and hauled the full mizzen down flat, and
the Snark wallowed in the trough and dragged the sea-
anchor behind
her. Don t be
lieve me.
don t believe
myself. I
I
it
am
merely telling
you what I saw.
Now I leave
it to you. Who
ever heard of
a sailing-boat
that wouldn t
heave to? that
Wouldn t heave
to with a sea-
anchor to help
it ? Out of my
brief experience
with boats I
know I never
did. And I
stood on deck
and looked on
the naked face
of the inconceiv
able and mon-
strous the
Snark that wouldn t heave to. A stormy night with
broken moonlight had come on. There was a splash
of 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.
34 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
the sea, cold and cruel in the moonlight, in which the
Snark complacently rolled. And then we took in the
sea-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 slime on the cabin floor, where
cook and cabin-boy lay like dead men in their bunks,
and to lie down in our own bunks, with our clothes on
ready for a call, and to listen to the bilge-water spout
ing knee-high on the galley floor.
In the Bohemian Club of San Francisco there are
some crack sailors. I know, because I heard them
pass judgment on the Snark during the process of her
building. They found only one vital thing the matter
with her, and on this they were all agreed, namely, that
she could not run. She was all right in every par
ticular, they said, except that I d never be able to run
her before it in a stiff wind and sea. " Her lines,"
they explained enigmatically, " it is the fault of her
lines. She simply cannot be made to run, that is all."
Well, I wish I d only had those crack sailors of the
Bohemian Club on board the Snark the other night for
them to see for themselves their one, vital, unanimous
judgment absolutely reversed. Run ? It is the one thing
the Snark does to perfection. Run? She ran with a
sea-anchor fast for ard and a full mizzen flattened down
aft. Run ? At the present moment, as I write this,
we are bowling along before it, at a six-knot clip, in the
northeast trades. Quite a tidy bit of sea is running.
There is nobody at the wheel, the wheel is not even
lashed and is set over a half-spoke weather helm. To
be precise, the wind is northeast ; the Snark s mizzen is
furled, her mainsail is over to starboard, her head-
INCONCEIVABLE AND MONSTROUS 35
sheets are hauled flat; and the Snark s course is south-
southwest. And yet there are men who have sailed
the seas for forty years and who hold that no boat can
run before it without being steered. They ll call me a
liar when they read this ; it s what they called Captain
Slocum when he said the same of his Spray.
As regards the future of the Snark I m all at sea. I
don t know. If I had the money or the credit, I d
build another Snark that would heave to. But I am at
the end of my resources. I ve got to put up with the
present Snark or quit and I can t quit. So I guess
I ll have to try to get along with heaving the Snark
to stern-first. I am waiting for the next gale to see
how it will work. I think it can be done. It all
depends on how her stern takes the seas. And who
knows but that some wild morning on the China Sea,
some gray-beard skipper will stare, rub his incredulous
eyes and stare again, at the spectacle of a weird, small
craft, very much like the Snark, hove to stern-first and
riding out the gale ?
P.S. On my return to California after the voyage,
I learned that the Snark was forty-three feet on the
water-line instead of forty-five. This was due to
the fact that the builder was not on speaking terms
with the tape-line or two-foot rule.
CHAPTER II
Adventure
No, adventure is not dead, and in spite of the steam
engine and of Thomas Cook & Son. When the an
nouncement of the contemplated voyage of the Snark
was made, young men of" roving disposition " proved
to be legion, and young women as well to say nothing
of the elderly men and women who volunteered for the
voyage. Why, among my personal friends there were
at least half a dozen who regretted their recent or
imminent marriages ; and there was one marriage I
know of that almost failed to come off because of the
Snark.
Every mail to me was burdened with the letters of
applicants who were suffocating in the " man-stifled
towns," and it soon dawned upon me that a twentieth
century Ulysses required a corps of stenographers to
clear his correspondence before setting sail. No, ad
venture is certainly not dead not while one receives
letters that begin: "There is no doubt that when
you read this soul-plea from a female stranger in New
York City," etc. ; and wherein one learns, a little farther
on, that this female stranger weighs only ninety pounds,
wants to be cabin-boy, and " yearns to see the countries
of the world."
The possession of a " passionate fondness for geog
raphy," was the way one applicant expressed the wan
der-lust that was in him ; while another wrote, " I
am cursed with an eternal yearning to be always on the
36
ADVENTURE
37
move, consequently this letter to you." But best of
all was the fellow who said he wanted to come because
his feet itched.
There were a few who wrote anonymously, suggest
ing names of friends and giving said friends qualifica
tions ; but to me there was a hint of something sinister
in such proceedings, and I
went no further in the matter.
With two or three excep
tions, all the hundreds that
volunteered for my crew were
very much in earnest. Many
of them sent their photo
graphs. Ninety per cent of
fered to work in any capacity,
and ninety-nine per cent of
fered to work without salary.
" Contemplating your voyage
on the Snar.k 9 " said one, "and
notwithstanding its attendant
dangers, to accompany you (in
any capacity whatever) would
be the climax of my ambi
tions/ Which reminds me of the young fellow
who was " seventeen years old and ambicious," and
who, at the end of his letter, earnestly requested " but
please do not let this git into the papers or magazines."
Quite different was the one who said, " I would be
willingto work like hell and not demand pay." Almost
all of them wanted me to telegraph, at their expense,
my acceptance of their services ; and quite a number
offered to put up a bond to guarantee their appearance
on sailing date.
The Best Adventurer of Them
All.
3 8 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
Some were rather vague in their own minds concern
ing the work to be done on the Snark; as, for instance,
the one who wrote : " I am taking the liberty of writ
ing you this note to find out if there would be any
possibility of my going with you as one of the crew of
your boat to make sketches and illustrations." Several,
unaware of the needful work on a small craft like the
Snark, offered to serve, as one of them phrased it, " as
assistant in filing materials collected for books and
novels." That s what one 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 with
out 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 important
than strokes, the water is a friend of mine." " If I
was put alone in a sail-boat, I could get her anywhere
I wanted to go," was the qualification of a third and
a better qualification than the one that follows, " I have
also watched the fish-boats unload." But possibly the
prize should go to this one, who very subtly conveys
his deep knowledge of the world and life by saying :
" My age, in years, is twenty-two."
Then there were the simple, straight-out, homely,
and unadorned letters of young boys, lacking in the
felicities of expression, it is true, but desiring greatly
to make the voyage. These were the hardest of all to
decline, and. each time I declined one it seemed as if I
had struck Youth a slap in the face. They were so
earnest, these boys, they wanted so much to go. " I
am sixteen but large for my age," said one ; and another,
" Seventeen but large and healthy." " I am as strong
ADVENTURE 39
at least as the average boy of my size," said an evident
weakling. " Not afraid of any kind of work," was
what many said, while one in particular, to lure me no
doubt by inexpensiveness, wrote : " I can pay my way
to the Pacific coast, so that part would probably be
acceptable to you." " Going around the world is the
one thing I want to do," said one, and it seemed to be
the one thing that a few hundred wanted to do. " I
O
have no one who cares whether I go or not," was the
pathetic note sounded by another. One had sent his
photograph, and speaking of it, said, " I m a homely-
looking sort of a chap, but looks don t always count."
And I am confident that the lad who wrote the follow
ing would have turned out all right : " My age is 19
years, but I am rather small and consequently won t
take up much room, but I m tough as the devil."
And there was one thirteen-year-old applicant that
Charmian and I fell in love with, and it nearly broke
our hearts to refuse him.
But it must not be imagined that most of my volun
teers were boys ; on the contrary, boys constituted a
very small proportion. There were men and women
from every walk in life. Physicians, surgeons, and
dentists offered in large numbers to come along, and,
like all the professional men, offered to come without
pay, to serve in any capacity, and to pay, even, for the
privilege of so serving.
There was no end of compositors and reporters who
wanted to come, to say nothing of experienced valets,
chefs, and stewards. Civil engineers were keen on the
voyage ; " lady " companions galore cropped up for
Charmian ; while I was deluged with the applications
of would-be private secretaries. Many high school
40 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
and university students yearned for the voyage, and
every trade in the working class developed a few appli
cants, the machinists, electricians, and engineers being
especially strong on
the trip. I was sur
prised at the number,
who, in musty law of
fices, heard the call of
adventure ; and I was
more than surprised by
the number of elderly
and retired sea captains
who were still thralls
to the sea. Several
young fellows, with
millions coming to
them later on, were
wild for the adventure,
as were also several
county superintend
ents of schools.
Fathers and sons
wanted to come, and
many men with their
wives, to say nothing
of the young woman
stenographer who
wrote : " Write immediately if you need me. I shall
bring my typewriter on the first train. * But the best
of all is the following observe the delicate way in
which he worked in his wife : " I thought I would
drop you a line of inquiry as to the possibility of
making the trip with you, am 24 years of age, mar-
On a Level Sea.
ADVENTURE 41
ried *nd broke, and a trip of that kind would be just
what\ e are looking for."
Come to think of it, for the average man it must be
fairly difficult to write an honest letter of self-recom
mendation. One of my correspondents was so stumped
that he began his letter with the words, " This is a hard
task " ; and, after vainly trying to describe his good
points, he wound up with, " It is a hard job writing
about one s self." Nevertheless, there was one who
gave himself a most glowing and lengthy character,
and in conclusion stated that he had greatly enjoyed
writing it.
" But suppose this : your cabin-boy could run your
engine, could repair it when out of order. Suppose he
could take his turn at the wheel, could do any carpen
ter or machinist work. Suppose he is strong, healthy,
and willing to work. Would you not rather have him
than a kid that gets seasick and can t do anything but
wash dishes ? " It was letters of this sort that I hated
to decline. The writer of it, self-taught in English,
had been only two years in the United States, and, as
he 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 big
motor manufacturing companies ; he had been to sea
quite a bit, and had been used all his life to the hand
ling of small boats.
" I have a good position, but it matters not so with
me as I prefer travelling," wrote another. " As to sal
ary, 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 shall be pleased to show you my em
ployers. Never drink, no tobacco, but to be honest, I
42 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
myself, after a little more experience, want to do a little
writing."
" I can assure you that I am eminently respectable,
but find other respectable people tiresome." The
man who wrote the foregoing certainly had me guess
ing, and I am still wondering whether or not he d
have found me tiresome, or what the deuce he did
mean.
" I have seen better days than what I am passing
through to-day," wrote an old salt, " but I have seen
them a great deal worse also."
But the willingness to sacrifice on the part of the
man who wrote the following was so touching that I
could not accept : " I have a. father, a mother, brothers
and sisters, dear friends and a lucrative position, and
yet I will sacrifice all to become one of your crew."
Another volunteer I could never have accepted was
the finicky young fellow who, to show me how neces
sary it was that I should give him a chance, pointed
out 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 life."
Then there was the young fellow of twenty-six, who
had " run through the gamut of human emotions/ and
had " done everything from cooking to attending Stan
ford University," and who, at the present writing, was
" A vaquero on a fifty-five-thousand-acre range." Quite
in contrast was the modesty of the one who said, " I
am not aware of possessing any particular qualities that
would be likely to recommend me to your consid
eration. But should you be impressed, you might
consider it worth a few minutes time to answer. Other-
ADVENTURE 43
wise, there s always work at the trade. Not expecting,
but hoping, I remain, etc.
But I have held my head in both my hands ever
since, trying to figure out the intellectual kinship be
tween myself and the one who wrote : " Long before I
knew of you, I had mixed political economy and
history and deducted therefrom many of your conclu
sions in concrete."
Here, in 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 you
need one more who understands boating, engines, etc.,
would like 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 any
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 " little over
five feet long " : " When I read about your manly
plan of sailing around the world in a small boat with
Mrs. London, I was so much rejoiced that I felt I was
planning it myself, and I thought to write you about
filling either position of cook or cabin-boy myself, but
for some reason I did not do it, and I came to Denver
from Oakland to join my friend s business last month,
but everything is worse and unfavorable. But fortu
nately you have postponed your departure on account
of the great earthquake, so I finally decided to propose
you to let me fill either of the positions. I am not
very strong, being a man of a little over five feet long,
although I am of sound health and capability."
" I think I can add to your outfit an additional
method of utilizing the power of the wind," wrote a
44 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
well-wisher, " which, while not interfering with ordinary
sails in light breezes, will enable you to use the whole
force of the wind in its mightiest blows, so that even
when its force is so great that you may have to take in
every inch of canvas used in the ordinary way, you may
carry the fullest spread with my method. With my
attachment your craft could not be UPSET."
The foregoing letter was written in San Francisco
under the date of April 16, 1906. And two days later,
on April 1 8, came the Great Earthquake. And that s
why 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 getting together.
Many of my brother socialists objected to my mak
ing the cruise, of which the following is typical : "The
Socialist Cause and the millions of oppressed victims
of Capitalism has a right and claim upon your life and
services. If, however, you persist, then, when you
swallow the last mouthful of salt chuck you can hold
before sinking, remember that we at least protested."
One wanderer over the world who "could, if oppor
tunity afforded, recount many unusual scenes and
events," spent several pages ardently trying to get to
the point of his letter, and at last achieved the follow
ing : " Still I am neglecting the point I set out to
write you about. So will say at once that it has been
stated in print that you and one or two others are
going to take a cruize around the world in a little fifty-
or sixty-foot boat. I therefore cannot get myself to
think that a man of your attainments and experience
would attempt such a proceeding, which is nothing less
than courting death in that way. And even if you
were to escape for some time, your whole Person, and
ADVENTURE
45
those with you would be bruised from the ceaseless
motion of a craft of the above size, even if she were
padded, a thing not usual at sea." Thank you, kind
friend, thank you
for that qualifica
tion, " a thing not
usual at sea." Nor
is this friend igno
rant of the sea. As
he says of himself,
" I am not a land
lubber, and I have
sailed every sea and
ocean." And he
winds up his letter
with : " Although
not wishing to of
fend, it would be
madness to take any
woman outside the
bay even, in such a
craft."
And yet, at the
moment of writing
this, Charmian is
in her state-room
at the typewriter,
Martin is cooking
dinner, Tochigi is setting the table, Roscoe and Bert
are calking the deck, and the Snark is steering herself
some five knots an hour in a rattling good sea and
the Snark is not padded, either.
" Seeing a piece in the paper about your intended
The Doldrums.
46 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
trip, would like to know if you would like a good
crew, as there is six of us boys all good sailor men,
with good discharges from the Navy and Merchant
Service, all true Americans all between the ages of 20
and 22, and at present are employed as riggers at the
Union Iron Works, and would like very mutch to sail
with you." It was letters like this that made me
regret the boat was not larger.
And here writes the one woman in all the world
outside of Charmian for the cruise : "If you have
not succeeded in getting a cook I would like very
much to take the trip in that capacity. I am a woman
of fifty, healthy and capable, and can do the work for
the small company that compose the crew of the Snark.
I am a very good cook and a very good sailor, and
something of a traveller, and the length of the vovage,
if of ten years duration, would suit me better than
one. References, etc."
Some day, when I have made a lot of money, I m
going to build a big ship, with room in it for a thou
sand volunteers. They will have to do all the work
of navigating that boat around the world, or they ll
stay at home. I believe that they ll work the boat
around the world, for I know that Adventure is not
dead. I know Adventure is not dead because I
have had a long and intimate correspondence with
Adventure.
CHAPTER IV
Finding One s Way About
" BUT," our friends objected, " how dare you go to
sea without a navigator on board ? You re not a navi
gator, are you ? "
I had to confess that I was not a navigator, that I
had never looked through a sextant in my life, and
that I doubted if I could tell a sextant from a nautical
almanac. And when they asked if Roscoe was a navi
gator, I shook my head. Roscoe resented this. He
had glanced at the " Epitome," bought for our voyage,
knew how to use logarithm tables, had seen a sextant at
some time, and, what of this and of his seafaring ances
try, he concluded that he did know navigation. But
Roscoe was wrong, I still insist. When a young boy
he came from Maine to California by way of the Isth
mus of Panama, and that was the only time in his life
that he was out of sight of land. He had never gone
to a school of navigation, nor passed an examination in
the same ; nor had he sailed the deep sea and learned
the art from some other navigator. He was a San Fran
cisco Bay yachtsman, where land is always only several
miles away and the art of navigation is never employed.
So the Snark started on her long voyage without a
navigator. We beat through the Golden Gate on April
23, and headed for the Hawaiian Islands, twenty-one
hundred sea-miles away as the gull flies. And the
outcome was our justification. We arrived. And we
arrived, furthermore, without any trouble, as you shall
47
48 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
see ; that is, without any trouble to amount to any
thing. To begin with, Roscoe tackled the navigating.
He had the theory all right, but it was the first time
he had ever applied it, as was evidenced by the erratic
behavior of iheSnark. Not but what the Snark was per-
\
Doing her Trick.
fectly steady on the sea; the pranks she cut were on
the chart. On a day with a light breeze she would
make a jump on the chart that advertised " a wet sail
and a flowing sheet," and on a day when she just raced
over the ocean, she scarcely changed her position on
the chart. Now when one s boat has logged six knots
for twenty-four consecutive hours, it is incontestable that
she has covered one hundred and forty-four miles of
FINDING ONE S WAY ABOUT 49
ocean. The ocean was all right, and so was the patent
log ; as for speed, one saw it with his own eyes. There
fore, the thing that was not all right was the figuring
that refused to boost the Snark along over the chart.
Not that this happened every day, but that it did happen.
And it was perfectly proper and no more than was to
be expected from a first attempt at applying a theory.
The acquisition of the knowledge of navigation has
a strange effect on the minds of men. The average
navigator speaks of navigation with deep respect. To
the layman navigation is a deep and awful mystery, which
feeling has been generated in him by the deep and awful
respect for navigation that the layman has seen displayed
by navigators. I have known frank, ingenuous, and mod
est young men, open as the day, to learn navigation
and at once betray secretiveness, reserve, and self-im
portance, as if they had achieved some tremendous in
tellectual attainment. The average navigator impresses
the layman as a priest of some holy rite. With bated
breath, the amateur yachtsman navigator invites one in
to look at his chronometer. And so it was that our
friends suffered such apprehension at our sailing with
out a navigator.
During the building of the Snark, Roscoe and I had
an agreement, something like this: "I ll furnish the
books and instruments," I said, " and do you study up
navigation now. I ll be too busy to do any studying.
Then, when we get to sea, you can teach me what you
have learned." Roscoe was delighted. Furthermore,
Roscoe was as frank and ingenuous and modest as
the young men I have described. But when we got
out to sea and he began to practise the holy rite,
while I looked on admiringly, a change, subtle and dis-
50 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
tinctive, marked his bearing. When he shot the sun
at 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 authoritative
ring in his voice that was new to all of us. But that
was not the worst of it. He became filled with incom
municable information. And the more he discovered
the reasons for the erratic jumps of the Snark over the
chart, and the less the Snark jumped, the more in
communicable and holy and awful became his informa
tion. My mild suggestions that it was about time that
I began to learn, met with no hearty response, with no
offers on his part to help me. He displayed not the
slightest intention of living up to our agreement.
Now this was not Roscoe s fault ; he could not help
it. He had merely gone the way of all the men who
learned navigation before him. By an understandable
and forgivable confusion of values, plus a loss of orien
tation, he felt weighted by responsibility, and experi
enced the possession of power that was like unto that
of a god. All his life Roscoe had lived on land, and
therefore in sight of land. Being constantly in sight of
land, with landmarks to guide him, he had managed,
with occasional difficulties, to steer his body around and
about the earth. Now he found himself on the sea,
wide-stretching, bounded only by the eternal circle of
the sky. This circle looked always the same. There
were no landmarks. The sun rose to the east and set
to 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 present
moment is four and three-quarter miles to the west
FINDING ONE S WAY ABOUT 51
of Jones Cash Store of Smithersville"? or "I know
where I am now, for the Little Dipper informs me that
Boston is three miles away on the second turning to the
right"? And yet that was precisely what Roscoe did.
That he was astounded by the achievement, is putting
it mildly. He stood in reverential awe of himself; he
had performed a miraculous feat. The act of finding
himself on the face of the waters became a rite, and
he felt himself a superior being to the rest of us who
knew not this rite and were dependent on him for be
ing shepherded across the heaving and limitless waste,
the briny highroad that connects the continents and
whereon there are no mile-stones. So, with the sextant
he made obeisance to the sun-god, he consulted ancient
tomes and tables of magic characters, muttered prayers
in a strange tongue that sounded like Indexerrorparallax-
refraction, made cabalistic signs on paper, added and
carried one, and then, on a piece of holy script called
the Grail I mean, the Chart he placed his finger
on a certain space conspicuous for its blankness and
said, "Here we are." When we looked at the blank
space and asked, "And where is that ? " he answered in
the cipher-code of the higher priesthood, "31 15 47
north, 133 5 30 west." And we said "Oh," and
felt mighty small.
So I aver, it was not Roscoe s fault. He was like
unto a god, and he carried us in the hollow of his hand
across the blank spaces on the chart. I experienced a
great respect for Roscoe ; this respect grew so pro
found that had he commanded, " Kneel down and wor
ship me," I know that I should have flopped down on
the deck and yammered. But, one day, there came a
still small thought to me that said: "This is not a
52 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
FINDING ONE S WAY ABOUT 53
god ; this is Roscoe, a mere man like myself. What
he has done, I can do. Who taught him ? Himself.
Go you and do likewise be your own teacher."
And right there Roscoe crashed, and he was high priest
of the Snark no longer. I invaded the sanctuary and
demanded the ancient tomes and magic tables, also the
prayer-wheel the sextant, I mean.
And now, in simple language, I shall describe how
I taught myself navigation. One whole afternoon
I sat in the cockpit, steering with one hand and
studying logarithms with the other. Two after
noons, two hours each, I studied the general theory
of navigation and the particular process of taking a
meridian altitude. Then I took the sextant, worked
out the index error, and shot the sun. The figuring
from the data of this observation was child s play.
In the "Epitome" and the "Nautical Almanac"
were scores of cunning tables, all worked out by
mathematicians and astronomers. It was like using
interest tables and lightning-calculator tables such as
you all know. The mystery was mystery no longer.
I put my finger on the chart and announced that
that was where we were. I was right, too, or at least
I was as right as Roscoe, who selected a spot a quarter
of a mile away from mine. Even he was willing
to split the distance with me. I had exploded the
mystery ; and yet, such was the miracle of it, I was
conscious of new power in me, and I felt the thrill
and tickle of pride. And when Martin asked me,
in the same humble and respectful way I had previ
ously asked Roscoe, as to where we were, it was with
exaltation and spiritual chest-throwing that I answered
in the cipher-code of the higher priesthood and heard
54 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
Martin s self-abasing and worshipful " Oh." As for
Charmian, I felt that in a new way I had proved my
right to her ; and I was aware of another feeling,
namely, that she was a most fortunate woman to have
a man like me.
I couldn t help it. I tell it as a vindication of
Roscoe and all -the other navigators. The poison of
power was working in me.
I was not as other men
most other men ; I knew
what they did not know,
the mystery of the heavens,
that pointed out the way
across the deep. And the
taste of power I had received
drove me on. I steered at
the wheel long hours with one
hand, and studied mystery
with the other. By the end
of the week, teaching myself,
I was able to do divers things.
For instance, I shot the North
Star, at night, of course ; got
its altitude, corrected for in
dex error, dip, etc., and found our latitude. And
this latitude agreed with the latitude of the previous
noon corrected by dead reckoning up to that mo
ment. Proud ? Well, I was even prouder with
my next miracle. I was going to turn in at nine
o clock. I worked out the problem, self-instructed,
and learned what star of the first magnitude would be
passing the meridian around half-past eight. This
star proved to be Alpha Crucis. I had never heard
Land Ho!
FINDING ONE S WAY ABOUT 55
of the star before. I looked it up on the star map.
It was one of the stars of the Southern Cross. What!
thought I ; have we been sailing with the Southern
Cross in the sky of nights and never known it?
Dolts that we are ! Gudgeons and moles ! I couldn t
believe it. I went over the problem again, and veri
fied it. Charmian had the wheel from eight till ten
that evening. I told her to keep her eyes open and
look due south for the Southern Cross. And when the
stars came out, there shone the Southern Cross low
on the horizon. Proud? No medicine man nor
high priest was ever prouder. Furthermore, with the
prayer-wheel I shot Alpha Crucis and from its alti
tude worked out our latitude. And still further
more, I shot the North Star, too, and it agreed
with what had been told me by the Southern Cross.
Proud ? Why, the language of the stars was mine,
and I listened and heard them telling me my way
over the deep.
Proud? I was a worker of miracles. I forgot how
easily I had taught myself from the printed page. I
forgot that all the work (and a tremendous work, too)
had been done by the master-minds before me, the
astronomers and mathematicians, who had discovered
and elaborated the whole science of navigation and
made the tables in the " Epitome." I remembered
only the everlasting miracle of it that I had listened
to the voices of the stars and been told my place upon
the highway of the sea. Charmian did not know,
Martin did not know, Tochigi, the cabin-boy, did not
know. But I told them. I was God s messenger.
I stood between them and infinity. I translated the
high celestial speech into terms of their ordinary
56 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
understanding. We were heaven-directed, and it was
I who could read the sign-post of the sky ! I ! I !
And now, in a cooler moment, I hasten to blab
the whole simplicity of it, to blab on Roscoe and the
other navigators and the rest of the priesthood, all
for fear that I may become even as they, secretive,
immodest, and inflated with self-esteem. And I want
to say this now: any young fellow with ordinary gray
matter, ordinary education, and with the slightest trace
of the student-mind, can get the books, and charts,
and instruments and teach himself navigation. Now I
must not be misunderstood. Seamanship is an entirely
different matter. It is not learned in a day, nor in
many days ; it requires years. Also, navigating by
dead reckoning requires long study and practice. But
navigating by observations of the sun, moon, and
stars, thanks to the astronomers and mathematicians,
is child s play. Any average young fellow can teach
himself in a week. And yet again I must not be mis
understood. I do not mean to say that at the end of a
week a young fellow could take charge of a fifteen-thou-
sand-ton steamer, driving twenty knots an hour through
the brine, racing from land to land, fair weather and
foul, clear sky or cloudy, steering by degrees on
the compass card and making landfalls with most
amazing precision. But what I do mean is just this :
the average young fellow I have described can get into
a staunch sail-boat and put out across the ocean, with
out knowing anything about navigation, and at the end
of the week he will know enough to know where he
is on the chart. He will be able to take a meridian
observation with fair accuracy, and from that observa
tion, with ten minutes of figuring, work out his lati-
FINDING ONE S WAY ABOUT 57
tude and longitude. And, carrying neither freight nor
passengers, being under no press to reach his destina
tion, he can jog comfortably along, and if at any time
he doubts his own navigation and fears an imminent
landfall, he can heave to all night and proceed in the
morning.
Joshua Slocum sailed around the world a few years
Our First Guny.
ago in a thirty-seven-foot boat all by himself. I shall
never forget, in his narrative of the voyage, where he
heartily indorsed the idea of young men, in similar
small boats, making similar voyage. I promptly in
dorsed his idea, and so heartily that I took my wife
along. While it certainly makes a Cook s tour look
like thirty cents, on top of that, and on top of the fun
and pleasure, it is a splendid education for a young
man oh, not a mere education in the things of the
58 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
world outside, of lands, and peoples, and climates, but
an education in the world inside, an education in one s
self, a chance to learn one s own self, to get on speak
ing terms with one s soul. Then there is the training
and the disciplining of it. First, naturally, the young
fellow will learn his limitations ; and next, inevitably,
he will proceed to press back those limitations. And
he cannot escape returning from such a voyage a bigger
and 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 hands, depending on no one but one s self, and at
the end, back at the starting-point, contemplating with
inner vision the planet rushing through space, and say
ing, " I did it; with my own hands I did it. I went
clear around that whirling sphere, and I can travel
alone, without any nurse of a sea-captain to guide my
steps across the seas. I may not fly to other stars, but
of this star I myself am master."
As I write these lines I lift my eyes and look sea
ward. I am on the beach of Waikiki 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 emerald and light olive-green. Then
comes the reef, where the water is all slaty purple
flecked with red. Still nearer are brighter greens and
tans, lying in alternate stripes and showing where sand-
beds lie between the living coral banks. Through and
over and out of these wonderful colors tumbles and
thunders a magnificent surf. As I say, I lift my eyes
to all this, and through the white crest of a breaker
suddenly appears a dark figure, erect, a man-fish or a
sea-god, on the very forward face of the crest where
the top falls over and down, driving in toward shore,
FINDING ONE S WAY ABOUT 59
buried to his loins in smoking spray, caught up by the
sea and flung landward, bodily, a quarter of a mile. It
is a Kanaka on a surf-board. And I know that when
I have finished these lines I shall be out in that riot of
color and pounding surf, trying to bit those breakers
even as he, and failing as he never failed, but living life
as the best of us may live it. And the picture of that
colored sea and that flying sea-god Kanaka becomes
another reason for the young man to go west, and
farther west, beyond the Baths of Sunset, and still west
till he arrives home again.
But to return. Please do not think that I already
know it all. I know only the rudiments of navigation.
There is a vast deal yet for me to learn. On the
Snark there is a score of fascinating books on naviga
tion waiting for me. There is the danger-angle of
Lecky, there is the line of Sumner, which, when you
know least of all where you are, shows most conclu
sively where you are, and where you are not. There
are dozens and dozens of methods of rinding one s lo
cation on the deep, and one can work years before he
masters it all in all its fineness.
Even in the little we did learn there were slips that ac
counted for the apparently antic behavior of the Snark.
On Thursday, May 16, for instance, the trade wind
failed us. During the twenty-four hours that ended
Friday at noon, by dead reckoning we had not sailed
twenty miles. Yet here are our positions, at noon, for
the two days, worked out from our observations :
Thursday 20 57 9" N
152 40 30" W
Friday 21 15 33" N
154 12 W
60 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
The difference between the two positions was some
thing like eighty miles. Yet we knew we had
not travelled twenty miles. Now our figuring was all
right. We went over it several times. What was
wrong was the observations we had taken. To take a
correct observation requires practice and skill, and
especially so on a small craft like the Snark. The vio
lently moving boat and the closeness of the observer s
eye to the surface of the water are to blame. A big
wave that lifts up a mile off is liable to steal the hori
zon away.
But in our particular case there was another perturb
ing factor. The sun, in its annual march north through
the heavens, was increasing its declination. On the
1 9th parallel of north latitude in the middle of May
the sun is nearly overhead. The angle of arc was be
tween eighty-eight and eighty-nine degrees. Had it
been ninety degrees it would have been straight over
head. It was on another day that we learned a few
things about taking the altitude of the almost perpen
dicular sun. Roscoe started in drawing the sun down
to the eastern horizon, and he stayed by that point of
the compass despite the fact that the sun would pass
the meridian to the south. I, on the other hand,
started in to draw the sun down to southeast and
strayed away to the southwest. You see, we were
teaching ourselves. As a result, at twenty-five minutes
past twelve by the ship s time, I called twelve o clock
by the sun. Now this signified that we had changed
our location on the face of the world by twenty-five
minutes, which was equal to something like six degrees
of longitude, or three hundred and fifty miles. This
showed the Snark had travelled fifteen knots per hour
FINDING ONE S WAY ABOUT 61
for twenty-four consecutive hours and we had never
noticed it! It was absurd and grotesque. But Ros-
coe, still looking east, averred that it was not yet
twelve o clock. He was bent on giving us a twenty-
knot clip. Then we began to train our sextants rather
wildly all around the horizon, and wherever we looked,
there was the sun, puzzlingly close to the sky-line,
A Big Wave that is liable to steal the Horizon Away.
sometimes above it and sometimes below it. In one
direction the sun was proclaiming morning, in another
direction it was proclaiming afternoon. The sun was
all right we knew that; therefore we were all wrong.
And the rest of the afternoon we spent in the cockpit
reading up the matter in the books and finding out
what was wrong. We missed the observation that
day, but we didn t the next. We had learned.
And we learned well, better than for a while we
thought we had. At the beginning of the second dog-
62 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
watch one evening, Charmian and I sat down on the
forecastle-head for a rubber of cribbage. Chancing to
glance ahead, I saw cloud-capped mountains rising
from the sea. We were rejoiced at the sight of land,
but I was in despair over our navigation. I thought
we had learned something, yet our position at noon,
plus what we had run since, did not put us within a
hundred miles of land. But there was the land, fad
ing away before our eyes in the fires of sunset. The
land was all right. There was no disputing it. There
fore our navigation was all wrong. But it wasn t.
That land we saw was the summit of Haleakala, the
House of the Sun, the greatest extinct volcano in the
world. It towered ten thousand feet above the sea, and
it was all of a hundred miles away. We sailed all night
at a seven-knot clip, and in the morning the House
of the Sun was still before us, and it took a few more
hours of sailing to bring it abreast of us. " That is
land is Maui," we said, verifying by the chart. " That
next island sticking out is Molokai, where the lepers
are. And the island next to that is Oahu. There is
Makapuu Head now. We ll be in Honolulu to-mor
row. Our navigation is all right."
CHAPTER V
The First Landfall
" IT will not be so monotonous at sea/ I promised
my fellow- voyagers on the Snark. " The sea is filled
with life. It is so populous that every day something
new is happening. Almost as soon as we pass through
the Golden Gate and head south we ll pick up with the
flying fish. We ll be having them fried for breakfast.
We ll be catching bonita and dolphin, and spearing
porpoises from the bowsprit. And then there are the
sharks sharks without end."
We passed through the Golden Gate and headed
south. We dropped the mountains of California
beneath the horizon, and daily the sun grew warmer.
But there were no flying fish, no bonita and dolphin.
The ocean was bereft of life. Never had I sailed on
so forsaken a sea. Always, before, in the same lati
tudes, had I encountered flying fish.
" Never mind," I said. " Wait till we get off the
coast of Southern California. Then we ll pick up the
flying fish."
We came abreast of Southern California, abreast of
the Peninsula of Lower California, abreast of the coast
of Mexico ; and there were no flying fish. Nor was
there anything else. No life moved. As the days
went by the absence of life became almost uncanny.
" Never mind," I said. " When we do pick up
with the flying fish we ll pick up with everything else.
The flying fish is the staff of life for all the other
64 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
breeds. Everything will come in a bunch when we
find the flying fish."
When I should have headed the Snark southwest for
Hawaii, I still held her south. I was going to find
those flying fish. Finally the time came when, if I
wanted to go to Honolulu, I should have headed the
Snark due west. Instead of which I kept her south.
In the Heel of the North-east Trades.
Not until latitude 19 did we encounter the first flying
fish. He was very much alone. I saw him. Five
other pairs of eager eyes scanned the sea all day, but
never saw another. So sparse were the flying fish that
nearly a week more elapsed before the last one on board
saw his first flying fish. As for the dolphin, bonita,
porpoise, and all the other hordes of life there
weren t any.
Not even a shark broke surface with his ominous
dorsal fin. Bert took a dip daily under the bowsprit,
hanging on to the stays and dragging his body through
THE FIRST LANDFALL 65
the water. And daily he canvassed the project of
letting go and having a decent swim. I did my best
to dissuade him. But with him I had lost all standing
as an authority on sea life.
"If there are sharks," he demanded, "why don t
they show up ? "
I assured him that if he really did let go and have a
swim the sharks would promptly appear. This was a
bluff on my part. I didn t believe it. It lasted as
a deterrent for two days. The third day the wind fell
calm, and it was pretty hot. The Snark was moving
a knot an hour. Bert dropped down under the bow
sprit and let go. And now behold the perversity of
things. We had sailed across two thousand miles and
more of ocean and had met with no sharks. Within
five minutes after Bert finished his swim, the fin of a
shark was cutting the surface in circles around the
Snark.
There was something wrong about that shark. It
bothered me. It had no right to be there in that
deserted ocean. The more I thought about it, the
more incomprehensible it became. But two hours
later we sighted land and the mystery was cleared up.
He had come to us from the land, and not from the
uninhabited deep. He had presaged the landfall. He
was the messenger of the land.
Twenty-seven days out from San Francisco we ar
rived at the island of Oahu, Territory of Hawaii. In
the early morning we drifted around Diamond Head
into full view of Honolulu ; and then the ocean burst
suddenly into life. Flying fish cleaved the air in glit
tering squadrons. In five minutes we saw more of
them than during the whole voyage. Other fish, large
66 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
ones, of various sorts, leaped into the air. There
was life everywhere, on sea and shore. We could see
the masts and funnels of the shipping in the harbor,
the hotels and bathers along the beach at Waikiki, the
smoke rising from the dwelling-houses high up on the
volcanic slopes of the Punch Bowl and Tantalus.
The custom-house tug was racing toward us and a
The Snark at her First Anchorage.
big school of porpoises got under our bow and began
cutting the most ridiculous capers. The port doctor s
launch came charging out at us, and a big sea turtle
broke the surface with his back and took a look at us.
Never was there such a burgeoning of life. Strange
faces were on our decks, strange voices were speaking,
and copies of that very morning s newspaper, with
cable reports from all the world, were thrust before our
eyes. Incidentally, we read that the Snark and all
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 information a wireless message was being received
by the congressional party on the summit of Haleakala
announcing the safe arrival of the Snark.
It was the Snark s first landfall and such a land
fall ! For twenty-seven days we had been on the de
serted deep, and it was pretty hard to realize that there
The Wharf that wouldn t stand Still.
was so much life in the world. We were made dizzy
by it. We could not take it all in at once. We were
like awakened Rip Van Winkles, and it seemed to us
that we were dreaming. On one side the azure sea
lapped across the horizon into the azure sky ; on the
other side the sea lifted itself into great breakers of
emerald that fell in a snowy smother upon a white
coral beach. Beyond the beach, green plantations of
sugar-cane undulated gently upward to steeper slopes,
68 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
which, in turn, became jagged volcanic crests, drenched
with tropic showers and capped by stupendous masses
of trade-wind clouds. At any rate, it was a most
beautiful dream. The Snark turned and headed
directly in toward the emerald surf, till it lifted 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 itself, in a riot of olive-greens of
a thousand hues, reached out its arms and folded the
Snark in. There was no perilous passage through the
reef, no emerald surf and azure sea nothing but a
warm soft land, a motionless lagoon, and tiny beaches
on which swam dark-skinned tropic children. The
sea had disappeared. The Snark 1 s anchor rumbled the
chain through the hawse-pipe, and we lay without
movement on a " lineless, level floor." It was all so
beautiful and strange that we could not accept it as
real. On the chart this place was called Pearl Harbor,
but we called it Dream Harbor.
A launch came off to us; in it were members of the
Hawaiian Yacht Club, come to greet us and make us
welcome, with true Hawaiian hospitality, to all they
had. They were ordinary men, flesh and blood and
all the rest ; but they did not tend to break our dream
ing. Our last memories of men were of United States
marshals and of panicky little merchants with rusty
dollars for souls, who, in a reeking atmosphere of soot
and coal-dust, laid grimy hands upon the Snark and
held her back from her world adventure. But these
men who came to meet us were clean men. A healthy
tan was on their cheeks, and their eyes were not daz
zled and be-spectacled from gazing overmuch at
THE FIRST LANDFALL 69
glittering dollar-heaps. No, they merely verified the
dream. They clinched it with their unsmirched souls.
So we went ashore with them across a level flashing
sea to the wonderful green land. We landed on a tiny
wharf, and the dream became more insistent ; for know
that for twenty-seven days we had been rocking across
the ocean on the tiny Snark. Not once in all those
twenty-seven days had we known a moment s rest, a
moment s cessation from movement. This ceaseless
movement had become ingrained. Body and brain
we had rocked and rolled so long that when we climbed
out on the tiny wharf we kept on rocking and roll
ing. This, naturally, we attributed to the wharf. It
was projected psychology. I spraddled along the
wharf and nearly fell into the water. I glanced at
Charmian, and the way she walked made me sad. The
wharf had all the seeming of a ship s deck. It lifted,
tilted, heaved, and sank ; and since there were no hand
rails on it, it kept Charmian and me busy avoiding fall
ing in. I never saw such a preposterous little wharf.
Whenever I watched it closely, it refused to roll ; but
as soon as I took my attention off from it, away it
went, just like the Snark. Once, I caught it in the
act, just as it upended, and I looked down the length
of it for two hundred feet, and for all the world it was
like the deck of a ship ducking into a huge head-sea.
At last, however, supported by our hosts, we nego
tiated the wharf and gained the land. But the land
was no better. The very first thing it did was to tilt
up on one side, and far as the eye could see I watched
it tilt, clear to its jagged, volcanic backbone, and I saw
the clouds above tilt, too. This was no stable, firm-
founded land, else it would not cut such capers. It
yo THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
THE FIRST LANDFALL 71
was like all the rest of our landfall, unreal. It was a
dream. At any moment, like shifting vapor, it might
dissolve away. The thought entered my head that
perhaps it was my fault, that my head was swimming
or that something I had eaten had disagreed with me.
But I glanced at Charmian and her sad walk, and even as
I glanced I saw her stagger and bump into the yachts
man by whose side she walked. I spoke to her, and
she complained about the antic behavior of the land.
We walked across a spacious, wonderful lawn and
down an avenue of royal palms, and across more won
derful lawn in the gracious shade of stately trees. The
air was filled with the songs of birds and was heavy
with rich warm fragrances wafture from great lilies,
and blazing blossoms of hibiscus, and other strange
gorgeous tropic flowers. The dream was becoming
almost impossibly beautiful to us who for so long had
seen naught but the restless, salty sea. Charmian
reached out her hand and clung to me for support
against the ineffable beauty of it, thought I. But no.
As I supported her I braced my legs, while the flowers
and lawns reeled and swung around me. It was like
an earthquake, only it quickly passed without doing
any harm. It was fairly difficult to catch the land
playing these tricks. As long as I kept my mind on
it, nothing happened. But as soon as my attention
was distracted, away it went, the whole panorama,
swinging and heaving and tilting at all sorts of angles.
Once, however, I turned my head suddenly and caught
that stately line of royal palms swinging in a great arc
across the sky. But it stopped, just as soon as I
caught it, and became a placid dream again.
Next we came to a house of coolness, with great
72 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
sweeping veranda, where lotus-eaters might dwell.
Windows and doors were wide open to the breeze, and
the songs and fragrances blew lazily in and out. The
walls were hung with tapa-cloths. Couches with grass-
woven covers invited everywhere, and there was a grand
piano, that played, I was sure, nothing more exciting
than lullabies. Servants Japanese maids in native
costume drifted around and about, noiselessly, like
butterflies. Everything was preternaturally cool. Here
was no blazing down of a tropic sun upon an unshrink
ing sea. It was too good to be true. Butit was not real.
It was a dream-dwelling. I knew, for I turned sud
denly and caught the grand piano cavorting in a
spacious corner of the room. I did not say anything,
for just then we were being received by a gracious
woman, a beautiful Madonna, clad in flowing white
and shod with sandals, 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 par
took of a nectar called poi. But the dream threatened
to dissolve. It shimmered and trembled like an iri
descent bubble about to break. I was just glancing
out at the green grass and stately trees and blossoms
of 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
greensward and the trees all lifted and tilted before
my eyes, and heaved and sank down into the trough
of a monstrous sea. I gripped my chair convulsively
and held on. I had a feeling that I was holding on
to the dream as well as the chair. I should not have
been surprised had the sea rushed in and drowned all
THE FIRST LANDFALL
73
74 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
that fairyland and had I found myself at the wheel of
the Snark just looking up casually from the study of
logarithms. But the dream persisted. I looked covertly
at the Madonna and her husband. They evidenced no
perturbation. The dishes had not moved upon the
table. The hibiscus and trees and grass were still
there. Nothing had changed. I partook of more
nectar, and the dream was more real than ever.
"Will you have some iced tea?" asked the Madonna;
and then her side of the table sank down gently and I
said yes to her at an angle of forty-five degrees.
"Speaking of sharks," said her husband, "up at
Niihau there was a man " And at that moment the
table 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 I did
not have to bear the affliction of watching Charmian
walk. Suddenly, however, a mysterious word of fear
broke from the lips of the lotus-eaters. " Ah, ah,"
thought I, " now the dream goes glimmering." I
clutched the chair desperately, resolved to drag back to
the reality of the Snark some tangible vestige of this
lotus land. I felt the whole dream lurching and pulling
to be gone. Just then the mysterious word of fear
was repeated. It sounded like Reporters. I looked
and saw three of them coming across the lawn. Oh,
blessed reporters ! Then the dream was indisputably
real after all. I glanced out across the shining water
and saw the Snark at anchor, and I remembered that
I had sailed in her from San Francisco to Hawaii, and
that this was Pearl Harbor, and that even then I was
acknowledging introductions and saying, in reply to
the first question, " Yes, we had delightful weather all
the way down."
CHAPTER VI
A Royal Sport
THAT is what it is, a royal sport for the natural kings
of earth. The grass grows right down to the water at
Waikiki Beach, and within fifty feet of the everlasting
sea. The trees also grow down to the salty edge of
things, and one sits in their shade and looks seaward
at a majestic surf thundering in on the beach to one s
very feet. Half a mile out, where is the reef, the
white-headed combers thrust suddenly skyward out of
the placid turquoise-blue and come rolling in to shore.
One after another they come, a mile long, with smok
ing crests, the white battalions of the infinite army of
the sea. And one sits and listens to the perpetual
roar, and watches the unending procession, and feels
tiny and fragile before this tremendous force express
ing itself in fury and foam and sound. Indeed,
one feels microscopically small, and the thought that
one may wrestle with this sea raises in one s imagination
a thrill of apprehension, almost of fear. Why, they
are^a mile long, these bull-mouthed monsters, and they
weigh a thousand tons, and they charge in to shore
faster than a man can run. What chance? No chance
at all, is the verdict of the shrinking ego ; and one sits,
and looks, and listens, and thinks the grass and the
shade are a pretty good place in which to be.
And suddenly, out there where a big smoker lifts
skyward, rising like a sea-god from out of the welter
of spume and churning white, on the giddy, toppling,
75
76 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
overhanging and downfalling, precarious crest appears
the dark head of a man. Swiftly he rises through the
rushing white. His black shoulders, his chest, his loins,
his limbs all is abruptly projected, on one s vision.
Where but the moment before was only the wide deso
lation and invincible roar, is now a man, erect, full-
statured, not struggling frantically in that wild
Coming in on a Wave.
movement, not buried and crushed 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 salt smoke rising to
his knees, and all the rest of him in the free air and
flashing sunlight, and he is flying through the air,
flying forward, flying fast as the surge on which he
stands. He is a Mercury a brown Mercury. His
heels are winged, and in them is the swiftness of the
sea. In truth, from out of the sea he has leaped upon
the back of the sea, and he is riding the sea that roars
A ROYAL SPORT
77
and bellows and cannot shake him from its back. But
no frantic outreaching and balancing is his. He is
impassive, motionless as a statue carved suddenly by
some miracle out of the sea s depth from which he rose.
And straight on toward shore he flies on his winged heels
Leviathan and the Snark,
and the white crest of the breaker. There is a wild
burst of foam, a long tumultuous rushing sound as the
breaker falls futile and spent on the beach at your feet;
and there, at your feet steps calmly ashore a Kanaka,
burnt golden and brown by the tropic sun. Several
minutes ago he was a speck a quarter of a mile away.
He has " bitted the bull-mouthed breaker" and ridden it
in, and the pride in the feat shows in the carriage of his
magnificent body as he glances for a moment carelessly
78 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
at you who sit in the shade of the shore. He is a
Kanaka and more, he is a man, a member of the
kingly species that has mastered matter and the brutes
and lorded it over creation.
And one sits and thinks of Tristram s last wrestle
with the sea on that fatal morning ; and one thinks
further, to the fact that that Kanaka has done what
Tristram never did, and that he knows a joy of the sea
that Tristram never knew. And still further one thinks.
It is all very well, sitting here in cool shade of the
beach, but you are a man, one of the kingly species,
and what that Kanaka can do, you can do yourself. Go to.
Strip off your clothes that are a nuisance "in this mellow
clime. Get in and wrestle with the sea ; wing your
heels with the skill and power that reside in you ; bit
the sea s breakers, master them, and ride upon their
backs as a king should.
And that is how it came about that I tackled surf-
riding. And now that I have tackled it, more than
ever do I hold it to be a royal sport. But first let me
explain the physics of it. A wave is a communicated
agitation. The water that composes the body of a wave
does not move. If it did, when a stone is thrown into
a pond and the ripples spread away in an ever widening
circle, there would appear at the centre an ever increas
ing hole. No, the water that composes the body of a
wave is stationary. Thus, you may watch a particular
portion of the ocean s surface and you will see the same
water rise and fall a thousand times to the agitation
communicated by a thousand successive waves. Now
imagine this communicated agitation moving shoreward.
As the bottom shoals, the lower portion of the wave
strikes land first and is stopped. But water is fluid,
A ROYAL SPORT
79
and the upper portion has not struck anything, where
fore it keeps on communicating its agitation, keeps on
going. And when the top of the wave keeps on
going, while the bottom of it lags behind, something
is bound to happen.
The bottom of the
wave drops out from
under and the top of
the wave falls over,
forward, and down,
curling and cresting
and roaring as it
does so. It is the
bottom of a wave
striking against the
top of the land that
is the cause of all
surfs.
But the trans
formation from * a
smooth undulation
to a breaker is not
Good Morning.
abrupt except where
the bottom shoals
abruptly. Say the
bottom shoals gradually for from quarter of a mile to
a mile, then an equal distance will be occupied by the
transformation. Such a bottom is that off the beach
of Waikiki, and it produces a splendid surf-riding surf.
One leaps upon the back of a breaker just as it begins
to break, and stays on it as it continues to break all
the way in to shore.
And now to the particular physics of surf-riding.
So THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
Get out on a flat board, six feet long, two feet wide,
and roughly oval in shape. Lie down upon it like a
small boy on a coaster and paddle with your hands
out to deep water, where the waves begin to crest. Lie
out there quietly on the board. Sea after sea breaks
before, behind, and under and over you, and rushes in
to shore, leaving you behind. When a wave crests, it
gets steeper. Imagine yourself, on your board, on the
face of that steep slope. If it stood still, you would
slide down just as a boy slides down a hill on his
coaster. " But," you object, " the wave doesn t stand
still." Very true, but the water composing the wave
stands still, and there you have the secret. If ever
you start sliding down the face of that wave, you ll
keep on sliding and you ll never reach the bottom.
Please don t laugh. The face of that wave may be
only 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
impetus, and since the water that composes a wave, is
changing every instant, new water is rising into the
wave as fast as the wave travels. You slide down this
new water, and yet remain in your old position on the
wave, sliding down the still newer water that is rising
and forming the wave. You slide precisely as fast as
the wave travels. I fit travels fifteen miles an hour,
you slide fifteen miles an hour. Between you and
shore stretches a quarter of mile of water. As the
wave travels, this water obligingly heaps itself into the
wave, gravity does the rest, and down you go, sliding
the whole length of it. If you still cherish the notion,
while sliding, that the water is moving with you, thrust
your arms into it and attempt to paddle ; you will find
A ROYAL SPORT 81
that you have to be remarkably quick to get a stroke,
for that water is dropping astern just as fast as you are
rushing ahead.
And now for another phase of the physics of surf-
riding. All rules have their exceptions. It is true
that the water in a wave does not travel forward. But
there is what may be called the send of the sea. The
Standing up and lying down.
water in the overtoppling crest does move forward, as
you will speedily realize if you are slapped in the face
by it, or if you are caught under it and are pounded
by one mighty blow down under the surface panting
and gasping for half a minute. The water in the top
of a wave rests upon the water in the bottom of the
wave. But when the bottom of the wave strikes the
land, it stops, while the top goes on. It no longer has
the bottom of the wave to hold it up. Where was
solid water beneath it, is now air, and for the first time
82 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
it feels the grip of gravity, and down it falls, at the
same time being torn asunder from the lagging bot
tom of the wave and flung forward. And it is be
cause of this that riding a surf-board is something
more than a mere placid sliding down a hill. In truth,
one is caught up and hurled shoreward as by some
Titan s hand.
I deserted the cool shade, put on a swimming suit,
and got hold of a surf-board. It was too small a board.
But I didn t know, and nobody told me. I joined
some little Kanaka boys in shallow water, where the
breakers were well spent and small a regular kinder
garten school. I watched the little Kanaka boys.
When a likely-looking breaker came along, they
flopped upon their stomachs on their boards, kicked
like mad with their 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 utterly.
The breaker swept past, and I was not on it. I tried
again and again. I kicked twice as madly as they did,
and failed. Half a dozen would be around. We
would all leap on our boards in front of a good
breaker. Away our feet would churn like the stern-
wheels of river steamboats, and away the little rascals
would scoot while I remained in disgrace behind.
I tried for a solid hour, and not one wave could I
persuade to boost me shoreward. And then arrived a
friend, Alexander Hume Ford, a globe trotter by pro
fession, bent ever on the pursuit of sensation. And
he had found it at Waikiki. Heading for Australia,
he had stopped off for a week to find out if there were
any thrills in surf-riding, and he had become wedded to
it. He had been at it every day for a month and could
A ROYAL SPORT 83
not yet see any symptoms of the fascination lessening
on him. He spoke with authority.
" Get off that board," he said. " Chuck it away at
once. Look at the way you re trying to ride it. If
ever the nose of that board hits bottom, you ll be dis
embowelled. Here, take my board. It s a man s
size."
I am always humble when confronted by knowledge.
Ford knew. He showed me how properly to mount
his board. Then he waited for a good breaker, gave
me a shove at the right moment, and started me in.
Ah, delicious moment when I felt that breaker grip and
fling me. On I dashed, a hundred and fifty feet, and
subsided with the breaker on the sand. From that
moment I was lost. I waded back to Ford with his
board. It was a large one, several inches thick, and
weighed all of seventy-five pounds. He gave me
advice, much of it. He had had no one to teach him,
and all that he had laboriously learned in several weeks
he communicated to me in half an hour. I really
learned by proxy. And inside of half an hour I was
able to start myself and ride in. I did it time after
time, and Ford applauded and advised. For instance,
he told me to get just so far forward on the board
and no farther. But 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 somersault, at the same time violently sever
ing our relations. I was tossed through the air like a
chip and buried ignominiously under the downfalling
breaker. And I realized that if it hadn t been for
Ford, I d have been disembowelled. That particular
risk is part of the sport, Ford says. Maybe he ll have
84 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
it happen to him before he leaves Waikiki, and then, I
feel confident, his yearning for sensation will be satis
fied for a time.
When all is said and done, it is my steadfast belief
that homicide is worse than suicide, especially if, in the
former case, it is a woman. Ford saved me from be
ing a homicide. " Imagine your legs are a rudder,"
he said. " Hold them close together, and steer with
Beating the Break of the Wave.
them." A few minutes later I came charging in on a
comber. As I neared the beach, there, in the water,
up to her waist, dead in front of me, appeared a
woman. How was I to stop that comber on whose
back I was ? It looked like a dead woman. The
board weighed seventy-five pounds, I weighed a
hundred and sixty-five. The added weight had a
velocity of fifteen miles per hour. The board and I
constituted a projectile. I leave it to the physicists to
figure out the force of the impact upon that poor,
tender woman. And then I remembered my guardian
angel, Ford. "Steer with your legs!" rang through
my brain. I steered with my legs, I steered sharply,
abruptly, with all my legs and with all my might. The
board sheered around broadside on the crest. Many
things happened simultaneously. The wave gave me a
A ROYAL SPORT 85
passing buffet, a light tap as the taps of waves go, but
a tap sufficient to knock me off the board and smash
me down through the rushing water to bottom, with
which I came in violent collision and upon which I was
rolled over and over. I got my head out for a breath
of air and then gained my feet. There stood the
woman before me. I felt like a hero. I had saved her
life. And she laughed at me. It was not hysteria.
She had never dreamed of her danger. Anyway, I
solaced myself, it was not I but Ford that saved her,
and I didn t have to feel like a hero. And besides,
that leg-steering was great. In a few minutes more of
practice I was able to thread my way in and out past
several bathers and to remain on top my breaker
instead of going under it.
" To-morrow," Ford said, " I am going to take you
out into the blue water."
I looked seaward where he pointed, and saw the
great smoking combers that made the breakers I had
been riding look like ripples. I don t know what I
might have said had I not recollected just then that I
was one of a kingly species. So all that I did say was,
"All right, I ll tackle them to-morrow."
The water that rolls in on Waikiki Beach is just
the same as the water that laves the shores of all the
Hawaiian Islands ; and in ways, especially from the
swimmer s standpoint, it is wonderful water. It is cool
enough to be comfortable, while it is warm enough to
permit a swimmer to stay in all day without experienc
ing a chill. Under the sun or the stars, at high noon
or at midnight, in midwinter or in midsummer, it does
not matter when, it is always the same temperature
not too warm, not too cold, just right. It is wonder-
86 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
ful water, salt as old ocean itself, pure and crystal-clear.
When the nature of the water is considered, it is not so
remarkable after all that the Kanakas are one of the
most expert of swimming races.
So it was, next morning, when Ford came along,
that I plunged into the wonderful water for a swim of
indeterminate length. Astride of our surf-boards, or,
rather, flat down upon them on our stomachs, we
paddled out through the kindergarten where the little
Kanaka boys were at play. Soon we were out in deep
water where the big smokers came roaring in. The
mere struggle with them, facing them and paddling
seaward over them and through them, was sport
enough in itself. One had to have his wits about him,
for it was a battle in which mighty blows were struck,
on one side, and in which cunning was used on the
other side a struggle between insensate force and in
telligence. I soon learned a bit. When a breaker
curled over my head, for a swift instant I could see the
light of day through its emerald body ; then down
would go my head, and I would clutch the board with
all my strength. Then would come, the blow, and to
the onlooker on shore I would be blotted out. In
reality the board and I have passed through the crest
and emerged in the respite of the other side. I should
not recommend those smashing blows to an invalid. or
delicate person. There is weight behind them, and the
impact of the driven water is like a sand-blast. Some
times one passes through half a dozen combers in quick
succession, and it is just about that time that he is
liable to discover new merits in the stable land and new
reasons 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, one
Freeth. Shaking the water from my eyes as I emerged
from one wave and peered ahead to see what the next
one looked like, I saw him tearing in on the back of it,
standing upright on his board, carelessly poised, a young
god bronzed with sunburn. We went through the
wave on the back of which he rode. Ford called to
him. He turned an airspring from his wave, rescued
his board from its maw, paddled over to us and joined
The Wave that Everybody Caught.
Ford in showing me things. One thing in particular
I learned from Freeth, namely, how to encounter the
occasional breaker of exceptional size that rolled in.
Such breakers were really ferocious, and it was unsafe
to meet them on top of the board. But Freeth showed
me, so that whenever I saw one of that caliber rolling
down on me, I slid off the rear end of the board and
dropped down beneath the surface, my arms over my head
and holding the board. Thus, if the wave ripped the
board out of my hands and tried to strike me with it (a
common trick of such waves), there would be a cushion
of water a foot or more in depth, between my head and
the blow. When the wave passed, I climbed upon
88 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
the board and paddled on. Many men have been
terribly injured, I learn, by being struck by their
boards.
The whole method of surf-riding and surf-fighting,
I learned, is one of non-resistance. Dodge the blow
that is struck at you. Dive through the wave that is
trying to slap you in the face. Sink down, feet first,
deep under the surface, and let the big smoker that is
trying to smash you go by far overhead. Never be
rigid. Relax. . Yield yourself to the waters that are
ripping and tearing at you. When the undertow
catches you and drags you seaward along the bottom,
don t struggle against it. If you do, you are liable to be
drowned, for it is stronger than you. Yield yourself
to that undertow. Swim with it, not against it, and
you will find the pressure removed. And, swimming
with it, fooling it so that it does not hold you, swim
upward at the same time. It will be no trouble at all
to reach the surface.
The man who wants to learn surf-riding must be a
strong swimmer, and he must be used to going under
the water. After that, fair strength and common-sense
are all that is required. The force of the big comber is
rather unexpected. There are mix-ups in which board
and rider are torn apart and separated by several hun
dred feet. The surf-rider must take care of himself.
No matter how many riders swim out with him, he
cannot depend upon any of them for aid. The fancied
security I had in the presence of Ford and Freeth made
me forget that it was my first swim out in deep water
among the big ones. I recollected, however, and
rather suddenly, for a big wave came in, and away went
the two men on its back all the way to shore. I
A ROYAL SPORT 89
could have been drowned a dozen different ways before
they got back to me.
One slides down the face of a breaker on his surf-board,
but he has to get started to sliding. Board and rider must
be moving shoreward at a good rate before the wave
overtakes them. When you see the wave coming that
you want to ride in, you turn tail to it and paddle
shoreward with all your strength, using what is called
the windmill stroke. This is a sort of spurt performed
immediately in front of the wave. If the board is go
ing fast enough, the wave accelerates it, and the board
begins its quarter-of-a-mile slide.
I shall never forget the first big wave I caught out
there in the deep water. I saw it coming, turned my
back on it and paddled for dear life. Faster and faster
my board went, till it seemed my arms would drop off.
What was happening behind me I could not tell. One
cannot look behind and paddle the windmill stroke.
I heard the crest of the wave hissing and churning, and
then my board was lifted and flung forward. I scarcely
knew what happened the first half-minute. Though I
kept my eyes open, I could not see anything, for I
was buried in the rushing white of the crest. But
I did not mind. I was chiefly conscious of ecstatic bliss
at having caught the wave. At the end of the half-min
ute, however, I began to see things, and to breathe. I
saw that three feet of the nose of my board was clear
out of water and riding on the air. I shifted my weight
forward, and made the nose come down. Then I lay,
quite at rest in the midst of the wild movement, and
watched the shore and the bathers on the beach grow
distinct. I didn t cover quite a quarter of a mile on
that wave, because, to prevent the board from div-
9 o THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
ing, I shifted my weight back, but shifted it too far
and fell down the rear slope of the wave.
It was my second day at surf-riding, and I was quite
proud of myself. I stayed out there four hours, and when
it was over, I was resolved that on the morrow I d come
in standing up. But that resolution paved a distant
place. On the morrow I was in bed. I was not sick,
but I was very unhappy, and I was in bed. When
describing the wonderful water of Hawaii I forgot to
describe the wonderful sun of Hawaii. It is a tropic
sun, and, furthermore, in the first part of June, it is an
overhead sun. It 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 of my
legs, at right-angles, to that perpendicular Hawaiian sun.
It was not until after I got ashore that I discovered the
sun had touched me. Sunburn at first is merely warm ;
after that it grows intense and the blisters come out.
Also, the joints, where the skin wrinkles, refuse to bend.
That is why I spent the next day in bed. I couldn t
walk. And that is why, to-day, I am writing this in
bed. It is easier to than not to. But to-morrow, ah,
to-morrow, I shall be out in that wonderful water, and
I shall come in standing up, even as Ford and Freeth.
And if I fail to-morrow, I shall do it the next day, or
the next. Upon one thing I am resolved : the Snark
shall not sail from Honolulu until I, too, wing my
heels with the swiftness of the sea, and become a sun
burned, skin-peeling Mercury.
CHAPTER VII
The Lepers of Molokai
WHEN the Snark sailed along the windward coast of
Molokai, on her way to Honolulu, I looked at the
chart, then pointed to a low-lying peninsula backed
by a tremendous cliff varying from two to four thou
sand feet in height, and said : " The pit of hell, the
most cursed place on earth." I should have been
shocked, if, at that moment, I could have caught a
vision of myself a month later, ashore in the most
cursed place on earth and having a disgracefully good
time along with eight hundred of the lepers who were
likewise having a good time. Their good time was
not disgraceful ; but mine was, for in the midst of so
much misery it was not meet for me to have a good
time. That is the way I felt about it, and my only
excuse is that I couldn t help having a good time.
For instance, in the afternoon of the Fourth of
July all the lepers gathered at the race-track for the
sports. I had wandered away from the Superinten
dent and the physicians in order to get a snapshot of
the finish of one of the races. It was an interesting
race, and partisanship ran high. Three horses were
entered, one ridden by a Chinese, one by an Hawaiian,
and one by a Portuguese boy. All three riders were
lepers ; so were the judges and the crowd. The race
was twice around the track. The Chinese and the
Hawaiian got away together and rode neck and neck,
the Portuguese boy toiling along two hundred feet
9 1
92 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
behind. Around they went in the same positions.
Halfway around on the second and final lap the
Chinese pulled away and got one length ahead of the
Hawaiian. At the same time the Portuguese boy was
beginning to crawl up. But it looked hopeless. The
crowd went wild. All the lepers were passionate lovers
of horseflesh. The Portuguese boy crawled nearer
and nearer. I went wild, too. They were on the
home stretch. The Portuguese boy passed the Ha
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 in a group of lepers. They were
yelling, tossing their hats, and dancing around like
fiends. So was I. When. I came to I was waving my
hat and murmuring ecstatically : " By golly, the boy
wins ! The boy wins ! "
I tried to check myself. I assured myself that I
was witnessing one of the horrors of Molokai, and
that it was shameful for me, under such circumstances,
to be so light-hearted and light-headed. But it was
no use. The next event was a donkey-race, and it was
just starting; so was the fun. The last donkey in
was to win the race, and what complicated the affair
was that no rider rode his own donkey. They rode
one another s donkeys, the result of which was that
each man strove to make the donkey he rode beat his
own donkey ridden by some one else. Naturally, only
men possessing very slow or extremely obstreperous
donkeys had entered them for the race. One donkey
THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI
93
94 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
had been trained to tuck in its legs and lie down when
ever its rider touched its sides with his heels. Some
donkeys strove to turn around and come back ; others
developed a penchant for the side of the track, where
they stuck their heads over the railing and stopped ;
while all of them dawdled. Halfway around the
track one donkey got into an argument with its rider.
When all the rest of the donkeys had crossed the wire,
that particular donkey was still arguing. He won the
race, though his rider lost it and came in on foot.
And all the while nearly a thousand lepers were laugh
ing uproariously at the fun. Anybody in my place
would have joined with them in having a good time.
All the foregoing is by way of preamble to the state
ment that the horrors of Molokai, as they have been
painted in the past, do not exist. The Settlement has
been written up repeatedly by sensationalists, and
usually by sensationalists who have never laid eyes on
it. Of course, leprosy is leprosy, and it is a terrible
thing ; but so much that is lurid has been written
about 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, of
course, had never been near the Settlement, vividly
described Superintendent McVeigh, crouching in a
grass hut and being besieged nightly by starving lepers
on their knees, wailing for food. This hair-raising ac
count was copied by the press all over the United
States and was the cause of many indignant and pro
testing editorials. Well, I lived and slept for five
days in Mr. McVeigh s grass hut (which was a com
fortable wooden cottage, by the way ; and there, isn t a
grass house in the whole Settlement), and I heard
THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI 95
the lepers wailing for food only the wailing was
peculiarly harmonious and rhythmic, and it was accom
panied by the music of stringed instruments, violins,
guitars, ukuleles, and banjos. Also, the wailing was
of various sorts. The leper brass band wailed, and
two singing societies wailed, and lastly a quintet of ex
cellent voices wailed. So much for a lie that should
never have been printed. The wailing was the serenade
which the glee clubs always give Mr. McVeigh when
he returns from a trip to Honolulu.
Leprosy is not so contagious as is imagined. I went
for a week s visit to the Settlement, and I took my
wife along all of which would not have happened
had we had any apprehension of contracting the disease.
Nor did we wear long, gauntleted gloves and keep
apart from the lepers. On the contrary, we mingled
freely with them, and before we left, knew scores of
them by sight and name. The precautions of simple
cleanliness seem to be all that are necessary. On re
turning to their own houses, after having been among
and handling lepers, the non-lepers, such as the physi
cians and the superintendent, merely wash their faces
and hands with mildly antiseptic soap and change their
coats.
That a leper is unclean, however, should be insisted
upon ; and the segregation of lepers, from what little
is known of the disease, should be rigidly maintained.
On the other hand, the awful horror with which the
leper has been regarded in the past, and the frightful
treatment he has received, have been unnecessary and
cruel. In order to dispel some of the popular misap
prehensions of leprosy, I want to tell something of the
relations between the lepers and non-lepers as I ob-
96 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
served them at Molokai. On the morning after our
arrival Charmian and I attended a shoot of the
Kalaupapa Rifle Club, and caught our first glimpse of
the democracy of affliction and alleviation that obtains.
The club was just beginning a prize shoot for a cup
put up by Mr. McVeigh, who is also a member of the
club, as also are Dr. Goodhue and Dr. Hollmann, the
resident physicians (who, by the way, live in the Settle-
Molokai. Pa-u Riders on Morning of Fourth of July.
ment with their wives). All about us, in the shooting
booth, were the lepers. Lepers and non-lepers were
using the same guns, and all were rubbing shoulders
in the confined space. The majority of the lepers
were Hawaiians. Sitting beside me on a bench was a
Norwegian. Directly in front of me, in the stand,
was an American, a veteran of the Civil War, who had
fought on the Confederate side. He was sixty-five
years of age, but that did not prevent him from run
ning up a good score. Strapping Hawaiian policemen,
lepers, khaki-clad, were also shooting, as were Portu
guese, Chinese, and kokuas the latter are native
helpers in the Settlement who are non-lepers. And
on the afternoon that Charmian and I climbed the
two-thousand-foot pali and looked our last upon the
THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI 97
Settlement, the superintendent, the doctors, and the mix
ture of nationalities and of diseased and non-diseased
were all engaged in an exciting baseball game.
Not so was the leper and his greatly misunderstood
and feared disease treated during the middle ages in
Europe. At that time the leper was considered legally
and politically dead. He was placed in a funeral pro
cession and led to the church, where the burial service
was read over him by the officiating clergyman. Then
a spadeful of earth was dropped upon his chest and he
was dead living dead. While this rigorous treatment
was largely unnecessary, nevertheless, one thing was
learned by it. Leprosy was unknown in Europe un
til it was introduced by the returning Crusaders, where
upon it spread slowly until it had seized upon large
numbers of the people. Obviously, it was a disease
that could be contracted by contact. It was a conta
gion, and it was equally obvious that it could be eradi
cated by segregation. Terrible and monstrous as was
the treatment of the leper in those days, the great
lesson of segregation was learned. By its means
leprosy was stamped out.
And by the same means leprosy is even now de
creasing in the Hawaiian Islands. But the segregation
of the lepers on Molokai is not the horrible nightmare
that has been so often exploited by yellow writers. In
the first place, the leper is not torn ruthlessly from his
family. When a suspect is discovered, he is invited
by the Board of Health to come to the Kalihi receiv
ing station at Honolulu. His fare and all expenses
are paid for him. He is first passed upon by micro
scopical examination by the bacteriologist of the Board
of Health. If the bacillus lepra is found, the patient
98 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
is examined by the Board of Examining Physicians,
five in number. If found by them to be a leper, he
is so declared, which finding is later officially confirmed
by the Board of Health, and the leper is ordered sent
to Molokai. Furthermore, during the thorough trial
that is given his case, the patient has the right to be
represented by a physician whom he can select and
employ for himself. Nor, after having been declared
a leper, is the patient immediately rushed off to Mo
lokai. He is given ample time, weeks, and even
months, sometimes, during which he stays at Kalihi
and winds up or arranges all his business affairs. At
Molokai, in turn, he may be visited 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 illustration of the thorough trial given the
suspect, when I visited Kalihi with Mr. Pinkham,
president of the Board of Health. The suspect was
an Hawaiian, seventy years of age, who for thirty-four
years had worked in Honolulu as a pressman in a
printing office. The bacteriologist had decided that
he was a leper, the Examining Board had been unable
to make up its mind, and that day all had come out to
Kalihi to make another examination.
When at Molokai, the declared leper has the priv
ilege of reexamination, and patients are continually
coming back to Honolulu for that purpose. The
steamer that took me to Molokai had on board two
returning lepers, both young women, one of whom had
come to Honolulu to settle up some property she owned,
and the other had come to Honolulu to see her sick
mother. Both had remained at Kalihi for a month.
THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI
99
ioo THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
The Settlement of Molokai enjoys a far more de
lightful climate than even Honolulu, being situated on
the windward side of the island in the path of the fresh
northeast trades. The scenery is magnificent ; on one
side is the blue sea, on the other the wonderful wall of
the paliy receding here and there into beautiful moun
tain valleys. Everywhere are grassy pastures over
which roam the hundreds of horses which are owned
by the lepers. Some of them have their own carts,
rigs, and traps. In the little harbor of Kalaupapa lie
fishing boats and a steam launch, all of which are pri
vately owned and operated by lepers. Their bounds
upon the sea are, of course, determined ; otherwise no
restriction is. put upon their seafaring. Their fish they
sell to the Board of Health, and the money they re
ceive is their own. While I was there, one night s
catch was four thousand pounds.
And as these men fish, others farm. All trades are
followed. One leper, a pure Hawaiian, is the boss
painter. He employs eight men, and takes contracts
for painting buildings from the Board of Health. He
is a member of the Kalaupapa Rifle Club, where I met
him, and I must confess that he was far better dressed
than I. Another man, similarly situated, is the boss
carpenter. Then, in addition to the Board of Health
store, there are little privately owned stores, where
those with shopkeeper s souls may exercise their
peculiar instincts. The Assistant Superintendent,
Mr. Waiamau, a finely educated and able man, is a
pure Hawaiian and a leper. Mr. Bartlett, who is the
present storekeeper, is an American who was in busi
ness in Honolulu before he was struck down by the
disease. All that these men earn is that much in their
THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI 101
own pockets. If they do not work, they are taken
care of anyway by the territory, given food, shelter,
clothes, and medical attendance. The Board of Health
carries on agriculture, stock-raising, and dairying, for
local use, and employment at fair wages is furnished to
all that wish to work. They are not compelled to
work, however, for they are the wards of the territory.
For the young, and the very old, and the helpless
there are homes and hospitals.
Major Lee, an American and long a marine engineer
for the Inter Island Steamship Company, I met ac
tively at work in the new steam laundry, where he was
busy installing the machinery. I met him often, after
wards, and one day he said to me :
" Give us a good breeze about how we live here.
For heaven s sake write us up straight. Put your foot
down on this chamber-of-horrors rot and all the rest
of it. We don t like being misrepresented. We ve
got some feelings. Just tell the world how we really
are in here."
Man after man that I met in the Settlement, and
woman after woman, in one way or another expressed
the same sentiment. It was patent that they resented
bitterly the sensational and untruthful way in which
they have been exploited in the past.
In spite of the fact that they are afflicted by disease,
the lepers form a happy colony, divided into two vil
lages and numerous country and seaside homes, of
nearly a thousand souls. They have six churches, a
Young; Men s Christian Association building;, several
O O^
assembly halls, a band stand, a race-track, baseball
grounds, and shooting ranges, an athletic club, numer
ous glee clubs, and two brass bands.
102 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
" They are so contented down there/ Mr. Pinkham
told me, " that you can t drive them away with a shot
gun."
This I later verified for myself. In January of this
year, eleven of the lepers, on whom the disease, after
having committed certain ravages, showed no further
Molokai. Leper Fishermen in their Boats at Boat Landing.
signs of activity, were brought back to Honolulu for
reexamination. They were loath to come; and, on
being asked whether or not they wanted to go free
if found clean of leprosy, one and all answered, " Back
to Molokai."
In the old days, before the discovery of the leprosy
bacillus, a small number of men and women, suffering
from various and wholly different diseases, were ad
judged lepers and sent to Molokai. Years afterward
they suffered great consternation when the bacteriolo
gists declared that they were not afflicted with leprosy
THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI 103
and never had been. They fought against being sent
away from Molokai, and in one way or another, as
helpers and nurses, they got jobs from the Board of
Health 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, in order to escape
being sent away.
At the present moment, in Honolulu, there is a boot
black. He is an American negro. Mr. McVeigh told
me about him. Long ago, before the bacteriological
tests, he was sent to Molokai as a leper. As a ward of
the state he developed a superlative degree of indepen
dence and fomented much petty mischief. And then,
one day, after having been for years a perennial source
of minor annoyances, the bacteriological test was applied,
and he was declared a non-leper.
"Ah, ha!" chortled Mr. McVeigh. "Now I ve
got you ! Out you go on the next steamer and good
riddance ! "
But the negro didn t want to go. Immediately he
married an old woman, in the last stages of leprosy,
and began petitioning the Board of Health for per
mission to remain and nurse his sick wife. There was
no one, he said pathetically, who could take care of his
poor wife as well as he could. But they saw through
his game, and he was deported on the steamer and
given the freedom of the world. But he preferred
Molokai. Landing on the leeward side of Molokai,
he sneaked down the pali one night and took up his
abode in the Settlement. He was apprehended, tried
and convicted of trespass, sentenced to pay a small fine,
and again deported on the steamer with the warning
that if he trespassed again, he would be fined one hun-
io 4 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
dred dollars and be sent to prison in Honolulu. And
now, when Mr. McVeigh comes up to Honolulu, the
bootblack shines 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 a confi
dential whisper 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 nine years on Molokai, and he had
Molokai. Village of Kalaupapa. The Pali, or Precipice, in the Back
ground varies in Height between Two Thousand and Four Thousand Feet.
had a better time there than he had ever had, before
and after, on the outside.
As regards the fear of leprosy itself, nowhere in the
Settlement among lepers, or non-lepers, did I see any sign
of it. The chief horror of leprosy obtains in the
minds of those who have never seen a leper and who do
not know anything about the disease. At the hotel at
Waikiki a lady expressed shuddering amazement at
my having the hardihood to pay a visit to the Settle
ment. On talking with her I learned that she had
been born in Honolulu, had lived there all her life,
and had never laid eyes on a leper. That was more
than I could say of myself in the United States, where
the segregation of lepers is loosely enforced and where
THE LEPERS OF MOLOKA1 105
I have repeatedly seen lepers on the streets of large
cities.
Leprosy is terrible, there is no getting away from
that; but from what little I know of the disease and
its degree of contagiousness, I would by far prefer to
spend the rest of my days in Molokai than in any
tuberculosis sanitarium. In every city and county
hospital for poor people in the United States, or in
similar institutions in other countries, sights as terrible
as those in Molokai can be witnessed, and the sum
total of these sights is vastly more terrible. For that
matter, if it were given me to choose between being
compelled to live in Molokai for the rest of my life,
or in the East End of London, the East Side of New
York, or the Stockyards of Chicago, I would select
Molokai without debate. I would prefer one year of
life in Molokai to five years of life in the above-mentioned
cesspools of human degradation and misery.
In Molokai the people are happy. I shall never
forget the celebration of the Fourth of July I witnessed
there. At six o clock in the morning the " horribles "
were out, dressed fantastically, astride horses, mules,
and donkeys (their own property), and cutting capers
all over the Settlement. Two brass bands were out
as well. Then there were the pa-u riders, thirty or
forty of them, Hawaiian women all, superb horsewomen
dressed gorgeously in the old, native riding costume,
and dashing about in twos and threes and groups. In
the afternoon Charmian and I stood in the judge s
stand and awarded the prizes for horsemanship and
costume to thepa-u riders. All about were the hundreds
of lepers, with wreaths of flowers on heads and necks
and shoulders, looking on and making merry. And
io6 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
always, over the brows of hills and across the grassy
level stretches, appearing and disappearing, were the
groups of men and women, gayly dressed, on galloping
horses, horses and riders flower-bedecked and flower-
garlanded, singing, and laughing, and riding like the
wind. And as I stood in the judge s stand and looked
at all this, there came to my recollection the lazar house
of Havana, where I had once beheld some two hundred
lepers, prisoners inside four restricted walls until they
Molokai. Looking down Damien Road.
died. No, there are a few thousand places I wot of in
this world over which I would select Molokai as a
place of permanent residence. In the evening we went
to one of the leper assembly halls, where, before a
crowded audience, the singing societies contested for
prizes, and where the night wound up with a dance.
I have seen the Hawaiians living in the slums of
Honolulu, and, having seen them, I can readily under
stand why the lepers, brought up from the Settlement
for reexamination, shouted one and all, " Back to
Molokai ! "
One thing is certain. The leper in the Settlement
is far better off than the leper who lies in hiding out
side. Such a leper is a lonely outcast, living in constant
THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI 107
fear of discovery and slowly and surely rotting away.
The action of leprosy is not steady. It lays hold of
its victim, commits a ravage, and then lies dormant for
an indeterminate period. It may not commit another
ravage for five years, or ten years, or forty years,
and the patient may enjoy uninterrupted good health.
Rarely, however, do these first ravages cease of them
selves. The skilled surgeon is required, and the skilled
surgeon cannot be called in for the leper who is in
hiding. For instance, the first ravage may take the
form of a perforating ulcer 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 will continue to eat its way up the bone of
the leg, and in a brief and horrible time that leper will
die of gangrene or some other terrible complication.
On the other hand, if that same leper is in Molokai,
the surgeon will operate upon the foot, remove the
ulcer, cleanse the bone, and put a complete stop to
that particular ravage of the disease. A month after
the operation the leper will be out riding horseback,
running foot races, swimming in the breakers, or climb
ing the giddy sides of the valleys for mountain apples.
And as has been stated before, the disease, lying 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, and
before the time when physicians like Dr. Goodhue and
Dr. Hollmann went to live at the Settlement. Dr.
Goodhue is the pioneer surgeon there, and too much
praise cannot be given him for the noble work he has
done. I spent one morning in the operating room
io8 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
with him and of the three operations he performed,
two were on men, newcomers, who had arrived on the
same steamer with me. In each case, the disease had
attacked in one spot only. One had a perforat
ing ulcer in the ankle, well advanced, and the other
man was suffering from a similar
affliction, well advanced, under
his arm. Both cases were well
advanced because the man had
been on the outside and had not
been treated. In each case, Dr.
Goodhue put an immediate and
complete stop to the ravage, and
in four weeks those two men will
be as well and able-bodied as they
ever were in their lives. The
only difference between them and
you or me is that the disease is
lying dormant in their bodies and
may at any future time commit
another ravage.
Leprosy is as old as history. References to it are
found in the earliest written records. And yet to-day
practically nothing more is known about it than was
known then. This much was known then, namely,
that it was contagious and that those afflicted by it
should be segregated. The difference between then
and now is that to-day the leper is more rigidly segre
gated and more humanely treated. But leprosy itself
still remains the same awful and profound mystery. A
reading of the reports of the physicians and specialists
of all countries reveals the baffling nature of the disease.
These leprosy specialists are unanimous on no one
Molokai. Father Dami-
en s Church.
THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI 109
phase of the disease. They do not know. In the
past they rashly and dogmatically generalized. They
generalize no longer. The one possible generalization
that can be drawn from all the investigation that has
been made is that leprosy is feebly contagious. But in
what manner it is feebly contagious is not known.
They have isolated the bacillus of leprosy. They can
determine by bacteriological examination whether or
not a person is a leper ; but they are as far away as
ever from knowing how that bacillus finds its entrance
into the body of a non-leper. They do not know the
length of time of incubation. They have tried to
inoculate all sorts of animals with leprosy, and have
failed.
They are baffled in the discovery of a serum where
with to fight the disease. And in all their work, as
yet, they have found no clew, no cure. Sometimes
there have been blazes of hope, theories of causation
and much heralded cures, but every time the darkness
of failure quenched the flame. A doctor insists that
the cause of leprosy is a long-continued fish diet, and
he proves his theory voluminously till a physician
from the highlands of India demands why the natives
of that district should therefore be afflicted by leprosy
when they have never eaten fish nor all the generations
of their fathers before them. A man treats a leper
with a certain kind of oil or drug, announces a cure,
and five, ten, or forty years afterward the disease
breaks out again. It is this trick of leprosy lying
dormant in the body for indeterminate periods that is
responsible for many alleged cures. But this much is
certain: as yet there has been no authentic case of a cure.
Leprosy is feebly contagious ^ but how is it contagious ?
no THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
An Austrian physician has inoculated himself and his
assistants with leprosy and failed to catch it. But
this is not conclusive, for there is the famous case of
the Hawaiian murderer, who had his sentence of death
commuted to life imprisonment on his agreeing to be
inoculated with the bacil
lus lepra. Some time
after inoculation, leprosy
made its appearance, and
the man died a leper on
Molokai. Nor was this
conclusive, for it was dis
covered that at the time
he was inoculated several
members of his family
were already suffering
from the disease on Molo
kai. He may have con
tracted the disease from
them, and it may have
been well along, in its
mysterious period of in
cubation at the time he
was officially inoculated.
Then there is the case of
that hero of the Church,
Father Damien, who went to Molokai a clean man
and died a leper. There have been many theories as
to how he contracted leprosy, but nobody knows.
He never knew himself. But every chance that he
ran has certainly been run by a woman at present liv
ing in the Settlement ; who has lived there many
years ; who has had five leper husbands, and had
Molokai. Father Damien s Grave.
THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI in
children by them ; and who is to-day, as she always
has 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 it may be expected. Once an efficacious serum
is discovered, and leprosy, because it is so feebly con
tagious, will pass away swiftly from the earth. The
battle waged with it will be short and sharp. In the
meantime, how to discover that serum, or some other
unguessed weapon? In the present it is a serious
matter. It is estimated that there are half a million
lepers, not segregated, in India alone. Carnegie libra
ries, Rockefeller universities, and many similar bene
factions are all very well; but one cannot help thinking
how far a few thousands of dollars would go, say in
the leper Settlement of Molokai. The residents there
are accidents of fate, scapegoats to some mysterious
natural law of which man knows nothing, isolated for
the welfare of their fellows who else might catch the
dread disease, even as they have caught it, nobody
knows how. Not for their sakes merely, but for the
sake of future generations, a few thousands of dollars
would go far in a legitimate and scientific search after
a cure for leprosy, for a serum, or for some undreamed
discovery that will enable the medical world to exter
minate the bacillus leprcz. There s the place for your
money, you philanthropists.
CHAPTER VIII
The House of the Sun
THERE are hosts of people who journey like restless
spirits round and about this earth in search of seascapes
and landscapes and the wonders and beauties of nature.
They overrun Europe in armies ; they can be met in
droves and herds in Florida and the West Indies, at
the pyramids, and on the slopes and summits of the
Canadian and American Rockies ; but in the House
of the Sun they are as rare as live and wriggling dino
saurs. Haleakala is the Hawaiian name for " the house
of the sun." It is a noble dwelling, situated on the
island of Maui ; but so few tourists have ever peeped
into it, much less entered it, that their number may
be practically reckoned as zero. Yet I venture to
state that for natural beauty and wonder the nature-
lover may see dissimilar things as great as Haleakala,
but no greater, while he will never see elsewhere any
thing more beautiful or wonderful. Honolulu is six
days steaming from San Francisco ; Maui is a night s
run on the steamer from Honolulu ; and six hours
more if he is in a hurry, can bring the traveller to Ko-
likoli, which is ten thousand and thirty-two feet above
the sea and which stands hard by the entrance portal
to the House of the Sun. Yet the tourist comes not,
and Haleakala sleeps on in lonely and unseen grandeur.
Not being tourists, we of the Snark went to Halea
kala. On the slopes of that monster mountain there
is a cattle ranch of some fifty thousand acres, where we
THE HOUSE OF THE SUN 113
spent the night at an altitude of two thousand feet.
The next morning it was boots and saddles, and with
cow-boys and packhorses we climbed to Ukulele, a
mountain ranch-house, the altitude of which, fifty-five
hundred feet, gives a severely temperate climate, com
pelling blankets at night and a roaring fireplace in the
living-room. Ukulele, by the way, is the Hawaiian for
"jumping flea" as it is also the Hawaiian for a certain
musical instrument that may be likened to a young gui
tar. It is my opinion that the mountain ranch-house
was named after the young guitar. We were not in a
hurry, and we spent the day at Ukulele, learnedly dis
cussing altitudes and barometers and shaking our par
ticular barometer whenever any one s argument stood in
need of demonstration. Our barometer was the most
graciously acquiescent instrument I have ever seen.
Also, we gathered mountain raspberries, large as hen s
eggs and larger, gazed up the pasture-covered lava
slopes to the summit of Haleakala, forty-five hundred
feet above us, and looked down upon a mighty battle
of the clouds that was being fought beneath us, our
selves in the bright sunshine.
Every day and every day this unending battle goes
on. Ukiukiu is the name of the trade-wind that comes
raging down out of the northeast and hurls itself upon
Haleakala. Now Haleakala is so bulky and tall that
it turns the northeast trade-wind aside on either hand,
so that in the lee of Haleakala no trade-wind blows at
all On the contrary, the wind blows in the counter
direction, in the teeth of the northeast trade. This
wind is called Naulu. And day and night and always
Ukiukiu and Naulu strive with each other, advancing,
retreating, flanking, curving, curling, and turning and
ii 4 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
THE HOUSE OF THE SUN 115
twisting, the conflict made visible by the cloud-masses
plucked from the heavens and hurled back and forth
in squadrons, battalions, armies, and great mountain
ranges. Once in a while, Ukiukiu, in mighty gusts,
flings immense cloud-masses clear over the summit of
Haleakala ; whereupon Naulu craftily captures them,
lines them up in new battle-formation, and with them
smites back at his ancient and eternal antagonist.
Then Ukiukiu sends a great cloud-army around the
eastern side of the mountain. It is a flanking move
ment, well executed. But Naulu, from his lair on the
leeward side, gathers the flanking army in, pulling and
twisting and dragging it, hammering it into shape, and
sends it charging back against Ukiukiu around the
western side of the mountain. And all the while,
above and below the main battle-field, high up the
slopes toward the sea, Ukiukiu and Naulu are contin
ually sending out little wisps of cloud, in ragged skir
mish line, that creep and crawl over the ground, among
the trees and through the canyons, and that spring
upon and capture one another in sudden ambuscades
and sorties. And sometimes Ukiukiu or Naulu,
abruptly sending out a heavy charging column, cap
tures the ragged little skirmishers or drives them
skyward, turning over and over, in vertical whirls,
thousands of feet in the air.
But it is on the western slopes of Haleakala that the
main battle goes on. Here Naulu masses his heaviest
formations and wins his greatest victories. Ukiukiu
grows weak toward late afternoon, which is the way of
all trade-winds, and is driven backward by Naulu.
Naulu s generalship is excellent. All day he has been
gathering and packing away immense reserves. As
n6 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
the afternoon draws on, he welds them into a solid
column, sharp-pointed, miles in length, a mile in
width, and hundreds of feet thick. This column he
slowly thrusts forward into the broad battle-front of
Ukiukiu, and slowly and surely Ukiukiu, weakening
fast, is split asunder. But it is not all bloodless. At
times Ukiukiu struggles wildly, and with fresh acces
sions of strength from the limitless northeast, smashes
away half a mile at a time of Naulu s column and
sweeps it off and away toward West Maui. Some
times, when the two charging armies meet end-on, a
tremendous perpendicular whirl results, the cloud-
masses, locked together, mounting thousands of feet
into the air and turning over and over. A favorite
device of Ukiukiu is to send a low, squat formation,
densely packed, forward along the ground and under
Naulu. When Ukiukiu is under, he proceeds to buck.
Naulu s mighty middle gives to the blow and bends
upward, but usually he turns the attacking column back
upon itself and sets it milling. And all the while the
ragged little skirmishers, stray and detached, sneak
through the trees and canyons, crawl along and through
the grass, and surprise one another with unexpected
leaps and rushes ; while above, far above, serene and
lonely in the rays of the setting sun, Haleakala looks
down upon the conflict. And so, the night. But in
the morning, after the fashion of trade-winds, Ukiukiu
gathers strength and sends the hosts of Naulu rolling
back in confusion and rout. And one day is like
another day in the battle of the clouds, where Ukiukiu
and Naulu strive eternally on the slopes of Haleakala.
Again in the morning, it was boots and saddles,
cow-boys and packhorses, and the climb to the top be-
THE HOUSE OF THE SUN 117
gan. One packhorse carried twenty gallons of water,
slung in five-gallon bags on either side ; for water is
precious and rare in the crater itself, in spite of the fact
that several miles to the north and east of the crater-
rim more rain comes down than in any other place in
the world. The way led upward across countless lava
flows, without regard for trails, and never have I seen
horses with such perfect footing as that of the thirteen
that composed our outfit. They climbed or dropped
down perpendicular places with the sureness and cool
ness of mountain goats, and never a horse fell or
balked.
There is a familiar and strange illusion experienced
by all who climb isolated mountains. The higher one
climbs, the more of the earth s surface becomes visible,
and the effect of this is that the horizon seems up-hill
from the observer. This illusion is especially notable
on Haleakala, for the old volcano rises directly from
the sea, without buttresses or connecting ranges. In
consequence, as fast as we climbed up the grim slope
of Haleakala, still faster did Haleakala, ourselves, and
all about us, sink down into the centre of what appeared
a profound abyss. Everywhere, far above us, towered
the horizon. The ocean sloped down from the hori
zon to us. The higher we climbed, the deeper did we
seem to sink down, the farther above us shone the
horizon, and the steeper pitched the grade up to that
horizontal line where sky and ocean met. It was weird
and unreal, and vagrant thoughts of Simm s Hole and
of the volcano through which Jules Verne journeyed
to the centre of the earth flitted through one s mind.
And then, when at last we reached the summit of
that monster mountain, which summit was like the
n8 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
THE HOUSE OF THE SUN 119
bottom of an inverted cone situated in the centre of an
awful cosmic pit, we found that we were at neither
top nor bottom. Far above us was the heaven-tower
ing horizon, and far beneath us, where the top of the
mountain should have been, was a deeper deep, the
great crater, the House of the Sun. Twenty-three
miles around stretched the dizzy walls of the crater.
We stood on the edge of the nearly vertical western
wall, and the floor of the crater lay nearly half a mile
beneath. This floor, broken by lava-flows and cinder-
cones, was as red and fresh and uneroded as if it were
but yesterday that the fires went out. The cinder-
cones, the smallest over four hundred feet in height
and the largest over nine hundred, seemed no more
than puny little sand-hills, so mighty was the magni
tude of the setting. Two gaps, thousands of feet deep,
broke the rim of the crater, and through these Ukiukiu
vainly strove to drive his fleecy herds of trade-wind
clouds. As fast as they advanced through the gaps, the
heat of the crater dissipated them into thin air, and
though they advanced always, they got nowhere.
It was a scene of vast bleakness and desolation, stern,
forbidding, fascinating. We gazed down upon a place
of fire and earthquake. The tie-ribs of earth lay bare
before us. It was a workshop of nature still cluttered
with the raw beginnings of world-making. Here and
there great dikes of primordial rock had thrust them
selves up from the bowels of earth, straight through
the molten surface-ferment that had evidently cooled
only the other day. It was all unreal and unbeliev
able. Looking upward, far above us (in reality be
neath us) floated the cloud-battle of Ukiukiu and
Naulu. And higher up the slope of the seeming
120 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
abyss, above the cloud-battle, in the air and sky, hung
the islands of Lanai and Molokai. Across the crater,
to the southeast, still apparently looking upward, we
saw ascending, first, the turquoise sea, then the white
surf-line of the shore of Hawaii ; above that the belt
of trade-clouds, and next, eighty miles away, rearing
their stupendous bulks out of the azure sky, tipped
with snow, wreathed with cloud, trembling like a
mirage, the peaks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa
hung poised on the wall of heaven.
It is told that long ago, one Maui, the son of Hina,
lived on what is now known as West Maui. His
mother, Hina, employed her time in the making of
kapas. She must have made them at night, for her
days were occupied in trying to dry the kapas. Each
morning, and all morning, she toiled at spreading them
out in the sun. But no sooner were they out, than she
began taking them in, in order to have them all under
shelter for the night. For know that the days were
shorter then than now. Maui watched his mother s
futile toil and felt sorry for her. He decided to do
something oh, no, not to help her hang out and take
in the kapas. He was too clever for that. His idea
was to make the sun go slower. Perhaps he was the
first Hawaiian astronomer. At any rate, he took a
series of observations of the sun from various parts of
the island. His conclusion was that the sun s path
was directly across Haleakala. Unlike Joshua, he
stood in no need of divine assistance. He gathered a
huge quantity of cocoanuts, from the fiber of which he
braided 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
THE HOUSE OF THE SUN 121
122 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
laid in wait. When the sun came tearing along the
path, bent on completing its journey in the shortest
time possible, the valiant youth threw his lariat around
one of the sun s largest and strongest beams. He
made the sun slow down some ; also, he broke the
beam short off. And he kept on roping and breaking
off beams till the sun said it was willing to. listen to
reason. Maui set forth his terms of peace, which the
sun accepted, agreeing to go more slowly thereafter.
Wherefore Hina had ample time in which to dry her
kapas y and the days are longer than they used to be,
which last is quite in accord with the teachings of mod
ern astronomy.
We had a lunch of jerked beef and hard poi in a
stone corral, used of old time for the night-impounding
of cattle being driven across the island. Then we
skirted the rim for half a mile and began the descent
into the crater. Twenty-five hundred feet beneath lay
the floor, and down a steep slope of loose volcanic cin
ders we dropped, the sure-footed horses slipping and
sliding, but always keeping their feet. The black sur
face of the cinders, when broken by the horses hoofs,
turned to a yellow ochre dust, virulent in appearance
and acid of taste, that arose in clouds. There was a
gallop across a level stretch to the mouth of a con
venient blow-hole, and then the descent continued in
clouds of volcanic dust, winding in and out among
cinder-cones, brick-red, old rose, and purplish black
of color. Above us, higher and higher, towered the
crater-walls, while we journeyed on across innumerable
lava-flows, turning and twisting a devious way among
the adamantine billows of a petrified sea. Saw-toothed
waves of lava vexed the surface of this weird ocean,
THE HOUSE OF THE SUN 123
while on either hand arose jagged crests and spiracles
of fantastic shape. Our way led on past a bottomless
pit and along and over the main stream of the latest
lava-flow for seven miles.
At the lower end of the crater was our camping
spot, in a small grove of olapa and kolea trees, tucked
away in a corner of the crater at the base of walls that
rose perpendicularly fifteen hundred feet. Here was
The Cinder Cones, the Smallest over Four Hundred Feet in Height, the
Largest over Nine Hundred, on the Floor of the Crater, nearly Half
a Mile Beneath.
pasturage for the horses, but no water, and first we
turned aside and picked our way across a mile of lava
to a known water-hole in a crevice in the crater-wall.
The water-hole was empty. But on climbing fifty feet
up the crevice, a pool was found containing half a dozen
barrels of water. A pail was carried up, and soon a
steady stream of the precious liquid was running down
the rock and filling 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 it
was on to camp at the foot of the wall, up which herds
of wild goats scrambled and blatted, while the tent
arose to the sound of rifle-firing. Jerked beef, hard
124 TH E CRUISE OF THE SNARK
poiy and broiled kid was the menu. Over the crest of
the crater, just above our heads, rolled a sea of clouds,
driven on by Ukiukiu. Though this sea rolled over
the crest unceasingly, it never blotted out nor dimmed
the moon, for the he.at of the crater dissolved the clouds
as fast as they rolled in. Through the moonlight, at
tracted by the camp-fire, came the crater cattle to peer
and challenge. They were rolling fat, though they
rarely drank water, the morning dew on the grass tak
ing its place. It was because of this dew that the tent
made a welcome bedchamber, and we fell asleep to the
chanting of hulas by the unwearied Hawaiian cow-boys,
in whose veins, no doubt, ran the blood of Maui, their
valiant forebear.
The camera cannot do justice to the House of the
Sun. The sublimated chemistry of photography may
not lie, but it certainly does not tell all the truth. The
Koolau Gap is faithfully reproduced, just as it impinged
on the retina of the camera, yet in the resulting picture
the gigantic scale of things is missing. Those walls
that seem several hundred feet in height are almost as
many thousand ; that entering wedge of cloud is a mile
and a half wide in the gap itself, while beyond the gap
it is a veritable ocean ; and that foreground of cinder-
cone and volcanic ash, mushy and colorless in appear
ance, is in 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 a
crater-wall is two thousand feet high is to say just pre
cisely that it is two thousand feet high ; but there is a
vast deal more to that crater-wall than a mere statistic.
The sun is ninety-three millions of miles distant, but
to mortal conception the adjoining county is farther
THE HOUSE OF THE SUN
125
away. This frailty of the human brain is hard on the
sun. It is likewise hard on the House of the Sun.
Haleakala has a message of beauty and wonder for the
human soul that cannot be delivered by proxy. Koli-
koli is six hours from Kahului ; Kahului is a night s
A Lope across a Level Stretch to the Mouth of a Convenient Blow-hole.
run from Honolulu; Honolulu is six days from San
Francisco ; and there you are.
We climbed the crater-walls, put the horses over
impossible places, rolled stones, and shot wild goats.
I did not get any goats. I was too busy rolling
stones. One spot in particular I remember, where we
started a stone the size of a horse. It began the
descent easy enough, rolling over, wobbling, and
threatening to stop ; but in a few minutes it was soar
ing through the air two hundred feet at a jump. It
grew rapidly smaller until it struck a slight slope of
126 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
volcanic sand, over which it darted like a startled
jackrabbit, kicking up behind it a tiny trail of yellow
dust. Stone and dust diminished in size, until some
of the party said the stone had stopped. That was
because they could not see it any longer. It had
vanished into the distance beyond their ken. Others
saw it rolling farther on I know I did ; and it is my
firm conviction that that stone is still rolling.
Our last day in the crater, Ukiukiu gave us a taste
of his strength. He smashed Naulu back all along
the line, filled the House of the Sun to overflowing
with clouds, and drowned us out. Our rain-gauge
was a pint cup under a tiny hole in the tent. That
last night of storm and rain filled the cup, and there
was no way of measuring the water that spilled over
into the blankets. With the rain-gauge out of business
there was no longer any reason for remaining ; so we
broke camp in the wet-gray of dawn, and plunged
eastward across the lava to the Kaupo Gap. East
Maui is nothing more or less than the vast lava stream
that flowed long ago through the Kaupo Gap ; and
down this stream we picked our way from an altitude
of six thousand five hundred feet to the sea. This
was a day s work in itself for the horses ; but never
were 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 until the trail be
came bad again, and then they stopped of themselves.
Continuously, for days, they had performed the hardest
kind of work, 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 127
loped into Hana like a bunch of colts. Also, there
were several of them, reared in the dry region on the
leeward side of Haleakala, that had never worn shoes
in all their lives. Day after day, and all day long,
unshod, they had travelled over the sharp lava, with
the extra weight of a man on their backs, and their
hoofs were in better condition than those of the shod
horses.
The scenery between Vieiras s (where the Kaupo
Gap empties into the sea) and Hana, which we covered
Our Way led past a Bottomless Pit.
in half a day, is well worth a week or a month ; but,
wildly beautiful as it is, it becomes pale and small in
comparison with the wonderland that lies beyond the
rubber plantations between Hana and the Honomanu
Gulch. Two days were required to cover this marvel
lous stretch, which lies on the windward side of Halea
kala. The people who dwell there call it the " ditch
country," an unprepossessing name, but it has no
other. Nobody else ever comes there. Nobody else
knows anything about it. With the exception of a
handful of men, whom business has brought there,
nobody has heard of the ditch country of Maui. Now
a ditch is a ditch, assumably muddy, and usually travers-
128 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
ing uninteresting and monotonous landscapes. But the
Nahiku Ditch is not an ordinary ditch. The windward
side of Haleakala is serried by a thousand precipitous
gorges, down which rush as many torrents, each tor
rent of which achieves a score of cascades and water
falls before it reaches the sea. More rain comes down
here than in any other region in the world. In 1904 the
year s downpour was four hundred and twenty inches.
Water means sugar, and sugar is the backbone of the
territory of Hawaii, wherefore the Nahiku Ditch,
which is not a ditch, but a chain of tunnels. The water
travels underground, appearing only 1 at intervals to
leap a gorge, travelling high in the air on a giddy
flume and plunging into and through the opposing
mountain. This magnificent waterway is called a
" ditch," and with equal appropriateness can Cleopatra s
barge be called a box-car.
There are no carnage roads through the ditch coun
try, and before the ditch was built, or bored, rather,
there was no horse-trail. Hundreds of inches of rain
annually, on fertile soil, under a tropic sun, means a
steaming jungle of vegetation. A man, on foot, cut
ting his way through, might advance a mile a day, but
at the end of a week he would be a wreck, and he
would have to crawl hastily back if he wanted to get
out before the vegetation overran the passage way he
had cut. O Shaughnessy was the daring engineer who
conquered the jungle and the gorges, ran the ditch,
and made the horse-trail. He built enduringly, in
concrete and masonry, and made one of the most re
markable water-farms in the world. Every little runlet
and dribble is harvested and conveyed by subterranean
channels to the main ditch. But so heavily does it
THE HOUSE OF THE SUN
129
rain at times, that countless spillways let the surplus
escape to the sea.
The horse-trail is not very wide. Like the engineer
who built it, it dares anything. Where the ditch
plunges through the mountain, it climbs over ; and
where the ditch leaps a gorge on a flume, the horse-
That Entering Wedge of Cloud is a Mile and a Half Wide in the Gap
itself, while beyond the Gap it is a Veritable Ocean.
trail takes advantage of the ditch and crosses on top
of the flume. That careless trail thinks nothing of
travelling up or down the faces of precipices. It gouges
its narrow way out of the wall, dodging around water
falls or passing under them where they thunder down
in white fury ; while straight overhead the wall rises
hundreds of feet, and straight beneath it sinks a
thousand. And those marvellous mountain horses are
as unconcerned as the trail. They fox-trot along it as
a matter of course, though the footing is slippery with
ijo THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
rain, and they will gallop with their hind feet slipping
over the edge if you let them. I advise only those
with steady nerves and cool heads to tackle the Nahiku
Ditch trail. One of our cow-boys was noted as the
strongest and bravest on the big ranch. He had
ridden mountain horses all his life on^ the rugged
western slopes of Haleakala. He was first in the
horse-breaking ; and when the others hung back, as a
matter of course, he would go in to meet a wild bull in
the cattle-pen. He had a reputation. But he had
never ridden over the Nahiku Ditch. It was there
he lost his reputation. When he faced the first flume,
spanning a hair-raising gorge, narrow, without railings,
with a bellowing waterfall above, another below, and
directly beneath a wild cascade, the air filled with driving
spray and rocking to the clamor and rush of sound and
motion well, that cow-boy dismounted from his horse,
explained briefly that he had a wife and two children,
and crossed over on foot, leading the horse behind him.
The only relief from the flumes was the precipices ;
and the only relief from the precipices was the flumes,
except where the ditch was far under ground, in which
case we crossed one horse and rider at a time, on primi
tive log-bridges that swayed and teetered and threat
ened to carry away. I confess that at first I rode such
places with my feet loose in the stirrups, and that on the
sheer walls I saw to it, by a definite, conscious act of
will, that the foot in the outside stirrup, overhanging
the thousand feet of fall, was exceedingly loose. I say
" at first " ; for, as in the crater itself we quickly lost
our conception of magnitude, so, on the Nahiku Ditch,
we quickly lost our apprehension of depth. The
ceaseless iteration of height and depth produced a state
THE HOUSE OF THE SUN 131
of consciousness in which height and depth were ac
cepted as the ordinary conditions of existence; and
from the horse s back to look sheer down four hundred
or five hundred feet became quite commonplace and
non-productive of thrills. And as carelessly as the
trail and the horses, we swung along the dizzy heights
and ducked around or through the waterfalls.
And such a ride ! Falling water was everywhere.
We rode above the clouds, under the clouds, and
And through the Gap Ukiukiu vainly strove to drive his Fleecy Herds
of Trade-wind Clouds.
through the clouds ! and every now and then a shaft
of sunshine penetrated like a search-light to the depths
yawning beneath us, or flashed upon some pinnacle of
the crater-rim thousands of feet above. At every turn
of the trail a waterfall or a dozen waterfalls, leaping
hundreds of feet through the air, burst upon our vision.
At our first night s camp, in the Keanae Gulch, we
counted thirty-two waterfalls from a single viewpoint.
The vegetation ran riot over that wild land. There
were forests of koa 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 excel
lent to eat. Wild bananas grew everywhere, clinging
132 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
to the sides of the gorges, and, overborne by their great
bunches of ripe fruit, falling across the trail and block
ing the way. And over the forest surged a sea of green
life, the climbers of a thousand varieties, some that
floated airily, in lacelike filaments, from the tallest
branches ; others that coiled and wound about the trees
like huge serpents ; and one, the ei-ei, that was for all
the world like a climbing palm, swinging on a thick stem
from branch to branch and tree to tree and throttling
the supports whereby it climbed. Through the sea of
green, lofty tree-ferns thrust their great delicate jronds^
and the lehua flaunted its scarlet blossoms. Under
neath the climbers, in no less profusion, grew the warm-
colored, strangely-marked plants that in the United
States one is accustomed to seeing preciously conserved
in hot-houses. In fact, the ditch country of Maui is
nothing more nor less than a huge conservatory. Every
familiar variety of fern flourishes, and more varieties
that are unfamiliar, from the tiniest maidenhair to the
gross and voracious staghorn, the latter the terror of the
woodsmen, interlacing with itself in tangled masses five
or six feet deep and covering acres.
Never was there such a ride. For two days it lasted,
when we emerged into rolling country, and, along an
actual wagon-road, came home to the ranch at a gallop.
I know it was cruel to gallop the horses after such a
long, hard journey ; but we blistered our hands in vain
effort to hold them in. That s the sort of horses they
grow on Haleakala. At the ranch there was great fes
tival of cattle-driving, branding, and horse-breaking.
Overhead Ukiukiu and Naulu battled valiantly, and far
above, in the sunshine, towered the mighty summit of
Haleakala.
CHAPTER IX
A Pacific Traverse
Sandwich Islands to Tahiti. There is great difficulty
in making this passage across the trades. The whalers
and all others speak with great doubt of fetching Tahiti
from the Sandwich Islands. Capt. Bruce says that a ves
sel should keep to the northward until she gets a start of
wind before bearing for her destination. In his passage
between them in November,, 1837, he had no variables
near the line in coming south, and never could make easting
on either tack, though he endeavored by every means to
do so.
So says the sailing directions for the South Pacific
Ocean ; and that is all it says. There is not a word
more to help the weary voyager in making this long
traverse nor is there any word at ail concerning the
passage from Hawaii to the Marquesas, which lie some
eight hundred miles to the northeast of Tahiti and
which are the more difficult to reach by just that much.
The reason for the lack of directions is, I imagine, that
no voyager is supposed to make himself weary by at
tempting so impossible a traverse. But the impossible
did not deter the Snark, principally because of the
fact that we did not read that particular little paragraph
in the sailing directions until after we had started We
sailed from Hilo, Hawaii, on October y, and arrived
at Nuka-hiva, in the Marquesas, on December 6. The
distance was two thousand miles as the crow flies, while
133
ij4 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
we actually travelled at least four thousand miles to ac
complish it, thus proving for once and forever that the
shortest distance between two points is not always a
straight line. Had we headed directly for the Mar
quesas, we might have travelled five or six thousand
miles.
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 of
that point, if the southeast trades were well around to
the southeast, would throw us so far to leeward of the
Marquesas that a head-beat would be maddeningly
impossible. Also, we had to remember- the equatorial
current, which moves west at a rate of anywhere from
twelve to seventy-five miles a day. A pretty pickle,
indeed, to be to leeward of our destination with such a
current in our teeth. No ; not a minute, nor a second,
west of 130 west longitude would we cross the Line.
But since the southeast trades were to be expected five
or six degrees north of the Line (which, if they were
well around to the southeast or south-southeast, would
necessitate our sliding off toward south-southwest), we
should have to hold to the eastward, north of the Line,
and north of the southeast trades, until we gained at
least 128 west longitude.
I have forgotten to mention that the seventy-horse
power gasolene engine, as usual, was not working, and
that we could depend upon wind alone. Neither was
the launch engine working. And while I am about it,
I may as well confess that the five-horse-power, which
ran the lights, fans, and pumps, was also on the sick-
list. A striking title for a book haunts me, waking and
sleeping. I should like to write that book some day
A PACIFIC TRAVERSE
and to call it " Around the World with Three Gasolene
Engines and a Wife." But I am afraid I shall not
write it, for fear of hurting the feelings of some of the
young gentlemen of San Francisco, Honolulu, and Hilo,
who learned their trades at the expense of the Snark s
engines.
It looked easy on paper. Here was Hilo and
there was our objective, 128 west longitude. With
the northeast trade
blowing we could
travel a straight
line between the
two points, and
even slack our
sheets off a goodly
bit. But one of
the chief troubles
with the trades is
that one never
knows just where he will pick them up and just in
what direction they will be blowing. We picked up
the northeast trade right outside of Hilo harbor, but
the miserable breeze was away around into the east.
Then there was the north equatorial current setting
westward like a mighty river. Furthermore, a small
boat, 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 full and strain
ing, every little while she presses her lee-rail under,
she flounders, and bumps, and splashes, and that is
all. Whenever she begins to gather way, she runs
ker-chug into a big mountain of water and is brought
to a standstill. So, with the Snark, the resultant of
A Man-eater.
ij6 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
her smallness, of the trade around into the east, and
of the strong equatorial current, was a long sag south.
Oh, she did not go quite south. But the easting she
made was distressing. On October 1 1, she made forty
miles easting ; October 12, fifteen miles ; October 13,
no easting; October 14, thirty miles; October 15,
twenty-three miles; October 16, eleven miles; and on
October 17, she actually went to the westward four
miles. Thus, in a week, she made one hundred and
fifteen miles easting, which was equivalent to sixteen
miles a day. But, between the longitude of Hilo and
128 west longitude is a difference of twenty-seven de
grees, or, roughly, sixteen hundred miles. At sixteen
miles a day, one hundred days would be required to ac
complish this distance. And even then, our objective,
128 west longitude, was five degrees north of the Line,
while Nuka-hiva, in the Marquesas, lay nine degrees
south of the Line and twelve degrees to the west !
There remained only one thing to do to work
south out of the trade and into the variables. It is true
that Captain Bruce found no variables on his traverse,
and that he " never could make easting on either tack."
It was the variables or nothing with us, and we prayed
for better luck than he had had. The variables con
stitute the belt of ocean lying between the trades and
the doldrums, and are conjectured to be the draughts
of heated air which rise in the doldrums, flow high in
the air counter to the trades, and gradually sink down
till they fan the surface of the ocean where they are
found. And they are found . . . where they are
found ; for they are wedged between the trades and the
doldrums, which same shift their territory from day to
day and month to month.
A PACIFIC TRAVERSE 137
We found the variables in 11 north latitude, and
11 north latitude we hugged jealously. To the south
lay the doldrums. To the north lay the northeast
trade that refused to blow from the northeast. The
days came and went, and always they found the Snark
somewhere near the eleventh parallel. The variables
were truly variable. A light head-wind would die
away and leave us rolling in a calm for forty-eight
hours. Then a light head-wind would spring up, blow
for three hours, and leave us rolling in another calm
for forty-eight hours. Then hurrah ! the wind
would come out of the west, fresh, beautifully fresh,
and send the Snark along, wing and wing, her wake
bubbling, the log-line straight astern. At the end of
half an hour, while we were preparing to set the spin
naker, with a few sickly gasps the wind would die
away. And so it went. We wagered optimistically on
every favorable fan of air that lasted over five minutes;
but it never did any good. The fans faded out just
the same.
But there were exceptions. In the variables, if you
wait long enough, something is bound to happen, and
we were so plentifully stocked with food and water
that we could afford to wait. On October 26, we
actually made one hundred and three miles of easting,
and we talked about it for days afterward. Once we
caught a moderate gale from the south, which blew it
self out in eight hours, but it helped us to seventy-one
miles of easting in that particular twenty-four hours.
And then, just as it was expiring, the wind came straight
out from the north (the directly opposite quarter), and
fanned us along over another degree of easting.
In years and years no sailing vessel has attempted
138 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
this traverse, and we found ourselves in the midst of
one of the loneliest of the Pacific solitudes. In the
sixty days we were crossing it we sighted no sail, lifted
no steamer s smoke above the horizon. A disabled
vessel could drift in this deserted expanse for a dozen
generations, and there would be no rescue. The only
chance of rescue would be from a vessel like the Snark,
and the Snark happened to be there principally because
of the fact that the
traverse had been
begun before the
particular para
graph in the sail
ing directions had
been read. Stand
ing upright on
deck, a straight line
drawn from the
eye to the horizon
would measure
three miles and a half. Thus, seven miles was the
diameter of the circle of the sea in which we had. our
centre. Since we remained always in the centre, and
since we constantly were moving in some direction, we
looked upon many circles. But all circles looked
alike. No tufted islets, gray headlands, nor glistening
patches of white canvas ever marred the symmetry of
that unbroken curve. Clouds came and went, rising
over the rim of the circle, flowing across the space
and spilling away and down across the opposite
rim.
The world faded as the procession of the weeks
marched by. The world faded until at last there
Through the Shark s Jaws.
Up 0V
of it,
A PACIFIC TRAVERSE 139
ceased to be any world except the little world of the
Snark, freighted with her seven souls and floating on
the expanse of the waters. Our memories of the world,
the great world, became like dreams of former lives we
had lived somewhere before we came to be born on the
Snark. After we had been out of fresh vegetables for
some time, we mentioned such things in much the
same way I have heard my father mention the vanished
apples of his boyhood. Man is a creature of habit, and
we on the Snark had got the habit of the Snark.
Everything about her and aboard her was as a matter
of course, and anything different would have been an
irritation and an offence.
There was no way by which the great world
could intrude. Our bell rang the hours, but no caller ever
rang it. There were no guests to dinner, no telegrams,
no insistent telephone jangles invading our privacy.
We had no engagements to keep, no trains to catch,
and there were no morning newspapers over which to
waste time in learning what was happening to our
fifteen hundred million other fellow-creatures.
But it was not dull. The affairs of our little world
had to be regulated, and, unlike the great world, our world
had to be steered in its journey through space. Also,
there were cosmic disturbances to be encountered and
baffled, such as do not afflict the big earth in its frictionless
orbit 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 to
spare. Thus, at four in the morning, I relieve Her
mann at the wheel.
" East-northeast," he gives me the course. " She s
eight points off, but she ain t steering."
1 40 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
Small wonder. The vessel does not exist that can
be steered inso absolute a calm.
" I had a breeze a little while ago maybe it will
come back again," Hermann says hopefully, ere he
starts forward to the cabin and his bunk.
The mizzen is in and fast furled. In the night,
what of the roll and the absence of wind, it had
made life too hideous to be permitted to go on rasping at
the mast, smashing at the tackles, and buffeting the
empty air into hollow outbursts of sound. But the
big mainsail is still on, and the staysail, jib, and flying-
jib are snapping and slashing at their sheets with every
roll. Every star is out. Just for luck I put the wheel
hard over in the opposite direction to which it had been
left by Hermann, and I lean back and gaze up at the
stars. There is nothing else for me to do. There is
nothing to be done with a sailing vessel rolling in a stark
calm.
Then I feel a fan on my cheek, faint, so faint, that
I can just sense it ere it is gone. But another
comes, and another, until a real and just perceptible
breeze is blowing. How the Snark s sails manage to
feel it is beyond me, but feel it they do, as she does
as well, for the compass card begins slowly to revolve
in the binnacle. In reality, it is not revolving at all.
It is held by terrestrial magnetism in one place, and it
is the Snark that is revolving, pivoted upon that deli
cate cardboard device that floats in a closed vessel of
alcohol.
So the Snark comes back on her course. The breath
increases to a tiny puff. The Snark feels the weight
of it and actually heels over a trifle. There is fly
ing scud overhead, and I notice the stars being blotted
A PACIFIC TRAVERSE 141
out. Walls of darkness close in upon me, so that,
when the last star is gone, the darkness is so near that
it seems I can reach out and touch it on every side.
When I lean toward it, I can feel it loom against my
face. Puff follows puff, and I am glad the mizzen
is furled. Phew ! that was a stiff one ! The Snark
goes over and down until her lee-rail is buried and
the whole Pacific Ocean is pouring in. Four or five
of these gusts make me wish that the jib and flying-jib
were in. The sea is picking up, the gusts are growing
stronger and more frequent, and there is a splatter of
wet in the air. There is no use in attempting to gaze
to windward. The wall of blackness is within arm s
length. Yet I cannot help attempting to see and gauge
the blows that are being struck at the Snark. There
is something ominous and menacing up there to wind
ward, and I have a feeling that if I look long enough
and strong enough, I shall divine it. Futile feeling.
Between two gusts I leave the wheel and run forward to
the cabin companionway, where I light matches and
consult the barometer. " 29-90 " it reads. That sen
sitive instrument refuses to take notice of the distur
bance which is humming with a deep, throaty voice in
the rigging. I get back to the wheel just in time to
meet another gust, the strongest yet. Well, anyway,
the wind is abeam and the Snark is on her course, eat
ing up easting. That at least is well.
The jib and flying-jib bother me, and I wish they
were in. She would make easier weather of it, and less
risky weather likewise. The wind snorts, and stray
raindrops pelt like birdshot. I shall certainly have to
call all hands, I conclude ; then conclude the next in
stant to hang on a little longer. Maybe this is the end
i 4 2 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
of it, and I shall have called them for nothing. It is
better to let them sleep. I hold the Snark down to
her task, and from out of the darkness, at right angles,
comes a deluge of rain accompanied by shrieking wind.
Then everything eases except the blackness, and I re
joice in that I have not called the men.
No sooner does the wind ease than the sea picks
up. The combers are breaking now, and the boat is
tossing like a cork.
Then out of the
blackness the gusts
come harder and
faster than before.
If only I knew
what was up there
to windward in the
blackness ! The
Snark is making
heavy weather of
it, and her lee-rail
is buried oftener than not. More shrieks and snorts
of wind. Now, if ever, is the time to call the men.
I will call them, I resolve. Then there is a burst
of rain, a slackening of the wind, and I do not call.
But it is rather lonely, there at the wheel, steering a
little world through howling blackness. It is quite a
responsibility to be all alone on the surface of a little
world in time of stress, doing the thinking for its
sleeping inhabitants. I recoil from the responsibility
as more gusts begin to strike and as a sea licks along
the weather rail and splashes over into the cockpit.
The salt water seems strangely warm to my body and
is shot through with ghostly nodules of phospho-
A Dolphin.
A PACIFIC TRAVERSE 143
rescent light. I shall surely call all hands to shorten
sail. Why should they sleep ? I am a fool to have
any compunctions in the matter. My intellect is
arrayed against my heart. It was my heart that said,
" Let them sleep/ Yes, but it was my intellect that
backed up my heart in that judgment. Let my intel
lect then reverse the judgment ; and, while I am specu
lating as to what particular entity issued that command
to my intellect, the gusts die away. Solicitude for mere
bodily comfort has no place in practical seamanship, I
conclude sagely; but study the feel of the next series
of gusts and do not call the men. After all, it is my
intellect, behind everything, procrastinating, measuring
its knowledge of what the Snark can endure against the
blows being struck at her, and waiting the call of all
hands against the striking of still severer blows.
Daylight, gray and violent, steals through the
cloud-pall and shows a foaming sea that flattens
under the weight of recurrent and increasing squalls.
Then comes the rain, filling the windy valleys of the
sea with milky smoke and further flattening the waves,
which but wait for the easement of wind and rain to
leap more wildly than before. Come the men on
deck, their sleep out, and among them Hermann, his
face on the broad grin in appreciation of the breeze of
wind I have picked up. I turn the wheel over to
Warren and start to go below, pausing on the
way to .rescue the galley stovepipe which has gone
adrift. I am barefooted, and my toes have had an ex
cellent education in the art of clinging ; but, as the rail
buries itself in a green sea, I suddenly sit down on the
streaming deck. Hermann good-naturedly elects to
question my selection of such a spot. Then comes
i 4 4 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
the next roll, and he sits down, suddenly, and without
premeditation. The Snark heels over and down, the
rail takes it green, and Hermann and I, clutching the
precious stovepipe, are swept down into the lee-
scuppers. After that I fin : sh my journey below, and
while changing my clothes grin with satisfaction the
Snark is making easting.
No, it is not all monotony. When we had worried
along our easting to 126 west longitude, we left the
variables and headed south through the doldrums,
where was much calm weather and where, taking
advantage of every fan of air, we were often glad to
make a score of miles in as many hours. And yet, on
such a day, we might pass through a dozen squalls and
be surrounded by dozens more. And every squall
was to be regarded as a bludgeon capable of crushing
the Snark. We were struck sometimes by the centres
and sometimes by the sides of these squalls, and we
never knew just where or how we were to be hit.
The squall that rose up, covering half the heavens, and
swept down upon us, as likely as not split into two
squalls which passed us harmlessly on either side ;
while the tiny, innocent-looking squall that appeared
to carry no more than a hogshead of water and a pound
of wind, would abruptly assume cyclopean proportions,
deluging us with rain and overwhelming us with wind.
Then there were treacherous squalls that went boldly
astern and sneaked back upon us from a mile to leeward.
Again, two squalls would tear along, one on each side
of us, and we would get a fillip from each of them.
Now a gale certainly grows tiresome after a few hours,
but squalls never.. The thousandth squall in one s ex
perience is as interesting as the first one, and perhaps a
A PACIFIC TRAVERSE
bit more so. It is the tyro who has no apprehension
of them. The man of a thousand squalls respects a
squall. He knows what they are.
It was in the doldrums that our most exciting event
occurred. On November, 20, we discovered that
through an accident we had lost over one-half of the
supply of fresh water that remained to us. Since we
were at that time forty-three days out from Hilo, our
supply of fresh water was not large. To lose over half
of it was a catastrophe. On close allowance, the rem
nant of water we possessed would last twenty days.
But we were in the doldrums ; there was no telling
where the southeast trades were, nor where we would
pick them up.
The handcuffs were promptly put upon the pump,
and once a day the water was portioned out. Each
of us received a quart for personal use, and eight quarts
were given to the cook. Enters now the psychology of
the situation. No sooner had the discovery of the water
shortage been made than I, for one, was afflicted with
a burning thirst. It seemed to me that I had never
been so thirsty in my life. My little quart of water I
could easily have drunk in one draught, and to refrain
from doing so required a severe exertion of will. Nor
was I alone in this. All of us talked water, thought
water, and dreamed water when we slept. We examined
the charts for possible islands to which to run in extrem
ity, but there were no such islands. The Marquesas were
the nearest, and they were the other side of the Line,
and of the doldrums, too, which made it even worse.
We were in 3 north latitude, while the Marquesas were
in 9 south latitude a difference of over a thousand
miles. Furthermore, the Marquesas lay some fourteen
r.4.6 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
degrees to the west of our longitude. A pretty pickle
for a handful of creatures sweltering on the ocean in
the heat of tropic calms.
We rigged lines on either side between the main and
mizzen riggings. To these we laced the big deck
awning, hoisting it up aft with a sailing pennant so that
any rain it might collect would run forward where it
could be caught. Here and there squalls passed across
the circle of the
sea. All day we
watched them, now
to port or star
board, and again
ahead or astern.
But never one
came near enough
to wet us. In the
afternoon a big one
bore down upon
us. It spread out
across the ocean as it approached, and we could see it
emptying countless thousands of gallons into the salt
sea. Extra attention was paid to the awning, and
then we waited. Warren, Martin, and Hermann
made a vivid picture. Grouped together, holding on
to the rigging, swaying to the roll, they were gazing
intently at the squall. Strain, anxiety, and yearning
were in every posture of their bodies. Beside them
was the dry and empty awning. But they seemed
to grow limp 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 rain. Martin, whose psycho-
An Unwilling Pose.
A PACIFIC TRAVERSE 147
logical thirst had compelled him to drink his quart of
water early, got his mouth down to the lip of the awn
ing and drank the deepest draught I ever have seen
drunk. The precious water came down in bucketfuls
and tubfuls, and in two hours we caught and stored
away in the tanks one hundred and twenty gallons.
Strange to say, in all the rest of our voyage to the
Marquesas not another drop of rain fell on board. If
that squall had missed us, the handcuffs would have
remained on the pump, and we would have busied our
selves with utilizing our surplus gasolene for distillation
purposes.
Then there was the fishing. One did not have to
go in search of it, for it was there at the rail. A three-
inch steel hook, on the end of a stout line, with a
piece of white rag for bait, was all that was necessary to
catch bonitas weighing from ten to twenty-five pounds.
Bonitas feed on flying-fish, wherefore they are unac
customed to nibbling at the hook. They strike as
gamely as the gamest fish in the sea, and their first run
is something that no man who has ever caught them
will forget Also, bonitas are the veriest cannibals.
The instant one is hooked he is attacked by his fel
lows. Often and often we hauled them on board with
fresh, 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 Snark, it was great hunting ; for they cut
a swath of destruction through the ocean half a mile
wide and fifteen hundred miles in length. They ranged
along abreast of the Snark on either side, pouncing upon
the flying-fish her forefoot scared up. Since they were
continually pursuing astern the flying-fish that survived
148 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
for several flights, they were always overtaking the
Snark, and at any time one could glance astern and on
the front of a breaking wave see scores of their silvery
forms coasting down just under the surface. When
they had eaten their fill, it was their delight to get in
the shadow of the boat, or of her sails, and a hundred or
so were always to be seen lazily sliding along and keep
ing cool.
But the poor flying-fish ! Pursued and eaten alive
by the bonitas and dolphins, they sought flight in the
air, 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. It is
a life-and-death affair with them. A thousand times a
day we could lift our eyes and see the tragedy played
out. The swift, broken circling of a guny might at
tract one s attention. A glance beneath shows the
back of a dolphin breaking the surface in a wild rush.
Just in front of its nose a shimmering palpitant streak
of silver shoots from the water into the air a delicate,
organic mechanism of flight, endowed with sensation,
power of direction, and love of life. The guny swoops
for it and misses, and the flying-fish, gaining its alti
tude by rising, kite-like, against the wind, turns in a
half-circle and skims off to leeward, gliding on the
bosom of the wind. Beneath it, the wake of the dol
phin shows in churning foam. So he follows, gazing
upward with large eyes at the flashing breakfast that
navigates an element other than his own. He cannot
rise to so lofty occasion, but he is a thorough-going
empiricist, 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
A PACIFIC TRAVERSE 149
poor winged fish. It was sad to see such sordid and
bloody slaughter. And then, in the night watches,
when a forlorn little flying-fish struck the mainsail and
fell gasping and splattering on the deck, we would rush
for it just as eagerly, just as greedily, just as vora
ciously, as the dolphins and bonitas. For know that
flying-fish are most toothsome for breakfast. It is al
ways a wonder to me that such dainty meat does not
build dainty tissue in the bodies of the devourers.
Perhaps the dolphins and bonitas are coarser-fibred
because of the high speed at which they drive their
bodies in order to catch their prey. But then again,
the flying-fish drive their bodies at high speed, too.
Sharks we caught occasionally, on large hooks, with
chain-swivels, bent on a length of small rope. And
sharks meant pilot-fish, and remoras, and various sorts
of parasitic creatuces. Regular man-eaters some of
the sharks proved, tiger-eyed and with twelve rows
of teeth, razor-sharp. By the way, we of the Snark
are agreed that we have eaten many fish that will not
compare with baked shark smothered in tomato dress
ing. In the calms we occasionally caught a fish called
" hake " by the Japanese cook. And once, on a spoon-
hook trolling a hundred yards astern, we caught a snake-
like fish, over three feet in length and not more than
three inches in diameter, with four fangs in his jaw.
He proved the most delicious fish delicious in meat
and flavor that we have ever eaten on board.
The most welcome addition to our larder was a
green sea-turtle, weighing a full hundred pounds and
appearing on the table most appetizingly in steaks,
soups, and stews, and finally in a wonderful curry
which tempted all hands into eating more rice than
\
5
THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
was good for them. The turtle was sighted to wind
ward, calmly sleeping on the surface in the midst of a
huge school of curious dolphins. It was a deep-sea
turtle of a surety, for the nearest land was a thousand
miles away. We put the Snark about and went back
for him, Hermann driving
the granes into his head
and neck. When hauled
aboard, numerous remora
were clinging to his shell,
and out of the hollows at
the roots of his flippers
crawled several large crabs.
It did not take the crew of
the Snark longer than the
next meal to reach the unan
imous conclusion that it
would willingly put the
Snark about any time for
a turtle.
But it is the dolphin
A Four-foot Seven-inch Dolphin. that is the kin g f ^eep-sea
fishes. Never is his color
twice quite the same. Swimming in the sea, an ethe
real creature of palest azure, he displays in that one
guise a miracle of color. But it is nothing compared
with the displays of which he is capable. At one
time he will appear green pale green, deep green,
phosphorescent green; at another time blue deep
blue, electric blue, all the spectrum of blue. Catch
him on a hook, and he turns to gold, yellow gold, all
gold. Haul him on deck, and he excels the spectrum,
passing through inconceivable shades of blues, greens,
A PACIFIC TRAVERSE 151
and yellows, and then, suddenly, turning a ghostly
white, in the midst of which are bright blue spots, and
you suddenly discover that he is speckled like a trout.
Then back from white he goes, through all the range
of colors, finally 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,
it must be done on a thin line with reel and pole. A
No. 7, O Shaughnessy tarpon hook is just the thing,
baited with an entire flying-fish. Like the bonita, the
dolphin s fare consists of flying-fish, and he strikes like
lightning at the bait. The first warning is when the
reel screeches and you see the line smoking out at
right angles to the boat. Before you have time to
entertain anxiety concerning the length of your line,
the fish rises into the air in a succession of leaps.
Since he is quite certain to be four feet long or over,
the sport of landing so gamey a fish can be realized.
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 iron
or decadent if his heart does not beat with an extra
flutter when he beholds such gorgeous fish, glittering
in golden mail and shaking itself like a stallion in each
mid-air leap. Ware slack ! If you don t, on one of
those leaps the hook will be flung out and twenty feet
away. No slack, and away he will go on another run,
culminating in another series of leaps. About this
time one begins to worry over the line, and to wish
that he had had nine hundred feet on the reel origi
nally instead of six hundred. With careful playing the
line can be saved, and after an hour of keen excitement
the fish can be brought to gaff. One such dolphin I
152 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
landed on the Snark measured four feet and seven
inches.
Hermann caught dolphins more prosaically. A
hand-line and a chunk of shark-meat was all he needed.
His hand-line was very thick, but on more than one
occasion it parted and lost the fish. One day a dol
phin got away with a lure of Hermann s manufacture,
to which were lashed four O Shaughnessy -hooks.
Within an hour the same dolphin was landed with the
rod, and on dissecting him the four hooks were re
covered. The dolphins, which remained with us over
a month, deserted us north of the line, and not one
was seen during the remainder of the traverse.
So the days passed. There was so much to be done
that time never dragged. Had there been little to do,
time could not have dragged with such wonderful sea
scapes and cloudscapes dawns that were like burning
imperial cities under rainbows that arched nearly to the
zenith ; sunsets that bathed the purple sea in rivers of
rose-colored light, flowing from a sun whose diverging,
heaven-climbing rays were of the purest blue. Overside,
in the heat of the day, the sea was an azure satiny fabric,
in the depths of which the sunshine focussed in funnels
of light. Astern, deep down, when there was a breeze,
bubbled a procession of milky-turquoise ghosts the
foam flung down by the hull of the Snark each time
she floundered against a sea. At night the wake was
phosphorescent fire, where the medusa slime resented
our passing bulk, while far down could be observed
the unceasing flight of comets, with long, undulating,
nebulous tails caused by the passage of the bonitas
through the resentful medusa slime. And now and
again, from out of the darkness on either hand, just
A PACIFIC TRAVERSE 153
under the surface, larger phosphorescent organisms
flashed up like electric lights, marking collisions with
the careless bonitas skurrying ahead to the good hunt
ing just beyond our bowsprit.
We made our easting, worked down through the
doldrums, and caught a fresh breeze out of south-by-
west. Hauled up by the wind, on such a slant, we
would fetch past the Marquesas far away to the west
ward. But the next day, on Tuesday, November 26,
in the thick of a heavy squall, the wind shifted sud
denly to the southeast. It was the trade at last.
There were no more squalls, naught but fine weather,
a fair wind, and a whirling log, with sheets slacked off
and with spinnaker and mainsail swaying and bellying
on either side. The trade backed more and more,
until it blew out of the northeast, while we steered a
steady course to the southwest. Ten days of this, and
on the morning of December 6, at five o clock, we
sighted land "just where it ought to have been," dead
ahead. We passed to leeward of Ua-huka, skirted the
southern edge of Nuka-hiva, and that night, in driving
squalls and inky darkness, fought our way in to an
anchorage in the narrow bay of Taiohae. The anchor
rumbled down to the blatting of wild goats on the
cliffs, and the air we breathed was heavy with the per
fume of flowers. The traverse was accomplished.
Sixty days from land to land, across a lonely sea above
whose horizons never rise the straining sails of ships.
CHAPTER X
Typee
To the eastward Ua-huka was being blotted out by
an evening rain-squall that was fast overtaking the
Snark. But that little craft, her big spinnaker filled
by the southeast trade, was making a good race of it.
Cape Martin, the southeasternmost point of Nuku-hiva,
was abeam, and Comptroller Bay was opening up as
we fled past its wide entrance, where Sail Rock, for all
the world like the spritsail of a Columbia River salmon-
boat, was making brave weather of it in the smashing
southeast swell.
" What do you make that out to be ? " I asked
Hermann, at the wheel.
" A fishing-boat, sir," he answered after careful
scrutiny.
Yet on the chart it was plainly marked, " Sail 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 midmost
one, where the gathering twilight showed the dim walls
of a valley extending inland. How often we had pored
over the chart and centred always on that midmost
bight and on the valley it opened the Valley of Ty
pee. " Taipi " the chart spelled it, and spelled it cor
rectly, but I prefer "Typee," and I shall always spell
it " Typee." When I was a little boy, I read a book
spelled in that manner Herman Melville s " Typee " ;
and many long hours I dreamed over its pages. Nor
54
TYPEE 155
was it all dreaming. I resolved there and then, might
ily, come what would, that when I had gained strength
and years, I, too, would voyage to Typee. For the won
der of the world was penetrating to my tiny conscious-
Grass-houses.
ness the wonder that was to lead me to many lands,
and that leads and never palls. The years passed, but
Typee was not forgotten. Returned to San Francisco
from a seven months cruise in the North Pacific, I
decided the time had come. The brig Galilee was
sailing for the Marquesas, but her crew was complete
156 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
and I, who was an able seaman before the mast and
young enough to be overweeningly proud of it, was
willing to condescend to ship as cabin-boy in order to
make the pilgrimage to Typee. Of course, the Galilee
would have sailed from the Marquesas without me,
for I was bent on finding another Fayaway and another
Kory-Kory. I doubt that the captain read desertion
in my eye. Perhaps even the berth of cabin-boy was
already filled. At any rate, I did not get it.
Then came the rush of years, filled brimming with
projects, achievements, and failures ; but Typee was
not forgotten, and here I was now, gazing at its misty
outlines till the squall swooped down and the Snark
dashed on into the driving smother. Ahead, we
caught a glimpse and took the compass bearing of
Sentinel Rock, wreathed with pounding surf. Then
it, too, was effaced by the rain and darkness. We
steered straight for it, trusting to hear the sound of
breakers in time to sheer clear. We had to steer for
it. We had naught but a compass bearing with which
to orientate ourselves, and if we missed Sentinel Rock,
we missed Taiohae Bay, and we would have to throw
the Snark up to the wind and lie off and on the whole
night no pleasant prospect for voyagers weary from
a sixty days traverse of the vast Pacific solitude, and
land-hungry, and fruit-hungry, and hungry with an
appetite of years for the sweet vale of Typee.
Abruptly, with a roar of sound, Sentinel Rock
loomed through the rain dead ahead. We altered our
course, and, with mainsail and spinnaker bellying to
the squall, drove past. Under the lee of the rock the
wind dropped us, and we rolled in an absolute calm.
Then a puff of air struck us, right in our teeth, out of
TYPEE 157
Taiohae Bay. It was in spinnaker, up mizzen, all
sheets by the wind, and we were moving slowly ahead,
heaving the lead and straining our eyes for the fixed
red light on the ruined fort that would give us our
bearings to anchorage. The air was light and baffling,
now east, now west, now north, now south ; while
from either hand came the roar of unseen breakers.
From the looming cliffs arose the blatting of wild
goats, and overhead the first stars were peeping mistily
through the ragged train of the passing squall. At
the end of two hours, having come a mile into the bay,
we dropped anchor in eleven fathoms. And so we
came to Taiohae.
In the morning we awoke in fairyland. The Snark
rested in a placid harbor that nestled in a vast amphi
theatre, the towering, vine-clad walls of which seemed
to rise directly from the water. Far up, to the east,
we glimpsed the thin line of a trail, visible in one
place, where it scoured across the face of the wall.
" The path by which Toby escaped from Typee ! "
we cried.
We were not long in getting ashore and astride
horses, though the consummation of our pilgrimage had
to be deferred for a day. Two months at sea, bare
footed all the time, without space in which to exercise
one s limbs, is not the best preliminary to leather shoes
and walking. Besides, the land had to cease its nau
seous rolling before we could feel fit for riding goat-
like horses over giddy trails. So we took a short ride
to break in, and crawled through thick jungle to make
the acquaintance of a venerable moss-grown idol, where
had foregathered a German trader and a Norwegian
captain to estimate the weight of said idol, and to
158 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
speculate upon depreciation in value caused by sawing
him in half. They treated the old fellow sacrilegiously,
digging their knives into him to see how hard he was
and how deep his mossy mantle, and commanding him
The Goddess of the Pool.
to rise up and save them trouble by walking down to
the ship himself. In lieu of which, nineteen Kanakas
slung him on a frame of timbers and toted him to the
ship, where, battened down under hatches, even now
he is cleaving the South Pacific Horn ward and toward
Europe the ultimate abiding-place for all good
TYPEE 159
heathen idols, save for the few in America and one
in particular who grins beside me as I write, and who,
barring shipwreck, will grin somewhere in my neigh
borhood until I die. And he will win out. He will
be grinning when I am dust.
Also, as a preliminary, we attended a feast, where
one Taiara Tamarii, the son of an Hawaiian sailor who
deserted from a whaleship, commemorated the death
of his Marquesan mother by roasting fourteen whole
hogs and inviting in the village. So we came along,
welcomed by a native herald, a young girl, who stood
on a great rock and chanted the information that the
banquet was made perfect by our presence which
information she extended impartially to every arrival.
Scarcely were we seated, however, when she changed
her tune, while the company manifested intense excite
ment. Her cries became eager and piercing. From a
distance came answering cries, in men s voices, which
blended into a wild, barbaric chant that sounded in
credibly savage, smacking of blood and war. Then,
through vistas of tropical foliage appeared a procession
of savages, naked save for gaudy loin-cloths. They
advanced slowly, uttering deep gutteral cries of
triumph and exaltation. Slung from young saplings
carried on their shoulders were mysterious objects of
considerable weight, hidden from view by wrappings
of green leaves.
Nothing but pigs, innocently fat and roasted to a turn,
were inside those wrappings, but the men were carry
ing them into camp in imitation of old times when
they carried in " long-pig." Now long-pig is not pig.
Long-pig is the Polynesian euphemism for human
flesh ; and these descendants of man-eaters, a king s
160 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
son at their head, brought in the pigs to table as of
old their grandfathers had brought in their slain
enemies. Every now and then the procession halted
in order that the bearers should have every advantage
in uttering particularly ferocious shouts of victory, of
contempt for their enemies, and of gustatory desire.
So Melville, two generations ago, witnessed the bodies
of slain Happar warriors, wrapped in 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 it his eyes " fell upon the disor
dered members of a human skeleton, the bones still
fresh with moisture, and with particles of flesh clinging
to them here and there."
Cannibalism has often been regarded as a fairy story
by ultracivilized men, who dislike, perhaps, the notion
that their own savage forebears have somewhere in the
past been addicted to similar practices. Captain Cook
was rather sceptical upon the subject, until, one day,
in a harbor of New Zealand, he deliberately tested the
matter. A native happened to have brought on board,
for sale, a nice, sun-dried head. At Cook s orders
strips of the flesh were cut away and handed to the
native, who greedily devoured them. To say the
least, Captain Cook was a rather thoroughgoing empiri
cist. At any rate, by that act he supplied one ascer
tained fact of which science had been badly in need.
Little did he dream of the existence of a certain group
of islands, 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 with
defamation of character because he persisted in assert
ing that his body was the living repository of Captain
TYPEE 161
Cook s great toe. It is said that the plaintiffs failed
to prove that the old chief was not the tomb of the
navigator s great toe, and that the suit was dismissed.
I suppose I shall not have the chance in these
degenerate days to see any long-pig eaten, but at
least I am already the possessor of a duly certified
Marquesan calabash, oblong in shape, curiously
carved, over a century old, from which has been
drunk the blood of two shipmasters. One of those
captains was a mean man. He sold a decrepit whale-
boat, as good as new what of the fresh white paint,
to a Marquesan chief. But no sooner had the cap
tain sailed away than the whale-boat dropped to pieces.
It was his fortune, some time afterward, to be wrecked,
of all places, on that particular island. The Marque
san chief was ignorant of rebates and discounts ; but he
had a primitive sense of equity and an equally primi
tive conception of the economy of nature, and he
balanced the account by eating the man who had
cheated him.
We started in the cool dawn for Typee, astride fero
cious little stallions that pawed and screamed and bit
and fought one another quite oblivious of the fragile
humans on their backs and of the slippery boulders,
loose rocks, and yawning gorges. The way. led up an
ancient road through a jungle of hau trees. On every
side were the vestiges of a one-time dense population.
Wherever the eye could penetrate the thick growth,
glimpses were caught of stone walls and of stone founda
tions, six to eight feet in height, built solidly through
out, and many yards in width and depth. They formed
great stone platforms, upon which, at one time, there
had been houses. But the houses and the people were
i6i THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
gone, and huge trees sank their roots through the plat
forms and towered over the under-running jungle.
These foundations are called pae-paes the pi-pis of
Melville, who spelled phonetically.
The Tropics after the Advent of Morality.
The Marquesans of the present generation lack the
energy to hoist and place such huge stones. Also, they
lack incentive. There are plenty of pae-paes to go
around, with a few thousand unoccupied ones left over.
Once or twice, as we ascended the valley, we saw magnifi
cent pae-paes bearing on their general surface pitiful little
TYPEE 163
straw huts, the proportions being similar to a voting booth
perched on the broad foundation of the pyramid of Cheops.
For the Marquesans are perishing, and, to judge from
conditions at Taiohae, the one thing that retards their
destruction is the infusion of fresh blood. A pure
Marquesan is a rarity. They seem to be all half-breeds
and strange conglomerations of dozens of different races.
Nineteen able laborers are all the trader at Taiohae
can muster for the loading of copra on shipboard, and
in their veins runs the blood of English, American,
Dane, German, French, Corsican, Spanish, Portuguese,
Chinese, Hawaiian, Paumotan, Tahitian, and Easter
I slander. There are more races than there are persons, but
it is awreckage of races at best. Life faints and stumbles
and gasps itself away. In this warm, equable clime
a truly terrestrial paradise where are never extremes
of temperature and where the air is like balm, kept ever
pure by the ozone-laden southeast trade, asthma, phthisis,
and tuberculosis flourish as luxuriantly as the vegeta
tion. Everywhere, from the few grass huts, arises the
racking cough or exhausted groan of wasted lungs.
Other horrible diseases prosper as well, but the most
deadly of all are those that attack the lungs. There is
a form of consumption called " galloping," which is
especially dreaded. In two months time it reduces
the strongest man to a skeleton under a grave-cloth.
In valley after valley the last inhabitant has passed and
the fertile soil has relapsed to jungle. In Melville s
day the valley of Hapaa (spelled by him " Happar")
was peopled by a strong and warlike tribe. A genera
tion later, it contained but two hundred persons. To
day it is an untenanted, howling, tropical wilderness.
We climbed higher and higher in the valley, our
164 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
unshod stallions picking their steps on the disintegrat
ing trail, which led in and out through the abandoned
pae-paes and insatiable jungle. The sight of red
mountain apples, the obias, familiar to us from Hawaii,
A Cocoanut Grove.
caused a native to be sent climbing after them. And
again he climbed for cocoanuts. I have drunk the
cocoanuts of Jamaica and of Hawaii, but I never knew
how delicious such draught could be till I drank it
here in the Marquesas. Occasionally we rode under
wild limes and oranges great trees which had survived
TYPEE 165
the wilderness longer than the motes of humans who
had cultivated them.
We rode through endless thickets of yellow-pollened
cassi if riding it could be called; for those fragrant
thickets were inhabited by wasps. And such wasps !
Great yellow fellows the size of small canary birds,
darting through the air with behind them drifting a
bunch of legs a couple of inches long. A stallion
abruptly stands on his forelegs and thrusts his hind-
legs skyward. He withdraws them from the sky long
enough to make one wild jump ahead, and then returns
them to their index position. It is nothing. His
thick hide has merely been punctured by a flaming
lance of wasp virility. Then a second and a third
stallion, and all the stallions, begin to cavort on their
forelegs over the precipitous landscape. Swat ! A
white-hot poniard penetrates my cheek. Swat again !
I am stabbed in the neck. I am bringing up the rear
and getting more than my share. There is no retreat,
and the plunging horses ahead, on a precarious trail,
promise little safety. My horse overruns Charmian s
horse, and that sensitive creature, fresh-stung at the
psychological moment, planks one of his hoofs into my
horse and the other hoof into me. I thank my stars
that he is not steel-shod, and half-arise from the saddle
at the impact of another flaming dagger. I am certainly
getting more than my share, and so is my poor horse,
whose pain and panic are only exceeded by mine.
" Get out of the way ! I m coming ! " I shout,
frantically dashing my cap at the winged vipers around
me.
On one side of the trail the landscape rises straight
up. On the other side it sinks straight down. The
i66 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
only way to get out of my way is to keep on going.
How that string of horses kept their feet is a miracle ;
but they dashed ahead, over-running one another, gal
loping, trotting, stumbling, jumping, scrambling, and
The Camera in the Marquesas.
kicking methodically skyward every time a wasp landed
on them. After a while we drew breath and counted
our injuries. And this happened not once, nor twice,
but time after time. Strange to say, it never grew
monotonous. I know that I, for one, came through
each brush with the undiminished zest of a man flying
TYPEE 167
from sudden death. No ; the pilgrim from Taiohae
to Typee will never suffer from ennui on the way.
At last we arose above the vexation of wasps. It
was a matter of altitude, however, rather than of forti
tude. All about us lay the jagged back-bones of
ranges, as far as the eye could see, thrusting their pin
nacles into the trade-wind clouds. Under us, from the
way we had come, the Snark lay like a tiny toy on the
calm water of Taiohae Bay. Ahead we could see
the inshore indentation of Comptroller Bay. We
dropped down a thousand feet, and Typee lay beneath
us. " Had a glimpse of the gardens of paradise been
revealed to me I could scarcely have been more ravished
with the sight * so said Melville on the moment of
his first view of the valley. He saw a garden. We
saw a wilderness. Where were the hundred groves of
the breadfruit tree he saw ? We saw jungle, nothing
but jungle, with the exception of two grass huts and
several clumps of cocoanuts breaking the primordial
green mantle. Where wks the Ti of Mehevi, the
bachelors hall, the palace where women were taboo,
and where he ruled with his lesser chieftains, keeping
the half-dozen dusty and torpid ancients to remind them
of the valorous past ? From the swift stream no sounds
arose of maids and matrons pounding tapa. And
where was the hut that old Narheyo eternally builded ?
In vain I looked for him perched ninety feet from the
ground in some tall cocoanut, taking his morning smoke.
We went down a zigzag trail under overarching,
matted jungle, where great butterflies drifted by in the
silence. No tattooed savage with club and javelin
guarded the path ; and when we forded the stream, we
were free to roam where we pleased. No longer did
168 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
the taboo, sacred and merciless, reign in that sweet vale.
Nay, the taboo still did reign, a new taboo, for when
we approached too near the several wretched native
women, the taboo was uttered warningly. And it was
Under the Banana Tree.
well. They were lepers. The man who warned us was
afflicted horribly with elephantiasis. All were suffering
from lung trouble. The valley of Typee was the abode
of death, and the dozen survivors of the tribe were
gasping feebly the last painful breaths of the race.
Certainly the battle had not been to the strong, for
TYPEE 169
once the Typeans were very strong, stronger than the
Happars, stronger than the Taiohaeans, stronger than
all the tribes of Nuku-hiva. The word " typee," or,
rather, " taipi," originally signified an eater of human
flesh. But since all the Marquesans were human-flesh
eaters, to be so designated was the token that the
Typeans were the human-flesh eaters par excellence.
Not alone to Nuku-hiva did the Typean reputation for
bravery and ferocity extend. In all the islands of the
Marquesas the Typeans were named with dread.
Man could not conquer them. Even the French fleet
that took possession of the Marquesas left the Typeans
alone. Captain Porter, of the frigate Essex, once in
vaded the valley. His sailors and marines were reen-
forced by two thousand warriors of Happar and
Taiohae. They penetrated quite a distance into the
valley, but met with so fierce a resistance that they
were glad to retreat and get away in their flotilla of
boats and war-canoes.
Of all inhabitants of the South Seas, the Marquesans
were adjudged the strongest and the most beautiful.
Melville said of them : "I was especially struck by the
physical strength and beauty they displayed. ... In
beauty of form they surpassed anything I had ever
seen. Not a single instance of natural deformity was
observable in all the throng attending the revels. . . .
Every individual appeared free from those blemishes
which sometimes mar the effect of an otherwise perfect
form. But their physical excellence did not merely
consist in an exemption from these evils; nearly every
individual of their number might have been taken for
a sculptor s model." Mendana, the discoverer of the
Marquesas, described the natives as wondrously beau-
THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
tiful to behold. Figueroa, the chronicler of his voyage,
said of them : " In complexion they were nearly white ;
of good stature and finely formed." Captain Cook
called the Marquesans the most splendid islanders in
the South Seas. The men were described as "in al
most every instance of lofty stature, scarcely ever less
than six feet in height."
And now all this strength and beauty has departed,
and the valley of Typee is the abode of some dozen
wretched creatures, afflicted ty leprosy, elephantiasis,
and tuberculo^, s. Melville estimated the population
at two thousand, not taking into consideration the small
adjoining valley of Ho-o-umi. Life has rotted away in
this wonderful garden spot, where the climate is as de
lightful and healthful as any to be found in the world.
Not alone were the Typeans physically magnificent;
they were pure. Their air did not contain the bacilli
and germs and microbes of disease that fill our own air.
And when^the white men imported in their ships these
various microorganisms of disease, the Typeans crum
pled up and went down before them.
When one considers the situation, one is almost
driven to the conclusion that the white race flourishes
on impurity and corruption. Natural selection, how
ever, gives the explanation. We of the white race are
the survivors and the descendants of the thousands of
generations of survivors in the war with the micro
organisms. Whenever one of us was born with a con
stitution peculiarly receptive to these minute enemies,
such a one promptly died. Only these of us survived
who could withstand them. We who are alive are the
immune, the fit the ones best constituted to live in
a world of hostile microorganisms. The poor Marque-
TYPEE
sans had undergone no such selection. They were not
immune. And they, who had made a custom of eat
ing their enemies, were now eaten by enemies so micro
scopic as to be invisible, and against whom no war of
Behind the Bulwark of the Reef.
dart and javelin was possible. On the other hand, had
there been a few hundred thousand Marquesans to be
gin with, there might have been sufficient survivors to
lay the foundation for a new race a regenerated race,
if a plunge into a festering bath of organic poison can
be called regeneration.
172 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
We unsaddled our horses for lunch, and after we
had fought the stallions apart mine with several
fresh chunks bitten out of his back and after we had
vainly fought the sand-flies, we ate bananas and tinned
meats, washed down by generous draughts of cocoanut
milk. There was little to be seen. The jungle had
rushed back and engulfed the puny works of man.
Here and there pai-pais were to be stumbled upon, but
there were no inscriptions, no hieroglyphics, no clews
to the past they attested only dumb stones, builded
and carved by hands that were forgotten dust. Out
of the pai-pais grew great trees, jealous of the wrought
work of man, splitting and scattering the stones back
into the primeval chaos.
We gave up the jungle and sought the stream with
the idea of evading the sand-flies. Vain hope ! To
go in swimming one must take off his clothes. The
sand-flies are aware of the fact, and they lurk by the
river bank in countless myriads. In the native they
are called the nau-nau, which is pronounced " now-
now." They are certainly well named, for they are
the insistent present. There is no past nor future
when they fasten upon one s epidermis, and I am willing
to wager that Omar Khayyam could never have written
the Rubaiyat in the valley of Typee it would have
been psychologically impossible. I made the strategic
mistake of undressing on the edge of a steep bank where
I could dive in but could not climb out. When I was
ready to dress, I had a hundred yards walk on the
bank before I could reach my clothes. At the first
step, fully ten thousand nau-naus landed upon me.
At the second step I was walking in a cloud. By the
third step the sun was dimmed in the sky. After that
TYPEE 173
I don t know what happened. When I arrived at my
clothes, I was a maniac. And here enters my grand
tactical error. There is only one rule of conduct in
dealing with nau-naus. Never swat them. Whatever
you do, don t swat them. They are so vicious that in
the instant of annihilation they eject their last atom
of poison into your carcass. You must pluck them
delicately, between thumb and forefinger, and persuade
them gently to remove their proboscides from your
quivering flesh. It is like pulling teeth. But the
difficulty was that the teeth sprouted faster than I could
pull them, so I swatted, and, so doing, filled myself
full with their poison. This was a week ago. At the
present moment I resemble a sadly neglected smallpox
convalescent.
Ho-o-u-mi is a small valley, separated from Typee
by a low ridge, and thither we started when we had
knocked our indomitable and insatiable riding-animals
into submission. As it was, Warren s mount, after
a mile run, selected the most dangerous part of
the trail for an exhibition that kept us all on the
anxious seat for fully five minutes. We rode by the
mouth of Typee valley and gazed down upon the beach
from which Melville escaped. There was where the
whale-boat lay on its oars close in to the surf; and
there was where Karakoee, the taboo Kanaka, stood in
the water and trafficked for the sailor s life. There,
surely, was where Melville gave Fayaway the parting
embrace ere he dashed for the boat. And there was
the point of land from which Mehevi and Mow-mow
and their following swam oflf to intercept the boat, only
to have their wrists gashed by sheath-knives when
they laid hold of the gunwale, though it was reserved
174 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
for Mow-mow to receive the boat-hook full in the
throat from Melville s hands.
We rode on to Ho-o-u-mi. So closely was Mel
ville guarded that he never dreamed of the existence
- 1
One of the Last of a Mighty Race.
of this valley, though he must continually have met its
inhabitants, for they belonged to Typee. We rode
through the same abandoned pae-paes, but as we neared
the sea we found a profusion of cocoanuts, breadfruit
trees, and taro patches, and fully a dozen grass dwell
ings. In one of these we arranged to pass the night,
TYPEE 175
and preparations were immediately put on foot for a
feast. A young pig was promptly despatched, and
while he was being roasted among hot stones, and while
chickens were stewing in cocoanut milk, I persuaded
one of the cooks to climb an unusually tall cocoanut
palm. The cluster of nuts at the top was fully one
hundred and twenty-five feet from the ground, but
that native strode up to the tree, seized it in both
hands, jack-knived at the waist so that the soles of his
feet rested flatly against the trunk, and then he walked
right straight up "without stopping. There were no
notches in the tree. He had no ropes to help him.
He merely walked up the tree, one hundred and
twenty-five feet in the air, and cast down the nuts from
the summit. Not every man there had the physical
stamina for such a feat, or the lungs, rather, for most
of them were coughing their lives away. Some of the
women kept up a ceaseless moaning and groaning, so
badly were their lungs wasted. Very few of either sex
were full-blooded Marquesans. They were mostly
half-breeds and three-quarter-breeds of French, Eng
lish, Danish, and Chinese extraction. At the best,
these infusions of fresh blood merely delayed the pass
ing, and the results led one to wonder whether it was
worth while.
The feast was served on a broad pae-pae, the rear
portion of which was occupied by the house in which
we were to sleep. The first course was raw fish and
poi-poi, the latter sharp and more acrid of taste than
the poi of Hawaii, which is made from taro. The
poi-poi of the Marquesas is made from breadfruit.
The ripe fruit, after the core is removed, is placed in a
calabash and pounded with a stone pestle into a stiff,
i 7 6
THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
TYPEE 177
sticky paste. In this stage of the process, wrapped in
leaves, it can be buried in the ground where it will
keep for years. Before it can be eaten, however,
further processes are necessary. A leaf-covered pack
age is placed among hot stones, like the pig, and
thoroughly baked. After that it is mixed with cold
water and thinned out not thin enough to run, but
thin enough to be eaten by sticking one s first and
second fingers into it. On close acquaintance it proves
a pleasant and most healthful food. And breadfruit,
ripe and well boiled or roasted ! It is delicious.
Breadfruit and taro are kingly vegetables, the pair of
them, though the former is patently a misnomer and
more resembles a sweet potato then anything else,
though it is not mealy like a sweet potato, nor is it so
sweet.
The feast ended, we watched the moon rise over
Typee. The air was like balm, faintly scented with
the breath of flowers. It was a magic night, deathly
still, without the slightest breeze to stir the foliage ;
and one caught one s breath and felt the pang that is
almost hurt, so exquisite was the beauty of it. Faint
and far could be heard the thin thunder of the surf
upon the beach. There were no beds ; and we drowsed
and slept wherever we thought the floor softest. Near
by, a woman panted and moaned in her sleep, and all
about us the dying islanders coughed in the night.
CHAPTER XI
The Nature Man
I FIRST met him on Market Street in San Francisco.
It was a wet and drizzly afternoon, and he was strid
ing along, clad solely in a pair of abbreviated knee-
trousers and an abbreviated shirt, his bare feet going
slick-slick through the pavement-slush. At his heels
trooped a score- of excited gamins. Every head and
there were thousands turned to glance curiously at
him as he went by. And I turned, too. Never had I
seen such lovely sunburn. He was all sunburn, of the
sort a blond takes on when his skin does not peel.
His long yellow hair was burnt, so was his beard, which
sprang from a soil unploughed by any razor. He was
a tawny man, a golden-tawny man, all glowing and
radiant with the sun. Another prophet, thought I,
come up to town with a message that will save the
world.
A few weeks later I was with some friends in their
bungalow in the Piedmont hills 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 ll feed from the hand. Come on and see
him." So I accompanied them up a dizzy hill, and in
a rickety shack in the midst of a eucalyptus grove
found 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 with
us ; instead, his greeting took the form of stunts. He
178
THE NATURE MAN 179
turned more handsprings. He twisted his body sinu
ously, like a snake, until, having sufficiently limbered
up, he bent from the hips, and, with legs straight and
knees touching, beat a tattoo on the ground with the
palms of his hands. He whirligigged and pirouetted,
dancing and cavorting round like an inebriated 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 it all evening, ringing the changes on it
with an endless variety of stunts. " A fool ! a fool ! I
met a fool in the forest ! " thought I. And a worthy
fool he proved. Between handsprings and whirligigs
he delivered his message that would save the world.
It was twofold. First, let suffering humanity strip
off its clothing and run wild in the mountains and
valleys ; and, second, let the very miserable world
adopt phonetic spelling. I caught a glimpse of the
great social problems being settled by the city popu
lations swarming naked over the landscape, to the
popping of shot-guns, the barking of ranch-dogs,
and countless assaults with pitchforks wielded by irate
farmers.
The years passed, and, one sunny morning, the
Snark poked her nose into a narrow opening in a reef
that smoked with the crashing impact of the trade-wind
swell, and beat slowly up Papeete harbor. Coming
off to us was a boat, flying a yellow flag. We knew
it contained the port doctor. But quite a distance ofT,
in its wake, was a tiny outrigger canoe that puzzled
us. It was flying a red flag. I studied it through the
glasses, fearing that it marked some hidden danger to
navigation, some recent wreck or some buoy or beacon
that had been swept away. Then the doctor came on
i8o THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
board. After he had examined the state of our health
and been assured that we had no live rats hidden away
in the Snark, I asked him the meaning of the red flag.
" Oh, that is Darling," was the answer.
And then Darling, Ernest Darling, flying the red
flag that is indicative of the brotherhood of man,
The Nature Man comes on Board the Snark.
hailed us. "Hello, Jack!" he called. "Hello,
Charmian ! " He paddled swiftly nearer, and I saw
that he was the tawny prophet of the Piedmont hills.
He came over the side, a sun-god clad in a scarlet
loin-cloth, with presents of Arcady and greeting in
both his hands a bottle of golden honey and a leaf-
basket filled with great golden mangoes, golden bananas
THE NATURE MAN 181
specked with freckles of deeper gold, golden pine
apples and golden limes, and juicy oranges minted from
the same precious ore of sun and soil. And in this
fashion, under the southern sky, I met once more
Darling, the Nature Man.
Tahiti is one of the most beautiful spots in the
world, inhabited by thieves and robbers and liars, also
by several honest and truthful men and women.
Wherefore, because of the blight cast upon Tahiti s
wonderful beauty by the spidery human vermin that
infest it, I am minded to write, not of Tahiti, but of
the Nature Man. He, at least, is refreshing and
wholesome. The spirit that emanates from him is so
gentle and sweet that it would harm nothing, hurt no
body s feelings save the feelings of a predatory and
plutocratic capitalist.
" What does this red flag mean ? " I asked.
" Socialism, of course."
"Yes, yes, I know that," I went on; "but what
does it mean in your hands ? "
"Why, that I ve found my message."
" And that you are delivering it to Tahiti ? " I de
manded incredulously.
" Sure," he answered simply ; and later on I found
that he was, too.
When we dropped anchor, lowered a small boat into
the water, and started ashore, the Nature Man joined us.
Now, thought I, I shall be pestered to death by this
crank. Waking or sleeping I shall never be quit of him
until I sail away from here.
But never in my life was I more mistaken. I took
a house and went to live and work in it, and the Na
ture Man never came near me. He was waiting for
182 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
the invitation. In the meantime he went aboard the
Snark and took possession of her library, delighted by
the quantity of scientific books, and shocked, as I
learned afterward, by the inordinate amount of fiction.
The Nature Man never wastes time on fiction.
After a week or so, my conscience smote me, and I
invited him to dinner at a downtown hotel. He arrived,
looking unwontedly stiff and uncomfortable in a cotton
jacket. When invited to peel it off, he beamed his
gratitude and joy, and did so, revealing his sun-gold
skin, from waist to shoulder, covered only by a piece
of fish-net of coarse twine and large of mesh. A scar
let loin-cloth completed his costume. I began my
acquaintance with him that night, and during my long
stay in Tahiti that acquaintance ripened into friendship.
" 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 literary efforts. My soul was in revolt. I
had not come all the way to the South Seas to be a lit
erary bureau.
" This is the book I write," he explained, smashing
himself a resounding blow on the chest with his clenched
fist. " The gorilla in the African jungle pounds his
chest till the noise of it can be heard half a mile away."
"A pretty good chest," quoth I, admiringly; "it
would even make a gorilla envious."
And then, and later, I learned the details of the
marvellous book Ernest Darling had written. Twelve
years ago he lay close to death. He weighed but
ninety pounds, and was too weak to speak. The doc
tors had given him up. His father, a practicing physi-
THE NATURE MAN 183
cian, had given him up. Consultations with other
physicians had been held upon him. There was no
hope for him. Overstudy (as a school-teacher and as
a university student) and two successive attacks of
pneumonia were responsible for his breakdown. Day
by day he was losing strength. He could extract no
nutrition from the heavy foods they gave him ; nor
could pellets and powders help his stomach to do the
work of digestion. Not only was he a physical wreck,
but he was a mental wreck. His mind was overwrought.
He was sick and tired of medicine, and he was sick and
tired of persons. Human speech jarred upon him.
Human attentions drove him frantic. The thought
came to him that since he was going to die, he might
as well die in the open, away from all the bother and
irritation. And behind this idea lurked a sneaking idea
that perhaps he would not die after all if only he could
escape from the heavy foods, the medicines, and the
well-intentioned persons who made him frantic.
So Ernest Darling, a bag of bones and a death s-
head, a perambulating corpse, with just the dimmest
flutter of life in it to make it perambulate, turned his
back upon men and the habitations of men and dragged
himself for five miles through the brush, away from the
city of Portland, Oregon. Of course he was crazy.
Only a lunatic would drag himself out of his death-bed.
But in the brush, Darling found what he was look
ing for rest. Nobody bothered him with beefsteaks
and pork. No physicians lacerated his tired nerves by
feeling his pulse, nor tormented his tired stomach with
pellets and powders. He began to feel soothed. The
sun was shining warm, and he basked in it. He had
the feeling that the sunshine was an elixir of health.
184 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
Then it seemed to him that his whole wasted wreck of
a body was crying for the sun. He stripped off his
clothes and bathed in the sunshine. He felt better.
It had done him good the first relief in weary months
of pain.
As he grew better, he sat up and began to take no
tice. All about him were the birds fluttering and chirp
ing, the squirrels chattering and playing. He envied
them their health and spirits, their happy, care-free ex
istence. That he should contrast their condition with
his was inevitable ; and that he should question why
they were splendidly vigorous while he was a feeble,
dying wraith of a man, was likewise inevitable. His con
clusion was the very obvious one, namely, that they lived
naturally, while he lived most unnaturally ; therefore, if
he intended to live, he must return to nature.
Alone, there in the brush, he worked out his prob
lem and began to apply it. He stripped off his cloth
ing and leaped and gambolled about, running on all fours,
climbing trees; in short, doing physical stunts, and all
the time soaking in the sunshine. He imitated the
animals. He built a nest of dry leaves and grasses in
which to sleep at night, covering it over with bark as
a protection against the early fall rains. " Here is a
beautiful exercise," he told me, once, flapping his arms
mightily against his sides ; " I learned it from watching
the roosters crow." Another time I remarked the
loud, sucking intake with which he drank cocoanut-
milk. He explained that he had noticed the cows
drinking that way and concluded there must be some
thing in it. He tried it and found it good, and there
after he drank only in that fashion.
He noted that the squirrels lived on fruits and nuts.
THE NATURE MAN
185
The Abbreviated Fish-net Shirt.
He started on a fruit-and-nut diet, helped out by bread,
and he grew stronger and put on weight. For three
months he continued his primordial existence in the
brush, and then the heavy Oregon rains drove him
186 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
back to the habitations of men. Not in three months
could a ninety-pound survivor of two attacks of pneu
monia develop sufficient ruggedness to live through an
Oregon winter in the open.
He had accomplished much, but he had been driven
in. There was no place to go but back to his father s
house, and there, living in close rooms with lungs that
panted for all the air of the open sky, he was brought
down by a third attack of pneumonia. He grew weaker
even than before. In that tottering tabernacle of flesh,
his brain collapsed. He lay like a corpse, too weak to
stand the fatigue of speaking, too irritated and tired in
his miserable brain to care to listen to the speech of
others. The only act of will of which he was capable
was to stick his fingers in his ears and resolutely to re
fuse to hear a single word that was spoken to him.
They sent for the insanity experts. He was adjudged
insane, and also the verdict was given that he would
not live a month.
By one such mental expert he was carted off to a
sanitarium on Mt. Tabor. Here, when they learned
that he was harmless, they gave him his own way.
They no longer dictated as to the food he ate, so he
resumed his fruits and nuts olive oil, peanut butter,
and bananas the chief articles of his diet. As he re
gained his strength he made up his mind to live thence
forth 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 the
strongest 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 inducements for those
THE NATURE MAN 187
who wish to return to Nature, so Darling started out
in search of a climate. He mounted a bicycle and
headed south for the sunlands. Stanford University
claimed him for a year. Here he studied and worked
his way, attending lectures in as scant garb as the au
thorities would allow and applying as much as possible
the principles of living that he had learned in squirrel-
town. His favorite method of study was to go off in
the hills back of the University, and there to strip off
his clothes and lie on the grass, soaking in sunshine and.
health at the same time that he soaked in knowledge.
But Central California has her winters, and the quest
for a Nature Man s climate drew him on. He tried Los
Angeles and Southern California, being arrested a few
times and brought before the insanity commissions be
cause, forsooth, his mode of life was not modelled after
the mode of life of his fellow-men. He tried Hawaii^
where, unable to prove him insane, the authorities de
ported him. It was not exactly a deportation. He
could have remained by serving a year in prison. They
gave him his choice. Now prison is death to the Na
ture Man, who thrives only in the open air and in God s
sunshine. The authorities of Hawaii are not to be
blamed. Darling was an undesirable citizen. Any
man is undesirable who disagrees with one. And that
any man should disagree to the extent Darling did in
his philosophy of the simple life is ample vindication
of the Hawaiian authorities verdict of his undesirable-
ness.
So Darling went thence in search of a climate which
would not only be desirable, but wherein he would not
be undesirable. And he found it, in Tahiti, the garden-
spot of garden-spots. And so it was, according to the
i88 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
The Nature Man s Plantation.
THE NATURE MAN 189
narrative as given, that he wrote the pages of his book.
He wears only a loin-cloth and a sleeveless fish-net
shirt. His stripped weight is one hundred and sixty-
five pounds. His health is perfect. His eyesight,
that at one time was considered ruined, is excellent.
The lungs that were practically destroyed by three at
tacks of pneumonia, have not only recovered, but are
stronger than ever before.
I shall never forget the first time, while talking to
me, that he squashed a mosquito. The stinging pest
had settled in the middle of his back between his
shoulders. Without interrupting the flow of conver
sation, without dropping even a syllable, his clenched
fist shot up in the air, curved backward, and smote his
back between the shoulders, killing the mosquito and
making his frame resound like a bass drum. It re
minded me of nothing so much as of horses kicking
the woodwork in their stalls.
" The gorilla in the African jungle pounds his chest
until the noise of it can be heard half a mile away," he
will announce suddenly, and thereat beat a hair-raising,
devil s tattoo on his own chest.
One day he noticed a set of boxing-gloves hanging
on the wall, and promptly his eyes brightened.
" Do you box ? " I asked.
" I used to give lessons in boxing when I was at
Stanford," was the reply.
And there and then we stripped and put on the
gloves. Bang ! a long, gorilla arm flashed out, land
ing the gloved end on my nose. Biff! he caught me,
in a duck, on the side of the head, nearly knocking
me over sidewise. I carried the lump raised by that
blow for a week. I ducked under a straight left, and
i 9 o THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
landed a straight right on his stomach. It was a fear
ful blow. The whole weight of my body was behind
it, and his body had been met as it lunged forward. I
looked for him to crumple up and go down. Instead
of which his face beamed approval, and he said, " That
was beautiful. " The next instant I was covering up
and striving to protect myself from a hurricane of
hooks, jolts, and uppercuts. Then I watched my
chance and drove in for the solar plexus. I hit the
mark. The Nature Man dropped his arms, gasped,
and sat down suddenly.
" I ll 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 in
the solar plexus, and I gasped, dropped my hands,
and sat down just a trifle more suddenly than he had.
All of which I submit as evidence that the man I
boxed with was a totally different man from the poor,
ninety-pound wight of eight years before, who, given
up by physicians and alienists, lay gasping 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 desirable
immigrants. She has spent much time, and thought,
and money, in importing desirable citizens, and she
has, as yet, nothing much to show for it. Yet Hawaii
deported the Nature Man. She refused to give him a
chance. So it is, to chasten Hawaii s proud spirit,
that I take this opportunity to show her what she has
lost in the Nature Man. When he arrived in Tahiti,
he proceeded to seek out a piece of land on which to
grow the food he ate,, But land was difficult to find
THE NATURE MAN 191
that is, inexpensive land. The Nature Man was
not rolling in wealth. He spent weeks in wandering
over the steep hills, until, high up the mountain, where
clustered several tiny canyons, he found eighty acres
of brush-jungle which were apparently unrecorded as
the property of any one. The government officials
told him that if he would clear the land and till it for
thirty years he would be given a title for it.
Immediately he set to work. And never was there
such work. Nobody farmed that high up. The land
was covered with matted jungle and overrun by wild
pigs and countless rats. The view of Papeete and the
sea was magnificent, but the outlook was not encourag
ing. He spent weeks in building a road in order to
make the plantation accessible. The pigs and the rats
ate up whatever he planted as fast as it sprouted. He
shot the pigs and trapped the rats. Of the latter, in
two weeks he caught fifteen hundred. Everything had
to be carried up on his back. He usually did his
packhorse work at night.
Gradually he began to win out. A grass-walled
house was built. On the fertile, volcanic soil he had
wrested from the jungle and jungle beasts, were grow
ing five hundred cocoanut trees, five hundred 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 hills in
the canyons and worked out an efficient irrigation
scheme, ditching the water from canyon to canyon and
paralleling the ditches at different altitudes. His nar
row canyons became botanical gardens. The arid
shoulders of the hills, where formerly the blazing sun
had parched the jungle and beaten it close to earth,
192 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
blossomed into trees and shrubs and flowers. Not
only had the Nature Man become self-supporting, but
he was now a prosperous agriculturist with produce to
sell to the city-dwellers of Papeete.
Then it was discovered that his land, which the gov
ernment officials had informed him was without an
In the Sweat of His Brow.
owner, really had an owner, and that deeds, descrip
tions, etc., were on record. All his work bade fare to
be lost. The land had been valueless when he took it
up, and the owner, a large landholder, was unaware of
the extent to which the Nature Man had developed it.
A just price was agreed upon, and Darling s deed was
officially filed.
THE NATURE MAN 193
Next came a more crushing blow. Darling s access
to market was destroyed. The road he had built
was fenced across by triple barb-wire fences. It was
one of those jumbles in human affairs that is so com
mon in this absurdest of social systems. Behind it
was the fine hand of the same conservative element
that haled the Nature Man before the Insanity Com
mission in Los Angeles and that deported him from
Hawaii. It is so hard for self-satisfied men to understand
any man whose satisfactions are fundamentally dif
ferent. It seems clear that the officials have connived
with the conservative element, for to this day the road
the Nature Man built is closed ; nothing has been done
about it, while an adamant unwillingness to do anything
about it is evidenced on every hand. But the Nature Man
dances and sings along his way. He does not sit up
nights thinking about the wrong which has been done
him ; he leaves the worrying to the doers of the wrong.
He has no time for bitterness. He believes he is in
the world for the purpose of being happy, and he has
not a moment to waste in any other pursuit.
The road to his plantation is blocked. He cannot
build a new road, for there is no ground on which hecan
build it. The government has restricted him to a
wild-pig trail which runs precipitously up the mountain.
I climbed the trail with hirn, and we had to climb with
hands and feet in order to get up. Nor can that wild-
pig trail be made into a road by any amount of toil
less than that of an engineer, a steam-engine, and a
steel cable. But what does the Nature Man care? In
his gentle ethics the evil men do him he requites with
goodness. And whoshall say heisnothappierthan they ?
" Never mind their pesky road," he said to me as
i 9 4 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
we dragged ourselves up a shelf of rock and sat down,
panting, to rest. "I ll get an air machine soon and fool
them. I m clearing a level space for a landing stage
for the airships, and next time you come to Tahiti you
will alight right at my door."
Yes, the Nature Man has some strange ideas besides
that of the gorilla pounding his chest in the African
jungle. The Nature Man has ideas about levitation.
"Yes, sir," he said to me, " levitation is not impossible.
And think of the glory of it lifting one s self from the
ground by an act of will. Think of it ! The astron
omers tell us that our whole solar system is dying ; that,
barring accidents, it will all be so cold that no life can live
upon it. Very well. In that day all men will be ac
complished levitationists, and they will leave this perish
ing planet and seek more hospitable worlds. How can
levitation be accomplished ? By progressive fasts. Yes,
I have tried them, and toward the end I could feel my
self actually getting lighter."
The man is a maniac, thought I.
" Of course," he added, " these are only theories of
mine. I like to speculate upon the glorious future of
man. Levitation may not be possible, but I like to
think of it as possible."
One evening, when he yawned, I asked him how
much sleep he allowed himself.
" Seven hours," was the answer. " But in ten years
I ll be sleeping only six hours, and in twenty years
only five hours. You see, I shall cut off an hour s
sleep 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 195
I shall not require sleep. Also, I shall be living on
air. There are plants that live 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 only a
theory of mine, this living on air. It would be fine,
wouldn t it ? Of course it may be impossible most
likely it is. You see, I am not unpractical. I never
forget the present. When I soar ahead into the future,
I always leave a string by which to find my way back
again."
I fear me the Nature Man is a joker. At any rate
he lives the simple life. His laundry bill cannot be
large. Up on his plantation he lives on fruit the labor
cost of which, in cash, he estimates at five cents a day.
At present, because of his obstructed road and because
he is head over heels in the propaganda of socialism,
he is living in town, where his expenses, including rent,
are twenty-five cents a day. In order to pay those
expenses he is running a night school for Chinese.
The Nature Man is not bigoted. When there is
nothing better to eat than meat, he eats meat, as, for
instance, when in jail or on shipboard and the nuts and
fruits give out. Nor does he seem to crystallize into
anything except sunburn.
" Drop anchor anywhere and the anchor will drag
that is, if your soul is a limitless, fathomless sea, and
not a dog-pound," he quoted to me, then added : " You
see, my anchor is always dragging. I live for human
health and progress, and I strive to drag my anchor
always in that direction. To me, the two are identical.
Dragging anchor is what has saved me. My anchor
did not hold me to my death-bed. I dragged anchor
196 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
Breakfast from the Breadfruit Tree.
into the brush and fooled the doctors. When I re
covered 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.
THE NATURE MAN 197
Then, on the steamer coming to Tahiti, a quartermaster
expounded socialism to me. He showed me that
an economic square deal was necessary before men and
women could live naturally. So I dragged anchor once
more, and now I am working for the cooperative
commonwealth. When that arrives, it will be easy to
bring about nature living.
" I had a dream last night," he went on thoughtfully,
his face slowly breaking into a glow. "It seemed that
twenty-five nature men and nature women had just
arrived on the steamer from California, and that I was
starting to go with them up the wild-pig trail to the
plantation."
Ah, me, Ernest Darling, sun-worshipper and nature
man, there are times when I am compelled to envy you
and your care-free existence. I see you now, dancing
up the steps and cutting antics on the veranda ;
your hair dripping from a plunge in the salt sea, your
eyes sparkling, your sun-gilded body flashing, your
chest resounding to the devil s own tattoo as you chant :
<c The gorilla in the African jungle pounds his chest
until the noise of it can be heard half a mile away."
And I shall see you always as I saw you that last day,
when the Snark poked her nose once more through
the passage in the smoking reef, outward bound, and I
waved good-by to those on shore. Not least in good
will and affection was the wave I gave to the golden
sun-god in the scarlet loin-cloth, standing upright in
his tiny outrigger canoe.
CHAPTER XII
The High Seat of Abundance
On the arrival of strangers, every man endeavored to obtain one
as a friend and carry him off to his own habitation, where he is
treated with the greatest kindness by the inhabitants of the district;
they place him on a high seat and feed him with abundance of the
finest food.
Polynesian Researches.
THE Snark was lying at anchor at Raiatea, just off
the village of Uturoa. She had arrived the night
before, after dark, and we were preparing to pay our
first visit ashore. Early in the morning I had noticed a
tiny outrigger canoe, with an impossible spritsail,
skimming the surface of the lagoon. The canoe
itself was coffin-shaped, a mere dugout, fourteen feet
long, a scant twelve inches wide, and maybe twenty-
four inches deep. It had no lines, except in so far
that it was sharp at both ends. Its sides were per
pendicular. Shorn of the outrigger, it would have
capsized of itself inside a tenth of a second. It was
the outrigger that kept it right side up.
I have said that the sail was impossible. It was.
It was one of those things, not that you have to see
to believe, but that you cannot believe after you
have seen it. The hoist of it and the length of its
boom were sufficiently appalling; but, not content
with that, its artificer had given it a tremendous
head. So large was the head that no common sprit
could carry the strain of it in an ordinary breeze. So
198
THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE 199
a spar had been lashed to the canoe, projecting aft
over the water. To this had been made fast a sprit
guy : thus, the foot of the sail was held by the main-
sheet, and the peak by the guy to the sprit.
It was not a mere boat, not a mere canoe, but a
sailing machine. And the man in it sailed it by his
weight and his nerve principally by the latter. I
" The sail was impossible."
watched the canoe beat up from leeward and run in
toward the village, its sole occupant far out on the
outrigger and luffing up and spilling the wind in the
puffs.
"Well, I know one thing," I announced; "I don t
leave Raiatea till I have a ride in that canoe."
A few minutes later Warren called down the com-
" Here s that canoe you were talking
pamonway
about."
Promptly I dashed on deck and gave greeting to
its owner, a tall, slender Polynesian, ingenuous efface,
200 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
and with clear, sparkling, intelligent eyes. He was
clad in a scarlet loin-cloth and a straw hat. In his
hands were presents a fish, a bunch of greens, and
several enormous yams. All of which acknowledged
by smiles (which are coinage still in isolated spots of
Polynesia) and by frequent repetitions of mauruuru
(which is the Tahitian " thank you " ), I proceeded to
make signs that I desired to go for a sail in his
canoe.
His face lighted with pleasure and he uttered the
single word, " Tahaa," turning at the same time and
pointing to the lofty, cloud-draped peaks of an island
three miles away the island of Tahaa. It was fair
wind over, but a head- beat back. Now I did not want
to go to Tahaa. I had letters to deliver in Raiatea,
and officials to see, and there was Charmian down
below getting ready to go ashore. By insistent signs
I indicated that I desired no more than a short sail on
the lagoon. Quick was the disappointment in his face,
yet smiling was the acquiescence.
" Come on for a sail," I called below to Charmian.
" But put on your swimming suit. It s going to be
wet."
It wasn t real. It was a dream. That canoe slid over
the water like a streak of silver. I climbed out on the
outrigger and supplied the weight to hold her down,
while Tehei (pronounced Tayhayee) supplied the nerve.
He, too, in the puffs, climbed part way out on the out
rigger, at the same time steering with both hands on a
large paddle and holding the mainsheet with his foot.
" Ready about ! " he called.
I carefully shifted my weight inboard in order to
maintain the equilibrium as the sail emptied.
THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE 201
cc Hard a-lee ! " he called, shooting her into the
wind.
I slid out on the opposite side over the water on a
spar lashed across the canoe, and we were full and
away on the other tack.
" All right/ said Tehei.
Those three phrases, " Ready about," " Hard a-lee,"
and " All right," comprised Tehei s English vocabu
lary and led me to suspect that at some time he had
been one of a Kanaka crew under an American captain.
Between the puffs I made signs to him and repeatedly
and interrogatively uttered the word sailor. Then I
tried it in atrocious French. Marin conveyed no
meaning to him ; nor did matelot.
Either my French was bad, or
else he was not up in it. I have
since concluded that both con
jectures were correct. Finally, I
began. naming over the adjacent
islands. He nodded that he had
been to them. By the time my
quest reached Tahiti, he caught
my drift. His thought-processes
were almost visible, and it was
a joy to watch him think. He
nodded his head vigorously.
Yes, he had been to Tahiti, and
he added himself names of is
lands such as Tikihau, Rangiroa,
and Fakarava, thus proving that he had sailed as far as
the Paumotus undoubtedly one of the crew of a
trading schooner.
After our short sail, when he had returned on board,
Tehei.
202 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
he by signs inquired the destination of the Snark, and
when I had mentioned Samoa, Fiji, New Guinea, France,
England, and California in their geographical sequence,
he said " Samoa," and by gestures intimated that he
wanted to go along. Whereupon I was hard put to
explain that there was no room for him. "Petit
bateau " finally solved it, and again the disappointment
in his face was accompanied by smiling acquiescence, and
promptly came the renewed invitation to accompany
him to Tahaa.
Charmian and I looked at each other. The exhila
ration of the ride we had taken was still upon us. For
gotten were the letters to Raiatea, the officials we had
to visit. Shoes, a shirt, a pair of trousers, cigarettes,
matches, and a book to read were hastily crammed into
a biscuit tin and wrapped in a rubber blanket, and we
were over the side and into the canoe.
" When shall we look for you ? " Warren called,
as the wind filled the sail and sent Tehei and me
scurrying out on the outrigger.
" I don t know," I answered. " When we get
back, as near as I can figure it."
And away we went. The wind had increased, and
with slacked sheets we ran off before it. The free
board of the canoe was no more than two and a half
inches, and the little waves continually lapped over the
side. This required bailing. Now bailing is one of
the principal functions of the vahine. Fahine is the
Tahitian for woman, and Charmian being the only
vahine aboard, the bailing fell appropriately to her.
Tehei and I could not very well do it, the both of us
being perched part way out on the outrigger and busied
with keeping the canoe bottom-side down. So Char-
THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE 203
mian bailed, with a wooden scoop of primitive design,
and so well did she do it that there were occasions
when she could rest off almost half the time.
Raiatea and Tahaa are unique in that they lie inside
the same encircling reef. Both are volcanic islands,
ragged of sky-line, with heaven-aspiring peaks and mina
rets. Since Raiatea is thirty miles in circumference, and
Tahaa fifteen miles, some idea may be gained of the
magnitude of the reef that encloses them. Between
them and the reef stretches from one to two miles of
water, forming a beautiful lagoon. The huge Pacific
.seas, extending in unbroken lines sometimes a mile or
half as much again in length, hurl themselves upon the
reef, overtowering and falling upon it with tremendous
crashes, and yet the fragile coral structure withstands
the shock and protects the land. Outside lies destruc
tion to the mightiest ship afloat. Inside reigns the
calm of untroubled water, whereon a canoe like ours
can sail with no more than a couple of inches of free
board.
We flew over the water. And such water ! clear
as the clearest spring-water, and crystalline in its clear
ness, all intershot with a maddening pageant of colors
and rainbow ribbons more magnificently gorgeous than
any rainbow. Jade green alternated with turquoise,
peacock blue with emerald, while now the canoe
skimmed over reddish purple pools, and again over
pools of dazzling, shimmering white where pounded
coral sand lay beneath and upon which oozed mon
strous sea-slugs. One moment we were above wonder-
gardens of coral, wherein colored fishes disported,
fluttering like marine butterflies ; the next moment
we were dashing across the dark surface of deep chan-
204 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
nels, out of which schools of flying fish lifted their
silvery flight ; and a third moment we were above
other gardens of living coral, each more wonderful
than the last. And above all was the tropic, trade-
wind sky with its fluffy clouds racing across the zenith
and heaping the horizon with their soft masses.
Before we were aware, we were close in to Tahaa (pro
nounced Tah-hah-ah, with equal accents), and Tehei
was grinning approval of the vahine s proficiency at bail
ing. The canoe grounded on a shallow shore, twenty
feet from land, and we waded out on a soft bottom where
big slugs curled and writhed under our feet and where
small octopuses advertised their existence by their su
perlative softness when stepped upon. Close to the
beach, amid cocoanut palms and banana trees, erected
on stilts, built of bamboo, with a grass-thatched roof,
was Tehei s house. And out of the house came
Tehei s vahine, a slender mite of a woman, kindly
eyed and Mongolian of feature when she was not
North American Indian. " Bihaura," Tehei called her,
but he did not pronounce it according to English
notions of spelling. Spelled " Bihaura," it sounded
like Bee-ah-oo-rah, with every syllable sharply empha
sized.
She took Charmian by the hand and led her into
the house, leaving Tehei and me to follow. Here, by
sign-language unmistakable, we were informed that all
they possessed was ours. No hidalgo was ever
more generous in the expression of giving, while I
am sure that few hidalgos were ever as generous
in the actual practice. We quickly discovered
that we dare not admire their possessions, for when
ever we did admire a particular object it was im-
THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE 205
mediately presented to us. The two vahines, accord
ing to the way of vahines, got together in a discussion
and examination of feminine fripperies, while Tehei
and I, manlike, went over fishing-tackle and wild-pig-
hunting, to say nothing of the device whereby bonitas
are caught on forty-foot poles from double canoes.
Charmian admired a sewing basket the best example
she had seen of Polynesian basketry ; it was hers. I
admired a bonita hook, carved in one piece from a
pearl-shell ; it was mine. Charmian was attracted by
a fancy braid of straw sennit, thirty feet of it in a roll,
sufficient to make a hat of any design one wished ; the
roll of sennit was hers. My gaze lingered upon a
poi-pounder that dated back to the old stone days ; it
was mine. Charmian dwelt a moment too long on a
wooden poi-bowl, canoe-shaped, with four legs, all
carved in one piece of wood; it was hers. I glanced
a second time at a gigantic cocoanut calabash ; it was
mine. Then Charmian and I held a conference in
which we resolved to admire no more not because
it did not pay well enough, but because it paid too well.
Also, we were already racking our brains over the
contents of the Snark for suitable return presents.
Christmas is an easy problem compared with a Poly
nesian giving-feast.
We sat on the cool porch, on Bihaura s best mats,
while dinner was preparing, and at the same time met
the villagers. In twos and threes and groups they
strayed along, shaking hands and uttering the Tahitian
word of greeting I oar ana, pronounced yo-rah-nah.
The men, big strapping fellows, were in loin-cloths,
with here and there no shirt, while the women wore the
universal abu, a sort of adult pinafore that flows in
206 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE 207
graceful lines from the shoulders to the ground. Sad
to see was the elephantiasis that afflicted some of
them. Here would be a comely woman of magnificent
proportions, with the port of a queen, yet marred by
one arm four times or a dozen times the size of
the other. Beside her might stand a six-foot man,
erect, mighty-muscled, bronzed, with the body of a
god, yet with feet and calves so swollen that they ran
together, forming legs, shapeless, monstrous, that were
for all the world like elephant legs.
No one seems really to know the cause of the South
Sea elephantiasis. One theory is that it is caused by
the drinking of polluted water. Another theory at
tributes it to inoculation through mosquito bites. A
third theory charges it to predisposition plus the pro
cess of acclimatization. On the other hand, no one
that stands in finicky dread of it and similar diseases
can afford to travel in the South Seas. There will be
occasions when such a one must drink water. There
may be also occasions when the mosquitoes let up
biting. But every precaution of the finicky one will be
useless. If he runs barefoot across the beach to have
a swim, he will tread where an elephantiasis case trod
a few minutes before. If he closets himself in his own
house, yet every bit of fresh food on his table will have
been subjected to the contamination, be it flesh, fish,
fowl, or vegetable. In the public market at Papeete
two known lepers run stalls, and heaven alone knows
through what channels arrive at that market the daily
supplies of fish, fruit, meat, and vegetables. The only
happy way to go through the South Seas is with a
careless poise, without apprehension, and with a Chris
tian Science-like faith in the resplendent fortune of
208 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
your own particular star. When you see a woman,
afflicted with elephantiasis, wringing out cream from
cocoanut meat with her naked hands, drink and reflect
how good is the cream, forgetting the hands that pressed
it out. Also, remember that diseases such as elephan
tiasis and leprosy do not seem to be caught by contact.
We watched a Raratongan woman, with swollen,
distorted limbs, prepare our cocoanut cream, and then
went out to the cook-shed where Tehei and Bihaura
were cooking dinner. And then it was served to us
on a drygoods box in the house. Our hosts waited
until we were done and then spread their table on the
floor. But our table ! We were certainly in the high
seat of abundance. First, there was glorious raw fish,
caught several hours before from the sea and steeped
the intervening time in lime-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 banana-poi that made one regret that his
Yankee forebears ever attempted puddings. Then
there 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 marvelled, a pig was
brought on, a whole pig, a sucking pig, swathed in
green leaves and roasted upon the hot stones of a native
oven, the most honorable and triumphant dish in the
Polynesian cuisine. And after that came coffee, black
coffee, delicious coffee, native coffee grown on the hill
sides of Tahaa.
Tehei s fishing-tackle fascinated me, and after we
arranged to go fishing, Charmian and I decided to re-
THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE 209
main all night. Again Tehei broached Samoa, and
again my petit bateau brought the disappointment
and the smile of acquiescence to his face. Bora Bora
was my next port. It was not so far away but that
cutters made the passage back and forth between it
and Raiatea. So I invited Tehei to go that far with
us on the Snark. Then I learned that his wife had
been born on Bora Bora and still owned a house there.
She likewise was invited, and immediately came the
counter invitation to stay with them in their house in
Bora Bora. It was Monday. Tuesday we would go
fishing and return to Raiatea. Wednesday we would
sail by Tahaa and off a certain point, a mile away, pick
up Tehei and Bihaura and go on to Bora Bora. All
this we arranged in detail, and talked over scores of
other things as well, and yet Tehei knew three phrases
in English, Charmian and I knew possibly a dozen
Tahitian words, and among the four of us there were a
dozen or so French words that all understood. Of
course, such polyglot conversation was slow, but, eked
out with a pad, a lead pencil, the face of a clock Char
mian drew on the back of a pad, and with ten thousand
and one gestures, we managed to get on very nicely.
At the first moment we evidenced an inclination for
bed the visiting natives, with soft laoranas, faded away,
and Tehei and Bihaura likewise faded away. The
house consisted of one large room, and it was given
over to us, our hosts going elsewhere to sleep. In
truth, their castle was ours. And right here, I want
to say that of all the entertainment I have received in
this world at the hands of all sorts of races in all sorts
of places, I have never received entertainment that
equalled this at the hands of this brown-skinned couple
210 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
of Tahaa. I do not refer to the presents, the free
handed generousness, the high abundance, but to the
fineness of courtesy and consideration and tact, and to
the sympathy that was real sympathy in that it was
understanding. They did nothing they thought ought
to be done for us, according to their standards, but
they did what they divined we wanted to be done for us,
while their divination was most successful. It would
be impossible to enumerate the hundreds of little acts
of consideration they performed during the few days of
our intercourse. Let it suffice for me to say that of
all hospitality and entertainment I have known, in no
case was theirs not only not excelled, but in no case
was it quite equalled. Perhaps the most delightful feat
ure of it was that it was due to no training, to no com
plex social ideals, but that it was the untutored and
spontaneous outpouring from their hearts.
The next morning we went fishing, that is, Tehei,
Charmian, and I did, in the coffin-shaped canoe ; but
this time the enormous sail was left behind. There
was no room for sailing and fishing at the same time
in that tiny craft. Several miles away, inside the reef,
in a channel twenty fathoms deep, Tehei dropped his
baited hooks and rock-sinkers. The bait was chunks of
octopus flesh, which he bit out of a live octopus that
writhed in the bottom of the canoe. Nine of these
lines he set, each line attached to one end of a short
length of bamboo floating on the surface. When a
fish was hooked, the end of the bamboo was drawn
under the water. Naturally, the other end rose up in
the air, bobbing and waving frantically for us to make
haste. And make haste we did, with whoops and yells
and driving paddles, from one signalling bamboo to
THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE 211
another, hauling up from the depths great glistening
beauties from two to three feet in length.
Steadily, to the eastward, an ominous squall had
been rising and blotting out the bright trade-wind sky.
And we were three miles to leeward of home. We
started as the first wind-gusts whitened the water.
Then came the rain, such rain as only the tropics af
ford, when every tap and main in the sky is open
wide, and when, to top it all, the very reservoir itself
spills over in blinding deluge. Well, Charmian was
in a swimming suit, I was in pajamas, and Tehei wore
only a loin-cloth. Bihaura was on the beach waiting
for us, and she led Charmian into the house in much
the same fashion that the mother leads in the naughty
little girl who has been playing in mud-puddles.
It was a change of clothes and a dry and quiet smoke
while kai-kai was preparing. Kai-kai, by the way, is
the Polynesian for " food " or " to eat," or, rather, it
is one form of the original root, whatever it may have
been, that has been distributed far and wide over the
vast area of the Pacific. It is kai in the Marquesas,
Raratonga, Manahiki, Niue, Fakaafo, Tonga, New
Zealand, and Vate. In Tahiti "to eat" changes to
amuj in Hawaii and Samoa to ai, in Bau to kana y in
Niua to kaina, in Nongone to kaka, and in New Cale
donia to ki. But by whatsoever sound or symbol, it
was welcome to our ears after that long paddle in the
rain. Once more we sat in the high seat of abundance
until we regretted that we had been made unlike the
image of the giraffe and the camel.
Again, when we were preparing to return to the
Snark, the sky to windward turned black and another
squall swooped down. But this time it was little rain
212 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
and all wind. It blew hour after hour, moaning and
screeching through the palms, tearing and wrenching
and shaking the frail bamboo dwelling, while the outer
reef set up a mighty thundering as it broke the force
of the swinging seas. Inside the reef, the lagoon, shel
tered though it was, was white with fury, and not even
Tehei s seamanship could have enabled his slender
canoe to live in such a welter.
By sunset, the back of the squall had broken, though
it was still too rough for the canoe. So I had Tehei
find a native who was willing to venture his cutter
across to Raiatea for the outrageous sum of two dollars,
Chili, which is equivalent in our money to ninety
cents. Half the village was told off to carry presents,
with which Tehei and Bihaura speeded their parting
guests captive chickens, fishes dressed and swathed
in wrappings of green leaves, great golden bunches of
bananas, leafy baskets spilling over with oranges and
limes, alligator 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 Snark.
While on the way to the cutter we met the only
white man on Tahaa, and of all men, George Lufkin, a
native of New England ! Eighty-six years of age he
was, sixty-odd of which, he said, he had spent in the
Society Islands, with occasional absences, such as the
gold rush to Eldorado in forty-nine and a short period
of ranching in California near Tulare. Given no more
than three months by the doctors to live, he had re
turned to his South Seas and lived to eighty-six and
to chuckle over the doctors aforesaid who were all in
their graves. Fee-fee he had, which is the native for
THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE 213
elephantiasis and which is pronounced fay-fay. A
quarter of a century before, the disease had fastened
upon him, and it would remain with him until he died.
We asked him about kith and kin. Beside him sat a
sprightly damsel of sixty, his daughter. " She is all I
have," he murmured plaintively, " and she has no
children living."
The cutter was a small, sloop-rigged affair, but large
it seemed alongside Tehei s canoe. On the other
hand, when we got out on the lagoon and were struck
by another heavy wind-squall, the cutter became lilipu-
tian, while the Snark, in our imagination, seemed to
promise all the stability and permanence of a continent.
They were good boatmen. Tehei and Bihaura had
come along to see us home, and the latter proved a
good boatwoman herself. The cutter was well bal
lasted, and we met the squall under full sail. It was get
ting dark, the lagoon was full of coral patches, and we
were carrying on. In the height of the squall we had
to go about, in order to make a short leg to windward
to pass around a patch of coral no more than a foot
under the surface. As the cutter filled on the other
tack, and while she was in that " dead " condition that
precedes gathering way, she was knocked flat. Jib-
sheet and main-sheet were let go, and she righted into
the wind. Three times she was knocked down, and
three times the sheets were flung loose, before she
could get away on that tack.
By the time we went about again, darkness had
fallen. We were now to windward of the Snark, and
the squall was howling. In came the jib, and down
came the mainsail, all but a patch of it the size of a
pillow-slip. By an accident we missed the Snark,
214 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
which was riding it out to two anchors, and drove
aground upon the inshore coral. Running the long
est line on the Snark by means of the launch, and after
an hour s hard work, we heaved the cutter off and had
her lying safely astern.
The day we sailed for Bora Bora the wind was light,
and we crossed the lagoon under power to the point
where Tehei and Bihaura were to meet us. As we
made in to the land between the coral banks, we vainly
scanned the shore for our friends. There was no sign
of 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 any
more gasolene than I have to."
You see, gasolene in the South Seas is a problem.
One never knows when he will be able to replenish his
supply.
But just then Tehei appeared through the trees as he
came down to the water. He had peeled off his shirt
and was wildly waving it. Bihaura apparently was not
ready. Once aboard, Tehei informed us by signs that
we must proceed along the land till we got opposite to
his house. He took the wheel and conned the Snark
through the coral, around point after point till we
cleared the last point of all. Cries of welcome went up
from the beach, and Bihaura, assisted by several of the
villagers, brought off two canoe-loads of abundance.
There were yams, taro, feis, breadfruit, cocoanuts,
oranges, limes, pineapples, watermelons, alligator pears,
pomegranates, fish, chickens galore crowing and cack
ling and laying eggs on our decks, and a live pig that
squealed infernally and all the time in apprehension
of imminent slaughter.
THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE 215
Under the rising rnoon we came in through the
perilous passage of the reef of Bora Bora and dropped
anchor off Vaitape village. Bihaura, with housewifely
anxiety, could not get ashore too quickly to her house
Visitors on Board the Snark at Raiatea.
to prepare more abundance for us. While the launch
was taking her and Tehei to the little jetty, the sound
of music and of singing drifted across the quiet lagoon.
Throughout the Society Islands we had been continually
informed that we would find the Bora Borans very
jolly. Charmian and I went ashore to see, and on the
216 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
village green, by forgotten graves on the beach, found
the youths and maidens dancing, flower-garlanded and
flower-bedecked, with strange phosphorescent flowers
in their hair that pulsed and dimmed and glowed in
the moonlight. Farther along the beach we came
upon a huge grass house, oval-shaped, seventy feet in
length, where the elders of the village were singing
himines. They, too, were flower-garlanded and jolly,
and they welcomed us into the fold as little lost sheep
straying along from outer darkness.
Early next morning Tehei was on board, with a
string of fresh-caught fish and an invitation to dinner
for that evening. On the way to dinner, we dropped
in at the bimine house. The same elders were singing,
with here or there a youth or maiden that we had not
seen the previous night. From all the signs, a feast
was in preparation. Towering up from the floor was
a mountain of fruits and vegetables, flanked on either
side by numerous chickens tethered by cocoanut strips.
After several bimines had been sung, one of the men
arose and made oration. The oration was made to
us, and though it was Greek to us, we knew that in
some 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 should
they be giving it to us ? Besides, there is no room on
the Snark for it. We could not eat a tithe of it. The
rest would spoil. Maybe they are inviting us to the
feast. At any rate, that they should give all that to
us is impossible."
Nevertheless we found ourselves once more in the
THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE 217
high seat of abundance. The orator, by gestures un
mistakable, in detail presented every item in the moun
tain to us, and next he presented it to us in toto. It
was an embarrassing moment. What would you do
if you lived in a hall bedroom and a friend gave you a
white elephant ? Our Snark was no more than a hall
bedroom, and already she was loaded down with the
abundance of Tahaa. This new supply was too much.
We blushed, and stammered, and mauruurud. We
mauruurud with repeated nut s which conveyed the
largeness and overwhelmingness of our thanks. At the
same time, by signs, we committed the awful breach
of etiquette of not accepting the present. The himine
singers disappointment was plainly betrayed, and that
evening, aided by Tehei, we compromised by accept
ing one chicken, one bunch of bananas, one bunch of
taro, and so on down the list.
But there was no escaping the abundance. I bought
a dozen chickens from a native out in the country, and
the following day he delivered thirteen chickens along
with a canoe-load of fruit. The French storekeeper
presented us with pomegranates and lent us his finest
horse. The gendarme did likewise, lending us a horse
that was the very apple of his eye. And everybody
sent us flowers. The Snark was a fruit-stand and a
green grocer s shop masquerading under the guise of a
conservatory. We went around flower-garlanded all
the time. When the himine singers came on board to
sing, the maidens kissed us welcome, and the crew,
from captain to cabin-boy, lost its heart to the maid
ens of Bora Bora. Tehei got up a big fishing ex
pedition in our honor, to which we went in a double
canoe, paddled by a dozen strapping Amazons. We
218 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
were relieved that no fish were caught, else the Snark
would have sunk at her moorings.
The days passed, but the abundance did not dimin
ish. On the day of departure, canoe after canoe put
off to us. Tehei brought cucumbers and a young
papaia tree burdened with splendid fruit. Also, for
me he brought a tiny, double canoe with fishing ap
paratus complete. Further, he brought fruits and
vegetables with the same lavishness as at Tahaa. Bi-
haura brought various special presents for Charmian,
such as silk-cotton pillows, fans, and fancy mats. The
whole population brought fruits, flowers, and chickens.
And Bihaura added a live sucking pig. Natives whom
I did not remember ever having seen before strayed
over the rail and presented me with such things as fish-
poles, fish-lines, and fish-hooks carved from pearl-shell.
As the Snark sailed out through the reef, she had a
cutter in tow. This was the craft that was to take Bi
haura back to Tahaa but not Tehei. I had yielded
at last, and he was one of the crew of the Snark.
When the cutter cast off and headed east, and the
Snark s bow turned toward the west, Tehei knelt
down by the cockpit and breathed a silent prayer, the
tears flowing down his cheeks. A week later, when
Martin got around to developing and printing, he
showed Tehei some of the photographs. And that
brown-skinned son of Polynesia, gazing on the pic
tured lineaments of his beloved Bihaura, broke down
in tears.
But the abundance ! There was so much of it.
We could not work the Snark for the fruit that was in
the way. She was festooned with fruit. The life-boat
and launch were packed with it. The awning-guys
THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE 219
groaned under their burdens. But once we struck
the full trade-wind sea, the disburdening began. At
every roll the Snark shook overboard a bunch or so
of bananas and cocoanuts, or a basket of limes. A
golden flood of limes washed about in the lee-scuppers.
The big baskets of yams burst, and pineapples and
pomegranates rolled back and forth. The chickens
had got loose and were everywhere, roosting on the
awnings, fluttering and squawking out on the jib-boom,
and essaying the perilous feat of balancing on the spin
naker-boom. They were wild chickens, accustomed
to flight. When attempts were made to catch them,
they flew out over the ocean, circled about, and came
back. Sometimes they did not come back. And in
the confusion, unobserved, the little sucking pig got
loose and slipped overboard.
" On the arrival of strangers, every man endeavored to obtain one as
a friend and carry him off to his own habitation, where he is treated
with the greatest kindness by the inhabitants of the district : they place
him on a high seat and feed him with abundance of the finest foods."
CHAPTER XIII
The Stone-fishing of Bora Bora
AT five in the morning the conches began to blow.
From all along the beach the eerie sounds arose, like
the ancient voice of War, calling to the fishermen to
arise and prepare to go forth. We on the Snark like
wise arose, for there could be no sleep in that mad din
of conches. Also, we were going stone-fishing, though
our preparations were few.
Tautai-taora is the name for stone-fishing, tautai
meaning a " fishing instrument." And taora meaning
" In a double canoe paddled by a dozen strapping Amazons."
"thrown." But tautai-taora, in combination, means
"stone-fishing," for a stone is the instrument that is
thrown. Stone-fishing is in reality a fish-drive, similar
220
STONE-FISHING OF BORA BORA 221
in principle to a rabbit-drive or a cattle-drive, though
in the latter affairs drivers and driven operate in the
same medium, while in the fish-drive the men must be
The Launch attracted much Attention.
in the air to breathe and the fish are driven through the
water. It does not matter if the water is a hundred
feet deep, the men, working on the surface, drive the
fishjust the same.
This is the way it is done. The canoes form in line,
one hundred to two hundred feet apart. In the bow
of each canoe a man wields a stone, several pounds in
weight, which is attached to a short rope. He merely
smites the water with the stone, pulls up the stone, and
smites again. He goes on smiting. In the stern of each
canoe, another man paddles, driving the canoe ahead
and at the same time keeping it in the formation. The
line of canoes advances to meet a second line a mile or
two away, the ends of the lines hurrying together to
form a circle, the far edge of which is the shore. The
222 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
circle begins to contract upon the shore, where the women,
standing in a long row out into the sea, form a fence of
legs, which serves to break any rushes of the frantic
fish. At the right moment when the circle is sufficiently
small, a canoe dashes out from shore, dropping over
board a long screen of cocoanut leaves and encircling
the circle, thus reenforcing the palisade of legs. Of
course, the fishing is always done inside the reef in the
lagoon.
" Tres jolie" the gendarme said, after explaining by
signs and gestures that thousands offish would be caught
of all sizes from minnows to sharks, and that the
captured fish would boil up and upon the very sand
of the beach.
It 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 man
who originated it is not remembered. They always
did this thing. But one cannot help wondering about
that forgotten savage of the long ago, into whose mind
first flashed this scheme of easy fishing, of catching
huge quantities of fish without hook, or net, or spear.
One thing about him we can know : he was a radical.
And we can be sure that he was considered feather-brained
and anarchistic by his conservative tribesmen. His
difficulty was much greater than that of the modern
inventor, who has to convince in advance only one or
two capitalists. That early inventor had to convince
his whole tribe in advance, for without the cooperation
of the whole tribe the device could not be tested. One
can well imagine the nightly pow-wow-ings in that
STONE-FISHING OF BORA BORA 223
224 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
primitive island world, when he called his comrades
antiquated moss-backs, and they called him a fool, a
freak, and a crank, and charged him with having come
from Kansas. Heaven alone knows at what cost of
gray hairs and expletives he must finally have succeeded
in winning over a sufficient number to give his idea a
trial. At any rate, the experiment succeeded. It stood
The Stone-thrower.
the test of truth it worked! And thereafter, we can
be confident, there was no man to be found who did
not know all along that it was going to work.
Our good friends, Tehei and Bihaura, who were giv
ing the fishing in our honor, had promised to come for
us. We were down below when the call came from
on deck that they were coming. We dashed up the
companionway, to be overwhelmed by the sight of the
Polynesian barge in which we were to ride. It was a
long double canoe, the canoes lashed together by timbers
STONE-FISHING OF BORA BORA 225
with an interval of water between, and the whole decorated
with flowers and golden grasses. A dozen flower-
crowned Amazons were at the paddles, while at the
stern of each canoe was a strapping steersman. All
were garlanded with gold and crimson and orange
flowers, while each wore about the hips a scarlet pareu.
There were flowers everywhere, flowers, flowers, flowers,
without end. The whole thing was an orgy of color.
On the platform forward resting on the bows of the
canoes, Tehei and Bihaura were dancing. All voices
were raised in a wild song of greeting.
Three times they circled the Snark before coming
alongside to take Charmian and me on board. Then
it was away for the fishing-grounds, a five-mile paddle
dead to windward. " Everybody is jolly in Bora Bora,"
is the saying throughout the Society Islands, and we
certainly found everybody jolly. Canoe songs, shark
songs, and fishing songs were sung to the dipping of
the paddles, all joining in on the swinging choruses.
Once in a while the cry Mao! was raised, whereupon
all strained like mad at the paddles. Mao is shark, and
when the deep-sea tigers appear, the natives paddle for
dear life for the shore, knowing full well the danger
they run of having their frail canoes overturned and of
being devoured. Of course, in our case there were no
sharks, but the cry of mao was used to incite them to
paddle with as much energy as if a shark were really
after them. " Hoe ! Hoe ! " was another cry that made
us foam through the water.
On the platform Tehei and Bihaura danced, accom
panied by songs and choruses or by rhythmic hand-
clappings. At other times a musical knocking of the
paddles against the sides of the canoes marked the ac-
226 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
STONE-FISHING OF BORA BORA 227
cent. A young girl dropped her paddle, leaped to the
platform, and danced a hula, in the midst of which,
still dancing, she swayed and bent, and imprinted on
our cheeks the kiss of welcome. Some of the songs,
or himinesy were religious, and they were especially
beautiful, the deep basses of the men mingling with
the altos and thin sopranos of the women and forming
a combination of sound that irresistibly reminded one
of an organ. In fact, "kanaka organ" is the scoffer s
description of the bimine. On the other hand, some
of the chants or ballads were very barbaric, having
come down from pre-Christian times.
And so, singing, dancing, paddling, these joyous
Polynesians took us to the fishing. The gendarme,
who is the French ruler of Bora Bora, accompanied us
with his family in a double canoe of his own, paddled
by his prisoners ; for not only is he gendarme and
ruler, but he is jailer as well, and in this jolly land when
anybody goes fishing, all go fishing. A score of single
canoes, with outriggers, paddled along with us. Around
a point a big sailing-canoe appeared, running beautifully
before the wind as it bore down to greet us. Balanc
ing precariously on the outrigger, three young men
saluted us with a wild rolling of drums.
The next point, half a mile farther on, brought us
to the place of meeting. Here the launch, which had
been brought along by Warren and Martin, at
tracted much attention. The Bora Borans could not
see what made it go. The canoes were drawn upon
the sand, and all hands went ashore to drink cocoanuts
and sing and dance. Here our numbers were added
to by many who arrived on foot from near-by dwell
ings, and a pretty sight it was to see the flower-crowned
228 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
STONE-FISHING OF BORA BORA 229
maidens, hand in hand and two by two, arriving along
the sands.
" They usually make a big catch," Allicot, a half-
caste trader, told us. " At the finish the water is fairly
alive with fish. It is lots of fun. Of course you know
all the fish will be yours."
" All P " I groaned, for already the Snark was loaded
The Circle began to Contract.
down with lavish presents, by the canoe-load, of fruits,
vegetables, pigs, and chickens.
" Yes, every last fish," Allicot answered. " You see,
when the surround is completed, you, being the guest
of honor, must take a harpoon and impale the first one.
It is the custom. Then everybody goes in with their
hands and throws the catch out on the sand. There
will be a mountain of them. Then one of the chiefs
will make a speech in which he presents you with the
whole kit and boodle. But you don t have to take them
THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
all. You get up and make a speech, selecting what fish
you want for yourself and presenting all the rest back
again. Then everybody says you are very generous."
" But what would be the result if I kept the whole
present ? " I asked.
"It has never happened," was the answer. "It
is the custom to give and give back again."
"The palisade of legs."
The native minister started with a prayer for success
in the fishing, and all heads were bared. Next, the
chief fishermen told off the canoes and allotted them
their places. Then it was into the canoes and away.
No women, however, came along, with the exception
of Bihaura and Charmian. In the old days even they
would have been tabooed. The women remained be
hind to wade out into the water and form the palisade
of legs.
The big double canoe was left on the beach, and we
STONE-FISHING OF BORA BORA 231
went in the launch. Half the canoes paddled off to
leeward, while we, with the other half, headed to wind
ward a mile and a half, until the end of our line was in
touch with the reef. The leader of the drive occupied a
canoe midway in our line. He stood erect, a fine fig
ure of an old man, holding a flag in his hand. He di
rected the taking of positions and
the forming of the two lines by
blowing on a conch. When all
was ready, he waved his flag to
the right. With a single splash
the throwers in every canoe on
that side struck the water with
their stones. While they were
hauling them back a matter of
a moment, for the stones scarcely
sank beneath the surface the flag
waved to the left, and with admir
able precision every stone on that
side struck the water. So it went,
back and forth, right and left ; with
every wave of the flag a long line of concussion smote
the lagoon. At the same time the paddles drove the
canoes forward ; and what was being done in our line
was being done in the opposing line of canoes a mile
and more away.
On the bow of the launch, Tehei, with eyes fixed
on the leader, worked his stone in unison with the
others. Once, the stone slipped from the rope, and
the same instant Tehei went overboard after it. I do
not know whether or not that stone reached the bot
tom, but I do know that the next instant Tehei broke
surface alongside with the stone in his hand. I noticed
One of the Fishermen.
232 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
this same accident occur several times among the near
by canoes, but in each instance the thrower followed
the stone and brought it back.
The reef ends of our lines accelerated, the shore ends
lagged, all under the watchful supervision of the leader,
until at the reef the two lines joined, forming the circle.
Then the contraction of the circle began, the poor
The Gendarme of Bora Bora paddled by his Prisoners.
frightened fish harried shoreward by the streaks of con
cussion that smote the water. In the same fashion
elephants are driven through the jungle by motes of
men who crouch in the long grasses or behind trees
and make strange noises. Already the palisade of legs
had been built. We could see the heads of the women,
in a long line, dotting the placid surface of the lagoon.
The tallest women went farthest out, thus, with the
exception of those close inshore, nearly all were up to
their necks in the water.
STONE-FISHING OF BORA BORA 233
Still the circle narrowed, till canoes were almost
touching. There was a pause. A long canoe shot
out from shore, following the line of the circle. It
went as fast as paddles could drive. In the stern a
man threw overboard the long, continuous screen of
cocoanut leaves. The canoes were no longer needed,
and overboard went the men to reenforce the palisade
The Kind of Fish we did not Catch.
with their legs. For the screen was only a screen, and
not a net, and the fish could dash through it if they
tried. Hence the need for legs that ever agitated the
screen, and for hands that splashed and throats that
yelled. Pandemonium reigned as the trap tightened.
But no fish broke surface or collided against the
hidden legs. At last the chief fisherman entered the
trap. He waded around everywhere, carefully. But
there were no fish boiling up and out upon the sand.
There was not a sardine, not a minnow, not a polly-
THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
wog. Something must have been wrong with that
prayer ; or else, and more likely, as one grizzled fellow
put it, the wind was not in its usual quarter and the
fish were elsewhere in the lagoon. In fact, there had
been no fish to drive.
" About once in five these drives are failures," Alli-
cot consoled us.
Well, it was the stone-fishing that had brought us
to Bora Bora, and it was our luck to draw the one
chance in five. Had it been a raffle, it would have
been the other way about. This is not pessimism.
Nor is it an indictment of the plan of the universe.
It is merely that feeling which is familiar to most
fishermen at the empty end of a hard day.
CHAPTER XIV
The Amateur Navigator
THERE are captains and captains, and some mighty
fine captains, I know ; but the run of the captains on
the Snark has been remarkably otherwise. My experi
ence with them has been that it is harder to take care
of one captain on a small boat than of two small babies.
Of course, this is no more than is to be expected. The
good men have positions, and are not likely to forsake
their one-thousand-to-fifteen-thousand-ton billets for
the Snark with her ten tons net. The Snark has had
to cull her navigators from the beach, and the naviga
tor on the beach is usually a congenital inefficient
the sort of man who beats about for a fortnight trying
vainly to find an ocean isle and who returns with his
schooner to report the island sunk with all on board,
the sort of man whose temper or thirst for strong
waters works him out of billets faster than he can
work into them.
The Snark has had three captains, and by the
grace of God she shall have no more. The first
captain was so senile as to be unable to give a meas
urement for a boom-jaw to a carpenter. So utterly
agedly helpless was he, that he was unable to order a
sailor to throw a few buckets of salt water on the Snark j
deck. For twelve days, at anchor, under an over
head tropic sun, the deck lay dry. It was a new deck.
It cost me one hundred and thirty-five dollars to
recalk it. The second captain was angry. He was
235
236 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
born angry. " Papa is always angry/ was the de
scription given him by his half-breed son. The third
captain was so crooked that he couldn t hide behind
a corkscrew. The truth was not in him, common
honesty was not in him, and he was as far away from
fair play and square-dealing as he was from his proper
course when he nearly wrecked the Snark on the Ring-
gold Isles.
It was at Suva, in the Fijis, that I discharged my
third and last captain and took up again the role
of amateur navigator. I had essayed it once before,
under my first captain, who, out of San Francisco,
jumped the Snark so amazingly over the chart that I
really had to find out what was doing. It was fairly
easy to find out, for we had a run of twenty-one hun
dred 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 the
Snark s latitude by meridian observation and her longi
tude by the simple method known as "equal altitudes."
This is not a correct method. It is not even a safe
method, but my captain was attempting to navigate by
it, and he was the only one on board who should have
been able to tell me that it was a method to -be es
chewed. I brought the Snark to Hawaii, but the
conditions favored me. The sun was in northern
declination and nearly overhead. The legitimate
4 chronometer-sight " method of ascertaining the
longitude I had not heard of yes, I had heard of it.
My first captain mentioned it vaguely, but after one or
two attempts at practice of it he mentioned it no more.
I had time in the Fijis to compare my chronometer
with two other chronometers. Two weeks previous,
THE AMATEUR NAVIGATOR 237
at Pago Pago, in Samoa, I had asked my captain to
compare our chronometer with the chronometers on
the American cruiser, the Annapolis. This he told
me he had done of course he had done nothing of
The Famous " Broom Road," Tahiti.
the sort ; and he told me that the difference he had
ascertained was only a small fraction of a second. He
told it to me with finely simulated joy and with words
of praise for my splendid time-keeper. I repeat it
now, with words of praise for his splendid and un
blushing unveracity. For behold, fourteen days later,
238 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
in Suva, I compared the chronometer with the one on
the Atua y an Australian steamer, and found that mine
was thirty-one seconds fast. Now thirty-one seconds
of time, converted into arc, equals seven and one-
quarter miles. That is to say, if I were sailing west,
in the night-time, and my position, according to my
dead reckoning from my afternoon chronometer sight,
was shown to be seven miles off the land, why, at that
very moment I would be crashing on the reef. Next
I compared my chronometer with Captain Wooley s.
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 fifty-
nine seconds fast, which is to say, that, sailing west, I
should be crashing on the reef when I thought I was
fifteen miles off from it.
I compromised by subtracting thirty-one seconds
from the total of my chronometer s losing error, and
sailed away for Tanna, in the New Hebrides, resolved,
when nosing around the land on dark nights, to bear
in mind the other seven miles I might be out according
to Captain Wooley s instrument. Tanna lay some six
hundred miles west-southwest from the Fijis, and it was
my belief that while Covering that distance I could
quite easily knock into my head sufficient navigation
to get me there. Well, I got there, but listen first to
my troubles. Navigation is easy, I shall always con
tend that ; but when a man is taking three gasolene
engines and a wife around the world and is writing hard
every day to keep the engines supplied with gasolene
and the wife with pearls and volcanoes, he hasn t much
time left in which to study navigation. Also, it is
bound to be easier to study said science ashore, where
THE AMATEUR NAVIGATOR 239
latitude and longitude are unchanging, in a house
whose position never alters, than it is to study navi
gation on a boat that is rushing along day and night
toward land that one is trying to find and which he is
liable to find disastrously at a moment when he least
expects it.
To begin with, there are the compasses and the set
ting of the courses. We sailed from Suva on Saturday
afternoon, June 6, 1908, and it took us till after dark
to run the narrow, reef-ridden passage between the
islands of Viti Levu and Mbengha. The open ocean
lay before me. There was nothing in the way with
the exception of Vatu Leile, a miserable little island
that persisted in poking up through the sea some
twenty miles to the west-southwest just where I
wanted to go. Of course, it seemed quite simple to
avoid it by steering a course that weuld pass it eight or
ten miles to the north. It was a black night, and we
were running before the wind. The man at the wheel
must be told what direction to steer in order to miss
Vatu Leile. But what direction ? I turned me to the
navigation books. "True Course" I lighted upon.
The very thing ! What I wanted was the true course.
I read eagerly on :
" The True Course is the angle made with the meridian by a straight
line on the chart drawn to connect the ship s position with the place
bound to."
Just what I wanted. The Snark s position was at
the western entrance of the passage between Viti Levu
and Mbengha. The immediate place she was bound
to was a place on the chart ten miles north of Vatu
Leile. I pricked that place off on the chart with my
2 4 o THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
dividers, and with my parallel rulers found that west-by-
south was the true course. I had but to give it to the
man at the wheel and the Snark would win her way to
the 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.
It varied. Sometimes it pointed east of north, some
times west of north, and on occasion it even turned tail
on north and pointed south. The variation at the
THE AMATEUR NAVIGATOR 241
particular spot on the globe occupied by the Snark was
9 40 easterly. Well, that had to be taken into
account before I gave the steering course to the man at
the wheel. I read :
" The Correct Magnetic Course is derived from the True Course by
applying to it the variation.
Therefore, I reasoned, if the compass points 9 40
eastward of north, and I wanted to sail due north, I
should have to steer 9 40 westward of the north indi
cated by the compass and which was not north at all.
So I added 9 40 to the left of my west-by-south
course, thus getting my correct Magnetic Course, and
was ready once more to run to open sea.
Again alas and alack ! The Correct Magnetic
Course was not the Compass Course. There was an
other sly little devil lying in wait to trip me up and
land me smashing on the reefs of Vatu Leile. This
little devil went by the name of Deviation. I read :
" The Compass Course is the course to steer, and is derived from
the Correct Magnetic Course by applying to it the Deviation."
Now Deviation is the variation in the needle caused
by the distribution of iron on board ship. This
purely local variation I derived from the deviation
card of my standard compass and then applied to the
Correct Magnetic Course. The result was the Com
pass Course. And yet, not yet. My standard com
pass was amidships on the companionway. My
steering compass was aft, in the cockpit, near the wheel.
When the steering compass pointed west-by-south-
three-quarters-south (the steering course), the standard
compass pointed west-one-half-north, which was cer-
242 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
tainly not the steering course. I kept the Snark
up till she was heading west-by-south-three-quarters-
south on the
standard com-
which
the
on
pass,
gave,
steering com
pass, south-
west-by-west.
The forego
ing operations
constitute the
simple little
matter of set
ting a course.
And the worst
of it is that one
must perform
every step cor
rectly or else
he will hear
"Breakers
ahead ! " some
pleasant night,
receive a nice
sea-bath, and
be given the
d e 1 ig h t f u 1
diversion of
righting his way to the shore through a horde of man-
eating sharks.
Just as the compass is tricky and strives to fool the
mariner by pointing in all directions except north, so
Snark at Suva-Fiji Islands.
THE AMATEUR NAVIGATOR 243
does that guide-post of the sky, the sun, persist in not
being where it ought to be at a given time. This
carelessness of the sun is the cause of more trouble -
at least it caused trouble for me. To find out where
one is on the earth s surface, he must know, at pre
cisely the same time, where the sun is in the heavens.
That is to say, the sun, which is the timekeeper for
men, doesn t run on time. When I discovered this, I
fell into deep gloom and all the Cosmos was filled with
doubt. 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 to
remain unastonished. For see, if the compass lied and
the sun did not keep its engagements, why should not
objects lose their mutual attraction and why should
not a few bushel baskets of force be annihilated ?
Even perpetual motion became possible, and I was in
a frame of mind prone to purchase Keeley-Motor
stock from the first enterprising agent that landed on
the Snark s deck. And when I discovered that the
earth really rotated on its axis 366 times a year, while
there were only 365 sunrises and sunsets, I was ready
to doubt my own identity.
This is the way of the sun. It is so irregular that
it is impossible for man to devise a clock that will
keep the sun s time. The sun accelerates and retards
as no clock could be made to accelerate and retard.
The sun is sometimes ahead of its schedule ; at other
times it is lagging behind ; and at still other times it is
breaking the speed limit in order to overtake itself, or,
rather, to catch up with where it ought to be in the
sky. In this last case it does not slow down quick
enough, and, as a result, goes dashing ahead of where
244 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
it ought to be. In fact, only four days in a year do
the sun and the place where the sun ought to be hap
pen to coincide. The remaining 361 days the sun is
pothering around all over the shop. Man, being
South Sea Island Beauties riding in the Snark s Launch.
more perfect than the sun, makes a clock that keeps
regular time. Also, he calculates how far the sun is
ahead of its schedule or behind. The difference be
tween the sun s position and the position where the
sun ought to be if it were a decent, self-respecting sun,
man calls the Equation of Time. Thus, the navi-
THE AMATEUR NAVIGATOR 245
gator endeavoring to find his ship s position on the
sea, looks in his chronometer to see where precisely
the sun ought to be according to the Greenwich cus
todian of the sun. Then to that location he applies
the Equation of Time and finds out where the sun
ought to be and isn t. This latter location, along
with several other locations, enable him to find out
what the man from Kansas demanded to know some
years ago.
The Snark sailed from Fiji on Saturday, June 6,
and the next day, Sunday, on the wide ocean, out of
sight of land, I proceeded to endeavor to find out my
position by a chronometer sight for longitude and by
a meridian observation for latitude. The chronometer
sight was taken in the morning, when the sun was
some 21 above the horizon. I looked in the Nauti
cal Almanac and found that on that very day, June 7,
the sun was behind time i minute and 26 seconds,
and that it was catching up at a rate of 14.67 seconds
per hour. The chronometer said that at the precise
moment of taking the sun s altitude it was twenty-five
minutes after eight o clock at Greenwich. From this
date it would seem a schoolboy s task to correct the
Equation of Time. Unfortunately, I was not a
schoolboy. Obviously, at the middle of the day, at
Greenwich, the sun was i minute and 26 seconds be
hind time. Equally obviously, if it were eleven o clock
in the morning, the sun would be i minute and 26
seconds behind time plus 14.67 seconds. If it were
ten o clock in the morning, twice 14.67 seconds would
have to be added. And if it were 8:25 in the morn
ing, then 3^ times 14.67 seconds would have to be
added. Quite clearly, then, if, instead of being 8 : 25
246 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
A.M., it were 8 : 25 P.M., then 8-J- times 14.67 seconds
would have to be, not added, but subtracted ; for, if, at
noon, the sun were i minute and 26 seconds behind
time, and if it were catching up with where it ought
to be at the rate of 14.67 seconds per hour, then at
8.25 P.M it would be much nearer where it ought to
be than it had been at noon.
So far, so good. But was that 8 : 25 of the chro
nometer A.M. or P.M. ? I looked at the Snark s clock.
It marked 8 : 9, and it was certainly A.M., for I had
just finished breakfast. Therefore, if it was eight in
the morning on board the Snark, the eight o clock of
the chronometer (which was the time of the day at
Greenwich) must be a different eight o clock from the
Snark s eight o clock. But what eight o clock was it ?
It can t be the eight o clock of this morning, I
reasoned ; therefore, it must be either eight o clock
this evening or eight o clock last night.
It was at this juncture that I fell into the bottomless
pit of intellectual chaos. We are in east longitude, I
reasoned, therefore we are ahead of Greenwich. 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. When
I took the sun this morning at 8:25, the sun s custo
dians at Greenwich were just arising from dinner last
night.
" Then correct the Equation of Time for yesterday,"
says my logical mind.
<c But to-day is to-day," my literal mind insists.
"I must correct the sun for to-day and not for yester
day."
THE AMATEUR NAVIGATOR 247
"Yet to-day is yesterday," urges my logical mind.
" That s all very well," my literal mind continues.
" If I were in Greenwich I might be in yesterday.
Strange things happen in Greenwich. But I know as
A South Sea Islander.
sure as I am living that I am here, now, in 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 says "
" Never mind what Lecky says," interrupts my
248 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
literal mind. " Let me tell you what the Nautical
Almanac says. The Nautical Almanac says that to
day, June 7, the sun was i minute and 26 seconds be
hind time and catching up at the rate of 14.67 seconds
per hour. It says that yesterday, June 6, the sun was
i minute and 36 seconds behind time and catching
up at the rate of 15.66 seconds per hour. You see,
it is preposterous to think of correcting to-day s sun
by yesterday s time-table."
" Fool ! "
"Idiot!"
Back and forth they wrangle until my head is whirl
ing around and I am ready to believe that I am in the
day after the last week before next.
I remembered a parting caution of the Suva harbor
master : " In east longitude take from the Nautical Al
manac the elements for the preceding day."
Then a new thought came to me. I corrected the
Equation of Time for Sunday and for Saturday, mak
ing two separate operations of it, and lo, when the
results were compared, there was a difference only
of four-tenths of a second. I was a changed man.
I had found my way out of the crypt. The
Snark was scarcely big enough to hold me and my
experience. Four-tenths of a second would make
a difference of only one-tenth of a mile a cable-
length !
All went merrily for ten minutes, when I chanced
upon the following rhyme for navigators :
" Greenwich time least
Longitude east ;
Greenwich best,
Longitude west."
THE AMATEUR NAVIGATOR 249
Heavens ! The Snark s time was not as good as
Greenwich time. When it was 8:25 at Greenwich,
on board the Snark it was only 8:9. " Greenwich
Taupous, or Village Maidens, Island of Savaii, Samoan Group.
time best, longitude west." There I was. In west
longitude beyond a doubt.
" Silly ! " cries my literal mind. " You are 8 : 9
A.M. and Greenwich is 8 : 25 P.M."
" Very well," answers my logical mind. " To be
correct, 8.25 P.M. is really twenty hours and twenty-
five minutes, and that is certainly better than eight
250 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
hours and nine minutes. No, there is no discussion ;
you are in west longitude."
Then my literal mind triumphs.
" We sailed from Suva, in the Fijis, didn t we ? " it
demands, and logical mind agrees. "And Suva is in
east longitude ? " Again logical mind agrees. "And
we sailed west (which would take us deeper into east
longitude), didn t we? Therefore, and you can t
escape 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 eight
hours and nine minutes."
"All right," I break in upon the squabble; "we ll
work up the sight and then we ll see."
And work it up I did, only to find that my longi
tude was 184 west.
" I told you so," snorts my logical mind.
I am dumbfounded. So is my literal mind, for
several minutes. Then it enounces :
" But there is no 184 west longitude, nor east
longitude, nor any other longitude. The largest
meridian is 180 as you ought to know very well."
Having got this far, literal mind collapses from the
brain strain, logical mind is dumb flabbergasted; and
as for me, I get a bleak and wintry look in my eyes
and go around wondering whether I am sailing toward
the China coast or the Gulf of Darien.
Then a thin small voice, which I do not recognize,
coming from nowhere in particular in my conscious
ness, says :
"The total number of degrees is 360. Subtract the
184 west longitude from 360, and you will get
176 east longitude."
THE AMATEUR NAVIGATOR 251
" That is sheer speculation," objects literal mind ;
and logical mind remonstrates. "There is no rule for
it."
" Darn the rules ! " I exclaim. " Ain t I here ?
" The thing is self-evident," I continue. " 1 84
west longitude means a lapping over in east longi
tude of four degrees. Besides I have been in east
longitude all the time. I sailed from Fiji, and Fiji
is in east longitude. Now I shall chart my position
and prove it by dead reckoning."
But other troubles and doubts awaited me. Here
is a sample of one. In south latitude, when the sun
is in northern declination, chronometer sights may be
taken early in the morning. I took mine at eight
o clock. Now, one of the necessary elements in work
ing up such a sight is latitude. But one gets latitude
at twelve o clock, noon, by a meridian observation.
It is clear that in order to work up my eight o clock
chronometer sight I must have my eight o clock lati
tude. Of course, if the Snark were sailing due west
at six knots per hour, for the intervening four hours
her latitude would not change. But if she were sailing
due south, her latitude would change to the tune of
twenty-four miles. In which case a simple addition
or subtraction would convert the twelve o clock latitude
into eight o clock latitude. But suppose the Snark
were sailing southwest. Then the traverse tables must
be consulted.
This is the illustration. At eight A.M. I took my
chronometer sight. At the same moment the distance
recorded on the log was noted. At twelve M., when
the sight for latitude was taken, I again noted the log,
which showed me that since eight o clock the Snark
252 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
had run 24 miles. Her true course had been west
|- south. I entered Table I, in the distance column,
on the page for |- point courses, and stopped at 24, the
number of miles run. Opposite, in the next two col-
Between Black Diamonds.
(Girls of Savaii, Samoa.)
umns, I found that the Snark had made 3.5 miles of
southing or latitude, and that she had made 23.7 miles
of westing. To find my eight o clock latitude was
easy. I had but to subtract 3.5 miles from my noon
latitude. All the elements being present, I worked up
my longitude.
THE AMATEUR NAVIGATOR 253
But this was my eight o clock longitude. Since
then, and up till noon, I had made 23.7 miles of west
ing. What was my noon longitude? I followed the
rule, turning to Traverse Table No. II. Entering the
table, according to rule, and going through every de
tail, according to rule, I found the difference of longi
tude for the four hours to be 25 miles. I was aghast.
I entered the table again, according to rule ; I entered
the table half a dozen times, according to rule, and
every time found that my difference of longitude was
25 miles. I leave it to you, gentle reader. Suppose
you had sailed 24 miles and that you had covered 3.5
miles of latitude, then how could you have covered
25 miles of longitude ? Even if you had sailed due
west 24 miles, and not changed your latitude, how could
you have changed your longitude 25 miles ? In the
name of human reason, how could you cover one mile
more of longitude than the total number of miles you
had sailed ?
It was a reputable traverse table, being none other
than Bowditch s. The rule was simple (as navigators
rules go) ; I had made no error. I spent an hour
over it, and at the end still faced the glaring impossi
bility of having sailed 24 miles, in the course of which
I changed my latitude 3.5 miles and my longitude 25
miles. The worst of it was that there was nobody to
help me out. Neither Charmian nor Martin knew as
much as I knew about navigation. And all the time
the Snark was rushing madly along toward Tanna, in
the New Hebrides. Something had to be done.
How it came to me I know not call it an inspira
tion if you will ; but the thought arose in me: if south
ing is latitude, why isn t westing longitude? Why
254 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
should I have to change westing into longitude ? And
then the whole beautiful situation dawned upon me.
The meridians of longitude are 60 miles (nautical)
apart at the equator. At the poles they run together.
Maids of the Village, Savaii, Samoa.
Thus, if I should travel up the 180 meridian of lon
gitude until I reached the North Pole, and if the astron
omer at Greenwich travelled up the o meridian of
longitude to the North Pole, then, at the North Pole,
we could shake hands with each other, though before
we started for the North Pole we had been some thou-
THE AMATEUR NAVIGATOR 255
sands of miles apart. Again : if a degree of longitude
was 60 miles wide at the equator, and if the same
degree, at the point of the Pole, had no width, then
somewhere between the Pole and the equator that
degree would be half a mile wide, and at other places
a mile wide, two miles wide, ten miles wide, thirty
miles wide, ay, and sixty miles wide.
All was plain again. The Snark was in 19 south
latitude. The world wasn t as big around there as at
the equator. Therefore, every mile of westing at 19
south was more than a minute of longitude ; for sixty
miles were sixty miles, but sixty minutes are sixty
miles only at the equator. George Francis Train broke
Jules Verne s record of around the world. But any
man that wants can break George Francis Train s
record. Such a man would need only to go, in a fast
steamer, to the latitude of Cape Horn, and sail due
east all the way around. The world is very small in
that latitude, and there is no land in the way to turn
him out of his course. If his steamer maintained six
teen knots, he would circumnavigate the globe in just
about forty days.
But there are compensations. On Wednesday even
ing, June 10, I brought up my noon position by dead
reckoning to eight P.M. Then I projected the Snark s
course and saw that she would strike Futuna, one of the
easternmost of the New Hebrides, a volcanic cone two
thousand feet high that rose out of the deep ocean. I
altered the course so that the Snark would pass ten miles
to the northward. Then I spoke to Wada, the cook,
who had the wheel every morning from four to six.
" Wada San, to-morrow morning, your watch, you
look sharp on weather-bow you see land."
256 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
And then I went to bed. The die was cast. I had
staked my reputation as a navigator. Suppose, just
suppose, that at daybreak there was no land. Then,
where would my navigation be ? And where would
we be ? And how would we ever find ourselves ? or
find any land ? I caught ghastly visions of the Snark
sailing for months through ocean solitudes and seeking
vainly for land while we consumed our provisions and
sat down with haggard faces to stare cannibalism in the
face.
I confess my sleep was not
" . . . like a summer sky
That held the music of a lark."
Rather did " I waken to the voiceless dark," and listen
to the creaking of the bulkheads and the rippling of
the sea alongside as the Snark logged steadily her six
knots an hour. I went over my calculations again and
again, striving to find some mistake, until my brain was
in such fever that it discovered dozens of mistakes.
Suppose, instead of being sixty miles off Futuna, that
my navigation was all wrong and that I was only six
miles off? In which case my course would be wrong,
too, and for all I knew the Snark might be running
straight at Futuna. For all I knew the Snark might
strike Futuna the next moment. I almost sprang from
the bunk at that thought ; and, though I restrained
myself, 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 there
was one man, with a bill, who persisted in dunning
me throughout the night. Also, he wanted to fight ;
THE AMATEUR NAVIGATOR 257
and Charmian continually persuaded me to let him
alone. Finally, however, the man with the everlasting
dun ventured into a dream from which Charmian was
absent. It was my opportunity, and we went at it,
A Samoan Policeman.
gloriously, all over the sidewalk and street, until he
cried enough. Then I said, " Now how about that
bill ? " Having conquered, I was willing to pay. But
the man looked at me and groaned. " It was all a
mistake," he said; "the bill is for the house next
door."
258 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
That settled him, for he worried my dreams no
more ; and it settled me, too, for I woke up chuckling
at the episode. It was three in the morning. I went
up on deck. Henry, the Rapa islander, was steering.
I looked at the log. It recorded forty-two miles. The
Snark had not abated her six-knot gait, and she
had not struck Futuna yet. At half-past five I
was again on deck. Wada, at the wheel, had seen no
land. I sat on the cockpit rail, a prey to morbid
doubt for a quarter of an hour. Then I saw land, a
small, high piece of land, just where it ought to be,
rising from the water on the weather-bow. At six
o clock I could clearly make it out to be the beautiful
volcanic cone of Futuna. At eight o clock, when it
was abreast, I took its distance by the sextant and
found it to be 9.3 miles away. And I had elected to
pass it 10 miles away !
Then, to the south, Aneiteum rose out of the sea,
to the north, Aniwa, and, dead ahead, Tanna. There
was no mistaking Tanna, for the smoke of its volcano
was towering high in the sky. It was forty miles away,
and by afternoon, as we drew close, never ceasing to log
our six knots, we saw that it was a mountainous, hazy
land, with no apparent openings in its coast-line. I
was looking for Port Resolution, though I was quite
prepared to find that as an anchorage, it had been de
stroyed. Volcanic earthquakes had lifted its bottom
during the last forty years, so that where once the larg
est ships rode at anchor there was now, by last reports,
scarcely space and depth sufficient for the Snark. And
why should not another convulsion, since the last report,
have closed the harbor completely ?
I ran in close to the unbroken coast, fringed with rocks
THE AMATEUR NAVIGATOR 259
awash upon which the crashing trade-wind sea burst
white and high. I searched with my glasses for miles,
but could see no entrance. I took a compass bearing of
Futuna, another of Aniwa, and laid them off on the chart.
Where the two bearings crossed was bound to be the
position of the Snark. Then, with my parallel rulers,
I laid down a course from the Snark s position to Port
Resolution. Having corrected this course for variation
and deviation, I went on deck, and lo, the course di
rected me towards that unbroken coast-line of bursting
seas. To my Rapa islander s great concern, I held on
till the rocks awash were an eighth of a mile away.
" No harbor this place," he announced, shaking his
head ominously.
But I altered the course and ran along parallel with
the coast. Charmian was at the wheel. Martin was at
the engine, ready to throw on the propeller. A narrow
slit of an opening showed up suddenly. Through the
glasses I could seethe seas breaking clear across. Henry,
the Rapa man, looked with troubled eyes ; so did Tehei,
the Tahaa man.
" No passage there," said Henry. " We go there, we
finish quick, sure."
I confess I thought so, too ; but I ran on abreast,
watching to see if the line of breakers from one side the
entrance did not overlap the line from the other side.
Sure enough, it did. A narrow place where the sea
ran smooth appeared. Charmian put down the wheel
and steadied for the entrance. Martin threw on the
engine, while all hands and the cook sprang to take
in sail.
A trader s house showed up in the bight of the bay.
A geyser, on the shore, a hundred yards away, spouted
2 6o THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
THE AMATEUR NAVIGATOR 261
a column of steam. To port, as we rounded a tiny point,
the mission station appeared.
" Three fathoms," cried Wada at the lead-line.
" Three fathoms," " two fathoms," came in quick
succession.
Charmian put the wheel down, Martin stopped the en
gine, and the Snark rounded to and the anchor rumbled
down in three fathoms. Before we could catch our
breaths a swarm of black Tannese was alongside and
aboard grinning, apelike creatures, with kinky hair
and troubled eyes, wearing safety-pins and clay-pipes in
their slitted ears : and as for the rest, wearing nothing be
hind and less than that before. And I don t mind tell
ing that that night, when everybody was asleep, I sneaked
up on deck, looked out over the quiet scene, and
gloated yes, gloated over my navigation.
CHAPTER XV
Cruising in the Solomons.
" WHY not come along now ? " said Captain Jansen
to us, at Penduffryn, on the island of Guadalcanal*.
Charmian and I looked at each other and debated
silently for half a minute. Then we nodded our heads
simultaneously. It is a way we have of making up
our minds to do things ; and a very good way it is
when one has no temperamental tears to shed over the
last tin of condensed milk when it has capsized. (We
are living 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
rifles aboard, though the one Mauser is without am
munition. Have you a few rounds to spare ? "
We brought our rifles on board, several handfuls of
Mauser cartridges, and Wada and Nakata, the Snark s
cook and cabin-boy respectively. Wada and Nakata
were in a bit of a funk. To say the least, they were
not enthusiastic, though never did Nakata show the
white feather in the face of danger. The Solomon Is
lands had not dealt kindly with them. In the first place,
both had suffered from Solomon sores. So had the rest
of us (at the time, I was nursing two fresh ones on a diet
of corrosive sublimate) ; but the two Japanese had had
more 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 to
be filled. Immediately the ulcer commences to eat.
It eats in every direction, consuming skin and muscle
with astounding rapidity. The pin-point ulcer of the
first day is the size of a dime by the second day, and
Typical Coast Scene Solomons.
by the end of the week a silver dollar will not cover
it.
Worse than the sores, the two Japanese had been
afflicted with Solomon Island fever. Each had been
do*wn repeatedly with it, and in their weak, convalescent
moments they were wont to huddle together on the
portion of the Snark that happened to be nearest to
faraway Japan, and to gaze yearningly in that direction.
But worst of all, they were now brought on board
the Minota for a recruiting cruise along the savage
264 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
coast of Malaita. Wada, who had the worse funk, was
sure that he would never see Japan again, and with
bleak, lack-lustre eyes he watched our rifles and am
munition going on board the Minota. He knew about
the Minota and her Malaita cruises. He knew that
she had been captured six months before on the Malaita
coast, that her captain had been chopped to pieces
with tomahawks, and that, according to the barbarian
sense of equity on that sweet isle, she owed two more
heads. Also, a laborer on Penduffryn Plantation, a
Malaita boy, had just died of dysentery, and Wada
knew that Penduffryn had been put in the debt of
Malaita by one more head. Furthermore, in stowing
our luggage away in the skipper s tiny cabin, he saw
the axe gashes on the door where the triumphant bush-
men had cut their way in. And, finally, the galley
stove was without a pipe said pipe having been part
of the loot.
The Minota was a teak-built, Australian yacht, ketch-
rigged, long and lean, with a deep fin-keel, and de
signed for harbor racing rather than for recruiting
blacks. When Charmian and I came on board, we
found her crowded. Her double boat s crew, includ
ing substitutes, was fifteen, and she had a score and
more of " return" boys, whose time on the plantations
was served and who were bound back to their bush
villages. To look at, they were certainly true head
hunting cannibals. Thei r perforated nostrils were
thrust through with bone and wooden bodkins the size
of lead-pencils. Numbers of them had punctured the
extreme meaty point of the nose, from which protruded,
straight out, spikes of turtle-shell or of beads strung
on stiff wire. A few had further punctured their noses
CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS 265
with rows of holes following the curves of the nostrils
from lip to point. Each ear of every man had from
two to a dozen holes in it holes large enough to
carry wooden plugs three inches in diameter down to
tiny holes in which were carried clay-pipes and similar
trifles. In fact, so many holes did they possess that
Coast at Maravovo, Guadalcanar.
they lacked ornaments to fill them ; and when, the
following day, as we neared Malaita, we tried out our
rifles to see that they were in working order, there was
a general scramble for the empty cartridges, which were
thrust forthwith into the many aching voids in our
passengers ears.
At the time we tried out our rifles we put up our
barbed wire railings. The Minota, crown-decked,
without any house, and with a rail six inches high, was
266 JTHE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
too accessible to boarders. So brass stanchions were
screwed into the rail and a double row of barbed wire
stretched around her from stem to stern and back
again. Which was all very well as a protection from
savages, but it was mighty uncomfortable to those on
board when the Mi not a took to jumping and plunging
in a sea-way. When one dislikes sliding down upon
the lee-rail barbed wire, and when he dares not catch
hold of the weather-rail barbed wire to save himself
from sliding, and when, with these various disinclina
tions, he finds himself on a smooth flush-deck that is
heeled over at an angle of forty-five degrees, some of
the delights of Solomon Islands cruising may be com
prehended. Also, it must be remembered, the penalty
of a fall into the barbed wire is more than the mere
scratches, for each scratch is practically certain to be
come a venomous ulcer. That caution will not save
one from the wire was evidenced one fine morning
when we were running along the Malaita coast with
the 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. Three
unusually large seas caught us. The boy at the wheel
lost his head. Three times the Minota was swept.
The breakfast was rushed over the lee-rail. The
knives and forks went through the scuppers ; a boy
aft went clean overboard and was dragged back ; and
our doughty skipper lay half inboard and half out,
jammed in the barbed wire. After that, for the rest
of the cruise, our joint use of the several remaining
eating utensils was a splendid example of primitive
communism. On the Eugenie, however, it was even
CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS 267
worse, for we had but one teaspoon among four of us
but the Eugenie is another story.
Our first port was Su u on the west coast of Malaita.
The Solomon Islands are on the fringe of things. It
is difficult enough sailing on dark nights through reef-
spiked channels and across erratic currents where there
Four Old Rascals.
are no lights to guide (from northwest to southeast the
Solomons extend across a thousand miles of sea, and
on all the thousands of miles of coasts there is not one
lighthouse) ; but the difficulty is seriously enhanced
by the fact that the land itself is not correctly charted.
Su u is an example. On the Admiralty chart of Ma
laita the coast at this point runs a straight, unbroken
line. Yet across this straight, unbroken line the Minota
268 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
sailed in twenty fathoms of water. Where the land
was alleged to be, was a deep indentation. Into this
we sailed, the mangroves closing about us, till we
dropped anchor in a mirrored pond. Captain Jansen
did not like the anchorage. It was the first time he
had been there, and Su u had a bad reputation. There
was no wind with which to get away in case of
attack, while the crew could be bushwhacked to a
man if they attempted to tow out in the whale-boat.
It was a pretty trap, if trouble blew up.
"Suppose the Minoia went ashore what would
you do ?" I asked.
" She s not going ashore/ was Captain Jansen s
answer.
" But just in case she did?" I insisted.
He considered for a moment and shifted his glance
from the mate buckling on a revolver to the boat s crew
climbing into the whale-boat each man with a rifle.
" We d get into the whale-boat, and get out of here
as fast as a God d let us," came the skipper s delayed
reply.
He explained at length that no white man was sure
of his Malaita crew in a tight place; that the bushmen
looked upon all wrecks as their personal property ; that
the bushmen possessed plenty of Snider rifles ; and
that he had on board a dozen " return " boys for Su u
who were certain to join in with their friends and relatives
ashore when it came to looting the Minota.
The first work of the whale-boat was to take the
return boys and their trade-boxes ashore. Thus one
danger was removed. While this was being done, a
canoe came alongside manned by three naked savages.
And when I say naked, I mean naked. Not one
CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS 269
vestige of clothing did they have on, unless nose
rings, ear-plugs, and shell armlets be accounted clothing.
The head man in the canoe was an old chief, one-eyed,
reputed to be friendly, and so dirty that a boat-scraper
would have lost its edge on him. His mission was to
warn the skipper against allowing any of his people to
The Two Handsomest Men in the Solomons.
go ashore. The old fellow repeated the warning again
that night.
In vain did the whale-boat ply about the shores of
the bay in quest of recruits. The bush was full of
armed natives, all willing enough to talk with the re
cruiter, but not one would engage to sign on for three
years plantation labor at six pounds per year. Yet
they were anxious enough to get our people ashore.
On the second day they raised a smoke on the beach
at the head of the bay. This being the customary
signal of men desiring to recruit^ the boat was sent.
270 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
But nothing resulted. No one recruited, nor were any
of our men lured ashore. A little later we caught
glimpses of a number of armed natives moving about
on the beach.
Outside of these rare glimpses, there was no telling
how many might be lurking in the bush. There was
no penetrating that primeval jungle with the eye. In
the afternoon, Captain Jansen, Charmian, and I went
dynamiting fish. Each one of the boat s crew carried
a Lee-Enfield. " Johnny," the native recruiter, had a
Winchester beside him at the steering sweep. We
rowed in close to a portion of the shore that looked
deserted. Here the boat was turned around and backed
in ; in case of attack, the boat would be ready to dash
away. In all the time I was on Malaita I never saw a
boat land bow on. In fact, the recruiting vessels use
two boats one to go in on the beach, armed, of course,
and the other to lie offseveral hundred feet and " cover"
the first boat. The Minota, however, being a small
vessel, 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 ignited and the stick of dynamite thrown.
With the explosion, the surface of the water was broken
by the flash of leaping fish. At the same instant the
woods broke into life. A score of naked savages,
armed with bows and arrows, spears, and Sniders,
burst out upon the shore. At the same moment our
boat s crew lifted their rifles. And thus the opposing
parties faced each other, while our extra boys dived
over after the stunned fish.
Three fruitless days were spent at Su u. The
Minota got no recruits from the bush, and the bush-
Charmian Goes to Market.
CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS 271
men got no heads from the Minota. In fact, the only
one who got anything was Wada, and his was a nice
dose of fever. We towed out with the whale-boat,
and ran along the coast to Langa Langa, a large village
of salt-water people, built with prodigious labor on a
lagoon sand-bank literally built up, an artificial
island reared as % refuge from the blood-thirsty bush-
men. Here, also, on the shore side of the lagoon,
was Binu, the place where the Minota was captured
half a year previously and her captain killed by the
bushmen. As we sailed in through the narrow en
trance, a canoe came alongside with the news that
the man-of-war had just left that morning after having
burned three villages, killed some thirty pigs, and
drowned a baby. This was the Cambrian, Captain
Lewes commanding. He and I had first met in Korea
during the Japanese-Russian War, and we had been
crossing each other s trail ever since without ever a
meeting. The day the Snark sailed into Suva, in the
Fijis, we made out the Cambrian going out. At Vila,
in the New Hebrides, we missed each other by one
day. We passed each other in the night-time off the
island of Santo. And the day the Cambrian arrived
at Tulagi, we sailed from Penduffryn, a dozen miles
away. And here at Langa Langa we had missed by
several hours.
The Cambrian had come to punish the murderers
of the Minota s captain, but what she had succeeded in
doing we did not learn until later in the day, when a
Mr. Abbot, a missionary, came alongside in his whale-
boat. The villages had been burned and the pigs
killed. But the natives had escaped personal harm.
The murderers had not been captured, though the
272 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
Minotas flag and other of her gear had been recovered.
The drowning of the baby had come about through a
misunderstanding. Chief Johnny, of Binu, had de
clined to guide the landing party into the bush, nor
could any of his men be induced to perform that office.
Whereupon Captain Lewes, righteously indignant, had
told Chief Johnny that he deserved to have his village
Island of Uru Hand-manufactured Malaita.
burned. Johnny s beche de mer English did not include
the word " deserve." So his understanding of it was
that his village was to be burned anyway. The immediate
stampede of the inhabitants was so hurried that the
baby was dropped into the water. In the meantime
Chief Johnny hastened to Mr. Abbot. Into his hand
he put fourteen sovereigns and requested him to go on
board the Cambrian and buy Captain Lewes off.
Johnny s village was not burned. Nor did Captain
CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS 273
Lewes get the fourteen sovereigns, for I saw them
later in Johnny s possession when he boarded the Minota.
The excuse Johnny gave me for not guiding the land
ing party was a big boil which he proudly revealed.
His real reason, however, and a perfectly valid 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 marines, he could have looked for bloody
reprisals as soon as the Cambrian weighed anchor.
As an illustration of conditions in the Solomons,
Johnny s business on board was to turn over, for a
tobacco consideration, the sprit, mainsail, and jib of a
whale-boat. Later in the day, a Chief Billy came on
board and turned over, for a tobacco consideration, the
mast and boom. This gear belonged to a whale-boat
which Captain Jansen had recovered the previous trip
of the Minota. The whale-boat belonged to M cringe
Plantation on the island of Ysabel. Eleven contract
laborers, Malaita men and bushmen at that, had
decided to run away. Being bushmen, they knew
nothing of salt water nor of the way of a boat in the
sea. So they persuaded two natives of San Cristoval,
salt-water men, to run away with them. It served the
San Cristoval men right. They should have known
better. When they had safely navigated the stolen
boat to Malaita, they had their heads hacked off for
their pains. It was this boat and gear that Captain
Jansen had recovered.
Not for nothing have I journeyed all the way to the
Solomons. At last I have seen Charmian s proud
spirit humbled and her emperious queendom of fem
ininity dragged in the dust. It happened at Langa
Langa, ashore, on the manufactured island which one
274
THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
cannot see for the houses. Here, surrounded by hun
dreds of unblushing naked men, women, and children,
we wandered about and saw the sights. We had our
revolvers strapped on, and the boat s crew, fully armed,
lay at the oars, stern in; but the lesson of the man-of-
war was too recent for us to apprehend trouble. We
The Island of Langa Langa, built up from the Sea by the Salt-water Men.
walked about everywhere and saw everything until at
last we approached a large tree trunk that served as a
bridge across a shallow estuary. The blacks formed a
wall in front of us and refused to let us pass. We
wanted to know why we were stopped. The blacks
said we could go on. We misunderstood, and started.
Explanations became more definite. Captain Jansen
and I, being men, could go on. But no Mary was
allowed to wade around that bridge, much less cross it.
" Mary " is becbe de mer for woman. Charmian was a
CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS 275
Mary. To her the bridge was tambo, which is the
native for taboo. Ah, how my chest expanded ! At
last my manhood was vindicated. In truth I belonged
to the lordly sex. Charmian could trapes along at
our heels, but we were MEN, and we could go right
over that bridge while she would have to go around by
whale-boat.
Nqw I should not care to be misunderstood by
what follows ; but it is a matter of common knowledge
in the Solomons that attacks of fever are often brought
on by shock. Inside half an hour after Charmian had
been refused the right of way, she was being rushed
aboard the Minota, packed in blankets, and dosed with
quinine. I don t know what kind of shock had
happened to Wada and Nakata, but at any rate they
were down with fever as well. The Solomons might
be healthfuller.
Also, during the attack of fever, Charmian developed
a Solomon sore. It was the last straw. Every one
on the Snark had been afflicted except her. I had
thought that I was going to lose my foot at the ankle
by one exceptionally malignant boring ulcer. Henry
and Tehei, the Tahitian sailors, had had numbers of
them. Wada had been able to count his by the score.
Nakata had had single ones three inches in length.
Martin had been quite certain that necrosis of his shin-
bone had set in from the roots of the amazing colony
he elected to cultivate in that locality. But Charmian
had escaped. Out of her long immunity had been
bred a contempt for the rest of us. Her ego was
flattered to such an extent that one day she shyly
informed me that it was all a matter of pureness of
blood. Since all the rest of us cultivated the sores,
276 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
and since she did not well, anyway, hers was the
size of a silver, dollar, and the pureness of her blood
enabled her to cure it after several weeks of strenuous
nursing. She pins her faith to corrosive sublimate.
Martin swears by iodoform. Henry uses lime-juice
undiluted. And I believe that when corrosive subli-
A Salt-water Fastness.
mate is slow in taking hold, alternate dressings of per
oxide of hydrogen are just the thing. There are
white men in the Solomons who stake all upon boracic
acid, and others who are prejudiced in favor of lysol.
I also have the weakness of a panacea. It is California.
I defy any man to get a Solomon Island sore in Cali
fornia.
We ran down the lagoon from Langa Langa, between
mangrove swamps, through passages scarcely wider
CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS 277
than the Minota, and past the reef villages of Kaloka
and Auki. Like the founders of Venice, these salt
water men were originally refugees from the mainland.
Too weak to hold their own in the bush, survivors of
village massacres, they fled to the sand-banks of the
lagoon. These sand-banks they built up into islands.
They were compelled to seek their provender from
the sea, and in time they became salt-water men.
They learned the ways of the fish and the shell-fish,
and they invented hooks and lines, nets and fish-traps.
They developed canoe-bodies. Unable to walk about,
spending all their time in the canoes, they became
thick-armed and broad-shouldered, with narrow waists
and frail spindly legs. Controlling the sea-coast, they
became wealthy, trade with the interior passing largely
through their hands. But perpetual enmity exists
between them and the bushmen. Practically their
only truces are on market-days, which occur at stated
intervals, usually twice a week. The bushwomen and
the salt-water women do the bartering. Back in the
bush, a hundred yards away, fully armed, lurk the
bushmen, while to seaward, in the canoes, are the salt
water men. There are very rare instances of the
market-day truces being broken. The bushmen like
their fish too well, while the salt-water men have an
organic craving for the vegetables they cannot grow
on their crowded islets.
Thirty miles from Langa Langa brought us to the
passage between Bassakanna Island and the mainland.
Here, at nightfall, the wind left us, and all night, with
the whale-boat towing ahead and the crew on board
sweating at the sweeps, we strove to win through. But
the tide was against us. At midnight, midway in the
278 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
passage, we came up with the Eugenie, a big recruiting
schooner, towing with two w T hale-boats. Her skipper,
Captain Keller, a sturdy young German of twenty-two,
came on board for a " gam," and the latest news of Malaita
was swapped back and forth. He had been in luck, hav
ing gathered in twenty recruits at the village of Fiu.
While lying there, one of the customary courageous kill
ings had taken place. The murdered boy was what is
called a salt-water bushman that is, a salt-water man who
is half bushman and who lives by the sea but does not live
on an islet. Three bushmen came down to this man
where he was working in his garden. They behaved
in friendly fashion, and after a time suggested kai-kai.
Kai-kal means food. He built a fire and started to
boil some taro. While bending over the pot, one of
the bushmen shot him through the head. He fell
into the flames, whereupon they thrust a spear through
his stomach, turned it around, and broke it off.
" My word," said Captain Keller, " I don t want
ever to be shot with a Snider. Spread ! You could
drive a horse and carriage through that hole in his
head."
Another recent courageous killing I heard of on
Malaita was that of an old man. A bush chief had
died a natural death. Now the bushmen don t believe
in natural deaths. No one was ever known to die a
natural death. The only way to die is by bullet, toma
hawk, or spear thrust. When a man dies in any other
way, it is a clear case of having been charmed to death.
When the bush chief died naturally, his tribe placed
the guilt on a certain family. Since it did not matter
which one of the family was killed, they selected this
old man who lived by himself. This would make it
CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS 279
easy. Furthermore, he possessed no Snider. Also,
he was blind. The old fellow got an inkling of what
was coming and laid in a large supply of arrows.
Three brave warriors, each with a Snider, came down
upon him in the night-time. All night they fought
valiantly with him. Whenever they moved in the
bush and made a noise or a rustle, he discharged an
arrow in that direction. In the morning, when his
last arrow was gone, the three heroes crept up to him
and blew his brains out.
Morning found us still vainly toiling through the
passage. At last, in despair, we turned tail, ran out to
sea, and sailed clear round Bassakanna to our objec
tive, Malu. The anchorage at Malu was very good,
but it lay between the shore and an ugly reef, and
while easy to enter, it was difficult to leave. The
direction of the southeast trade necessitated a beat to
windward ; the point of the reef was widespread and
shallow ; while a current bore down at all times upon
the point.
Mr. Caulfeild, the missionary at Malu, arrived in
his whale-boat from a trip down the coast. A slender,
delicate man he was, enthusiastic in his work, level
headed and practical, a true twentieth-century soldier
of the Lord. When he came down to this station on
Malaita, as he said, he agreed to come for six months.
He further agreed that if he were alive at the end of
that time, he would continue on. Six years had passed
and he was still continuing on. Nevertheless he was
justified in his doubt as to living longer than six
months. Three missionaries had preceded him on
Malaita, and in less than that time two had died of
fever and the third had gone home a wreck. ,
280 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS 281
"What murder are you talking about?" he asked
suddenly, 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. It happened
two weeks ago."
It was here at Malu that I atoned for all the exulting
and gloating I had been guilty of over the Solomon
The Market composed wholly of Women.
sore Charmian had collected at Langa Langa. Mr.
Caulfeild was indirectly responsible for my atonement.
He presented us with a chicken, which I pursued into
the bush with a rifle. My intention was to clip off its
head. I succeeded, but in doing so fell over a log and
barked my shin. Result : three Solomon sores. This
made five all together that were adorning my person.
Also, Captain Jansen and Nakata had caught gari-gari.
Literally translated, gari-gari is scratch-scratch. But
translation was not necessary for the rest of us. The
skipper s and Nakata s gymnastics served as a transla
tion without words.
(No, the Solomon Islands are not as healthy as they
might be. I am writing this article on the island of
282 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
Ysabel, where we have taken the Snark to careen and
clean her copper. I got over my last attack of fever
this morning, and I have had only one free day
between attacks. Charmian s are two weeks apart.
Wada is a wreck from fever. Last night he showed
all 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 like
a last year s crab-apple. Both he and Tehei have
accumulated a praiseworthy display of Solomon sores.
Also, they have caught a new form of gan-gan, a sort
of vegetable poisoning like poison oak or poison ivy.
But they are not unique in this. A number of days
ago Charmian, Martin, and I went pigeon-shooting on
a small island, and we have had a foretaste of eternal
torment ever since. Also, on that small island, Martin
cut the soles of his feet to ribbons on the coral while
chasing a shark at least, so he says, but from the
glimpse I caught of him I thought it was the other
way about. The coral-cuts have all become Solomon
sores. Before my last fever I knocked the skin off
my knuckles while heaving on a line, and I now have
three fresh sores. And poor Nakata ! For three
weeks he has been unable to sit down. He sat down
yesterday for the first time, and managed to stay down
for fifteen minutes. He says cheerfully that he ex
pects to be cured of his gari-gari in another month.
Furthermore, his gari-gari y from too enthusiastic
scratch-scratching, has furnished footholds for count
less Solomon sores. Still furthermore, he has just
come down with his seventh attack of fever. If I
were a king, the worst punishment I could inflict on
my enemies would be to banish them to the Solomons.
CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS 283
On second thought, king or no king, I don t think
I d have the heart to do it.)
Recruiting plantation laborers on a small, narrow
yacht, built for harbor sailing, is not any too nice.
The decks swarm with recruits and their families.
The main cabin is packed with them. At night they
An Island in Process of Manufacture.
sleep there. The only entrance to our tiny cabin is
through the main cabin, and we jam our way through
them or walk over them. Nor is this nice. One and
all, they are afflicted with every form of malignant skin
disease. Some have ringworm, others have bukua.
This latter is caused by a vegetable parasite that in
vades the skin and eats it away. The itching is intol
erable. The afflicted ones scratch until the air is filled
with fine dry flakes. Then there are yaws and many
other skin ulcerations. Men come aboard with
284 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
Solomon sores in their feet so large that they can walk
only on their toes, or with holes in their legs so terrible
that a fist could be thrust in to the bone. Blood-
poisoning is very frequent, and Captain Jansen, with
sheath-knife and sail needle, operates lavishly on one
and all. No matter how desperate the situation, after
opening and cleansing, he claps on a poultice of sea-
biscuit soaked in water. Whenever we see a particu
larly horrible case, we retire to a corner and deluge our
own sores with corrosive sublimate. And so we live
and eat and sleep on the MiYiote, taking our chance
and fc pretending it is good."
At Suava, another artificial island, I had a second
crow over Charmian. A big fella marster belong
Suava (which means the high chief of Suava) came on
board. But first he sent an emissary to Captain
Jansen for a fathom of calico with which to cover his
royal nakedness. Meanwhile he lingered in the canoe
alongside. The regal dirt on his chest I swear was
half an inch thick, while it was a good wager that the
underneath layers were anywhere from ten to twenty
years of age. He sent his emissary on board again,
who explained that the big fella marster belong Suava
was condescendingly willing enough to shake hands
with Captain Jansen and me and cadge a stick or so of
trade tobacco, but that nevertheless his high-born soul
was still at so lofty an altitude that it could not sink
itself to such a depth of degradation as to shake hands
with a mere female woman. Poor Charmian ! Since
her Malaita experiences she has become a changed
woman. Her meekness and humbleness is appallingly
becoming, and I should not be surprised, when we
return to civilization and stroll along a sidewalk, to see
CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS 285
her take her station, with bowed head, a yard in the
rear.
Nothing much happened at Suava. Bichu, the
native cook, deserted. The Minota dragged anchor.
It blew heavy squalls of wind and rain. The mate,
Mr. Jacobsen, and Wada were prostrated with fever.
Solomon Islands Canoe.
Our Solomon sores increased and multiplied. And the
cockroaches on board held a combined Fourth of July
and Coronation Parade. They selected midnight for
the time, and our tiny cabin for the place. They were
from two to three inches long; there were hundreds of
them, and they walked all over us. When we
attempted to pursue them, they left solid footing, rose
up in the air, and fluttered about like humming-birds.
They were much larger than ours on the Snark. But
ours are young yet, and haven t had a chance to grow.
286 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
Also, the Snark has centipedes, big ones, six inches
long. We kill them occasionally, usually in Charmian s
bunk. I ve been bitten twice by them, both times
foully, while I was asleep. But poor Martin had
worse luck. After being sick in bed for three weeks,
the first day he sat up he sat down on one. Some
times I think they are the wisest who never go to
Carcassonne.
Later, on we returned to Malu, picked up seven re
cruits, hove up anchor, and started to beat out the
treacherous 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 gaining
open sea, the wind broke off four points. The Minota
attempted to go about, but missed stays. Two of her
anchors had been lost at Tulagi. Her one remaining
anchor was let go. Chain was let out to give it a hold
on the coral. Her fin keel struck bottom, and her
main topmast lurched and shivered as if about to come
down upon our heads. She fetched up on the slack
of the anchor at the moment a big comber smashed
her shoreward. The chain parted. It was our only
anchor. The Minota swung around on her heel and
drove headlong into the breakers.
Bedlam reigned. All the recruits below, bushmen
and afraid of the sea, dashed panic-stricken on deck
and got in everybody s way. At the same time the
boat s crew made a rush for the rifles. They knew
what going ashore on Malaita meant one hand for
the ship and the other hand to fight off the natives.
What they held on with I don t know, and they
needed to hold on as the Minota lifted, rolled, and
pounded on the coral. The bushmen clung in the
CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS 287
rigging, too witless to watch out for the topmast.
The whale-boat was run out with a tow-line endeavor
ing in a puny way to prevent the Minota from being
flung farther in toward the reef, while Captain Jansen and
the mate, the latter pallid and weak with fever, were
resurrecting a scrap-anchor from out the ballast and
rigging up a stock for it. Mr. Caulfeild, with his
mission boys, arrived in his whale-boat to help.
When the Minota first struck, there was not a canoe
in sight; but like vultures circling down out of the
blue, canoes began to arrive from every quarter. The
boat s crew, with rifles at the ready, kept them lined
up a hundred feet away with a promise of death if they
ventured nearer. And there they clung, a hundred
feet away, black and ominous, crowded with men,
holding their canoes with their paddles on the perilous
edge of the breaking surf. In the meantime the bush-
men were flocking down from the hills, armed with
spears, Sniders, arrows, and clubs, until the beach was
massed with them. To complicate matters, at least
ten of our recruits had been enlisted from the very
bushmen ashore who were waiting hungrily for the
loot of the tobacco and trade goods and all that we
had on board.
The Minota was honestly built, which is the first
essential for any boat that is pounding on a reef.
Some idea of what she endured may be gained from
the fact that in the first twenty-four hours she parted
two anchor-chains and eight hawsers. Our boat s crew
was kept busy diving for the anchors and bending new
lines. There were times when she parted the chains
reenforced with hawsers. And yet she held together.
Tree trunks were brought from ashore and worked
288 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
under her to save her keel and bilges, but the trunks
were gnawed and splintered and the ropes that held
them frayed to fragments, and still she pounded and
held together. But we were luckier than the Ivanhoe,
a big recruiting schooner, which had gone ashore on
Malaita several months previously and been promptly
Men of Kewm Solomons.
rushed by the natives. The captain and crew suc
ceeded in getting away in the whale-boats, and the
bushmen and salt-water men looted her clean of
everything portable.
Squall after squall, driving wind and blinding rain,
smote the Minota, while a heavier sea was making.
The Eugenie lay at anchor five miles to windward, but
she was behind a point of land and could not know
CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS 289
of our mishap. At Captain Jansen s suggestion, I
wrote a note to Captain Keller, asking him to bring
extra anchors and gear to our aid. But not a canoe
could be persuaded to carry the letter. I offered half
a case of tobacco, but the blacks grinned and held
their canoes bow-on to the breaking seas. A half a
case of tobacco was worth three pounds. In two
hours, even against the strong wind and sea, a man
could have carried the letter and received in payment
what he would have labored half a year for on a planta
tion. I managed to get into a canoe and paddle out
to where Mr. Caulfeild was running an anchor with his
whale-boat. My idea was that he would have more
influence over the natives. He called the canoes up to
him, and a score of them clustered around and heard
the 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 the
schooner and you re going to get it. I tell you
plenty rifles on schooner. You no get tobacco, you
get bullets."
At last, one man, alone in a small canoe, took the
letter and started. Waiting for relief, work went on
steadily on the Minota. Her water-tanks were emptied,
and spars, sails, and ballast started shoreward. There
were lively times on board when the Minota rolled one
bilge down and then the other, a score of men leaping
for life and legs as the trade-boxes, booms, and eighty-
pound pigs of iron ballast rushed across from rail to
rail and back again. The poor pretty harbor yacht !
Her decks and running rigging were a raffle. Down
below everything was disrupted. The cabin floor had
been torn up to get at the ballast, and rusty bilge-water
290 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS 291
swashed and splashed. A bushel of limes, in a mess of
flour and water, charged about like so many sticky
dumplings escaped from a half-cooked stew. In the
inner cabin, Nakata kept guard over our rifles and
ammunition.
Three hours from the time our messenger started, a
whale-boat, pressing along under a huge spread of canvas,
broke through the thick of a shrieking squall to wind
ward. It was Captain Keller, wet with rain and spray,
a revolver in his belt, his boat s crew fully armed, an
chors and hawsers heaped high amidships, coming as
fast as wind could drive the white man, the inevitable
white man, coming to a white man s rescue.
The vulture line of canoes that had waited so long
broke and disappeared as quickly as it had formed.
The corpse was not dead after all. We now had three
whale-boats, two plying steadily between the vessel and
shore, the other kept busy running out anchors, rebend-
ing parted hawsers, and recovering the lost anchors.
Later in the afternoon, after a consultation, in which
we took into consideration that a number of our boat s
crew, as well as ten of the recruits, belonged to this
place, we disarmed the boat s crew. This, incidently,
gave them both hands free to work for the vessel.
The rifles were put in the charge of five of Mr. Caul-
feild s mission boys. And down below in the wreck
of the cabin the missionary and his converts prayed to
God to save the Minota. It was an impressive scene:
the unarmed man of God praying with cloudless faith,
his savage followers leaning on their rifles and mum
bling amens. The cabin walls reeled about them. The
vessel lifted and smashed upon the coral with every sea.
From on deck came the shouts of men heaving and
292 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
toiling, praying, in another fashion, with purposeful
will and strength of arm.
That night Mr. Caulfeild brought off a warning.
One of our recruits had a price on his head of fifty
fathoms of shell-money and forty pigs. Baffled in
their desire to capture the vessel, the bushmen decided
Salt-water Women on their Way to Market, Malu, Malaita.
to get the head of the man. When killing begins, there
is no telling where it will end, so Captain Jansen armed
a 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 warning
that any canoe sighted that night would be pumped
full of lead, Ugi turned into a bellicose declaration of
war, which wound up with a peroration somewhat to the
following effect : " You kill my captain, I drink his
blood and die with him ! "
CRUISING IN THE SOLOMONS 293
The bushmen contented themselves with burning an
unoccupied mission house, and sneaked back to the
bush. The next day the Eugenie sailed in and dropped
anchor. Three days and two nights the Minota
pounded on the reef; but she held together, and the
shell of her was pulled off at last and anchored in
smooth water. There we said good-by to her and all
on board, and sailed away on the Eugenie, bound for
Florida Island. 1
1 To point out that we of the Snark are not a crowd of weaklings,
which might be concluded from our divers afflictions, I quote the
following, which I gleaned verbatim from the Eugenie 1 s log and which
may be considered as a sample of Solomon Islands cruising :
Ulava, Thursday, March 12, 1908.
Boat went ashore in the morning. Got two loads ivory nut,
4000 copra. Skipper down with fever.
Ulava, Friday, March 13, 1908.
Buying nuts from bushmen, i^- ton. Mate and skipper down with
fever.
Ulava, Saturday, March 14, 1908.
At noon hove up and proceeded with a very light E.N.E. wind for
Ngora-Ngora. Anchored in 8 fathoms shell and coral. Mate
down with fever.
Ngora-Ngora, Sunday, March 15, 1908.
At daybreak found that the boy Bagua had died during the night, on
dysentery. He was about 14 days sick. At sunset, big N.W.
squall. (Second anchor ready) Lasting one hour and 30 minutes.
At sea, Monday, March 16, 1908.
Set course for Sikiana at 4 P.M. Wind broke off. Heavy squalls
during the night. Skipper down on dysentery, also one man.
At sea, Tuesday, March 17, 1908.
Skipper and 2 crew down on dysentery. Mate fever.
At sea, Wednesday, March 18, 1908.
Big sea. Lee-rail under water all the time. Ship under reefed
mainsail, staysail, and inner jib. Skipper and 3 men dysentery.
Mate fever.
294 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
At sea, Thursday, March 14, 1908.
Too thick to see anything. Blowing a living a gale all the time.
Pump plugged up and bailing with buckets. Skipper and five
boys down on dysentery.
At sea, Friday, March 20, 1908.
During night squalls with hurricane force. Skipper and six men
down on dysentery.
At sea, Saturday, March 21, 1908.
Turned back from Sikiana. Squalls all day with heavy rain and
sea. Skipper and best part of crew on dysentery. Mate fever.
And so, day by day, with the majority of all on board prostrated,
the Eugenie s log goes on. The only variety occurred on March 31,
when the mate came down with dysentery and the skipper was floored
by fever.
CHAPTER XVI
Beche de Mer English
GIVEN a number of white traders, a wide area of
land, and scores of savage languages and dialects,
the result will be that the traders will manufacture a
totally new, unscientific, but perfectly adequate, lan
guage. This the traders did when they invented the
Chinook lingo for use over British Columbia, Alaska,
and the Northwest Territory. So with the lingo of
the Kroo-boys of Africa, the pigeon English of the
Far East, and the beche de mer of the westerly por
tion of the South Seas. This latter is often called
pigeon English, but pigeon English it certainly is not.
To show how totally different it is, mention need be
made only of the fact that the classic piecee of China
has no place in it.
There was once a sea captain who needed a dusky
potentate down in his cabin. The potentate was on
deck. The captain s command to the Chinese steward
was : " Hey, boy, you go top-side catchee one piecee
king." Had the steward been a New Hebridean or
a Solomon islander, the command would have been :
" Hey, you fella boy, go look m eye belong you along
deck, bring m me fella one big fella marster belong
black man."
It was the first white men who ventured through
Melanesia after the early explorers, who developed
beche de mer English men such as the beche de
mer fishermen, the sandalwood traders, the pearl
295
296 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
A Malaita Man.
hunters, and the labor recruiters. In the Solomons,
for instance, scores of languages and dialects are spoken.
Unhappy the trader who tried to learn them all ; for
BECHE DE MER ENGLISH 297
in the next group to which he might wander he would
find scores of additional tongues. A common lan
guage was necessary a language so simple that a
child could learn it, with a vocabulary as limited as the
intelligence of the savages upon whom it was to be used.
The traders did not
reason this out. Beche
de mer English was the
product of conditions
and circumstances.
Function precedes or
gan; and the need for
a universal Melanesian
lingo preceded beche de
mer English. Beche
de mer was purely for
tuitous, but it was for
tuitous in the deter
ministic way. Also,
from the fact that out
of the need the lingo
arose, beche de mer
English is a splendid
argument for the Es
peranto enthusiasts.
A limited vocabulary means that each word shall be
overworked. Thus, fella, in beche de mer, means all
that piecee does and quite a bit more, and is used con
tinually in every possible connection. Another over
worked word is belong. Nothing stands alone. Every
thing is related. The thing desired is indicated by its
relationship with other things. A primitive vocabu
lary means primitive expression, thus, the continuance
A Malaita " Mary."
298 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
of rain is expressed as rain he stop. Sun be come up
cannot possibly be misunderstood, while the phrase-
structure itself can be used without mental exertion in
ten thousand different ways, as, for instance, a native who
desires to tell you that there are fish in the water and
who says fish he stop.
It was while trading
on Ysabel island that
I learned the excellence
of this usage. I wanted
two or three pairs of
the large clam-shells
(measuring three feet
across), but I did not
want the meat inside.
Also, I wanted the
meat of some of the
smaller clams to make
a chowder. My in
struction to the natives
finally ripened into the
following: "You fella
bring me fella big fella
Veiia Laveiia Man. clam kai-kai he no
stop, he walk about.
You fella bring me fella small fella clam kai-kai he
stop."
Kai-kai is the Polynesian for food, meat, eating, and
to eat ; but it would be hard to say whether it was in
troduced into Melanesia by the sandalwood traders or
by the Polynesian westward drift. Walk about is a
quaint phrase. Thus, if one orders a Solomon sailor
to put a tackle on a boom, he will suggest, " That fella
BfiCHE DE MER ENGLISH
299
boom he walk about too much." And if the said
sailor asks for shore liberty, he will state that it is his
desire to walk about. Or if said sailor be seasick, he
will explain his condition by stating, " Belly belong me
walk about too much."
Too much, by the way, does not indicate anything
excessive. It is merely the simple superlative. Thus,
if a native is asked the distance to a certain village, his
answer will be one
of these four:
up";
bit":
"Close
" long way little
" long way big
bit"; or "long way too
much." Long way too
much does not mean
that one cannot walk
to the village; it means
that he will have to
walk farther than if
the village were a long
way big bit.
Gammon is to lie,
to exaggerate, to joke.
Mary is a woman.
Any woman is a Mary.
All women are Marys.
Doubtlessly the first
dim white adventurer
whimsically called a native woman Mary, and of similar
birth must have been many other words in beche de
mer. The white men were all seamen, and so capsize
and sing out were introduced into the lingo. One
would not tell a Melanesian cook to empty the dish-
From Fin Bori Malaita.
300 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
water, but he would tell him to capsize it. To sing
out is to cry loudly, to call out, or merely to speak.
Sing-sing is a song. The native Christian does not
think of God calling for Adam
in the Garden of Eden ; in the
native s mind, God sings out
for Adam.
Savvee or catcbee are practi
cally the only words which have
been introduced straight from
pigeon English. Of course,
pickaninny has happened along,
but some of its uses are deli
cious. Having bought
a fowl from a native in
a canoe, the native
asked me if I wanted
" Pickaninny stop
along him fella." It
was not until he showed
me a handful of hen s
eggs that I understood
his meaning. My word,
as an exclamation with
a thousand signifi
cances, could have ar
rived from nowhere
else than old England.
A paddle, a sweep, or an oar, is called washee, and
\washee 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,
Beau of Malaita.
BECHE DE MER ENGLISH 301
but was stopped by Peter at the end of the second
sentence. Thereafter the letter runs in Peter s own
words, for Peter was afraid that Harry gammoned too
much, and he wanted the straight story of his needs to
go to headquarters.
" SANTA ANNA
"Trader Peter has worked 12 months for your firm and has not
received any pay yet. He hereby wants ^12." (At this point
Peter began dictation). * Harry he gammon along 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 along boat, some place
me go man he no good, he kai-kai along me.
" PETER."
Bullamacow means tinned beef. This word was
corrupted from the English language by the Samoans,
and from them learned by the traders, who carried
it along with them into Melanesia. Captain Cook
and the other early navigators made a practice of in
troducing seeds, plants, and domestic animals amongst
the natives. It was at Samoa that one such navigator
landed a bull and a cow. " This is a bull and cow/*
said he to the Samoans. They thought he was giving
the name of the breed, and from that day to this, beef
on the hoof and beef in the tin is called bullamacow.
A Solomon islander cannot say fence^ so, in beche
de mer, it becomes fennis ; store is sittore, and box is
bokkis. Just now the fashion in chests, which are
known as boxes, is to have a bell arrangement on the
lock so that the box cannot be opened without sound
ing an alarm. A box so equipped is not spoken of as
a mere box, but as the bokkis belong bell.
J right is the beche de mer for fear. If a native
appears timid and one asks him the cause, he is liable
302
THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
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 every
form of anger. A
man may be cross
at one when he is
feeling only petu
lant ; or he may be
cross when he is
seeking to chop
off your head and
make a stew out
of you. A recruit,
after having toiled
three years on a
plantation, was re
turned to his own
village on Malaita.
He was clad in all
kinds of gay and
sportive garments.
On his head was
a top-hat. He possessed a trade-box full of calico,
beads, porpoise-teeth, and tobacco. Hardly was the
anchor down, when the villagers were on board. The
recruit looked anxiously for his own relatives, but
none was to be seen. One of the natives took the
pipe out of his mouth. Another confiscated the strings
of beads from around his neck. A third relieved him
of his gaudy loin-cloth, and a fourth tried on the top-
hat and omitted to return it. Finally, one of them
took his trade-box, which represented three years toil,
He knew the Sandalwood Traders and
Beche de Mer Fishermen.
BECHE DE MER ENGLISH 303
and dropped it into a canoe alongside. " That fella
belong you ? " the captain asked the recruit, referring
to the thief. " No belong me/ was the answer.
" Then why in Jericho do you let him take the box ? "
the captain demanded indignantly. Quoth the recruit,
" Me speak along him, say bokkis he stop, that fella
he cross along me " which was the recruit s way of
saying that the other man would murder him. God s
wrath, when he sent the Flood, was merely a case of
being cross along mankind.
What name is the great interrogation of beche de
mer. It all de- r _ __
pends on how it
is uttered. It
may mean : What
is your business ?
What do you mean
by this outrageous
conduct ? What
do you want?
What is the thing
you are after? You
had best watch out;
I demand an ex
planation ; and a
few hundred other
things. Call a na
tive out of his
house in the mid
dle of the night,
and he is likely to
demand, " What name you sing out along. me ? "
Imagine the predicament of the Germans on
He might have been Gladstone.
the
34
THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
plantations of Bougainville island, who are compelled
to learn beche de mer English in order to handle the
native laborers. It is to them an unscientific polyglot,
and there are no text-books by which to study it.
It is a source of unholy delight to the other white
planters and traders to
hear the German wrest
ling stolidly with the
circumlocutions and
short-cuts of a language
that has no grammar
and no dictionary.
Some years ago large
numbers of Solomon
islanders were recruited
to labor on the sugar
plantations of Queens
land. A missionary
urged one of the labor
ers, who was a convert,
to get up and preach a
sermon to a shipload of
Solomon islanders who
Old Woman of Veiia Laveiia. had just arrived. He
chose for his subject the
Fall of Man, and the address he gave became a classic
in all Australasia. It proceeded somewhat in the
following manner :
" Altogether you boy belong Solomons you no
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 marster belong white man, him fella He make m
BECHE DE MER ENGLISH 305
altogether. God big fella marster belong white man,
He make m big fella garden. He good fella too much.
Along garden plenty yam he stop, plenty cocoanut,
plenty taro, plenty kumara (sweet potatoes), altogether
good fella kai-kai too much.
" Bimeby God big fella marster belong white man
He make m one fella man and put m along garden be
long Him. He call m this fella man Adam. He
name belong him. He put him this fella man Adam
along garden, and He speak, c This fella garden he be
long you/ And He look m this fella Adam he walk
about too much. Him fella Adam all the same sick ;
he no savvee kai-kai ; he walk about all the time.
And God He no savvee. God big fella marster belong
white man, He scratch m head belong Him. God
say : What name ? Me no savvee what name this
fella Adam he want/
" Bimeby God He scratch m head belong Him too
much, and speak: Me fella me savvee, him fella
Adam him want m Mary/ So He make Adam he
go asleep, He take one fella bone belong him, and
He make m one fella Mary along bone. He call him
this fella Mary, Eve. He give m this fella Eve along
Adam, and He speak along him fella Adam : Close
up altogether along this fella garden belong you two
fella. One fella tree he tambo (taboo) along you al
together. This fella tree belong apple/
" So Adam Eve two fella stop along garden, and
they two fella have m good time too much. Bimeby,
one day, Eve she come along Adam, and she speak,
More good you me two fella we eat m this fella
apple/ Adam he speak, No/ and Eve she speak }
* What name you no like m me ? And Adam he speak }
jo6 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
c Me like m you too much, but me fright along God.
And Eve she speak, c Gammon! What name ? God
He no savvee look along us two fella all m time. God
big fella marster, He gammon along you. But Adam
he speak, No. But Eve she talk, talk, talk, allee
time allee same Mary she talk along boy along
" Marys."
Queensland and make m trouble along boy. And
bimeby Adam he tired too much, and he speak, c All
right/ So these two fella they go eat m. When they
finish eat m, my word, they fright like hell, and they
go hide along scrub.
" And God he come walk about along garden, and
He sing out, c Adam ! Adam he no speak. He too
much fright. My word ! And God He sing out,
Adam ! And Adam he speak, c You call m me?
BECHE DE MER ENGLISH 307
God He speak, c Me call m you too much. Adam
he speak, c Me sleep strong fella too much/ And
God He speak, You been eat m this fella apple.
Adam he speak, c No, me no been eat m. God He
speak. c What name you gammon along me ? You
been eat m. And Adam he speak, c Yes, me been
eat m/
<c And God big fella marster he cross along Adam
Eve two fella too much, and he speak, c You two fella
finish along me altogether. You go catch m bokkis
(box) belong you, and get to hell along scrub/
" So Adam Eve these two fella go along scrub. And
God He make m one big fennis (fence) all around
garden and He put m one fella marster belong God
along fennis. And He give this fella marster belong
God one big fella musket, and He speak, c S -pose you
look m these two fella Adam Eve, you shoot m plenty
too much.
CHAPTER XVII
The Amateur M.D.
WHEN we sailed from San Francisco on the Snark
I knew as much about sickness as the Admiral of the
Swiss Navy knows about salt water. And here, at the
start, let me advise any one who meditates going to
out-of-the-way tropic places. Go to a first-class drug
gist the sort that have specialists on their salary list
who know everything. Talk the matter over with
such an one. Note carefully all that he says. Have
a list made of all that he recommends. Write out a
check for the total cost, and tear it up.
I wish I had done the same. I should have been
far wiser, I know now, if I had bought one of those
ready-made, self-acting, f6ol-proof medicine chests such
as are favored by fourth-rate ship-masters. In such a
chest each bottle has a number. On the inside of the
lid is placed a simple table of directions : No. i, tooth
ache ; No. 2, smallpox ; No. 3, stomachache ; No. 4,
cholera ; No. 5, rheumatism ; and so on, through the
list "of human ills. And I might have used it as did
a certain venerable skipper, who, when No. 3 was
empty, mixed a dose from No. i and No. 2, or,
when No. 7 was all gone, dosed his crew with 4
and 3 till 3 gave out, when he used 5 and 2.
So far, with the exception of corrosive sublimate
(which was recommended as an antiseptic in surgical
operations, and which I have not yet used for that
purpose), my medicine-chest has been useless. It has
308
THE AMATEUR M.D. 309
been worse than useless, for it has occupied much space
which I could have used to advantage.
With my surgical instruments it is different. While
I have not yet had serious use for them, I do not regret
the space they occupy. The thought of them makes
me feel good. They are so much life insurance, only,
fairer than that last grim game, one is not supposed to
die in order to win. Of course, I don t know how to
use 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 Snark
have no warning when the devil may take it into his
head to drive, ay, even a thousand miles from land and
twenty days from the nearest port.
I did not know anything about dentistry, but a
friend fitted me out with forceps and similar weapons,
and in Honolulu I picked up a book upon teeth. Also,
in that sub-tropical city I managed to get hold of a
skull, from which I extracted the teeth swiftly and pain
lessly. Thus equipped, I was ready, though not ex
actly eager, to tackle any tooth that got in my way.
It was in Nuku-hiva, in the Marquesas, that my first
case presented itself in the shape of a little, old Chinese.
The first thing I did was to get the buck fever, and I
leave it to any fair-minded person if buck fever, with
its attendant heart-palpitations and arm-tremblings, is
the right condition for a man to be in who is endeavor
ing to pose as an old hand at the business. I did not
fool the aged Chinaman. He was as frightened as I
and a bit more shaky. I almost forgot to be frightened
in the fear that he would bolt. I swear, if he had tried
to, that I would have tripped him up and sat on him
until calmness and reason returned.
jio THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
I wanted that tooth. Also, Martin wanted a snap
shot of me getting it. Likewise Charmian got her
camera. Then the procession started. We were stop
ping at what had been the club-house when Stevenson
was in the Marquesas on the Casco. On the veranda,
where he had passed so many pleasant hours, the light
was not good for snapshots, I mean. I led on into
the garden, a chair in one hand, the other hand filled
with forceps of various sorts, my knees knocking to
gether disgracefully. The poor old Chinaman came
second, and he was shaking, too. Charmian and
Martin brought up the rear, armed with kodaks. We
dived under the avocado trees, threaded our way
through the cocoanut palms, and came on a spot that
satisfied Martin s photographic eye.
I looked at the tooth, and then discovered that I
could not remember anything about the teeth I had
pulled from the skull five months previously. Did it
have one prong? two prongs? or three prongs? What
was left of the part that showed appeared very crumbly,
and I knew that I should have to take hold of the
tooth deep down in the gum. It was very necessary
that I should know how many prongs that tooth had.
Back to the house I went for the book on teeth. The
poor old victim looked like photographs I had seen of
fellow countrymen of his, criminals, on their knees,
waiting the stroke of the beheading sword.
" Don t let him get away," I cautioned to Martin.
" I want that tooth."
" I sure won t," he replied with enthusiasm, from
behind his camera. " I want that photograph."
For the first time I felt sorry for the Chinaman.
Though the book did not tell me anything about pull-
THE AMATEUR M.D. 31 1
ing teeth, it was all right, for on one page I found draw
ings of all the teeth, including their prongs and how
they were set in the jaw. Then came the pursuit of
the forceps. I had seven pairs, but was in doubt as to
which pair I should use. I did not want any mistake.
As I turned the hardware over with rattle and clang,
Pulling my First Tooth.
the poor victim began to lose his grip and to turn a
greenish yellow around the gills. He complained
about the sun, but that was necessary for the photo
graph, and he had to stand it. I fitted the forceps
around the tooth, and the patient shivered and began
to wilt.
" Ready ? " I called to Martin.
" All ready," he answered.
ji2 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
I gave a pull. Ye gods ! The tooth was loose !
Out it came on the instant. I was jubilant as I held
it aloft in the forceps.
" Put it back, please, oh, put it back/ Martin
pleaded. " You were too quick for me."
And the poor old Chinaman sat there while I put
the tooth back and pulled over. Martin snapped the
camera. The deed was done. Elation ? Pride ? No
hunter was ever prouder of his first pronged buck than
I was of that three-pronged tooth. I did it ! I did
it ! With my own hands and a pair of forceps I did
it, to say nothing of the forgotten memories of the dead
man s skull.
My next case was a Tahitian sailor. He was a small
man, in a state of collapse from long days and nights
of jumping toothache. I lanced the gums first. I
didn t know how to lance them, but I lanced them just
the same. It was a long pull and a strong pull. The
man was a hero. He groaned and moaned, and I
thought he was going to faint. But he kept his mouth
open and let me pull. And then it came.
After that I was ready to meet all comers just the
proper state of mind for a Waterloo. And it came.
Its name was Tomi. He was a strapping giant of a
heathen with a bad reputation. He was addicted to
deeds of violence. Among other things he had beaten
two of his wives to death with his fists. His father
and mother had been naked cannibals. When he sat
down and I put the forceps into his mouth, he was
nearly as tall as I was standing up. Big men, prone
to violence, very often have a streak of fat in their
make-up, so I was doubtful of him. Charmian grabbed
one arm and Warren grabbed the other. Then the
THE AMATEUR M.D. 313
tug of war began. The instant the forceps closed down
on the tooth, his jaws closed down on the forceps.
Also, both his hands flew up and gripped my pulling
hand. I held on, and he held on. Charmian and
Warren held on. We wrestled all about the shop.
It was three against one, and my hold on an aching
tooth was certainly a foul one ; but in spite of the
Careening the Snark.
handicap he got away with us. The forceps slipped
off, banging and grinding along against his upper teeth
with a nerve-scraping sound. Out of his mouth flew
the forceps, and he rose up in the air with a blood
curdling yell. The three of us fell back. We expected
to be massacred. But that howling savage of sangui
nary reputation sank back in the chair. He held his
head in both his hands, and groaned and groaned and
3i4 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
groaned. Nor would he listen to reason. I was a
quack. My painless tooth-extraction was a delusion
and a snare and a low advertising dodge. I was so anx
ious to get that tooth that I was almost ready to bribe
him. But that went against my professional pride and
I let him depart with the tooth still intact, the only
case on record up to date of failure on my part when
once I had got a grip. Since then I have never let a
tooth go by me. Only the other day I volunteered
to beat up three days to windward to pull a woman
missionary s tooth. I expect, before the voyage of
the Snark is finished, to be doing bridge work and
putting on gold crowns.
I don t know whether they are yaws or not a
physician in Fiji told me they were, and a missionary
in the Solomons told me they were not ; but at any
rate I can vouch for the fact that they are most uncom
fortable. It was my luck to ship in Tahiti a French
sailor, who, when we got to sea, proved to be afflicted
with a vile skin disease. The Snark was too small and
too much of a family party to permit retaining him on
board ; but perforce, until we could reach land and
discharge him, it was up to me to doctor him. I read
up the books and proceeded to treat him, taking care
afterwards always to use a thorough antiseptic wash.
When we reached Tutuila, far from getting rid of him,
the port doctor declared a quarantine against him and
refused to allow him ashore. But at Apia, Samoa, I
managed to ship him off on a steamer to New Zealand.
Here at Apia my ankles were badly bitten by mos
quitoes, and I confess to having scratched the bites
as I had a thousand times before. By the time I
reached the island of Savaii, a small sore had developed
THE AMATEUR M.D. 315
on the hollow of my instep. I thought it was due to
chafe and to acid fumes from the hot lava over which
I tramped. An application of salve would cure it
so I thought. The salve did heal it over, whereupon
an astonishing inflammation set in, the new skin came
off, and a larger sore, was exposed. This was repeated
many times. Each time new skin formed, an inflam
mation followed, and the circumference of the sore in
creased. I was puzzled and frightened. All my life
my skin had been famous for its healing powers, yet
here was something that would not heal. Instead, it
was daily eating up more skin, while it had eaten down
clear through the skin and was eating up the muscle
itself.
By this time the Snark was at sea on her way to
Fiji. I remembered the French sailor, and for the
first time became seriously alarmed. Four other simi
lar sores had appeared or ulcers, rather, and the pain
of them kept me awake at night. All my plans were
made to lay up the Snark in Fiji and get away on the
first steamer to Australia and professional M.D. s.
In the meantime, in my amateur M.D. way, I did my
best. I read through all the medical works on board.
Not a line nor a word could I find descriptive of my
affliction. I brought common horse-sense to bear on
the problem. Here were malignant and excessively
active ulcers that were eating me up. There was an
organic and corroding poison at work. Two things I
concluded must be done. First, some agent must be
found to destroy the poison. Secondly, the ulcers
could not possibly heal from the outside in ; they must
heal from the inside out. I decided to fight the poison
with corrosive sublimate. The very name of it struck
THE AMATEUR M.D. 317
me as vicious. Talk of fighting fire with fire! I was
being consumed by a corrosive poison, and it appealed
to my fancy to fight it with another corrosive poison.
After several days I alternated dressings of corrosive
sublimate with dressings of peroxide of hydrogen.
And behold, by the time we reached Fiji four of the
five ulcers were healed, while the remaining one was
no bigger than a pea.
I now felt fully qualified to treat yaws. Likewise I
had a wholesome respect for them. Not so the rest
of the crew of the Snark. In their case, seeing was
not believing. One and all, they had seen my dread
ful predicament; and all of them, I am convinced, had
a subconscious certitude that their own superb constitu
tions and glorious personalities would never allow lodg
ment ot so vile a poison in their carcasses as my
anaemic constitution and mediocre personality had al
lowed to lodge in mine. At Port Resolution, in the
New Hebrides, Martin elected to walk barefooted in
the bush and returned on board with many cuts and
abrasions, especially on his shins.
"You d better be careful," I warned him. "I ll
mix up some corrosive sublimate for you to wash those
cuts with. An ounce of prevention, you know."
But Martin smiled a superior smile. Though he
did not say so, I nevertheless was given to understand
that he was not as other men (I was the only man he
could possibly have had reference to), and that in a couple
of days his cuts would he healed. He also read me a
dissertation upon the peculiar purity of his blood and his
remarkable healing powers. I felt quite humble when
he was done with me. Evidently I was different from
other men in so far as uurity of blood was concerned.
3 i8 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
Nakata, the cabin-boy, while ironing one day, mis
took the calf of his leg for the ironing-block and
accumulated a burn three inches in length and half an
inch wide. He, too, smiled the superior smile when I
offered him corrosive sublimate and reminded him of
my own cruel experience. I was given to understand,
with all due suavity and courtesy, that no matter
Visitors coming alongside, Meringe Lagoon, Ysabel, Solomon Islands.
what was the matter with my blood, his number-one,
Japanese, Port-Arthur blood was all right and scorn
ful of the festive microbe.
Wada, the cook, took part in a disastrous landing
of the launch, when he had to leap overboard and
fend the launch off the beach in a smashing surf.
By means of shells and coral he cut his legs and feet
up beautifully. I offered him the corrosive sublimate
bottle. Once again I suffered the superior smile and
THE AMATEUR M.D. 319
was given to understand that his blood was the same
blood that had licked Russia and was going to lick the
United States some day, and that if his blood wasn t
able to cure a few trifling cuts, he d commit hari-kari
in sheer disgrace.
From all of which I concluded that an amateur
M.D. is without honor on his own vessel, even if he has
cured himself. The rest of the crew had begun to
look upon me as a sort of mild monomaniac on the
question of sores and sublimate. Just because my
blood was impure was no reason that I should think
everybody else s was. I made no more overtures.
Time and microbes were with me, and all I had to do
was wait.
ci I think there s some dirt in those cuts," Martin
said tentatively, after several days. " I ll wash them
out and then they ll be all right," he added, after I had
refused to rise to the bait.
Two more days passed, but the cuts did not pass,
and I caught Martin soaking his feet and legs in a pail
of hot water.
"Nothing like hot water, he proclaimed enthusiasti
cally. " It beats all the dope the doctors ever put up.
These sores will be all right in the morning."
But in the morning he wore a troubled look, and I
knew that the hour of my triumph approached.
" I think I will try some of that medicine," he an
nounced later on in the day. " Not that I think it ll
do much good," he qualified, " but I ll just give it a
try anyway."
Next came the proud blood of Japan to beg medi
cine for its illustrious sores, while I heaped coals of
fire on all their houses by explaining in minute and
320 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
sympathetic detail the treatment that should be given.
Nakata followed instructions implicitly, and day by
day his sores grew smaller. Wada was apathetic, and
cured less readily. But Martin still doubted, and be
cause he did not cure immediately, he developed the
theory that while doctor s dope was all right, it did not
follow that the same kind of dope was efficacious with
everybody. As for himself, corrosive sublimate had
no effect. Besides, how did I know that it was the
right stuff? I had had no experience. Just because
I happened to get well while using it was not proof
that it had played any part in the cure. There were
such things as coincidences. Without doubt there was
a dope that would cure the sores, and when he ran
across a real doctor he would find what that dope was
and get some of it.
About this time we arrived in the Solomon Islands.
No physician would ever recommend the group for
invalids or sanitariums. I spent but little time there
ere I really and for the first time in my life compre
hended how frail and unstable is human tissue. Our
first anchorage was Port Mary, on the island of Santa
Anna. The one lone white man, a trader, came along
side. Tom Butler was his name, and he was a beautiful
example of what the Solomons can do to a strong man.
He lay in his whale-boat with the helplessness of a
dying man. No smile and little intelligence illumined
his face. He was a sombre death s-head, too far gone
to grin. He, too, had yaws, big ones. We were
compelled to drag him over the rail of the Snark.
He said that his health was good, that he had not had
the fever for some time, and that with the exception
of his arm he was all right and trim. His arm ap-
THE AMATEUR M.D.
321
zxo
THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
peared to be paralyzed. Paralysis he rejected with
scorn. He had had it. before, and recovered. It was
a 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 ghastliest guest we ever entertained, and
we ve had not a few lepers and elephantiasis victims on
board.
Martin inquired about yaws, for here was a man
who ought to know. He certainly did know, if we
could judge by his scarred arms and legs and by the
live ulcers that corroded in the midst of the scars.
Oh, one got used to yaws, quoth Tom Butler. They
were never really serious until they had eaten deep into
the flesh. Then they attacked the walls of the arteries,
the arteries burst, and there was a funeral. Several of
the natives had recently died that way ashore. But
what did it matter ? If it wasn t yaws, it was some
thing else in the Solomons.
I noticed that from this moment Martin displayed a
swiftly increasing interest in his own yaws. Dosings
with corrosive sublimate were more frequent, while, in
conversation, he began to revert with growing en
thusiasm to the clean climate of Kansas and all other
things Kansan. Charmian and I thought that Cali
fornia was a little bit of all right. Henry swore by
Rapa, and Tehei staked all on Bora Bora for his own
blood s sake ; while Wada and Nakata sang the sani
tary paean of Japan.
One evening, as the Snark worked around the
southern end of the island of Ugi, looking for a re
puted anchorage, a Church of England missionary, a
Mr. Drew, bound in his whale-boat for the coast of
THE AMATEUR M.D.
323
324 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
San Cristoval, came alongside and stopped for dinner.
Martin, his legs swathed in Red Cross bandages till
they looked like a mummy s, turned the conversation
upon yaws. Yes, said Mr. Drew, they were quite com
mon in the Solomons. All white men caught them.
" And have you had them? " Martin demanded, in the
soul of him quite shocked that a Church of England
missionary could possess so vulgar an affliction.
Mr. Drew nodded his head and added that not only
had he had them, but at that moment he was doctor
ing several.
" What do you use on them ? " Martin asked like
a flash.
My heart almost stood still waiting the answer. By
that answer my professional medical prestige stood or
fell. Martin, I could see, was quite sure it was going
to fall. And then the answer O blessed answer!
" Corrosive sublimate," said Mr. Drew.
Martin gave in handsomely, I ll admit, and I am
confident that at that moment, if I had asked per
mission to pull one of his teeth, he would not have
denied me.
All white men in the Solomons catch yaws, and
every cut or abrasion practically means another yaw.
Every man I met had had them, and nine out of ten
had active ones. There was but one exception, a
young fellow who had been in the islands five months,
who had come down with fever ten days after he ar
rived, and who had since then been down so often
with fever that he had had neither time nor opportun
ity for yaws.
Every one on the Snark except Charmian came down
with yaws. Hers was the same egotism that Japan
THE AMATEUR M.D. 325
and Kansas had displayed. She ascribed her immunity
to the pureness of her blood, and as the days went by
she ascribed it more often and more loudly to the pure-
ness of her blood. Privately I ascribed her immunity
to the fact that, being a woman, she escaped most of the
cuts and abrasions to which we. hard-working men were
subject in the course of working the Snark around the
world. I did not tell her so. You see, I did not
wish to bruise her ego with brutal facts. Being an
M.D., if only an amateur one, I knew more about the
disease than she, and I knew that time was my ally.
But alas, I abused my ally when it dealt a charming
little yaw on the shin. So quickly did I apply anti
septic treatment, that the yaw was cured before she was
convinced that she had one. Again, as an M.D., I was
without honor on my own vessel ; and, worse than
that, I was charged with having tried to mislead her
into the belief that she had had a yaw. The pureness
of her blood was more rampant than ever, and I poked
my nose into my navigation books and kept quiet.
And then came the day. We were cruising along the
coast of Malaita at the time.
" What s that abaft your ankle-bone ? " said I.
" Nothing," said she.
" All right," said I ; " but put some corrosive
sublimate on it just the same. And some two or
three weeks from now, when it is well and you have a
scar that you will carry to your grave, just forget
about the purity of your blood and your ancestral
history and tell me what you think about yaws any
way."
It was as large as a silver dollar, that yaw, and it took
all of three weeks to heal. There were times when
326 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
Charmian could not walk because of the hurt of it;
and there were times upon times when she explained
that abaft the ankle-bone was the most painful place to
have a yaw. I explained, in turn, that, never having
experienced a yaw in that locality, I was driven to con-
The Snark s Complement in the Solomons after we lost the Cook and
gained a German Mate who didn t last.
elude the hollow of the instep was the most painful place
for yaw-culture. We left it to Martin, who disagreed
with both of us and proclaimed passionately that the
only truly painful place was the shin. No wonder
horse-racing is so popular.
But yaws lose their novelty after a time. At the
present moment of writing I have five yaws on my
THE AMATEUR M.D. 327
hands and three more on my shin. Charmian has one
on each side of her right instep. Tehei is frantic with
his. Martin s latest shin-cultures have eclipsed his
earlier ones. And Nakata has several score casually
eating away at his tissue. But the history of the
Snark in the Solomons has been the history of every
ship since the early discoverers. From the " Sailing
Directions " I quote the following:
"The crews of vessels remaining any considerable time in the
Solomons find wounds and sores liable to change into malignant
ulcers."
Nor on the question of fever were the "Sailing Direc
tions " any more encouraging, for in them I read :
"New arrivals are almost certain sooner or later to suffer from fever.
The natives are also subject to it. The number of deaths among the
whites in the year 1897 amounted to 9 among a population of 50."
Some of these deaths, however, were accidental.
Nakata was the first to come down with fever.
This occurred at Penduffryn. Wada and Henry fol
lowed him. Charmian surrendered next. I managed
to escape for a couple of months ; but when I was
bowled over, Martin sympathetically joined me several
days later. Out of the seven of us all told Tehei is
the only one who has escaped ; but his sufferings from
nostalgia are worse than fever. Nakata, as usual,
followed instructions faithfully, so that by the end of
his third attack he could take a two hours sweat, con
sume thirty or forty grains of quinine, and be weak
but all right at the end of twenty-four hours.
Wada and Henry, however, were tougher patients
with which to deal. In the first place, Wada got in a
328 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
bad funk. He was of the firm conviction that his star
had set and that the Solomons would receive his bones.
He saw that life about him was cheap. At Penduffryn
he saw the ravages of dysentery, and, unfortunately for
him, he saw one victim carried out on a strip of galvan
ized sheet-iron and dumped without coffin or funeral
into a hole in the ground. Everybody had fever,
everybody had dysentery, everybody had everything.
Death was common. Here to-day and gone to-mor
row and Wada forgot all about to-day and made up
his mind that to-morrow had come.
He was careless of his ulcers, neglected to sublimate
them, and by uncontrolled scratching spread them all
over his body. Nor would he follow instructions with
fever, and, as a result, would be down five days at a
time, when a day would have been sufficient. Henry,
who is a strapping giant of a man, was just as bad.
He refused point blank to take quinine, on the ground
that years before he had had fever and that the pills
the doctor gave him were of different size and color
from the quinine tablets I offered him. So Henry
joined 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. I
slammed a lot of quinine down their throats and took
their temperature. It was the first time I had used
my 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 my
two patients that the thermometer did not work, there
would have been two funerals in short order. Their
temperature I swear was 105. I solemnly made one
THE AMATEUR M.D. 329
and then the other smoke the thermometer, allowed an
expression of satisfaction to irradiate my countenance,
and joyfully told them that their temperature was 94.
Then I slammed more quinine down their throats, told
them that any sickness or weakness they might ex
perience would be due to the quinine, and left them to
get well. And they did get well, Wada in spite of
himself. If a man can die through a misapprehension,
is there any immorality in making him live through a
misapprehension ?
Commend me the white race when it comes to grit
and surviving. One of our two Japanese and both our
Tahitians funked and had to be slapped on the back and
cheered up and dragged along by main strength toward
life. Charmian and Martin took their afflictions cheer
fully, made the least of them, and moved with calm
certitude along the way of life. When Wada and
Henry were convinced that they were going to die, the
funeral atmosphere was too much for Tehei, who
prayed dolorously and cried for hours at a time.
Martin, on the other hand, cursed and got well, and
Charmian groaned and made plans for what she was
going to do when she got well again.
Charmian had been raised a vegetarian and a sani
tarian. Her Aunt Netta, who brought her up and
who lived in a healthful climate, did not believe in
drugs. Neither did Charmian. Besides, drugs dis
agreed with her. Their effects were worse than the ills
they were supposed to alleviate. But she listened to
the argument in favor of quinine, accepted it as the
lesser evil, and in consequence had shorter, less painful,
and less frequent attacks of fever. We encountered a
Mr. Caulfeild, a missionary, whose two predecessors
330 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
had died after less than six months residence in the
Solomons. Like them he had been a firm believer in
homeopathy, until after his first fever, whereupon,
unlike them, he made a grand slide back to allopathy
and quinine, catching fever and carrying on his Gospel
work.
But poor Wada ! The straw that broke the cook s
back was when Charmian and I took him along on a
cruise to the cannibal island of Malaita, in a small
yacht, on the deck of which the captain had been
murdered half a year before. Kai-kai means to eat,
and Wada was sure he was going to be kai-kat d.
We went about heavily armed, our vigilance was un
remitting, and when we went for a bath in the mouth
of a fresh-water stream, black boys, armed with rifles,
did sentry duty about us. We encountered English
war vessels burning and shelling villages in punish
ment for murders. Natives with prices on their heads
sought shelter on board of us. Murder stalked abroad
in the land. In out-of-the-way places we received
warnings from friendly savages of impending attacks.
Our vessel owed two heads to Malaita, which were
liable to be collected any time. Then to cap it all,
we were wrecked on a reef, and with rifles in one hand
warned the canoes of wreckers off while with the
other hand we toiled to save the ship. All of which
was too much for Wada, who went daffy, and who finally
quit the Snark on the island of Ysabel, going ashore
for good in a driving rain-storm, between two attacks
of fever, while threatened with pneumonia. If he
escapes being kai-kai d, and if he can survive sores and
fever which are riotous ashore, he can expect, if he is
reasonably lucky, to get away from that place to the
THE AMATEUR M.D. 331
adjacent island in anywhere from six to eight weeks.
He never did think much of my medicine, despite the
fact that I successfully and at the first trial pulled two
aching teeth for him.
The Snark has been a hospital for months, and I
confess that we are getting used to it. At Meringe
Lagoon, where we careened and cleaned the Snark s
copper, there were times when only one man of us was
able to go into the water, while the three white men on
the plantation ashore were all down with fever. At
the moment of writing this we are lost at sea somewhere
northeast of Ysabel and trying vainly to find Lord
Howe island, which is an atoll that cannot be sighted
unless one is on top of it. The chronometer has gone
wrong. The sun does not shine anyway, nor can I get
a star observation at night, and we have had nothing
but squalls and rain for days and days. The cook is
gone. Nakata, who has been trying to be both cook
and cabin boy, is down on his back with fever. Martin
is just up from fever, and going down again. Charmian,
whose fever has become periodical, is looking up in
her date book to find when the next attack will be.
Henry has begun to eat quinine in an expectant mood.
And, since my attacks hit me with the suddenness of
bludgeon-blows, I do not know from moment to moment
when I shall be brought down. By a mistake we gave
our last flour away to some white men who did not
have any flour. We don t know when we ll make
land. Our Solomon sores are worse than ever, and
more numerous. The corrosive sublimate was accident
ally left ashore at Penduffryn ; the peroxide of hydrogen
is exhausted ; and I am experimenting with boracic
acid, lysol, and antiphlogystine. At any rate, if I fail
THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
in becoming a reputable M.D., it won t be from lack
of practice.
P.S. It is now two weeks since the foregoing was
written, and Tehei, the only immune on board, has
been down ten days with far severer fever than any of
us and is still down. His temperature has been re
peatedly as high as 104, and his pulse 115.
P.S. At sea, between Tas-
man atoll and Manning Straits.
Tehei s attack developed
into black water fever the
severest form of malarial fever,
which, the doctor-book assures
me, is due to some outside in-
fection as well. Having pulled
him through his fever, I am
now at my wit s end, for he
has lost his wits altogether. I
am rather recent in practice to
take up the cure of insanity.
This makes the second lunacy
case on this short voyage.
P.S. Some day I shall
write a book (for the profes
sion), and entitle it, "Around
the World on the Hospital
Ship Snark" Even our pets have not escaped. We
sailed from Meringe Lagoon with two, an Irish terrier
and a white cockatoo. The terrier fell down the cabin
companionway and lamed its nigh hind leg, then re
peated the manoeuvre and lamed its off fore leg. At the
present moment it has but two legs to walk on. Fortu
nately, they are on opposite sides and ends, so that she
Laundry Bills are not among
his Vexations. His Garb,
however, is a Concession to
Civilization. Lord Howe
Atoll.
THE AMATEUR M.D. 333
can still dot and carry two. The cockatoo was crushed
under the cabin skylight and had to be killed. This
was our first funeral though for that matter, the
several chickens we had, and which would have made
welcome broth for the convalescents, flew overboard
and were drowned. Only the cockroaches flourish.
Neither illness nor accident ever befalls them, and they
grow larger and more carnivorous day by day, gnawing
our finger-nails and toe-nails while we sleep.
P.S. Charmian is having another bout with fever.
Martin, in despair, has taken to horse-doctoring his
yaws with bluestone and to blessing the Solomons.
As for me, in addition to navigating, doctoring, and
writing short stories, I am far from well. With the
exception of the insanity cases, I m the worst ofFon board.
I shall catch the next steamer to Australia and go on the
operating table. Among my minor afflictions, I may
mention a new and mysterious one. For the past week
my hands have been swelling as with dropsy. It is only
by a painful effort that I can close them. A pull on
a rope is excruciating. The sensations are like those
that accompany severe chilblains. Also, the skin is
peeling off both hands at an alarming rate, besides
which the new skin underneath is growing hard and
thick. The doctor-book fails to mention this disease.
Nobody knows what it is.
P.S. Well, anyway, I ve cured the chronometer.
After knocking about the sea for eight squally, rainy
days, most of the time hove to, I succeeded in catching
a partial observation of the sun at midday. From this
I worked up my latitude, then headed by log to the
latitude of Lord Ho we, and ran both that latitude and the
island down together. Here I tested the chronometer
334 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
by longitude sights and found it something like three
minutes out. Since each minute is equivalent to fifteen
miles, the total error can be appreciated. By repeated
observations at Lord Howe I rated the chronometer,
The Trader s House at Lua Nua, Lord Howe Atoll.
finding it to have a daily losing error of seven-tenths
of a second. Now it happens that a year ago, when we
sailed from Hawaii, that selfsame chronometer had
that selfsame losing error of seven-tenths of a second.
Since that error was faithfully added every day, and
THE AMATEUR M.D. 335
since that error, as proved by my observations at Lord
Howe, has not changed, then what under the sun made
that chronometer all of a sudden accelerate and catch
up with itself three minutes ? Can such things be ?
Expert watchmakers say no ; but I say that they have
never done any expert watchmaking and watch-rating in
the Solomons. That it is the climate ismy only diagno
sis. At any rate, I have successfully doctored the chro
nometer, even if I have failed with the lunacy cases
ami with Martin s yaws.
P.S. Martin has just tried burnt alum, and is bless
ing the Solomons more fervently than ever.
P.S. Between Manning Straits and Pavuvu Islands.
Henry has developed rheumatism in his back, ten
skins have peeled off my hands and the eleventh is now
peeling, while Tehei is more lunatic than ever and day
and night prays God not to kill him. Also, Nakata
and I are slashing away at fever again. And finally up
to date, Nakata last evening had an attack of ptomaine
poisoning, and we spent half the night pulling him
through.
BACKWORD
THE Snark was forty-three feet on the water-line
and fifty-five over all, with fifteen feet beam (tumble-
home sides) and seven feet eight inches draft. She was
ketch-rigged, carrying flying-jib, jib, fore-staysail, main
sail, mizzen, and spinnaker. There were six feet of
head-room below, and she was crown-decked and flush-
decked. There were four alleged water-tight compart
ments. A seventy-horse power auxiliary gas-engine
sporadically furnished locomotion at an approximate cost
of twenty dollars per mile. A five-horse power engine
ran the pumps when it was in order, and on two occasions
proved capable of furnishing juice for the search-light.
The storage batteries worked four or five times in the
course of two years. The fourteen-foot launch was
rumored to work at times, but it invariably broke down
whenever I stepped on board.
But the Snark sailed. It was the only way she could
get anywhere. She sailed for two years, and never
touched rock, reef, nor shoal. She had no inside ballast,
her iron keel weighed five tons, but her deep draft and
high freeboard made her very stiff. Caught under full
sail in tropic squalls, she buried her rail and deck many
times, butstubbornly refused to turn turtle. She steered
easily, and she could run day and night, without steer
ing, close-by, full-and-by, and with the wind abeam.
With the wind on her quarter and the sails properly
33 6
BACKWORD 337
trimmed, she steered herself within two points, and
with the wind almost astern she required scarcely three
points for self-steering.
The Snark was partly built in San Francisco. The
morning her iron keel was to be cast was the morning
of the great earthquake. Then came anarchy. Six
months overdue in the building, I sailed the shell of her
to Hawaii to be finished, the engine lashed to the bottom,
building materials lashed on deck. Had I remained in
San Francisco for completion, Fd still be there. As it
was, partly built, she cost four times what she ought to
have cost.
The Snark was born unfortunately. She was libelled
in San Francisco, had her checks protested as fraudulent
in Hawaii, and was fined for breach of quarantine in the
Solomons. To save themselves, the newspapers could
not tell the truth about her. When I discharged an in
competent captain, they said I had beaten him to a pulp.
When one young man returned home to continue at
college, it was reported that I was a regular Wolf Larsen,
and that my whole crew had deserted because I had
beaten it to a pulp. In fact the only blow struck on the
Snark was when the cook was manhandled by a captain
who had shipped with me under false pretences, and whom
I discharged in Fiji. Also, Charmian and I boxed for
exercise; but neither of us was seriously maimed.
The voyage was our idea of a good time. I built
the Snark and paid for it, and for all expenses. I con
tracted to write thirty-five thousand words descriptive
of the trip for a magazine which was to pay me the same
rate I received for stories written at home. Promptly
the magazine advertised that it was sending me espe
cially around the world for itself. It was a wealthy
3J8 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
magazine. And every man who had business dealings
with the Snark charged three prices because forsooth
the magazine could afford it. Down in the uttermost
South Sea isle this myth obtained, and I paid accord
ingly. To this day everybody believes that the maga
zine paid for everything and that I made a fortune out
of the voyage. It is hard, after such advertising, to
hammer it into the human understanding that the whole
voyage was done for the fun of it.
I went to Australia to go into hospital, where I spent
five weeks. I spent five months miserably sick in
hotels. The mysterious malady that afflicted my hands
was too much for the Australian specialists. It was
unknown in the literature of medicine. No case like
it had ever been reported. It extended from my hands
to my feet so that at times I was as helpless as a child.
On occasion my hands were twice their natural size,
with seven dead and dying skins peeling off at the same
time. There were times when my toe-nails, in twenty-
four hours, grew as thick as they were long. After
filing 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, it must be
nervous. It did not mend, and it was impossible for
me to continue the voyage. The only way I could
have continued it would have been by being lashed in
my bunk, for in my helpless condition, unable to clutch
with my hands, I could not have moved about on a
small rolling boat. Also, I said to myself that while
there were many boats and many voyages, I had but
one pair of hands and one set of toe-nails. Still further,
I reasoned that in my own climate of California I had
BACKWORD 339
always maintained a stable nervous equilibrium. So
back I came.
Since my return I have completely recovered. And
I have found out what was the matter with me. I en
countered a book by Lieutenant Colonel Charles E.
Woodruff of the United States Army entitled " Effects
of Tropical Light on White Men." Then I knew.
Later, I met Colonel Woodruff, and learned that he
had been similarly afflicted. Himself an Army surgeon,
seventeen Army surgeons sat on his case in the Philip
pines, and, like the Australian specialists, confessed
themselves beaten. In brief, I had a strong predis
position toward the tissue-destructiveness of tropical
light. I was being torn to pieces by the ultra-violet
rays just as many experimenters with the X-ray have
been torn to pieces.
In passing, I may mention that among the other
afflictions that jointly compelled the abandonment of
the voyage, was one that is variously called the healthy
man s disease, European Leprosy, and Biblical Leprosy.
Unlike True Leprosy, nothing is known of this mys
terious malady. No doctor has ever claimed a cure
for a case of it, though spontaneous cures are recorded.
It comes, they know not how. It is, they know not
what. It goes, they know not why. Without the use
of drugs, merely by living in the wholesome California
climate, my silvery skin vanished. The only hope the
doctors had held out to me was a spontaneous cure,
and such a cure was mine.
A last word : the test of the voyage. It is easy
enough for me or any man to say that it was enjoyable.
But there is a better witness, the one woman who made
it from beginning to end. In hospital when I broke
340 THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
the news to Charmian that I must go back to Cali
fornia, the tears welled into her eyes. For two days
she was wrecked and broken by the knowledge that the
happy, happy voyage was abandoned.
GLEN ELLEN, CALIFORNIA,
April 7, 1911.
14 DAY USE
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Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.
m-
OCT 7 1979
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OCT M 67.9
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General Library
University of California
Berkeley
2789
UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY
I
