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THE LOG OF THE SNARK

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.

TORONTO

Jack and Charmian London

THE

LOG OF THE SNARK

CHARMIAN KITTREDGE LONDON

Hark
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1916

All right* reserved

Set up and electrotyped. Published, Octobei 1915

November, 1916.

MY HUSBAND

who made possible these happiest and most
wonderful pages of my life.

382583

^
I
J

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Jack and Charmian London ...... . . Frontispiece

FACING

PAGE

The Oaken Frame of the Snark .......... 26

Her Trick at the Wheel

Jack Harpooning .......... ... 50

Wada's Dolphin

The Beach at Taiohae 1 78

Marquesan Tattooing j .......... *

Marquesans Dancing ............. 102

Human Hair Dancing Dress, Turtle Crown, and Old Men's \

Beards I 122

The Nature Man in Street Costume J

Snark at Tahiti -|

Double Canoe, Bora Bora I ........ , ... 156

"Porpoises!" J

Off for Tahaa with Tehei \ 17ft

Pahia, Bora-Bora /

From left to right: Vaega, Mrs. London, Mr. Morrison, "j

Tuimanua I onA

Off Manua
Upolu J

Pa Williams 1 224

Village Beau, Samoa J

Lava-choked Graves \ O-A

Lava Pouring into the Sea, Savaii / '

^|
>
J

Samoan

Bush Woman, Tana > ............. 275

Taupous, Samoa

Port Resolution, Tana ")

The Skipper, "After Suva" ^ ............ 304

The Puzzled Monkey-Brow J

Houseboys at Pennduffyrn "I o98

A Dream of the Southern Seas / '

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A Tambo Canoe House "1

Mangrove j .11... 356

A Kingpost and a King 375

Ugi ,., • 400

The Impact of Civilisation 1

Houseboys at Pennduffryn /••••••••'••• 430

Guadalcanal ^

The Squall off Lord Howe L , 454

A Cannibal Venice J

Snark Careened at Meringe 1

The Rembrandt Skipper I , .. 430

A Polynesian Prince

THE BEGINNING

It was all due to Captain Joshua Slocum and his Spray,
plus our own wayward tendencies. We read him aloud to
the 1905 camp children at Wake Robin Lodge, in the Val-
ley of the Moon, as we sat in the hot sun resting between
water fights and games of tag in the deep swimming pool.
Sailing Alone Around the World was the name of the book,
and when Jack closed the cover on the last chapter, there
was a new idea looking out of his eyes. Joshua Slocum did
it all alone, in a thirty-seven-foot sloop. Why could not we
do it, in a somewhat larger boat, with a little more sociable
crew? Jack and I loved the water, and a long voyage was
our dream. He and Roscoe fell at once to discussing the
scheme, the rest of us listening fascinated.

This was a few months before we were married. "Say
we start five years from now," figured Jack, who always
seems to be making plans for a tangible eternity. "We'll
build our house on the ranch and get the place started with
orchard and vines and livestock, at the same time going
ahead with boat-drawings and building a yacht to suit.
Five years will not be too much time."

Then, privily, he asked what I thought of it. Too good
to be true, was what I thought; but why wait so long?
We'd never be younger than we were, and, besides, what
was the good of putting up a home and leaving it for seven
years? — seven years being the time roughly calculated to
carry out our far-reaching plan. I won the day.

And the boat. She should be ketch-rigged, like the Eng-
lish fishing boats on the Dogger Bank. We had never seen

vii

viii THE BEGINNING

a ketch, but knew that for our purpose it combined the
virtues of both schooner and yawl. There should be six feet
of head-room, under flush decks unbroken save by com-
panionway, skylights, and hatches. The roomy cockpit
should be sunk deep beneath the deck, high-railed and self-
bailing. There should be no hold, all space being occupied
by accoutrement, and engines — one a seventy horse-power
auxiliary, and one five horse-power to spin out electric lights
and fans. Forty-five feet should be her water-line, with
a length over all of fifty-seven feet. She should draw six
feet, with no inside ballast, but with fifty tons of iron on
the keel. There should be used only the strongest and best
materials of every kind — a solid, serviceable deep-sea craft,
the strongest of her size ever constructed.

But we counted without the Great Earthquake of April
18, 1906. The vessel was already begun, and the iron keel
was actually to have been cast the night of April 18. Fol-
lowing that date, what we did not suffer from damage to
other property, was inflicted by post-earthquake conditions
which made our shipbuilding triply expensive and incom-
prehensibly protracted. Everybody and everything went
mad; and it was nearly a year after the delayed laying of
her doughty keel that the yacht, unfinished, unclean, her
seventy horse-power engine a heap of scrap-iron from the
ignorant tinkering that had been done to it, sailed from
California for Hawaii, manned, or unmanned, by a more or
less discouraged crew, whose original adventurous spirits
and efficiency had been sorely dampened by the weary post-
ponement of departure dates. The final one was set behind
an extra week-end by a ship chandler who libelled the yacht
because he was afraid he would not get his last bill paid,
the while Jack was settling accounts right and left aboard
the boat, one pocket full of gold and silver, the other con-
taining check-book and fountain pen.

However, Jack and I were undaunted, if sad and puzzled,
and all those months of waiting worked hard to meet the

THE BEGINNING ix

expenses of incredible mismanagement, going about drown-
ing our disgust in libations of poetry, such, for instance, as :

"We must go, go, go away from here;

On the other side the world we're overdue."

Or,

"You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind,
And the thresh of the deep-sea rain ;
You have heard the song — how long? how long?
Pull out on the trail again!"

I am sure we ought to thank Mr. Kipling for contributing
largely to our undauntedness.

The naming of the yacht was not the least of our diffi-
culties. Friends were prolific with Petrels and Sea Birds;
they even dared White Wings and Sea Wolves, not to men-
tion Calls of the Wild. Jack recalled Mr. Lewis Carroll's
The Hunting of the Snark, and held that name up as a
warning inducement for better suggestions. Such were not
forthcoming, and when we sailed for Hawaii, the elliptic
American stern bore the gilded inscription:

SNARK
San Francisco

Now the way my Log came to be written was mostly due
to Jack. Be it known that he detests letter-writing, although
a more enthusiastic recipient of correspondence never slit an
envelope. His friends consider him sheerly selfish, but I
can vouch that he is very busy. At any rate, when I decided
to keep a typewritten diary, to be circulated in lieu of indi-
vidual letters, my husband hailed the scheme with acclaim.

And here it is, my journal — the one accurate, continuous
story of the adventures of the Snark, from San Francisco
Bay to the Cannibal Isles.

CHARMIAN KITTREDGE LONDON.
Aboard Yacht Roamer.

Sacramento River, January, 1915.

... To burst all links of habit — there to wander far away,
On from island unto island at the gateways of the day."

THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Aboard the Snark, Pacific Ocean,

Thursday, April 25, 1907.

IT is too good to keep any longer, this joy of living that
is beginning to make itself felt aboard the Snark. For
an hour I've been dangling my feet over the edge of the
life-boat lashed on the deck to windward, watching the
purple water swash in and out of the lee scuppers. Our
midday meal is finished, concocted by Martin and myself
(Martin has been and still is a little worse off from sea-
sickness than I), and we are all comfortably lazy.' And
speaking of the joy of living as felt aboard the Snark, it is
a matter of degree. Martin has not yet come to feel it;
and Tochigi, our alleged cabin-boy, has succumbed to the
effects of mat de mer with the characteristic abandon of the
Asiatic. He can't or thinks he can't lift a finger, and as
there are many fingers necessarily to be lifted in the manage-
ment of the ship, he is very much needed in our midst.

But the water is purple, and I am recovering from my
seasickness, which seemed quite violent to me, but was in
reality a mild attack. Roscoe and Bert have had no nausea,
but a heavy lassitude has taken the place of ordinary
seasickness. The five-horse-power engine is pumping ' ' juice ' '
into the storage batteries, our dinner is settling in the most
encouraging manner, the life-boat is being packed with staples
of diet, for emergency, the deck has been hosed down — al-
though Jack was the only one with energy enough to make
a start at it; and, joy of joys, the Snark, under mainsail,
staysail, jib, and fly ing- jib, is steering herself night and day.
This is a great relief, because several hours at the wheel,
keeping the course (south by east), is very monotonous, as

4 TEE LOO OF THE SNARK

well ss t>mg t'> th* untried spine. But we keep a wary
eye upon the compass, and of course set regular watches at
night.

We have been out only three days from Oakland wharf
and all the souls who waved us farewell and fair weather;
but there is so much to tell. To begin with, the water is
purple, and such purple ! Jack and I took a trip out to the
end of the bowsprit this afternoon, and sat for a long time
watching our little white ship cleave the amethyst flood.
Afterward we lay over the stern-rail, looking at the red-
gold rudder dragging through the purple. Do you remem-
ber that gorgeous picture by Maxfield Parrish, c * Sinbad the
Sailor"? The colours we have seen to-day rival its oriental
splendour of indigo and gold and purple.

Just this moment, reminiscent of our sally out on the bow-
sprit, I glanced that way. Behold Jack ! arrayed in Jimmie
Hopper's famous blue-and-gold sweater, gazing again at the
purple water under the bow; Jimmie Hopper's first 'Varsity
sweater, which we flew at our mast-head when we left Oak-
land.

This morning Jack called to me, "Hurry on deck — the
ocean is alive with Portuguese men-o'-war!" My first
thought was one of alarm; next I wished Jack would say
"water" instead of "ocean" — the latter sounded so remote.
(You see, in my inner consciousness I am still on land.)
Then I oriented myself, took a good look at the "mighty
wet," the "prodigious damp" that encompassed us, and be-
gan to shake the land-dust out of my brain. The fearsome
Portuguese men-o'-war turned out to be pretty, jelly-like
bits of life — turquoise-blue, transparent organisms, each with
a milky, finny sail hoisted to the breeze. The sea was float-
ing countless myriads of them, and we hauled one or two
aboard in a canvas bucket, finding them no less beautiful at
close range.

Then the gunies. (I said there was much to tell.) First
day, one guny; second day, two gunies; to-day, four gunies.
And they will eat anything but orange-peel. A human be-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 5

ing is the only animal that has sense enough to make use of
orange-peel — though he disguises it pretty thoroughly be-
fore he finds it palatable. A guny — in case you don 't happen
to know — looks like a dark-grey, overgrown seagull, until
he essays to fold his wings upon the water. Then there is a
difference. I say " tries" to fold his wings, because each
attempt appears to be a brand-new experiment, each experi-
ment rivalling the last in awkwardness. Once folded down,
the three- jointed pinions do not always seem to sit comfort-
ably, whereupon the bird fusses around and re-settles them
until, possibly, another bird has eaten what he was after.
These are the birds that get seasick when they are captured.
I'd like to see something seasick besides a human being.
And I 'd like to see Tochigi make even a feeble attempt to be
something else than a corpse. It cannot be possible that he
enjoys seasickness ! He was ever a willing worker.

But do not think for a moment that watching gunies and
Portuguese men-o'-war and purple seas have been my only
occupations. I have cleaned up the greasy, filthy, littered
floors of the engine room, the bathroom, two staterooms, and,
with poor sick Martin's help, the cabin. I did not think I
could stay so long below; but the mess was unbearable, al-
though it did not seem to bother any one but Jack and me.
You should have seen my hands these three days. But I
have made merry with much soap, strong ammonia, and as
little precious fresh water as was practicable. Now I feel
more like a white woman.

Have I said anything about the weather? It would not
do to leave the weather out of a Log. We anchored off the
Alameda Pier the day we bade Oakland good-bye, Monday,
and spent the night there under starry skies. The next day
was overcast ; Wednesday was overcast ; Thursday, to-day, is
overcast, and we have had no observation. Our patent log
registers about seventy-five miles for the past twenty-four
hours and now, at five o 'clock p. M., we are swinging along
in a fresh breeze, still overcast, a faint silver sunset on the
grey horizon.

6 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Later. — They are rigging up a topsail to put speed on the
yacht, and Bert has climbed the mainmast to straighten out
something. He is a goodly sight, clinging high, his bare,
powerful arms working at the swaying masthead. The extra
sail is making the boat drive faster, but something is wrong
with it, and although adding to our speed, it is so horribly
ill-setting that Roscoe is promptly taking it down. And oh !
it's great, this rush of wind and wave — a wonderful new
life, all the working of this little world of plank and iron
and brass and canvas. And if I can feel enthusiasm while
my stomach is still wavering between belt and throat, fancy
the enjoyment to come.

At sea, Friday, April 26, 1907.

This has been a very exciting day. Listen : Jack shaved,
and I washed my face and hands. If you are inclined to
smile at our simple pleasures and excitements, stop and con-
sider if it is really funny for a water-loving crowd to go
without washing for forty-eight hours or so. I love to wash
my hands. Ordinarily I wash them a thousand times a day,
more or less. So imagine the black filth and oil and grease
and the seasickness that could make me more contented to
sleep and wake in grime than to make a fight for cleanliness.
I hope that I may never again be so soiled and unkempt.
However, there's nothing like being adaptable. It is what
makes a trip around the world.

I further celebrated to-day by manicuring Jack's and my
own nails. It took me all of three hours. If I move too
rapidly, I'm liable to lose my latest meal. I am having
my turn at the prevalent lassitude, lying in the life-boat for
hours without ambition enough to open my eyes. The crew
seems to be demoralised. "Work doesn't go on. There is no
system about anything, and this spirit is contagious. Jack
is growing restive, but has not yet interfered. Some piece
of work on deck is begun, and never finished, and the gen-
eral lack of interest is astounding.

The sky is overcast, for a change, and winds are variable.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 7

Eighty miles have been left behind since yesterday noon.
We are beginning to wonder about all the fish Jack promised
us, for we have not seen a single one. Jack trolls, but has no
luck. There is not even a flying-fish, the herald of the
king, which is the dolphin. The Portuguese men-o '-war still
escort us, and an occasional guny casts a shadow on the deck.
Oh! for a sunny day. These cloudy skies are indescribably
depressing. They are not heavy clouds — every now and
then the blue breaks through or a bit of sunlight straggles
down, only to withdraw again behind the pall. I can see
my first stormy petrels, Mother Gary's chickens. (NOTE.
If I make any mistakes, please remember that I am calling
things by the names that are given me by those aboard who
have either sailed the seas before, or have read extensively
about the sea. Now, I don't know whether yon sable scav-
engers are yclept gunies or gonies. No one, upon being
pressed, can help me out. I can only go my phonetic way —
even the dictionary fails me. Jack and Roscoe pronounce
it goo-ny, and * ' guny " is as near as I care to come to that.
There is nothing so valuable as a husband upon whom a
woman can shirk her responsibilities.)

Tochigi came to life to-night while the rest of us were
trying to consume a shifting dinner (except Martin, who
peered jealously down from his bunk-shelf at the table he
had furnished and of which he could not partake) — Tochigi,
I say, came to life and feebly piped over the edge of his
bunk: "Mr. London, I think I could take my watch to-
night." Of course we knew he couldn't — he was weak as a
whisper; but it was encouraging to hear him offer, he had
so utterly succumbed up to then. While the rest of us who
are seasick are alternately working and sloughing off our
nourishment, he refuses to leave his bunk except for the last-
named exigency (which has become rather attenuated by
now), and meanwhile his cabin-work lapses and conditions
below are unspeakable. If I looked at it all with land-eyes,
I know I could not stand it. But I brought an extra pair
of eyes with me, for it doesn't always pay to observe too

8 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

closely. I have earnestly tried to ease the disorder below,
but cannot keep abreast of the accumulation; besides, it
makes Jack indignant to see me dd it. The aforesaid joy of
living is considerably dampened by the demoralisation
aboard.

We had a three-handed game of Hearts before eight, this
evening, after which I took my watch, from eight until ten.
The moon showed occasionally, in a sickly, unwilling sort
of way, and the sunset ought to have been ashamed of itself.

At sea, Saturday, April 27, 1907.

This also has been an exciting day, but in a different way.
There was a steady increase in wind, with the accustomed
overcast sky, until it was blowing what the men called l i half
a summer gale/7 although to me it seemed far more than
that. In the morning we sat in and around the cockpit for
a while, very jolly, talking about the colour of the water and
the size of the swells and the sailing qualities of the yacht.
A boat is as absorbing a topic as a horse, for lengthy discus-
sion. Little did we dream what we were to learn about her
before the day and night were gone. You see, when a boat
is built, no matter upon what lines or by what rules, no man
knows what peculiarities may show up. Boats are as un-
certain as babies. It is too dreadful. Let me take my time.

As the wind kept on freshening, sail was shortened and
two reefs were put in the mainsail; and finally Jack and
Roscoe decided that it would be best to heave to for the
night so that all hands could have some sleep, rather than
set long watches for the wise ones or to trust the steering to
the green, hands — as it was a case of running before the wind
with a little rag of a flying-jib if we sailed at all.

Toward night the weather looked very nasty indeed (I
knew I'd have a chance to report some weather), the waves
seemed enormous to me, the Snark rolled and pitched, water
running deep across her deck, water sloshing around below

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 9

and squirting up through the floors, water squeezing in
through the buried side and into the galley stores and all
over the dishes and stove. But the boat acted well in the
heavy seas, until it came to putting her through the paces of
heaving to. Heaving to means bringing a vessel's head up
into the wind, the sails being trimmed to hold her that way
any length of time. This means safety so long as a sail stays
on a boat.

Now, listen well; the Snark refused to heave to. Not all
the efforts of three men for hours and hours could make her
heave to. She simply wallowed — and most creditably wal-
lowed, it must be confessed — in the trough of the sea, but
would come no farther into the wind. Fortunately the gale
did not increase, nor was it cold. But oh, the hills and
valleys of the ocean! There may be real storms for the
Snark somewhere on the wide ocean of our adventure; but
the waves this day loomed quite large enough on my new
horizon. If they had been really big waves, we, rolling there
in the trough, might have been turned over and over, with
only a stray life-preserver left floating upon the boundless
briny to tell that the Snark had been lost with all on board.
And, of course, the wind might have blown harder, and the
worst might have happened, with the yacht acting as she did.
The final thing to be done, in a case like this, or in any ex-
treme case, is to put out a sea anchor, a contrivance of can-
vas and half-hoops that is warranted to hold to the wind
the head of 'most anything that floats. So our sea-anchor
was rigged up. And it failed. Then Jack and Koscoe stood
by the mizzen and talked it over with serious faces. They
had tried everything, every possible combination of sails
that they could think of, and failed to bring the yacht up
nearer than eight points into the wind, which means that we
were rolling in the trough, as I have said. The men talked
it over, wondered at the incredible fact of the failure, and
could solve nothing of the wonder. I wish I had a picture
of the three, in the pale grey moonlight that drifted through
the flying clouds, leaning over the forward weather rail

10 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

watching the sea-anchor. It will be with me always, that
grey scene, the three darker grey forms in oilskins, the heads
in sou 'westers, leaning at the same angle, hanging upon the
success of that sea-anchor.

There is no explaining these things that happened this
day. I can only tell the facts and leave folk to wonder as
we wonder.

All these hours I stood in the cockpit hovering over the
compass, wheel hard down, watching vainly, oh ! how vainly,
for the yacht to round up into the wind, and at the same
time marvelling that some of the grey seas which brimmed to
the very lip of the rail did not come aboard and whelm us.
I remember, some years ago, figuring out that I was too old
to die young ; but this grey night, especially after I went to
bed in my rubber boots, I caught myself dwelling on the con-
clusion that I was too young to die !

The other day I was bending over the stern watching the
rudder trail golden through the purple water, when the
mizzen boom unexpectedly jibed over. (This purple water
will be the death of me yet. ) I was in imminent danger, but
knew nothing about it until Jack cried "Mate! come back!
Come back! Quick!" At the same time he grabbed me
and jerked me over a coil of rope and the rail into the cock-
pit. I might have been badly injured by the swift-swinging
tackle. I can see Jack's face as he pulled me in. One sees
many things in faces at such moments. The wheel needed
his undivided attention to avert a possible smash-up of every-
thing on deck ; but the man left the ship to save the woman.
"There are many boats, but only one woman," he briefly
summed it up.

At sea, April 28, 1907, Sunday.

It is not physically restful to sleep in one's sea-boots —
nor mentally restful, what of one's reasons for so sleeping.
There is a sense of responsibility every moment of every
night, let alone a night like last night. And little of a sailor
though I am, I cannot help sharing this sense of responsibil-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 11

ity. Jack bears the heaviest share, of course ; and it is not
to be wondered at, when you consider that outside of himself
our only sailor is a bay-yachtsman.

We ran before the wind all last night, and learned another
thing about the Snark — that she can run beautifully, even if
she can't — or won't — heave to. (Certain sage acquaintances
of ours in San Francisco, for some unexplained reason
wagged their heads over the lines of the Snark and said that
in the very nature of things she would never be able to run.
Why they thought so, or why they thought they thought so,
they seemed unable to say. But I wish they could have seen
her race that breeze last night.)

Jack, Koscoe and Bert divided the hours into three
watches, for I was not expected to steer in such a sea, nor
did I care to attempt it. Four-hour watches are anxious
stretches for a tyro in an ugly wind and sea.

Coming on deck this morning, I stopped in the companion-
way to watch my man at the wheel. His face, framed in the
sou 'wester, was toward me ; but his big sad eyes were turned
aside to the bitter sea. Four hours and more he had stood
there guiding his boat of disappointment, his boat that will
not heave to in a storm, that will not even mind that last
resort, the sea-anchor — a boat that would be a death-trap on
a lee-shore.

But as the day wore on and the wind blew more gently,
and the waves went down a bit, and the sun came out and
made the water purple, every one grew more cheerful. De-
vices, to be worked out in Honolulu for correcting the terrible
fault of the boat, were thought out and discussed, and we
were able to make jokes at one another's expense, and to
mourn over Aunt Villa's Christmas fruit-cake, made months
before the voyage, and upon which somebody put a heavy
box in the engine-room the night before. I remember
going down into the dark and swash and saving a huge chunk
of the shattered goody, and trying to feed it to the hungry,
toiling, heart-sick men on deck. There had been no dinner,
no hot coffee, nothing but disappointment and a damp bed.

12 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Martin was very ill, and gazed down from his bunk with
lack-lustre eyes. I don 't know what is the matter with him.
It is not all seasickness; but the seasickness is so blended
with other things that one cannot name his trouble. Prob-
ably he has the grippe in conjunction with the seasickness.
During the trouble in the night, Martin heard Jack mutter
something about ''Twenty-five thousand dollars gone to
blazes," or words to that effect, and somehow gathered that
the Snark was about to go down with all hands. But even
this dismal prospect did not in the least jog his apathy.

Tochigi continues bunk-ridden, and the pig-pen situation
below abates no jot. Jack has an accession of disgust and
discouragement whenever I try to ameliorate the awfulness
— says it's a little too much to have his wife doing the work
of two men. So I do things surreptitiously, although it is
rather hard to be surreptitious in such close quarters; and
then I wax philosophical again about the filth, and the
futility of one small woman trying to keep abreast of the
accumulation. At this point I climb the greasy, sooty, slip-
pery companionway of beautiful but disguised teak, and
seek surcease from sordidness in the cockpit where Jack,
Roscoe, and Bert are discussing the weather. (Jack can be
found at the wheel, steering and reading, any hour of the
day after his morning work is finished. No one ever sug-
gests relieving him.) Then I forget the desperate dirt in
the exhilaration of the speed we are making, reeling off the
knots at the rate of ten an hour and sometimes eleven. A
knot is eight hundred feet longer than a land-mile. So
figure out our speed when the Snark is walking along in a
fair wind. Other times three knots will be the tale of the
gay little patent log over the stern; but even so, that is
seventy-two knots in the twenty-four hours.

We sailed beautifully to-day. We must do justice to the
yacht 's fine points, even if she is treacherous and may drown
us all. Jack says he never heard of a sailing vessel that
would not heave to, although some steamers are so con-
structed that they are obliged to heave to stern-first. Her

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 13

failure to do what was expected of her last night was a
fitting culmination to all the distress of the building — the
unaccountable delays, the frightful waste of money in
material and worthless labour, down to the attachment on
our sailing day, for $242.86, put on the boat by that wretched
old ship chandler, Sellers, who did not even first send over
his bill. And Jack had paid him thousands of dollars in
the preceding months, and was waiting for all final bills to
come in for settlement before he sailed, waiting with pen and
check book in one pocket, and another pocket full of gold.
And now think of his feelings, after all his troubles, to find
that his own boat is the only one he ever heard of that
refused to perform the important and necessary function of
heaving to. He declares it is enough to make a man turn to
wine and actresses and race horses, to be so thwarted in his
clean and wholesome scheme to gain pleasure. I shall try to
persuade him to stay by the ship !

The sea is not a lovable monster. And monster it is. I
thought a great many thoughts about it last night, those
hours I studied the binnacle or watched the men make their
fight. It is beautiful, the sea, always beautiful in one way
or another; but it is cruel, and unmindful of the life that is
in it and upon it. It was cruel last evening, in the lurid low
sunset that made it glow dully, to the cold, mocking, ragged
moonrise that made it look like death. The waves positively
beckoned when they rose and pitched toward our bit boat
labouring in the trough. And all the long night it seemed
to me that I heard voices through the planking, talking,
talking, endlessly, monotonously, querulously ; and I couldn 't
make out whether it was the ocean calling from the outside
or the ship herself muttering gropingly, finding herself. If
the voices are the voices of the ship, they will soon cease,
for she must find herself. But if they are the voices of the
sea, they must be sad sirens that cry, restless, questioning,
unsatisfied — quaint homeless little sirens.

14 THE LOG OF THE SNAKK

At sea, Thursday, May 2, 1907.

If something does not occur soon, my log's items will be
reduced to: No fish, light breeze, large swells, growing
warmer, Martin and Tochigi improving, also bill of fare, like-
wise appetites. We had a little variation, however, on Mon-
day, the 29th, when Koscoe took his first observation. We
found ourselves in 31° 15' 21" North Latitude, 126° 48' 8"
West Longitude, with 120 knots to our credit in the preced-
ing twenty-four hours, in a fresh northwest breeze. About
sunset on the same day we sighted a full-rigged ship several
miles off. She crossed our bows and disappeared in the twi-
light, sailing a west by south course. That night, Martin
being very ill, I took his watch as well as my own — four
hours on end. And when I did go below, I could not rest,
for the wind was lively, and I had a sense of responsibility
during the watches of the green hands. My worry is a
reflection of Jack's, which is based on the fact that our crew
seem to regard this voyage as a mere picnic on the breast
of an unruffled lake. Jack has sailed deep water before;
and while standing the same watches as the others, he has the
entire responsibility as well. The other day he called all
hands aft and gave them a very short and very mild lecture
on system and discipline aboard ship. He had made no sign,
but as no one had displayed any ambition to improve the
appearance of the boat, above or below, he thought he would
try a little talk. It will probably be resented in the long
run ; but things could not go on as they were.

My eight-to-ten night watches are a never-ending joy.
Such gaudy fan-rays of sunset, and such distorted moonrises,
the weird light mingling with the phosphorescence in the
water ; and I often lie over the stern rail looking down at the
rudder leaving behind a ''welt of light" like a comet's tail.
The little waves break and crumple in wild-fire, and every-
thing is a wonder. One thinks calmly and simply these hours
alone at night upon the ocean. Artificialities and conven-
tions and the strains of ordinary life are remote and trivial.

Jack is at work on a boat article, entitling it ' ' The Incon-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 15

ceivable and Monstrous. " It deals with the outrageous cir-
cumstances under which the Snark was built, following the
earthquake and fire; and it deals with the worthless work
and materials that were given us for our money. For in-
stance, the " gooseneck " on the main gaff has broken short
off. It took three men two hours to substitute another
gooseneck, which had to be worked out of a spare gaff that
belongs to another sail. Half an hour after it was tried, it
snapped. This being the last one we had, the gaff was lashed
to the mast with rope — and in this trig and seamanlike shape
shall we enter the port of Honolulu, like a sea-bird paddling
along with a broken wing. Now please take note that both
of these wrought iron goosenecks were made to order. I
wonder what the maker had against us!

And never for a moment do we forget that our staunch
little ship will not heave to.

A year ago to-day, Jack and I set out upon a long
horseback trip up the California coast. It just came over
me, sitting here in the midst of the wide ocean — the feel of
the sweet country, the perfume of mountain lilac, the warm
summer-dusty air. What a life we live, and how we do live
it while we live it!

At sea, Friday, May 3, 1907.

This is the northeast trade-wind with a vengeance. The
Snark is sailing before it, with a regular but heavy roll that
made me stuff a pillow between my body and the ship's side
last night before I could get any sleep.

Bert has had a cold dip under the bowsprit, and now, in
a red bathing suit and a scarlet Stanford rooter's hat, is
helping Roscoe put to rights the i ' boatswain 's locker. ' ' Our
deck, what of desultory scrubbings and much sea-swashing,
looks fairly respectable. Jack got Tochigi up and put him
at the wheel, and the enforced exercise made a great improve-
ment in his condition. Martin is able to cook an occasional
meal, and in fancy's flights serves up many delicacies of the

16 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

deep, such as sharks, whales, and dolphins. Because the
vegetables that came aboard in Oakland were almost entirely
worthless, our cuisine is mostly garnered from tins — and
the bean-bag.

Saturday, May 4, 1907.

We are bowling fast into the Torrid Zone, into Hawaiian
weather. I am sitting on the rudder-box, steering with my
feet while I write. Oh, this water, and this brave trade
wind. The big sapphire hills of water, transparent and
sun-shot, are topped with dazzling white that blows from
crest to crest in the compelling wind. Just now a huge
swell picked us up and swung us high, and the merest little
fling of salt spray was in our faces. The Snark is what
sailors call a "dry" boat. And she sails easily, without
jerks or bumps. Along comes a blue mountain that looks
like disaster; and we slip over it and down into the blue
abyss on the other side, without a jar — just a huge, rolling
slide. And ever the strong sweet wind blows from behind,
sending us forward to the isles of our desire.

The steering-compass has become a part of my conscious-
ness, sleeping and waking; and I often go amidships and
hover over the big Standard Compass. I think in terms
of "south by west," and "south half west," and other
expressions that were Greek to me a month ago. I can ' l luff
her up, ' ' too, when the men are aloft fixing something. And
I can box the compass. Jack calls me various jolly names,
such as "The skipper's sweetheart," "The Cracker j ack, "
"Jack's wife," and I swell with pride and feel very salty
indeed. And I am reminded to mention that when we call
each other "Mate," this has no connection with boats, but
is an interchangeable nickname.

Monday, May 6, 1907.

To-day is the first time I have felt that we are actu-
ally bound for Polynesia, and all backward thoughts are
swinging round to the goal. The boys have the big chart

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 17

stretched over the book-case in the cabin, with our course, so
far travelled, marked upon it. It looks a staggery course,
for we let the yacht steer herself much of the time, under
short canvas, to save being continually at the wheel ; and we
are not in the least hurry. If the mizzen were hoisted, and
some one at the wheel all the time, there would be a differ-
ent story, for the Snark can walk right along with half a
chance. She shakes her heels pretty well even as things are,
with a heavy load and crippled mainsail, her staysail and
two jibs.

The sky has been clearing, and we are able to dry a little of
the dampness below. I wonder if we shall ever get things
running with any discipline. No one seems to care. Roscoe
came on the voyage as sailing master, but he doesn't take
charge ; which laxness demoralises the rest. My fitful night-
marish sleep is troubled with trying to get the crew to do
something, or of trying to get the Snark away from San
Francisco. Waking, I put my hands to all sorts of strange
tasks, to see if it will not encourage the others. Even Tochigi,
now well on the mend, cannot seem to realise that this is
home, and that the same round of duties obtains on a boat as
in a house. But we shall get harmony out of it all yet.

Thursday, May 9, 1907.

Another item of the Inconceivable and Monstrous: Day
before yesterday, when the men tried to set our spinnaker
for the first time — the beautiful wing of speed that stretches
overside — an important piece of wrought iron on the boom
threatened to give way. So we shall have no spinnaker to
shorten our time to Honolulu.

The deck has been washed! — I do not say scrubbed, or
swabbed, because dripping a few pailfuls of water over the
planking is neither scrubbing nor swabbing, nor will it re-
move the accumulated dirt. I should not have known the
deck was being washed except that my decklight was open
and I was slumbering thereunder when the deluge came.

18 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Jack and I have decided that although we wish we were
a little younger than we are, we are glad we are not too
young. Extreme youth must be the trouble with the rest
(barring the sailing master, who is sixty), for the spirit of
adventure seems far from them. While Jack and I are on
deck or out on the questing bowsprit, enjoying the glorious
sun and flowing air, watching for the life of the deep and
congratulating ourselves on the mere fact of living, the others
stay in the dim and musty cabin, reading or talking or
sleeping, or just sitting listlessly with idle hands. It must
be that we knew what we wanted, Jack and I, and are get-
ting what we knew we wanted.

We have sailed well in a fair wind to-day, with a big sea,
and followed by some spike-tailed grey and white birds
called ''boatswain birds," because of their hoarse, exhort-
ing cries, which are supposed to resemble those of the ordi-
nary ship's boatswain — pronounced "bo's'n," of course.

Jack has begun a new article, to be entitled " Adven-
ture." It deals with the numberless and varied individuals
who applied for berths in the Snark for this world-voyage.

This day ended with a wild tropic sunset that lingered
for a long while — a sunset of brilliant white and silver, with
only faint suggestions of gold and red, and great broad rays
flaring up from the horizon, fanwise. It was nothing like
any land sunset we ever saw, and when the sun had dropped
below the crinkly horizon, a copper streak persisted, for
nearly an hour blending a ruddy tinge with the dull purple
of the water.

At sea, Friday, May 10, 1907.

Ominous black clouds pressed down upon the seascape
during my watch last evening, and there was such an ac-
cession of brave trade wind and so imminent a rainsquaU*
that I called Roscoe to take the next watch instead of To-
chigi. Nothing alarming happened, only an exasperating
rolling of the sea. And they say to me, "Wait until you're
in a gale, sometime, and see what real roltij&g is!" I am

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 19

waiting, as I am waiting for the promised dolphins and
bonitas. Tired out trying to get a morning nap, I joined
Jack at the wheel before six. It was my first sunrise at
sea, and the great morning sky was a whirl of tinted clouds
poured over with melting sunshine, a glossy sapphire satin
ocean reflecting the glory. And we saw a fish, we did, we
did ! — and it was a flying-fish. If you don 't believe me, ask
Jack. He saw TWO. He shouted, " Flying-fish! Flying-
fish!" and went right up in the air. Now the fish-line is
trolling for dolphin, for there should be dolphin where are
flying-fish.

Later in the day Jack enticed me out to the tip-end of the
bowsprit, with a heavy sea rolling. I must frankly admit
that I felt shaky climbing out, my feet on a steel stay only
a few inches above the crackling foam, and my hands cling-
ing to the lunging spar itself. But the end was worth the
pains, and it was wonderful to watch the yacht swing mag-
nificently over the undulating blue hills, now one side
buried in the rushing, dazzling smother, now the other, the
sunshot turquoise water rolling back from the shining, cleav-
ing white bows, and mixing with the milky froth pressed
under. We gained such manifold impressions of the boat
from our vantage at the end of the bowsprit. Now the man
at the wheel would be far, far below us, a great slaty moun-
tain rolled up behind him, and the uneven horizon high in
air; now he was 'way above us, sliding down that same
mountain. But he never overtook us, for about that time
we were raising our feet from the wet into which they had
been plunged, and were holding on for dear life as the
S nark's doughty forefoot pawed another steep rise.

But this day has not been all gladness. I did the initial
suffering, and Jack suffered vicariously. He knew noth-
ing about it until, following me below to play a game of
cribbage, he found me sitting on the floor at the foot of the
companion-stairs, unable to speak a word. Before me sat
Roscoe, watching me curiously. Above us, Martin eyed me
suspiciously, and ventured tentatively, "Now, in Kansas, in

20 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

my family, the women cry when they hurt themselves like
that." I couldn't cry — it hurt too much. I am not very
heavy, perhaps a hundred and fifteen pounds; but this
weight behind one small elbow- joint, in a six-foot fall, is no
light matter. My rubber soles were wet, slipped on the top
step, and I touched nothing until I landed below, on that
right elbow. No, I shed no tears — then. But when I was
alone at the wheel, under the stars, I wailed right woman-
like.

At sea, Monday, May 13, 1907.

The "Inconceivable and Monstrous" has cropped up
again. The bottom dropped out of the bean-pot, right in
the oven, when said pot was simmering a delectable mass of
frijoles, tomatoes, onions, garlic, Chile peppers, and olive
oil. My great earthen bean-pot, my noble bean-pot, my
much-vaunted bean-pot, has gone to pot! "Whoever heard
of a bean-pot cutting such capers? I leave it to anybody.
But nothing commonplace ever happens aboard the Snark.
Why, the very particular universe in which she moves is of
an uncommon variety — a dual universe, in short. You may
not have heard: but Roscoe is making the voyage on the
inside of the earth's crust, while the rest of us (barring
Bert, who is on the cosmographical fence) have a strong be-
lief that we are progressing upon the outer surface of the
globe, with an ascertained astronomical system surround-
ing us. Either Roscoe will have to find a hole through
which to climb to our stratum, or we shall be obliged to
crawl through to his warm kennel ; and I don 't know which
event is the more unlikely. No, there is nothing common-
place about the Snark or her voyage. It wouldn't sur-
prise me to see the water canary-yellow and the sky bright
green. I forgot to tell about the dolphins. There aren't
any. But there are plenty of flying-fish.

This is a fine sunny day, and I have been steering for
an hour and a half while I write, to give the others a chance
to do the deck-work. Everybody is in good health, but

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 21

without animation or ambition or pride in the yacht. "When
they are not making listless bluffs at working on deck, they
continue to sit below, dully wondering when we will reach
Honolulu. I believe Jack and I are the only ones who do
not care how long the trip lasts. We are happy in the
sailing and the health and life and beauty of everything
about us, and one hour is as another for pleasantness. I re-
joice to observe that Jack has unconsciously resumed his
wonted light-foot gait, which I call his "merry walk," and
his smile is like a sunbeam.

Yesterday I had a little lark all by myself, sitting on the
lee rail and dabbling my feet in the warm gurgling water
overside. Next time I'll wear a bathing-suit. Jack de-
clined to join my refreshing gambols, saying that he would
go in all over when he chose to get wet; but he trained a
cautious eye upon me, for it would be decidedly inconven-
ient to pick up a "man overboard," especially if that man
were a woman who knows little about keeping afloat in rest-
less water. At three o'clock we went below and answered
a huge bunch of mail, Jack dictating to me through the
narrow doorway that separates our rooms. We got the work
done quite comfortably.

The sunset last evening claimed us for an hour, as we lay
on the fore-peak hatch, heaving upon the mighty lungs of
the ocean. It was the first time the sun had sunk into the
sea instead of into banks of clouds. It dropped slowly
through rainbow mists, a dull orange ball that we could
gaze upon to the last without straining our eyes. The big
night-purple waves rose and broke against it, turning
slowly to ashen-rose in the shell-rose light that followed the
setting. But no matter how pale the tints of the tropic
world, they are very simple and crude. With the loveli-
ness of the day-ending still in my soul, I took the wheel at
eight o'clock, and was thoroughly enjoying the rhythmic
solitude when I was jarred rudely from off my blissful
plane by the appearance of a bald head in the engine-room
hatch-way and a querulous and accusing voice demanding,

22 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

* c How on earth do you expect anybody to sleep when you 're
making that noise?" I was singing! And it is not out of
place to mention that only those near to us by marriage or
blood are privileged so to break in upon our raptures!

Wednesday, May 15, 1907.

This is the most perfect morning yet. And it isn't so
merely because I have had two good nights of sleep; the
sea disk is of deepest sapphire, the trade-wind clouds,
lying low and puffy on the horizon and straggling up here
and there into the blue, are the real trade-wind clouds we
have been looking for so long, while a not-too-dense white
cloud follows the face of the sun and tempers the heat. We
are sailing along well on a comparatively smooth sea, in the
gentle but steady trade-wind. At nine the course was
changed to "W.N.W. true, to clear Maui by 25 miles."

Jack looks like a picture of a sailor, at the wheel, in a
suit of white sailor-togs, against a classic watery back-
ground. Bert is going over everything on deck with a
brush, and the deck itself is being washed. (I am glad
there is some activity on deck, for last night, leaving the
wheel in a sudden rainsquall to put the cover on the boat-
swain's locker which had been carelessly left open, I nearly
broke my neck over a sack of coal that has been lying for
days across the one available gangway on deck.) Martin is
planning a big platter of spaghetti and mushrooms, Italian
style, and Tochigi is cleaning up below. My flannel sailor-
clothes are towing overside (this is the way we launder),
and when they come up, clean, and have hung in the shrouds
until dry, they shall be wrapped carefully and packed away
until such time, how long hence, and where, who knows? as
they may be needed in a cooler clime. Yesterday, although
only 88°, we suffered from the heat. We are well over half
way to Hawaii.

A few scaly scales were found on the deck this morning,
attesting to our having been boarded by one or more flying-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 23

fish, but nothing was on our hook. But yesterday, while
Jack and I were working hard below, there arose a great
yelling on deck for us to come up. Which we wasted no
time in doing, for news is scarce these days; and there, to
leeward, we saw a goodly school of fin-back whale.

I am reading Isabella Bird Bishop's Hawaii. It was
written long ago, but is splendid live stuff, being her let-
ters written to England from the Islands. I am also study-
ing our Planispheres, in order to familiarise myself a little
with the changing skies. Jack told me to watch for the
Southern Cross, and last evening when I came on deck to
take my watch, there it was, just as it looked on the Plani-
sphere, and I realised I had been looking at the constella-
tion for several nights, without knowing. I must confess
that I had expected something larger and more bejewelled.
But it is a very good, bright little cross, and is going to
mean much to me.

Later. Bert has blossomed resplendent in white trousers
and a blue shirt. He washed his face and shaved yesterday,
saying in extenuation ( !) that he had not looked in the
glass for a week, and didn't realise how unkempt he was.
Martin is almost well, and furbished up his camera this
afternoon. Jack wrote in the morning, and dug at naviga-
tion later on. I wrote letters, did some typewriting, and
actually got out my sewing. I did not realise how dark
the backs of my hands were from sunburn until I saw
them against the fine white linen. But for a wonder my face
and neck are not much tanned.

The setting of the sun, the blossoming of the new moon
in a bright rose afterglow, and the coming of the stars, are
a feast of beauty each evening. That growing silver of a
young moon was so brilliant last night that it bewildered
my sight, and I could not avoid seeing two crescents. Jack
brought up his sextant and took some observations, during
which he remarked icily that he did wish I could manage
to call that fine and beautiful instrument something besides

hydrant.

24 THE LOG OP THE SNAKK

Lat. 20° 56' North,
Lon. 152° 52' West.
At sea, Thursday, May 16, 1907.

Our trade-wind died down to the faintest breathings in
the morning, and this afternoon it is so calm that we have
little better than steerage-way. At this rate we shall not
see land to-day as we had hoped. I worked below for hours
in my stateroom, writing letters, typewriting, and reading,
for once finding it cooler than on deck. With decklights
and skylights open, it is nearly always cool below — a very
encouraging thing to look forward to in the tropics. And
if our electric plant ever works satisfactorily, we shall be in
clover. This coolness of the Snark's interior is one of the
few things about that much-sinned-against craft that are
not Inconceivable and Monstrous. So much luck may be
Inconceivable, but I don't like to call it Monstrous. It
might be tempting fate.

But we faced it again this afternoon, the Inconceivable
and Monstrous, all done up in a blue and green package
seven or eight feet long in the shape of a shark, attended by
his fleet of black and white striped pilot-fish. Bert saw it
first. He had been bathing from the stays under the bow-
sprit, and no sooner had he regained the deck than he saw
the dorsal fin of the shark cutting the surface a short dis-
tance away. Jack immediately baited a hook of the proper
size with a goodly chunk of fat from our best boiled ham,
from which Martin happened to be carving slices for sup-
per. And that tempting bait, that superfine — for sharks —
morsel of salt pork was smelled by that shark, and that
Inconceivable, Monstrous, Epicurean shark even jauntily
scratched his back upon the light rope that trailed the hook !

Now, who ever heard of a shark that would not rise to
salt pork, or sink to salt pork, or, at any rate, be interested
in salt pork one way or another? It's in all the books and
on the tongues of all the sailors, that salt pork is the un-
failing bait for shark. Perhaps it isn't exactly Inconceiv-
able that this particular fish may have been gorging him-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 25

self to repletion before he sighted us; but it is certainly
Monstrous that the first fish we have seen on this strange,
uneventful voyage (barring flying-fish and whales), should
be a shark, and that this particular one should refuse super-
fine salt pork. It is on a par with the Snark refusing to
heave to. That still rankles; I cannot forgive her. It
would rankle worse still if this calm should prove to be the
forerunner of a real gale.

We even had a cold supper served aft, that we might keep
an eye on that disagreeable, ungrateful scavenger that
wouldn't scav. — I've got it! I've got it! That shark
was a scavenger, of course, and a mere scavenger would
not know first-table ham if he saw it ; and he would therefore
be suspicious of it, of its smell and its taste. I know there
ought to be some explanation, and perhaps I have found it.

A lovely, colourful sunsetting, a shining silver sickle in
the afterglow, a little studying of the constellations, and my
watch began, a beautiful watch except for the fact that the
tops of the brass binnacle lamps are hot, and I laid the ten-
der palm of my left hand on the port one. Then I called
for some kitchen soap and plastered the palm with it. How
I do hurt myself ! Why, I have to go around with my right
elbow bandaged in a salt-wet towel, and cannot use the arm.
Therefore I am black and blue from violent contact with
various articles on the crowded boat. It is more difficult
than one would dream to adjust, physically, to this moving
base.

There is a new feel about everything, with this closeness
to land. We seem suddenly to have a place in the universe,
a character of our own. We have had nothing all these
weeks with which to compare ourselves, ourselves as a boat.
We have been alone of our kind, with no one to see that we
existed. This is almost as good as annihilation, isn't it?
But now we seem about to take our place once more in a
known world. On a big ship, carrying hundreds of per-
sons, it is different; the many souls form a community, and
the unrelated character of the vessel is not so conspicuous.

26 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

We are so very, very little; the daily surprise is that we
know where we are at all, that we can do aught but drift, a
mote in a sunbeam.

Lat. 21° 23' North,
Lon. 154° 13' 45" West.
At sea, Friday, May 17, 11)07.

In a thin kimono I joined Jack at the wheel to enjoy the
sunrise with him. It is delightful to be so safely careless
about warmth of clothes, in this blowing air. We sneeze oc-
casionally, for old-time's sake, but there is no cold in the
head to follow. There were some showers in the early hours,
with calm afterwards, but we are picking up a little breeze,
enough to steer by. Nothing but clouds on the horizon;
no land. There is a familiar high fog overhead that makes
me homesick ; but I think I am homesick for the Islands.

While Jack and the boys were taking a bath to-day under
^the bow, clinging to the bob-stay, Roscoe and I poured brine
over each other's heads, aft by the cockpit. This was
after we had soaped our hair. I haven't been able to do
up mine since; and now, while I write, I am steering and
drying my locks after a fresh-water rinse.

Tochigi made some candy yesterday, rice boiled in mo-
lasses. The rice remains brittle, as do the brown beans
that are added. Tochigi 's success made Martin ambitious,
and we are waiting for the molasses confectionery he is
making while he bakes. His bread is very good, by the way;
and he has easily learned to make the simple yet difficult
graham bread. I don't know who is going to pull that mo-
lasses candy. Martin thinks he should be exempt, having
made it ; besides, he is too busy. Roscoe also says he is busy.
Jack is writing, and can't; and the nice, round, burned
circle in my palm prevents me from volunteering. Bert
has announced that he can, but that he doesn 't want to — sun-
burned hands being his excuse. I think I can see Tochigi
pulling the candy for the crowd.

Later. At last, our first land ! After supper, Jack and
I were playing cribbage on the fore-peak hatch, before going

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 27

into the bows to watch the sunset, when he shouted "Land!"
at the same time pointing over the starboard bow. Oh, it
was exciting! Our first island, faint and far, hardly dis-
tinguishable from the clouds around it. And the best about
it is, that it is just where it ought to be (if it is the Island
of Maui ) , ten thousand feet high and a hundred miles away,
which would prove our observations to have been correct.
Everybody began to climb. " Martin- Johnson-Discovering-
Hawaii" hung in the shrouds, while Bert, having attained
the head of the mainmast, came sliding precipitately down
the jib-stay — rather a risky undertaking, we thought, until
he explained to us that he had practised it in California.
Tochigi deemed it unnecessary to climb a few feet the better
to observe a 10,000 foot mountain. Tochigi has the wis-
dom of the East in his gentle head.

I remember what a paradise Jamaica looked, one New
Year's morn when we saw it rising out of the Caribbean
Sea. But this is different; now we are adventuring in a
little boat of our own, and one could almost wish no charts
had ever been made of the region in which we now are, and
that we were discovering it for ourselves.

Aboard the Snark, off Island of Maul,
Hawaiian Islands, Saturday, May 18, 1907.

Coming on deck at six for my sun-bath, I could not even
say good morning to my Mate at the wheel, so exquisite was
the greeting. I looked south right at the snow-hooded sum-
mit of mighty Mauna Kea on the Island of Hawaii, rising
14,000 feet out of the sea. The clouds must have lifted
only that moment, for Jack, scanning the horizon, had
missed seeing the island ; so we enjoyed it together, a dream
f white and blue opalescence. It was very thick to the
southwest, but soon Maui broke through, and the naviga-
tors were able to verify their calculations. Haleakala is on
Maui — the greatest extinct volcano in the world, with a
crater measuring over twenty miles around. It is impossible

28 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

to describe my sensation when I look at those bulking blue
shapes cleaving up through the summer sea, as we sail. It
is all wonder, a mystery of beauty and delight.

Double watches were kept on deck all last night. If this
were Maui, we were of course too far away to lose sleep
worrying about running into anything. But a sailor can-
not be too careful. There is always the chance for a mis-
take, and there was much studying of charts in the grimy
little cabin of the Snark.

Everybody has been strenuously occupied this morning in
keeping the ship afloat. We want variety of experience;
but when our cook pokes his head up the companionway
and protests that the floors below are all awash, the owner
of the vessel strives without delay to reduce the order of
the day to the ordinary commonplaceness of existence. Bert
had forgotten to close a seacock in the engine room, and the
water was rushing in. The five-horse power engine was
immediately switched off to more important work than the
deck-washing that was going on when Martin gave the alarm,
and Bert felt around for that seacock and closed it. How
amusing it would have been to go down with all on board,
in sight of our first land. And as likely as not the life-boat
could not be got overside in case of need, as Roscoe has had
no drills.

The flying-fish are large and fat to-day; but still no dol-
phin. Tochigi, cleaning deck-lights and skylights, found
in a nook on deck one small, very much over-ripe flying-fish.
This is a rather deferred ( ! ) item, but it isn 't my fault.
It shadows another item, however, that certain portions
of the deck have not been investigated in the deck-wash-
ing.

Later. A busy afternoon typing this Log, rendered diffi-
cult by the rough sea, which has increased to the biggest
swell we have had on the whole voyage — probably the re-
sult of some gale to the northward. There is plenty of
wind now. Jack has changed the course to N.W. by W.,
to clear Molokai, lying low and sad among heavy clouds,

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 29

under a drowning moon. Roscoe 7s optimistic brain does not
consider the change of course necessary, but Jack's brass-
tack judgment says we could not clear Molokai on the other
course, with this wind holding all night, and for the first
time since San Francisco he, as captain, has over-ridden the
sailing master with a positive command.

Aboard the SnarJc, off Oahu, Hawaiian Islands,

Sunday, May 19, 1907.

Jack set double watches again last night, Tochigi and I
taking the first, from eight until twelve. It was eerie,
watching forward in the grey light of the moon struggling
through the murk, and ever and again I would seem to see
land looming close ahead, only to find it was the huddling
dark clouds on the horizon. I would stay there for an
hour, then relieve Tochigi at the wheel and send him for-
ward to watch. At 5:30 this morning, Jack jibed the boat
over, and I came on deck, to find the Island of Oahu, upon
which is the city of Honolulu, right ahead. As we sailed
nearer, the land looked very familiar, accustomed as we have
been to pictures of it. The waters are deserted; it does
seem as if we ought to sight some sort of a vessel, so near
to Honolulu. Such an incidentless voyage — although I for-
got to tell that I found one flea the other day. Where he
had been hibernating I do not know. And this morning a
horsefly came aboard.

The sea is transparent ; one can see into illimitable depths
of sun-shot blue. And of all the Inconceivable and Mon-
strous things yet, here we are drifting toward the reef of
Oahu in a dead calm. The trades are supposed to blow here
almost the year around, especially at this season. But we
have had unusual variable weather all the way. Oh ! for the
big engine now — we could be in landlocked Pearl Harbor in
a couple of hours. Of course, if the engine were in commis-
sion, there would be plenty of wind. It could not be other-
wise. Don't try to convince me that anything reasonable

30 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

could attend the workings of our venture. Last night it was
blowing briskly, and then the wind cut off short, and here
we are turning round and round under cloudless sky and
blazing tropic sun, wondering why it is not hotter. It is
only comfortably warm, and this does not seem reasonable,
either. Perhaps I am crazy.

Still off Oahu, Hawaii,
Monday, May 20, 1907.

We drifted past the growling reef, inside of which we
saw little fishing-boats sailing at sunset; past Makapuu
Head, and past Diamond Head, that beautiful sentinel of
Honolulu; and now, while we slip smoothly along toward
port, I will tell the rest of yesterday's experiences. The
horsefly, I think, is the only special excitement I have men-
tioned. After the midday meal we succeeded in hooking a
guny — don't doubt me, I saw it with my own eyes, and the
others will bear me witness. He knew salt pork a mile
away. It was a funny sight, that guny with the hook caught
in the downward curve of his upper beak, coming toward us
against his will. He measured six feet from wing-tip to
wing-tip, and was a thing of great beauty, with marvel-
lously feathered, triple- jointed pinions of cloudy warm-
brownish grey. His brown eyes were large and sagacious,
more like a dog's than a bird's, and he used them, too. He
was angry rather than frightened, and not especially vicious,
although he did manage to get hold of Bert's trousers and
a small pinch of Bert. But when we tethered him on deck,
the Inconceivable Monster would not be seasick as is the
wont of captured gunies. We finally cut him loose, un-
hurt, and when he went over the side he awkwardly sub-
merged, something to which he was evidently not accus-
tomed, for he could not raise his wet wings high enough to
fly. Just then we picked up a fan of wind and the dis-
tance between the stern of the Snark and the stern of the
guny lengthened rapidly, the bird paddling for dear life,
head-over-shoulder like a coyote. While we had him on deck

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 31

we noticed an old break in one of his legs, and two birdshot
holes in his web-feet. He must be a regular old war-horse,
and deserving of his liberty.

Then we glimpsed a big freight steamer going southwest;
and there was quite a sociable time in the late afternoon, with
numerous things to discuss — the flea, the horsefly, the guny,
the steamer, a flickering breeze, and one lone Portuguese
man-o'-war. And then there was the summer isle before
us with promise of rest from perpetual movement, and lure
of velvet green mountains and valleys.

Jack slept beside the cockpit during my watch, indeed all
night until his own watch. The reef with its white-toothed
breakers could not have been more than a mile and a half
away, and the calm was absolute, the current fortunately
setting us on past danger. At ten o'clock, I told Tochigi,
who was sitting in the cabin studying, to go to bed. I felt
anxious and knew I should not sleep if I went below.
Twice the Snark, with her wheel hard down, turned com-
pletely around. I was disgusted, and remembered when a
smaller yacht did the same thing with me in the bay of San
Francisco, in the Doldrums off Angel Island.

How I watched that line of reef in the misty, elusive
moonlight. Imagine four hours at the wheel, eyes riveted
on the round, small, vital compass, heart aching for it to
indicate some control of the boat. The only rest for the eyes
was to strain them on the dark shore until it blurred, or
try to pierce the mysterious gloom of the horizon for lights.
It was tense business; but in the midst of it, worried and
lonely as I felt, I caught myself thinking how happy I was.

And now, a word aside.

In shaping up the Log of the Snark for publication, I am
forced to see that the enthusiastic book I have written, cov-
ering five months' land travel and experience in the Ha-
waiian Isles, has no place in a ship's log. Labour of love
though it has been, the recounting of all those happy days
of glamour in our first landfall must find itself between

32 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

other covers than those of a sea diary. I must pass by the
month in Pearl Harbor — Dream Harbor, Jack called it; the
subsequent blissful tent-and-surf life at Waikiki; our days
in saddle and camp through the crater of mighty Halea-
kala ; that amazing week spent in the Molokai Leper Settle-
ment; the trip on horseback through the Nahiku Ditch
country on Windward Maui, with its hair-raising old chief-
trails and hair-breadth swinging bridges over great water-
falls— all those vivid hours of living shall have a place to
themselves elsewhere, together with tribute to our friends,
the Thurstons, and their friends, who helped us to know
Hawaii off the much exploited "tourist route."

Aboard the Snark once more, after months of work on her
engines in Honolulu, and repairs in Hilo on that same work,
we set our faces to the sea again, answering its clear call as
we answered it in California in April; as we shall want to
answer it, I am sure, in all the months of all the years.

Lat. 15° 8' North,
Lon. 151° 30' West.
Aboard the Snark at sea,
Hilo, Hawaii, to Marquesas Islands,

Monday, October 14, 1907.

A week ago to-day we sailed away from Hilo, Hawaii, on
our voyage to the Marquesas Islands. So began the second
chapter of our boat-adventure. It is six months since we
left San Francisco Bay for our voyage around the world, and
what of the many delays connected with completing the
yacht and repairing her wrecked engines (wrecked by in-
competent workmen), we have spent far more time in Ha-
waii Nei than originally planned. We cannot be sorry,
however, for we had a glorious time all through. But here
we are at sea again, with our first port of call, Honolulu,
hundreds of miles behind us, and our next, the Marquesas,
thousands ahead of us — unless this head-wind and sea shift
and let us get on our proper course. South 28° East it is,

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 33

while we sag south, due south, and at times even west of
south.

Everything is dove-grey, sky and sea, and there are occa-
sional warm showers. I am tucked snugly away in a corner
of the deep cockpit, while the little Snark steers herself by-
the-wind as successfully as ever she did before it. Herr-
mann de Visser, the Dutch sailor, is sitting near by sewing
canvas, pushing the huge sail-needle with a "palm" on his
hand. And Herrmann is singing "The Last Rose of Sum-
mer" in Dutch, in a wonderful light baritone that makes
me feel selfish in being the only listener. Incidentally,
Herrmann, a small black rain-hat on one side of his head,
looks as if he had just fallen out of a Rembrandt canvas.
But Rembrandt van Ryn never designed that tattooed bal-
let-girl on Herrmann's short and powerful right forearm —
a figure that any muscular movement of the arm makes
dance amorously.

Martin Johnson, sole survivor, so to speak, of the original
crew that sailed from California on the Snark, has come
into the cockpit, and is rigging up an electric light exten-
sion for me to see by when I read to Jack on watch.
There's a brown-skinned cook in the galley now, and Martin
is flourishing in our midst as engineer and electrician.
Martin has made good, and he Is the only man who was
aboard the Snark when we left the States, who was not
chosen from the ranks of our intimates.

Captain James Langhorne Warren, our Virginia master,
is sitting to leeward of me for the purpose of smoking a
cigar — and bless us all if it isn't the first he's smoked since
we left Hilo! You see, the captain hasn't been feeling
equal to anything stronger than cigarettes during the past
week. We have lost all false pride about seasickness, we
of the Snark. We have been hopelessly, disgracefully sick,
all of us, except Herrmann, who seems to enjoy remarking
at irregular, inconsiderate intervals, "I do not know vot
xiasick iss."

It is comforting to a captain-discouraged yachtsman like

34 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Jack to see the way Captain Warren runs things. The boat
has never looked so orderly; never were commands obeyed
so promptly; never was such forethought shown in keeping
everything ready for emergency — for the expected unex-
pected. For instance, last Wednesday night, the 9th,
looked squally and strange, after a most remarkable sunset
which made our sensitive barometer oscillate; and before
dusk Captain Warren and Herrmann had everything on
deck in readiness for possible trouble during the dark hours
— movable articles lashed securely, ropes in perfect work-
ing order. After all there was no blow; but if there had
been we would not have been caught napping.

That great sunset was a miracle of colour. Who ever heard
of vivid peacock blue in the sky? But it was there; and
such turquoise and green and gold, in an Oriental riot of
gorgeousness. Then the air became so flooded with living
rose that we all looked as if we had been feasting on roses
and the elixir of youth.

To-day Jack has done his first writing since we left Hilo.
A six-days' vacation is an unusual thing for him. Also, he
has inaugurated a general setting-to-rights below, as to con-
tents of drawers and lockers, clothes, and so forth. I am
unable to join in the perfumed revel, as a very few minutes
below are enough to convince me that I am not yet quite
myself.

Our new cabin-boy, Nakata, shipped at Hilo, is very dif-
ferent from the aesthetic and poetic-looking Tochigi of the
first voyage. Nakata 's hair far more resembles a roughly-
used shoebrush than the glossy "football bang" that
crowned Tochigi. But Nakata, little plebeian that he is,
has the body of a brown cherub and a smile that is inextin-
guishable. He seems to have more teeth than the rest of
us, and shows them on all occasions except when he is asleep.
Also, he brushes them sedulously for just fifteen minutes
every morning. When he slumbers, his funny little face is
tired and drawn, for he has been and still is quite seasick.
But he never gives over. No matter what his qualms, when-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 35

ever he is spoken to he bobs up with his everlasting jack-o'-
lantern grin and benevolent interrogative "Yes-s?"

Wada, the Japanese cook, is more Indian than Japanese
in appearance, and so far has proved just an ordinary,
greasy sea-cook, his dishes a sad contrast to Martin's imagi-
native cuisine. But Martin and I are slowly getting him
into our ways.

Our prolonged stay in Hilo was a trial to us all. This
was not the fault of Hilo, nor. of the very dear people
who entertained us there. The irk and strain was from
enforced delay — the dreadful condition of our 70-horse-
power engine, which had to be gone all over again in Hilo,
at an expense equal to the outlay in Honolulu, although
our "friend" 'Gene (sent for from San Francisco), while
knowing better, assured us that the engine was in good con-
dition at that time. But that is of the vanished yester-
day; and now Martin, in 'Gene's place, is devoting himself
to preventing a recurrence of the conditions brought about
by the latter 's neglect.

And so we go sailing along this grey-and-gold late after-
noon, involuntarily looking up now and again for a return
of the splendid dolphins that played with o;ur hook around
the stern this morning. You will rememoer how utterly
dead was the ocean those four weeks from California to Ha-
waii, except for one school of hump-backed whale, and a few,
a very few flying-fish, and one small shark off Maui, that
had not sense enough to bite at boiled ham. Why, this
morning there was kaku for breakfast — that's the Hawaiian
for it — a fish with long eel-like body and sharp head and
a jaw fitted with rows of fine white teeth. But don't let
me deceive you. This was the first fish ever caught aboard
the Snark at sea.

Dolphins — they are like all the living rainbows of the
aquarium at Honolulu wrapped in azure. They are all the
colours of all the skies that ever were, with touches of solid
green as green as solid earth. Brilliant as peacocks, and a
thousand times —

36 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

— Oh, this is too much excitement for seven persons ! A
thousand porpoises are about us, the captain is on the bow-
sprit wielding a harpoon, while Martin tugs at the line set
for dolphin, over-stern, and — there! the fish has carried
away the hook. The fabulous blue dolphins are swimming
alongside; sunny-green porpoises are darting with in-
credible swiftness all around and under the white yacht,
leaping clear out of the water, singly and in twos and threes,
like colts over hurdles. Our ocean is alive at last with the
beauty and motion of the people of the sea.

There's a white and gold sunset now, like a flight of
angels in the western sky; and before the stars come out I
am going to sit and dream for a little space of the beauti-
ful world and of the swift sleek forms of vibrant colour I
have seen this day.

Lat. 14° 53' North,
Lon. 152° T West
At sea, Tuesday, October 15, 1907.

There's a subtle change in the atmosphere aboard ship
this morning. Nakata, showing an unusual number of
teeth, even for him, summed it up in two words : ' ' Seasick
pan!" which last word, translated from the original Ha-
waiian, means finished, done away with, gone, past, elimi-
nated— all the blessed meanings that should predicate that
dread subject. Fortunately, Nakata was not only voicing
his own ecstatic state, but that of the company in general.
I proved my own recovery by making the regulation four
at the breakfast table below, for the initial time this voy-
age.

When I came on deck after breakfast, the captain and
Herrmann dropped their work (the sewing of canvas into
ventilators, or "windsails"), to rig up a little awning over
the cockpit, so that I might write in comfort, out of the
glare.

It is nine o'clock, and Jack has just gone below to write
his thousand words of the novel under way. (I cannot call

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 37

— 7
the novel by name because the author hasn't been inspired

as promptly as usual in his choice of title.) The hero, Mar-
tin Eden, has been waiting to make his first love to Ruth
all this week the author has been under the weather.

Jack slept on deck last night and looks a happy, healthy,
blue-eyed young sailor this morning, in white ducks, the
broad-collared shirt open at his tanned throat. Before we
sailed from Hawaii he threatened to have his hair clipped
very close for the voyage; but my pleading "Oh, not too
short, please, please!" at the door of the barber-shop in
Hilo, saved perhaps an inch. The present neat closeness is
rather becoming than otherwise.

I am so happy. All the rough edges of the first week at
sea are smoothing down, and the spirit of our surroundings
is getting into our blood. The wave-tops are silvered with
flying-fish. One leaped out just now, cutting the air like
a steel sickle, all of a foot long — the largest I have seen.
And where there are many flying-fish, one may look for
dolphin. Herrmann didn't catch the fish for breakfast this
morning that he prophesied last night in the second dog-
watch, and for which Jack promised him a bag of "Bull
Durham. "

The 5-horse-power engine (which we call the "sewing-
machine" because it runs so easily since it was broken and
mended in Hilo), is pumping electric "juice" for lights and
fans, and Martin's six feet of height are under deck, which
means that he is going over the big engine and putting his
engine-room to rights. Herrmann is relating some choice
bit of personal history to the captain, of which I just now
caught the information that somebody lived "four miles off
the bay from." The cook, coming on deck from the per-
spiring galley to dry his shirt, is commenting to the world
at large upon the moustache he has raised during the past
week; and Nakata is making up for lost time by washing
and polishing everything in the cabin, occasionally bobbing
up to smile happily at the universe.

Jack whispered to me this morning what he has not yet

38 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

suggested to the others: that if this adverse wind and sea
continue, he may decide to cut the Marquesas Islands from
our route and head direct for Tahiti. We sail and sail and
get nowhere on the present course.

Who has said "miracle hours after sunset"? Last night,
quitting the talkative group around the cockpit during the
second dog-watch (six to eight), I went for'ard alone into
the bows, curled myself up in a big coil of sun-bleached
hawser on a water-tank, and took a little trip to the moon.
The sky had cleared of all but fleecy wisps of cloud, and a
gleaming half -moon and a few rare stars hung in the shin-
ing rigging. "What dreams may come" when one is all
alone on a flying prow, among the moon and stars, with the
sweet wind filling the wings of speed ! But the dreams can-
not be told, for they are thought in a language that was
whispered to us when we were very young, while listening
to tales of Karl in Queerland — and to only the very young
is it given to translate the language. I slid back down a
moonbeam to the deck very quickly when a dolphin at least
three feet long leaped his length out of the water on the
lee bow; but I couldn't get any anglers' enthusiasm out of
the crowd aft. They were too filled with comfort and moon-
light. Jack joined me after a while, and we sat on a tank
to leeward, close to the water, holding to the fore-jib-sheet,
watching the pearly full-rounded canvas, while glistening
spray swished over the weather bow above us and wet our
faces. It was the loveliest night I have ever seen at sea.
The memory of it belongs between the pictured covers of a
book of fairy-tales.

Then came nine hours below, of which I slept eight; and
now the wholesome reality of the day is as beautiful as the
fitful unreality of the night. Herrmann has drifted into
"The Last Rose of Summer" again, and I cannot work
while he sings. To do so would be to scorn one of the good
things that bless my life. There is a really Caruso-like
quality in some of his middle tones. And while I am think-
ing about the ease with which he handles his untrained voice,

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 39

he airily switches off into a spirited rendition of "La Pa-
loma" in Dutch, with an appropriate catch and swing that
make me wonder if the tattooed lady on his forearm is danc-
ing to match the music while he plies his needle.

Alternating with bouts of cribbage we read up a few
sheaves of late San Francisco papers, jerking ourselves
rudely from this Pacific solitude, this desert of oceans, back
into the crowded world of cities from which we have fled.
Why, if we were cast away in this part of the Pacific, we
should stand practically no chance of being picked up. It
is out of the travelled way. It was something to think of,
as I lay on a strip of duck on the deck, too ill to do any-
thing but watch the veils of cloud drawing across the sky.
The world was a round blue ball swathed in clouds like a
jewel in white floss, covered by a blue bowl. Not a thing in
sight but blue water and blue and white sky; and through
the silent picture our white-speck boat moved upon her quest
for palm and coral and mountain-isle and pearls and
strange simple peoples. We are all the world, we of the
Snark, so far as the rest of the world is concerned — unless
a sail should break the line of the horizon, when we would
become only a hemisphere ; but no sail pushes up out of the
blue of this painted solitude.

But accidents will happen. On Friday morning, the llth,
in the early hours some bolts worked loose in the steering-
gear, and when I came on deck the captain and Herrmann
were arms-down-to-shoulders in the casing around the rud-
der-head, heaping maledictions in several languages upon
the man or men who planned and executed this casing so
that it could not be got into except from the top. The teak
cover, upon which the steersman sits, is the only movable
part of the box enclosing the steering-gear; whereas the en-
tire upper half of the box should be made so that it could
be lifted. Just another instance of the outrageous mistakes
that were perpetrated on the poor little Snark. There had
been a stiff squall the night before, too, and it was fortunate
the bolts did not come loose then. It would have been

40 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

cheaper in the long run if Jack had given up his regular
work during the building of the yacht, and done the over-
seeing himself.

Our winds have been fairly fresh, but not steady, the
best part of the week. The days have been pretty warm,
and I find the coolest spot to be on the cockpit floor, where
I spend hours trying to read or write, or merely watching
the colours under closed eyelids. That amusement is always
left, when one hasn't energy enough for other exertion.
Some days the wind blew harder and the seas piled high,
hissing hungrily toward us, usually missing and going
astern, but sometimes striking ponderously and snapping
their white teeth over the rail. The rougher nights were
hard on me, as my bunk, on the starboard side, came in for
all the jarring weighty blows of water when the hull rose
and fell in the trough.

One languid diversion during the days of our uselessness,
was the discussion of who would gather the first quart of
pearls in the South Seas. It rather lames the controversy,
however, when I insist that the rest shall give all their quarts
to me.

Lat. 14° 4' North,
Lon. 152° 56' West.
At sea, Wednesday, October 16, 1907.

There was dolphin for breakfast this morning — a heavy,
steak-like sort of meat. Herrmann got it last night with
the granes, an awful devil's-pitchfork sort of implement.
And just as Herrmann landed his dolphin — Jack mean-
while shouting for me to come and see its wondrous tints
in the moonlight — I landed my cockroach, the second horror
of its kind caught aboard the Snark. The dolphin was
about two and a half feet long. The cockroach about one
inch. It was a good night's catch we made — mine, I
thought, being the more important. Another and larger
dolphin was struck with the granes, but tore itself loose;
and this morning the poor pretty creature is swimming
faithfully if rather indiscreetly alongside, its wounds gaping

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 41

snow-white under the brine. We are not sailing fast
enough to catch dolphins on the hook. They are too clever
to bite at anything they have time to observe is not the real
flying-fish.

"Who hath desired the sea, the sight of salt water un-
bounded"— oh! we had a feast of Kipling last evening in
the cockpit, until half past nine, when Jack and I went for-
ward to enjoy the moonlit bow again. The water was un-
usually placid, with a fair breeze, and we were making some
headway, E.S.E. by the compass. Shadowy forms of dol-
phins slipped luminously past in the dark flood and like a
whisper of the Far East came the voices of the two Japanese
tucked away in the life-boat for the night. Perhaps the
unearthly charm of our bow may grow commonplace some
day; but not yet awhile.

Slowly we're getting everything into working order.
Yesterday I started putting to rights my stateroom lockers,
carelessly packed on leaving port. Writing is going for-
ward, the captain pursues his unostentatious navigation, the
wonder of the ocean-world is becoming incorporated into our
every-day consciousness, and the Snark sails on, the Snark
sails on.

Herrmann is like to burst with pride, for he has caught
all the fish so far. This morning he displayed a small fly-
ing-fish that he found on deck, one of an unusual variety
with four finny wings instead of two. These fish dash
blindly over the rail in the darkness and fall to deck
stunned. Just now, stitching away at a jib that was
dragged and torn under the forefoot the other night, Herr-
mann is relating how he skated one hundred and ten miles
in a day, from one town to another, on the canals in Hol-
land. One day he explained to Jack why he never saves
money. There was a time when he had three hundred dol-
lars in bank in New York. Off the Horn the main hatch
of the ship he was in was smashed in a storm, the
ocean poured in, and for a while it looked as if the vessel
would sink. But in all the smother of darkness and water,

42 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

obeying orders from the desperate captain and mate, Herr-
mann's ruling thought in the very face of death was one
of regret that he had not drunk up that three hundred dol-
lars in the last port! Upon reaching Seattle he had his
money telegraphed to him from New York, and wasted no
time in spending it. As Captain Warren has it, "Money's
no good except for the fun you can buy with it.7'

Lat. 13° 36' North,
Lon. 152° West.
Thursday, October 17, 1907.

There are two factors in sea-voyages that I cannot recon-
cile to advantage, namely, lack of exercise, and three meals
a day. To be sure, there is a sort of passive exercise in
the mere motion of the boat — continuous, and tiring until
one gets used to it, but not sufficient, in my case at least, to
offset a hearty diet. I have always bewailed the absence of
some sort of exercising-bar on the boat ; and all the time one
has been staring me in the face and eyes every time I de-
scended the companion-stairs, in the shape of the brass
handle-bar at right angles to the side-bars. So now when I
go below I usually ' ' chin ' ' that bar thrice.

Last evening, while having a cup of bouillon in the cock-
pit in lieu of supper below, I listened to Herrmann's story,
as he polished away at Jack's set of surgical instruments,
of how he left Holland in wrath ten years ago, to return
no more to the bosom of his family. It appears that he was
skipper of his father's boat (a ketch-rigged vessel, by the
way, like the Snark), carrying small cargoes in the North
Sea and on the coasts of England and Denmark. One
Christmas Eve, Herrmann came from Rotterdam, where his
vessel happened to be, upon urgent invitation ^from his
family. He arrived at dinner-time and found his parents
and his brothers and sisters with their guests around the
table. Some relative, a clerk in an office, commented dis-
agreeably upon Herrmann's clothes. "He told me as I
shouldn't come mit my father's house to dinner in the clothes

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 43

as I was. My clothes ben all right, blue English sweater
and good pants. So I got awful mad for him, and I told
him I could buy all his clothes a t'ousand times ofer, as I
ben getting much money." More words passed, and Herr-
mann, who I gathered had been feeling somewhat convivial
when he arrived, finally "got too mad" and landed across
the festive board on his antagonist's countenance. Herr
de Visser reprimanded his son for this breach of etiquette
and peace. This proved too much for Herrmann's "mad."
He rose in outraged dignity and left the parental roof for-
ever. 1 1 And I told my father he would nef er see me more, ' '
Herrmann concluded, in a tone of mixed pathos and de-
fiance.

"But your mother?" I asked.

"Oh — she cried much; she felt very bad."

Then I: "Why don't you write to her, Herrmann, some
day? It wasn't her fault."

His delft-blue eyes looked past me across the sea.

"It iss too late," he said, softly. "She iss dead two
years. ' '

Lat. 12° North,
Lon. 151° West.
Saturday, October 19, 1907.

It was bathing-suits and bucketfuls of salt water this
morning before breakfast. I assuaged some of my yearn-
ing for exercise by hauling in the canvas bucket, after
which I replenished wasted tissue with a fairly stout
breakfast. Wada is doing nobly with the cooking. He goes
on his independent way, to the best of his ability, until
some suggestion is made, whereupon he devotes himself to
learning a different way.

We feel so very husky, drying our bathing-suits on us in
fresh breeze and sun. The particular northerly wind our
skipper has been whistling for, sprang up last evening in
the dog-watch, after a day of calm that looked suspiciously
like the Doldrums (far north of the Equator as we are),
and during which we ran our crippled big engine for an

44 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

hour or so. But the crank-bearings heated badly, and we
flapped on the rest of the day by sail, but didn't flap far.
With the wind came a smart shower, and we hung out some
of our clothes to wash.

Sitting around the cockpit afternoons, reading Melville's
fascinating Typee and Eobert Louis Stevenson's and his
mother's books on the Marquesas and Tahiti, we long more
than ever to get forward into the South Sea. And it is a
wonderful thing we are doing — full of romance and colour.
Even while we are being held back from the Line by this
calm, we have with us beauty rare and unforgettable. The
calm ocean is a disc of sapphire encircled by a rim of clouds.
Once, watching that wounded dolphin which still follows us,
we noticed that the smooth blue water, through a trick of
light, seemed to be dotted with bluer pools — something like
the effect of oil on water.

But the calm is gone, and now we are travelling on our
course, east by north ; and it is cool and fresh in the shade
of the cockpit awning.

Jack called to me the other day and said he had some-
thing to ask of me — that, every time I came on deck, I
should look around over the water. "This is a lonely sea,
Mate, and there might be some poor devil in distress." I
told him I rather thought I already had the habit of look-
ing around the horizon a great deal. "Yes; but make it
your duty to do it every time you come on deck." Well,
men have been lost for the lack of a dutiful eye in this re-
gard, and I'm going to be very watchful.

I'm afraid Herrmann isn't quite equal to some of Jack's
jokes. The latter announced lately that he wanted Martin
and Herrmann to do two things for him on this trip around
the world — Martin at some time to get a baby monkey for
roasting, and Herrmann, for the same purpose, a baby can-
nibal. Martin reports that Herrmann said to him with an
aggrieved expression, "I couldn't shoot a little baby!"

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 45

Lat. 11° 7' North,

Lon. 150° 33' West.

Sunday, October 20, 1907.

This was a morning to put the fear of Nature into the
heart of a tyro at sea-going. I came on deck at seven, after
what had seemed to me a rough night, and found the cap-
tain at the wheel, closely watching a black sky ahead, Herr-
mann shortening sail, and all preparations being made for
trouble. Then one of the teak top-doors of the companion-
way descended upon my head and I went below for
a few minutes to nurse my wrongs. There are plenty of
ways to get hurt in squally weather on a small vessel. Yes-
terday accidents were rife, a cut finger apiece for Martin
and Herrmann, and for me a thumb jammed in a heavy
water-tight-compartment door.

Next, the mizzen was taken in, and the motion gentled
down a little. After breakfast we ran well into the squalls
of rain, and the men soaped their bodies and washed their
clothes in the rain-water that stood in the slack of the can-
vas boat-covers; while Jack and I had a novel bath in
the curtained cockpit, rain coming down on us and dripping
from the mizzen boom also. The only complaint just now
is that after our thorough soaping the rain stopped and we
had to put on our clothes without rinsing off the lather!
Dry bathing-suits are the clothes, however, and when it
rains again we'll take another wetting. The captain said
he guessed a bucket of fresh water could be spared for com-
pleting my shampoo. He holds every one else down close
when it comes to using our water store. I am very econom-
ical, though — for I try to realise what it would mean to be
out of water at sea, and this promises to be a long voyage.
A very little water, with a drop or so of strong ammonia,
goes a long way toward keeping one clean.

It was great fun bathing in the rain — you haven't any
idea how something unusual like this varies the monotony
of seafaring, however pleasant that monotony may be.

Now, at ten o'clock, the weather has moderated and the

46 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

sun is trying to come out. There is a great amount of
movement, however, and none of us feels any too well. Per-
sons who are going to be seasick ought to be broken in with
a gale immediately upon sailing. The best I can do this
morning in the way of work, with any degree of comfort,
is to lie in my bunk and use a pencil. I had hoped to get
at Jack's typewriting, but the very thought makes my nar-
row walls revolve. I am so glad they are even approximately
white walls, — though even now, after two thorough coats of
white enamel paint, old Captain Rosehill's salmon-pink coat-
ing shows through. Captain Rosehill was Roscoe's suc-
cessor, and served as harbour captain while the Snark was
in Hawaii.

We have learned something startling. Yesterday Jack
was reading in the South Sea Directory the report of an old-
time mariner concerning the difficulty of fetching the Mar-
quesas and Society Islands, from Hawaii, on account of ad-
verse wind and sea. He went so far as to hint at its being
practically an impossible traverse. So we are on the way
to doing something impossible, are we? Well, we have
started, and it is easier to think of the impossibility of the
trip for other people than for ourselves. We have just got
to make the Marquesas.

Lat. 11° North,
Lon. 149° 5(T West.
Monday, October 21, 1907.

Two weeks ago to-day we left Hilo, figuring on three or
four weeks for our passage to the Marquesas. Yesterday
Captain Warren remarked that it might be fifty days yet
before we see them. A Hilo friend's anxious questions, at
parting, as to whether we really expected to reach our
destination, will probably recur to her mind several times
before our arrival is listed. Most persons seem unable to
comprehend that we are not deliberately suicidal.

It's hard sailing this morning, in a big sea with steady
wind. Yesterday we seemed to be sailing; there was abun-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 47

dance of movement, but it was mostly up and down — a
troubled cross-sea and strong head-wind.

Just after the stormy sunset and sudden twilight yester-
night, the moon showed dead ahead, a burning copper disc
melting its way through a wall of lead. Then happened
one of the amazes of the sea. Out of the turmoil of wind
and mounting waves, out of the whirling chaos of the low
overtaking sky, we sailed right through the leaden wall into
a night of perfect tranquillity, lit by an incredible burst of
moon and stars. It was a revelation, this peaceful ocean
and dry north breeze and sparkling firmament. It was like
the shifting of colossal scenery in some marvellous spectacle.
The stars were too large and bright to be anything but
tinsel and electric light; the sky was far too purple for a
real night-sky, and the billows of woolly clouds too massy
and tangible to be mere vapours of sea-water.

Lat. 9° 45' North,
Lon. 136° 17' West.
Monday, November 4, 1907.

Death is farthest from one's thoughts these pleasant, busy
days of semi-calm, when there is just breeze enough to slip
us along slowly over the smoothly rolling flood. We are
complete in our little working-world; the domestic ma-
chinery cogs along much the same as in a land-home. There
is little danger of any one falling overboard unless he is
attacked by vertigo, and we are in a live world in which
death, I say, does not occur to our minds. But when, after
such days, and placid evenings spent in the starlight with
music and singing and poesy, one is startled into conscious-
ness at midnight by being let down suddenly against the
bunk-rail, and the further sensation of going on over, end-
lessly, endlessly — then death is the first flashing thought.
It might not be so to one in the open, on deck ; but a closed
forward stateroom, in a small yacht, is a trap. It may mean
death by drowning, or, what is worse, sharks. Sharks are
.no myth in this populous Pacific — as the jaw of a young

48 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

six-footer, drying its twelve rows of fine saw-teeth on the
mizzen pin-rail, grimly attests. It all darted through my
brain when the squall smote, and I went over the rail of my
high bunk and landed on the five-by-two floor with an
agility I would not have thought possible. Theretofore I
had always taken off the rail before climbing carefully
down. I turned on the electric bulb, cleared up fallen
things as best I could, got on my clothes somehow or other,
all the while wondering if the boat would ever right. My
heart was beating in my throat with the suddenness and
manner of my awakening ; while my head told me I was not
needed on deck, in spite of an urgent desire to get out from
under, for I knew that every man was up and doing. A.
woman may be a very small item in the way of usefulness
in stress at sea; but there is always something to be done,
and after our careless days of placid weather things below
had not been wedged in as tightly as usual.

I was glad to get out and up on deck in the driving
smother. I " tooted " to Jack, while groping my clinging
way to the wheel, and tried to satisfy my curiosity as to what
was happening — which is asking too much with regard to
a tropical gale in the dead of night. A sailor cannot see,
he can only feel; and what he feels is a powerful gust that
puts the vessel over and keeps her down, while he takes in
sail and wonders what is behind the awful blackness to wind-
ward. So when I said to Jack at the wheel, "What is it?"
he could merely answer, "I don't know." No one knows.
It is black, it is blowing like a gale but it may be only a
rain-squall, over in ten minutes.

One thing gratifies me: Jack and the skipper never try
to reassure me at the expense of their own veracity. I
begged this of them at the start. So I get the best there is
to be had of their frank opinions. I want to know, and
I ought to know ; and they treat me in this) respect as ' ' one
of the boys. ' '

So Jack "didn't know"; all he was sure of was that with
the sudden onslaught of the wind he awoke in the life-boat,

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 49

aware of Captain Warren streaking past him to the main-
boom tackle, for the squall had burst in the opposite quarter
from a light breeze that had been filling the sails. The
celerity with which Jack must have landed from his bed
on the canvas cover of the boat amidship, into the cockpit
and to the wheel, is partially told by a huge rent in the
nether garment which adorned his person at the time, and
which I have just finished repairing.

Nakata was steering when the squall smote, and immedi-
ately spoke to the captain, asleep on deck alongside. The
captain is quick as lightning, and had things straightened
out in no time. Fortunately the Snark is stiff, and shows
no signs of turning turtle ; so that while the man at the wheel
eases her along in the violent puffs of wind, the others have
time to handle the sails without fear of capsizing. When
I came up, Martin and Herrmann were taking in the flying-
jib and sails and Jack was succeeding in keeping the yacht
before the wind. How I love men, and the work men do!
Jack, keen at his task of steering in the squall — the sturdy
little wheel flying under his hands; the men forward hold-
ing on by their eyebrows while they took in the jib ; the cap-
tain everywhere; Nakata, cheerily fastening down the
weather-skylight and taking bedding below — men, men, all
brave men, doing their fighting work in the world.

And death receded into dim distance with the interest and
excitement of our little battle with the forces of out-doors,
as the small Snark buckled down to carrying every thread
of her working canvas, which was re-set shortly when the
wind grew no worse. The captain's voice broke warmly
as he spoke of the way she did it, and the way she minded
the helm. He is very emotional. Why, the other day when
he had that shark on the hook over the stern, I thought he
would weep with excitement and disappointment for very
fear that Herrmann would not slip the bowline over the
creature's tail in time. He was afraid the hook alone would
not hold it.

The squall blew itself out shortly, leaving us a good sail-

50 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

ing-breeze, and we went below and finished our sleep. But
such an experience clinched what old sailors tell of the
treachery of these latitudes, where the wind slaps out of
unexpected quarters at unexpected times, and in the night
at least no man knows what lurks behind the darker dark
to windward. . . . Captain Warren, sitting at the wheel,
nods appreciatively at what I have written.

Although personal death does not press upon us in pleas-
ant weather, there is doom all around for the lesser things,
swift and pursuing. For four days countless myriads of
small fish resembling mackerel have been leaping and glinting
around the ship, driven by tireless enemies below, and meet-
ing pain and disaster at the surface from the ravenous
young gunies scanning the deep from above. It is some-
thing like the tragedy of the flying-fish caught between
dolphin and frigate-birds. Of this an old chronicler of the
sixteenth century writes:

"There is another kind of fish (the flying-fish) as big
almost as a herring, which hath wings and flieth, and they
are together in great number. These have two enemies;
the one in the sea, the other in the air. In the sea, the
fish which is called the Albacore, as big as a salmon, f ollow-
eth them with great swiftness to take them. This poor fish
not being able to swim fast, for he hath no fins, but
swimmeth with the moving his tail, shutting his wings,
lifteth himself above the water, and flieth not very high.
The Albacore seeing this, although he have no wings, yet
giveth a great leap out of the water, and sometimes catcheth
him ; or else he keepeth himself under the water, going that
way as fast as the other flieth. And when the fish, being
weary of the air, or thinking himself out of danger, re-
turneth into the water, the Albacore meeteth with him ; but
sometimes his other enemy, the sea-crow, catcheth him be-
fore he falleth."

Jack has been taking a hand this morning in the carnage,
or trying to, getting out some of the pretty tackle we used
to unpack so gleefully at Glen Ellen when the orders were

Her Trick at the Wheel

Jack Harpooning

Wada's Dolphin

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 51

filled from the East. But the fish were too busy with the
other form of death to be caught by this lure of bright steel
and colour.

We have fared better in the matter of wind during the
past two weeks. On the 22d, at 4 :30 p. M., a squall came
up that sent us spinning along at six knots during the
following hour, in the right direction; and the second day
following, good winds started that kept us well on our
course for several days. Everybody aboard is happier when
the Snark is holding her own, especially the captain, upon
whom a dead calm has a very bad effect, and during which
his temper is short and his language, on the side, when I
am not supposed to be within hearing, is hardly elegant.

It is a splendid sight, a rain-squall coming over the water
in the daylight. It resembles a dust-storm or low rolling
hills — fairly smoking along; and when the dust of the rain
arrives you do not run for shelter, but just stand and enjoy
the warm drenching. This morning Jack and I stood by the
weather shrouds forward, watching it come from the north-
east, the nearer waters broken by leaping fish.

We are in the Doldrums now, variable winds and frequent
showers, whereas in the Variables there was more wind and
less rain.

The horizons are dreams of cloud-beauty on the still days ;
or, toward late afternoon when a light breeze sends us
smoothly ahead, we may see low-lying clouds of blue, the
clouds themselves blue, and out of the low pillowy clouds on
the horizon will puff up bursts of white that tint through
with rose and gold as the sun goes down, while we sit with
faces glorified by the rose of the west and the wine of the
sunset sea.

Lat. 9° 37' North,
Lon. 135° 18' West.
Tuesday, November 5, 1907.

It has surprised me, as we have drawn nearer to the Equa-
tor, that it has not been warmer. " Stark calm on the lap of

52 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

the line " as we are, the heat is not distressing. Of course, one
would not choose to be in the sun for long at midday; but
there has been nothing unusual about the temperature. To-
day, however, is quite hot enough for an introduction to the
Line. A hat and green visor scarce shade one's eyes. I
was fairly blinded just now when I took up some linen things
to bleach on the launch-cover. Head and eyes ache from
the brassy glare, and I am going to take better care of them
and wear a hat oftener, although I love the warm colour of
the sun-burn on my hair.

Keeping clothes from mildewing and yellow-spotting is a
ceaseless responsibility, and deterioration of silk is appalling.
A large portion of Nakata's time is employed in taking on
deck and returning below our bedding and wearing ap-
parel. Just now I am burning an electric extension in my
crowded closet-locker, to offset the dampness, while a mass
of holokus and other summery garments is on my bed bene-
fiting by sunshine that filters through the decklight. There
is one compensation, however, for the trouble of over-
hauling, and that is the pleasure of handling pretty things.
My every-day garb on the boat is of a kind that, while com-
fortable and even picturesque (according to Jack), makes
me appreciate the sight of more feminine and dainty pos-
sessions. You see, the grime of San Francisco has not yet
quite worn from our ropes and tackle ; and after completely
ruining one silken bloomer-suit I said " Never again," and
adopted pajamas, rolled up at knee and elbow, as Jack wears
them. In such a suit of white, black-figured, with a piratical
touch of red at waist and neck, I go my free and barefoot
way. As for the crew, they seem to take everything I do
as a matter of course, without comment of eye or lip.

I am not the first observer in the world who has noted that
most persons long to be something for which they are not
fitted by nature. Nakata is no exception. His desire is to
be a blond, and he waxes ecstatic over my burned locks.
' ' Bee-i/M-ti-f ill, Missisn ! " he. cries innocently, his gaze lin-
gering on my hair as I brush it in the sun. Now he is wild

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 53

with a bird-like delight over my suggestion that we bleach
his stiff black poll. I am equally keen for the lark, but there
is no peroxide aboard. Martin, I think, has leanings toward
brigandage, judging by the desperately evil look he attains
by wearing a blue-and-white bandana around his head in
lieu of a hat. He has lost overboard some eight hats and
caps since we left San Francisco, and is now reduced to a
bandana, and his precious Baden-Powell, and he is afraid
of losing that. I do not know in what character Jack would
be scintillating, if he could find the scarlet bathing-suit
he is hunting for — a new one bought in Hilo ; but it has dis-
appeared, either tucked away as things aboard the Snark are
too often tucked away and lost to all intents and purposes,
or else stolen before we sailed. Our shelf-copy of The Sea
Wolf is gone, too, and a book-proof copy of The Iron Heel.
And neither Jack nor I has a sou 'wester — both stolen, as far
as we can judge. I wear the captain 's, at his urgent solicita-
tion, although it is not fair to him, and Jack goes around in
his old rummage-sale Tarn o' Shanter, the age of which is
beyond guessing. As for me, I am posing as the happiest
and luckiest girl in the world, and it is an easy role.

Now let me tell about that six-foot-five shark we caught —
the first ever landed on the Snark. The captain got it with
a salt-pork-baited hook over the stern; Herrmann slipped a
bowline under it, and then shot it in the head several times.
But it died hard, thrashing on the deck a long time after
the men got it inboard. Of course, it was hung up and
photographed — strange, vicious monster, with eyes like a
cat, yellowish, slit-pupiled, and with a cat's disinclination
to give up the fight for life. It still thrashed about even
after most of its internal economy had gone overboard. I
never have heard a description of the eye of a shark, and its
resemblance to the feline optic struck me instantly. "The
tiger of the sea," to be sure — why, it ought to have cat's
eyes. This shark of ours was a specimen of the man-eating
variety, with twelve fearsome rows of saw-edged teeth. The
meat of the shark is good and sweet, and not dry ; but sailors

54 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

do not care for it — probably because of their hatred of its
propensity for human meat.

But sharks have annoyances of their own, one of these
being a black sucker — remora — that clings to it as a sea-
anernone clings to a rock, a marine vermin that can hardly
be soothing to the shark. The longest we pulled off was
about ten inches. The clinging-muscles of the slippery pest
are under its head, under the jaw, if it can be called a
jaw. At first we thought these parasites were young sharks.
So tightly did they stick, that it was almost impossible to
pull them loose while they lived. And now all that is left
of our first shark are the jaws, drying on the pin-rail, and
the vertebra, strung at the mizzen-masthead.

There were many dolphins swimming around us the morn-
ing we got the shark, Saturday, the 2nd — an orgy of colour
in the sun-shot azure of the water. It was one of the days
when the water is pale sapphire through which the sun-rays
focus deep down in long slanting funnels of quivering golden
light. The shark was attended by dozens of its black-and-
white striped pilot-fish, and there were several bonitos
around also.

Later. A small shark is following us this afternoon, but
in a listless fashion that indicates a full stomach. It chased
a big dolphin out of the water, and the pursued fish took a
shoot of at least seven feet over the surface — a curving blade
of flashing blue.

The first Portuguese men-o'-war that we have seen since
we left Hilo, have shown up lately — one day a solitary little
silver sail, and the next day myriads. Just here I am re-
minded of the " nature-fake" discussion that is raging in
the United States. It appears that Mr. John Burroughs has
incurred the displeasure of a correspondent of the Outlook,
by stating that ''the Physalia, or Portuguese man-o'-war,
has a kind of sail in its air-sack that helps it sail to wind-
ward." The irritated correspondent jumps back with:
1 'It does nothing of the kind; it cannot sail to windward,

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 55

and it never did; it drifts to leeward." But another critic
out-Burroughs Mr. Burroughs, as follows:

"The physalia has three masts, all square-rigged, and in
windward work easily lies within three points of the wind.
Going large he runs under bare poles. In the Bay of
Barataria I have often seen a squadron of these Portuguese
men-o'-war with stunsails set, beating to windward to get
the weather gauge on a Spanish omelet, then furling every-
thing and running down the wind to their less active victim.
The nautilus has sails too, only it is barkentine-rigged, and
in running sometimes sets a lower f oretopsail. "

One day, when the men were overhauling the fore-peak,
eight infant rats, with their mother, were killed. We hoped
they were all settled, but since then traces of another have
been found. Probably it comes into the galley at night for
water, as there is none handy anywhere else, all tanks being
of galvanized iron, with no seepage. Captain Warren says
that aboard ships a rat will gnaw almost through a water-
cask, contenting itself with the moisture oozing through,
rather than letting the water out freely and losing it all.

We have been practising with our rifles this afternoon —
the first time I 've had a gun in my hands since the heavy rifle
on Molokai, when I hit the target at two hundred yards.
To-day we were trying at pieces of wood and cans on the
water. Perhaps, before the day is over, Jack will have a
chance at the shark.

Try as we may to forget the inexcusable blunders in the
building of the Snark, and the persons who are inexcusably
responsible, things hitherto unknown keep creeping out to
make us more than ever sick of commercial civilisation.
The men who sailed with us from San Francisco insisted
upon the honesty of those who betrayed us in the building
of our boat — even insisted in the face of evidence to the
contrary as strong as what came to light yesterday morning,
when Captain Warren found the deck-beams forward of our
staterooms, where they were not likely to be discovered, to

56 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

be pine instead of the fine oak beams that were ordered and
paid for in the east and delivered at the shipyard. To be
sure, many a good ship's deck-beams are pine; but that is
not the point: the shipbuilders substituted beams that cost
about $2.50 apiece, for beams that cost us about $7.50
apiece. What became of the oak? But this is not the
worst. The bitts forward, upon the strength of which de-
pends our safety when at anchor, is a ghastly bluff. About
one quarter of it reaches as it should down to the bottom
of the boat; the other three quarters are supposed to go
down to the bottom of the boat — but do not. A magnificent
great beam of oak to look upon — it stops short at the deck,
a farce, another heart-breaking reminder of the way the
''honest" men treated us in the States. The rotten wrought
iron — it still goes back on us, here and there; the deck-
planking full of butts, ordered without butts and paid for
accordingly; the pitiful futile engine. But I haven't told
about the engine. After paying out five hundred dollars
more in Hilo on repairs to it, now, after working it at half-
speed (it would go no faster) for perhaps a couple of hours
altogether since we sailed a month ago, the engine is pau,
and cannot be used again until another machine-shop is
handy, which will not be until we reach Papeete, Tahiti.
Even the engineer in Hilo, our last hope, let us go out to
sea with an engine he knew for a joke, and with some new
faults of which he did not tell us, although he knew them,
according to Martin. Why Martin did not give us the bene-
fit of his information, I do not know.

From the engine room at intervals comes a heavy sigh.
It is certainly appropriate, and quite affecting, even if it
is produced by a metal valve ! It is an expensive valve, by
the way, installed in Hilo, doubly expensive because it is a
failure. Ah, well — cold world and warm friend, it has been
all one to Jack and me where the building of the Snark is
concerned. But we have each other and the fair sky and
water all about us, and we are alive and living in spite of
them all.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 57

Lat 9° 4' North,
Lon. 134° 15' West.
Wednesday, November 6, 1907.

Have I said before that we are over half-way to the Mar-
quesas?— and already a month at sea. There are potatoes
for four more days; and with the potatoless prospect arise
vague longings for fresh taro, and poi, cocoanuts, and bread-
fruit! We shall be glad enough to welcome land and trees
and growing things. But Jack and I are not in the slight-
est sense bored by the long passage — we haven't time to do
the things we want to do. The captain frets and chafes
sorely, however, although after a particularly crusty spell,
he usually laughs at himself and explains again what it
means to a captain to have a vessel held back.

We thought we had made an important discovery. It
seems that the mackerel fishing-grounds of the world have
been practically deserted of late years, and no one knows
where the fish have migrated. Here, in this lonely part of
the Pacific, we began to think we had solved the problem.
But the books tell us that mackerel are not to be
found far from land, so this boiling sea of fish through
which we have been sailing cannot well be mackerel,
but is more likely to be the skipjack and young bonita
—both related to the mackerel, however. Also, the ex-
treme shyness of the supposed mackerel toward our
hooks, tallies with that exasperating characteristic of the
skipjack, as noted in the book of reference that we dug up.
Our little library is of unending use and joy to us.

It being too wet to box after breakfast this morning, Jack
read aloud to us all, — Joseph Conrad's Youth, a masterpiece
of which he and I never tire, many times though we have
read it. I, at least, can appreciate it much better than I
could before my acquaintance with the sea. Books and
stories about the sea and sea-going bring the world closer
than ever about me, as I touch more intimately, day after
day, the life of the sea. Captain Warren swears by Con-
rad— a sailor vouching for the capable work of another

58 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

sailor. And speaking of the captain reminds me of an in-
cident that occurred yesterday which made a great impres-
sion upon me. Our little arsenal has rusted in spite of
present care-taking, having got a bad start during 'Gene's
regime, and the guns jammed yesterday, after the first few
shots. Jack was firing his Colt's automatic pistol, and it
jammed. The empty shell would not eject, nor would the
loaded magazine come out. I was watching his efforts
to straighten out the thing, and the captain could see I
was nervous lest there be an explosion in Jack's pre-
cious hands, although I declare I made little fuss. So the
captain begged Jack to let him experiment, adding some-
thing about its not being so important a matter if anything
happened to his own hands. It was said quite as a matter
of course — the captain of a boat taking as a matter of course
the first risks in all things. Jack did not relinquish the
pistol, and I was immensely relieved when the magazine
finally yielded and came out. But I shall not soon forget
the captain's words and intention, and told him so later on.
He looked pleased, and said simply, "Mr. London's hands
are worth more than mine."

Everybody had a good time to-day, for there was plenty
of incident. The captain hooked our first bonita, a small
specimen about fourteen inches long, dark changeable blue
on top and all delicate mother-of-pearl and rose under-
neath. Being a dry fish, it was relegated to a chowder
for supper. Jack did not finish his chapter of the novel
this forenoon, because, soon after he had gone below
to write, after inspecting the bonita, we spied a turtle not
far off. Captain Warren wore ship and made for the bow-
sprit, dropped down upon the martingale back-rope, calling
meanwhile for a line to put around his body, while he should
fasten another rope around the turtle, after which we were
to haul them both in. He did that once before, he says,
and shows a scar from the turtle's bite. But he did not
go overboard this time, for we drifted to the left of the
creature. "Waking from sleep, it paddled astern, bobbing

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 59

against the starboard side of the boat, heavy with a meal
off a dozen small-fry. Over the stern the captain hung
on to the granes that Herrmann put into the turtle's
shell just back of its head, while Jack shot his automatic
rifle into the head. Herrmann and Martin were frantically
hunting for the harpoon, which was not where it belonged,
strange to say! Only one barb of the granes had caught
in the shell, and the captain had his hands full to keep from
losing the catch. Herrmann could not manage to stick the
harpoon where he wanted it, so he put a rope around himself
and dropped overboard, passed the turtle up and was him-
self hauled in. One doesn't feel quite happy with a fellow
voyager overboard in these waters, I can tell you. One
never knows when a shark may be loafing just under the
keel, dozing lightly and alert for anything that looks like a
meal. Like our shark, the turtle was attended by pilot-fish.

Handling a sea-turtle is a thing to be done gingerly; for
besides the vicious mouth with its sharp beak inside in lieu
of teeth, he has a thick strong claw on each flipper. And
when a turtle is dead, he isn 't dead ; you can 't trust him —
he is worse than a shark. A story is told of a turtle-shell
hung on a tree, with only tail and head left attached. A
sailor put two fingers into the mouth, and the "abysmal
brute" beak closed and the sailor left his two fingers therein.

The dissection of this creature, which is "neither flesh,
nor fish, nor fowl," but resembles all three, was worth see-
ing. I wonder sometimes how I can watch these bloody
operations. But I want to see, I want to know; and these
good reasons brace me up. The most remarkable thing I
saw in the interior of this turtle was the canal leading to
the stomach, which canal was lined with yellow spikes
like those of a sea-anemone. Nothing that is swallowed can
return to the light unless the swallower wills. Captain
Warren is drying this curiosity in the sun, and says it is
going to make me a purse ! Our turtle measured three feet
from nose to rear end of shell, the shell itself being twenty-
six inches long. The tail alone was about ten inches.

60 THE LOG OP THE SNAKK

During the catching, there happened a thing of wonderful
beauty. Twice, a brilliantly coloured dolphin, at least six
feet in length, leaped high and shot out over the water,
twisting and turning in the air before falling on its side
with a loud splash — just having a good time enjoying its
life and strength. There were many dolphins swimming
close around us at the time, as if curious about the turtle,
and we saw a four-foot albacore, resembling the bonita, only
many times larger than any bonita we have come across.
Schools of tiny skipjacks swam under the yacht, and a small
flying-fish came aboard. Jack's old promises are being abun-
dantly surpassed.

It is an unending happy dream of youth and romance,
this idling over the face of the waters, taking anything and
everything that comes along, as a matter of course, rain or
sunshine, cloud or wind, pleasure and danger; and it is all
pleasure.

Lat 6° 45' North,
Lon. 134° West.
Friday, November 8, 1907.

Captain "Warren is trying hard not to be short and glum
in this near-calm, in which the only fan of air that blows
takes us more to the south than we care to go as yet — easting
being what we must make in order to gain the Marquesas.
But Jack and I are most cheerful, with our work and read-
ing, sparring, playing intense games of cribbage and "ad-
mirin' how the world is made."

The turtle has been served up in various forms, each bet-
ter than the last — broiled, fried, soup-wise, and in chowder ;
and the end is not yet.

. . . Last night a slim new moon came out above heavy
slate-blue clouds after sunset, and under the clouds glowed
a dull-gold horizon, while the sea was all a pale purple
flushed with rose. If my sunsets grow tiresome, forgive me.
They are so lovely that it seems I must speak of them. This
morning the ocean reminds me of a great round aquarium,
the rim wrought with frosted filagree of clouds — a bowl of

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 61

blue water wherein the fish leap clear as if trying to escape.
But the bowl has a cover of palest blue, and there is no
escape.

Monday, November 11, 1907.

To-day a new element entered into our romance — the ele-
ment of raw, red, brutal sailor-life that lands- men and
-women read about in books. And it has left me sad and
sick and with a cruel sense of disillusionment. I have al-
ready hinted at the emotional disposition of the S nark's
present skipper; but I did not dream that I was preparing
my readers for the horrid thing that happened this after-
noon. It is like a nightmare ; only, when I look at the ugly
cut on poor Wada's blanched face, with the purple-bruised
eyes swollen almost shut, I know again the sickening reality
of this new page in the Snark's Log.

The captain's moroseness had been increasing steadily and
probably he had reached the stage when he had to take it
out on somebody. He chose the smallest man on board.
Warren has a cleft in the top of his skull that he says was
dealt him by a crazy ship's-cook; but after to-day's experi-
ence I don't mind hazarding that maybe that cook was not
crazy.

And here's what occurred: This morning at breakfast
the captain suddenly remembered a box of honey some one
had given him at Hilo. He also remembered having sub-
sequently seen this box in the galley, and now asked Wada
sharply why he had not served the honey with our hot-
cakes these many mornings. Wada, very flustered and small
in the voice, answered haltingly that he had never seen the
box. He was commanded to produce it immediately, but
failed to locate it. Then the captain, half rising from the
table, cried in a voice shaking with rage, "You find that
honey, or I'll show you how to find it!" His fury was out
of all proportion to the occasion, and much out of place at
table, to say the least.

After breakfast, Wada, with drawn face, and assisted

62 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

by a silent but sympathetic Nakata, searched through locker
after locker, in galley and in cabin; but, presumably
through the very forgetfulness of fear, he did not happen
on the right locker. After lunch, which passed off rather
constrainedly under the lowering looks of the captain, there
was a general air of uncomfortable expectancy aboard ship.
In the afternoon, while Jack was steering and reading aloud
to me in the cockpit, there came through the galley decklight
the sound of a one-sided conversation in the trembling, un-
controlled tones of Captain Warren. Nakata was hovering
on deck with the longest face we had ever seen on him. Few
words reached us ; but there followed a thudding pause that
turned me faint. Then the captain came on deck, and his
hands were bloody — I know I can never look at them again
without thinking of it ; and he was followed by a shrunken,
blinded little brown man whose entire face was a red
smudge. I did not look again, for I felt somehow that along
with the pain Wada was suffering, there was pride and a
shrinking from observation. So I looked at Jack instead,
and something in his eyes told me the happening would
never be repeated.

The captain came aft with his brutal hands; and would
you believe it? — he had so relieved himself that he was now
all apology for making a scene, and further, his voice broke
sympathetically over the "punishment" he had been obliged
to give Wada. The cook had ordered him out of the galley,
and of course it was a captain's right to go anywhere he
pleased aboard his command.

Martin had heard and seen everything through the glass
window in the wall between galley and engine-room. The
captain, Martin told us afterward, who is twice as large as
Wada, had blocked the galley door with his person, and
demanded "that honey." Wada, scared out of his wits,
said it was not on the boat. The captain started to enter,
threateningly, and Wada, in the last extremity of terror,
said, "Don't you come in my galley." Which is where he
made his big mistake, for it was just what Warren had

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 63

tried to frighten him into, so he would have an excuse to take
the boy by the throat with one hand and smash in with the
other. There was no escape in the confined space, with the
stove behind.

Wada was stupid, granted — for the honey was found later
— but he was terrified, and not intentionally mutinous or
impudent; and his punishment was entirely disproportion-
ate to his offence. This is not a merchant ship nor a tramp
steamer; it is a pleasure-boat, and such extremes are un-
called for.

Poor little Wada! That evening I was alone in the life-
boat, when he crept on deck. I called him to me and asked
him if the cut on his forehead was painful. He answered
in a dead, level voice that it was not, but that his throat
ached. I noticed that he was hoarse. He seemed to grieve
most over the possibility of a scar, for he said he had never
been in trouble like this before. He thought a scar would
be a sort of disgrace.

"Cap'n big man — just like hit little baby when he hit
me," he said with a sigh.

Lat. 8° 3(X North,
Lon. 131° West.
Wednesday, November 13, 1907.

I am sitting on a new corner seat in the cockpit, at seven
bells in the evening ; Jack, Captain Warren and Martin, are
perspiring over a game of poker in the cabin ; Herrmann is
on the rudder-box holding the boat to her course, southeast
one-half south, in a fair wind that has been blowing since
three o'clock, to our delight. Upon my assurance that it
will not bother me in the least, Herrmann is singing "The
Last Rose of Summer," although I have discovered that the
tale he carries to our familiar air is not the one we know,
being a recital of a Dutch Maud Muller who scorned the
rich suitor, preferring her poor but honest yokel.

To the northeast, in an otherwise clear and moonlit sky,
a low black thunder-cloud is spitting intermittent flashes of

64 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

steely lightning that make my electric light yellow by con-
trast. It is too lovely a night for me to be stuck in an ar-
tificially lighted corner ; but this has already been a day full
of neglected work, and if I wait too long to write what I
see, the freshness and colour will go out — like the life and
colour that went out of a dying dolphin Herrmann landed
yesterday. I was sleeping late, and Jack tiptoed in at
8:30, not wanting me to miss this first dolphin caught
in daylight. It took me just about two minutes to get on
deck, and even then the living peacock-blue was gone, all
but speckles of it dotting an iridescent green. This in turn
shaded out of a dark blue line underneath, which soon faded
to glossy white. Most of the dolphins we see in the water
are of all shades of bright blue, passing into emerald green ;
and to-day, through some light and shade effect, they ap-
peared to be broadly striped with black and green and blue.
They are the chameleons of the deep — except that their
colours are not protective; they shame everything else in
air and sea.

This fish measured over three feet. Although we have
seen them twice this length, the captain says this three-footer
is the largest he ever caught. As with the sunsets, I must
be pardoned for recurring to the dolphin, so beautiful a
thing he is. We have been surrrounded by enormous ones
these days of calm. Imagine a vision of luminous azure deep
down in transparent dark sapphire water — why, we drop
everything to watch. The turtle shell, towed close astern,
brings various sorts of inquisitive fish around us when the
water is calm.

To-day Jack and the captain classified our charts — some
already used, some unnecessary ones, to be returned to Cali-
fornia, and the ones for the future put into the order in
which we now expect to need them. After these days of
turning around and around in calms, or fighting head winds
and currents and getting nowhere, we are fired with fresh
ambition to follow the islands shown by the charts.

Big drops of warm rain are blobbing all over the page as

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 65

I write; but they cannot put out my covered light, so I
don't mind them.

Poor Martin has been wrestling with defective plumb-
ing in the bath-room ; also with certain faults in the engine-
room electrical apparatus. His opinions as to the integrity
of the people dealing in ship chandlery are undergoing a
transformation, now that he must keep in order these faulty
things. ' * The darn things were only made to play with, ' ' he
complained, looking ruefully at an inefficient pump-handle
that had been defying all efforts to make it do its work,
and that had finally broken short off.

Lat. 8° North,
Lon. 129° 42' West.
Thursday, November 14, 1907.

Not much sleep these hot nights, for the " juice " that
runs the cooling fans gave out a few nights ago. About
4:30 this morning the wind freshened to a strong squall
that called for all hands on deck to take in flying- jib
and mizzen. How it does pour in these squalls! The big
stinging drops seem to shoot from the clouds rather than
fall, with a drive that sends them through oilskin. But it is
such cleansing rain. The ropes grow whiter after each
deluging ; and I love to feel the water run off my slicker and
drench my bare feet.

It is so cheering to hear the brave bright voices of the
men through rain and dark, reassuring us as to their safety.
One could go overboard so easily at night in a big sea and
not be missed for a time; and even if he were missed im-
mediately, how pick him up in the gloom and noise and
confusion ?

I am more or less painfully aware of the many places
aboard a small craft upon which one can "bark" his
anatomy. I would better say "her" anatomy, since I have
a more than ordinarily brilliant faculty for decorating my-
self with bruises that vie with the lunar rainbow in
smothered tones of violet and orange. I am particularly

66 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

conscious of such abrasions after a rough night. I recoil
in sleep from a wicked encounter of my temple with a sharp-
cornered pigeon-hole on a locker-door by my head, only to
receive the full weight of my descending body on the flat-
tened end of my poor sun-tender nose against the bunk-
rail, as I turn, assisted by a violent roll of the boat, for con-
solation to the other side of the bed. Oh, it is not at all
funny — until I come to tell about it, when I have to laugh
even if it hurts to laugh. I am minded of the solicitous old
sea-dog who warned Jack by letter that it was not safe to
take a woman outside the Golden Gate in a boat of the
Snark's size; that we would be bruised over our "entire
persons, unless the boat be padded, which is not usual."
I'll give him the satisfaction of knowing that I am pretty
much bruised over my ' l entire person, ' ' but that I am grow-
ing hardened both in spirit and muscle. Every one aboard
knows when I hurt myself; but I really think I make less
outcry than of yore. I would be willing to wager a good
round sum that more than one reader of my tale of bumps
and humps will say that my husband is a brute to risk me
on such a voyage — unless he wants to lose me. But to all
such I make reply that they should just see me if he tried
to leave me behind. However, I think I must have been
inspired when I suggested, in America, that we take the
trip before we were any older !

No woman but an idiot would embark on a round-world
voyage in our fashion without sundry flutters and misgiv-
ings. I did not worry very much about trouble or danger;
but at first I could not help being a little nervous sometimes
in the sizable seas through which the little Snark would
thread her way with that impudent adventuring nose of hers.
But now, except when shocked awake from a dead sleep, I
take the pawing and clawing, lurching and bounding over
the bucking seas, quite as part of the day's work. This is
not to minimise the possibility of the awful things that could
happen to us and may yet happen to us, for the sea is a
cruel, unlovable monster of caprice and might ; but now my

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 67

accustomed nerves are beginning to dread nothing less than
the worst.

We are all becoming more and more a part of the boat.
We take less conscious care of ourselves near the rail — but
we are actually more cautious than ever, in a finer and more
intelligent, if more subconscious way.

. . . Think of the mails that must be waiting for us at
Papeete, Tahiti. It will be six weeks next Monday since
we sailed from Hilo ; and it struck me with a pang the other
day, that before long, dear ones at home may be saddening
their days with apprehensions for our fate — and life is so
short, and terrors of this kind shorten it, if life be measured
by heartbeats of happiness. It is bad enough for people to
think of us out in this cockle-shell, without the agony being
piled up by " overdue " press reports. Our obituaries may
even now be in preparation in newspaper offices where news
is scarce!

Jack says this is probably the longest single stretch we
shall ever have. Where we should be logging one hundred
miles a day at the least, we are only doing a few. Take
yesterday: we made thirty knots on our course, and I don't
know how many off our course ; and this morning after the
squall, which kept us on the course, the wind broke off and
we are now fighting slowly northeast with plunge and
splurge, in a big short sea, making very little headway. It
is a comfortless movement, too. We are past getting sea-
sick now; but I for one am not quite at rest in the region
of my solar plexus.

After making the acquaintance of the tropic cockroach,
the centipede, and other unsympathetic co-dwellers in this
vale of tears, a woman's heartfelt desire is to keep them
from possessing the household. My household is a boat,
with all sorts of attractive nooks and damp lockers and dark
corners for insect or reptile. No centipedes have shown up ;
plenty of time yet for them to come aboard with island
fruits. But after several days' vague curiosity about cer-
tain black husks in the graham bread, it was discovered that

68 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

the flour was alive with weevils and black bugs. Well,
there's no use being too squeamish; but Jack, horrid thing!
said he had noticed a distinct change for the better in his
physical well-being, as if, forsooth, he had been living on
a fresh-meat diet ! — Ugh ! the flour was carefully sifted and
sunned on the skylight to-day — don't think for a moment
that we wasted it overboard. "We are too far from land to
do anything so unwise.

It is an even chance, now, which port we fetch first,
Nuka-Hiva in the Marquesas, or Papeete in Tahiti. When
the wind is contrary, which, when there is any wind at all,
is usually the case, there is talk of our being unable to make
the required slant to the Marquesas, the chance being that
we shall be lucky if we can lay a course that will not miss
Tahiti. I rather wish it would be Tahiti first, in order that
we might pick up our mail sooner; then, granting a fair
wind east, to run back to the Marquesas, taking in Tahiti
again and later mails on our westward way. There is cer-
tainly nothing cut-and-dried in our calendar — we do not
even know where we are bound !

But we 11 let go our anchor in some lovely haven this side
of the "Port of Missing Men."

Sometimes I think of the women of my New England fam-
ily, scattered from their home-Maine throughout the South,
in New York, and Philadelphia, and Boston, who in their
time have gone abroad in ships with their master-mariner
husbands, travelling for years, until some swift disaster
widowed them, stranded and desolate. In the town of
Searsport, Maine, where some years ago I visited a beautiful
white-haired cousin with the look of loss in her eyes — in
Searsport there are some eight hundred inhabitants, the
majority of whom are widows of sea captains. And it seems
strange that I, born and reared in the opposite corner of
the Union, should be out adventuring to strange lands my-
self with a man who loves to sail the sea. How much closer
I shall ever be to those women of my father's family.

. . . The other morning, lying late, I heard the captain

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 69

say he had never seen so many fish in his life. During the
day I learned what he meant. They were mostly bonitas,
cresting the waves with their flashing silver bodies, the
water boiling and seething with them as they darted and
leaped — countless thousands of them.

. . . Nakata is learning much English ; but once in a while
he shows preferences for words of his own coining above
those taught him. For example, yesterday I told him to
clean the blades of my electric fan, which pick up all sorts of
fluff out of the atmosphere. The small heathen (who is a
Christian, by the way I) told Herrmann that he was going be-
low to clean the mind!

Lat. 7° 52' North,
Lon. 126° 36' West.
Monday, November 18, 1907.

I gave up trying to sleep below without the electric fan,
and have spent my third night on deck, forward, under the
bow of the life-boat. Sailing softly along before light airs,
the nights have been lovely, moonlit, with no squalls.

Herrmann cannot be brought to see that it is quite the
right thing for a woman to sleep on a hard deck with no
mattress ; but I am entirely satisfied with my yielding spread
of many-folded, clean canvas, a duck coverlet and a comfort-
able pillow; and if my feet grow chilly, there's a poncho to
pull over. It is a novel picnic to turn in under the moon,
face and body softly swept by the palpable, flowing wind —
air that one drinks rather than breathes. And when I
rouse and lift my head to look in the waking eye of dawn,
I truly wonder where I am, and glance momentarily into
the airy rigging above with a sense of lacking weight and
substance, of being part and parcel of myth and mystery.
The face of morning is very beautiful, bending over the
flushing sea. — Think of our little white boat, floating lone-
liest of all boats, in this desert of celestial colour. It is
adventure, pure and simple; it is enrichment of one's most
precious store of imagination. . . . We stood last night

70 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

after supper, Jack and I, leaning over the launch and gazing
spellbound at a sunset of forms and hues so grotesque and
crude, contrasts of rawness and garishness so rude, that our
senses were shocked. The simplest pigments were used to
limn the picture, greens and blues and pinks ; and from the
basic flaunting gold there shout out great spreading rays
of rose and blue. A cloud-genii, inky black, developed
in the centre, and as the colours deepened around, long
cloud-capes on the horizon sent up strange forms like in-
sane, toppling mountains. It was exciting, tonic, jarring
blood and brain like an electric bath or a burst of cannonad-
ing or anything unusual and shocking. Something made me
face to the east as if to seek peace for the eye. The op-
posing vision was untouched by the spirit of the first. A
cold silver moon hung in a sky of dove, over a sea of silver-
grey, all softly luminous but as wanting in colour as grey
can ever be. To change to this calm desolation of grey and
silver was as if to turn from a gaud-tricked, painted woman
to see a grey nun standing.

November 19, 1907.

Whenever there is any good fishing over our rail a sort of
tacit holiday obtains, affecting all hands but the cook. Yet
our brown chef revels in the sort of work entailed upon
him by our catch. Three hundred pounds of sea-meat hap-
pened on our deck the other day. "Fish market," Nakata
unctuously commented; while Wada, squatting on his bare
heels, dexterously carved a seven-foot shark, sharpening the
knife on its hide now and again. In addition to the shark
there were some dolphins varying from three to four feet in
length, and several bonitas larger than any we had yet seen.

The sport began with Martin hooking his first fish — a ten-
pound bonita that put up a game fight and came aboard
glowing with angry colours as bizarre as our sunsets — a
painted fish if there ever was one. Kaining and blowing
though it was, Martin hied him to the end of the bowsprit
and promptly caught a five-pounder of the same species,

THE LOG OF THE SNARK H

that looked for all the world like an elongated soap-bubble,
blown from Paradise, if Paradise can fling off anything so
exquisite. Martin hooked one smaller bonita, which exactly
fitted Wada's eye for a baked stuffed fish.

Jack knocked off work for a while and came up to try his
luck, but his success was reserved for larger game. The
bonitas shot along near the top of the water, straight and
true and brightly gleaming, like steel shuttles weaving a
prodigious fabric of grey and white. Jack had no sooner
returned to his work again, when ' * Shark ! ' ' was the shout on
deck, and I reached the stern in time to see the tiger of the
sea with his yellow cat-eyes turn leisurely on his side and
swallow bait and hook, the captain yelling meanwhile for
Jack to come and have the fun of pulling it in. But Jack
was not going to spoil a sentence for any second shark, and
came up a moment later to empty his shot-gun into the
head of the furiously struggling monster. It was not so
game as our first shark, giving up both the conscious and
the unconscious fight much sooner.

Jack offset all his hitherto unsuccessful sport when the
dolphins began to bite that same afternoon. For several
days the birds that hunt flying-fish had been scarce, and we
had noticed an absence of the latter. For this or some other
reason the dolphins were hungry, and we hung over the rail
and watched the orgy of colour they made in the calm blue
underneath as they would sniff at the bait several times,
suspiciously, and finally, reassured, catch it up next time
they shot by. Every one but Nakata and I pulled in a dol-
phin. I didn't try, and Nakata failed. Jack caught two,
and Martin two, and Jack's larger one turned out to be an
inch longer than any other, measuring four feet seven inches,
and weighing twenty-six pounds. He played it for three
quarters of an hour with rod and reel, and a small hook
baited with flying fish. It passed through indigo and tur-
quoise to the most brilliant luminous gaslight-green, and,
when finally landed with the help of the granes, faded into
fairest gold all over, then quickly spotted with electric-blue.

72 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Some dolphins came aboard a hard, bright white, immedi-
ately changing to other tints ; others arrived in pale blue, or
pale green, or both, and no two went through the same suc-
cession of colours. They are unbelievably beautiful.

Since this big catch, different ways of putting fish on the
table have kept Wada's ingenuity busy. They have been
baked and stuffed, with tomato dressing; boiled; broiled
with a rasher of bacon; have made excellent chowder; and
this morning dolphin fritters made their bow, nicely light
and done in olive oil. And the roe is a great delicacy.
Wada is beginning to look like himself again, but for a
nasty healing scar between the eyes. The captain keeps a
wary eye on the cook, as if fearing treachery; but Wada
goes his way unconcernedly.

One big dolphin swallowed four expensive hooks from off
a white wooden lure in the form of a fish, but gulped another
baited hook presently, and when Wada came to clean the
fish he discovered the lost hooks.

We do not want for incident these days. What of the
weather, the sunrises and sunsets, the extreme loveliness of
the reflecting liquid expanse round about, the squalls, calms,
winds fair and foul, there is endless novelty; but ft is life-
incident, or the scarcity of it, that pitches excitement high
when anything new in this line turns up. We are all like
children at a circus parade. Herrmann, with the murder-
ous granes poised for a cast at dolphin or turtle, his face
alive with earnest attention, is a model for a sculptor of
old-country types — to be wrought in bronze; the captain,
breathless and with quivering voice, hanging to a line around
a shark, the Japanese emitting little barbaric squeals and
cries of delight, Jack talking fast, with his eyes shining, and
I tumbling over the main-sheet to a place of vantage — oh,
I can assure everybody that it is exhilarating! One day
lately we sighted a small white sea-porcupine about eight
inches long, bobbing calmly on the long swell, head and tail
extended, like those of a turtle. Its arched white back glis-
tened with wicked spikes. We tacked and tacked in order

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 73

to pick it up, straining our eyes to keep track of it ; but the
wind was too light, and we failed. We saw another turtle
last night, but missed it. These turtles are unusually far
from land, I have learned.

To offset our very unstimulating record for speed on this
traverse, we contemplate the fact that, so far as we know, no
other yacht has ever travelled the course at all.

Jack has resumed his navigation again in earnest ; and on
the 15th, Friday last, took his first chronometer sight on this
cruise. Herrmann is much impressed, and wonders why
we employ a captain!

We have taken up Saleeby 's fascinating work, The Cycle of
Life, which Jack found he could not be selfish enough to
read by himself ; so, several times a day, while I stitch away
on summer lingerie, or embroider, he reads aloud to me of
the sufficient wonder of the ascertained fact and the rela-
tivity of all knowledge, worked out in beautiful clear
style in chapters under such headings as " Swimming, "
11 Cricket, " "The Living Cell," "Song," "Fratricide,"
"The Destiny of the Horse," "The Green Leaf," "Atoms
and Evolution" — all related in a way that makes one glow
with enthusiasm over the universe that is and the particular
brain-cells of the man who can present the conclusions of
science in such enchanting form.

. . . Our course staggers tipsily over the chart, but we
are going to get in cahoots with the southeast trades
some day, and now, having accomplished the requisite east-
ing, we are sure of the Marquesas if we can be sure of any-
thing in this capricious ocean. As the Snark buckles down
each day to her work, we discuss our future plans for that
region indefinitely termed the South Seas, and have about
made up our minds to try for the Paumotus, of "infamous
reputation" for danger, as Robert Louis Stevenson says —
the Dangerous Archipelago of old-time navigators.

Jack has spent to-day 's holiday in overhauling all his fish-
ing-tackle— coils of line, coarse and fine, shining reels of
different makes and sizes, hooks of roughly murderous or of

74 THE LOG OF THE SNABK

finely cruel aspect, elegant rods of varying degrees of slen-
derness and polish, dainty nets of white or yellow; and the
spoons of steel and mother-of-pearl and gay pigments are
fit to make an angler's fingers twitch. One lure represents
a curving silver minnow, cunningly armed with wicked
hooks.

After boxing this morning we had to borrow a pai-l
from the galley for our bucketing, for on Saturday Martin,
open-mouthed over the stern while the captain held the
shark, deliberately let go the canvas pail he happened to be
holding; and later in the day, hauling up a galvanized iron
pail full of water, the rope parted and a second container
was lost. Herrmann is now manufacturing a new canvas
bucket, having finished my windsail, which even as I write
is conveying cool draughts of air down through an open
deck-light.

Lat 6° 45' North,
Lon. 125° 36' West.
Monday, November 25, 1907.

There is something wholly exasperating about the weather
this morning; and as it was the same all of yesterday and
last night, our nerves are a bit on edge. The wind blows
briskly from the wrong direction, sending us east by north,
when we want to go southeast ; and we are bucking the head-
sea that has certainly been no novelty on this long passage —
forty-nine days to-day. You cannot move without bump-
ing something, in this contrary motion; and when a big
swift roll comes, things slide and fall in all directions. Just
now, among a shower of articles set loose by a vicious surge
of the yacht, one book struck the floor with such force that
it slid right out of its binding, and it was not flimsily-bound
either. My pocket-diary took a trip across the deck, poised
in the very teeth of the scupper, and the instant after Jack
rescued it a wave washed in where it had been. There has
been little sunshine for several days, and, on account of
wet weather, less opportunity for open decklights; so our
staterooms and lockers have a disagreeable odour of stale-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 75

ness and mouldiness. The air is sultry, and I had a surpris-
ing attack of prickly heat this morning. This is the first
day I have felt as if I would rather sight land than not;
then I appreciate that if it were not for my work with which
I never catch up, and my desire to make the most of my un-
interrupted time, I might be tainted with Captain Warren 's
impatience. Altogether, I feel very much like breaking my
cheer and being real cross for a spell ! But what 's the use ?
I know, when I come right down to " brass tacks," as Jack
says, that I would rather be here, on this buffeted boat, in
this up-ending head-sea, than in lots of other states I can
think of — say on an abused and stumbling horse, riding over
a bad road, in another person's ill-adjusted saddle, under a
hot sun; or, to come nearer home, I'd rather be in present
circumstances than in those of last Wednesday, the 20th,
when we found ourselves short of water, with no prospect
of rain and with only twenty days' rations left. But the
unpleasantness of that prospect, which I am using to offset
to-day's irk, was mitigated somewhat by the interesting
touch of danger. A taste of sea-peril of this kind has a
thrill in it — something new to go through and to think of
afterwards, provided, of course, that there be any after-
wards. There was an element of romance, somewhat
dimmed by humour, in the spectacle of the galley-pump,
shackled with steel handcuffs against the possibility of the
cook drawing more than his allotment of water for cooking
purposes. We experienced a hitherto unknown sense of
miserly vigilance over our quart-bottles filled to last twenty-
four hours, and hung up in shady places.

The threatened water-famine affected us according to our
several natures. Martin was seized with an aggravated
thirst and consumed his quart in the forenoon. To bring
home to him the consequences of his unbridled license, we
compared our plenty with his want by trickling our own sup-
ply loudly and ostentatiously from varying heights into
our glasses. As for Jack, he drank moderately, and had a
little of his allowance left the following morning. I was

76 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

not driven into excess by imaginings of a future parched
throat; indeed, I was less thirsty than usual — although I
am not prepared to say how much of my lack of desire was
affected by the discovery that there was a flavour of kero-
sene in my bottle. At night, however, Jack let me have some
of his hoarded store in exchange for some of mine for his
morning shave. Naturally, no provision for washing en-
tered into the regime, each scheming the disposal of his
single quart as he saw fit. I tried ammonia in salt water,
and it was an improvement over salt water plain ; but I did
not put any of this mixture on my face. I cleansed that
mirror of my soul with cold cream, and judged my coun-
tenance to be the cleanest of the ship's company, as I saw
no one else making any sort of shift to wash.

The cook was given seven quarts of water for general
use in cooking only, and employed this so discreetly as to put
chocolate or coffee on the table at all three meals, whereas we
had expected none for at least one of the three. Herrmann
was inclined to survey the whole proceeding as a joke, which
called forth a few serious remarks from Captain Warren,
who is the only one of us who really knows the terrors of
thirst.

. . . Jack and I added a great picture to our brain-gallery
on Thursday. Alone in the cockpit, we watched our men
rig up the large deck awning, tilted up at the sides, the
centre breadths lowered at the forward end over a tub set
on the skylight, while a funnel was stuck into the opening
of the 'midship tank to catch all gleanings from the awning
in event of rain. For the sky had clouded and the wind
freshened from N.N.B., and squalls, white squalls and black,
curtained the horizon. The awning rigged, our men rested ;
and the picture we saw was of three of them leaning at
about the same angle on a boat, watching for rain — un-
consciously straining forward toward the thing desired,
one mastering thought bringing them together in one
bodily expression of that thought. They leaned a long time,
motionless, absorbed, unaware of our scrutiny or our ap-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 77

preciation. And those eluding squalls lifted and fell and
glided like marionettes on a revolving stage, leaving us dry,
until about midnight. Between then and daylight about
one hundred gallons were poured into the 'midship tank.
And by Saturday, for it rained on and off till then, as much
water was stored as before the shortage was detected.

You have been wondering at our sudden discovery of this
shortage of water? (Bang, rattle, snap! the flying-jib has
just carried away. The only advantage of this is that the
boat doesn't paw quite so wildly with her headsail off.) But
as I was saying. In a sudden squall Tuesday night, during
the hoisting of the spinnaker-boom, in some way the faucet
on the port bow tank was turned, and not before morning
did we discover our loss. Investigating the other tanks, on
deck and below, it was also found that somebody had miscal-
culated in a former inspection, and we found ourselves
facing a serious predicament. We might have drifted
around in these doldrums for an indefinite time without
rain.

To-day we are still three hundred and seventy-nine miles
north of the Equator, with a current setting us eastward.
The barometer is normal. I often think of the Stevensons
in the Casco, sailing from San Francisco to the Marquesas
in the eighties.

... 3 P. M. Jack is popping away at some snowy pink-
billed bo's'n birds that are flying very close, crying sharply
to one another. A rummaging for lost possessions has been
going on in the cabin, and Jack's red bathing-suit came to
light along with other missing articles. And speaking of
losing things: when one loses them on land, there is always
the possibility of recovering them ; but at sea, when a thing
is overboard, there is a finality about it that is positively
startling. That canvas bucket, for instance — the new one
can never take its place, and we know we shall never see
the old one again. It is oscillating somewhere in the deep,
pressed equally from above and below, there to stay until

78 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

dissolution disposes of it into the primordial ooze. And the
granes broke away the other day; also a white silk necker-
chief with a red border, that floated astern for a time, then
suddenly disappeared — probably into the maw of a dolphin.
Evidently it did not please his palate, for it came up
promptly.

. . . Nakata is a thing of joy to all hands — except to
Herrmann, who cannot understand the boy's amused incom-
prehension of his queer Dutch-English. Herrmann care-
fully explains technicalities of steering to Nakata, who
bends his oriental brows in strict attention to language
he wots not of (although he is learning our English fast)
and then promptly brings the vessel say up into the wind.
This sometimes perilous experiment fetches the long-suffer-
ing and exasperated Hollander aft on the jump, to explain
with augmented ambiguity of speech, that that was what he
had expressly explained to him not to do.

I myself have failed in one glaring particular, to elucidate
something to the cabin-boy, namely, that "sir" is not the
accepted manner of addressing a lady. Perhaps my pajama
knee-breeches are to blame ; but when, to my call, he cheerily
responds, "Yes, sir!" I know, by his correction to "Yes,
man/' that all my care in pointing out the contraction of
madam has gone over his bristly black head, and that he is
still puzzled as to why he should say "Yes, man!" to a
woman. He also insists gently but firmly upon calling the
cockpit the cockroom. There is something fascinating about
him, his ready smile, his cheerfulness, his temperamental
happiness — like some wild thing of docile instincts. His
frank expectance of kindness, as expressed in his winning
bearing, bring him goodwill all round. The captain has to
hide his face repeatedly, for the sake of dignity and disci-
pline, at some evidence of frisky humour on the part of the
little brown mannikin with the homely face that his smile
makes beautiful.

. . . Sometimes down through the open skylight, as we

The Beach at Taiohae

Marquesan Tattooin<

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 79

sit at work in our cubby-holes, come fragments of conversa-
tion that hint of a different state of affairs on board the
Snark from that of old — hint of discipline, and continued
discipline. One doesn't hear all; but the other day the
captain 's voice cut out : " Do I mean it? Wha' d 'you sup-
pose I give an order for, if I don't mean it?" But there's
plenty of friendliness among the men, although it doesn't
do for a minute to allow a sailor, who has lived on law and
order aboard ship all his life, to become lax on a boat as
small as ours. Herrmann is so extraordinarily susceptible
to praise or notice that he quite loses his head if we approve
any little act of his, and begins to suggest improvements in
everything around with an originality and fearlessness that
is rather discomfiting. After he has been called down by
the master, he is perfectly lovely.

... A week ago we began economising on fuel by hav-
ing cold suppers; but there is a small burner aboard, used
for melting solder, upon which Wada manages hot drinks
and occasionally rice and curry, or soup. Our table is a
raised skylight, and thus we have a chance to see all of the
sunset.

On Tuesday, the 19th, in some cider we unearthed aboard,
we celebrated the second anniversary of our marriage.
I wish we knew who sent it to us so we could return thanks.
Jack waxed reminiscent and regaled the others with anec-
dotes of our honeymoon in Cuba and Jamaica. And — well,
here we are, -out together hunting the thrills of new experi-
ences with as much vigour and enthusiasm as ever, and no
abatement in sight.

Jack has the delightful characteristic of always wanting
to share everything in which he is interested — his amuse-
ments, his books, or the thing he is studying. He explains to
me his advancing steps in navigation ; he reads aloud to me ;
he wants me to feel the tug of his fish on the line; and he
draws all of us together to re-read, aloud, some book he
knows will give pleasure. Sunday forenoon, having done

80 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

more than his usual "stint" of writing the previous day,
he took a holiday and read Conrad's Typhoon aloud, to
the delight of the sailormen. And so, a unity of good spirit
is preserved aboard, because one man is fond of sharing
knowledge, the acquirement of which is the business of his
life.

There is one of Jack's pleasures, however, that I cannot
share with him, what of a congenital lack. This is his
beard. He is " letting his face rest" for a week, and as
I cannot appreciate the rest it gives him to let his whiskers
grow, it makes me restless to contemplate his rough chin
and jaw. And I take less delight in any sudden and un-
foreseen juxtaposition. But I consented to let him raise
this mat, upon his promise that I may take his picture just
before he shaves.

. . . On Wednesday last, Jack landed a thirty-pound dol-
phin, one of the finest we have seen — all exquisite variations
of abalone and gold and blue, green and rose. We tried to
capture a big skate that bothered around for hours, attended
by two white baby sharks and a lot of pilot fish. But the
monster flopped away finally with its black wing-like pro-
pellers. Wada hooked one of the infant sharks, less than
two feet long, which cooked up into the best baked fish we
have had.

The bonitas are easily fooled these days with a small
white rag on the hook, which is jerked ahead to simulate a
flying-fish. Friday, the 22d, the boys had eighteen bonitas
on deck at one time. Jack added a good-sized 'dolphin, and
the collection was hung on a pole reaching clear across the
deck amidship, from shroud to shroud, a flying-fish dangling
at one end, the bonitas grading up to the big dolphin at the
other end. Since then bonitas are caught for the keen sport
only, and thrown immediately back. They are a hunger-
cruel spawn. The instant one is hooked, his mates make a
rush for him. Many a fish, even dolphin, brought aboard,
shows healing wounds from great mouthfuls that have been
taken out by its enemies, many of them among its own kind.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 81

The stomach of a fish usually tells the story of this con-
tinual fight for existence.

It is a wonderful sight, in a squall at night when the
vessel is racing over the water, to behold in the depths shoals
of bonitas slipping along whitely in the phosphorescence,
their flight in perfect relation to the speed of the boat, so that
they look like pale stones seen in the bed of a stream. By
day, their backs show like swift olive-brown shadows, until
they turn their gleaming sides up to the light. Two of the
latest catches weighed twenty-five and twenty-four pounds
respectively — chunky, fat fish.

Lat. 6° 2' North,
Lon. 125° 30' West.
Tuesday, November 26, 1908.

Referring again to our fishy satellites, last evening while
we were listening to Typhoon in a flood of rosy light, the
water pink, the clouds bright pink, and the sky of startling
blue, an enormous dolphin was playing about, leaping clear
and falling loudly on his side, over and over again, adding
to the evening radiance his flash of blue-white — his colour-
mood for the moment. When a dolphin has felt the tear of
the hook, and got away, or when he has carried the hook
off, he leaps and flashes through the air, recklessly shak-
ing himself, landing on his side or his back with a crash,
with all the mad abandon of a colt in the breaking yard.

. . . The wind has gone nearly into the southeast and it
now looks probable that we may be picking up the trades.
There is a good-sized sea and swell running, and it is
hard to adjust one's movements to the lunges of the boat
when she takes a header into the abyss or is flung from the
crest of one big wave only to fetch up smack against the
next. But the little Snark noses her way pretty wisely in
the labyrinth of heaving hills, and no small vessel could
ride more easily than she.

. . . Something very reassuring and encouraging oc-
curred just now. The fly ing- jib was not replaced after

82 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

carrying away, and we sailed all night without it. This
morning the jib-sheet was unhooked, and the jib also hauled
in, after which the mainsail was lowered, to put in a new
lace-line — the rope that laces the head of the sail to the
gaff, and which had worn through during the night. Jack
was bringing the yacht up into the wind to ease things for
the men working on the mainsail, and all at once the good
thing happened. The Snark was right up in the wind, prac-
tically hove to, under staysail and mizzen, in light wind, and
with a moderately heavy sea kicked up by the blow that had
preceded that light wind. And she would not heave to
that night coming from San Francisco to Hawaii! But
why? Why? That is our everlasting query. The captain
says it is ridiculous to think she would not heave to;
we agree with him, perfectly. But she did refuse, just
the same. As Jack says, "I don't believe it — I only saw
it." — How one learns to love a boat. I am beginning to
appreciate how sailors feel about ships, no matter what hap-
pens, never quite admitting even to themselves that the
vessel is at fault. Captain Warren swears more and more
heartily by the Snark the more he sees of her performances.

. . . And now, at 9 :50 A. M., every visible sign points to
our being in the southeast trades — the blue, white-capped sea
running with the wind, the wind itself, the "wool-pack"
clouds. All at once I am willing and even anxious to reach
the islands — to see land again, mountains, bays and safe an-
chorages; to eat fruit, and fruit, and more fruit — bananas,
guavas, oranges and lemons and limes, yams, breadfruit,
taro. . . .

We have all bet a dollar each with Jack, who wagers that
we shall see the Marquesas by December 12; but it begins
to look as if he may win.

. . . Martin developed a roll of film for me yesterday, and
spilt his hypo on the bathroom floor; but he went right on
developing where the fluid deepened in the leeward corner.
This morning, asked the cause of the peculiar odour, Nakata
enlightened us with: "Mr. Johnson ... he ... yester-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 83

day . . . make come kodak-medicine ! " "Nakata's latest"
is a sort of daily newspaper. I verily believe that if the
Snark went down with all hands, our last conscious picture
would be of Nakata's toothy smile, and the last sound in
our ears would be the paean of sheer exultation of being that
this child of Japan lets out whenever anything happens,
whether of good or ill.

. . . During these weeks under the tropic sun I am sur-
prised at my lack of deep sunburn. To be sure, I am less
white ; but considering that I seldom wear a hat, only shad-
ing my eyes with a green visor, this freedom from tan is re-
markable. Herrmann remarked quite innocently one day
that the only man aboard who was not burned was Mrs.
London. But my hair is burning — a gorgeous red and yel-
low, without apparent loss of gloss or moisture. It is
"Oh-h-h-h beautiful nice!" according to the exuberant
cabin-boy.

Lat. 5° 41' North,
Lon. 126° 2' West.
Wednesday, November 27, 1908.

My birthday — and we are celebrating with a true south-
east trade. We have logged one hundred and two knots
in the twenty-four hours, and now, at 4 :30 p. M., are smok-
ing along on a course of south by west. Jack and the
captain are grinning and chuckling like schoolboys over a
chart of the Marquesas and Paumotus, spread between them
on the rudder-box, while the captain reads aloud "Hostyle
Inhabitants" over and over, printed against tiny dots of
islands in the Paumotu cluster. Jack has just looked up,
in answer to my question, with "It's a hundred to one now
that we'll make Nuka-Hiva all right. We're on the home-
stretch— " " — And a short home-stretch — excuse me, sir!"
interrupts the captain, with shining face. They both agree
that ei^ht or ten days "at this lick" ought to bring us to
port. Martin popped a land-famished face over the boat-
swain's locker a moment ago, and asked what I was smiling
about. And I am willing to admit that I am now frankly

84 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

satisfied to exchange these longed-for days of all work and
no fresh fruit, for a different programme. Also, I want a
level place to sleep on for a spell, where I can present the
unwinking eye of sleep to "Policeman Day" for about ten
hours at a stretch. I have had but one uninterrupted night
in fifty-two.

I inaugurated my birthday's entrance by catching two
large bonitas, landing one of them unaided; also I hooked
a good-sized dolphin, but lost my head and forgot to ' * play ' '
him, so he broke the hook and streaked for parts unknown.
Jack was hugely elated over my catch — the first time I have
tried. Once, I caught six mackerel in Penobscot Bay; and,
unmentionable years before, I bent-pin-hooked thirty-five
minnows, without bait ! This is the extent of my fishing ex-
perience.

Dolphins and bonitas are with us in gleaming hordes
to-day. The Snark is flushing the flying-fish for them,
most of which seem to be four-winged, like dragon-flies —
dragon-flies of the deep, sailing down the wind. — It is
continual slaughter, and they are a cruel lot, these big fish ;
but by what manner of reasoning cruel? What other food
than their own kind is provided for them by beneficent na-
ture? And when they are haled aboard by their unwilling
mouths, straining and resisting, staring horribly with lid-
less eyes of fright, it all lines up in one's mind as a game —
a game wherein men and fishes and beasts destroy to live.
And war of man or war of fish or beast, it is all of a piece
with the game.

Jack harpooned three dolphins to-day, using the harpoon
in lieu of the lost granes; but it is not the proper weapon
for them, does not go easily into their firm bodies, and
they get away. But they doggedly stay with us, recognis-
able by their scratches, as intent as ever upon damaging
smaller and weaker ones.

Last evening at supper time there was the worst rain
squall we have ever weathered. It came from two direc-
tions— or rather they did, for two squalls struck at about

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 85

the same time, one from the weather quarter, one from the
weather bow. Below, holding the dishes from spilling into
cfur laps, we knew only that the Snark stayed down a long
time; but the captain, coming to supper — it was over
quickly — said it was our stiffest squall yet. Earlier in
the day I had my most disagreeable experience on the
voyage. I had settled before the typewriter in my state-
room. Everything was lovely — thewindsail pumping cool-
ness down through the open skylight, the decklight open,
with a poncho spread on my bunk to catch any chance spray
that might come down ; I had just typed ''Chapter XXX" at
the head of a page with four carbon copies under it — and
then the deluge. My newly cleaned and oiled machine was
drenched with salt water, inside and out; the water ran
down my draw-tables into the packed lockers beneath the
bunk; a gallon or so fell through the decklight on to the
poncho, and I was quite forlorn with water. I felt like a
quenched candle, and went about dispiritedly soaking up the
brine with cloth and sponge, while it took Martin the best
part of two hours to get the devastating salt water off the
typewriter and the works carefully oiled. Just to show
how quickly rust forms in this climate: Jack had shaved in
the morning (and I did not get that photograph, after
all ! ) ; and being called on deck suddenly, asked me to lay
the soapy safety-razor on his bunk. Within two hours red
rust was on the blade.

Lat 1° 18' North,
Lon. 127° 30' West.
Friday, November 29, 11)07.

The only thing that roused me at seven this morning, after
a disturbed night, was a dash of cold water that sent me
shooting feet-first out of my canvas covert alongside the
cockpit — the dryest place I had been able to select this
breezy weather. It was a second dose, the first having
caught me just after I went to sleep, about ten, when the
lee-quarter failed to dodge the edge of a wave going

86 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

obliquely astern. That time I got it on the head, and slept
damp. Herrmann has hung me a canvas stretcher between
cockpit rail and weather rail, with a tent-like protection
from the spray. It was very rough, angling across the big
seas; and the jaws on the mizzen-gaff, which are chewing
away at the mast till the chewed section is in splinters,
rubbed skreakily all night, the bell in the cockpit keeping
up a doleful rhythm like a fog-bell. For all our bobbed-off
little craft with her barnacled copper and her small sails
wrought for ease of handling and comfortable sailing, we
logged seven knots during the night, and this morning, at
ten, we have covered one hundred and twenty knots since
noon yesterday — and still humming. Captain Warren is
keeping the vessel off a little, for the comfort of Jack writ-
ing below, so that he can have the weather skylight open and
the windsail working. But think how wonderfully "dry"
the Snark is. The few instances I have cited of water com-
ing aboard, are all I can remember — a pretty good record
for these many weeks in squalls and rough seas. Oh, yes —
one other instance : last evening Jack and I were perched up
forward on the windy weather bow of the launch, dodging
flying spray and drinking deep the flowing trade, while
watching the everlasting miracle of bright fishes darting so
effortlessly and swiftly. Finally came a monster swell that
the Snark decided to have a little fun with at our expense.
She rose like a hunter at a fence and then descended, the
wave curving back and down from her bow, but the wind
flinging the heavy spray upward. Jack's feet preceded his
body up the rigging, while I, farthest from the rigging,
hanging to a horizontal steel stay back of my head, raised my
own feet and escaped some of the drenching. I wish I had
a picture of the pair of us. The bulk of the water went
below, all over the set dinner table, on the leeward seat in
the cabin, on my bunk, a gallon or so piling up in the floor-
corners. But these infrequent splashings are nothing com-
pared with the sweeping a "wet" fast yacht endures, where
there is no comfort on deck, because of water, and none be-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 87

low for closeness of air. Why, the Stevensons were kept in
the cabin for days at a time when the Casco was doing her
best paces.

We are about one hundred and fifty miles from the Line,
as we go — about ninety as the bird flies ; and to-morrow we
hope to cross — into the South Sea at last. The weather is
actually cool. The books tell us that the southeast trades
are cooler than the northeast. Fancy the charm of verify-
ing this and that item in the old books — especially in such a
little travelled section of the globe.

The fishes are unusually beautiful this morning — to the
leeward the bonitas showing red like autumn leaves in a
torrent. Sometimes they display a streak of this glowing
crimson underneath when they are brought to deck, but never
before have I seen them so red in the water. It is some-
thing to live for, once to behold, near the close of day, an
upstanding wave between you and the sun, transparent blue,
green-topped, white-tipped, sun-shot, and glinted through
with rainbow shapes of the sea.

. . . Inconceivable and Monstrous, again! Yesterday
Captain Warren ordered the topsail set. So far on the voy-
age it had never been set. It was promptly dragged forth
from where I had been sleeping on its folds for many a
night. Herrmann was aloft in the hot sun for quite a while,
making an unsuccessful effort to get it set. Finally the
captain took a climb, for something was radically wrong.
Then the trouble was made plain. When it was discovered,
in California, that the mizzen-mast had been stepped too
far forward to allow for the mainsail, instead of re-stepping
the mizzen-stick (which should, by all that is right and hon-
est, have been done), the mainsail had been cut down and
the topsail left as it was — to match a mainsail that no longer
existed so far as its original size was concerned. This is the
second time on the voyage it has been set, and we now realise
why Roscoe took it in so hastily the first time.

(Right here, a bonita close by leaped his length into the
air, got his flying-fish, and we saw him with the rainbow half

88 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

swallowed, as he tumbled ingloriously back into the water
tail-first. )

Lat. 8° 11' South,
Lon. 138° West.
Aboard the Snark, South Seas,
Thursday, December 5, 1907.

There is one incident in human affairs that it is safe to
say never fails of interest, never palls. Perhaps it is the
only one — but I will not go that far. The raising of land
on the horizon is the one thing that induces a thrill even in
the most experienced — from the very connoisseur of trav-
ellers to the oldest sailor afloat. It seems to me that I have
centred in my soul all the fascinated, illusioned expectation
of all peoples in all days under similar conditions; for to-
morrow is the day when we confidently hope to see land, the
first in nine weeks, come Monday next. It seems as if I can
hardly wait for the loom of it ahead. How will it look?
Will it be floating in the blue and gold of sunset, or will it
show hazily in the blazing afternoon? — or mayhap in the
pearl and rose of dawn? "The first love, the first sunrise,
the first South Sea Island, are memories apart and touch a
virginity of sense. " Thus Robert Louis Stevenson.

We crossed the Line last Saturday, November 30, in longi-
tude 128° 45' — which was even a little better than Captain
Warren expected; and immediately we fell in with such
cool temperature that I promptly caught cold. It doesn't
sound probable, I know, that right below the Equator I
caught my first cold in months ; but I 'm the one that caught
it, and I ought to know.

We had planned to do some weird stunts to celebrate
crossing the Line ; but it turned out a very busy day in one
way and another, in which there seemed no place for pranks.
I copied ninety pages of Jack's manuscript, for one thing —
work I had neglected for other work. We must have tripped
up against Neptune somewhere, however, for I found yellow
whiskers that looked very much like rope-ravellings, on the
stays under the bowsprit.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 89

While I write, lying under the life-boat for shade, the
men are trying to lure a big shark that is sniffing around.
He is of a size to make one glad of a few planks between.
The waves are a-hiss with leaping bonitas fighting for
some food they have run into, any unlucky one that hap-
pens to get bitten being immediately devoured by the rest.
We have not seen a single dolphin since the day before we
crossed the Equator. "They dropped us cold!" said Mar-
tin. The bonitas and flying-fishes alone have been sliding
with us down the bulge of the earth since we topped the rise,
at the rate of one hundred and forty miles a day. Night
and day, night and day, everywhere we turn, the countless
purplish-coppery bodies of the blood-mad destroyers keep us
in sight while we thresh out the flying-fishes for them.

Ah, but I forgot the Wiggler! He lives and moves and
has his being under our keel, wriggling out occasionally to
take a snap at a passing bonita, like an irascible little back-
yard terrier. He is about a foot and a half long, and of a
whitish green — a sort of suppressed hue, showing like a cel-
lar-plant among gay flowers when he lines up against the
sun-blazoned bonitas. On Sunday, the spinnaker was set,
and as we begin gliding ahead at a seven-knot clip, in the
wake we saw our Wiggler, left a little astern on one of his ex-
peditions out from under. He was making the run of his
life to catch up. We yelled and hooted affectionate encour-
agement— he was doing such a plucky and manful sprint,
nearly wagging his tail off. ' ' Go it, you son-of -a-seacook ! ' '
" Come on, now, once more ! That's it!" "You'll make it,
keep up the fight ! ' ' were heard from various quarters of the
stern rail. Presently it seemed as if the chase were lost.
The only way we might have helped him was by throwing
him a line — with a hook on it. Martin saw him next day,
however, as much at home as ever; but he surely had his
fins full to make up the speed handicap caused by that spin-
naker.

. . . We are betting heavily as to who will first see
land. I am pledged for all of forty cents among my ship-

90 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

mates. It cannot be more than a hundred miles dead ahead ;
but the sun is in our eyes, and it is not a 14,000 foot Sand-
wich Island mountain we are looking for — only one of 2800
feet. We are going to lose our dollar bets to Jack, for the
date we wagered on fetches up to the 12th, one week from
to-day.

Jack is sitting on the weather rail, with his feet in a pail
of fresh water — unwonted extravagance. He has not had a
shoe on these two months, and is trying to coax his feet into
shape for the trial that awaits them, who knows? — maybe
to-morrow. In order not to waste his golden hour, he is
reading, and also, at intervals, shooting bonitas with his
22- Winchester automatic rifle. I wish I had known him
better before I married him! — just listen to this: Yester-
day I said, "I don't feel like typing to-day." " Don't do it
on the boat then," urged Jack kindly. " Don't type until
you get to TYPE-E!!!"

. . . There have been many heralds of the land about us
the past two days — various kinds of birds, with gunies and
boobies among them; bo's'ns, and smaller white birds, flut-
tering by twos, like love letters in the wind against the blue
sky. There are small black birds, too, and brownish grey
ones, neither of which we know.

The South Seas — think of it, we are sailing, beautifully
sailing, over the very waves of that storied region of islands
of strange form and composition, peopled by strange men of
unspeakable customs. But we are not in time — the devastat-
ing civilising years have preceded the Snark venture, and
we can only see the islands themselves with little trace of the
people who roamed them of old. What of Melville's Valley
of Typee now? But listen: When I wander through
Typee, a few days hence, I am going to people it to suit my
fancy ; I am going to see the chiefly Mohiva and kind Kory-
Kory, and the matchless Fayaway, and all their beauteous
straight-featured tribe. I alone may see them, but see them
I will!

The other day I read a book by Edwin Somebody-or-other,

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 91

in which he tells with casual cleverness of his meanderings
among the islands of the South Seas, and in his chapter on
the Marquesas, especially devoted to the Island of Nuka-
Hiva, he does not once mention Typee. Can it incredibly be
that he never heard of it?

It is all very well to romance about the fantasy of the
South Sea Islands; but my imagination persists in rioting
in fields of cabbages and onions, potatoes, cauliflowers, and
luscious tomatoes ; in taro patches and fabulous banana- and
cocoanut- and breadfruit-groves. Captain Warren's desire
carries him closer, into the chicken-coop; while Martin is
content to dream merely of the nests — one dozen variously
prepared eggs being his first order.

. . . There are no more spectacular twilights; the days
have grown much longer than they were on the other side of
the hill. And the sunsets do not compare with those of the
Variables and the Doldrums. But the sailing is wonderfully
lovely — the boat rocking, rocking, on waves that pursue
from astern and overtake and propel us, spinnaker and
mainsail winging us straight toward the setting sun.

Nor are the water and skies so gorgeous as we found them
above the Equator ; but any lacks of this sort are offset by
the "silver-winged breeze" that blows from the right di-
rection, and every hour of the day I am thankful for the
change from past exasperating, bone-racking, flesh-bruising
head-seas and -winds. Here everything is with us — wind and
billow, fair days and nights.

... I am curled comfortably in a hollow of the life-boat
cover, shaded by the mainsail, and the swinging of the boat is
so restful — not a jar, nothing but soothing curves and un-
dulations of movement, ever rocking forward and sidewise,
but imperceptibly making five knots an hour in the light but
steady wind. We are in the sun's highway, a broad and
glittering stretch directly before. We must be absorbing
the gold as well as the miles, for there is none of it in our
wake. . . .

We often try to picture different friends, suddenly trans-

92 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

ported into our midst aboard the Snark, and wonder how
they would comport themselves. With no experience of the
sea it would be remarkable if they saw anything beautiful
in earth or heaven. The roll would attend to that. The
smallness of the boat, the nearness of the water, and
particularly the size of the waves, would about wreck a
nervous woman for the time being. The very middle of the
yacht would be the only livable place for her, as being
farthest removed from certain destruction over the awful
rail. Now, I am not making sport of anybody. I can pro-
ject my viewpoint far enough to put myself in the other
fellow's mind under such a strain. I have been here a long
time and it is only comparatively lately that I have felt quite
secure, free from nervousness and sickness.

. . . We have finished Saleeby's book, and are now read-
ing Ball's The World's Beginning. Astronomy helps me to
new appreciation of this world we are circumnavigating, and
of the whole universe of worlds and suns. At night, before
turning in, we lie in the lifeboat a while, Jack and I, and
study the Southern skies, sometimes dropping below to scan
our planispheres; and last evening we had a feast of me-
teors, that streaked long trains of light across the sky.

Nightly a poker game obtains in the second dog watch,
and the only monotony in it that seems to strike Jack and
Martin is the way the captain wins and continues to win.
He usually does it with a royal flush in his face and say a
pair of sixes in his hand. He has had a run of luck that
deserves greater scope.

There is always one perfectly contented soul in our party,
no matter what happens, and that is our inimitable cabin boy.
At dinner to-day I asked him, "Are you happy, Nakata?"
' ' I, happy ? — oh-h-h, Missisn, v-e-r-r-y happy — yes, ma 'am. ' '
(He has mastered the "ma'am" at last.) "But why happy,
Nakata?" I pursued. He threw back his head to look up
at the sunlight through the companionway, smiled seraphi-
cally and said with pure sweetness: "Oh, ev-e-r-r-y-thing,
Missisn ! ' '

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 93

. . . The only thing with which I can compare my state
to-night, is my Christmas Eve sensations of old time. I am
sure there must be a stocking of mine hanging up some-
where on the boat, and that there is going to be something
nice in it when I wake.

Lat. 8° 47' South,
Lon. 139° 44' West.

Aboard the Snark, in channel between Ua-Huka and
Nuka-Hiva, Marquesas Islands, 3 :30 P. M.,
Friday, December 0, 1907.

Can't you see it? — can't you see it, Cape Martin right ahead
there in the west, and Comptroller Bay just around the point?
— Comptroller Bay, into which the Valley of Typee opens,
where Melville escaped from the cannibals. Then another
and dimmer headland, beyond which is Taiohae, where we
shall anchor at sunset if the fair wind holds.

Captain Warren picked up Ua-huka (Washington Island)
at daylight, and the first I heard, awakening under the life-
boat, was Herrmann up the mainmast calling down. But so
sure was I of my full stocking, and so very sleepy, that after
rising half-way and seeing nothing, I subsided for another
nap. I had been up at a little past three, looking at the
Southern Cross — the first time below the Line.

When I did finally turn out, I saw a volcanic island of
beautiful form and proportion, grey-green and shimmering
in the morning radiance. We sailed toward it, passed it, and
now it lies astern, touched with the sunset. The island looks
as if it has had a drouth, for its steeps are as yellow with
dried grass as California's in the autumn, with here and
there a hint of dull green.

. . . This has been a full day. I was bound and deter-
mined that I should not be caught arriving at Taiohae with
a lot of back work on hand on the typewriter — in spite of
Jack's vile pun on Typee; so I copied a chapter of his novel,
sacrificing our daily reading; closed up a lot of letters with
the advice that we were coming into port (against the pos-
sible sailing of some vessel from Taiohae immediately after

94 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

our arrival), and did a thousand little things for shore-going.
After lunch Jack and I went forward with our rifles, and
shot at the numerous birds fishing in the olive current of the
channel. It was my first shooting at moving objects, and,
considering that the aiming was from a plunging boat, I
didn 't do so badly, for I got three boobies on the wing, two or
three more that were just rising, and ruffled the feathers of
others. Also, I struck a bonita, which instantly up-bellied,
and as instantly disappeared among its ravening brothers.
I tried porpoises, and they immediately grew shy and came
seldom to the surface. And we fired at a small whale, but
it quickly sank out of danger.

. . . Now we are nine miles from Taiohae Bay, and with
the glasses can just pick out the two Sentinel Rocks guarding
either side of the entrance. The headland features I have
already mentioned are on the southern side of the island, the
northern coast stretching far to our right. Cape Martin
reminds me of the castled outlines of Wyoming, with a
natural tower standing atop the abrupt black head of the
promontory. The face of the island toward us, the east
side, seems ruggedly bluffed ; and above, fold on fold of vol-
canic green mountains range back and up to the highest point
of the island, 3890 feet. Perhaps that is the farther wall of
Typee Valley that we can just glimpse beyond those first
bluffs. It seems to me I never wanted to see a place as I
want to see Typee.

All sorts of business is going forward, while the yacht
slides steadily nearer. The captain studies the coast with
his binoculars; Martin is putting finishing touches of green
paint and aluminum paint on the rejuvenated launch-engine.
(It had been about given up by Martin until Jack got out
the books and made a suggestion that, when applied, set the
machinery going merrily.) Herrmann, the while trying
to explain how it happened that in Honolulu he had
bought both his sea-boots for the same foot, is scraping wood —
teak, pine, oak, on yacht, launch, and life-boat ; Wada steers ;
the spinnaker has just been taken in, and, the wind hauling,

THE LOG OF THE SNARE 95

we have jibed over. The sturdy anchors are in readiness to
let go when we come to our resting-place, and 111 warrant
the skipper knows exactly where the red-marked lead-line is.
Jack is stretched out beside me on the life-boat cover, reading,
and, I think, dreaming a little. When he was a small boy he
happened on Melville's Typee, and promptly thirsted for
Marquesan exploration. Years later, after one trip to sea,
he tried to ship as cabin boy on a sailing vessel bound for
these islands, but failed to secure the berth, for he thinks
the captain must have seen desertion in his eye. But here
he is, and here am I, lucky enough to be the partner of his
realised adventure; although for his sake I wish he could
have fulfilled his desire when the dream was young.

. . . The little Snark! She seems to be reaching out
eagerly, after sixty days of unremitting motion, for her
shelter under the land. Consider — for six times ten days we
have never been still one moment. I am afraid the imminent
level repose that threatens will disquiet more than soothe,
until we readjust.

5 P. M. The captain is now thinking of putting in at
Comptroller Bay for the night, for squalls are closing in
around us and dimming the sunset light that we depended
upon for conning into Taiohae harbour. I rather hope we
do go into Comptroller. It would be enchanting to wake in
the morning with Typee Vai spread out before us.

We are surrounded by untold myriads of sooty little sea-
swallows with white heads and sweet piping voices. As we
curtsy past Cape Martin, its striking profiles change from
moment to moment, and we can see green trees that look like
Hawaiian kukui, trooping up the shallow erosions.

Aboard the Snark, Taiohae Bay,

Nuka-Hiva, Marquesas Islands,
Saturday, December 7, 1907. 10 A. M.

It is a cyclorama of painted cardboard, done by an artist
whose knowledge of perspective was limited. The walls in-

96 THE LOG OF THE SNAKK

closing the green, still water in which we ride at anchor, the
pinnacles and bastions half-way to the ragged scissored sky-
line, the canyons and gorges, sun-tanned beaches, grass-huts
under luxuriant plumy palms, and the rich universal verdure
— it is all painted boldly on upright cardboard. There is a
rift in the amphitheatre, toward the sea, and on either side
the entrance, booming surf breaks upon the feet of the two
Sentinels of tilted strata, crowned with feathery trees. It is
an astounding scene, and cannot be compared with any place
I ever saw. The mirrored effect of the atmosphere on the
perpendicular mountains is not unlike that on Winward Oahu
in Hawaii; but the form and lines of the landscape round
about this bay surpass anything in my book of memory pic-
tures.

The entrance looks very innocent this morning in a sunny
calm; but it did not appear so harmless last evening, our
waning daylight shut off by a blinding rain-squall, just when
it seemed indispensable that we should see clearly in order
to make our way around the eastern Sentinel. The captain
had finally decided to try for Taiohae. The distance across
the mouth of the bay is only seven cable-lengths, and it is
necessary to hug the eastern side, because the equatorial cur-
rent sets over toward the west shore of the bay, and with
only light fans of air, there is liability of going on the rocks.

It was tense and delicate work. Every one was on deck,
Jack at the wheel, Herrmann standing by the three headsails,
Martin and Wada obeying general orders, and Nakata haul-
ing in the lead-line for the captain after each cast. And
over it all was the trained intelligence of the captain, whose
was the responsibility of the Snark and the lives on board.
He stood in the bow, before we entered the harbour, with,
straining eyes on the fading outlines of the East Sentinel,
close by which lay safety, and praying that the wind would
hold. But it held only until we rounded the rock, then swept
on seaward past the entrance, leaving us to fare as best we
might with current and tide, rocks and surf. The spinnaker
was taken in and the mizzen set, and each man returned to

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 97

his post, ready for prompt obedience. I longed to be a man,
to take some active part ; but they don 't let me do much — and
besides, there are plenty of men to handle the boat. (Why,
the picturesque 500-ton bark lying yonder carries only eleven
men, while our ten-ton yacht has six all told. )

I was fascinated with the working of the Snark. The cap-
tain's questions, "How is she now?" or "How is she head-
ing?" were rapid and frequent; and Jack, eye on binnacle,
busy with instant replies and instant compliance, had no
chance for extraneous observation. Muffled in oilskins, I sat
on the cockpit rail, and posted him on what I saw — the
looming rocks close at hand, the white-toothed breakers snap-
ping hungrily and loudly, and the vague suggestion of the
dreaded western shore. Captain Warren commanded my
respect. His head was clear, and he seemed high-strung in a
way that only refined his certitude of judgment and action.
Much though I have absorbed of knowledge of the sea, in
relation, at least, to our ^particular craft, I was open-mouthed
at his quickness of perception. I knew, of course, how care-
fully he had "crammed" the sailing-directions, and how
sharply the chart was reproduced on his brain; and these
things, coupled with his practical experience, were sufficient
to satisfy my reason ; but it was wonderful just the same — as
man is wonderful in everything that raises him to primacy
over the brute earth-forces.

By and bye we picked up the "fixed red light," hung at
ninety feet, described in the Directions, and had some-
thing tangible to steer by. We fanned in, tack upon
tack, with the mere breathing of the mountains to give us
steerage-way. The Snark responded faithfully to the hand
on her helm when there was the faintest air to make it pos-
sible. The near water was very still, and sometimes the only
way we could tell that we were inching ahead was by the
slight passing riffle against the boat. The bay is very deep
along its sides, so we had no especial worry except for the
current. Once or twice we seemed to be drifting toward
the west, for the sound of the surf from that direction came

98 THE LOG OF THE SNAKK

clearly. Then suddenly a big light flared out in the murk
ahead, although try as we would with our glasses we could
not make out whether it was on land or vessel.

But as we approached our anchorage, there were other and
less disquieting sounds in our ears than breakers. Down
from obscure heights drifted the querulous bleating of kids,
which I bewildered into more distressful tones by answer-
ing them in kind. And then a cock crew cheerily, and
another, while the venerable blat of a patriarchal goat
hushed the timorous young. The breath from the darksome
steeps came down fragranced with spice of flowers — the
yellow cassi loved of wasps, which distils perfume far and
wide.

At quarter before ten we dropped anchor in nine fathoms,
having passed the entrance at about 7:30. You cannot
imagine what a feeling of utter rest followed the rush of
the anchor chain through the hawsepipe — the sea-song of
adventure. We found ourselves unexpectedly tired, and
although we slept in the warm below on account of rain, we
slept profoundly. I know I did not turn over in seven hours.
I was awakened by voices on deck, and coming up found that
Mr. Kreiech, the German trader who has charge of the
Taiohae Branch of the Societe Commerciale de 1'Oceanie, had
called. I could see him going shoreward, a big figure stand-
ing in an outrigger canoe paddled by scarlet-breeched
Marquesans.

... It seems rather odd, as the morning wears on, that
no one else comes out — only one indolent native has had
curiosity enough to approach — a well-featured brown fellow.
We sent him in search of bananas, and he wanted five francs
for one bunch. He accepted half of that with perfect con-
tentment ; and then we all fell to and stuffed inordinately on
this first fresh fruit in two months, and agreed that we had
never eaten bananas before, so luscious were these.

As we have seemed to be in no danger of interruption from
the beach, we have gone ahead with our work as usual — in
the cockpit, shaded by the awning. Little flaws of wind,

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 99

pollen-scented, flurry down upon us from the pictured walls
of the amphitheatre, that are slowly taking on a less artificial
aspect — losing nothing of their exquisite beauty, but becom-
ing more earthly and approachable. The water is not clear —
rather a dull olive-green, deepening into rich blue toward
the mouth of the bay. Outside, we can see the channel white-
caps racing past the Sentinels.

. . . After lunch we climbed reluctantly into our " store
clothes," shoes being particularly odious. I had in my
mind's eye pictures of several provincial white women, wives
of the traders, and arrayed myself with care in brown linen
with a touch of red scarf and corals — a "neat but not gaudy"
effect that was destined to be appreciated solely by our own
crowd and Mr. Kreiech and his assistant Mr. Rahling, to say
nothing of the silver-laced old French Marechal who looked
over our ship 's papers ; and to be wondered at by the natives.
There were apparently no white women on the beach. But
later on, when we inquired if there was any one in the place
who would board Jack and me, Mr. Kreiech recommended a
Mrs. Fisher, and we learned that besides herself there were
her daughter and a niece, a French school teacher, and the
Sisters at the Mission. We were also informed that fruit,
eggs, fowls, vegetables, and nearly everything else that we
have been hungering and thirsting for, are extremely scarce
— almost out of the question, in fact. However, when mak-
ing arrangements with Mrs. Fisher for two meals a day, she
assured us that good limes and oranges are plentiful; that
fowls can be had occasionally, for a reasonable price ; that the
mangoes are beginning to ripen, although the breadfruit
season is not yet; and that cocoanuts are abundant.
There were also hints of fresh-water prawns, fish, wild goat,
water cress, and tomatoes, but no potatoes — the last importa-
tion from California being exhausted. Mr. Edwin Some-
body-or-Other misled us by his glowing description of the
lavish and automatic supply of everything edible in Nuka-
Hiva. There is a French bakery, glory be, where crusted
loaves are made at frequent intervals. This is a welcome

100 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

surprise — an excellent cross between French and Italian
bread.

But let no toddy-thirsting mariner be deceived as to this
chaste strand. Whiskey is taboo in the Marquesas, although
rum and wines and absinthe can be purchased at the Societe
store.

This afternoon we decided to rent the only available cot-
tage. Imagine our gratification when we learned that it was
the old club-house where Robert Louis Stevenson frequently
dropped in during his call at Taiohae. In one corner of the
large main room is a sort of stationary stand, where drinks
used to be mixed. The house is now owned by the Societe;
and before promising it to us on any terms, Mr. Kreiech had
to negotiate with exceeding deliberation with the native
couple who live there as caretakers. No one here ever makes
the mistake of doing anything on time or in haste, and the
man who tries to rush the natives is the man lacking fore-
sight. But Mr. Kreiech is evidently destined for success with
the kanakas, for the elderly pair are to move into the de-
tached kitchen, and we shall take possession of the cottage to-
morrow. Jack and I could easily in ten minutes move all
their belongings — a bedstead and bedding and a few gar-
ments hanging on nails; but twenty-four hours is not con-
sidered too much notice to allow. We saw these two old per-
sons at the store at five o'clock, at which gala hour the work-
men gather on Saturday afternoons to be paid off. Practi-
cally the entire population of the village drops in socially — a
pitifully dwindled community in these latter years. The
woman from our cottage is constantly attended by an
enormous puarJca (hog), given her by the captain of the
Norwegian bark. She fondles it as if it were a beloved dog —
although I could not help wondering if her affections were
not slightly gustatory in character. And we saw her pitch
viciously into a Norwegian sailor who waxed too familiar
with her pet.

Jack and I sat on a big drygoods box on the veranda of
the little store, dangling our happy heels against the sides,

THE LOG OF THE

101

and stared and were stared at by ' the ' natives',' While? "we •
munched and sucked some villainous striped candy that
Martin bought. Here were our first Marquesans — and hardly
a pure-breed among them! The blend is baffling in many
cases — Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Corsican,
Italian, English, American. One little girl with snapping
black eyes and curly hair was pointed out as a true Mar-
quesan specimen; but some one contradicted the assertion
with the statement that her mother was half Irish. She had
been " given away" as Hawaiian children are passed along,
and lives in terror of the short temper and long arm of
her adoptive sire.

When these people are displeased or contemptuous, they
express their feelings mainly by writhing their mouths into
the most astonishing contortions; and whenever our female
caretaker emerged from the crowd, facing our way, her
shapely lips wore an expression that led us to believe she
was not altogether enthusiastic about our impending occu-
pancy of the cottage. She moved restlessly here and there,
attended by the enormous pink puarka, reminding us of
some one trying to force an objectionable relative into society.
She has been a beauty, this old aristocrat of Nuka-Hiva, and
most persons might envy her straight features and beautiful
eyes. She wears the old-time tattooing on face and hands,
the latter looking as if blue-lace mitted. The Marquesans
were famed for the fineness of their tattooing.

The language of smiles is efficacious here as in Hawaii —
more so, in fact, for these Marquesans are far less sophisti-
cated folk than the Hawaiians.

Walking from the little wharf to the store to-day
on first landing, we passed a building where half-naked
natives and Scandinavian sailors from the bark were chop-
ping copra (the dried meat of the cocoanut) with spades,
preparatory to sacking it for export. Other natives, brawny
fellows wearing only a red and white loin-cloth (pareu),
carried the filled bags out through the surf to a lighter which
was towed to the bark by her small boat. The men, chopping

102 THfl LOG OF THE SNARK

on -tlie'fiooi* of 'the 'dark' room piled high behind them with
the copra, composed a striking picture. Fair sailors and
dark natives, all shining with sweat, they bent to the work,
and we would catch curious tattooed faces with savage
features, peering from out the gloom at the strangers. We
fell in with the captain of the bark while we were looking on,
and he explained the work.

We were immediately struck, upon landing, with an
ominous narrowness of chest and stoop of shoulders among the
natives, only a few showing any robustness. And the ex-
planation came from moment to moment in a dreadful cough-
ing that racks the doomed wretches. The little that is left
of the race is perishing and it is not a pretty process. The
men and women are victims of asthma, phthisis, and the sad
"galloping" consumption that lays a man in two months or
less — to say nothing of other and unnameable curses of dis-
ease that "civilisation" has brought. And as for children-
there are very few born any more. A handful of years have
made a fearful change in the Marquesas, the islanders going
down before disease so rapidly that to-day, for instance, only
nineteen able-bodied men can be mustered in Taiohae for
ship-loading. It is only the infusion of outlander blood that
holds the fading population at all.

The women wear the holoku of Hawaii — in Marquesan
eueu, in English Mother-Hubbard — the men being variously
habited in overalls with bright striped net shirts, or merely
in the pareu, a large square of red, or blue, blotched with
bizarre designs in white or yellow — an English importation.
Everybody, of all ages and both sexes, smokes cigarettes of
strong native tobacco rolled in a spiral of dried leaf, or
bamboo strip, or cane. The women are disappointing as to
looks; but we have to remember that it is a far cry to the
days of Herman Melville, who spoke of the Marquesan race
as being the handsomest and fairest of the South Sea
islanders — that the women would compare favourably with
"the beauties of Europe." We had a glimpse of the hus-
band of the old care-taker, and he, too, has the fine straight

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 103

nose, well-sculptured mouth, with large and well-set eyes, and
the marvellous tattooing. Mr. Kreiech vouches for the pair
as being of the purest Marquesan aristocracy.

Taiohae, Sunday, December 8, 1907.

Owing to the requisite delicacy in handling the old couple,
we were obliged to sleep aboard again last night, and with
our men returning from the shore at all hours there was not
much sleep. It was quite novel, for once, for Jack and me
to be alone together on the Snark. We spread a mattress
on deck and lay on our backs looking up at the sparkling
stars and a thin new moon that trembled on the edge of the
sky. The warm tide rippled along the sides of the boat, the
surf droned soothingly in the distance, and the balmy air was
filled with drifting scents of flowers and cocoanuts. My
thrumming ukulele fretted the wild kids, and their drowsy
plaints came down from the steeps. Then the whole firma-
ment was blotted out with sudden clouds and the face of the
tropic night completely changed. I went below; but Jack
chanced it in the life-boat cover, and later on I found him
fast asleep in a pool of rainwater.

Once up this morning and the cobwebs brushed out of my
brain, I was glad of another morning afloat in the incom-
parable harbour. We were lucky enough to arrive in time
for a very important event in Marquesan circles. One
Taiara Tamarii, a part-Hawaiian part-Marquesan familiarly
called Tomi, was to hold a great feast commemorating the
first anniversary of his mother 's death. On such occasion,
an important ceremony is to erect a cross upon the grave.
But over against this pious symbol, the feature of rarest in-
terest is a procession of the natives bringing in roasted pigs
for the feast, imitating the days not so far gone when success-
ful warriors returned with the bodies of their vanquished
foes.

The host himself, the huge and burly Tomi, was waiting
when we went ashore, together with Mr. Kreiech and Mr.

104 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Rahling and the captain of the bark. We strolled along the
wide green beach road (if road it can be called where never
rolls a wheel), past Mrs. Fisher's picturesque tumble-down
cottage, on up a gently rising stony trail, over brooks and by
scattered grass houses built on ancient pae-paes described by
Melville — high platforms of stones laid by dead and gone
Marquesans. The natives of to-day have neither the am-
bition nor strength to pile such masonry, and so they squat
upon the stages of their forefathers.

Now and again we were overtaken by hurrying natives who
had some part to perform in the festivities or who were
carrying articles for the feast. One wild-eyed, strapping
young woman, reckless with drink that she had obtained
somehow, attracted our attention by her exasperated attempts
to pick up a battered accordion that kept dropping out of
her bundle. Although she fell repeatedly, any offer of help
was fiercely resisted.

We passed one hut before which lay spread a half-dozen
roasted porkers, done to a turn and awaiting transportation
to the house of Tomi. Finally we came within hearing of a
barbaric rhythmic harangue in a woman's high strong voice,
and were told it was a chant of welcome, the burden being
that the occasion was made perfect by our presence. Fol-
lowing the wild sound, we turned, full of tingling curiosity,
into an enclosure containing a spic and span new cottage
built above a high open basement. To the right, through
the trees, we could see the welcoming chantress — a swarthy,
elderly creature with a certain lean, savage beauty, ham-wise
upon a corner of a noble pae-pae that supported a grass hut.
We were made very much at home by Tomi and his family,
who received us in a half-shy, affectionate way. His wife
had a refined, well-featured face, while his youngest daugh-
ter, a girl of twelve or thirteen, was a veritable beauty of
any time or place.

We were soon out of doors again, seeing what we could
see. Martin and I worked our cameras energetically, for
never was there such incentive. Behind the house was a

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 105

long arbour of freshly plaited palms, under which, upon the
ground spread with leaves, the natives were to eat their
puarka and poi-poi. There were mighty wooden bowls of
this poi-poi, which is a thick and nutritive paste made from
breadfruit, instead of from taro as in Hawaii. Breadfruit
poi-poi is buried in the ground for an indefinite period, that
used on this occasion having been entombed for years. I
surreptitiously poked my finger into one grey mess in a huge
hand-hewn calabash, but I did not like the taste so well as
the taro poi.

Scores of merrymakers moved or sat about the grounds,
women gossiping in groups and inhaling endless numbers of
cigarettes of the acrid native tobacco, naked pickaninnies
tumbling in the grass or sucking sections of fresh young
cocoanut, while to and fro stalked Tomi's brothers carrying
more calabashes of kao-kao (food) on their polished shoulders
— magnificent brown savages girdled in scarlet, and over
these bright cinctures ordinary leather belts in the backs of
which were stuck murderous knives.

Altogether fourteen huge cocoanut-fed hogs had been
roasted whole in the ground among hot stones. These hogs
were laid, four or five at a time, in a savoury row near the
arbour. Tomi's brethren drew their long knives with a
flourish and fell to carving the steaming meat, meanwhile
surrounded by yearning, sniffing dogs of all mongrel breeds
under heaven. As soon as one lot was carved, another lot
was brought. The two biggest brothers willingly posed for
us, once bearing a greasy pig on a pole between them, and
again with the great wooden bowls of calabashes upon their
glistening shoulders.

There was a sudden alarming change in the music. We
ran to the front of the house, not to miss anything, where an
old woman was loudly mouthing a rude and protracted cry
that was much too sinister and menacing to be pretty, and
made creepy sensations down one's spine. There were
answering warlike cries in men's voices from a distance
among the trees. The exchanging calls, like tom-toms and

106 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

war-drums, split the calm air ; weird and ghastly questionings
seemed to be in the voices of the women, and incommunicable
horrors of suggestion in the resounding replies from unseen
bearers of victorious burdens.

It was not a long procession that wound into view through
the palms and twisted burao trees and past us to the rear of
the house; but it was led by a king's son, and as the slow,
ominous double-file came on, he repeatedly turned to it with
exhorting vociferations that called forth a howling clamour
of assent to some ungodly proposition. The men carried
long leaf -swathed bundles, each bundle slung high on bamboo
poles between two bearers. It was comforting to be assured
that the packages were only pig wrapped to resemble long-pig
— which term is too mortuarily obvious to need explanation.
But the actors in the tragedy entered with such zest and lack
of shame into the spirit of the seeming, that we were led to
speculate upon how many years, if left to themselves, it would
take them to lapse into their old habits of appetite. I hate
to spoil the vivid, savage picture ; but the anachronisms were
too funny to leave out. For instance, one man sported a top
hat above a tattered rag of a calico shirt ; several wore ludi-
crous derbys of the low-crowned "Weary Willie" variety,
and the king's son (who, by the way, was none other than
the man who wanted a dollar a bunch for bananas the day
before), shone in decent ducks and a native straw hat. But
we had to be satisfied, our willing imaginations eliminating
the comedy and grasping the beauty of the entirety of the
scene, while Tomi's brawny half -nude brothers, carrying the
biggest bundle of leaf -wrapped flesh, made up for any dis-
crepancies. In spite of the anachronisms in costume, there
was a tremendous sense of unreality about the whole pro-
ceedings.

Upon the instant the procession appeared, several old
vahines began jumping stiffly up and down like electrified
mummies, their arms held rigidly to their shrivelled sides —
after the manner of the "jumping widows" described by
Melville — and emitting the most remarkable noises that ever

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 107

came from human throats. This they kept up during the
passing of the procession, and it seemed that their function
was to announce the readiness of the feast — not to spoil the
appetites of the guests, as a fastidious diner might have
suspected.

But no epicure, however outraged, could have quarrelled
with the collation to which we were bidden. There was but
one disappointment — to our sorrow we were specially
honoured by eating in the house, at a table, with all the im-
plements of an effete civilisation. We bowed to the inevi-
table, but with secret rebellion in view of that palmy banquet
outside on the ground.

Our dinner was course-served by the cook himself, a slim
Marquesan, and he certainly was a chef to remember. We
had fresh-water shrimps, big fellows tasting like New Eng-
land lobster; wild chicken (descended from the domestic
ones brought by old-time ships) boiled in milk squeezed from
the meat of cocoanuts, and delicately flavoured with native
curry and other spices ; roast sucking-pig, as fine and white as
spring fowl; for salad, they gave us water-cress, crisp and
succulent ; and there were potatoes, real Irish potatoes, come
all the way from San Francisco via Tahiti, French-fried and
with a flavour of homesickness. We were not served with
poi-poi, but our old favourite the taro was there, to my utter
gratification. Absinthe was passed around before eating, and
California wine, white and red, flowed during the meal, fol-
lowed by a sweet French champagne.

Mrs. Fisher and I were the only women at the board;
while outside on the veranda, in fine white eueus, with their
black locks flower-crowned, the more pampered of the native
women had their goodies, unavoidably reminding one of a
dusky harem. Now that I am having a chance to observe, I
think one might discover more beauty among the women
here were it not for the shocking manner in which they wear
their hair, white women as well as natives — brushed straight
back from the forehead and hanging in a braid behind.
Such a fashion is trying to the most lovely face.

108 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

We were a long time at table, during which there was op-
portunity to study the heterogeneous company from the
head of the board. On my right, next to Jack, came Mrs.
Fisher, then Captain Warren and Martin, by whom sat the
ship-carpenter from the bark, a huge grizzled Scandinavian
with bearded mouth and dull and introspective eye — a Viking
in size and form, but with all the fire gone out. At the foot
of the table was the captain of the bark, a man with nose
and mouth that deserved better eyes for company, a nose
severely Greek, a mouth sensuously so, but the eyes just
ordinary Scandinavian blue eyes, set too near together and
remarkable for nothing but their insignificance. On my left,
next Mr. Kreiech, our diffident host, Tomi, sat beside one of
his eight brothers, and next following was old Mr. Goeltz,
father of Mrs. Fisher. The mate of the bark, a medium sized
young fellow with a homely, amorous face, came next to Mr.
Bahling, who completed the circle.

Dinner was diversified by considerable exercise, for we
must run to the windows to see the hula-hulas of the natives,
who would nearly kill themselves laughing at the untrans-
latable sentiments of the songs. These were accompanied, of
all things, by an accordion, that had a habit of sighing pro-
foundly at the end of each stanza. Then there was much
mirth and banter over the swift sneakings for home of certain
men carrying large portions of puarka. It is the custom
that each guest may take home whatever of his allotment of
meat he does not consume on the spot. One furtive kanaka
trying to get away unobserved with what looked to be a
whole hog in two sections slung each on the end of a bamboo
pole, was detected and hooted out of sight. We were told
that this man always departed early with all he could lay his
hands on.

It was a wild afternoon that followed, dance upon dance,
until it became an orgy. The hula-hula here is largely
Tahitian, and is faster and briefer and less graceful than
the Hawaiian hula, while the music has not the charm of the
Hawaiian. In fact, we heard only one air to-day, played on

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 109

the accordion; and the only virtue it had was that it made
the men and women dance. Everybody danced, everybody
applauded. Even I had to join in a waltz with the two
captains, much to the amusement of the natives. Sailors
from the bark shook a leg or so to keep the fun boiling. At
the height of the prevalent madness, the old bow-shouldered
Viking, who had been gazing heavy -lidded and vacuously at
the scene with an idiotic expression on his pendant lip,
without warning sprang up like a monster marionette, and
crashed into the middle of the suffering floor in a mighty
hornpipe. Pandemonium broke loose, everybody yelled and
screeched with delight, until the giant was suddenly smitten
self-conscious and dropped foolishly into his chair ; but later,
when Martin, who was having the time of his life, took a
whirl in the hula-hula (with great credit to himself), the
old man could not hold still any longer. After wiggling his
great feet for a little while, he essayed another hornpipe, and
wound up in an angular hula-hula that brought tears to our
eyes. I know I never laughed so in my life. The clutter
of dogs in the house greatly enhanced the orgaic spirit of
things. Jack and I sat dangling our feet from the high
window-sill, and wondered if we knew where we were this
time!

The windows opening on the porches were crowded with
shining dark heads wreathed in white flowers, and when I
begged for a wreath I was soon crowned with a fragrant
circlet of tube-roses, or such they most nearly resembled,
twined with glossy green leaves.

But to the natives the most deeply significant event was
the photographing of Tomi and his family before the impos-
ing white-painted, black-decorated wooden vault entombing
the dead mother, with the new cross planted in front. It is
nothing out of the way here to inter the dead in the house-
enclosure. Martin posed the group and took the picture, but
there was difficulty in getting all the subjects to look serious
at the same time. Tomi wore not the ghost of a smile, not he ;
he knew what was what. But the majority of the long line

110 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

of relatives signally failed in gravity, with disastrous results.

While this was going on, the old ship-carpenter awoke
once more from his lethargy and tried to dance with the
women; but he was evidently not accustomed to handling
anything so fragile, and they refused to dance more than once
with an uncouth giant who stupidly bruised their wrists.

We were somewhat delayed in our farewells by Martin, who
at the last moment engaged in a particularly brilliant hula-
hula with half a dozen of the men. At length he was torn
unwillingly away and preceded us down the rocky path-
way, a Bacchanalian tilt to his leafy coronet, a shoe in either
hand to rest his feet, and a worshipful vahine on each arm.
Jack also carried his shoes, which he had taken off as soon as
he reached Tomi's. I kept mine on, although I was not en-
tirely happy; but the stones were many and sharp and I
considered I was choosing the lesser torture. The homeward
walk included many stops and rests, and it was an intense
relief to strike the soft green turf of the main road. This
lovely thoroughfare is called the Broom Road, after the drive-
way so-named in Tahiti. Mrs. Fisher says " Broom Road"
means a road which many feet have brushed in passing.
That woman bids fair to be a mine of interest and informa-
tion, and we are congratulating ourselves upon having her
take us to board, especially as she is the only one here who
can or will do this.

We are going to be very happy in our independent fashion
in this clean little house with its big living-room and closet,
an ample veranda for sleeping and working, and best of all
a concrete bathing place out-of-doors under a shed connected
with our side door. There is room in the house for the
Victor and all its records, and word of the talking machine
has already gone forth so that there are many peepers through
our vine-clad fence.

Monday, December 9, 1907.

We slept eight unbroken, dreamless hours last night in
makeshift beds on the porch — at least I did ; Jack never sleeps

THE LOG OF THE SNABK 111

without fantastic dreaming. The quiet did not disturb us in
the least. We were lulled by the musical purr of the little
surf only a few rods away, and the patter of warm raindrops
on the banana leaves in our garden. But just as we were
losing consciousness, the soft night-sounds were rent by a
chorus of Gargantuan laughter — horrible, raucous, as from
the throats of insane Titans. The splintered turrets of the
mountains fairly reverberated to the astonishing orgy of
noise. This morning we learned that the goblin chorus had
issued unaided from the throat of a diminutive and entirely
amiable jackass that grazes untethered about the village.

The air of Nuka-Hiva is pure and sweet, with frequent
showers that cool it deliciously — and it is certainly warm;
but perspire as one may, there is no great discomfort if one
dresses sensibly. I am going to wear kimonos and my
Hawaiian holokus, without strictures of any sort in the way
of belt or sash.

It 's early to bed and up early in this tropic Elysium, with
dejeuner about ten and dinner somewhere around five.
There are no stated hours for any functions of living. So
before seven this matchless morning I sat me down in the
long grass under a giant-leaved banana tree, with a pan of
golden-rosy mangoes and a sharp knife, and plunged into the
preparation of a luscious breakfast. Plunged is an excellent
word, although dived might be better, for one cannot dally
with the gracious mango without getting pretty well up to
the elbows in its squashy ambrosia. I shall not tell how many
mangoes Jack ate, nor how many oranges, nor how much
lemonade he drank in addition. Such oranges ! Except for
seedlessness, the finest California oranges are no better.

While Jack wrote at a table in the middle of the big room,
I fussed about making the cottage homelike with our be-
longings, Nakata watching me out of the corners of his eyes
to learn points about housekeeping, the while he unpacked
and furbished our saddlery ; and the sight of the comfortable
pigskin Australian models made me smile at the memory of
Mr. Rahling's pained look when I declined his kind offer of a

112 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

side-saddle on a ride that Mr. Kreiech suggested for the after-
noon. No comment was made; but methinks I am about to
learn that the dusky women of this green isle are still in the
clutch of the feudal ages.

At ten, Jack and I, both in kimonos, under a pongee para-
sol, strolled up the green boulevard, and the cut of our
garments caused much whispering and giggling among the
loafers as we passed. Whatever Mrs. Fisher may have
thought, she kept it to herself, and went cosily about the
laying of a small table in her cool front room. But we pro-
tested vigorously when we found she had not planned to sit
with us, for we were looking forward to talking with her.
We had our way in the end; and while we stowed away a
meal that was an earnest of our being well looked after by her,
Mrs. Fisher told us vividly of her life. She has been in the
South Seas for thirty years, although born in San Francisco
of German and English parents. She married in Tahiti at
fifteen, and, besides most of her eleven children, she has
buried husband and mother. Being a keen observer, with
strange things to observe, she is ripe with knowledge of the
islands and their inhabitants, both white and brown. Weird
were some of her tales of both colours. In spite of a life
of unusual trouble and hardship, she is wonderfully young
looking. She has a striking profile and carriage, her rather
austere expression relieved by a pair of irresistible dimples
when she smiles.

By noon we were in the saddle. Our horses were small
black stallions, full of mischief from lack of exercise com-
bined with natural cussedness. I was unwarned, and mine
began by variously rearing and kicking all over the road, with
sudden shying slides down the banks to the beach, and wild
leaping runs over precarious foot-bridges that spanned nasty
gullies. Thank goodness he did not know how to buck. It
was about the only thing he did not do, however, to get me
off ; but I managed to stick, and at length he decided that he
wanted to follow the party. We fell into line, a small but

THE LOG OF THE SNAKK 113

turbulent cavalcade, horses snorting, neighing, kicking, fight-
ing, but sure-footed as goats, and gentle of gait when they
chose to have any gait. I have read of the surety of these
Marquesan ponies, but the writers neglected to mention their
beauty. The original stock came over from Chili, and has
bred true in form and spirit, though not in size. They are
firm bodied, shapely beasts, with slender legs, small trim
hoofs, fine coats, and beautiful heads. They are also hardy,
although they do not know hay and grain, and are merely
turned out to forage in the jungle.

The object of our ride was to inspect an ancient god that
is doomed to voyage over-seas in the black hold of the Nor-
wegian bark, provided a way can be devised to transport it
through the intricate jungle. Our trail lay northeast, and
imagine my delight when they said this was the way to
Typee, and that to-morrow we should start out on the same
path to the fabulous valley. I was too busy at first with my
India-rubber steed to appreciate our surroundings; but
presently he grew weary of tearing up the landscape to over-
take that merciless rider, the Norwegian captain, and I was
able to look about. On either side of the trail, as far as eye
could penetrate, were the splendid ruins of ancient pae-paes
terraced up the hillsides in tangled jungle of blossoming
burao that strewed the earth with brown and golden bells.
(This is the same tree as the hau of Hawaii.) Some of the
nearer stone platforms carried most picturesque little grass
huts ; but we saw very few natives, probably because there are
very few left to see. It is mournful, all this grandeur of
wasted masonry, left in solitude by a wasted race.

But it was a lightsome forest, for all its old associations.
Sometimes we rode in a mist of golden silk-cotton growing on
a tree that is like a delicate drawing of straight lines and
right angles, with scant and lacy foliage and bursting pods
of cotton depending from its cane-like branches. Among the
burao trees we also saw the lauhala of Hawaii, which is like-
wise used here for hat-plaiting and basketry. There is a

114 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

lack of wild-flowers in Nuka-Hiva; indeed, almost the only
flowers we saw were those of the ~burao, and the flame-
coloured flags of the flamboyants tree.

We tied our now submissive horses a mile or so up the trail,
and plunged on foot into the denser woods and up among a
world of moss-grown pae-paes. The stillness was intense, a
waiting solitude that made one listen and look for the unex-
pected. You could fancy faces and contorted limbs in every
gnarled burao, or shadowy forms crouched along fallen
mossy trunks; and it seemed sacrilege to tread the springy
undergrowth, for surely it had risen from the dust of
forgotten Druids. There was a mute sacredness in the forest
that was in no wise destroyed when, after a panting climb, we
came in sight of the ungodly idol that we sought, leaning
moss-clothed and isolate against an old and broken tree.
And the god was a goddess, after all — Tataura, the rotund
deity of fecundity, to whom childless brown women prayed
in the long ago.

Our dream was broken when the German trader and the
soulless Norwegian captain fell to wrangling over ways and
means for transporting the quaint image to the beach, and
stuck their iconoclastic knives into the soft red stone to see
whether it might not be of a consistency for sawing to
advantage. We glimpsed a stealthy brown figure, almost
naked, lurking near, watching the intruders into his ancestral
wood, in his eyes a blending of modern agnosticism and the
superstition of yesterday, with a tinge of suspicion and regret.
Jack and I left the two white men haggling over the fallen
immortal, its almost obliterated heathen face seeming to grin
sarcastically. -We wandered down through the twisted
temple of out-doors, touched by the romantic hillside where
once lived a laughing, careless people, beautiful to look upon
and dwelling in amity and abundance — when they were not
out besieging or being besieged by the dwellers of other hill-
sides and valleys.

The two men overtook us down the trail, and on the way

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 113

home we turned off to visit a mineral spring that supplies
irreproachable drinking water to the fastidious in Taiohae.
Our caretakers are to keep us with full jars at the cottage.
The captain forged ahead and tore through the trees, I close
after, supposing he knew what he was doing — and he did,
but it was not the right thing to do. I followed him over a
place that I would have disliked to attempt on foot. He
forced his poor horse down the boulders with savage un-
scrupulousness, and it was too late for me to withdraw,
although my doughty little stallion tried to recover on the
brink. I was angry, and took pains to explain the situation
to Mr. Kreiech when he came up on foot, having tied his
horse somewhere like a sane man. Jack had been drawn
over that boulder as I had been, and neither of us wanted
Mr. Kreiech to think we were accustomed to abusing horses.
Of course we had to claw out the way we descended, for
there was no other way.

At the spring, the water of which had a pleasant mineral
tang, we were treated also to a draught from cocoanuts which
a native opened with his long knife. These Marquesan cocoa-
nuts are much superior to the Hawaiian ones in sweetness
and richness of water and meat. They are picked young and
full of the delicate-flavoured water, and the delicious meat
is soft enough to eat with a spoon.

On the home stretch the irrepressible Norwegian raised
general havoc in our ranks by wickedly whooping by down-
hill, and Jack's small stallion promptly bolted. Mine took
after him in turn, and I could only trust to his tiny nimble
feet, for there was no checking him. So I made the most of
the mad descent, which was exhilarating if risky. By the
time we drew up at Mrs. Fisher's at the foot of the hill, Jack's
saddle was on his horse's neck, and it was a mercy the horse
was not overbalanced to a fall.

. . . Such an appetite ! And what a dinner ! Mrs. Fisher
has engaged as cook the man who set the feast at Tomi 's yes-
terday, and he seasons his dishes most toothsomely. There is

116 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

a combination of fine French cuisine and native cookery that
keeps us hungry to the end and looking forward to the next
meal.

We asked Mrs. Fisher and her household down to hear the
phonograph in the evening, and passed the word along to
others as we leisured on foot back to the old clubhouse.
They turned out in force, flocking to our garden with smiles
and bashful laughter, then disposing themselves here and
there, sitting or standing around on the grass inside the gate,
as well as on the broad green beyond, while some crowded on
the porch where Jack was working the Victor. The women
were nearly all in white, the men in ordinary suits of white
duck or blue drilling, or in brilliant pareus. I wore a holoku,
which pleased the women ; and I went among them and tried
to make them feel at ease, for they were very diffident with
me at first. I, too, sat in the grass, laughing with them and
trying to learn their words — one, in particular, maitai, mean-
ing good, being worked most successfully in a hundred con-
notations. And they in turn put fragrant wreaths of rich
white flowers about my neck and upon my head, patting my
hands and smiling appreciatively like lovable children. —
Poor things! Over and under and all about their mirth-
making is the coughing, coughing, a running accompaniment
to everything they do; and they continually soothe their
racked lungs with the strong native tobacco.

Roaming among our guests outside the gate, I found lying
under a flamboyante tree in the moonlight an old Corsican
beachcomber with white hair and beard. He would not come
inside, indicating that he could enjoy the music better where
he was. How did he happen to come to this place, and, more
remarkable, why did he stay on ? I wonder what his thoughts
were, listening to music from the outer world, there in the
short grass under the flamboyante tree in the moonshine.
Some one has whispered leprosy. This may explain him.

The men proved better listeners than the women, who,
after their first curiosity about the "man in the box" had
worn off, fell to chattering, chattering, till even Sousa 's baton

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 117

could not command clamour enough to drown them. Once
in a while some kanaka, interrupted in his own racket by the
superior clatter of the vahines, by hissing loudly restored a
brief general silence.

And all the time, out on the bay, fairy-like in the moon-
shine floated the quaint old grey bark with her painted ports,
and the tiny white-speck boat that brought us to this lovely
isle — four thousand miles to cover a twenty-one hundred mile
course. But she did it ! she did it ! And there she lies these
pleasant days, resting until she is called upon to bear us on
over the purple seas, through the pearl lagoons of the Dan-
gerous Archipelago, to Tahiti — Papeete, the " Paris of the
Pacific/' on, on, endlessly, the receding horizon our goal. It
is all wonderful and unreal, here in the midst of it ; and my
heart is full of marvel at the beauty of life, my life, although
at my pitying feet in the grass the poor fading creatures of
this fair land lie coughing their lives away, pathetic aliens
of no true race, waifs of the drift of many and incongruous
bloods.

Against our door-post an old tattooed savage leans, squat-
ting on the floor, his eyes dumbly agog at the talking-machine ;
in front of him, chin in hands, sits a degenerate of French-
Marquesan stock, with a fine and delicate face marred by a
look of concentrated foolishness in the great brown eyes.
Mrs. Fisher sits straight and white and still, eyes fixed and
far-dreaming, while on her long-tried knees sleeps a grand-
child. And woven into the picture is a score or so of dogs,
more oddly-bred than the people who tolerate them and cuff
them by turns. Some departed Great Dane has left his
gold-striped coat stretched upon many a strange frame, and
the lineaments of a pug-dog mock at one from the shoulders
of a hound sans pedigree.

... At a little after ten we told our friends "pan," which
is current here as in Hawaii to express the end, the finish,
and, to the blare of La Marseillaise, the men and women
trooped away singing.

Then a great black cloud rose from behind the mountain

118 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

and covered the moon ; and in the darkness we found the way
under our lacy canopies of mosquito netting, and drowsed off
to the staccato of big rain-drops on giant banana-leaves, to
dream of Typee Vai on the morrow.

December 10, 1907.

The plan had been to get away at five for Typee, but when
that birdlike hour dawned it seemed that Jack and I were
the only ones who had taken it seriously. No one else had
made any preparation. We got away at half -past ten. But
it did not matter — nothing matters in this leisure-land.

There were six besides ourselves — Captain Warren, Mar-
tin, and the Norwegian skipper with two native girls he had
asked to bring. And last, and very important, was Nikko,
an Easter Islander whom Jack had engaged as guide. The
Norwegian had offered, as he had once before made the trip ;
but we preferred a resident of Nuka-Hiva, and Nikko knows
his adoptive island thoroughly.

With my husband's entire approval I had concluded, in
view of a hard ride through all sorts of country on a skittish
horse, to discard skirts altogether; so I sallied forth booted
and spurred and in khaki riding breeks — of course to find the
native girls, arrayed in voluminous eueus, lounging in roomy
side-saddles. Take my word for it that they betrayed more
surprise and disapproval than I did.

The bark captain had the ride very much to himself,
because he was the only one who had no consideration for a
horse, albeit his was a fine animal, borrowed at that, from one
of the women. The rest of us struck a humane pace and
stuck to it, while he raced over the rocks regardless of rise
or declivity, his poor brute dripping rivers and quivering
with exhaustion.

I rode my little stallion Jacques, and Jack's mount was a
sure-footed 1 1 buckskin ' ' gelding. Martin, had he but thought
of it, might have assisted his tiny bay mare with his own
long legs, for they could easily touch the ground. But Cap-
tain Warren's close-knit figure just suited the stocky, wicked

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 119

little stallion that had been allotted him. It set its will
against his at the start, but the stern- jawed mariner prevailed
through a course of cajolery, heeling, and thrashing. Jack
and I laughed ourselves weak during the first half hour.

The morning was fresh and sparkling, but the sun, touch-
ing the purple peak-tips with gilt, soon let loose its whole
golden flood into the valley, and we were glad of a cool breeze
to the summit. Such a gallery of incomparable pictures!
First, the beach with its frilly surf, the vessels rocking in the
wind-crisped water beyond, and yet beyond the blue flashing
sea. Then the coloured palisades about the bay, sprayed with
rainbows from little waterfalls born of a night's rain. On
the landward side we were greeted by palm-vignetted sketches
— here a warm-brown grass hut with its warm-brown dwellers
smiling kaoha to us as we swept by; or the old grey- white
mission with its peaceful garden where a cowled priest tended
his flowers ; and we passed the ha'e (house) of the dead Queen
Vaeheku, spacious and imposing by contrast with the dwell-
ings along the Broom Road. Then we plunged into the
wooded trail where opened ferny vistas and the golden cotton
brushed our faces with morning dew. It was familiar going
for a time, with a memory of the forsaken red goddess in the
enchanted forest; but presently we were beyond our ken
and following our guide up-mountain — a mile behind the
flying Norseman and his unfortunate charger.

We crossed shady streams and drank deep while the horses
breathed, and ever we fought our way up, until we came out
upon a rocky ridge and turned to look back upon one of the
loveliest visions in the world. Such green, such unbroken
emerald verdure — the valley a great round green-lined nest,
dotted with feather of cocoanut ; with little white birds, two
by two, floating dreamily in the void. The sides of the nest,
the wonderful mountains, shimmered in a tinted mist, and
far down in the silver horse-shoe of the bay the boats lay
tiny and toy-like. As in a chart spread out before us, we saw
the twin Sentinels, and lying mistily on the horizon the
violet islands of Uapo and Hiva-oa — ''Yonder Far." We

120 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

could even glimpse the ragged edges of the western wall of
Comptroller Bay. This reminded us of our objective, and
we turned once more to the ascent. Just as the encircling
walls of the valley below looked too diaphanous to be real
in the blowing blue vapours, so even the perpendicular cliffs
close at hand looked unreal. This magic atmosphere idealises
everything, far and near.

Our last pull out of Taiohae Valley was on a zigzag trail,
some sections of which were narrow and steep enough to re-
call the Molokai pali, and we rested the horses frequently and
enjoyed the ever-widening panorama growing beneath.
Much of the trail was smothered in a slender though sturdy
cane-growth, and we were warned not to cut ourselves on the
green blades. This must be the cane that so discouraged Mel-
ville and Toby in their flight from the Dolly. The bank on
the upper side was mossy and a-wave with familiar ferns, one
variety resembling the stag-horn of Maui in Hawaii, al-
though without its vicious thorny attributes. We saw a ripe
guava, just one, and that was hollowed out by bird or rat.
There was an abundance of guava-scrub, but the fruit season
is young. On the top of a bank level with our eyes, we found
a Liliputian wild passion vine bearing the most fragile
lavender blossoms, miniatures of those we know at home.

The whole land was solidly green, valleys and glens, moun-
tainsides and summits, broken only by chance scarry cliffs
upon the bald faces of which clung desperate contorted palms.

We peered ghoulishly at a huge rocky funeral-crag near
the divide, where corpses, embalmed so that even the eyeballs
remain intact, are said to be hidden. Shall I ever be able to
explore such a place ? I let my opportunity slip at. Keala-
kekua Bay, Hawaii (where Captain Cook died), because they
said the sun was too hot for me to climb the face of the tomb-
honeycombed cliff. And there's not the ghost of a chance
on Nuka-Hiva. It has been tried, with most unsatisfactory
results, by some of the white residents here in times gone by.
They could not get even a whiff, so to say, of their loathsome
quarry. The native carrying their camping things became

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 121

suspicious, found some significant tools in the outfit, and re-
fused flatly to have anything to do with the expedition. And
of course he didn't keep still about his find; so that ever
since it has been considered unhealthful by the whites to
make any attempt to scale the frowning monument.

We now emerged upon more or less of a table-land, and
galloped along high breezy ridges from which fell away on
either hand a world of hills and wild fruitful valleys ; while
ahead, beyond the last ridge, rose the farther wall of Typee.
A little way on we discovered that we were at the very head
of Hapaa Valley, whose inhabitants were the fiercest enemies
of the Typeans in Melville's time. To-day the green gloom
of the deep pocket is unbroken by hut or smoke or human
form. Not one man is left to point out past glory of con-
quest nor triumphant feast of pale, grim long-pig. Melville
spelled it Happar, and the spelling of Typee should rightly
be Taipi; but Typee it will always remain for the wander-
luster.

To make our travelling more perfect, the sky had some-
what overcast, and just enough sun broke through at inter-
vals to throw lavish swaths of light and shadow across the
tremendous landscape, while we went in cool comfort.

When Nikko pointed out the head of Typee Vai far to our
left, my sensations were all I could wish. There in the midst
of stern mountain bulks, black in the shadow, just where the
deserters sixty years ago perilously let themselves down into
the valley, was the waterfall described by Melville — a dis-
tant shaft of purest white, still as a pillar of marble. And
very likely the long, embowered pathway down which we
gained the floor of the valley is the very one by which Toby
escaped from the man-eating tribe.

Near the head of the valley we could see the white welt of
the trail to Hatiheu angling up ravines and erosions. One
of our native girls came from Hatiheu, granddaughter of a
chief, and part French. She is an indolent, insolent-eyed
creature, and as neither she nor the other girl seemed in-
clined to be sociable, we soon left them to themselves.

122 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

The only other striking feature on the opposite wall of
Typee was a sloping enclosure of several acres, overcrowded
to bursting with breadfruit and cocoanut. The walls looked
to be of piled stone, and we could not doubt that this was
one of the walled groves made so much of by Melville.

And the valley itself — one cannot be surprised that its
olden visitor thought it extraordinary and had no words to
tell of its extreme loveliness. Deep in the heart of the moun-
tains it rests, an inexpressible wilderness of greenest green,
threaded by a beautiful river fed by cataracts at its magnifi-
cent scowling head. The mountains of Nuka-Hiva are not
very high, but have all the character of greater mountains
and make grand effects among the shifting, tumbling cloud-
masses. The length of Typee I should judge to be about
seven or eight miles by two broad, and the valley opens into
nothing less lovely than the bay of its own name, the mid-
most of the three arms of Comptroller Bay.

Melville saw much of Typee blossoming and fruiting
abundantly under savage cultivation ; but I cannot think the
general view is any less overwhelming in our day, with its
mad riot of vegetation. It is when one walks in the old
paths and comes close to Typee that the change hurts. It is
as if a curse had fallen upon it — spreading over it a choked
jungle of burao, damp and unwholesome, on the edges of
which, near the river, unkempt grass houses stand upon the
lordly pae-paes of decayed affluence.

And the people ! Where are the beautiful women and the
splendid men who loved so sweetly in their happy land?
Look for them you must — for Fayaway and her maidens,
clad in white tapa cloth; but what you see is a wretched
thing dragging toward you in bedraggled calico, her face
discoloured and blotched with leprosy, her very existence a
shame to mankind and the sun.

Melville estimated some two thousand warriors in Typee
Vai; now there are perhaps a dozen vilely-bred men and
women whose cross-strains alone have kept them alive, de-
clining as they are in disease and misery.

Human Hair Dancing Dress, Turtle Crown, and Old Men's Beards

The Nature Man in Street Costume

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 123

We unsaddled and tied our horses by an ancient stone
enclosure, and Nikko carried the lunch down by the river.
We came to our first case of elephantiasis in a hideously
deformed young native with a face smacking strongly of
Chinese. He brought us cocoanuts for our lunch, and for
which we paid him. His feet were literally elephantine —
the leg swelled until the toes were no more conspicuous than
those of an elephant. The man wore a deprecatory ex-
pression, as if he would apologise for his unlovely exist-
ence.

We were extremely annoyed, as we sat under the trees by
the stream, by myriads of the diminutive black flies, called
nau-nau (pronounced now-now), that have bothered us some-
what in Taiohae. Mrs. Fisher had warned us against allow-
ing them to sting us, as the bites, after lying dormant for
days, almost invariably fester and continue to fester. She
urged me to wear long sleeves and gloves. To-day the pests
settled in clouds, getting into the food and robbing us of
peace. Later on, when Jack and I took a swim in a pool of
the river, which we tried to think was ' ' Fayaway 's lake, ' ' we
were obliged to keep under water to escape the flies; and
when poor Jack, going out first, essayed to dress on the bank,
he was beset by such numbers that he was beside himself,
and his language not at all pretty. I placidly treaded water
and chaffed up at him from my comfortable seclusion. But
he got back at me. When / tried to clothe myself, omitting
all towelling for the sake of speed, the vengeful man stood
by and made remarks when I went quite, quite mad in my
efforts to get things on without imprisoning the clinging tor-
mentors. Perhaps I deserved my punishment ; but he needn 't
have been quite so mean !

After lunch I remembered my promise to myself that, once
I was on the spot, I was going to people Typee Vai to suit
my imagination. So I stole away up the hillside, past an
immense pae-pae bearing a filthy hut, and struck a damp
pathway that led into the burao thicket. I walked on and
on, but the trail seemed to lead nowhere, so I gave up and

124 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

retraced. This moist, unholy jungle has possessed the land.
I saw nothing of special human interest except a big mossy
stone that gazed dimly sphinx-like out of what may have once
upon a time been pictured eyes.

Baffled, I tried the up-river path. This was better —
really exquisite in fact. The way was smothered in sunny
trees and shrubbery and the most alluring little pathlets
tempted away from the riverside into a happy tangle of
growing things. One could easily imagine a phantom Fay-
away playing there at hide-and-seek. I saw a ripe warm
orange lying under its tree, and pounced upon it, catching
at the idea of having one golden apple out of the lost Eden.
It was a capital orange, too, even if hot. There was another
ruddy ball on the slender tree, but I let it hang. I wan-
dered on in the steaming tropic air, under the blue flame
of the noonday sky, and found the going fair and my dream
good. The valley rang with bird-calls, although Melville
made a point of the absence of birds, and they must have been
imported later on — along with the nau-nau!

Jack was asleep under a tree upon my return. Before
long we were in the saddle again, with only one horse-fight
to mark our departure. After I had mounted, my coal-
black steed rose to his full height per hind legs, and de-
scended upon the mounted Scandinavian, raising a consider-
able lump on the man's knee. Then we started back the
way we had come, but, instead of crossing the river to the
home-trail, kept to the left, galloping through a grove of
the biggest banana trees we have ever seen. A scant hand-
ful of natives peeped apishly at us from under the giant
leaves. Climbing to a pass leading out of Typee, we gazed
down upon the tan beach where Melville escaped to the
ship 's boat. Two men were fishing in the river where it met
the bay, and we caught the gleam of their silver quarry lying
on the sand.

Now came a joyful surprise. Typee had depressed us
with its desolation; but here, the other side of a low hill,
we dropped into a little vale that looked more as Typee

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 125

must have in her hey-day. This was Hooumi Valley (pro-
nounced Ho-o-oo-me). Melville never mentioned it in his
book, and, since he was zealously guarded from approach-
ing the mouth of his own valley, undoubtedly knew nothing
of it. Still, judging from the accessibility and smallness of
Hooumi, its people must have been counted among the
Typeans, for such a small contingent could not have held
out against the powerful valley proper. Melville probably
saw the people of Hooumi among the others, and included
them in his two-thousand estimate, while ignorant of their
actual headquarters.

It is a bit of aboriginal fairyland, this Hooumi. We
raced along, following the windings of its blue stream, many
a turn taking our breath away with the beauty it unrolled.
The prospect was one of plenty, the " profitable trees, "
breadfruit, bananas, cocoanuts and the like, growing pro-
fusely on every hand. The breadfruit is magnificent, re-
minding one of the jewelled trees in the story of Aladdin,
for the very leaves, broad and indented, glisten like polished
gems, while the large fruit, sometimes round, sometimes oval,
is studded with emerald knobs.

Once we rounded a broad bend, where a healthy, hearty
savage, gleaming like copper in the westering flames, fished
ankle-deep in pebbly shallows; again, we came upon a still
elbow of the stream in which a perfect grass hut, with all its
trees and background of wooded hill, was reflected ; or there
flashed upon us a straight stretch of road, striped with tree-
shadows, and opening up the lofty shoulder of a jagged
crag, tipped with sungold; and once I drew up abruptly,
having almost missed, in sheer enjoyment of my horse, one
of the prettiest sights in the valley — a particularly well pre-
served pae-pae by the roadside, supporting a ruined grass
house shaded by three plumy palms of varying heights and
angles, and one justly proportioned breadfruit tree that
laid its purple shadow distinctly upon the tessellated plat-
form. A grass hut is the very quintessence of savage pic-
turesqueness.

126 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

We fetched up at the mouth of the valley in a little vil-
lage of native huts and one small frame house built on a
modern pae-pae in a grassy enclosure. It might have been
more romantic for us to put up in native fashion; but we
were quite willing to forego that pleasure and accept Nikko 's
arrangements, what of our aversion to centipedes and such
things — although, if grass house it had been, well and good.
One's lust for the outlandish chills somewhat in face of
sharing bed and board with unpleasant crawling vermin of
elongated aspect and with bites up their sleeves.

Upon riding into the yard, Jack and I were entirely
absorbed in a young man who moved about as one in posses-
sion, without affectation, and with a dazzling smile in mouth
and eyes whenever he met our gaze. His face was not hand-
some, except as his ready smile made it so ; it was the body
of him that stayed the eye with its complete symmetry of
line and proportion. And more than beauty of form was
the carriage of it — never did a Prince Charming bear him-
self with more regal grace. With all his thewy masculinity
there was a flowing softness of line and motion that led
away from any thought of iron muscle; but later on, when
he jack-knived himself up a cocoanut palm that our sailor-
eyed men pronounced all of a hundred and twenty-five feet
high, we saw the steel sinews of him, the deep lungs, and
the control. It was an astonishing thing he did: merely
walked up that swaying column on all-fours, and descended
similarly, backward; and when he reached the ground and
walked past us with his inimitable port, he was only breath-
ing quickly, as a man after a short run might do. Now 1
come to think of it, he was the only being in the village
whom we did not hear cough.

It seemed ill fitting to offer a young god from Olympus a
franc for braving a mere cocoanut palm ; for one grows used
to such irregularities of circumstance, although I must not
forget that this royal-bodied youth did not even look toward
us for approval or for the money that had been promised.
He approached only when bidden, naked in his perfection

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 127

save for a scarlet cloth, and received double the prize with
the manner of a victor in the athletic field taking his re-
ward as his due and no more, pleasantly without servility.
Indeed, he did not even look at the coins in his hand until
he had swung with leisurely dignity across the green to
where the cooks were busy, and there we saw him laugh like
a pleased boy while the men congratulated. Later on, this
Marquesan Adonis was fairly commonplace in blue overalls
and a net shirt; but he could not disguise walk or smile,
and whenever he appeared, Jack and I followed with our
eyes. You see, he meant old Typee to us, for he was neither
half-caste, nor sick. Excepting the fisherman in the stream,
he was the only specimen we saw who approximated the
Typean of Melville and the other old chroniclers.

Everything in the neighbourhood was in a bustle over
our feasting and lodgment. A dozen men were preparing
kao-kao in a large half-open shed in which we saw a reminis-
cent wooden trencher the length of a man, and wondered if
there was a resident in the village old enough to remember
its grisly use; while other men dug a shallow pit in which
the sucking puarka was to be roasted whole, and Adonis went
about the preparing of that goodly item.

We sat on the ground leaning against a plaited side of
the shed, enjoying the yielding turf under our tired limbs
and long draughts of the incomparable cocoanut. Every
living thing eats cocoanut meat in Nuka-Hiva — fowls, pigs,
men, dogs, women, horses, cats and birds. So we amused
ourselves seeing how near the domestic livestock would come
to take our cocoanut from us. The horses nearly drove us
out by their voracity — and speaking of horses: although it
is not much above fifteen miles to Hooumi from Taiohae,
they are hard miles, and one would have thought our ani-
mals would enjoy a rest; but from the instant the saddles
were removed there was a continuous vicious engagement
among the stallions that kept every one on the lookout lest
he be run down. My Jacques' first offence was to walk up
to Jack's innocent horse and deliberately bite a generous

128 THE LOG OF THE SNAKK

mouthful out of the soft part of the back, which cannibal
outrage he twice repeated before nightfall. And Jack does
so hate to ride an animal that has the slightest scratch under
the saddle!

It would take too long to go into the details of how a pit
is prepared, so that when the pig is wrapped in leaves and
laid among hot stones it becomes roasted as the natives like
it. Suffice it that our puarka was thus buried, piled with
leaves, and the whole covered with earth ; whereupon a long,
lean dog that had missed no jot of the proceedings, composed
himself to sleep on the warm grave.

It takes these people endless times as long to do anything
as it does white men. Most white men, I should qualify,
for the Norwegian captain never knows his mind two min-
utes and backs and fills with staggering rapidity when any
kind of decision has to be made. I cannot see how he com-
mands a ship. He had been vociferating sixteen times in
every fifteen minutes during the latter part of the journey
and while we were getting settled in camp, that he would
not stay over night ; he had stated positively the day before
that he could not go at all, and this in reply to no special
urging; he had been largely to blame for our tardy start,
and whenever any hitch occurred, he would roundly abuse
Nikko — Nikko, who was our guide, not his.

But to get back. The dilatory methods of the native
cooks made it quite imperative to assuage our appetites with
fruit and cocoanuts; and, strange to say, so great a void
was there that we were in no way daunted when we dropped
cross-legged on the cottage porch and surveyed the banquet.
We leaned against our saddles and saddle-bags and partook
of boiled breadfruit that we knew was the real thing at last.
I cannot name the flavour of this substantial comestible ; but
I can say that the man who described it as tasting like sour
potatoes and cheese and turpentine and kerosene must have
had accidents in his kitchen. Lake the taro, which it re-
sembles in excellence only, it is a noble vegetable — or fruit
we must call it, I suppose, since it grows on a tree ; and I am

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 129

quite sure that if I had to live entirely on breadfruit or taro,
or both, I should not miss bread or potatoes.

They set breadfruit poi-poi before us, and very good it
was, with its tart flavour ; but I think we shall never like it
as we do the taro poi. There was a big bowl of fowl de-
liciously boiled in the pressed milk from the meat of cocoa-
nuts, and we added Taiohae bakery bread that we had
brought in a sack. There were eggs, nicely soft-boiled, and
the Hatiheu princess and her friend, who had warmed to-
ward us by now, affably demonstrated how to eat certain small
chunks of fish from the fingers, first dipping into a slightly
fermented cocoanut sauce. For wine, we quaffed from
fresh cocoanut flagons. Home is sweet, to be sure; but I
wish Marquesan cocoanuts and breadfruit grew in my
kitchen garden !

The women of the place were very shy with me for a
while. I do not think they have seen many white women,
for all the European blood that pales their own faces. Be-
sides, there was the difficulty of my trousers to be got over,
and I cannot wonder at their corner-comments and embar-
rassed smiles.

After dinner we were invited into the main apartment of
the two-roomed house, where we sat in a circle on a spotless,
polished wooden floor, and were offered absinthe for a
liqueur. A bit of French helped us along, and the Scan-
dinavian, besides his English, knew a little Marquesan from
the Hatiheu girl, so we did very well. I noticed the sew-
ing machine that books all mention as the invariable
piece de resistance of South Sea Island well-to-do homes —
indeed there were two, and the fresh red calico eueu worn
by our hostess showed that the machines were not allowed to
rust. This lady had kept in the background until now, and
we found her very handsome, of a big, sumptuous, Hawaiian
type.

One thing I was determined to find out — if there was any
of the old tapa cloth left in this forsaken country. The mis-
tress of the house looked a likely person to ask; and she

130 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

went into the other room, nodding her head. After an
anxious time for me, out she came with a nine-foot roll of
pure white fabric, undoubtedly made many years ago from
the breadfruit bark, for no tapa of any description is made
by the Marquesans now. This piece exactly answered Mel-
ville's description of the clothing worn by the maidens, and
it was in good condition. It was the only good white piece we
were able to obtain, all the rest being deep cream and
of coarser fibre. Dear me — if Fayaway came to Typee now
she would have to array her loveliness in a red calico wrap-
per. But the daughters of Nuka-Hiva are quick to emulate a
new style. Already, in Taiohae, I have noticed the luxuriant
locks of several swarthy damsels going topward in imitation
of my modest chignon. Perhaps, who can tell? one visiting
Hooumi a few years hence may find the leaders of fashion
promenading in khaki riding breeks!

But I cannot allow myself any kind of a joke at the ex-
pense of these dying Hooumians. Although this little com-
munity was more prosperous and sanitary than what we
saw in Typee, it is not saying much, as we soon found when
the news of our tapa purchase went out and the women began
to bring in the sheaves of their foremothers. The lame, the
halt, and the blind, the asthmatic, the consumptive — shyly
and painfully they came and laid their faded bundles at
our feet, eagerly watching our discriminating eyes, some
gasping for breath, their sunken chests rattling. One
woman in particular, a half-breed, had the prettiest French
face imaginable, "pale as the milk of cocoanuts," with big
soft brown eyes that lighted up when she saw our approval
of her creamy fathoms and the money Jack held out to her.
And all the time the poor soul was fighting for breath, her
hands often clutching the air. When she went from
us, Jack and I looked at each other silently, for we could
hear a long way off the involuntary groans from her ruined
lungs. And her father — where is he? Who might he be?
For a thoughtful moment the universe was "jangled, out of
tune."

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 131

We collected quite a bale of rare old tapa, accepting only
the best. I suppose we saw about all there was left in the
valley, and it was not much. As far as I can discover, this
white and cream tapa was the only kind made by the Mar-
quesans. The patterns and warm colours of the Hawaiian
and Samoan sorts were unknown here.

Before bedtime, we two stole off for a little look-see about
the beach. There was an air of happy excitement even in
the moonlit woods, for foreign visitors are very infrequent
and the village was out and a-whisper with our com-
ing.

Aside from the witchery of shining strand and the shadowy
woods, we saw nothing of special interest except a long,
graceful whaleboat that lay wrecked and rotting in the rank
grass.

The rest of the party had decided to return to Taiohae at
six next morning, for our captain had work aboard the Snark,
and the other skipper was near the end of his lading and
must get back. Jack and I planned to take our time in
order, if possible, to pick up some wooden bowls and other
curios. We secured one small but beautifully-grained bowl,
or calabash, this evening.

We were allotted the one small room off the large one, and
found on the immaculate floor three spotless white pillows,
stuffed with silk-cotton, and a white bedspread. It would be
interesting to know where the lady of the house learned her
civilised cleanliness. We laid our heavy oilskin saddle-
slickers, for mattress, and turned in under the white
counterpane. Outside on the porch a string of natives of
both sexes and all conditions slept side by side, heads to the
wall. I say slept, but it is only a manner of speaking.
There was a clamour of coughs, wheezings, expectorations,
and conversation more or less desultory — principally less,
for just as I would decide they were at last dead-o, and com-
pose myself for that coveted end, somebody would break out
again, the whole chain catching like a pack of firecrackers.
Our invasion being their latest topic, we knew we were the

132 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

subject of debate. At last they quieted, and we succumbed
to the liquid lullaby of the little surf.

Wednesday, December 11, 1907.

I opened my eyes at seven this morning. Jack was stand-
ing inside the porch window. He seemed to be disagreeing
with a native outside who held up a dark, oscillating object
in both hands. Jack turned away as if he had lost interest,
whereupon the thing was flung on the window sill in a curly
heap.

" Goatskin ?" I inquired.

For reply, Jack gathered up the dusky fleece and dropped
it into my lap. Involuntarily I shrank from it. Goatskin !
It was human hair — long, thick, wavy, the seal-brown matted
strands curling tawny at the ends. The eerie locks were
deftly gathered on a band of woven cocoanut fibre, and the
dancing-skirt, the hula-hula fringe, stood confessed. All
very beautiful ; but when one was assured that undoubtedly
this garnered wealth of hair had been shorn from the heads
of human sacrifices that had been cooked and eaten by their
captors, the lightsomeness of romance dimmed somewhat.
I handled the ghastly trophy gingerly, but with a determina-
tion that it should not escape the "Snark room" we mean to
build at home ; and a little later a bargain was struck. The
curio would have been cheap at any cost, for it is a priceless
memento of a vanishing race.

The lethargic Hooumians were aroused at last. Acquisi-
tiveness was the order of the day. Their hoarded ancestral
treasures were snatched from mouldy seclusion and showered
on the sunlit pae-pae. While the bartering was on, much
counsel was offered to each seller by his companions. Chil-
dren mixed with the chattering, coughing crowd, and an oc-
casional yelp attested to some skinny dog having been landed
by a flipper-like savage foot.

A pair of armlets to match the hirsute hula-hula skirt
came to light, and the eager villagers all tried to explain at

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 133

once that there should also be anklets, but that none were to
be found. We felt like paleontologists reconstructing an
antediluvian monster — but instead of bones we had only hairs
to go by. And speaking of hairs, we made another lucky
find in several of the ''old men's beards" that Stevenson
describes as so precious to the Marquesan heart. These are
thin grey fringes about a foot long, stiff and grim, and are
worn on the forehead, held by a brow-band and thrust
starkly upward.

The asthmatic French-faced girl glided toward us with
seraphic smile and shining upraised gaze, bearing in her two
hands a crown of carved yellow turtle-shell, thick and beau-
tifully spotted, the curving sections held together by deli-
cately plaited threads of cocoanut fibre. King or priest, we
could not find out whose had been the head or heads that
once bore this rare ornament. Each piece is carved differ-
ently, with fine workmanship, and we shall probably never
know the meaning of the figures wrought into the shell.
Perhaps to the present generation they are meaningless.
That the crown is old, is shown by the condition of the cocoa-
nut sennit, as well as the firm dirt-incrustations in the shell.
We were shown how to fasten the "old men's beards" inside
the circlet, and the effect was startling enough.

The pretty crown-bearer proved a good business woman,
and did not cheapen her wares by showing them all at once.
Once the curio had become ours, she brought out another, a
brow-band of porpoise-teeth and beads. This did not appeal
so strongly, although in the eyes of the natives the porpoise-
teeth rendered it far more valuable than the turtle-shell
crown. They pressed close in their efforts to explain the dis-
tinction. But it was the woman who won. She was so
sweetly wistful, that we bought it mainly to see her smile
again.

Then we turned to the calabashes (kokas) that had been
collected for our inspection — bowls, great and small, of heavy
mio wood, hard as stone. Nothing we had seen in Hawaii
could excel these old Marquesan vessels. To be sure, they

134 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

were not polished; but it was easy to discern, through the
grime of many years, the splendid graining of the wood and
its possibilities for a shining surface. Our only difficulty
was how to carry them, and we wanted them all ; but our
quandary was simplified by finding that most of the biggest
were undesirable on account of cracks; so we compromised
on three that were perfect, and a lot of small ones, some
round, some oval. We gave our hostess all the bread that
remained — a coveted delicacy — and Nikko used the gunny
sacks for packing the calabashes on his horse, while Jack
and I carefully stowed in our saddle-bags the smaller and
more fragile things. I shall never cease to regret that we
could not manage that long-pig trencher from the cook-shed.

By now it was time for breakfast, and we fortified our-
selves with eggs, bread, bananas and cocoanuts. After
which we strolled about with the kodak for a last look at
the village. At half past nine we were mounted and bidding
farewell, and oh! it was a joyous jaunt across the island.
Hooumi thrilled with bird-voices and river-songs in the
green-and-gold forenoon, while Typee lay sleeping her long,
long sleep, her sombre head wrapped in a grey cloud-pall.
We sat a little space looking our last on the great, silent
picture, before leaving it forever.

''Don't try to take it," Jack advised, as I trained my tiny
camera on the splendour of Typee Vai. ' ' You will be disap-
pointed— it will be only a blur. ' '

But I snapped it all the same, thinking that even a blur
of Typee would be better than no record.

When we reached Mrs. Fisher's about noon, our horses
fresh and lively, we found that the others, who left Hooumi
three hours ahead, had beaten us in by only fifteen minutes.
At first we could not understand. But it turned out that
the captain of the bark had forced the pace until his horse
gave out in an hour, and the others, nearly as badly off, were
held up waiting for it to recover. Martin was indignant,
because try as he would to hold the rest, he was obliged to
overdo his own horse to some extent.

THE LOG OF THE SNAEK 135

. . . While we were faring to Typee, the nineteen labourers
of Taiohae were bringing the red goddess down the moun-
tain. It is a significant fact that no Marquesan would touch
it, which leads one to conclude that of the total of able-
bodied workmen of Taiohae, not one is a real Marquesan.
And there were murmurings on the beach that day — impo-
tent and spiritless protests of the old blood against this
desecration of its hoary wood. So the maternal Tataura
was toted down out of the jungle and deposited whole and
unharmed in the rickety old bark's hold.

. . . This evening we dropped in to see Mr. Rahling in his
pretty cottage smothered with vines and flowers — one yellow
bell-shaped blossom, called by the natives epuua, rioting
everywhere. He came out from a little workshop next his
bedroom, and at our request took us in to see what he had
been doing. Among other cleverly wrought articles, he had
carved several saddle-trees out of the hard mio wood —
excellent models of the McClellan type. There were also
two side-saddles. " Nothing to it!" declared Jack. "You
must sell me a saddle-tree." And we added this to the rest
of our Marquesan curios. But never fear but this saddle,
although of the nature of a curio, will be rigged up some
day and see good use on the home ranch.

Mr. Rahling also parted with a little red god of stone and
two small calabashes; then to our delight we found a pair
of human hair anklets which he was willing to forego,
although he had no idea where he could duplicate them.
Indeed, both he and Mr. Kreiech are astonished at the num-
ber of valuable things we have secured, insisting that they
did not know they still remained on the island.

Returning home, we walked in upon the two old thor-
oughbreds, sitting a-ham before the collection of heirlooms
we had haled from Hooumi. They Oh'd and Ah'd lugu-
briously when we added the red god and calabashes and
anklets to the mound, then rose sighing and went to their
own quarters. Poor things — it is a wrench for them to see
the last of their relics going into the hands of pale inter-

136 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

lopers, although we, at least, are not unmindful of their sen-
timent.

But of all the outlandish trophies from our Typean quest,
none holds the grisly allure of the hair skirt and its ac-
companiments. More than one head must have fallen to
furnish such abounding tresses. Those of the skirt are all of
two feet in length, and piled thick, layer upon layer, so that
the least movement produces that oscillation I had noticed on
the window-sill. We try to vision the unholy rites wherein
this ghastly garmenture was worn.

Thursday, December 12, 1907.

This is the day upon which the Snark's company had
wagered it would see Nuka-Hiva. So we have been paying
Jack his ill-gotten dollars. His judgment was six days better
than ours ; and thinking over the happenings of the past six
days, we are mightily glad of it.

Taiohae may be a quiet place; but we somehow find our-
selves beset with engagements of one sort or another. Jack
wrote all this morning on his novel, which he will name Suc-
cess, while I typed in another corner of the porch. When
we went to Mrs. Fisher 's dejeuner at eleven, she showed us a
pair of beautifully carved dark-brown calabashes which her
father, Herr Goeltz, had sent over for our approval. We
" approved " promptly, and they were ours in no time, as
they were the handsomest things of their kind we had ever
seen. Herr Goeltz also sent word that he had more of these,
as well as other curiosities, if we cared to pay him a visit
across the way, which we shall do to-morrow.

We had promised to go aboard the bark this afternoon;
and, after a siesta on our shady veranda, went out in the
ship's boat with the captain. That man is so good looking,
and has such charming moods, that we could like him
wholly were it not for his inhumanity to horses.

There is strong romance to me in old ships, especially in
such a setting. We climbed up the side ladder and found

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 137

ourselves in the rickiest vessel imaginable. The topmasts had
a raffish cant that made one think apprehensively of Pau-
motan hurricanes. Decks were unkempt, ropes looked risky ;
even the " absinthe-minded crew" had a gaunt, uncanny,
unfed appearance. Our movements on deck were impeded
by frightened and fragrant goats running at large, together
with the vociferations of an unseen litter of lusty puppies
added to the weird din. We moused around the mouldy
quarters of the vessel, peering into bilgy holes and weevily
stores, and then went below, where I sat in a cushioned nook
of the really cosy little cabin of Norwegian pine, the walls
of which the captain had himself decorated with fleur de lis
picked out in aluminum paint. We drank smooth French
beer and swapped yarns for an hour or more — at least the
men did, and I listened. Captain Warren was somewhat
gloomy, for this very morning he fell down the bark's com-
panionway and all but broke his ribs, and a bigger baby
than an injured sailor is hard to find.

Jack got some Norwegian pine and several Asiatic pilot
books in exchange for superfluous manila hawser from the
Snark. This skipper runs his ship very easily, it would
seem. Parting with a pilot book or a volume of sailing direc-
tions means nothing to him. Short a 1908 Almanac, he is
too careless to copy a few pages from ours. Why, he
has actually allowed his chronometer to run down, and it
looks as if he intends to go to sea day after to-morrow with-
out setting it by ours! But he's a man for a' that, for who
but he flared the big light for us the night we crept feeling
our way into the harbour !

We took him over to the Snarlc. Our men were holyston-
ing the deck — the first it had ever received. Herrmann
met us with his Mona Lisa smirk, and almost burst with
pride over the new whiteness of the deck. He seemed much
impressed with the change my "shore clothes" made in me,
and commented respectfully, not for the first time, on the
lack of tan on my complexion. But on this occasion he
quite eclipsed himself. He broke out heartily :

138 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

"I tell you, there is of only one white man aboard the
Snark, and that 's Mrs. London ! ' '

And the goose did not know why we laughed.

Herrmann had permission to take Jack's Mauser out for
goats yesterday. He made a day of it, and has been busy
ever since explaining in detail the various reasons why he
did not bring home any game.

Mr. Eahling was on the wharf when we landed, swimming
Jacques in the deep water alongside. Seeing the horse in
the water reminded me that our men noticed a shark near
the yacht the other day. I had thought of taking a swim
every morning off the pier, but this changed my mind.

Friday, December 13, 1907.

No matter how hard we work, it is rest to live in this tran-
quil house. In one corner of the viny porch a chapter of
the novel is being finished, in another my eternal typewriter
clicks; while at the fence awed voices murmur, as Tomi's
daughter Tahia explains the writing-machine. Tahia means
''above the rest," and this little brown-eyed girl of fourteen
is certainly the superior of her playmates in beauty and in-
telligence. She has been allowed to come close to the won-
derful machine that manufactures books (more amazing, I
do believe, than the talking-box), and feels very important.
I go on typing while they stand a few feet away whispering
under a whisper, fearful of disturbing. Then they steal
away on their bare, fan-like feet, with a soft kaoha in thanks
and good morning. The natives are very considerate of our
privacy, never making themselves nuisances in any way.

While we are busy with our end of the work, refreshing
ourselves ever and anon from our pitcher of orange-nectar
(we have thirty-five oranges squeezed every morning) , Nakata
goes about learning the ways of a white man's house, al-
though the makeshift manner in which we are living is not
the best of training. Aside from the routine o£ the Snark,
the little man is innocent of European habits — with tl^e ex-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 139

ception of one, fine washing and ironing. What a boon in
the South Seas! Jack's white crepe shirts and my sheer
lawns and linens — they're all one to Nakata.

The seaward aspect of our Elysium showed a trifle ruffled
this morning, a heavy swell sending an unusual surf on our
brown shingle, where the men loading lighters with the last
of the bark's copra cargo were having a lively time. The
southeast trade, the tua-to-ha, is blowing briskly, with the
same twist to the north 'ard that gave us fair wind here from
above the Line.

We added to our knowledge of South Sea kao-kao at break-
fast to-day, in the shape of roasted fei — pronounced fay-ee.
It resembles a plantain in appearance and tastes like a hardy,
substantial banana, though less sweet. The natives are espe-
cially fond of it.

From Mrs. Fisher's, accompanied by her purring, tailless
cat, we crossed over to Herr Goeltz's. He met us on the
tottering, trellised veranda, on his grey head a faded black
velvet cap trimmed with yellowed lace, on his sunken frame
a nondescript suit, trousers tied in at the ankles to keep out
sandflies — the nau-naus. (Jack and I are already wishing
we had been more careful.) The old man led us into the
dim and dusty twilight of his cobwebby castle — a fairly com-
modious house of five rooms. I at once became lost, poking
around in the musty corners, into spidery cabinets brought
in old ships from Germany; old albums; baskets of shells
and green cat-eyes from Samoa, and cupboards of beautiful
china and heavy old French porcelain. Our eagle-faced
host, sharp and keen of wit for all his eighty-two years,
while showing us about talked upon a score of topics. One
of these was his cruise through the Paumotus on the Casco
as Stevenson's pilot; another was his noble Polish family,
for estray though he be, he has a title all his own. He
brought out several more of those fascinating carven bowls
of wood, concerning one of which, a symmetrical oval laced
with intricate traceries, he told us a creepy tale. Without
going into the sanguinary particulars, you may take it that

140 THE LOG OF THE SNAKK

the blood of two white skippers has been drunk from this
ornate receptacle ; and, if history be true, their fate was far
too good for them. For instance, one of these captains,
among other atrocities in return for the goodwill and royal
hospitality of the natives on one of the islands in the group,
presented the chief with a wholly rotten whaleboat that had
all the seeming of staunch newness, what of shining paint
and gay trimmings. That captain had the bad luck to be
wrecked at the self-same place a few years later. If you
don 't believe it, we 11 show you the bowl !

Herr Goeltz had disposed of the bulk of his possessions
long before we touched at Taiohae, which made us wish we
had been earlier. However, it took half a dozen to carry
away the spoils of our forage. I had often noticed the
green-trimmed porcelain with which Mrs. Fisher set the
table, and it turned out that she had borrowed it from her
father, who had the remainder of the set. Such tureens!
Such platters, and such great plates! Said Jack, with a
small amused smile at the l ( pictured corners ' ' of his mouth :

"I think we could use the whole set, couldn't we?"

It is very nice to be treated like a small daughter occa-
sionally, and thereupon we fell to counting the pieces to see
what was missing. The dishes had been often borrowed and
some of them broken; but there was a goodly array left.
Mrs. Fisher came over during our despoiling, and, while
glad to see her father making a little money, she could not
hide the sadness in her eyes at the last family treasures
going the way of the rest.

I added some delicate teacups; then there were a couple
of old ivory fans, and a pair of fine conches. We also
found some thick round heis (wreaths) of small yellow-and-
white landshells, and a true ( ?) piece of the elm, or what-
ever the tree was, that grew over Napoleon's grave at St.
Helena.

We were tired and warm upon reaching home, and, piling
our burden in a corner of the big room, retired to the con-
crete bath and sat reading for an hour, the water up to our

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 141

chins. It would be hard to eclipse our schemes for comfort.
Stevenson doesn't mention this rude tub. Think what he
missed. His description of the club is: "A billiard-board,
a map of the world on Mercator's projection, and one of the
most agreeable verandas in the tropics. " We are heartily
ready to indorse this last, even in advance of any other ex-
perience in verandas under the Equator.

The Norwegian came in to bid us farewell, as he expected
to sail at daylight, and incidentally he trimmed Jack's hair
according to a promise made yesterday.

The day ended with music, and we had the novel enter-
tainment of merry Marquesans dancing the energetic hula-
hula of their Tahitian cousins, to Hawaiian music on an
American phonograph — under a tree with a French name !

Saturday, December 14, 1907.

"up and out at half past five this morning, we watched the
old grey bark with painted ports square away for the
£ zores her chronometer dead and no 1908 Almanac aboard.
A fair vision she was for all that, dipping her flag to
the tinaik, where Wada was running up the colours. A gun
saluted from the shore, and dusky women, sitting beneath the
trees and on the pier, raised a mournful wailing for the
men who had been so briefly theirs. "For men must work,
and women must weep ' ' — it is the sea-song for white women,
brown women, black women, wives and sweethearts, the
world over — the old, old game.

We lingered to see the last of the bark, as she passed
through the portals of Taiohae and took the rocking swell.
Soon her last royal was out of sight behind a headland, and
we wondered if we should ever see her again. Then we
watched the painting of the morn upon a shell-pink sky above
the sculptured heads of the Eastern range, and drank deep
of the cool sweet breath of waking day. We were too full
of peace to stir, resting there at the grassy edge of the
sand. One by one the tear-stained women picked them-

142 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

selves up and went disconsolately along the green road to
their lonely homes. When we, too, finally rose and walked
toward the old club-house, Nakata was starting to hunt for
us. He paused when he saw us — a quaint and smiling
Japanese figure in grey kimono, standing under a small
broad tree laden with flowers like pink tiger-lilies.

" Breakfast ready, Missis-n," quoth the cheerful picture;
and ye of the cities with your steaks and chops, ham-and-
eggs, and fried potatoes, have nothing on us, with our man-
goes, butter-yellow, rich and spicy, our wild pineapple,
sweet as sugar-cane, and our pitcher of orange juice.

. . . There were two arrivals to-day — one, a canoe from
Hooumi bringing two big calabashes for us, in the pink of
condition, and the other the beautiful schooner Gauloise,
spic and span as a gentleman's yacht, carrying mails every
several months between here and Tahiti. Captain Chabret,
a striking, swarthy man, born of French and Paumotan
parents, and educated in Europe, called with his mate, who
interpreted, as the captain speaks little English and our
French is very lame. The Hooumian made the sleepy after-
noon vibrate with solemn blasts on our war conches. Once
heard, one could never forget the barbaric mournfulness
of their long, resonant, bell-like call. It conjured up night-
mares of stealthy tattooed savages gathering for the fray
and secret orgy of long-pig.

At five o 'clock we went to the store to see for the last time
the social gathering of pay-day — for Jack says we shall get
away Wednesday. I cannot say enough for the kindness of
Mr. Kreiech and Mr. Rahling. They have never been too
busy to give their undivided attention to our slightest want
When Mr. Kreiech discovered that I was interested in the
old French silver which is current here, he had me into the
inner office free to rummage in the money-bags. I found
several five-franc pieces bearing the head of Napoleon over
the dates of 1809, 1811, and 1813, for which, of course, Jack
paid the equivalent.

Captain Chabret dropped in, and Mr. Kreiech opened

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 143

bottles of sweet French champagne on a counter, and brought
a couple of watermelons from his garden. How Martin
Johnson's Kansan eyes did shine!

After a while Jack and I gravitated out to the big box on
the porch to dangle our heels once more under the yellow
spilth of the sketchy cotton-tree. The grief-stricken girls of
the early hours were arm-in-arm and eye-to-eye with the
men of their own kind, who looked well content. "We saw
our two aristocrats of the cottage, the woman, whose name I
have discovered to be Mauani ("Sky is covered"), as usual
on such occasions making herself and her puarka very much
at home. The jolly workmen, in the big white cook-caps
they often wear, jostled one another in the store as they
spent their earnings in gaudy pareus and tobacco. Among
the dark skins, Mrs. Fisher's daughter shone white as a lily,
moving about with her plump pink baby. She is a veritable
Madonna, and Leonardo would find himself in his element
here, for this girl, like Herrmann, has a Mona Lisa smile
and the inscrutable gaze that goes with it. Mrs. Fisher, a
head above the crowd, trod her stately way into the store,
with a grandchild hanging to her skirt.

Everybody was invited down to hear the phonograph at
half past seven. They turned out en masse, less shy than
before, dancing the hula-hula with fervour, Tahitian sailors
from the Gauloise swelling the fun. Simeon, a bright native
boy who clerks in the store, was the envy of all when we
showed him how to run the Victor. This left Jack and me
free to mingle with our guests.

The captain of the Gauloise was familiar with the operas,
and enjoyed the music immensely, murmuring little ex-
pressions of appreciation in French. But I had to bother
him to tell me about pearls in the Paumotus. Then Jack
and Captain Warren plied both him and his mate with
questions concerning the Paumotan atolls. The weather in
their vicinity seems to be a joke in the South Seas, although
a serious one, as the name Dangerous Archipelago would
imply. We have decided not to risk the Snark any length

144 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

of time among these treacherous coral-rings. One of them,
Rangiroa, in one side of the broken circle and out the other,
will do for us on our way to Tahiti.

During all the merrymaking of an evening like this,
Mauani and her old mate, Taituheu ("Burned-out cinders")
sit in the living room, proud to show that they are part of
our household — quite a change from their original attitude.
What is in their minds behind those wide-set eyes as they
watch the gambols of the decadent remnants of their purple
blood?

It is impossible to form any true estimate of what was the
moral status of the original Marquesans. The Sailing Direc-
tions of 1884 give them a black reputation for licentiousness,
and warn shipmasters against putting in at these islands.
Persons here with whom we have talked say that a widow is
grievously insulted if a new admirer fails to appear on the
day of her husband 's funeral. We are assured that the peo-
ple have little love and absolutely no gratitude. That
polyandry exists, we have evidence; but it is an institution
of old standing and high repute.

But from Melville one does not get the impression that the
Typeans were unusually lax in their social relations, and
Stevenson, in 1889-90, gives the Nuka-Hivans a good char-
acter for modesty, pride and friendliness, as well as endless
courteous observances. At any rate, whatever they once
were, they are passing ; and those who are left are so altered
that one's conclusions are worth little.

We asked Mrs. Fisher if she had known Robert Louis
Stevenson. She said she had met him at Anaho, on the
other side of the island, where the Casco first touched, and
she added :

"He used to go about barefoot, with his trousers and
singlet-sleeves turned up, and never wore a hat; and 'most
every one thought he was a little crazy. ' '

Dear Robert Louis! — he was "crazy" because he was sav-
ing his own good life in his own good way. I wonder what
is the general opinion of Jack and me in our kimonos as we

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 145

trail over the landscape bareheaded under a pongee parasol,
our bare feet thrust into Japanese sandals.

December 15, 1907.

Strange Christmas holiday weather this, our first tropic
winter. We look forward to eating our Christmas fowl
aboard the Snark, provided she hasn 't become fatally involved
in the Paumotus. They tell us that until very recently the
insurance companies refused all risks on vessels in this vicin-
ity, and now, while they will insure, the rate is twenty per
cent. The owners, however, take out no policies. They
estimate the life of a schooner in the Paumotus to be five
years, and merely write off twenty per cent, a year.

I could almost find it in my heart to wish for a week of
California climate. The warmth here, while not oppressive,
keeps my north temperate cuticle in a ferment of invisible
prickly-heat and visible bunches of exasperating hives; and
by now the nau-nau bites are becoming more than exasperat-
ing ; and Jack 's are worse than mine.

But do not think that these trifling annoyances interfere
in the least with our plans. Jack asked Mr. Rahling to
arrange a goat hunt, and to-day, with two mounted kanakas
to carry guns and game, we three started. For the first time
our ride took us off to the left of the Typee trail. We saw
more of the beach, and, once out of the valley, had an
entirely new aspect of the island. Nuka-Hiva is only four-
teen miles long by ten broad; but every foot of it is worth
seeing, from sea-brim to mountain-rim and all the verdant
laps of the valleys between. The changes that are wrought
in such small space stir one's blood from moment to
moment. From dreaming over sweet vales of repose, the
eyes, startled by some sudden gloom, rise to the black trouble
of stormy peaks where thunder-clouds are rolling. Oh! to
have seen the volcanic chaos of the making of this isle of the
Southern Sea, with her sister isles lifting their heads round
about to keep her company.

146 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Once across Taiohae's western bastions, we rode through
fragrant lanes of yellow cassi at the head of another and
smaller valley almost as beautiful, that ended in a wonderful
blue bay, bounded by lofty perpendicular rocks to the west,
and on the other side by the wild eastern declivity of
Taiohae's wall. I dislike to mention that the name of this
lovely anchorage is Port Tschitschagoff, although it will soften
your anguish to know that the natives mercifully call it
Hakaui, and, even more gently, Tai-oa. It may further in-
terest to learn that it took a master mariner born a Krusen-
stern to outrage such a heavenly port by a name like
Tschitschagoff.

The entrance is twenty fathoms deep, with fine sandy
bottom, while the azure basin itself is two hundred fathoms
in depth and one hundred wide. In it the greatest man-o'-
war yet built could anchor in safety from the worst hurri-
cane that ever blew; and to careen her on the even, sandy
beach, would be child's play.

The valley is luxuriant with palm and breadfruit and
banana, and well watered by streams ; and we startled from
cover many a reverted chicken, which swept with strong
pinions over the tree-tops on the incline. But not a human
being makes home in this ideal spot — and it can be bought
for $1000 Chile, less than $500 in American gold. Think
of the smothering cities of the world, and this exquisite
haven gone to waste. That it was not always thus, is
shown by Captain Krusenstern:

11 Behind the beach was a green flat resembling a most
beautiful bowling-green. Streams of water flowed in various
places from the mountains, and in a very picturesque and
inhabited vale. ... A ship in need of repairs could not wish
for a finer harbour for such a purpose. The depth is exceed-
ingly convenient. Bananas, cocoanuts, and breadfruit, are
superabundant. The chief advantage is that you can anchor
about 100 fathoms from the land, thus having the king's house
and all the village under the guns of the ship, in case of an
attack."

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 147

That was a hundred years ago, and now wild fowl, goats,
birds, wasps, and the ubiquitous nau-nau have sole possession.
The wasps warned us menacingly off their premises, and we
went ; but this wasn 't a circumstance to what they did to us
coming home. But more of that later.

Looking back as we climbed into yet another valley, we saw
a big boulder that they call the Rocking Stone; but we did
not take time to prove whether it really "rocked" or not.

The valley in which we did our shooting is a very fast-
ness of natural disorder, as if the primeval forces had
stopped midway in setting it to rights and let grass grow
over the wreckage to see what the effect would be. No
gradual slopes and placid beaches lead into this goat-scented
retreat. It would be a dreadful misfortune to run a ship's
nose into its snarling, frothing lip.

Tying the horses, we took our rifles and proceeded on foot.
I have never done such rough climbing. It took all my wind
to accomplish the rocky pulls, and all my confidence to
descend their other sides. Once — and for the second time
in my life — my nerve deserted me. I had to cross the bare
face of a horribly-sloping rock, and midway, in spite of
hands reaching close to me, I suddenly saw myself on an icy
incline in Switzerland where once I felt I must cast myself
in the abyss. But I gathered my wits, and before long we
were sitting on the knife-edge of a windy ridge, with a world
of green hills behind, and the chaotic goat-haunt before us.
We kept very still, and breathed our panting lungs full of the
flowing air while cooling off from the hot scramble. Then a
dotted line strung out far below our toppling perch, and one
of the men fired. The dotted line lost a dot, and the rest
swerved across the green lawns into the brush, where another
dot that had been struck, fell just at the edge. One altruis-
tic goat came back out of safety to sniff at the fallen one.

The two kanakas, with two others who had appeared out of
the woods, went back into the hills, and Mr. Rahling, Jack
and I worked seaward along the ridge. I found I was hold-
ing their stride back a little, and begged them to go ahead.

148 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

I followed in their tracks, and overtook them down a long
sweep of grassy hill after they had killed several goats. We
sat a long time at the edge of a chasm, picking off stray
victims — virile little billy-goats that wagged their wiry
beards in dismay at the invasion of their stronghold. But
the distressed cries that rose from the stricken were not
sweet in my ears, and I about made up my mind that now I
had proved I could bring down distant game, I would leave
killing to others in future, and do my practising as be-
fore, on twigs and grasses and targets.

A sudden shower blew up, and we sheltered under the
brow of a crag in a small red lava cave, odorous of goat,
meanwhile watching rain-squalls drift like brown veils across
the stern features of the mountains.

While our men were packing the game to the horses, we
rode on up the mountain for a further view of Nuka-Hiva.
And it was all a piece of the same beauty — the castled rocks,
the hills shrugging their round shoulders against the blue
mantle of the sky, the unearthly atmosphere and colouring
of the little world of island. Is there anything lovelier
waiting for us further on in our voyage ?

Out of sight from where we stood, is a long slope of
country that lacks the rugged character we know so well, and
the natives call it the "desert land" — Henua-Ataha. I wish
we could visit Anaho, on the northern coast. From what
Stevenson and his mother have written, it must be very
beautiful, although I cannot imagine anything to surpass
Taiohae. I wonder if the discoverers, those ''careless cap-
tains," had the imagination really to be shaken by the
beauty of the Marquesas — Mendana, and Marchand, and In-
graham.

There was quite a row going on when we rejoined the
others. The horses had seen fit to take fright at the familiar
sight of dead goats, and were literally kicking up a rumpus.
Jack's diminutive stallion — the one Captain Warren rode to
Typee — joined in the fracas. He was looking for trouble.
And he got it. When we came to the yellow cassi thicket

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 149

the wasps got him, and unfortunately that meant poor Jack
as well. He rode in the rear, Mr. Rahling leading, I in
between. Jack yelled: "Get out of my way quick!" How
could I? The only way was ahead, for the trail was
exceedingly narrow, to say nothing of steep and stony.
So we got ahead, and I'll never forget the way we "got,"
dropping down that perilous path to Taiohae. Mr. Rah-
ling's horse broke into a headlong scramble as the insects
stung him, at the same time kicking my horse, who, stung
behind, let the rear horse have it, and caught Jack's foot,
while I was nearly pitched off. Jack's horse, frantic with
pain and fear, tried to pass me, plentifully urged by his
rider, who was holding the side of his face. Aside from
one or two stings Mr. Rahling 's horse and mine went free,
and we were untouched. Jack was the scapegoat. The wasps
were the largest we have ever seen — canary-yellow, with
bunches of long yellow legs hanging out behind. Jack says
they were as large as canaries. I don't know. I wasn't
quite so close to them as that !

Friday, December 20, 1907.

We were a lame pair to-day, from the unusual climbing.
Then Jack had a painful lump on his neck where a wasp
had pierced a cord, and other lesser lumps. The nau-nau
bites did not add to our comfort, and we decided that as a
place of permanent residence Nuka-Hiva could be improved
by exterminating canaries — I mean wasps — and sandflies.
There are divers reasons why the Marquesas are not at pres-
ent entirely desirable for white immigrants. One of these
is the high duty on everything one would want to import,
and another is the incredible fact that the French govern-
ment imposes an export duty on copra, which is about the
only remunerative article of commerce.

This forenoon Jack had his first chance to use his dental
instruments. A shrivelled little old Chinaman whom we had
often seen about the copra sheds, came shambling up the
steps. In a tinny voice and the most birdlike of pigeon-

150 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

English he volunteered that he once worked in San Francisco
as a cook, and then asked Jack if he would pull a tooth.
Jack laid aside his manuscript of an article on Typee, and
hunted up the dentistry book to refresh his memory on the
experience he had had with a skull in a dentist's office in
Honolulu. He then examined the Chinaman's suffering
jaw, and selected the requisite forceps. Martin and I in-
duced him to perform the valiant act behind the house under
a banana tree, that we might photograph it. And a curious
picture it was, the broad-shouldered white man in Japanese
garb, bending over the withered, shrinking Chinaman.
The ancient fang came easily; but just as Jack brought it
loose and triumphantly held it up, Martin cried :

"Oh, Mr. London, please put it back — I wasn't quite
ready!"

Shortly afterward, a sensitive-faced Tahitian youth, with
big, scared eyes, came on to the porch. He pointed to his
mouth and made unmistakable gestures. Jack rolled up his
sleeves and went at it again, looking almost as important as
when he worked out his first chronometer sight. The vic-
tim stood it like a man, albeit he quaked and breathed hard
with the strain. He seemed very grateful, and went away
laughing nervously with the tooth in his hand.

While we were talking over the morning's professional
doings, a shadow fell upon us. It was cast by Tomi, who
had quietly approached and stood regarding us with lugubri-
ous eyes and crooked mouth. He had had a toothache all
night, he said, and only just now had met the jubilant
Tahitian. (I have not told the latest about Tomi. Unless
he has been maligned, it looks very much as if he is respon-
sible for the untimely end of two successive wives — which
may account for a certain worried look worn by his present
consort.)

He sat his mighty frame upon a protesting chair and
opened his mouth warily, keeping a suspicious eye on Jack
as if he might purposely seize upon the wrong tooth. The
correct one was laid upon by the shining forceps, but the

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 151

instant they began lifting, the giant clapped his jaws to-
gether and grasped Jack's arm in both hands, emitting the
most blood curdling groans. Captain Warren and I took
a hand at holding him down, but it was no use — although it
was already loosened, Tomi would not allow that tooth to be
extracted. He was finally coaxed into having another drawn,
which he said had been aching also.

"More power to your elbow, Mr. London," giggled Cap-
tain Warren, as Jack began to pull. This time Tomi did
not get away. We held on, and so did the dentist ; and the
big hulking fellow went away as aggrieved as if we had
enticed him in to rob him of his teeth.

"The great baby!" Jack said disgustedly, as he passed the
forceps to Nakata to cleanse. "I didn't believe about the
wife-killing until I tried to pull his teeth. ' '

. . . This afternoon we were in the most typical Mar-
quesan ha'e we have seen. Strolling about in a final search
for curios, we were accosted by an eager young woman who
explained brokenly that she would like to show us some kokas.
She led, to a high-roofed wooden cottage that we had seen
many times; but immediately behind, on rising ground
and connected with the cottage porch by a plank, was
another house, a grass one, not visible from the road. We
bent our heads to enter, and emerged into a long room the
floor of which was of the broad polished stones of a pae-pae.
Against the farther wall, full length, were spread beds of
clean native matting, folded and thick-piled just as Herman
Melville had them in Typee. Everything was spotlessly
clean. Apparently the family that lived in this ha'e took
pride in keeping up its traditions.

In a dark corner we made out a number of large bowls.
The woman dragged them out feverishly, and with the help
of Tahia, who had followed in, made us understand that they
belonged to her husband, Tomi's brother, and that she could
not sell without consulting him. There were other and
Smaller calabashes on the wall, all in good condition. They
like their big poi-poi kokas, these people, although not seri-

152 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

ously enough to go to the labour of making new ones ; so the
well-to-do hang on pretty closely to the ancestral vessels, at
least in Taiohae. We were lucky in finding a few persons
who were not so well-to-do, and when the results of our hunt
were nested on our floor, they totaled sixteen bowls. While
Tomi's brother was not anxious, he parted with two or three.

On the way home we bought some pareus of gorgeous
designs and hues, to use for the double purpose of souvenirs
and of packing fragile articles. Our boxes will go to San
Francisco by a barkentine that is expected in about three
weeks. Before we left the store, Captain Chabret came to
bid us good-bye, and then went aboard, for the big mainsail
of the Gauloise was already being hoisted. Shortly we
noticed the boat returning. The captain hurried to the
store, and with the Frenchiest of bows and most gallant com-
pliments presented " Madame " with a Paumotan pearl — a
lustrous oval with a slight crease around the centre as if it
had tried to be two pearls. My first Paumotan pearl — and a
gift at that. And think — when I showed it to Mrs. Fisher
at dinner, she cried:

' ' Why, do you like those things ? Come in here a minute ! ' '

I followed her into a little room where the Madonna sat
at a machine stitching hand-plaited bamboo sennit into a hat
for Jack. Mrs. Fisher delved into an old wood mosaic case
on a mahogany dresser, and at length brought to light a tiny
box. In it was a miniature of herself which she asked me
to accept, and then she unrolled a wisp of tissue-paper in
which lay five pearls — all a good match for the one I had.

I 1 You take them, and welcome, ' ' Mrs. Fisher urged. " I've
had them a long time, and my girl takes no stock in them."

It did not seem right, somehow, to rob her of her last
pearls, but nothing would do but that I take them.

"I wish you could see the big ones I used to have in
Tahiti," she mused. "But they went the way of everything
else. I had to sell them.

"See," she went on, turning to the bed. "Here's a hat
we've been making for you."

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 153

It was such a pretty thing — a "sailor" of glossy white
bamboo plaiting, and about the crown a hei of pale brown-
and-white bird-feathers, soft and fluffy. It is hard to keep
even with these kindly folk. The Madonna makes hats to
sell, so Jack and I had put in an order for one; but any
advantage to her was promptly offset by this gift to me.

We asked everybody to a final musicale, and, as before,
Simeon squatted on the porch with a bare brown foot on
each side the machine and tried not to look too superior as
he reeled off disk after disk of opera, hymn, and sea-chantey.

The old Corsican reclined in his place under the flaming
tree beyond the gate. I wonder if he misses the Tattooed
Man. They must have known each other well as rival celeb-
rities. Did you ever hear about the Tattooed Man of
Taiohae? — although it would be hard to pick up a book on
the South Seas that does not mention his curious tragedy.
He was white, and, as I understand it, fell hopelessly in love
with a high chiefess in the neighbouring island of Uapu. To
propitiate her, he resorted to the extreme measure of being
tattooed — a matter of fine torture and ineradicable conse-
quences. The tattooing of the Marquesans was the finest in
Polynesia, and the suffering from the process so keen that
great chiefs have been known to back out before their deco-
ration was completed. But their incentives must have been
less powerful and their nerves less firm than this white
man's — he was red-headed, too, they say. He was covered
from head to foot with lacy designs, not omitting the fash-
ionable broad bars across the face. And what was his re-
ward? The high-born damsel went into violent hysteria at
sight of him, frightening her relatives so that they ordered
him off the premises. She could never behold him without
laughing, and at last, discouraged, he returned to Taiohae,
where he died an old man.

Tuesday, December 17, 1907.

While the music was going on last evening, an attenuated
grey figure angled through the festive gathering and whis-

154 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

pered to Jack. It was Herr Goeltz ; and great was the sur-
prise, for no one could remember ever having seen him out
after dark. He took Jack away, and I wondered what was
up. Jack returned in a little while, accompanied by a na-
tive, the pair of them bearing two wonderfully carved, full-
sized paddles, and a model of an old-time Marquesan war
canoe. No one knows exactly where or when the canoe was
made, but it is thought to be all of a hundred years old. It
is the handsomest thing we have, the hard wood dark with
age, and the deep-cut devices on its sides and full figures at
each end demonstrate that the Marquesans were wood car-
vers of no mean talent. Model though it is, the canoe looks
almost big enough to use; but while it is several feet in
length, it represents the proportions of the exceedingly long
war canoes, and its narrow sides would pinch a child.
These things were part of the furniture of a little cottage
next the store, belonging to an old captain who was absent,
and we saw them one day when the Norwegian, who was
sleeping there, took us to look at some of the curiosities in
the place. The owner came in on the Gauloise and re-
mained over. Herr Goletz heard that he was feeling con-
vivial, took a look in and found him in a mellow mood, and
then came after Jack, who in some way wheedled the old
sailor into selling.

So Martin has been hard put to-day to make a case to fit
the barbaric battleship; but it is done now, and stands with
five other boxes as big, one way or another. We all worked.
Wada came to help Martin, and Jack schemed to stow safely
the thirty-five-odd weighty bowls we have gleaned from
Nuka-Hiva. As late as this morning, two more came in.

While the men did the heavy work, I sat on the floor and
carefully wrapped the more delicate articles. On the back
porch, his chair placed so he could watch us, old "Burned-
out-Cinders" sat mumed in a blanket, for his asthma was
bad — poor old Taituheu, with his perfect Greek face, banded
across with the wide bars that were once blue but have now

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 156

turned green, as a turquoise turns. And Mauani — the dear
old thing hovered about me all day, sometimes passing her
slender hands, mittened with their fine tattoo, over the treas-
ures we were looting from her land; sometimes crooning,
vowel-throated, in the " evading syllables" of her tongue,
above some carven koka ; and once, going out of the room, she
came back with hands full of the flowers I call tuberoses,
fastening them, one by one, through my hanging hair and
over my ears. Would that I could pack her in a box, too,
that she might greet us along with her appropriate furniture
when we go home again.

It is said that the nether limbs of the late Queen Vaeheku
were noted for the most marvellous tattooing in all the Mar-
quesas. And I imagine our friend Mauani could show some
traceries worth studying, if one may judge by her feet and
ankles, which are covered with * ' lace. ' ' But she hasn 't given
me a chance to see any more, either through modesty or mere
shyness. It is easy to see she is very proud of her tattooing,
nodding her head in appreciation of its excellence when-
ever one points to it. I notice that she also uses the word
" tattoo" in reference to wood-carving, turtle-shell-carving —
any sort of ornamental scratching.

The only excitements of special moment to-day were the
disappearance of a young and exceedingly agile centipede
(probably brought into the house with the dry banana-leaves
used in padding) into a full packing-case; and the arrival of
the schooner Roberta from Tahiti. She is much larger than
the Gauloise, and looks quite a ship alongside the Snark.
It is a little world, this! Why, years ago, when Jack was
seal-hunting off the coast of Japan on the Sophie Sutherland,
the Roberta, then the Herman, was working in the same
waters; and Jack used to go "gamming" aboard of her,
pleasant evenings on the sealing-grounds. This particular
vessel, of all others, is now in the hands of the French Com-
pany, away down here in the South Seas, and anchored
smack alongside Jack's own boat. What next?

156 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

December 18, 1907.

We hated to get up this our last morning in the Mar
quesas. I wish we were going to "Yonder Far" (Hiva-Oa]
and others of the group; but Jack is anxious to receive hii
mail at Tahiti, and we must hurry hence. It is going or
three months since we saw home letters or newspapers.

We lay in our netted beds, conscious of the sweet-scentec
air, and looking up the eastern battlement of the bay, wit!
the old fort on tiny ' * Calaboose Hill ' ' in the foreground, al
woven into marvellous tapestry by the straight lines of i
heavy tropic shower. The rain turned from diamond t(
rose-tourmaline and lastly into opal and gold as the sur
spilled rainbows into it, and then the downfall stopped as
quickly as it had begun, startling us with the sudden cessa-
tion of bombardment on our iron roof. I heard Jack quot-
ing:

"You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind,

And the thresh of the deep-sea rain ;
You have heard the song — how long? how long?
Pull out on the trail again!"

I saw his mottled face and hands as he emerged from the
mosquito-netting, and felt the burning irritation of my owr
outraged skin, and was glad, after all, of the prospect oJ
getting to sea once more, away from the wretched nau-naus
Well are they named — not yet-yet, nor then-then, but right
now-now, with past and future all welded into the insistent
existent moment. If Nuka-Hiva never sees us again, it maj
be put down to the nau-naus.

It did not take very long to make the Snark habitable once
more. A trip or so of our lifeboat (the launch engine has
never worked since the morning we arrived) returned al
belongings, and Jack and I went aboard and stowed oui
personal things.

In settling up accounts at the Societe store, Mr. Kreiecli
left out the item of house-rent, saying that he was only toe
glad to do this for our entertainment. And he had two men
raining cocoanuts all morning from the big palms next the

Double Canoe, Bora-Bora

"Porpoises!"

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 157

store, and others bringing in oranges and limes, that we
might have our favourite drinks all the way to Tahiti.

It was hard to big Mrs. Fisher good-bye. There is some-
thing infinitely lonely about her patient life. Our final sight
of her was on her low-eaved veranda, smiling sadly, with that
wistful grandchild clinging to her skirts and weeping heart-
brokenly at he knew not what.

Tide would not serve until about ten in the evening, and
there was no need of going aboard early. So we sat on the
porch of the empty club-house that once echoed to Robert
Louis' voice, and for the last time watched the sun go down
behind the twilight crags, in the foreground the fruit of our
mango trees and the acacia fronds of the flamboyante sil-
houetted against a palpitant sky.

Tahia came and sat at my feet, laying on my knees an
armful of roses and a circlet of white blossoms on my hair;
and a Tahitian girl brought more roses and a wondrous hat
she had made, even the flower-trimming of which was of
glistening white bamboo.

We spoke low in the dusky quiet, and from the water heard
with a thrill the shadowy Snark heaving her anchor short.
Sitting safely in this peaceful land, among the whispering
of cocoanut palms and great banana leaves, I felt vaguely
averse to embarking again on the unrestful ocean, and visions
of the infamous Paumotus would creep in between my eyes
and the storied shores of Taiohae. Then I remembered that
fear is only a word to us of the Snark — a word without mean-
ing. And I also remembered the nau-naus. So I was all-
too-glad when Jack rose and said it was time to start —
adventure leaping afresh in my heart.

The going out was lovely as a dream. We slipped along
in the smooth dark tide with a fair light wind, while plaintive
little night-voices from the hills stirred the stillness. The
moon literally burst from an inky cloud at the edge of a
cliff, and the misty ridges round about the bay lay like gar-
lands looped upon the mountainsides.

158 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Our German friends saluted with a shot from shore,
and "Hoist that spanker!" Captain Warren cried from for-
ward, while Jack, at the wheel, let go the single stop that
held the willing mizzen wing.

How different this, from that dark night we entered.
Then we could only feel our way; to-night we were lit
by moon and stars and snowy reflecting clouds, fans of moon-
rays upon the mountains, and growing patches of light upon
the water — all the paint and tinsel of night under the South-
ern Cross.

Never was I so happy, I do believe, as on this dazzling
night, when the rush and muffled roar of the outside break-
ers came to our hearing and we felt the Snark taking the
first swells. At last I know it — the lure of the sea, the real
glamour of it, a thing that can no more be explained than
Love, or the beginning and end of the universe.

And with the happiness came a sense of homesickness ; but
that often comes in my fairest hour of this wild free life that
is mine, with its great spaces and flowing wind and rolling
waters.

To the nestling night-pipings of sea-birds above the break-
ers, we passed out the sea-gate of Taiohae and lost the ' ' fixed
red light" on Calaboose Hill. The spinnaker was set, and
blossomed and swelled like a great white petal in the moon-
light.

"The old girl!" Jack said affectionately, giving her a
spoke as she foamed ahead in the jewelled flood.

"0 happy! Happy! Happy !' r joyed Nakata, executing
a queer little Japanese pirouette, with his hands full of
glasses of lemonade.

"Good-bye, Typee," we saluted, as we drank and looked
back on the capes, showing grey in the moonlight like grim
heroic statues of monster mastiffs.

The ghostly flowers piled on the bosun's locker sent out
unearthly sweetness, and the off-shore wind came laden with
breath of cocoanut and cassi. I know I am growing to be

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 159

like the man who so loved the tropics that he feared his blood
was purple.

Good-bye, Typee, and incredible Nuka-Hiva, the first fairy
port of our southern dreams. And low lie the atolls before
us, and that mystic lagoon of tinted coral and rainbow life.

At sea, Marquesas to Society Islands,
Thursday, December 19, 1907.

This has been one of our ideal days at sea, after a restful
night during which the Snark logged sixty knots. It is good
once more to feel the ocean crooking its sleek back under our
iron keel. As yet there are no warnings of Paumotan vicissi-
tudes, although Herrmann has been looking for a change,
and talked so much about it that the captain told him testily
not to count his squalls before they were hatched. The wind
is fair, the waves most comfortable, and a spirit of indus-
trious prosperity pervades the yacht.

While Jack and I read our astronomy, the deck is being
gone over with clean sand from Taiohae beach, and painted
stanchions under the rail scraped and oiled to show the
natural oak. Chickens in a coop for'ard keep up a queru-
lous clatter, and the captain and Herrmann have inter-
minable discussions concerning obvious trifles. It seems to
me from my slight experience with sailors, that their minds
are very immature. They become utterly absorbed in
harangues about unimportant details that could be disposed
of in two sentences by the average adult. These differences
between Captain Warren and Herrmann afford us much
secret amusement. The skipper is irascible, Herrmann ob-
stinate ; and when they have parted in the wrath and despair
of continued misunderstanding (the captain muttering "The
bally squarehead!") Herrmann can be heard complaining
(while the lady on his arm oscillates sympathetically), "The
captain is of too excited. He gets as too excited already."

We used up our last daylight by reading from Conrad's

160 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

The End of the Tether, Jack with the book, while the rest of
us lay or sat around the cockpit watching the burning of a
golden city on the sunset horizon, beyond the rose and
amethyst swell of the sea.

Monday, December 23, 1907.

Before I proceed further, here is a quotation from
Robert Louis Stevenson's In the South Seas, as an earnest of
what one may expect in this region of lagoons :

"... the atoll ; a thing of problematic origin and history,
the reputed creature of an insect apparently unidentified;
rudely annular in shape; enclosing a lagoon; rarely extend-
ing beyond a quarter of a mile at its chief width ; often rising
at its highest point to less than the stature of a man — man
himself, the rat and the land crab, its chief inhabitants ; not
more variously supplied with plants ; and offering to the eye,
even when perfect, only a ring of glittering beach and ver-
dant foliage, enclosing and enclosed by the blue sea.

"In no quarter are the atolls so thickly congregated, in
none are they so varied in size from the greatest to the least,
and in none is navigation so beset with perils, as in that
archipelago that we were now to thread. The huge system
of the trades is, for some reason, quite confounded by this
multiplicity of reefs ; the wind intermits, squalls are frequent
from the west and southwest, hurricanes are known. The
currents are, besides, inextricably intermixed; dead reckon-
ing becomes a farce; the charts are not to be trusted; and
such is the number and similarity of these islands that, even
when you have picked one up, you may be none the wiser.
The reputation of the place is consequently infamous; in-
surance officers exclude it from their field, and it was not
without misgiving that my captain risked the Casco in such
waters. I believe, indeed, it is almost understood that yachts
are to avoid this baffling archipelago; and it required all my
instances — and all Mr. Otis's (the captain) private taste
for adventure — to deflect our course across its midst.

"For a few days we sailed with a steady trade, and a

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 161

steady westerly current setting us to leeward; and toward
sundown of the 7th it was supposed we should have sighted
Takaroa, one of Cook's so-called King George Islands. The
sun sets; yet a while longer the old moon — semi-brilliant
herself, and with a silver belly, which was her successor —
sailed among gathering clouds ; she, too, deserted us ; stars of
every degree of sheen, and clouds of every variety of form
disputed the sub-lustrous night; and still we gazed in vain
for Takaroa. The mate stood on the bowsprit, his grey
figure slashing up and down against the stars. ... At
length the mate himself despaired, scrambled on board again
. . . and announced that we had missed our destination.
He was the only man of practice in these waters, our sole
pilot, shipped for that end at Taiohae. If he declared we
had missed Takaroa, it was not for us to quarrel with the
fact, and, if we could, to explain it. We had certainly run
down our southing. Our canted wake upon the sea and.
our . . . course upon the chart both testified with no less
certainty to an impetuous westward current. We had no
choice but to conclude we were again set down to lee-
ward . . ."

They sighted an island in the morning, not the one they
were looking for, but Tikei, "one of Roggewein's so-called
Pernicious Islands." This seemed entirely out of the
question, and "at that rate, instead of drifting to the west,
we must have fetched up thirty miles to windward. And
how about the current? It had been setting us down, by
observation all these days: by the deflection of our wake, it
should be setting us down that moment. When had it
stopped? When had it begun? And what kind of torrent
was that which had swept us eastward in the interval? To
these questions, so typical of navigation in that range of
isles, I have no answer. Such were at least our facts ; Tikei
our island turned out to be ; and it was our first experience of
the dangerous archipelago, to make our landfall thirty miles
out."

Mine are the italics. And ours is the expected. On

162 THE LOG OF THE SNAEK

Friday it began to squall and continued off and on all
day, with a lively blow once during the night. We were
obliged to work sweltering in our staterooms with skylights
screwed down. In a lull toward evening, Jack was lying on
the life-boat cover, reading, when the main-boom jibed over,
the sheet catching his head and giving it a wrench that luckily
did not break his neck. He is still lame in neck and shoul-
ders. That night, when the drowning moon struggled out of
the watery vapours astern, there appeared before us a per-
fect lunar rainbow, the first Jack and I have ever seen. It
only differed from a sun-bow in its subdued tones. Next, a
flying-fish came right down into the cabin, looking like an
offshoot of the rainbow.

Oh, it is classic Paumotan weather! Saturday the fair
wind broke off, and it blew from the southwest, with a big
swell, and we had no rest for rolling. The captain took off
the jib toward evening, and at midnight, in a nasty squall,
lowered the mizzen. "We have been averaging over a hun-
dred knots daily, and on Sunday night, in a tremendous
black thunder-squall that spit forked fire, we drove through
the water at ten knots. We sighted a bark that afternoon,
miles ahead, going the same way with the Snark, but soon
lost her.

No chronometer nor latitude sights have been possible for
two days, and we are wondering how near we shall find our-
selves to Eangiroa to-morrow, when we should be picking
it up. To-day has been squally and overcast. At 9 A. M.,
we should have been abreast of the small atoll Ahii to the
southwest, but were unable to pick it up. Heavy squall at
noon — so heavy that the rain drove through raincoats, and
even got below in spite of us. Followed a dead lull, in
which the galley-stove smoked for want of draught. Next
the wind slapped out of the north for a change. In the
afternoon there was a much stiffer blow that kept on so
steadily that the captain thought it might be the beginning
of a gale, although the glass was normal. Never did I see
such a downfall of water. The flat-beaten sea smoked with

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 163

its violence, and every line of rain left a white streak on the
grey water.

We ate our fried fowl and taro in the cabin, without re-
moving our seaboots, and solaced the muggy hours of work
below with many drinks of cocoanut water and orange juice.

Nakata was laid up with a headache in the afternoon —
the first time we have ever seen him indisposed — and when
he awoke after an hour's nap, we had great sport trying to
convince him that he had slept the clock around.

Off the Dangerous Archipelago,
Tuesday, December 24, 1907.

At half past four I came on deck in the wan moonlight.
Jack was forward, on watch for Rangiroa. It was an
anxious time, for these elusive atolls are but a few feet high,
and Rangiroa being sixty miles long, we might, with light
wind and strong current, drift too close. We thought of
Takaroa, not far away, where the wreck of the British ship
County of Roxburgh still holds to the reef.

I notice in the Sailing Directions that when Le Maire and
Schouten discovered Rangiroa in 1616, they were actually
driven from the lagoon by " small black flies " — the nau-naus,
of course. They named the atoll Fly (Vliegen) Island. As
no one now mentions these sandflies as a feature of Rangiroa,
we must conclude they were all blown off to Nuka-Hiva !

Every one will agree that I started this day wrong. In
the first place, I rose too early, thereby losing sleep; and
when I went below to wash for breakfast, I took down the
wrong bottle, deluged my toothbrush with strong ammonia,
and somehow missed the warning fumes until I started brush-
ing my teeth with the fiery stuff.

All morning the captain tried to get a chronometer sight,
but the sun gave him no chance. A little after nine the sky
lifted to the southeast and we saw a line of cocoanut palms.
"Pincushion," observed Nakata; and at that distance they
did look for all the world like pins.

164 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

But what island could it be ? It did not seem to tally with
the description of Rangiroa — there wasn't enough of it.
Captain Warren made up his mind that an easterly current
had swept us so far east that these trees were on the next
atoll eastward of Rangiroa. So he altered the course to
about southwest to pick up Rangiroa. He was rewarded a
little later by another pin-cushion just where he wanted his
island to be, and great was the general relief.

It was a marvellous thing to see that atoll rise from the sea
as we approached, and from moment to moment develop in
intensity like a plate in the dark-room. The feathered palms
were stepped in a strand of pale-pink sand, against which
combed a surf of every vivid shade of blue and green. It
burst high and white against the rosy barrier, for there was
a considerable swell and what Jack insisted was a westerly
current, in spite of Captain Warren's contention.

Still, we were almost convinced it was Rangiroa, and it re-
mained only for us to find Avatoru, the northwest passage
indicated on the chart, con our way in, and anchor in the
still, sunny waters of the fairy lagoon with its harlequin
fishes. It seemed as if the sun shone only within that
charmed circle.

The captain himself climbed to the masthead and presently
called down that he saw the entrance. Fifteen minutes later
he descended with sour and anxious countenance. His en-
trance was after all only a low part of the reef, with the
surf breaching clear across.

Again we sheered off and followed along that puzzling
island. And the more we scrutinised, the less it tallied with
the Sailing Directions and the chart. The captain fumed
and fussed, but held to his opinion that it was Rangiroa.
Then something showed on the edge of the reef that looked
like the wreck of a ship, and we wondered if it could be the
County of Roxburgh, and that we had inexplicably happened
upon Takaroa. Coming closer, we saw only some blackened
boulders of coral.

Jack began to look about with purpose. Day was wearing,

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 165

weather threatening, and something had to be done. He
found that we were now due west of the island, and since we
had skirted the entire northwest coast and found no passage,
it could not be Rangiroa, which has two well-defined northern
entrances. Therefore he reasoned that the land we had
sighted in the morning to the southeast was Rangiroa, and
this atoll we had coasted all day must be Tikahau, the next
island northwest of Rangiroa. Jack himself got two after-
noon sights, and asked the captain to work them up ; but the
man seemed to have gone completely to pieces, and would
not even make an attempt. So Jack did it, charted a Sumner
Line, and confirmed his opinion of our whereabouts; but
Captain Warren refused to accept his conclusions. He
simply would not admit that he had gone thirty miles wrong,
even if Stevenson's captain and a special pilot, with days of
successful sight-taking behind them, as well as countless other
skippers, had been quite as unavoidably unfortunate. Also,
he clung to that eastern current of his, although all signs
pointed to the contrary.

We now steered north, for the sky was stormy and wind
shifty, and it would not do to spend the night too near that
reef. Jack said he thought he would go "butting around for
a day or two" and find Rangiroa in spite of torrential tides
and other adverse elements. But no one was enthusiastic,
and he went below and studied the chart some more. When
he came up, he walked aft to where the rest of us were sitting,
looked back thoughtfully at the receding " pin-cushion, " and
said brightly:

"Well, Captain Warren, shall we put about for Tahiti ?"
— and to me, "What do you say, Mate?"

Everybody cheered, even I, for I was as tired as any one,
hunting for needles — or pins — in this aqueous haystack, in
such criminal weather.

So the course was laid to pass between Tikahau and a little
island to the northwest of it, Matahiva, and peace descended
upon the Snark. Next time Jack came on deck he made all
hands a Christmas present — all but me. We had nothing for

166 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

each other but each other ; and, besides, we make our gifts at
any and all times, instead of upon conventional occasions.

Jack had been suffering from an increasing headache, and
before supper it sent him blind to his bunk. . . . And now,
standing up and writing on my high bunk, I wonder if
woman ever before spent exactly such a Christmas Eve. I
have soothed my sick Mate to sleep, and feel very much
alone, for the thunder and lightning are terrific, the water
rough, the wind roaring — and the white-speck boat only
forty-five feet long. The captain is on deck and so are the
men, including the cook, for squalls are stiff and frequent
and there cannot be too many nor too keen eyes to keep a
lookout in a night and place like this, nor too many hands
to obey orders.

Just now a heavy blow shook the bows. I was certain we
had struck, for never had a wave dealt such a shock to the
Snark. I rushed on deck, blinded by the blue sheets of
lightning, and somehow managed to reach the cockpit where
Captain Warren was sitting as calmly as if nothing had hap-
pened. No, he had neither felt nor heard anything. It
made me appear rather foolish, and I crept below again. I
am reminded of the dry and comforting lines:

"The heavens roll above me ; and. the sea
Swallows and licks its wet lips over me."

Christmas Day, 1907.

And it's "Merry Christmas" from stem to stern this day.
The sun came up at the proper hour for a sun to rise, the
natural phenomenon of the southeast trade set in, and there
is a general aspect of restored poise in the universe, except
that now, southwest of Kangiroa, the fickle Paumotan tide is
running east ! Well did Charles Warren Stoddard observe :
' ' If you would have adventure, the real article and plenty of
it, make your will, bid farewell to home and friends, and
embark for the Paumotus. ' '

When I opened my door this morning, Nakata, head cocked

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 167

on one side like a bird, contemplated me with that elfish
sweetness of his, and, after giving me full and respectful time
to spring my l i Merry Christmas, ' ' himself proffered a timid
"Missis-n — Merry Christmas!" Wada, wide of smile in
the galley doorway,, repeated the greeting. I went on
deck determined not to be caught again, and nailed Martin
and Herrmann ; but Jack and the captain spied me from the
cockpit while I was busy with the first pair, and shouted in
unison.

Poor Jack encountered hard luck again this morning — and
fortunately a hard head. At four, his headache slept off, he
was coming up to take his watch, when Herrmann, not seeing
him in the darkness, jammed down the heavy teak compan-
ionway covers and caught him squarely on the crown. It
will never do for me, a sailor, not to be superstitious enough
to wonder what Jack's third accident will be. He is having
a holiday, however, and it will do him good. But he joined
the captain in taking chronometer sights, both men working
them out with assumed latitudes, and differing only a mile in
their results. These proved Jack's correctness the day be-
fore, and the captain said Jack's observations this morning
were perfect. A good noon observation dispelled all uncer-
tainty about our position, and we should sight Tahiti day
after to-morrow. It is very fascinating, this finding one's
position on the world of waters, and I often wish I had time
to study the science of it. I'd rather see my husband navi-
gate and sail his boat than write the greatest book ever writ-
ten. It is living life, whereas writing is but recording life,
for the most part. Jack himself always insists that he
wishes he had been a prizefighter !

All day the sunshine has scorched down from a broken sky,
and I cannot express the comfort it spread throughout the
little ship. Everything moulds so quickly when the sky is
over-cast, and rainy days have made cabin and staterooms
stale and unwholesome. It is hard enough to keep even with
must and rust in good weather. I was caught on deck by
rain the second night out from Taiohae, and my blankets

168 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

sadly needed drying. The skylights have been raised straight
up, and drawers and lockers below opened wide to sun and
air.

The men have been tired and sleepy, after a wakeful night
of squalls. In one especially ugly one, the mainsheet parted,
worn by unpreventable friction in calms north of the Line
when the boom slatted back and forth in defiance of tackles.

Wada's Christmas dinner was a brilliant success. There
was tinned soup, followed by shrimp fritters, roast chicken,
fried taro, tinned corn, salad of tinned French beans and
mayonnaise ; and for dessert a luscious dish of sliced oranges
and bananas grated over with fresh cocoanut. Martin and
the captain contributed a quart of champagne they had
brought from Taiohae to surprise us.

Nakata emerged on deck about two o'clock, looking well-
filled and contented, having banqueted on roast brown chicken
and plump white kernels of rice. He walked to the fringe
of bananas swinging above the port rail, contemplated it
desirefully, selected two large ones, and went forward to eat
them at leisure. Jack offered a dollar if he would eat twenty
bananas in the space of half an hour. Nakata could not see
why Jack wanted to lose money, but wasted no time in helping
him do so. He took a half-dozen bananas, squatted on the
deck, and began to assimilate them in judicious, well-masti-
cated mouthfuls. The six disappeared, Nakata stood up and
shook himself, took a further half-dozen from Jack, looked
critically at their size, then at the fringe and back to Jack,
and requested that he be allowed to select his own fruit. But
Jack held him to that already picked, so he peeled the seventh
and began on it, his eyes passing from one to another of us
with calm, unblinking, Asiatic certitude. By the ninth he
was sitting again, leaning against the rail and gurgling an
occasional "0 my!" or imploring smaller fruit, his eye no
less calm, but wandering more frequently to the clock.
Once in a while he would break off to laugh at himself, and
lay a caressing hand upon his distended pod. "Allee same
chicken-crop," he giggled stuffily.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 169

By the eleventh banana his laugh was very wheezy and his
eye less certain. He gazed long at the twelfth before tackling
it, and half-way through rose stiffly and carefully and threw
the remaining half overboard, declaring with amiable finality,
"No can!" He explained in pantomime that he was like a
cup into which he had been trying to force the contents of
two cups, and no raising of stakes and lengthening of
time, even to twenty dollars and another half-hour, could
tempt him. He leaned painfully over, picked up the re-
maining eight bananas and ranged them across his body to
show, by comparing them with his stomach, how unreasonable
we were. As he went down the companionway, he flashed
back at us one of his inextinguishable grins.

"He et so much as it can be," Herrmann commented, with
his jocund smile.

Our way is now clear except for two islands. One of
these, Makatea, lying in latitude 15° 48' South, longitude
148° 13' West, we should sight late to-day. It is an uplifted
atoll two hundred and fifty feet high, revealing its coral
formation distinctly and having an encircling reef of coral
in turn, but no entrance for large vessels. It would be
interesting to visit, for there is something alluring about the
idea of such an isolated isle, inhabited by a few Polynesians.
Visible for twenty miles, there is no danger of our running
upon it unawares. The second island, Tetuaroa — or group
of islets enclosed in a reef thirty miles in circuit — is farther
on.

Thus, we have almost sunk the mysterious Danger-
ous Archipelago. While it means relief to have run around
behind such weather, one can but regret not having entered
just one coral sea-girt ring — not to have bartered for one
"pale sea-tear," one pearl just risen from its coral bed.
Their very names make one long to know them — these thou-
sand miles of rosy coral wreaths flung northwest to southeast
across the blue Pacific, with Pitcairn, high Pitcairn of Bounty
fame, geographically if not geologically belonging to the

170 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

group, bringing up the southernmost end. Are they not
enticing, these names ? Listen — Mangareva, Oeno, Mururea,
Ahunui, Vahitahi, Negno-Nengo — and Fakarava, where
Stevenson sailed in.

And the people of varied origin that live under the cocoa-
nut palms and fish for pearls in the lovely lagoons — think of
seeing those wonderful native divers. It is said the natives
are very hospitable, most of them resembling the Tahitians,
although formerly of a more warlike character than the
Tahitians ever were, so that King Pomare I of Tahiti had
his body-guard chosen from among them.

But Jack comes to me and says that many are the pearl
atolls ahead of us in the southern seas, on to the west, and
that my lap shall be filled with pearls if I will only wait !

Off Tahiti,
Thursday, December 26, 1907.

Makatea was passed in the night, but no one saw it, as
there were squalls all around. We glimpsed Tetuaroa this
morning. At ten we were about forty miles off Tahiti, and
the captain will sail until he picks up Point Venus, the
northernmost jut of the island, then hold back and forth all
night and at daylight make for the Papeete entrance through
Tahiti's coral cincture. Point Venus, according to our Sail-
ing Directory, is the most important geographical site in the
Pacific, as it has been the point most accurately determined,
or at least has had more observations made from it than any
other point. In 1769 Captain Cook, on his first expedition,
went here in company with Green, the astronomer, to observe
the transit of Venus. If I had a son, and he looked through
this old South Pacific Ocean Directory, and then did not
want to run away to sea, I should disown him! Such un-
believable romance is spilled through these pages of bare
facts, such exploits of such brave gentlemen and gallant com-
manders ! English, French, Dutch, and what not — theirs are
names to conjure with, and we run upon them everywhere:

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 171

Captain Cook, Mendana, Roggewein, Bougainville, Ingra-
ham, Quiros, Bligh, Boenecheo, Wallis, Marchand, Schouten,
Cartaret, and so on down the blazing line of men who went
fearlessly to sea in all sorts of queer craft and drew charts on
this vast sheet of water. I wonder that any one ever grows
old in this storied region, this purple desert of the ocean,
littered with ''fragments of Paradise." As it is, people age
leisurely. Atrophy is stayed by the atmosphere, physical
and mental, of Polynesia. That they do die some time or
other we know, from the plaintive Tahitian proverb :

"The coral increases, the palm grows, but man departs."

"We have lived a little, you and I, Mate-Woman," Jack
said this morning, as we took our book under an awning out
of the glare. We had been talking over our travel experi-
ences and the people we had met, from Cuba to Molokai, from
Paris to the Masquesas. A vivid life it is, and we hold it
and cherish it, every minute, every hour of to-day, and yes-
terday, and the fair thought of days that are coming.

. . . You should see Herrmann this afternoon. Probably
taking note of a camera on deck, he disappeared below for
a quarter of an hour. Then he came up, all in white sailor
ducks, the broad collar flaring back from his powerful neck,
long time free from any restraint of "high-heeled collars"
as he innocently calls them. He was exceedingly debonaire
in a jaunty white hat, on his face the frankest possible smirk
of satisfaction and expectancy of admiration. He had
shaved a three-weeks ' stubble, and the smirk was a whimsical
ghost of Mona Lisa's smile, lurking half-abashed behind the
mandarin-droop of a yellow moustache.

He has been irrepressibly talkative all day, has Herrmann,
and the captain correspondingly glum. "The fool Dutch-
man," he growled, reminiscent of Herrmann's enthusiastic
efforts at being clerk of the weather in the Paumotus. His
moroseness passed lightly above the sailor's guileless head,
however, for presently, bending over a piece of canvas with
the statement that he was not so quick mit the needle as he

172 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

was more time before yet, Herrmann went on to tell of his
last experience in an American ship, where, contrary to the
usual custom on vessels from our country, the men were
poorly fed. Their fare, he said, was but six slices daily of
unrisen bread, with rusty, weevily pea-soup five times a week.
The captain wanted to make him bo's'n, but Herrmann
would not accept the promotion. ' ' I cannot as drive the men
of the way I must ought," he lucidly explained to us. "I
cannot of swear a more o' many than dom, and like o' that,
when I am as very mad." Then he recounted how one day
a seventeen-year-old boy fell overboard, and the captain did
not turn his head until one of the officers rushed past to the
wheel. "Then the cap'n called him back, and came along-
side the rail up, and nevermore did I as hear such a lan-
guage as he of used. The youngster boy he vas as trying
save himself mit the log-line, and like o ' that, and the cap 'n
swearing at him of to let go. And that youngster boy he
let go. But that was not any never mind to the cap'n. It
vas awful to see that boy as of left behind. . . . No, I can-
not as drive the men. I cannot as swear yet as like that al-
ready. ' '

According to Herrmann, his association with the Snarls' s
company has wrought great improvement in his English.
"I have of learning more English as every day," he beams
repeatedly (he is always afraid he will not be heard) ; but I
vow he isn 't learning it from me ! His ambition is to own a
farm in America. "It is the only country of what I like,"
he avers.

. . . The day had been sticky hot. Sky and water have
vied in outshining each other and have met in a brassy glare.
My head has ached, but my fuzzy utterance concerning it,
produced by the ammonia ravages inside my mouth, has
caused more mirth than becoming sympathy.

The bulk of Tahiti is plainly to be seen, but its eight
thousand feet of volcanic upheaval is lost in leaden billows
of cloud. Jack and Martin are laying plans for getting to
work on engine repairing as soon as may be after arrival.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 173

The captain pores charts, and, as twilight comes on, sweeps
the nearing coast for the Point Venus Light, supposed to be
visible at fifteen miles. The captain was in Papeete some
twenty-five years ago in a training-ship, but remembers little
about its approaches.

What are our dear ones at home thinking, all these weeks
without report of the Snarkf We had written before leav-
ing Hawaii that we should not be more than three weeks
going to the Marquesas — and we were over eight. There is
no cable from Tahiti. There never was one, in spite of a cer-
tain English writer to the contrary. The first word we can
send will be by the old steamer Mariposa, which Captain
Chabret told us would leave Papeete on January 13, making
a twelve days' voyage to San Francisco; and on this steamer
will go all the mail we sent from Taiohae by the Gauloise.
The Mariposa should be in Tahiti on the 9th, and we can
hardly wait to get our hands on our letters.

Again must I break into the Log, briefly to narrate months
passed in Tahiti, a land which, although surpassingly beau-
tiful from craggy mountain head to smoking surf, is very
much on the " tourist route, " and very much exploited
in book and steamship circular.

No one who has entered the harbour of Papeete, "Paris
of the Pacific/' is ever likely to forget the emotional impact
of it. Outside the coral barrier, one sees to the south the
smoke of reefs, rising, drifting over the rainbow-coloured
channel between Tahiti and pinnacled Moorea, lying to the
west; then follows the exciting fight through the swift out-
ward current of the narrow reef-entrance into the harbour,
with the wicked waters leaping, hissing, reaching, snapping,
from the treacherous coral on either hand. Once safely in-
side and past the reefy wooded islet in the middle of the
harbour, Motu-uta, the calm of the haven is like peace of
prayer after deliverance from peril, and you lift your eyes to
green palmy hills, on to the abrupt heights of solemn Oro-

174 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

hena, Aorai, Piti-Hiti, and other stern mountain heads —
The Diadem, a thorny tiara of spiked peaks, like the Dent
du Midi of Switzerland.

And then the town: never was anything sweeter to look
upon than this garden spot of flowers and vines and trees of
deepest green, the quaint French roofs peeping here and
there from among the flamboyante and fau and mango foli-
age. The Quai de Commerce, Papeete's main thoroughfare,
runs along the in-curving water front, embowered in mag-
nificent flamboyante trees, with houses and shops on the
shore-side only, while the seaward outlook of the broad ave-
nue is unobstructed save for gnarled tree-trunks, and little
white schooners and sloops backed up in deep water right to
the sheer margin of the street, their graceful bows facing
out toward the barrier reef.

Near the southern end of the crescent, a high white
church, red-roofed, is reflected upon the glassy water in-
shore, and other buildings, long and white and many-win-
dowed, are duplicated as clearly — like a fleeting glimpse of
a Swiss city on a lake.

Along the street occasional slow forms in long gowns of
white or pink, red or blue, move to and fro, or a duck-suited
Tahitian, going just fast enough to keep from falling, wheels
on a bicycle.

To north and south of the harbour lie idyllic points of low
white beach, crowded with laden cocoanut palms; and as
you gaze at them and between their pillared trunks to the
intensely blue water of other bays beyond, over the whole
lovely picture comes a change that is all in your own brain.
In place of the houses of the French and their half-castes,
you behold golden brown grass huts of the early Tahitians,
scattered under trees that are not flamboyante trees.
Moored in sheltered places, or drawn up on the beach, you
see scores of enormous war canoes, perhaps the mighty fleet
of nearly two thousand that was here in Cook's day. There
are no streets, only haphazard pleasure-lanes among the
pandanus-thatched dwellings; and no steamer-wharf and

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 175

long unsightly sheds of commerce mar the perfect sweep of
shore-rim. Under the palms pace stately figures of men
and women, and a warm trade-wind rustles the great fronds
above them.

Then you fancy a commotion in the happy village, and,
following the stretched arms of the natives, turn to greet a
wonderful sight — two painted galleons, questing along the
outer edge of the barrier reef. They spy the passage and
alter their course — fair vision of strangely fashioned hulls
and gleaming canvas, as a favouring zephyr swells the fan-
tastic sails. Perhaps it is morning, or maybe flush of sun-
set; or, again, it is the brazen noon that strikes upon land
and sea. It does not matter — each phase of the day is more
beautiful than another.

In the carven bows stand two Spanish adventurers, Luis
Valdez de Torres and Pedro Fernandez de Quiros. Three
hundred years ago, first of European voyageurs, they raised
Tahiti; and secretly from all the world but Spain they car-
ried home the name they gave to their discovery, La Sagit-
taria. So well did Spain guard her knowledge that when,
more than a century and a half later, Captain Wallis came
upon Tahiti in the Dolphin, he did not dream but what he
was the first white man to set foot upon King George Island,
as he christened it, in honour of George III who had equipped
the expedition. A year later came Bougainville — 1768 — and
called the land Nouvelle Cythere. In 1769, the ubiquitous
Captain Cook dropped in. Don Domingo Bonecheo hap-
pened along in 1772, and changed La Sagittaria of
Quiros and de Torres to Tagiti. And on his last voyage,
Cook, with Furneaux, made his third visit to Papeete Har-
bor, August, 1777. Eleven years later the Bounty ar-
rived in Matavai Bay, on the other side, commissioned by
George III to transport breadfruit trees to British West
Indies. Captain Edwards, in search of the Bounty and her
mutineers, reached Tahiti in March of 1791, and Vancouver
saw the island in the same year. The London Missionary
Society sent out the Duff to carry missionaries and Bibles to

176 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

this group and anchored at Tahiti on the fitting day of Sun-
day, March 5, 1797. Truly, we are late in this part of the
world. Everything is altered, except the up-thrusting spires
of the amazing mountains; so it is good once in a while to
give rein to the imagination and restore as best one may
the unspoiled paradise of past centuries.

After standing off all night in the squalls, keeping Point
Venus light in our eye, in a gorgeous sunrise Captain War-
ren steered for the entrance through a breaking reef, while
the ship was made trig and trim and I added a duck skirt
to my costume. Everything seemed in our favour as we
dipped and slid in a pleasant sea toward the narrow channel.
We had no cause for misgiving, and could devote ourselves
to enjoying the beautiful picture of the island.

Alas — the breeze dropped us very near the entrance, and
in a dangerous position, for even so chunky and sturdy a hull
as ours could never survive a pounding on this iron coral.
So it was up with signals, and promptly our friend Captain
Chabret responded, coming out in a launch; and promptly
broke down as soon as he had made fast to our side.
Anxiety? Try it once — a small vessel like ours, drifting
straight toward a toothed ledge of adamant roaring with
bursting seas, her sails slatting uselessly with each lurch, and
an impotent tug bobbing alongside.

It was not the tug that pulled us through, but the good old
much abused wind, which picked us up at exactly the right
point in our game of chance. And we made as pretty an
arrival at Papeete as Jack's yachtsman heart could desire,
beating lightly across the harbour, the yacht like a graceful
skater on ice, her white sails filling now to this side, now to
that, as Jack, steered, his bright face all alive with achieve-
ment and pride in his dear little tub! "The old girl!" I
heard him laugh.

The American cruiser Annapolis was in port from Tutu-
ila, Samoa, and Captain Warren fairly strutted when she
dipped her flag.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 177

The port doctor, M. DuBruelle, came out and assured him-
self of our excellent health. He seemed especially inter-
ested in knowing if we had any live rats aboard, and we
learned that the plague scare in San Francisco had not
abated.

Before the port doctor's boat left, another came skimming
out, this time a tiny familiar outrigger, paddled by a native
and carrying a blood-red flag. Standing in the canoe was a
startlingly Biblical figure — a tall, tawny blond man with
russet gold beard and long hair, and great blue eyes as
earnest as a child's or a seer's. His only garmenture was a
sleeveless shirt of large-meshed fish-net and a loin cloth of
red.

We were fairly spell-bound by the striking vision, and still
more mystified when it broke the silence with a matter-
of-fact friendly " Hello, Jack!" and " Hello, Charmian!"

Then Jack recognised him — "The Nature Man/' Ernest
Darling, whom he had met in California some years before,
and greeted him cordially.

"But what's the red flag for, Darling?" Jack wanted to
know.

"Why, Socialism, of course," he answered simply.

"Oh, I know that," Jack said, "but what are you doing
with it?"

"Delivering the message," Ernest Darling declaimed, with
a sweeping gesture of both tawny arms toward Papeete.

"To Tahiti?" Jack asked incredulously.

"Sure." And the Nature Man clambered aboard, shook
our hands, and gazed into our faces with his sweet, mystical,
unsmiling eyes, and then became suddenly and utterly ab-
sorbed in unpacking a little basket, setting on the cockpit
seat a small jar of clear white honey, two bursting-ripe man-
goes, a tiny jar of heavy cocoanut cream, and two small,
perfectly ripe alligator pears, which latter Jack hailed with
a hungry smack.

He is a picturesque creature, this Nature Man, and good,
good clear through. Of course he is a little mad — patently

178 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

because he lives differently from the generality of people;
as Robert Louis Stevenson was a little mad in that he chose
to walk barefoot ; as I must also be mad, on that same score.
In spite of his interest to us, however, Jack and I had the
same thought about Darling — one look between us told it all
— that he would be a disturber of our coveted solitude ashore,
and that, as sure as doom, he would proselyte unceasingly in
the sacred cause of nakedness, diet — or lack of it — cocoanut
hair-oil, fish-net shirts in winter, and so on. . . . How could
we dream of his delicacy, that kept him from intruding until,
weeks later, we sent for him ; nor his devotion in illness, nor
his generosity with all he possessed?

"Any old place I can hang my hat
Is home, sweet home, to me,"

one tramp sang ; but with this glowing young tramp of mine,
this peripatetic Jack London, any old place he can hang his
writing elbow on any old table, is good enough for him. He
is a wonder to me. My first responsibility in any new place
is to find or devise a table for his work ; and there have been
some queer ones. No matter how alluring the situation, how
novel, how exciting, at nine of the clock down he sits, pep-
pers the plane before him with little note-pads, some already
scribbled, some blank, squares his manuscript tablet — or
diagonals it, rather, for that elbow rests well on the table —
selects an ink-pencil from the half dozen that Nakata keeps
filled, reads over the previous day's thousand words — usually
aloud to me — and then, with a little swooping bob that seems
to shake him free of all external bother, and a busy, wise
little smile, he settles for two hours of creation — of bread and
butter, he will have it. Sometimes he looks up, with a big
smile in his eyes, and says to me:

' ' Funny way to make a living, isn 't it, Mate-Woman ? ' '
And I often wonder how many men can do it — carry their
business around with them, and attend to it strictly, day
after day, at stated hours, living romance and creating ro-

Off for Tahaa with Tehei

Pahia, Bora-Bora

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 179

mance at the same time. Now I can spill my thoughts over
many pages at the end of the most thrilling day ; but to re-
strain oneself to certain hours is another matter. Also, Jack
practically never writes of experiences while he is in the thick
of them. He waits; he gains perspective and atmosphere
through time. He is the artist, the painter; I am mere
photographer — with colour plates, true, at times, but still a
photographer.

In Lavaina's famous hotel I left the artist to his painting,
and went house hunting. I found a cottage embowered in
roses and tiare and blumeria, shady with breadfruit and
palm, and drowsy with honey bees. The ground sloped
greenly up at the back to a mossy high wall over which
drifted choral voices of men and boys in a Catholic school.
The cottage was let to us by our good friend Alexandre
Drollet, government interpreter. It was ours for three
months, during which we made a month's round-trip to
San Francisco on the steamer Mariposa, leaving the Snark
engines to be repaired — for the third time. The history of
these Papeete repairs is largely one of graft, in which our
captain shared bountifully. We should have let him go, but
for one thing. We had learned, from him, be it said to his
credit, of his having served seven years of a life sentence
for murder. He had been pardoned, and we, to give him
this chance to rehabilitate himself, kept him on despite his
known crookedness to us.

We worked very hard in Tahiti — we had to work hard to
keep even with the graft. Jack knew it long before he told
me; but his way is always to let people hang themselves in
their own way. Perhaps it is a good method by which to
learn one's essential human relationships.

Although we enjoy work and the opportunity to work,
I am not sure it is the best thing for us under this ardent
sun. Our friend Dr. E. S. Goodhue, in Hawaii, warned us
repeatedly that we were living too strenuously in an ener-

180 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

vating climate. I am tired beyond all apparent reason, much
of the time. But be this as it may, one thing is certain, as
Jack says — we shall never rust, in this or any other latitude.

The custom among the French in Tahiti requires a visitor
to make the initial call. Since we did not learn this until
near the end of our three months, and since we are ever
poor callers, we were practically uninterrupted; and Omar
himself might have benignly envied us our life in that idyllic
garden. A few delightful souls broke through the inhospi-
table habit of the country, and gave us some happy social
hours — the Meuels of the Steamship Company ; the Tourjees
(his father was founder of the Boston Conservatory of
Music); Consul Dreher and his wife; and Mr. Young, a
wandering friend of the Nature Man's. Also, the famous
Tati Salmon bade us to his home at Papara for the New
Year's festival. There we met his daughters and sons —
splendid examples of the physical aristocracy of Polynesian
chief -stock mingled with English blood; all educated in
Paris, and now living their sumptuous tropical life. Husky
Jack London was a mere babe alongside these strapping
girls, who easily weighed three hundred. We attended
a fair and a feast at Papara, and, most remarkable of all,
in the narrow white French church heard the himine singing
of the native Christians, a beautiful production in which the
women carry the air, and the men produce an accompani-
ment of sound, the volume and tone of which is akin to a
pipe organ. This is familiarly known as "the Tahiti
Organ." The melodies are based upon old hymns, but have
become infused with an indescribable barbaric lilt that is
infinitely stirring.

We also came to know dear old man McCoy and his kind-
hearted daughter — of the McCoys of Pitcairn and the Bounty.
Our acquaintance with them was a rare bit of luck for us.

One especial blessing, when we could tear ourselves from
the completeness of our home life under the breadfruit and
palms, was our sunset swimming off the Snark's rail. We
were a mixed and exuberant company — Captain Warren,

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 181

our Japanese boys, Martin, M. and Mme. Drollet and their
brood, the Nature Man and Mr. Young and others ; and great
was the splashing and laughter and defiance of sharks. Once,
we arose before dawn, and, with the Nature Man, climbed
the perpendicular heights to his tiny plantation. And
often, of mornings, before Jack was awake, I sallied out in
flowing native garb and bare feet for dewy walks in the
foothills.

I believe our only really unpleasant experience in Papeete
was Jack 's bout with the dentist. His teeth had been threat-
ening for some time, and finally "blew up/' as he expressed
it. His sufferings were such that the American dentist, Dr.
Williams, finally begged Jack to take a vacation, as both of
them were nervously exhausted. We acted upon this good
advice and took a week's cruise to Moorea, which proved as
beautiful as the sunset vision of it that we were accustomed
to. ... And here I shall shake off the temptation to speak
more at length of Tahiti, and go aboard our little floating
home once more.

Aboard the Snark, at sea,
Between Raiatea and Bora-Bora, Society Islands,

Thursday, April 9, 1908.

Five days ago, we bade farewell to Tahiti. All was packed
and ready two days before ; but the weather was outrageous,
with a falling glass. Then, of course, something had to go
wrong with the small engine so that we had no electric lights.
The growing friction between Warren and Herrmann had
ripened into a breach that lost us the sailor. A runaway
seaman from a French ship took the Dutchman's place at the
last moment of our departure — a rather good-looking but
weak-faced youth from Bordeaux.

Having pulled up stakes at the Drollet house and sent our
things aboard, we went to Lavaina's hotel. There were few
guests, and our rest would have been good but for mosqui-
toes and the noisy revels of a couple of citizens of Papeete
who were entertaining, in a near-by cottage, some of the

182 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

officers of the Chilean training ship in port. Whatever may
be the ship's discipline, these Chileans are a lawless lot off
duty. So impudent are the dark-browned little rascals that
a white woman feels uncomfortable alone in the streets.
And they are such soiled, untidy creatures, both officers and
men. However, they are more attractive than the general
run of hoodlums at home, for, as with the Latin races gen-
erally, they are full of good music, and some have excellent
voices.

First we heard the distant music of their band, which
was giving a concert ashore; and after the home-going car-
riages of the Papeeteans had all rattled by, there came the
ringing robust voices of the Chileans as they marched down
street to the cottage across the way, the melting contraltos
of their native girls blending in the rollicking chorus played
by the band.

Once indoors, one 'convivial South American wrestled most
musically with ' * La Paloma, ' ' evidently remembering it "by
ear," with frequent assistance from his friends; but the
spirit and go compensated for lapses and interruptions.
Some one played his accompaniments on a piano and we lay
and listened to the songs and cries of "Bis! Bis!" Then
came dancing, hula-hula after hula-hula, to the strains
(most strained) of an accordion, every one crazy with fun,
while wild laughter and drinking songs broke out between
whiles. In a lull, a man sang "Les Rameaux" in a glorious
baritone to a splendid piano accompaniment; after which
two others were inspired to make a triumphant duet out of
the song. We could only compare the affair to some talented
college fraternity turned loose — only there was something of
true Bohemianism about these swarthy small foreigners that
no cool-blooded Anglo-Saxon ever quite achieves — perhaps
because he tries too hard. And also it is easier for those
who have acquired music with their mothers' milk to infuse
their fun with true abandon.

Evidently it makes a difference who breaks the peace of
Papeete after 10 p. M. The line was promptly drawn by

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 183

neighbours against our poor phonograph playing later than
nine at Drollet 's ; and Lavaina 's guests were called down for
mere singing and piano playing shortly after the ultra-re-
spectable hour. But these same guests are subject to annoy-
ance from the immediate neighbourhood, and nothing is said.
" Funny," as Nakata would remark. In this particular in-
stance, however, Jack and I counted our sleep well lost.

Lavaina is one of the few honest business persons in
Papeete. She is "all right," and there is no graft in her.
It is even said that she often suffers by her lack of cupidity
in dealings with less guileless ones in her bailiwick. Just
as she had greeted us three months before, she now sped us
with her famous cocktails, and we departed with a tall bottle
of the same, and her good wishes.

We had M. and Mme. Drollet for our parting dinner at
Lavaina 's. He brought Jack a backgammon board, while
Madame presented me with a roll of bamboo hat braid of
her own make ; and the twain sent aboard the yacht the last
of their incomparable breadfruit. Mr. Young and the Na-
ture Man loaded us with taro and feis and bananas, to say
nothing of drinking cocoanuts.

And as we throbbed out through the breaking barrier reef,
waving good-bye to our friends on the wharf,' we knew that
our last memory of Papeete Harbor, as it is our first, will
always be the quaint Biblical figure in its scarlet waving
loin-cloth, Ernest Darling, the Nature Man.

In spite of delay and graft, and Jack's terrible time with
his teeth, our days in Papeete were very sweet, living on the
fat of the land (blissfully garnished with garlic) ; but it
was with a distinct joy of relief that we turned to the north-
west and watched for our next island. Jack's spirits were
somewhat dampened by a mild attack of seasickness. I had
a violent headache all night, which may have been a form
of the same malady. There was a distressing double sea, and
not wind enough to steady us in it.

We carried three passengers from Tahiti, although not of

184 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

the description to cause us to forfeit our yacht license. One
was an amiable yellow pup, en route to a native maiden on
Raiatea ; the other two passengers were served up brown just
as we passed through Raiatea 's reef entrance, and closely
resembled one of Wada's masterly achievements of fried
chicken. This was the first time on the run that we saw Jack
interested in kai-kai — which is the Tahitian for food.

Skirting the reef for some distance, hunting for our en-
trance, we had a long vision of Raiatea — an elysium of
green mountains and greener foothills. The highest is
nearly four thousand feet, but the general outlines are less
startling than Moorea's or even Tahiti's bluff shoulders.
There is one mighty bastion, however, probably an ancient
blowhole, to the right of the village — an important landmark
for mariners.

Two miles north of Raiatea, and within the same reef (an
unusual phenomenon), lies another large island, Tahaa, sur-
rounded by its brood of islets.

As I sat up forward in the sunset, revelling in the fertile
loveliness of Raiatea, Jack came behind, took my head in
both his hands, set my face to the west, and pointed off be-
tween Raiatea and Tahaa to where a wondrous castled shape
of earth was flung against the burning sky — and I knew it
for that far-famed gem of Polynesia, Bora-Bora. Even now,
days afterward, sailing closer and closer, this island loses
none of its enchantment.

But to get back to our arrival at Raiatea :

The Snark passed between two emerald islets that guard
either side of the reef entrance, into the Bay of Teavarua.
There is another passage, but the water was breaking there
and we chose the wider and smoother way — lively enough at
best. Captain Warren remarked, as he did concerning
Opunohu Bay at Moorea, that there was nothing the matter
with the harbour except too much water, the depth being
between eighteen and twenty-four fathoms, although with
good holding-ground. We learn all we can beforehand about
these anchorages. Our hook bit in at about eighteen fath-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 185

oms, and the yacht swung to the puffy little willie-waws that
ran down the hills. It was dark, except for a tender young
moon and one lone light ashore. We could dimly make out
a schooner lying close in by the land, and two or three long
buildings that resembled factories.

We did not go ashore. The Snark is our home once more,
and our own beds are the best we know.

The next morning, Monday, my head ached harder than
ever, and I stayed below. About eleven Jack tentatively
observed that if I felt able, we might take a short sail in a
canoe with a most ingratiating native. I was not enthusi-
astic, but to please Jack I crawled out and up, to find a
rusty outrigger alongside rocking to a snowy spritsail the
size of which was comically out of proportion to the slender
dugout. The owner, a bright-faced, alert-bodied islander
with uncommercially honest eyes, was modestly blessing us
with bundles of greens and a basket of knobby sweet pota-
toes, for all of which he would take no price. He was
garbed in a pareu and a straw hat, and his name is Tehei
(pronounced Tay-hay'-ee) — good Tehei, now at the Snark' s
wheel, piloting us to Bora-Bora; while Bihaura (Bee-hah-
oo '-rah), his wife, sits near by and hemstitches like a Mexi-
can needlewoman, after one lesson from me.

But I am anticipating — as I sometimes must when recapit-
ulating.

Well, we dropped into the canoe, Jack in pajamas and I
in bathing-suit (for I was absolutely sure that airy spritsail
would capsize the outrigger), and Tehei lifted me down as
carefully as if I were a baby. We sailed away toward the
reef, Jack balancing on the outrigger, for any canoe is ticklish
with a sail — and such a spread of cotton as this ! Tehei was
as fine and quick as could be in handling his boat, on each
tack lifting a sun-bleached log over on the weather out-
rigger to offset the force of the wind, at the same time mo-
tioning Jack to shift his weight to wind 'ard. I sat damply
on a piece of board resting across the sides of the canoe,
which sides were not more than a foot apart. A canoe under

186 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

sail is little less than a keel in itself, its passengers mere bal-
last and disposed almost on a level with the water, their feet
resting in the swash at the bottom of the narrow coffin-like
thing.

We were children on a lark. I forgot that I ever had a
headache. This merry adventure was more like the real
thing than anything we had done yet. What mattered
Papeete, with its degenerate civilisation and its business
sharks? Or poor lovely Taiohae with its careless govern-
ment that lets it go to rack and ruin, its sinned-against peo-
ple dying without spirit to resist death!

Tehei's slim French and redundant motions finally con-
vinced us he was serious in desiring to take us on to Tahaa,
whence he had come; so we called on our own French and
gestures to get him to take us back to the yacht for a few
accessories such as cigarettes, a comb, a handkerchief. A
tin cracker box was packed and wrapped in a rubber poncho,
for a possible stay over night. While we had our midday
meal below, Tehei sat contentedly on deck and ate maitai
kai-kai (good food) according to his own pleased verdict.

By half past twelve we were careening dizzily off for a
new island. Tehei seemed to know every fathom of the
lagoon, and presently left the deeps, guiding swiftly over
broad coral shallows. I found my breath coming quickly
at the proximity of some of the large coral masses ; but Tehei
perched in the stern and serenely steered with a big paddle
overside, winding in and out the little channels of the reef,
familiar to him as our city streets to us. The smallness of
the craft and its disproportionate canvas, together with our
whizzing speed, recalled an ice-yachting experience I once
had up in Maine, on a Mt. Desert lakelet.

Let no one imagine we arrived dry at Tahaa. We did not.
Jack was drenched; as for me, the water had poured
into my lap, and I had been kept busy, as my part of work-
ing the boat, bailing with a contrivance hollowed from a sec-
tion of a small tree — a sort of scoop with two elongated par-
allel holes for the hand to grasp.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 187

At the time we climbed out at Tahaa and waded ashore
(Tehei first offering to carry me), we did not know of the
olden fame of this island and Raiatea for hospitality. Wil-
liam Ellis, in his Polynesian Researches, published in 1829,
while recounting some startling horrors of the natives of the
Society Group, gives the Raiateans a reputation for gentle-
ness and courtesy unequalled in any of the other communi-
ties. But we had no preparation for the wonder we were to
know in the small thatched house before us. A dark, wiry
little vahine, anything but a beauty but sparkling with in-
telligence, came running to Tehei 's musical hail, and bustled
us in. I am glad that an ancient custom of the natives has
lapsed — that of greeting newcomers or friends with loud
wailings and lacerations of the flesh with sharks' teeth!

The ground about the house had a damp, bare appearance
as if it had lately been inundated. A few trees grew around,
and a patch of sugar cane. We stepped on the flat bottom
of an antiquated canoe-prow, mounted to a porch under
long pandanus eaves, and were conducted into the one large
room. Tehei followed, having first unshipped mast and sail
and brought them ashore ; and he and Bihaura brought us a
foot tub of fresh water and a bath towel — think of it ! a bath
towel. Then, with delightful importance, they fished deep
into a cedar chest in a corner for a dry shirt for Jack. I
asked, "Ahuf" (which is Tahitian for eueu), and the small
vahine in limp black calico disappeared head and shoulders
into the scented receptable, emerging with a clean white
dotted muslin ahu and a chemise that was doubtless her Sun-
day best, for it was elaborate with cotton crochet. These
luxuries were presented with little bows and ducks and
smiles, and, finally satisfied that we had what we needed,
the pair quietly withdrew outdoors — the very pink of unob-
trusive consideration. Going to latch the door more se-
curely, I found it had a quaint latchstring of cocoanut fibre,
like one we once saw in Hawaii.

Invisible to those without, we could look through the
breezy bamboo walls and see our friends bustling about a

188 THE LOG OF THE SNAEK

thatched cookshed. Dried and dressed, we went to hang our
wet clothes in the sun. Bihaura materialised on the spot —
from empty air, I suppose, as we had seen her busy else-
where an instant before, and took charge of things with
good-natured peremptoriness and capability.

It is not so much what Tehei and his mate do; it is the
way they do it, without apparent unusual effort. We have
been hospitably, gracefully, lovingly entertained before; but
never, in any land, by any people, white or black or brown,
have we received such absolute perfection of treatment as
from this simple kanaka and his simple vahine. The point
is, not that they placed their house, their raiment, their food,
and their personal service at our disposal, but that they did
it as if there were nothing unusual in the proceeding — as if
it were the most natural thing in the world to give their
comforts and their privacy to entire strangers from a strange
country, coming to them without scrip or purse. In fact,
they came out after us, as if they ached to devote their beau-
tiful souls to some one. We had expected to find kindness
and hospitality ; but we were overwhelmed not only with the
measure, but the delicacy and fineness of it. There was not
the shadow of curiosity in their demeanour — in spite of our
weird habiliments and our luggage of tin cracker box. We
were entertained with a solicitude that lacked servility, a
friendliness in which there was no obtrusiveness.

While Tehei did the main cooking (an excellent custom
in Polynesia that carries no onus with it), his wife worked
a transformation scene in the house. Their few personal
belongings were stowed in corners and covered neatly with
woven mats of lauhala. Other and finer mats were spread
double and triple on the floor beside a big high bedstead,
made up with clean sheets and pillow-cases, with a downy
red and white steamer-rug spread across the foot. The
bed-space they screened and canopied with ample quilts
that would put a New England county fair in the shade.
The bureau and inevitable sewing machine — which, with bed
and two chairs, was the entire European furniture — were

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 189

cleared for our use. A large packing box set in the middle
of the room served as table, laid with a spotless hemmed
cotton cloth, water bottle, two plates, two forks, one knife.
Some of these were borrowed from a neighbour upon whom
Bihaura seemed partially to depend for taste in setting and
serving the meal. She was a well favoured woman, named
Metua, not young, who had travelled to Raratonga and
Hawaii, and spoke a few words of English. Later in the
afternoon we were lounging on the porch, on a clean mat
and a big white pillow stuffed with floss of cotton-tree, and
once, hunting for change of position, I rested my head on
the woman's knee. She caressed my head for a long time;
and when she went home, Jack called my attention to her
legs and feet as she pulled up her gown in a sudden shower.
Then I saw she had elephantiasis fee-fee. It did not seem
to embarrass her, nor did she attempt to hide the deformity.
Fortunately for my peace of mind, this malady is not con-
tagious, and the woman was as clean and neat as any one
could be.

It takes these people hours to prepare a proper meal ; so, a
little before sunset, seeing no imminence of dinner, we took a
walk through the village, which is composed of scattered
dwellings, some native, some dilapidated European, stringing
along both sides of a single thoroughfare built across a strip
of the marshy lowland that forms the shores of Raiatea and
Tahaa. There may originally have been some advantages in
the introduction of "neat European houses," as they were
dubbed by the old missionaries, into South Sea communities ;
but one cannot help wishing that a certain missionary of
the early nineteenth century had not followed his bent.
After repeated and discouraging trials to get the incredulous
and unwilling natives to profit by his example and erect
geometrical habitations of wood and stone and plaster after
the manner of English cottages, this good man was struck
with a glimmer of the fitness of things, for he plaintively
admitted that sometimes he almost believed the rambling

190 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

style of architecture and situations of the aborigines better
suited the wild loveliness of the islands than the four-by-
square atrocities he was painfully trying to substitute. The
enormous glaring white meeting-house now falling into decay
is a blot on the beauty of Tahaa, and as it does not seem
to be used for any purpose, it will be a mercy if the next
hurricane wipes it out of the picture.

Those whom we met accosted us with welcoming smiles and
la ora nas, while numerous children trooped after, for few
whites come to Tahaa, and there is but one white resident.
The natives are very good looking, some quite handsome.
One scarlet-girdled young wood god gladdened our eyes,
swinging by with a long hunting spear over his shoulder,
dog at heels, a chaplet of leaves on his curly head, and a
laugh and song on his red lips.

But gone are the days when the people of Polynesia ex-
erted themselves to any extent. They catch just enough fish
for their own needs and a little over and above to sell when
they want money; their cultivation of vegetables and fruits
is sporadic, or, as some wit has put it, consists in not hinder-
ing the natural growth of things. The games and sports in
which they once took pride seem unknown to the present
generation. Where is Tahaa 's. doughty chieftain, Fenua-
peho, champion wrestler of all Polynesia a hundred years
ago — or one to take his place ? Where are the lithe archers,
the fleet foot-racers, the thewy boxers, the strong swimmers?
These were all here once, but such ambitious pleasures
lapsed along with customs less pleasant to muse upon
— such as infanticide and older human sacrifice — until there
is not even a cock fight left to remind one of the howling
high times of yore. Most of the natives show little energy
of purpose. Most endeavours are relegated to the manana
of the Spanish, the by and bye of the English, the ariana of
the South Seas — it is all one; only, ariana means to-morrow
or the next day, and maybe not then !

On our return walk, a man came out of his yard and pre-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 191

sented us with several chubby shells spotted like birds' eggs
and with an iridescent natural polish. Many of the neigh-
bours dropped in to pass la ora na with us — with a more
pronounced accent on the last syllable than in Tahiti. Some
of the girls were exceedingly pretty; one, a Raratonga
maiden called Tunoa, was a decided beauty. I amused my-
self with fair success trying to spell the native names and
words Metua gave me, to our mutual delight, meanwhile
gnawing at a piece of sugar cane; Jack improved his time
reading his inevitable book (there was room for one even in
our tin cracker box), and took a nap. We ventured a peep
at the cooking of the delayed dinner, the devoted chefs actu-
ally making apology for the primitiveness of their method.
Upon steaming leaves laid over hot stones, Tehei piled sweet
potatoes to roast, taro, yam, feis, and a nicely prepared
young fowl. Also there was a dish with nice sticky banana
poi in it, along with the rest of the good things banked up
for roasting. Then Tehei spread large clean green leaves
over all, and again, on top of these, numberless round mats
made of leaves symmetrically tacked together with their own
stems. These leaf-mats had been used before, and were
therefore not allowed next to the fresh food. • Every crevice
from which steam escaped was closed by these thick mats, tier
upon tier. In the end I think we managed to convince the
self-depreciating pair that their way was the best we ever
saw. It certainly was the prettiest cooking possible. And
they were so immaculate about it; I know Bihaura washed
her hands a dozen times.

In addition to the things put to roast, we were treated
to raw fish, coming on the table cut in small white squares
that had gone through the usual process of soaking in
lime-juice and salt. It was served in the delicious cocoa-
milk sauce flavoured with lime and salt, which we had learned
to like in Tahiti. There was excellent French bread, too,
from the native baker. While we ate from the packing case,
Bihaura and Tehei became invisible ; but the fee-fee lady sat
on the floor and kept track of our wants. The seriousness of

192 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

all three in their anxiety that everything would not be quite
right, was touching. Our well meant efforts to have them
share our table so horrified them that we did not press.

Jack had been trying to explain to Tehei that we should
like to go fishing, and he conveyed to us that he was arrang-
ing to take us in his canoe at eleven at night, to fish on the
reef. That was more than satisfactory to Jack, who scented
a novel experience.

In the early evening Tehei got ready hooks and lines. He
and Bihaura made us a present of a wooden poi bowl of
Tehei 's manufacture, carved from one piece, oblong, with
ends like a canoe and four squat legs. I am now less dis-
appointed about the one I failed to get on Moorea. These
legged bowls are more like the pictures of the Samoan kava
bowls. Tehei seemed flattered that we should want his bowl !

While we talked, Bihaura, having discharged her duties of
attending to our material wants, lost her expression of ear-
nest practical solicitude, and broke into gracious little smiles
as she and Metua sewed at their wonderful red and white
quilts. With our few words of French and Tahitian, and
their modicum of English, we managed conversation, and en-
joyed the unique evening immensely. We learned, among
other things, that Tehei and his wife once lived in Papeete ;
hence their acquisition of modern habits and possessions.
These two work so harmoniously, and we have yet to hear a
hasty word or a sharp command from either to the other.
The woman is a small Martha, full of household affairs and
the comfort of her guests. She sews, weaves mats and hats,
and plaits fine cocoa-fibre ropes on which to hang things in
the house. And she has made a basket of white and brown
bamboo that is the only good basket I have seen in this part
of the world where material and workmanship in hats
and baskets generally seem to be flimsy. Across one corner
of the room hung a gigantic fringe of lauhala strips, ready
dried to split for strands from which to weave various use-
ful articles.

My headache having tuned up, by eight o'clock I retired

THE LOG OF THE SNAKK 193

behind the quilt partition and lay on the big bed gazing
lazily at the colours and patterns of the hanging quilts,
which, with the light beyond, resembled stained-glass win-
dows. Jack came to say good night, and while we talked
in subdued voices, we noticed a dimming of the lamp-
light. A few minutes later we realised that we were alone
in the house. Thinking Jack had also gone to rest, our
friends had faded away like quiet shadows into the darkness.

Jack went over and turned up the light, whereupon Tehei
reappeared, as if to await the appointed hour for the fishing.
But he fell asleep on a mat, and Jack, not wishing to wake
him after all his labour for us, left him there.

And now let me warn you, that if ever you come to Tahaa
to spend the night, bring along your mosquito netting. We
did not, and there was little sleep, for it was too warm to
pull the sheets over our heads, and we turned and tossed and
flapped the air and slapped ourselves and each other until
early morn. If I had known what inconspicuous bites these
particular mosquitoes leave behind, I might have tried to go
to sleep anyway.

After coffee and bananas in the morning, Metua, seeing
me in my bathing suit again, thought I wanted to swim, and
led westward down the road to a place where the bottom
was sandy rather than prickly with loose coral. Mindful
of Jack's warnings about sharks, I did not care to go in
alone, so we sat on a log, watched the water, and soaked in
the sunshine, while wee brown girls brought big yellow
allamanda blossoms and stuck them in my hair and over my
ears in their pretty fashion. It is sweet to be a guest in
Tahaa.

I was just thinking about returning to Jack, when I heard
his "Mate! Toot! Toot!" and discovered him and Tehei
coming along in the canoe. They shot into a shallow, and
took me aboard. Tehei 's new tackle was in the canoe, and
he paddled and steered at the stern, while Jack paddled in
the bow. We skimmed over the broad shallow reef, past the
wooded islets that lie upon it, and peered down into en-

194 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

chanted gardens of coral, yellow antlers and purple bunches,
stretches of brown dotted with blue, and then there would
softly gleam sheets of white sand bottom, wrinkled with
black sea-slugs — becke de mer. Here was only enough water
to float the canoe. We wondered what manner of fishing
was to be ours, and after a while glided into deeper water,
where Tehei called a halt, brought to light a squid, bit off
portions of the live tentacles and baited all the hooks. He
then handed me a line, so wound that it paid out from the in-
side, like a ball of twine, by the weight of hook and bait and
sinker. When the sinker sounded bottom, Tehei took the
line from me and attached it, where it left the water, to one
end of a bamboo, then passed the unused line along the stick
and tied it at the other end, and cast the whole contrivance
loose, where it floated flat on the water, the fish-line sinking
perpendicularly from one end. The idea is, that when a fish
runs with the hook, the bamboo is forced end up in the water,
the canoe puts after it and pulls in the catch. We must
have set a dozen of these, in a crescent, before one of the
sticks stood up, and we paddled vigorously to the shrill cries
and shouts of Tehei. I should like to hear a lot of kanakas
all going at once for their lines !

We hauled up a fish about eighteen inches long, the same
kind we had had raw the night before — an iridescent wonder
with long mouth and sharp teeth. Then another stick up-
ended, and we flew screaming to the spot, making as much
noise as twenty savages, and hauled in another beauty of a
different kind, more like a dolphin. After that no more
bamboos acted up ; so after resting in the canoe for half an
hour, absorbing the lovely colour of sky and land and water,
we paddled ashore to a point covered with cocoa palms,
where we were greeted heartily by an elderly half-caste
woman of vivacious manner and rich-toned voice. In good
English she regretted our short stay in Tahaa, as it would
deprive her of the pleasure of giving us a native breakfast.
They must all be large hearted, these islanders. She spoke
French fluently, having been educated at the convent in

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 195

Papeete. Her Tahitian name is Terii Marama, and later on
she mentioned Susan Bambridge as her English name. We
gained some valuable information concerning the surround-
ing islands, particularly Bora-Bora, where she told us
Bihaura, who came from there, owned a good house. And
before we left, we had arranged, through her as interpreter,
that Tehei should accompany us to Bora-Bora, where he
would be able to bring about for us the stone-fishing we have
heard so much about, and other amusements of the place.

While we sat talking in the tufted grass under a huge
fau, Tehei spied a squid in the shallows on the edge of the
water. Now, you would not have seen it, or at least all you
would have seen would have been what we saw — a bunch of
brown seaweed as big as an ordinary sponge. But Tehei
knew, and Terii Marama knew; and first thing we knew,
Tehei 's teeth were tearing at the vitals of a desperate diminu-
tive octopus that writhed its nauseous tentacles, strong with
innumerable suckers, about the man's hand and arm. This
was the way we were warned to do in Hawaii, if a squid
caught us swimming !

On the final round of our lines, we found three fish
drowned. The sky was lowering black to the east; so we
pulled in all tackle and started for Tahaa village. The wind
grew stronger in our teeth, and I knew Jack's unaccustomed
arms and shoulders must be aching. But he kept up his
rhythm with Tehei, and when we were in water shoal enough
Tehei rose in the stern and poled the canoe along in leaps.
However, the squall beat us out, and a heavy one it was.
Tehei, ever keen for our comfort, insisted upon my wearing
his hat — a brown felt this time, of indeterminate age and
experience. I really much preferred wet hair ; but no mortal
but a prig could refuse such thoughtfulness on the chance of
causing hurt, so the hat went on. I huddled down behind
my drenched and weather-battered husband, for the wind
made my wet clothes feel a trifle chilly. We were willing
to go the whole way in the rain, but as it kept increasing,
Tehei steered into a little indentation where stood his

196 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

brother's house — a mere roof of thatch above a raised floor,
built half over the water, and with no walls. Here the in-
mates, a fat and jolly native and his pretty young wife,
lounged on mats and grasses in an abandon of the simple life,
and with effortless cordiality welcomed us in all our
bedragglement. I was an object of much friendly curiosity,
for besides the fact that a white woman is not often seen in
Tahaa, the fame of my swim across Opunohu Bay had gone
before me. Jack had mentioned the incident to Tehei the
previous day, and the intelligence had spread. I never
dreamed that my feeble three-quarters-of-a-mile splashings
would attract attention among the amphibious people I imag-
ined in the South Sea; but times have changed in this re-
spect as in others. A day or two ago two men in the bay
off Raiatea were much alarmed by the presence of an enor-
mous spotted shark which insisted upon following them.
They said it hung perpendicularly about the canoe, opening
and shutting its huge bristling jaws at them.

The rain pelted harder than ever, the sky grew blacker,
and just as we were climbing into the canoe again to make a
dash for it, we heard a call, and along the road came Bihaura
at no mean gait, in her arms a small oval tub containing white
chemise and ahu, covered with our rubber poncho. She
promptly rescued me from the beached canoe and hurried
me under the thatch once more, bearing the tub on one arm
and half-carrying me with the other, her solicitude finding
vent in a stream of vociferation against the heartless ele-
ments. Like a hen demanding the best for her chick,
she shoo'd the inmates from under their own thatch, that I
might change in privacy ; and out they went, with no ill feel-
ing. Probably they are used to Bihaura 's energetic and un-
compromising methods. When dressed, I gathered up my
skirts, put on the poncho, overturned the little galvanised
tub on my head, and climbed into the canoe. Bihaura had
disappeared in her elfish way and when, after a stiff paddle,
we beached once more at Tahaa village, she was waiting at
the water 's edge. Wading in, she took possession of me, and

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 197

mothered me into her house, without a word placing me
before an inviting heap on a mat — a fresh chemise and
pretty blue ahu. And when I had donned these garments,
I found to my hand a rose silk Chinese shawl, embroidered in
lilac wistaria, and heavily fringed — probably a relic of her
marriage day. Jack was furnished with dry things, and
shortly afterward coffee and bread were brought. A couple
of hours later we were feasted on choice roast sucking-pig.
It was raining hard when we sat down to eat, and Tehei and
Bihaura, leaving Metua to attend us, picked up the vessels in
which they had brought our dinner, and made as if to return
to- the shed for their own kai-kai. But this was a little too
much, and we refused to take a mouthful unless they ate in
the house. Whereupon, well pleased, all three squatted on
the floor and proceeded to enjoy themselves.

In the morning we had expressed our wish to return to
Raiatea during the day, and now, on the porch, we found
many baskets of limes, fruit, and bunches of taro and greens,
leaning against the bamboo walls and covered with braided
cocoanut fronds against the slanting "crystal rods" of rain
that threatened to drive inside the house. These edibles we
felt sure were intended for the Snark.

The weather increased, and presently, watching the hard
squalls travelling toward the other island, we began to wonder
a little about the yacht tugging at her long cable, and specu-
lated whether or not another anchor had been bent, and if
the captain would think to take a native pilot in case he had
to move the yacht around the island to better shelter. It was
a queer experience — away off on this island, separated from
everything that was ours (even the cigarette prospect a
dwindling one for Jack), sitting cosily in fine muslin and
silken embroidery, peering through a windy wall of bamboo
at the small gale that was blowing up we knew not what.
We could see a cutter and a canoe weathering the wind and
rain, out there in the smother on the reef. The cutter was
running under bare poles, and the canoe had her spritsail
lashed down into a little rag of a leg o' mutton, while her

198 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

men weighed down the outrigger to keep her right side up.

Tired watching, we loafed on the big bed and talked, look-
ing at the workmanship of this house not made with nails,
the white rafters' naturally-arched crossbeams, and the
shingle-like thatch. Jack fell napping, but I could not sleep
for the loud strong wind and deluge of water on the grassy
roof ; but before an hour had passed, the blow eased. We got
into our weather clothes and appeared on the porch, with an
expectant look that raised consternation in Bihaura 's ma-
ternal soul, for she did not want to trust her feminine pale-
face protege on that water. But she obediently went in
quest of Tehei, and a cutter was hired, the price for carrying
us to Raiatea, $2.00 Chile, being carefully explained to Jack
by Tehei.

We walked through the village, accompanied by Bihaura
and the usual following of curious urchins, and halted at
an old cottage that had once been painted white, where lives
the one white resident of Tahaa, Mr. Lufkin, a native of
Massachusetts. He has been in Tahaa over sixty years, off
and on, and now, at the age of eighty-six, a victim of fee-fee,
continues on in his chosen land, with a daughter of sixty.
''She is all I have/' he said plaintively, and the slim brown
woman, with distinctive New England features, nodded and
smiled. Tehei 's arrival put an end to our visit, and we
went on down the long quay of earth and coral and shell.

The sail in the staunch and fast little cutter was very ex-
citing. I might have had a livelier time if Bihaura (who,
with Tehei, went with .us) had not kept me in the bottom of
the boat, so well wrapped that I could see nothing, but
only feel. There is no saying Bihaura nay when she chooses
to exercise her motherly care. She herself helped in the
sailing when we were in tight places, which were frequent,
that dripping wrapper of hers clinging to her lithe little
body like a sheath of skin. Thunder and lightning rolled
and cracked, breakers growled and roared close by on the
outer edge of the reef over which we were slanting, and we
had to tack repeatedly to follow the channels known to our

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 199

boatmen. At length the squalls came so fast and furious
that the men took in all sail, leaving just a puff of canvas
on the boom to insure headway, this puff being held and
regulated by Bihaura's small brown hands. The men never
had to tell her what to do. . . . "Do you know where you
are?" was in our eyes this vivid night when Jack and I
looked at each other in the lightning.

As we neared Uturoa we saw no light from the Snark for
guidance, and we did not want to miss her in this ticklish
weather, when the howling wind from seaward and any mis-
calculation in the darkness might cram us on the reef close
to shore. We all united in calling this very careless on the
part of the Snark' 's skipper. "Aita maitai," the natives
said, shaking their heads gravely. And it certainly was
"Not good."

Then we began dimly to discern the yacht at close range,
saw a light going toward to the forestay, and as we swept
astern our rope was thrown to a man who had climbed into
the launch to receive it. That man proved to be a Japanese
boy, one ever-faithful Nakata; but the weight our driven
cutter put on the rope was too much for him, forcing him,
to let go. We heard a variety of foreign languages in dis-
tracted voices, a general furore and lack of head that led us
to infer the captain was not aboard. We were lost to the
yacht for the time, drifted to the wharf and got on the lee
side of it, where the men alternately held the bounding cutter
off and held on, to prevent her from being demolished.

The launch then came spluttering through the choppy sea,
in charge of a voluble and excited Frenchman and an equally
excited Japanese, namely Ernest and Nakata. Ernest landed
from the weather side of the stone quay, leaving poor Nakata
to hold the boat from breaking against it. Nakata, doing his
small best, was terrified into wild ejaculations for fear he
would fail — Nakata has ever a care for our property.

This was the first we knew that Ernest had learned to run
the launch; but he had not learned it any too thoroughly,
and now, when Jack got in to go to the Snark and fetch a

200 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

line to the cutter, Ernest could get no spark from the engine.
So they rowed through the smother, and poor Jack was again
reminded that for a year he has been asking one captain
after another to have more convenient rowlocks put into the
launch. However, he brought the line, and the cutter was
drawn safely to the yacht.

I never enjoyed anything so much in my life as I did trying
to make our island friends comfortable. It would be hard
to say which side knew the greater novelty. We had full
measure of it with them ; and to them our electric lights and
fans were miracles. I led Bihaura into my tiny warm state-
room and hunted up dry garments ; but I could not get ahead
of her — she had brought her own change ! I then ransacked
ribbons and trinkets for gifts, and she was very gleeful in
her courteous and subdued way.

Wada cooked European food for them, opened tins of
things that were new and desired, and delighted them with
a heap of his beautifully cooked rice, of which they are
inordinately fond and which they seldom see. We put them
to bed in the cabin, the owner of the cutter included. I
should be happier all my life if I thought we had given Tehei
and his little vahine half the pleasure they afforded us.

After breakfast next morning, they returned home in the
cutter, leaving us with the understanding that we were to
pick them up on the morrow and take them to Bora-Bora on
the Snark, Jack to arrange for a cutter to carry them back
to Tahaa when we sailed for Samoa. Bihaura, as she bade us
good-bye, said in the words of old King Pomare of Tahiti:
"E mau ruru a vau!" ("I am so happy!")

When Tehei and Bihaura left us yesterday, we went
to our work as usual, and after the midday meal Martin
took us ashore where we called on Mr. and Mrs. Vonnegut,
who had sent us an invitation to visit them. Martin
tells us that when the Snark hove in sight on Monday
outside the reef, they were out driving and immediately
turned homeward to make ready to offer us quarters ashore.
And we did not go near Raiatea, but ran off in a crazy canoe

From left to right: Vaega, Mrs. London, Mr. Morrison, Tuimanua

Off Manua

Upolu

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 201

to Tahaa. It is something like the way we did in Honolulu
— sailed right by to Pearl Harbor, and stayed there a month
before going into the city.

Mrs. Vonnegut is a jolly soul, Tahitian-born but of Eng-
lish parentage. Upon our arrival at the store she promptly
sent for the surrey, and, drawn by a sorrowful but willing
roadster of Liliputian breed, we saw some of the country.
The little bays, with their thatched huts, and the mountains
behind reflected in the water, made entrancing pictures ; and
other views with Tahaa and Bora-Bora in the background,
were equally lovely. In many places in the marsh through
which the road runs, grows a beautiful sort of lily. It re-
sembles a hyacinth in form — many blossoms around one stem
— but is larger, and the overlapping petals have eyes like
peacock feathers, with the difference that the eyes in these
flowers are canary yellow, set in blue that shades through
mauve to a lavender which deepens toward the outer edges.
The leaf is almost round, ending in a slight point, and look-
ing like a leaf painted with one masterly stroke of a broad
brush dipped in dark green pigment. Jack picked me one
of the flowered stalks, but it soon withered and discoloured.

We called upon the French Resident, M. Belonne, and his
pretty bride, and drank tea with them on their tree-sheltered
bit of beach.

Returning to Uturoa from our northwest drive, we passed
through the village south, on the way buying a basketful of
live shrimps from a woman who waded in from the near reef
at Mrs. Vonnegut's call. These were for bait, as Jack
planned to fish off the yacht after dark, asking the Vonneguts
to join us. — And while we were fishing, Martin played the
searchlight on the shore for the amusement of the natives,
whom we could hear shouting with delight.

Martin, who travelled southward some miles on Raiatea,
says the country is superb, and that the natives live very
primitively and picturesquely; but Uturoa is not pretty.
The example of the misguided missionaries evidently per-
sisted here, for most of the houses are European, and not

202 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

attractive European; while the large white, staring, uncom-
promising warehouses of the trading companies are an ex-
asperating blight. When Mr. Ellis, nearly a century ago,
was carried out of the water, canoe and all, by the welcom-
ing natives, upon his second visit, he found an " improve-
ment " since his first coming that made his soul rejoice:
"We called upon the king," he writes, ''whom we were de-
lighted to find living in a neat plastered house." Isn't that
lovely? — And if said king did not contract consumption or
asthma or phthisis, through the unaccustomed restriction of
air, it was because he had a stronger constitution than most
of his kin and kind.

Eaiatea is said to possess some interesting relics of
antiquity. One of these is the ruin of an old temple of
human sacrifice which was once enclosed by a wall built
entirely of human skulls — mainly those of warriors slain in
battle. But with Bora-Bora only a dozen miles away, famed
for its merry people and pristine life, we did not linger. At
one o'clock this day upon which I am writing, April 9,
Martin started off the engine and we set over toward Tahaa
to take on Mr. and Mrs. Tehei, making our way cautiously
in the deeper channels among the coral. It was the bright-
est of mornings, everything sparkling, a gentle breeze
cooling through the warm sunshine, breakers curling
white on the barrier reef and the lagoon painted in more
hues of green and blue than man can name, "nor woman
neither," I found — blues so live and intense that the eye
was caught and held as by a very spell of colour; greens
brilliant as emerald shot with sunlight, or soft and restful
as purest jade. In this riot of silken colour, broad irregular
splashes of elusive plum-tints marked where coral rose
near the surface. Midway between the two mountainous
islands, we all agreed upon Tahaa being more beautiful than
Eaiatea ; and during the day, travelling mile after mile along
the dreaming shores of the smaller island, we have strength-
ened our belief. It is an enchanting panorama of ram-
bling hills and bays and islets, with high Ohiri lending

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 203

a strong and rugged character to the otherwise verdant round
outlines of the land.

Tehei hailed from the cocoa-plumed point agreed upon,
and indicated that we were to go back to the village. Which
we did, first taking him aboard. Out from the village pad-
dled three large canoes so laden with food and floral offer-
ings that Captain Warren raised his hands in helpless dis-
may : * ' My goodness gracious ! Where are we going to put
it all!" The decks were littered with bunches of prime
bananas, both green and ripe; cocoanuts of all edible ages;
papaias, green and golden ; endless baskets of the homely but
heavenly yam; a few oranges; taro; pumpkins; bound and
protesting chickens, and a vociferous and reluctant piglet;
and lastly, a diminutive papaia tree, cut down in all its
promise, set in a kerosene can, and decorated with the rarest
flowers of the island, twined around the fruit at the top, and
stuck into the pretty leaves. When we were under way,
Tehei and his wife formally presented Jack and me with the
sucking pig, the chickens, and the gay papaia tree, along with
other and not so elaborate bouquets. The fruit and vege-
tables went without saying; they are automatic hereabout.

Some of the relatives of our passengers wanted to go along
too — one, a pretty young wife, her ears decked with
large real pearls, entreating Jack with tears in her eyes
and arguments that must have been most eloquent if mis-
placed, judging by Bihaura's disgusted expression at this, to
her, breach of breeding. She looked somewhat as she did at
her own house when a vahine dropped familiarly in at din-
ner-time, and tried to sell us chickens !

Tehei appropriated the wheel and piloted out of the
harbour, a school of small fishes having great sport in the
froth kicked up by the propeller. Bihaura, seating herself
upon the deck on a small straw mat that always accompanies
her travels, gazed around complacently upon this big
"bateau" with its * ' mash-een, ' ' and pronounced it all
"maitai," and again "maitai."

. . . And now, I have been writing pretty steadily since

204 THE LOG OF THE SNAEK

we left Tahaa, and am going to rest and look, until we drop
anchor under the green battlements of Bora-Bora.

Lat. 16° 32' South,
Nearly 152° West Lon.

Aboard the Snark,
Teavanui Harbor, Bora-Bora, Society Islands,

Friday, April 10, 1908.

In the sheltered cockpit, writing, I am surrounded, outside
the rail, by inquisitive but unobtrusive natives of varying
ages. They have been paddling quietly out all forenoon
from Vaitape village (called Beulah by the missionaries),
lying yonder in the morning shadow of Pahia, which rises
almost straight up 2100 feet close behind. One might sup-
pose that the mountain would cut off from Vaitape the pre-
vailing wind; but the trades contrive somehow to reach
around both sides of the peak, and the climate couldn't be
more delightful.

Bora-Bora lies only about twelve miles northwest of Tahaa ;
but it was after moonrise last night when Martin shut down
the engine and the anchor rumbled out, for the harbour is to
the west and we had to travel nearly around the island, out-
side an endless ring of reef breakers to the entrance, a fifth
of a mile wide. After the sun went down, Tehei stood in the
bow with the captain, Jack at the wheel, and I camped amid-
ships to pass orders above the noise of the engine. We were
not sorry we had to go so far around, as we saw more of this
matchless isle. We realised in glorious actuality an old en-
graving of Consul Dreher's; only, the real Bora-Bora is far
lovelier than the picture, and infinitely more majestic.
Wonderful, wonderful, and again wonderful, I kept repeat-
ing— line and colour changing with each new facet of this
island jewel. During sunset the land was all rose and opal,
turning to cool restful green. The islets on the garlanding
reef stood like emeralds against a green lagoon; green hills
grew up out of the verdant shore, and behind, the green,
green mountain pierced clouds that reflected the universal

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 205

green. Pahia is the piece de resistance in all views of Bora-
Bora, rising sheer and double-peaked and palisaded, hills
leaning against it, and little islands flanking round about.
The Nuuanu Pali in Hawaii has been widely painted and
photographed, and it is not a whit more worthy than Pahia
of Bora-Bora with the perfect composition of its surround-
ings. It is like a planet, petrified with its ring of satellites.

After Tehei and Bihaura had been set ashore at their re-
quest, Jack said to me: "What do you say we go over for
half an hour or so ? " Ernest took us to the long jetty, and
we wandered in the soft cool air, attracted by music, which
was accompanied by a concerted, regular chug as of some
dull and toneless instrument. The grass grew to the water 's
edge, and on this village green, by the forgotten graves of
the decaying Mission church, we beheld an idyllic pastorale
of youths and maidens dancing under a spreading flam-
boyante to the strange rhythmic chant. The maids were
all in white, garlanded with sumptuous perfumed wreaths
of allemanda and blumeria and tiare, mixed with drooping
grass-fringes, the men likewise garlanded, and girdled in
white and scarlet pareus. They moved in twos and threes,
arm in arm, closely around the mouth-organ musicians
in the centre, like bees in a swarm. The curious chug-
chug was made by a measured grunt-grunt! grunt-grunt!
of the dancers. There was witchery in it all — the wheel of
graceful revolving forms, twining brown arms, bright eyes
and white teeth glistening in a soft and scented gloom that
the moon had not yet touched; and the last least veil of
enchantment was added by flitting soft-glowing lights
amongst the dancers' heads. These spots of soft radiance
were curly fragments of phosphorescent fungus, culled from
dead and dying cocoanut trees, and set in red and silken
hibiscus blossoms, worn over the ears of these flower-like
women — curled flowers of captured moonshine, sometimes
tender, luminous blue, sometimes evasive green, and again
mere phosphorescent white.

One of the girls, encouraged by our Japanese boys who

206 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

were gaily mixing with the company, bashfully gave me her
moon-blossom from its place over her ear, and it was such
an exquisite unearthly thing that I wished I might keep it
forever.

A half-caste merchant, Mr. Buchin, who runs a sort of
hotel, came over to us and passed the time o' night, gra-
ciously placing his services at our disposal.

After clapping a few more dances of the dusky sprites,
we walked south along the beach road, like a pair of children
in dreamland, peeping into open lighted doorways of habita-
tions too frail to be the abodes of human beings; looking
straight up through feathery palm-tops at the moon peering
over the mysterious shadowy mountain; and presently we
were arrested by music of another sort than that under the
flamboyant e tree. "Himine!" Jack whispered, holding my
arm tighter and hastening his steps; and together we tip-
toed to a large oval structure — just an immense thatched
roof with walls of low picket. Inside, a lantern and kero-
sene lamp disclosed by their flicker a group of women and
men sitting on a large mat on an earth floor first, spread
with dry grass. They were singing himines such as cos-
mopolitan Tahiti forgot long ago. Vahines composed the
front ranks, and from the rear came the remarkable tones
of the " kanaka organ/' heavy ringing voices booming like
strings of 'cello and bass viol picked resonantly by giant
thumbs. Three young men, leaf-crowned like wild things
of the forest, with a frolicsome-eyed Mowgli at their head,
swayed from the hips, their foreheads clear to the floor as
they trumpeted, in a sort of sitting dance — like that of the
Samoan fita-fitas on the Annapolis in Papeete harbour.

Singing mothers held children in their laps, and one
girl, a perfect type of the heavy-featured, dreamy-eyed
Polynesian, looked wistfully through the green grass fringe
of her hei, toward where she knew her young companions
were dancing free. But she held her important own in the
himine, being principal high voice. I do not say soprano,
for there are no natural sopranos in savagedom. So, in

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 207

order to emulate the high tones as heard among the mission-
aries in their hymn-singing, the native woman forces her
chest tones up into the head, producing a true note, to be
sure, but a harsh and strained one. I have yet to see a
vahine who can take a high tone without wrinkling and dis-
torting her face, and sometimes she even reaches up and
holds one side of her face as she climbs the register.

Jack's theory of this difficulty is something as follows:
That the lower the race, the less differentiated are the sexes ;
the women are stronger in proportion to the men than are
the women of higher civilisation, and so on down the line of
sex characters, even the voices of both sexes resembling.

We were assigned to a bench by a grey-haired elder, and
sat there half an hour lost in pure enjoyment of the remark-
able harmonies. One himine especially we called for again
and again. It was like the triumphant shouting song-cries
of successful hunters returning from the forest; or like
the victorious paean of warriors bearing home slain enemies
from the mountain.

We trod the charmed path back to our boat rocking in
the silver flood, and went to sleep in our little floating home,
in our ears the organ tones of Mowgli and his wood-mates,
and the wild call of hunters and warriors from forest and
mountain.

Bora-Bora, Saturday, April 11, 1908.

Hands full of gifts, we returned this morning to the yacht
after early coffee and hot-cakes with our devoted Tehei and
Bihaura in their imposing residence, a two-story, four-
roomed house. Yesterday the gendarme in authority on
Bora-Bora, M. Laborde, not waiting for us to look him up,
came aboard resplendent in white helmet and ducks and
military medal for "Service et 1'honneur," and welcomed
us in the friendliest way, inviting us to his house, granting
unasked hunting privileges, and offering us "plentee che-
val." Whereupon we ordered our saddle case out of the

208 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

forepeak. Everybody is the same — it is smiles and la ora
nas, abundantly backed with practical benefits. Never can
we balance the score — only can we be thankful for our
lucky hap.

So ashore we went in the afternoon, returned M. Laborde 's
call, and met Madame, a stately French woman (probably
the only white one on the island), with a royal braid of
brown hair hanging nearly to the floor. Her husband
obligingly conducted us to the house of the old chief of Bora-
Bora, Tavana Tuhaa, to whom we had a letter of introduc-
tion from his cousin, Terii Marama — Susan Bambridge.
The gendarme humorously explained that he himself was
the French chief, and Tavana was kanaka chief — with a
Frenchy little shrug at the obvious lack of Tavana 's power.
But then, M. Laborde is directly under the Resident at
Raiatea, who is directly under — but no more.

At a dilapidated European house we were greeted by a
very queen of kanakas, a splendid big woman — the physical
aristocracy again. But she was clad in tatters that ill con-
cealed her hideously advanced elephantiasis. She went to
fetch her husband, and the two wrecked bodies came together
up the neglected garden walk. He is part, white, a small,
slight man, pitifully disfigured with elephantiasis. They
were very quiet, courteous, and unembarrassed by their sick-
ness. We soon left, for there seemed little ground upon
which to meet. After this we dropped in to see Mr.
Buchin. As we were due at Tehei's for dinner at five, we
sauntered early in their direction, passing on our way the
big himine house. Bless us, if they weren 't singing yet ! —
or had they rested off in the night? — the same three wood-
boys, the girl we call The Type, and the rest. The elder
hailed us in, hospitably enough, but with tone and gesture
of one accustomed to authority.

Seeing a number of large rough tables piled around, and
a great mound of fruit, vegetables, and fowls, we concluded
that preparations for a feast were under way. Never did
we hazard more widely. After listening to a number of

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 209

"selections," and to a repetition of our especial favourite,
the fiery ferine chorus, the astounding thing happened.

A fine looking man arose from the grass, waved his hand
toward the heap of edibles with a graceful flourish, and
began to speak. As he proceeded, we at length caught the
unbelievable drift of his discourse. He was presenting us
with this bounty. But why? We made deprecatory and
declining signs, and the orator disappointedly subsided. We
were very uncomfortable — we could not accept so great a
gift. Why should we? How could we? We could make
no fitting return, and we have heard of an unwritten law,
that a gift in this part of the world means a gift in exchange
for a gift. Also, the yacht would not be able to accommo-
date such abundance of kai-kai in addition to the quantity
already taken aboard at Tahaa.

So we sat and uneasily listened to another himine from
men and women with baffled, reproachful eyes, while the
grey elder fidgeted with a hurt and displeased air.

The song finished, he arose stiffly and, advancing toward
the mooted offering, himself presented it to us in an address
with many flourishes. Still we hesitated. We simply did
not know how to act. And suppose we had possibly made a
mistake in our interpretation of their meaning, and com-
mitted an awful breach of etiquette? Judging by the frus-
trated elder 's face, when we again declined the unprece-
dented munificence, we were already guilty. We felt very
foolish ; but we lacked information, and were anxious to get
hold of some one who could set us straight. To ease the
strain, we asked for another himine, after which we retreated
as well as we could, hopeful of finding some way to come to
a rational understanding over such an irrational situation.

When we reached Tehei's house, he explained, with the
help of Nakata, who had been washing and ironing there, that
kai-kai was not ready, and that we were to take a walk with
Bihaura. Captain Warren and Martin had also been in-
vited, and we five struck south and caught a view of the
next bay before sunset.

210 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

"We passed a "lumber-yard," or so Martin named it,
where, upon racks under long sheds, were laid for sale sup-
plies of thatch: Long dry leaves of pandanus are strung
on to five-foot lengths of reed, made fast to the reed by over-
lapping one end of the leaf and pinning it with the midrib
of the cocoanut frond run through from leaf to leaf hori-
zontally, until the rafters are covered. Sometimes it takes
three thousand or more of these fringed reeds to roof a
fair-sized house. The thatching will last about seven years,
and no roofing equals it for coolness — or for centipedes.

We noticed before some of the houses canoe-shaped wooden
trenches several feet long, full of sago in the making.
Farther on we flushed a number of blue heron, as well as
snipe, and a few ducks, and promptly recollected Laborde's
permission to shoot. Captain Warren took a gun out this
morning and we had fried snipe and wild duck for luncheon.

Jack and I had made it up together, on account of mos-
quitoes, that we would somehow get around the wishes of
Tehei and his wife for us to spend the night ashore ; but we
changed our minds once we were inside our room, not be-
cause we feared the mosquitoes less but that we feared hurt-
ing our friends more.

Our room was large and many-windowed, and had two
wide beds dressed in perfect triumphs of scarlet patterned
quilts and snowy belaced pillows. "She noticed we had
separate bunks on the boat," Jack whispered. The floor
was thick with beautiful plaited mats, Bihaura's weaving;
and there was provision in the corner for washing. On the
floor between the beds was that red and white basket I had
admired on the passage, and which was now mine. Beside
it lay some pretty seashells.

They had not wanted us to come to their house until it
was quite prepared, this lady and gentleman of Polynesia;
and when we went from our bedchamber into the next room
where the dinner table creaked with its weight, we knew by
these signs and by their tired and anxious faces that they
had worked themselves nearly sick. But they were so bliss-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 211

fully, affectionately happy over our appreciation, that their
eyes and lips broke into loving smiles whenever we looked at
them.

On a small side table stood two newly plaited green bas-
kets full of all kinds of flowers, and beside them a more en-
during present. This was a miniature double-canoe carved
by Tehei, and rigged with the native tackle for hooking large
fish — a long bamboo pole amidships between the two boats.
When a fish is caught, the pole is jerked high in air, the
line flies backward and the fish is brought to hand. This
toy is a perfect representation, even to the shell fish-hook.
And to cap it all, a gigantic wooden fish depended from the
pole — this last Bihaura 's work, carving, pink and blue colour-
ing and all.

Next we were crowned with white tiare and led to the
board. The Horn of Plenty had been spilled upon it!
There was roast sucking-pig, done to a nicety; and fowl,
dressed with delicious gravy and browned onions ; breadfruit
and the usual native vegetables ; raw fish in our pet dressing ;
fresh-water shrimps; baked fish; banana poi, cocoanut milk
— and I cannot remember any more, except the good coffee
and French bread, and many kinds of fruit.

The centrepiece was a bouquet of strange flowers resem-
bling ears of wheat, anywhere from one to two feet long.
At the end of each was attached a blossom of some other kind,
even to white jasmine.

A step forward in intimacy was made, Bihaura taking
her place beside me. Tehei declined all urging, pretending
that he was needed to look after the cookshed. But he was
absent very little. The two were evidently agreed on this
arrangement, so we let them have it their own way. Bihaura
was so tired she could hardly eat; also, she was in a flutter
lest she do something wrong. She watched our every mouth-
ful and the manner of the taking — which fork, or spoon,
or dish. But after a while she became more at ease, and
later was drinking our health in flagons of cocoanut, and
jumping up and down in her seat at our suggestion of bring-

212 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

ing the Victor ashore and giving a concert. You see, we
are cudgeling our brains for ways to offset the favours we
are continually receiving. Tehei never comes near us empty-
handed. Martin, noticing that the Seth Thomas clock on
the wall, an "octagon-drop," was not working, offered to
repair it, and the gratitude of the owners knew no bounds.

We had to be careful what we admired. I remarked an
elaborate straw hat tastefully trimmed with a blue feather,
and asked Bihaura if she made it. She nodded and said
something to her husband, and he took up the hat and pre-
sented it to me. Of course I refused to accept it; and so
sensitive are they, that they instantly divined the situation,
and acknowledged the refusal in good part. But Bihaura
went into the other room, and returned with a thirty-foot
length of hat braid, plaited of straw so fine that the entire
roll hardly covers my hand. This I could take — but not
her best chapeau. It was a relief that they did not pick up
the mats from the floor and give them to us.

After dinner we all sat on the porch, with fairy fungus
lanterns over our left ears. Tehei was so weary that he
slipped off to the end of the porch and lay down. From
somewhere came to me the memory of an old sweet custom
in the Marquesas, of friends exchanging names, thereby
inaugurating a relationship. So, tapping Bihaura on the
breast I said, distinctly, "Charmian," and, tapping myself,
"Bihaura." It was an inspiration. She understood, and
repeated the formula gravely and reverently, whereupon we
kissed as sisters. Jack so approved that he tried it with
Tehei. And now we often call him ' ' Brown Brother. ' ' This
is the favour they love. The worst of it is, that they now
try to get even with us for this greatest of all honour we
have bestowed!

We suggested himine, hoping that Tehei, on the spot,
might unravel the mystery at the singing house. The sing-
Vig was in full blast when we arrived and we could see
aggrievement still on the face of the elder, although he was
punctiliously polite. The pyramid of fruit and gasping

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 213

chickens was untouched. It was not long before Tehei
brought order out of the chaos of misapprehension. It
proved true that we were expected to accept this friendly
largess ; but Tehei, quickly catching the drift of our protest
against the magnitude of it, explained that we should be glad
to have say two of each kind of article. Amity was restored,
and Jack laid aside two hens, two bunches of taro, two clus-
ters of bananas, and so on.

Then we all sat down happily to the music. The captain
and Martin, classically wreathed, lounged on a curving
bench — an Alma Tadema strayed into the barbaric picture.
There were more singers and more sitting dancers. One rose
in the flickering light and performed the most beautiful
dance of welcome, bending his lithe body back, with extended
arms; pressing his hand to his brown breast as he swayed
forward ; in every pose expressing that all Bora-Bora
was ours. And through it he sang, with a voice like a bell,
so ringing, so smooth, so rich in tone and expression, that
it stays in my ears like a song heard overnight in a dream.
He was the most captivating boy — captivating and uncap-
turable, in his half-wild spirit. If we had reached out to
grasp the welcoming hands of his dance, I am sure he would
have vanished furtively into the woods, with his sinewy
young body, his red mouth curling back over flashing teeth,
his bird-like eyes, his light, small feet with the toes spread
like a bird's. Sometimes he leaned forward, looking closely
into our eyes in the uncertain light, like some questioning
forest animal or sprite.

I do not believe the grey elder will ever quite forgive the
unintentional slight we put upon him and his followers.
Although he failed in no detail of courtesy, it was but a limp
hand we wrung upon parting. If he could only understand,
as Tehei understands.

. . . The many windows in our bedroom were a delusion,
all but one which had a couple of panes out. And upon bid-
ding us good night, Tehei and his vahine were at great
trouble to shut both doors tightly. When a savage, accus-

214 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

tomed to the air of all outdoors, comes to live in a house
with windows, he seems to think they are made to nail up —
else why should they be furnished with glass?

We got the doors open, meanwhile more than vaguely
aware that we were inoffensively spied upon by inquisitive
neighbours; but the windows were tighter than the storm-
windows in a Maine winter. We had not noticed a mosquito
during the evening, so turned into our fluffy beds trustingly.
— They didn't sing, they didn't even bite; they just threat-
ened, they alighted, they pestered ; and there was no way for
the breeze to get into the sealed apartment and blow the
wretched things about.

. . . There is no getting around the fact that our host
and hostess are suddenly become of high importance among
their neighbours. Did they not arrive as guests on the
"masheen bateau," and were they not taking first place in
entertaining the white visitors? But do not think for an
instant that this figures in their kindness to us. One look
into their faces precludes such possibility. The little woman
sat beside me at the himine, and if I leaned toward her in the
least, she would nestle closer, and clasp my hand — bridging
with sheer lovingness and trust all time and difference of
race. Returning up the moonlit road that night, Bihaura
and I with arms around each other, Tehei stalking with
exalted awkwardness arm in arm with Jack, with a hundred
following us, we were so full that, once alone in our room
we could only look at each other with moist eyes. Finally
Jack, wandering around with a hopeless look, arms hanging,
said in a discouraged voice: "I can't understand it. It's
overwhelming. I simply don 't know what to say. ' ' A min-
ute afterward he added: "Wouldn't it be an awful thing
stupidly to hurt them in any way?"

It gives new lights upon cannibalism as practised on white
sea captains who requited love and courtesy like this with
deception and abuses worse than death.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 215

Sunday, April 12, 190&

Aside from an early walk with our guns, this has been
a restfully uneventful day, if there is anything uneventful
about lying at anchor off a South Sea island as extraordinary
as Bora-Bora. In the evening we were due to join Tehei
and Bihaura, to go to the phonograph concert. Tehei 's re-
suscitated Seth Thomas was pointing to ten minutes before
seven as we entered. It had struck me that I should do
my brown sister the courtesy of at least one appearance in
strictly conventional attire ; so I had brought a rose-flowered
ahu. I knew Bihaura was pleased, although never by look
or word has her perfect ladyhood betrayed sign that there
was anything out of the way about my clothes — whether
bathing-suit, pajamas, or bloomers.

The machine-made concert in the himine house was such
a success that we knew we had hit upon the one thing to
square favours. What mattered it that the machine had less
springs than usual, warning us, by sundry whirs and clicks
and obstinate halts of the crank, that it would throw up the
job if we did not look sharp? The man behind, one newly
baptised Tehei London, had a warm and perspiring time of
it.

. . . The comfort and sense of home Jack and I now feel
aboard the Snark is inexpressible. My little white cubby is
a place of refuge and privacy, clean and convenient. The
deck is immaculate with lime-juice, and clear of boats — a
roomy, breezy place for work or play or sleep. Think of
scrubbing decks with the juice of limes! Why, I help
squeeze them in the tub for this purpose, submerging my
arms to the elbows in the bleaching, softening fluid. I
also tried trampling out the juice with my bare feet, to Jack's
great amusement.

There is only one drawback to life aboard — the swarm of
cockroaches, large, medium, and small. We have joined the
fleet of ' ' cockroach schooners, ' ' the attractive name by which
Society Island trading vessels are known. We are fighting
the bugs, hand, foot, nail, and — I had almost said tooth.

216 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Anyway, I can bring my fist down on a cockroach with the
best, provided it isn't one of the largest. My qualms are
still insistent that I shall not squash a shell-backed mon-
strosity full of blood that is white!

Aboard the Snark, at sea,
Society Islands to Samoa,
Wednesday, April 15, 1908.

There goes the graceful white cutter headed back for Tahaa
under a cloud of canvas, while the Snark surges westward.
From the stern of the cutter a white-robed woman waves
her handkerchief, and upon the stern rail of the Snark Tehei
is bowed in prayer and tears — rioniata, tears and sorrow.
He did not know how hard it was going to be, the big brown
child-man, this parting from his little brown woman. He
wanted to go, and she was willing ; but the pain of parting,-
beginning yesterday, when Jack and I made up our minds to
take him, was worse than they had bargained for. She was
brave ; but to-day, coming to eat the last meal with him, she
sat in my room, bent over with grief, while I frantically
pawed my belongings to find gifts for her, beginning with
a fine hanky to wipe away her tears. Tehei went about with
salt trickles running down his cheeks, reiterating "Maitai,
maitai ariana," with rebellious courage, when we laid a
sympathising hand on his shoulder.

He joined us this morning with his scant luggage, also
bringing for me one of Bihaura's enormous tree-cotton pil-
lows wrapped in a many-times-folded mat some seven feet
square, and a smaller mat, exquisitely fine. In addition,
Tehei brought more vegetables and fruit, and Mr. Buchin
rowed out with some South Sea cotton — not the tree-cotton,
— a basket of ripe pomegranates, and a parcel of vanilla-
beans. Then arrived thirteen chickens we had bought on a
wonderful horseback ride around the island — accompanied
by presents of fruit until the yacht was fairly wreathed with
bananas, pineapples, baskets of oranges and limes, and her
decks choked with yams, taro, pumpkins, cucumbers, and a

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 217

dozen other comestibles. Bihaura's final offering was a
sucking-pig — such a homesick, disgusted, obstinate puaa
never came aboard a ship. It persistently pulls its foreleg
out of tether and essays perilous journeys to the rail. Tehei
himself cannot make that wee porker fast.

"They have placed us on the High Seat of Abundance,"
Jack mused, his eyes very blue with feeling.

And now we are really westing toward Samoa, about 1200
miles from Tahiti. We have fair wind and sea, and are
glad to be sailing. I am looking forward to a few uninter-
rupted days for work, and might as well begin right away
and tell about yesterday's stone-fishing:

I had forgotten all about the conches that were to rouse
the inhabitants in the morning. When the heavy resonant
tones broke the stillness, I sleepily wondered if a tramp
steamer had strayed in, or perhaps a cruiser; then turned
over and slept again. It was just as well. Although the
starting-time had been seven, and Jack had given up work,
we did not get away until ten.

"Here they come!" Martin shouted, and there they cer-
tainly came! It was a gorgeous spectacle. Imagine the
deep-blue lagoon, encircled with green islands of all sizes
and forms, and, coming toward you a barge that rivalled
Cleopatra's — a gigantic double-canoe, "manned" by a round
dozen splendid brown girls, all in white with red scarves
knotted about the hips, garlanded and crowned like tropi-
cal May Queens. In the stern of each of the joined canoes
sat a huge muscular savage, likewise crowned, naked
to the waist, both smiling under the hot sun like the hap-
piest creatures ever created. On a platform across the
bows Bihaura and Tehei, decked in scarlet and crowned with
orange-coloured cosmos, swayed and bent, bowed and ges-
tured in the graceful abandon of their native dancing. We
could hardly recognise the prim and housewifely Bihaura
in this radiant undulating woman ; nor had we realised how
handsome our swart brother could be. Sometimes they
leaned forward from the prow, for all the world like Poly-

218 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

nesian Winged Victories challenging wind and sea with de-
fiant, irresistible figures of bronze. And all the time they
sang, and the girls sang in chorus, knocking rhythmic
paddles against the canoes in unison, between dips.

Three times around the yacht they swept, then ranged
alongside — a careful undertaking, for a long bamboo fishing-
rod was thrust forward from the bows, decked with festoons
of flowers. We welcomed the beauties aboard, and after
some formal speechifying by Tehei and the boatmen, we all
embarked in that gay ' ' bateau. ' ' As soon as we were settled
on the tiny platform, the fair paddlers got under way, and
resumed their singing, while our brown relatives took up
their performance where they left off. In the midst of the
musical clamour a languid-eyed houri rose, climbed up to
us, and, dancing the most alluring hula before me, bent in
her dancing and embraced me, the while dabbing my face
with fluttery kisses from lips cool and soft as blumeria blos-
soms. She repeated this fond greeting to Jack, and danced
back to her paddle.

Looking down the double row of dusky girls, performing
so easily the arduous work of propelling such great loaded
canoes, we were almost startled by the seeming varied root-
types among them. Yet they were probably pure Bora-
Boran from time out of mind. There we saw a face that
would have done honour to a North American wigwam ; two
moon-faced sisters with languishing, sleepy eyes, were strik-
ingly Chinese; while one maiden would easily have passed
for a Persian. Another was elusively Japanesque; and a
slender paddler on the right was a good American type.
And so on down the line: some were intellectual in feature
and expression and shape of forehead; some innocent-faced,
some sophisticated ; some wise, some frivolous ; and each one a
beauty, with strong, brown body and limbs, inexhaustible
spirits, and the desire of fun in her brown eyes.

It was a pull of several miles to the shallow point where
the manoeuvring was to be, and our garlanded crew sang
all the way, with untired lungs, occasionally breaking out

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 219

in some old wild cry that had to do with the custom of stone-
fishing. Once in a while a little squall would rush down the
mountain and give them all the work they could handle,
while Bihaura shouted, "Hoe Hoe" (Paddle! Paddle!)— the
word we learned in the surf canoes at Waikiki.

To help along the cheer, I essayed a little hula dance of
my own, for was I not one of them this day, and did I not
wear a white waist and a red pareu and a yellow hei, with
the best! Oh, they were vociferous in their applause and
their cries of "Maitai! Maitai! Maitai nui!" It com-
pletely won them, that little tripping of mine off the beaten
track.

When we were hauled up on the white shallows, I was
borne ashore high and dry, pick-a-back, by a laughing vahine,
while one of the jolly steersmen did Jack a like service. The
palmy point was dotted with the tribe, and we were led to
a thatch on the sand, under which we reclined in the midst
of our crew, who took up their himines again, sitting in a
circle. One of the steersmen was an actor and improvisa-
teur, delivering himself of the most touching tones of appre-
ciation of our joy-giving presence. Outside gathered the
clans, and on the beach a crowd surrounded the captain and
Martin in the launch.

There seemed to be some delay, some hitch in the proceed-
ings. Things did not appear to be going forward, and we
learned that there had been disagreement among the factions
— one faction would not fish with another, and so forth.
Now, the grand feature of stone-fishing is the number of
canoes — a hundred should be in the crescent that spreads
out upon the reef and narrows and draws in to where the
women, standing in the water at the beach, holding a net of
cocoa leaves, close the crescent into a circle, and thus cap-
ture, the driven fish. Only about twenty canoes had an-
swered the blasts of the conches, and here we were, likely to
be robbed of our stone-fishing. At last, through the inter-
vention of M. Laborde and Tehei, it was arranged that the
twenty canoes would see what they could do. We embarked

220 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

in the launch, with Captain Warren at the engine, Martin
remaining ashore to take pictures.

When the twenty canoes had spread in a wide crescent
on the shell-green water, with the breaking wall of thunder-
ous breakers at reef-edge, we could realise the disad-
vantage of there being so few, and tried to imagine how a
hundred would look. There was a flag-canoe, and, when all
were in position, a man dropped the flag — a red and white
pareu on a stick — from side to side. At every drop, a kan-
aka at the bow of each canoe beat the water with a stone on
a string. It was a remarkable scene of action. Running
our eyes along the crescent, we saw the white spray-smoke of
the stone-thresh on the water, then the brown forms lifting
and swinging the stone again. Tehei, in our bow, swung
with the best, and when he lost the stone from its string, in-
stantly followed it overside, promptly rising with it in
his hand. I picked up his floating orange wreath and put
it dripping on his black head as he emerged.

The line of canoes drew in and in, beating and beating,
and we saw the vahines forming their barrier of legs and
cocoa leaves. Our launch behaved beautifully until almost
the end, when the canoes had constricted into a tight circle
and the vahines passed the great string or screen of leaves
inside the canoe-circle. Then the engine gasped and died,
the rudder at the same time coming down with a crunch on
a huge hummock of brown coral. Jack pick-a-backed me
ashore, and we approached a dismayed and disgruntled
gathering on the beach. There was not a fish in the enclosure
— not one ! Where were the boiling myriads of fish, big and
little, that fought and jumped and struck and bit at the
wall of legs — the fish that in desperation dashed themselves
up on dry land !

We made a cheerful, if sympathetic, face about it all,
especially as we could see that Tehei and his wife felt keenly
the failure to show what the stone-fishers could do. It seems
that the people here never can judge when a good catch will

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 221

be made, even when the canoes turn out in force. And the
bad luck happened on this day of all days.

Bihaura had by now learned that her mate was going to
sea with us, and although she continued to keep the pot of
fun boiling, on the paddle home to the yacht she broke down
and sobbed with her head on her knees. Mr. Alacot, a genial
half-caste merchant who had been in the party, interpreted
to us that she was also sorrowing because Jack and I were
leaving, and that we had been "so good to her." We asked
him to tell her that no one in the world had ever been so
good to us as she and Tehei, and that if the yacht were only
larger we should take her also. Once back on the Snark,
with the girls sitting around the after skylight singing cho-
ruses for the improvisateur, she became more like her usual
controlled self. But she clung close to Jack and me, and
watched her husband as he danced and sang and tried to in-
terpret to us the impromptu songs and speeches. Neverthe-
less, we caught him wiping his eyes now and again.

Long ago in Polynesia there was an organisation called
the Aeroi Society, that lived by its talents for entertaining ;
a sort of peripatetic Bohemian Club, going about from dis-
trict to district visiting the chiefs, with whom presents were
exchanged. The chiefs in turn descended upon the common
people and farmers, robbing them of their produce in order
to feed genius. Besides artistic ability of one kind or an-
other, one of the qualifications for membership in this pro-
fligate association was the solemn promise of a man to kill his
offspring at birth. One of our steersmen, a well built,
slender fellow, handsome of face and winning of manner,
certainly was the result of a slip-up in this cheerful custom
by some talented member of the ancient fraternity, for the
scene aboard the Snark was much as the chronicles describe
the milder phases of the Aeroi orgies.

Any one who wants to fit himself for unembarrassed pub-
lic appearance, should come to Bora-Bora and sit under one
of these improvisateurs. An you can take what he gives

222 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

you without feeling silly and looking worse, your reputation
will be made. I could not. The graceful creature (by the
way, he had fee-fee!) would approach, making up the most
poetic sounding runes and things with endless and varied
repetitions of my adoptive name, "Bihaura Vahine," the
chorus meantime shouting enthusiastic responses, my brown
sister bowing grave acquiescence to the honour paid me
through her, and Tehei assuring me by expressive maitais
aside that this man was a prince of poets — ' * Fine ! Fine ! ' '
Oh, the genuflections, the spreading of arms, the waving of
shapely hands, the sparkling eyes ! And all the while, little
individual hulas were palpitating around the ring of sitting
singers. These love-dancing people do not have to stand on
their feet to dance.

"Wada, instead of worrying about so many to feed, thought
it all very jolly and funny, and bustled about in his light-
footed neat way, hoisting ship's biscuit on deck, opening
coveted tins of salmon for the eager inrush, and boiling huge
pots of rice.

After a while, Jack and I withdrew forward, the better to
orient ourselves and observe this strange act in the Snark's
drama, performed under a swinging ship's lantern while
the boat rocked at anchor in the light of the moon. Even
now, so soon afterward, it seems far away and unreal, and
wholly sweet and wonderful and unspoiled.

Bora-Bora to Samoa,
Thursday, April 23, 1908.

One year ago to-day we beat our way out through the
swirls of the Golden Gate. One minute it seems a very short
year, when one thinks of the rush of events; and the next
minute, pausing on some of these events the twelve months
lengthen into years crammed with novel experience. I know
more about geography than I did a year ago, to say nothing
of human nature.

And we're getting on, we're getting on, even if slowly.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 223

We could not keep up the six-mile gait struck the first and
second days out from Bora-Bora, and since then have been
lucky when we could exceed forty miles a day. Winds are
light and variable, with a criss-cross sea that makes an all-
night sleep a pleasant memory only. We expected to sight
Manua by the ninth day, which will be to-morrow; but it
now looks like a twelve-days' run from Bora-Bora.

Jack and I were both fairly seasick for a couple of days,
then buckled down to work. We feel very luxurious with
our unwonted deck room — the boats are on davits now — and
a good-sized awning amidships. One of our cots is left on
deck in the morning, and we work and read, play cards and
nap, as comfortably as if we were in a house. The men
follow the sun around with a flap of canvas, and we are in
cool shadow all day. Squalls of rain curtain the horizon,
but none comes nigh us. All three meals are served on deck
on the 'midship skylight, and I do not even trouble to sit
up, preferring to rest against big blue denim cushions filled
with silk-cotton from Bihaura's enormous pillow. Tehei is
quite satisfied with this disposition of his wife's gift. He is
beginning to cheer up, although when Martin developed the
pictures of the double-canoe, showing Tehei and Bihaura
dancing, he leaned against the companionway and wept like
a good fellow. Every night at sunset, he kneels reverently
at the stern rail and prays toward the East. He is a good
sailor — keen, willing, with sharp eye for disorder, and a good
hand at the wheel. Little experience as he has known in
white men's boats, he is a far better sailor than poor Ernest,
whose three years before the mast have left him innocent of
efficient seamanship. Along with his uselessness, he has
a decided penchant for " bossing" everything and every-
body whom he imagines under him — Wada and Nakata for
instance. And, last and worst, he has an unpleasant and
dangerous disease, which Jack is doctoring and which, on
so small a boat, is very undesirable for all of us. We look
forward to dropping him at the first available port.

Our supply of fresh food is dwindling to the noble

224 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

yam. I enjoy it three times a day, in the variant forms that
suggest themselves to Wada's fantastic Japanese brain.
Why, to-day we thought we had French-fried potatoes —
and behold the hearty yam, done to a nicety in olive oil.
Big ships whitewash their yams, which keep for months this
way. We have not been able to dispose of all the bananas,
and they are dropping overboard with reckless wastage.
The hens have delivered only two eggs altogether, so chicken
stew and fricassee are frequent.

Never did the Snark look so well, nor promise to look bet-
ter. The men are working hard, painting and cleaning and
polishing. Jack has them knock off at 4 :30, and the watches
are easy in this uneventful weather. In fact, Martin, taking
the wheel from eight to ten, has all night in. The engine
room is unbelievably clean, and the engine is painted dark
green and light brown, with shining brass to top off.

Wada's department has spread to quite a farmyard, al-
though the feathered stock is diminishing by two a day.
Two fine young roosters committed suicide by flying over-
board, but the rest contented themselves with merely
trying out their wings and returning to the rail. The land-
lubber Growings at daylight are very confusing to the dream-
dull mind. One's opening eye expects to see the "glimmer-
ing square" of a house-window. And the pig, the little,
little puaa. He slipped his moorings under cover of dark-
ness, and we have since speculated as to whether he met his
untimely end at the business end of a shark, or cut his own
throat with his cloven hoofs.

Jack and I have been boxing daily, as of old, and now,
with our enlarged deck space, Martin has taken it up with
Jack, who gets more exercise than when he " fights" solely
with me. The boxing amuses Tehei inordinately.

Outside of the dawns and sunsets, and Jack's indignation
over my impertinent suggestion from below that my venti-
lator was not a deck ash-tray, the only other special inci-
dent I can think of is the bleaching, or attempt at bleaching
Nakata's hair. I brought a generous bottle of peroxide from

Papa Williams

Village Beau, Samoa

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 225

San Francisco, at his request; but Nakata's enthusiasm to
become a blond had not augmented during our absence.
However, when we now explained that the black would grow
out again soon, he fell into the plan with zest. He was only
afraid he would meet Japanese in port somewhere who
might laugh at him. But the bleaching of his wiry, purple-
inky poll is not easy. We have used nearly all the bottle,
the captain and I, and can only detect a dull auburn tone
when Nakata stands between us and the sun. In passing,
I must mention that we have discovered that Nakata's first
name, Yoshimatsu, means " always happy, " and Wada's,
Tsunekichi, "always good."

Jack spotted a bonita to-day, but failed to supply Wada
with fresh fish. Even Tehei's beautiful feather-lure,
plucked from the dejected tail of a doomed rooster, did not
look good to the bonita.

Two new articles have kept Jack occupied, one called ' ' The
High Seat of Abundance, " relating our experiences with
Tehei and Bihaura, and the other "The Stone-Fishing of
Bora-Bora." In Polynesian Researches, he had found the
following :

"On the arrival of strangers, every man endeavoured to
obtain one as a friend and carry him off to his own habita-
tion, 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. ' '

Aboard the Snark, at anchor off Tau,
Manua Group, American Samoa,

May 28, 1908.

I am sitting on a little camp-stool that sways threateningly
at each offshore heave of the sea. Around me is a gather-
ing of Samoan gentlemen whose frank admiration of a woman
who does not have to bleach her hair to make it brown, is
quite overwhelming. You see, these Samoan dandies and
their fafinas (which is the vahine of it here) do have to
bleach theirs, and to that end use lime made from coral.

226 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Why, when the big whaleboat came out to us just now, rowed
by these splendid kanakas, we were all agog over a magnifi-
cent savage in the bow, a man of herculean size, apparently
white-headed. He was a veritable South Sea Colonies
George Washington. But it was only lime, white, thick,
plastered lime made from coral, although his truly grand
lines and bulk and crawling muscles were no illusion. Those
who have taken off this rigorous bleach are left with hair of
various auburn hues that make Nakata's dull flush green by
comparison. The reddish hair lends a red-brown to their
great black eyes, and a warm tawny tone to their faces. The
splendid bodies are clad only in loin cloths, which partly
conceal a fine tattooing that covers their glossy skins like
tight knee breeches. The upper back part represents a
canoe, the two ends reaching in points half around the waist.
A Samoan is not a grown man until he is thus decorated.
He indubitably must be a man then, by right of pain, if
nothing else.

Another reason for admiration in the regard of the circle
is my facility with this fountain pen, for I do not waste much
time getting over the paper when I am trying to record hap-
penings on the spot. When they first swarmed aboard from
the whaleboat, all shook hands and said "Talofa," (remi-
niscent of the Hawaiian Aloha), we replying in kind; and
then I made for parts below and fished up Turner's Samoa,
in the back of which is a vocabulary of native words. I
wanted to find out a few things from these new Americans,
and began pointing at the words I needed. They were able
to read the words, and pronounced them for me, one after
another immediately translating into English — as, "Uru —
English, breadfruit." The rogues — they all spoke consider-
able English, and had not let on !

Tau Island was sighted this morning, but with light wind
it was well into afternoon before we sailed under the lee
of the high land. The wind failing, Martin started the en-
gine, which behaved well until we were close to our precarious
anchorage outside the tremendous breakers ; then, just as we

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 227

most needed power, something went wrong. Two boatloads
of natives came out, and towed us with a will to the place
they said was the best holding ground. This is a volcanic
island, rolling up from the shore twenty-five hundred feet,
densely wooded from water's edge to clouds. It is quite
different from any of the islands so far. There is no bar-
rier reef, only the rock reef close in, and no safe anchorage,
in a blow, anywhere on the fourteen miles of coast. We are
in the best, but fearsomely near is the racing surf, a veritable
Grand Prix of Neptune's finest horses. Our Carmel never
flaunted more brilliant turquoise and emerald than do the
glorious speeding breakers of Tau. We are so close that
we fall into the hollows they leave behind as they pile up
ceaselessly on the smoking reef. Catch us risking our boats
in any of their indiscernible "boat-passages." Not we.
When we go ashore to yon palm-smothered village, it will be
in a big whale-boat manned by amphibious Samoans. One
of them just now posted me upon local etiquette in the mat-
ter of compensation for services such as have been
rendered us: " A little sea-biscuit for the boys ? They pull
boat hard. Ai?" So Wada is handing up a tin box of pilot
bread from the forepeak, while the square white teeth of the
expectant, smiling natives encircle us. "Some whiskey,
please?" Oh, that is different. Whiskey is taboo. They
know, and so do we. That is one point of perfect under-
standing.

Wednesday, April 29, 1908.

We did not go ashore, as it was nearly supper time when
we came to anchor. For convenience in running back and
forth, we should like an airship. Our visitors departed well
satisfied with their entertainment, and pulled away singing.
After dark several boatloads came out through the surf, and
passed by in the starlight, singing, always singing ; and in the
night we awoke and heard them in the distance, fishing by
torchlight under the Southern Cross, while on the beach
fires burned redly.

228 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

The Snark rolled heavily all night in the ground swell,
and we were driven below by a stiff squall ; so there was scant
repose. This morning Mr. Morrison, an American in
charge of the one store, came out in company with a two-
hundred-and-sixty-pound ''high man" of the village, who
teaches English in the school. His name is Viega, pro-
nounced something like Vee-ahng-ah — this melodious ahng
sound always preceding the g in Samoan. The two invited
us ashore, so we swallowed our coffee and toast and made
ready. It was very exciting going through the surf, and I
found myself studying ways and means of winning ashore
over the reef, should we upset. Many boats are broken
up, even in the hands of the skilful surf men. We were
reminded of surf-riding in Hawaii, when at length a straight-
going friendly roller sent us shooting in.

Borne on the mighty shoulders of the tattooed, red-
headed Samoans, we were set high and dry on the broadest,
palm-dotted beach we have seen. Viega led us to the
house of Tuimanua, the King, who, greatly to our disap-
pointment, for we had heard much of him, was absent super-
intending the copra-making on Olosenga, the westernmost
of the Manuan group. Later in the day a flashy-looking
habitue of the royal neighbourhood, elegantly tattooed and
be-limed, broached the suggestion that he send a boat to
Olosenga with news of our arrival. We were glad of this,
for this pseudo-monarch is the last and most illustrious of
the kings of Old Samoa, and we should regret missing
him.

As soon as we were in the house, the high men began to
drop in, and we sat in a circle and had translated to us by
the gentle-voiced and courteous Viega the speeches of wel-
come made by the chief orator of the village — the Talking
Man. Not one of the speakers would have risked his elo-
quence to his own scant English. Viega, the teacher, was
able to do their high-flown language into very good English,
with admirable grace and dignity. The Samoans are cere-
monious above all the Islanders. Viega 's effect is quite over-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 229

powering, and I find it necessary to recall my stare occa-
sionally when I am lost wondering how he carries his mas-
sive bulk so well. And he is athletic — looks fat, but can
easily touch the floor with his knuckles without bending at
the knees. It turns out that he practises this and other
exercises daily — proving that he has brain as well as brawn.
In feature he somewhat resembles Prince Cupid of Hawaii.
The profile is good, mouth well shaped over even teeth, and
wonderfully sweet when smiling; the forehead is low but
broad, and the eyes, very large, are dusky black, with inso-
lently level, heavy lids — the insolence being solely in the
lines, for the gaze is kind and gracious. His eyelashes are
half an inch long at least. It is the physical aristocracy
again, the splendid result of generations of ample nourish-
ment and care and selection. Viega wears a white lava-lava
(all the same pareu, I can hear Wada comment), a shirt and
a white coat.

A room was made ready for us papalangi (white folk) in
this European and breezy stone house, and oh, yes — I must
not forget the 'ava. Kava, the Americans say at home, but
'ava is the correct native usage, while the real botanical in-
wardness is macropiper methysticum. There was no post-
ponement in our liking for it, and there is now a note filed
away to remind us to send for " pepper-bush " when we are
home once more. They made it in a large fourteen-legged
calabash called tanoa, wrought from one piece of hard wood.
The knobby yellowish root is coarsely grated, placed in the
bowl, and water added. The mess is squeezed by pretty
maidens whose hands are first punctiliously washed — at
least, that is what happened while we were looking on. As
the yellow root begins to tinge the water, the grosser grat-
ings are strained in a bunch of cocoanut fibre. When the
water retains the proper amount of the flavour and colour of
the root, the 'ava makers all stand and clap their hands.
This signifies to the household that the flowing bowl is pre-
pared, and is also a signal that the house is taboo to intru-
sion until the drinking is accomplished. Originally the

230 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

meaning of this clapping included the warning against evil
spirits.

A cocoanut calabash is now dipped into the bowl and
brought by one of the pretty maidens to the guest of honour.
On this occasion it was passed first to me, and then refilled
for Jack; Mr. Morrison came next, and was followed by
Viega, and thence on around the ring of "nobles," undoubt-
edly in the precedence of their rank. The same drinking-
calabash is used by all, going back to be replenished after
each drinker, even if he has but touched his lips to it. But
the best observance is to drain it. The person presenting
the cup raises it high, then sweeps low, finally bringing it to
the level of the drinker's hand. It is a beautiful and stately
ceremonial.

'Ava drinking is said to have been the most strict and
ceremonious function of Samoa 'Umi in the past, and the
pages of her history are redly punctuated with squabbles,
feuds, and wars, that arose over the question of precedence in
drinking. There is no doubt in our minds as to who will
first press lip to cup when Mr. Tuimanua comes to town.

Originally, the 'ava was fermented, but the people were not
given to drinking to excess, only taking a draught before
meals, like a cocktail ; and old men drank it in the morning,
believing that it prolonged life. 'Ava is taboo in Hawaii
now, on account of the intoxication it produced among the
natives. But this 'ava in Manua is newly made for each
quaffing, and is the freshest, most mouth-cleansing of drinks,
leaving an effect on the tongue like a gargle of listerine — a
"delectable toothwash that cleanses all the way down," ac-
cording to Jack. When my cupful started down, I thought
I should not care much for 'ava ; but before the cocoanut-shell
was emptied, I changed my mind. One cannot name the
flavour — that is as difficult as describing the taste of bread-
fruit ; it is just rooty, and somebody said it reminded him of
hops. Perhaps it might be likened to a sublimated, unfer-
mented, celestial beer. One writer has said that 'ava tasted
like soapy dishwater as much as anything else ; but we failed

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 231

to notice the similarity — perhaps we don't know the taste
of dishwater.

Mr. Morrison tells us that 'ava is mildly stimulating, and
that some persons find their knees wabbly after drinking a
quantity. But Jack and I have noted no effect whatever,
except that of refreshment. We are just as well satisfied,
too, that our 'ava is not made as of old, when the root was
chewed by the Samoan girls. No matter how charming they
be, one cannot help preferring to do his own chewing, and,
anyway, microbes are microbes. — Oh, surely, we'd have had
a try at it, just the same. We could not have let our beloved
Robert Louis go us better on a little thing like that.

Although one consequence of 'ava drinking is to check the
appetite for food, it is customary to offer food with the
drink ; but the ceremonial does not impose acceptance of the
taro, or breadfruit, or whatever happens to be set forth.

The household of the King is unique. Here, besides Tui-
manua and his wife, live Mr. Morrison, and a sister of the
King, whose name, Lepepa, means Good Tidings, such as
announcements of marriages or betrothals. She certainly
looks all of it, and more, for topping her spare presence is a
head of short black hair, red-ended, standing out frizzily
in all directions like a Fijian's, giving her a look of
pained surprise which is irresistibly funny. Lepepa 's main
occupation, besides being good to us, is keeping this aureole
in order, which she does by rolling it up tight in a point on
top of her head, pinning it with two or three insufficient
wire hairpins. I spared her one of my large bone ones, and
she promptly came with a beautiful tapa (siapo, here) of
her own manufacture. It is done in dark brown designs
on dull white, and decorated with big bars and disks painted
with a varnish-like vegetable juice. This square siapo is for
wearing apparel, held in place by a broad white siapo girdle,
picked out in brown leaf-forms.

There are several young girls, related to the royal family,
who sleep elsewhere but spend the day in the "palace,"
ostensibly helping around. Two beauties stood fanning us

232 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

at table to-day. One, vouched for as full-blooded Manuan,
is a variation in her race. Her hair is brown, half its length
burned by the sun to a splendid lustreless gold. Her skin is
tawny, and her black eyes, long and level, heavy -lidded and
indolent, borrow a tawny tone from hair and skin. She has
a square-cut neck on her short tunic of bright blue-flowered
stuff, and her neck and shoulders and back are matchless in
line and texture. Indeed, she is so lovely a thing that she
seems fairly to breathe out beauty. Only thirteen she is,
with an exquisite budding body ; and she lays her dull gold
hair on the nape of her neck, dressing it over the ears with
crimson blossoms of hibiscus, and looks upon us with a
calm sphinx-like gaze that tells nothing except that she is
unconsciously a perfect thing fashioned from the dreams and
colours that pictures are made of. I wonder if Cleopatra
looked so, when she was thirteen. This beauty's name is
Liuga, with the tender n before the soft g. And Liuga
means The End, The Aim. Isn't that beautiful ?— What
does she here in unappreciative Samoa-land, where her fair-
ness is but subject for mirth among her kind? She would
be The End, The Aim, of many a white heart if she went to
a white man's country, and possessed the mind to inform
her loveliness.

There is a fashion magazine in Tau. I saw it lying on the
Queen's sewing machine. And if I had not seen it, I should
have known it was in the village. The strange garments
that have been evolved would make a book in themselves.
There is great preference for semi-decollete and berthas;
and as this pinafore sort of apparel seldom goes as far as
the knees, a lava-lava of some unrelated material covers from
the hips down. Liuga finished off the square neck of her
blue-flowered upper garment with wide purple lace laid flat,
while her lava-lava is brilliant rose-colour. She is like an
Egyptian scarf, a rainbow. There — I am back to her again,
when I want to tell about Viega's wife, Sialafua, which
means The Road, The "Way. She helped in the hospitality
this afternoon; a magnificent woman, well up to her hus-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 233

band's weight. I should like to see her in a box at the
opera, in full panoply of silk and jewels and bare shoulders.
She would create a sensation, would Viega's wife. As it
is, she makes a marked impression in a lavender and white
ofu (Samoan for holoku, ahu, etc.), her black hair done
high, and plump taper hands folded in a lap that "ample"
doesn't express. She is the daughter of an old chief of
Upolu, and looks born to the purple.

When Mr. Morrison had enticed Jack out to the store, the
women and girls lost no time surrounding me, and asking,
in unmistakable and highly ludicrous ways, if I had any
"pickaninnies," which familiar word they have adopted.
When I made it clear that I was so unfortunate as to have
no family, the good souls left me in no doubt as to their pity
for my childlessness. But after some one pantomimed the
size of the Snark, and the perils that would beset pickanin-
nies on that overcrowded vaa (boat), they sagely nodded
that it was best so, and wished me well for the time when
my little ship should come home.

Thursday, April 30, 1908.

At last we have seen tapa-cloth in the making. I had
begun to look upon it as a lost art, until Jack and I, taking
a walk, stumbled upon a fale (house) where a pretty woman
sat cross-legged before a tilted board, pounding and scrap-
ing the wet lengths of stripped white tutuga bark — a kind
of mulberry — Branssonetia sapyrifera, if you really want to
know. After the pulpy substance thus made is pounded
into "cloth," it is laid over a board carved in one of the
patterns peculiar to siapos. A piece of rag is then dipped
into native dye made from tree-bark, and well rubbed over
the cloth. The colour remains on the high places pressed
up by the carving, and the thing is done. The woman dis-
coursed volubly to us about the process, and we, nothing
daunted, replied at length in our own, to her, unintelligible
jargon.

234 THE LOG OF THE SNAKK

The village strays picturesquely along the beach, each
f ale set up wherever its owner chooses, and his shell-garnished
canoe drawn up not far off. There are two roads in Tau
running parallel until they converge at the ends of the vil-
lage. Trees and flowers crowd to the edges, and we saw
passing through the air from bough to bough several of those
strange furry paradoxes, flying foxes. The houses are beau-
tiful— far superior to those of Tahiti and Tahaa, especially
inside. The roofs are domed much higher, and are more
often round than oblong, while the workmanship in beams and
thatch and sennit is exquisite. Samoan thatch is almost al-
ways made from sugar cane, and the eaves of the steep
roofs clipped short. The floors are the ground, raised sev-
eral inches by layers of pounded white coral, with stones
set around the edge to keep the coral in place. One
stoops low to enter, passing in between the upright pillars.
The interiors are lofty and roomy and cool, with a restful
gloom ; and when rain or draft is to be shut out, mats rolled
up under the eaves are let down, a section at a time, or all
around, as the need may be. The only furnishings are
handsome calabashes lacquered bluish white by the 'ava,
rolls of sleeping mats, and short bamboos raised a few
inches, which are used as pillows, Japanese fashion.

Upon going into a house, with "Talofa" all round, mats
are instantly unrolled, upon which one is invited to sit —
cross-legged of course. And the most approved posture,
especially when in presence of royalty, is with the right foot
resting upon the left leg, well above the knee. Try it. Jack
says he cannot succeed because of his stiff knees — stiff from
many accidents; so I am doing it for the family, although
I must admit it is a strain.

These Manuans are universally good-looking, except for
the prevalent disfiguring blindness. No one seems to be
sure of the cause. But judging by the myriads of small,
clinging, sticky flies that infest the faces of the children, one
cannot help wondering if they haven't something to do with
it. Some of the prettiest faces are grievously marred by an

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 235

eye gone white or whitish blue. Hunchbacks of both sexes
are a common sight, but they are as jolly as the rest. We
noticed a number of men without hands — dynamiting fish
being responsible. There is fee-fee, but no leprosy. It is a
pity there is not more fresh water in Manua. Rainwater is
the source of supply, and the natives have no chance to bathe
in rivers as all the islanders love to do; and there can be
little sea-bathing, on account of sharks. They are not volun- '
tarily uncleanly; they do the best they can, but lack the
fresh and shining appearance of people who may revel in
abundance of water.

We cannot stir out of the house but a large following of
all ages and conditions attaches to our rear. To-day one lusty
young fellow took it upon himself to be guide. He speaks
English, and says he was once a marine on the Adams. He
led us into various houses, where we bought siapos and fans,
shells and baskets. When some avaricious fafine wanted a
price that our guide considered exorbitant, he assumed a
lofty, detached expression and remarked: "Let uss go."
And go we would, on to another fale where perhaps a couple
of voluptuous damsels volunteered to siva-siva, first placing a
dish before us, into which Jack was expected to drop small
change. These Manuans, despite the fact that this is not a
steamer port, are not so primitive by far as our adorable
Bora-Borans.

The children have learned that certain purplish-red cat-
eyes, although common as pebbles here, are for some reason
esteemed by me ; and they come in droves, hands full. Jack
pays them a cent for ten desirable specimens, and they scuttle
for the store to spend their gains in ' ' lollies. ' ' When we re-
ject bad stones that they try to foist upon us, there is a
great uproar of laughter, in which the detected one joins
with good will. I am minded to plan a girdle out of the
cat-eyes. One green one has come to light, but such are
rare.

We were gone possibly an hour and a half on our quest
through the village, and when we returned, ten of our

236 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

coppers had already found their way back to the store, where
Mr. Morrison was dispensing lollies at eight for a cent. It
seems good to be handling American coinage. It provokes
the old query : ' ' Do you know where you are ? ' ' Frankly,
half the time I do not. Down on the broad glistening beach
I sit with chin on knees and watch the bit Snark tossing just
beyond the tremendous barrier of surf, and feel very much
lost indeed.

The King's front veranda was the scene of quite an ex-
tensive bazaar to-day, when the natives, rounded up by Mr.
Morrison at our request, brought siapos and fans and mats for
us to buy. All were good natured — congratulating one an-
other when a sale was made, and gaily jeering when an
article was not up to the mark. Mr. Morrison, who is the
butt of much friendly abuse because he will not take a wife
from among them, engineered proceedings, and kept prices
down to normal; and we became the possessors of enough
mats, fine and coarse, to furnish our floors in summer at
home, and to sleep on for aye if we choose. A large mat of
fine, soft weave can be bought for $2.00 to the entire con-
tent of the seller. Lovely sleeping-mats, child-length, come
two for a quarter, while an ordinary-sized siapo that would
take three women a week to make, brings half a dollar or
less. 'Ava bowls are held very high, because few are made
in this day.

When I lay down to rest after dinner, in to me came Soa,
one-time taupou, or Maid of the Village, now a sober young
matron of a few months. She sat beside me on the bed and
began to massage — lomi-lomi, the same as in Hawaii. Then
Lepepa dropped in, with half her unruly hair sticking
straight out on one side, and added her kneading. After
a time another girl strayed along and joined, while outside
on the porch Liuga, head nodding with red flowers, looked
through the window and wound up a musical clock for our
amusement.

I must tell about the Maids of the Villages. I do not know
who is taupou of this one, now Soa is wedded; but it is the

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 237

custom for the chief of a village to appoint a child to the
high office, which child is brought up carefully with this
goal in view. She must be a virgin of high degree, and she
is the standard, the representative, the paragon, of all pure
excellence in the community. If she fail in virtue, the chief
who appointed her must indeed be powerful to save her from
punishment if he would. Her function it is to entertain high
guests — to make the 'ava, to be gracious, and to look all her
loveliness, dressed for the part.

Now, also in each village is the manaia, the beau, the
flash-man in whom is embodied all the foppery and manly
style of his people. Part of the business of this masculine
butterfly is the conquest of taupous of other villages than his
own — his guerdon being the number of maids he may win.
Courting-parties besiege each village in this game of hearts,
and each group must look to it that its taupou be shielded
from the charms of the intruder. Her end is to marry a
chief who will be chosen for her, and there must be no trip-
ping aside. There are all sorts of intricate ins and outs in
the taupou system, and one would have to reside in Samoa
a long time to unravel the inwardness of the charming cus-
tom.

After supper, still tired, I stretched out on a mat on the
veranda, where young girls gathered around, who, I have
no doubt, commented upon the cut of my ofu. I said "Lomi
lomi," and was promptly surrounded, three on a side, twelve
small hands hunting out the tired places in my nerves.
Even the indolent Liuga took a hand, two hands, as well as
the other belle who fans us at table.

Boys from Viega's school drifted over to sing for us, and
sat in a row on the grass under a big fan tree. Their
himines are less varied in harmony than those of Bora-Bora,
but very musical nevertheless.

Friday, May 1, 1908.

He came, Tuimanua, in a pouring rain. Early in the
morning the word was passed along that he had landed ; but

238 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

it was some little time before we saw him, for he beached at
a distance in order to dress suitably. When he finally ap-
peared, he walked under an umbrella, barefoot in the rain,
clad in neat brass-buttoned khaki coat, over a white lava-
lava. His wife followed, with Sialafua, and we were in-
troduced by Viega. Then ensued a ceremonial period, dur-
ing which we sat around in the main hall and exchanged
compliments and courtesies. As for Tuimanua's Queen,
Vaitupu, she is just the dearest of solid, lovable, wholesome
women, with dignity and fine manners. So has her hus-
band dignity and grace, but something more. We had been
with him but a few minutes when we said to each other:
"He is every inch the part." He is tall, well shaped, with
sharp and restless black eyes, fairly light skin, noble profile
and head, firm mouth, slender sensitive hands, and the first
fine feet we have seen in Polynesia — long, slim, classic, even
to the long second toe. His carriage is kingly, aloof, lonely.

We had understood at Tahiti that Tuimanua spoke a little
English ; but no word did he utter to us except in Samoan,
which Viega interpreted. Once or thrice, a quick lift of
the Tui's eyebrows or a flash of his keen eyes, made me
wonder how much he really did understand.

Jack and I were getting quite at home in our surroundings,
when Tuimanua made some request of Viega. That engag-
ing creature rose to do his bidding, but passed out of the
room backward and bent double — and he a kinsman, a nephew
of the august Tui. We kept our eyes alert, and when
clapping announced the 'ava, we saw Liuga approach deeply
bent. I do not think the fair maiden likes genuflecting, or
else she has been growing careless in the absence of her
sovereign, for later in the day she failed somewhere and
earned a reprimand from him that sent her backing out of
the room as fast as she could progress in that fashion.

We had been curious as to how this round of 'ava would
be served. Tuimanua indicated Jack to the hesitating cup
bearer, and Jack was obliged to drink first, although he tried
to offer the calabash to the Queen. But Tuimanua 's imperi-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 239

ous drawing together of his black brows suggested that the
best way was to comply with his wish. I came next to the
head of my family, then Mr. Morrison, the King, his wife,
and so on.

The formal audience shortly broke up, and Mr. Morrison
took us to see Mr. Young and his daughter, who had just ar-
rived in their schooner from Tutuila. The girl we found
very sweet and modest, and her father exceedingly interest-
ing, full of travel and experience. By marriage he is con-
nected with the Manuan chief blood, and a few years ago dur-
ing some lull in succession of rulers on Tau, he set his elder
daughter on the high seat. She subsequently died, and her
tomb, a modern one, is just outside the house. Tuimanua
was next on the throne, and there is no love lost between him
and the Youngs. However, neither mentioned the other to
us; and when, upon our return to dinner, Mr. Morrison
casually mentioned that he had taken us to call \jpon Rosa
Young and her father, the intelligence was received by a
well-bred inclination of the royal heads.

There is a vast difference in the way things are conducted
since the Tui and Vaitupu returned. Law and order prevail
in right regal fashion, and the women stand around
promptly. Tuimanua 's quick, roving eye detects the slight-
est remissness in table service — which he has learned in the
navy circle at Tutuila — and he makes his corrections with a
quiet unobtrusiveness that would bear emulation in many a
paler menage.

After the noon meal, Vaitupu took us by the hands and
led us into her and her husband's room, where we found a
transformation had been wrought. The dismantled black
and gilt four-poster was made up snowily, fresh mats laid
on the floor, a reading-stand ready by the bed, bearing a
good lamp, and upon the floor a heap of Samoan treasures,
all for us — siapos, mats and fans ; while from her own finger
the Queen took three turtle-shell rings, inlaid with silver,
and placed them on my fingers. Around my neck she hung a
long thick necklace of beautiful diminutive land-shells. But

240 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

the cream of the pile at our feet was a loose low-necked shirt,
made for the use of the taupou on state occasions, plaited of
sennit so fine that the woof is like soft cloth, or doeskin. This
is a valuable souvenir, being an old specimen, finer than any
of the work done in this day. It is trimmed about the neck
with a sort of fringe of white bark-fibre, fine and smooth as
silk ribbon, and interspersed with small fluffy red feathers
of a rare bird. I could not express my delight, and Jack
looked positively bashful. It really is embarrassing to have
heaped upon one such redundant piles of presents. Perhaps
we shall get used to the marvel of Samoan commonplace —
although customs may be different beyond Samoa, and the
novelty remain untarnished after all.

An elaborate siva-siva, combined singing and sitting-danc-
ing, was rendered outside after supper, and later, as we sat
fanning in the twilight, Jack and Mr. Morrison swapping
yarns, and Vaitupu caressing my hands in her large, affec-
tionate way, Tuimanua arose and went in. In a few moments
a girl came with a message to Mr. Morrison, which was trans-
lated as a request that we step inside for evening devotions.
We found the King seated at the large table, his head on his
hand. There was something pathetic about him, for Tui-
manua has a bad illness of the stomach, for which he has
been to the hospital at Tutuila. We are told that he thinks
he has an aitu pursuing him — a malign spirit bent upon his
undoing ; and from the way he looks about him at times, it
is probable that the devil will get him, if fear will kill.
This evil presence, like the kahuna of old Hawaii, is a dog-
ger of men's footsteps in Samoa, and even Tuimanua, who
is more intelligent and enlightened than any of the remain-
ing chiefs, does not escape the stunting, damning supersti-
tion, despite his strict devotion to the Christian faith. It is
even said he hesitated a year or two before he would accept
the chiefdom of Manua, waiting for the people to give up
certain barbarous customs. But it is no use. His aitu is
stronger than his faith.

Viega offered up a long prayer in his musical voice and

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 241

language, at the end of which all joined in repeating the
Lord's Prayer in the native tongue. It was a picture to re-
member— the stricken quasi king bowed upon his hands, the
nephew of mighty sinew praying like a trusting child, the
sumptuous women filling their inadequate chairs in over-
flowing lines of ease, and, off in a corner, sitting on our now
new 'ava calabashes, a cluster of young beauties, gorgeous in
colours of cloth and flowers — and a bit inclined to giggle and
whisper.

A hymn ensued, and then the Tui indicated to Mr.
Morrison that he would be pleased if Jack would tell him
the latest news from America — say concerning the elections,
and any other matters to do with the Government. In
speaking, the King addresses the person to whom he wishes
his speech interpreted, quite as naturally as if he expected
to be understood. Jack glanced up at a portrait of Teddy
Koosevelt adorning the key-beam of an arch, and racked
his brain for items to interest the royal interlocutor. When
he had finished, Tuimanua went on to state some of his pet
plans for Manua, one hope being that the Government might
some day send a man to the school who would know law, so
that the youth of Samoa would be able to learn the newly
imposed American laws, and clearly explain those laws to
their elders.

And so ended our second May Day since the voyage of the
Snark began.

Aboard the Snark,

Manua to Tutuila,
Saturday, May 2, 1908.

There they go, the grave King, the motherly Queen, Viega
and his gorgeous wife, all singing, they and the brown
oarsmen :

"I nev-ver will for-ge-ett you !"

— the "Farewell to Admiral Kimberly" that has become fare-
well to every one in Samoa. Three times they have circled
us in the long whaleboat, singing and waving, and now

242 THE LOG OF THE SNABK

they grow smaller and dimmer as the boat surges with
sweeping strokes toward the familiar beach. A few little
out-rigger canoes, shell-decorated, float idly about, and
Young 's schooner dips her flag as we get under way and pass
slowly in the light air toward a fair breeze that we see
wrinkling the ocean out from under the land.

We did not want to go so soon, but time and the season
are pressing. The only reason for pressure of time is that
there are hurricane seasons farther on which cautious Jack
wishes to avoid. You see, the voyage of the Snark is not so
foolhardy as it might look. So it's anchor up and away, our
light barque freighted with bales of curious merchandise.
Which pleasant burthen goes free into the United States,
from our own harbour in Tutuila.

Such a busy morning! There was nothing on the yacht
fitting for gifts to those who had served us so sweetly; but
the store came in handy, and Mr. Morrison, knowing the
%istes of every woman in the place, helped us select. The
younger maids were gladdened by wool and silk shawls of
dainty shades ; Lepepa had a new ofu of a coveted print, and
some excellent German umbrellas came to light that were just
what Vaitupu and Sialafua wanted. Soa had a present too ;
and I was obliged to send a special messenger for Liuga,
who was still under the ban of Tuimanua's displeas-
ure.

. . . And then it was "Tofa — tofa soi fua!" all round —
words that bear all the lovable significance of the Hawaiian
"Aloha nui!" — with handclasps and cheek-pressures. Tui-
manua and Vaitupu, with Viega and his wife and Mr. Mor-
rison, accompanied us out to the yacht, where the two ladies
promptly fell sea-sick while inspecting my tiny quarters.
Only one at a time could squeeze in, for my cabin door was
blocked by the aforesaid bales of merchandise, and our guests
had to compress themselves to the dimensions of the narrow
mirrored door between Jack's room and mine. I did not
think Sialafua could do it; but she did, although piecemeal —
literally lifting herself through in sections, the while shaking

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 243

with mirth. It was Viega who failed. His mighty chest
stuck fast midway, and he surveyed my inadequate dormitory
from that breathless vantage.

. . . Tau village is now all a blur of palms brushing the
feet of the massive mountains cowled in cloud, and Olosenga
looms near, little-big Olosenga that lifts its minarets 1500
feet from but a mile-long base washed with a spouting on-
slaught of breakers. Beyond is Ofu Island (Petticoat
Island?), misty-green with distance, and trembling in the
westering sunlight. There is nothing like it in all the world
— the ever fresh delight of flushing green isles in the deep
sea.

We have caught fair wind, and the Snark is sailing
well. To-morrow will see her resting in another strange
port. It is bewildering, this flitting from place to place. I*
am already confusing the memories of Raiatea and Tahaa,
Moorea and Bora-Bora and Manua ; and if that be true, what
will it be like when Tutuila, Upolu, Savaii, and the Fijis are
left behind? But it is a joyous jumble of sensations, and
already we are thinking still farther overseas, glimpsing
fearsome night-sailings past the shores of the head-hunting
Solomons ; perilous navigating in the reef -netted currents of
Torres Straits, visiting Thursday Island by the way to see
the pearling, and, who knows? to fulfil Jack's promise of a
lapful ! And there are Summatra's pearls also ; to say noth-
ing of her tigers and tapirs, crocodiles, and great elephants,
with vegetation in proportion, flowers of three-foot diameter,
and leaves to match. And oh, Java — Java with its unim-
agined lures — its peacocks and flying foxes, five-foot bats;
and terrible tigers, black tigers from out of nightmare for-
ests of indestructible teak. And who whispered dragons —
real dragons — or are they only flying lizards? Java has
her flora, too, blossoms weighing eighteen pounds, they
say; and bazaars — think of the India stuffs, and silks, and
goldsmiths who will make curious settings for one's pearls
and cat-eyes and opals caught along the way!

... I can see there is to be no sleep on deck to-night in

244 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

this big swell, with threatening showers, so I am going be-
low and turn in under the friendly funnel of my ventilator.

Pago Pago Harbor, Tutuila, American Samoa,
Sunday, May 3, 1908.

We are not quite so happy this morning as we should be
in so lovely a haven. Jack sits on a campstool over against
the side of the teak companionway, with a shadowed coun-
tenance, and he is not even reading — which phenomenon in-
dicates that he is much preoccupied. Captain Warren, with
all hands and the cook, is sweating exhaustedly for'ard, tak-
ing in anchor chain for the third time within two hours.
And it was all unnecessary. We are a grinning spectacle
to the nautical shore, from the Governor in his high mansion
down to the least bluejacket on the beach; and it had to
happen in our own naval station, of all places.

. . . After keeping off until daylight, we entered Pago
Pago Harbor under sail, right in the middle of the channel,
and around the bend of the splendid landlocked port. In-
deed, so safe and sheltered is it that we needs must round
the bend before ever we could see the tall masts of the
familiar Annapolis, lying at the wharf. We were surely a
fair vision, sweeping in with all sail set, and were abreast of
the gunboat, when we heard her boatswain's whistle and the
order given to "lower the whaleboat." On the instant, Cap-
tain Warren let go anchor. He seemed to lose his vain head
over the fact that some one was coming out to us from a
cruiser. Jack had already suggested where he thought we
ought to lie, close in to a buoy, astern of the big ship ; but
Captain Warren, as I say, lost his head. It did not improve
his temper when the port doctor came alongside, instead of
the elegant uniformed officers whom he had met in Papeete ;
and so crusty was he, that the Doctor grew excusably cool
to the Snark crowd generally, and remarked drily as he re-
entered his boat, that we could not have selected a worse
anchorage. A few minutes later, Jack noticed that we were
dragging rapidly down upon an old hulk of a schooner

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 245

anchored in the middle of the bay, and Martin was ordered
to the engine, while the rest of the men laboriously hauled
up our skating anchor. When the hook was out, we moved
over toward the buoy Jack had indicated, and which, by the
way, the Doctor had volunteered was the best place for us.
On the way, the anchor chain, carelessly left with a single
turn on the bitts, got away and we were fast again. The
boys went at it once more, straining and panting in the heat,
for it is arduous work to haul in fathom upon fathom of
heavy chain-cable twice in an hour. And all the time the
Sabbath-lazy bluejackets lounged ashore listening to a big
phonograph and amusedly watching the elephantine ma-
noeuvres of a small mismanaged American yacht trying to
pick up her moorings.

At last, with great expenditure of gasoline, the captain
decided he was where he wanted to be (although Jack warned
him we were too close to a coral-rock jetty that ran out from
the reef), and down went the anchor. Shortly after, two
officers walked out on a wooden pier near by and called to
us that the Governor had sent word that we were too close
in for safety, and we might carry a line to the Government
buoy. So the weary crew set to again at pulling up the
chain, and before we had gained the desired position, the an-
chor got away from them again. And here we are, disgusted,
and keenly disappointed with our messy arrival in Pago
Pago, after our bright beginnings. Jack said gloomily : "I
really think, when all's said and done, I've got more sailor-
pride than all the rest of them put together — even if I don't
talk about it; and just look at the spectacle we've made of
ourselves this morning!" I feel so sorry for him; he spares
nothing in order to have things as they should be, and seldom
gets what he pays for. And the one and only thing in the
world in which he fights for style, is his boat.

. . . These young Tutuilans are a nuisance. They are
clambering up our sides in swarms, and we have to order
them off for we haven 't room to turn around ; and they are
too sophisticated to be especially interesting. They are

246 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

perky and impudent — but when Jack pretended that he was
going to throw one small urchin overboard, the boy began
to blubber. I was much amused a few moments ago when a
canoe paddled out, and a pair of exceedingly pretty half-
caste girls climbed over the stern rail. When they saw a
white woman aboard, their coquettish quest was abandoned
with comical alacrity, and they faded away over the stern,
returning my smile and wave rather dubiously. A big
Samoan came off to us and asked for laundry, presenting a
letter from some American officer recommending him to the
effect that he had done several washings for him, and that
he probably did them as well as any other laundryman. We
managed to keep our faces straight, appeared duly impressed,
and referred him to the crew.

This harbour is a prize for the American Navy, quite
hurricane proof — shut in as it is by mountains. The highest,
Matafaa, rises 2357 feet. On the starboard side, entering, a
mighty bluff called Tower Rock juts up into the sky. It
bears the picturesque local name of The Rainmaker, for
whenever clouds are seen about its summit, rain is sure to be
brewing. To all appearances we are in a mountain-girt
lake.

The red-roofed dwellings of the officers are very pretty,
and the Governor's House, set high on a little ridge that
projects into the bay, carries out the same colour scheme.

The Annapolis, we learn, is leaving on Tuesday for Fiji,
to bring back Governor Parker, to replace Governor Moore
who is bound home.

Monday, May 4, 1908.

My! but it is good to be in a white-man's house again — to
have two big breezy rooms, bathe in a real bathroom in hot
running water and cold shower, and to sleep in a bed the
rolling and pitching of which exists only in the mind. Even
my typewriter sits tight, showing no inclination to fall into
my lap nor tilt backward ; nor does it exchange capitals for
lower case in the mad style it affects at sea.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 247

We climbed the breathless hillock yesterday to call on
Governor Moore, and that gentleman repeated his invita-
tion given in Papeete, to make ourselves at home in the house
as long as we please, whether he is here or not. We at once
moved into the delightful suite allotted, Nakata playing valet
with marked success. The young officers and their wives
dropped in during the evening, and we renewed our Papeete
acquaintance; while the Governor regaled us with witty
stories. His most interesting anecdotes, to us, are those con-
nected with his administration in Tutuila, where he has made
himself respected and admired as well as loved by the people
of our corner of Samoa, barring a few rebellious souls. The
latter seem to be of the sort that kicks against the pricks of
government, and they are not to be found among the pure
native element. One man with whom there has been serious
disagreement, is, as the Governor puts it, "So crooked he
can't hide behind a corkscrew" — which must be pretty
crooked.

In general the inhabitants of American Samoa are fairly
content. As in the case of Tuimanua, who is practically
Governor of Manus 'Uma, or "All Manua," other chiefs
have been made governors of the various districts on Tutuila.
Thus, a chief named Mauga is governor of the Eastern Dis-
trict, and the Governor of the Western District is a half-
white, Fauvae — both, of course, answerable to Governor
Moore. Even Tuimanua has a little colony of Manuans over
across the bay. The fita-fita, or policemen, are all native,
usually of high rank, and appointed by the chiefs. They
must be big and physically fit in every way. Governor
Moore's stunning steam-launch crew that we saw in Tahiti,
is a good sample of the fita-fitas we see here.

. . . This forenoon I accounted for some of my lost hours
by bringing Jack's typing up to date, namely a new Klon-
dike story, just finished — "Lost Face." Then came an in-
vitation from Mr. Groves, a socialist who came aboard the
Snark yesterday, to attend a birthday feast across the water.
We accepted, and went aboard the yacht at four, to see about

248 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

packing our Manuan curios for shipment. Mr. Groves sent
a Samoan to the Snark, who rowed us in a chubby little
bobbed-off boat across the sunset flood and over the reef that
hugs the shore. On landing we were met by Mr. Groves'
pretty half-caste wife and a little son who looked as if he
had stepped right out of a Sir Joshua Reynolds canvas.

We ascended a short rocky trail to a cottage perched on the
hillside, and found great preparation going on for the feast,
even Mrs. Groves' ancient sire taking part with zest. Mrs.
Groves' attitude concerning him in relation to us was beauti-
fully tactful. There was no embarrassment in her regard of
the withered old savage, tattooed and naked but for a scant
cloth; but she was half-apologetic for his appearance, with
the explanatory but prideful manner in which she might have
accounted for some custom of her country strange to us. I
must say few of us can lay claim to a finer looking parent
than hers; and the daughter has the same clear-cut features.

A bright-faced girl came out on the little porch and made
'ava in a fascinating fourteen-legged bowl, and it was the
best we have tasted — a trifle stronger than the Manuan brew.
By this time, Dr. Rossiter (in a much more genial mood than
the official one in which he boarded the disgraceful Snark
yesterday), arrived with his wife, and we were all bedecked
with wreaths of flowers and vines before climbing farther up
the steep to the feast. It was spread on a terraced level strip
of hill, and some fifty guests squatted around. I was called
upon to cut the birthday cake, a towering achievement of
white frosting and pink decorations that taxed my imagina-
tion and skill to the uttermost ; but I did manage to separate
it into over fifty pieces, much to the delight of hostess and
feasters. Mrs. Rossiter was appointed to struggle with a
cake into which were baked numberless American nickels,
while the rest of us offered suggestions and criticisms and
generally superintended her.

Aside from the cakes and ice-cream, it was the usual native
spread, with fish baked in ti leaves, as in Hawaii. The
cocoanuts here are nearly as fine as the Marquesan.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 249

The board was deserted early by most of the guests, who
were anxious to avail themselves of the privilege of carrying
home what they could not eat. Even the native houseboys
of the Americans were smuggling away the lion's share of
their portions.

Hanging on the almost perpendicular mountainside, a
green precipice frowning above us, we had a wondrous view
of the twilight lake below — for lake it looked to be, the
opposite shore glowing softly with home-lights, and a bugle
from the Annapolis floating liquidly on the purple air. After
the feast we were entertained with a siva-siva in a large
native house, where three young maidens, girdled in skirts
of leaves and feathers and tapa strips, gave pantomimic
dances, somewhat on the principle of the Geisha. Children
joined in, moving their little feet and hands in dainty and
graceful rhythm. No civilised dancing of small folk is so
unaffectedly simple and beautiful as the siva-siva of Samoa.
These babes imbibe grace with their mothers' milk, and are
practically untaught, strictly speaking. They learn danc-
ing along with walking and talking.

It was "Tofa sui fua" at an early hour, and we rowed
back across the ripples of the bay to the eternal singing of
the boatmen. I believe these dark boys cannot row without
singing. It is said that the canoe-songs of the Samoans are
old as the race, but while some of the quaint chants survive,
most of these we hear are of modern conception, tinged with
the hymn element. The " Farewell to Admiral Kimberly"
cropped up again this evening as a matter of course, albeit
the occasion was not one of parting. There seems less at-
tempt at part-singing than with the Society Islanders. The
Samoans mostly sing in unison, only occasionally dropping
into harmonious intervals.

All about us rose the straight black walls of the mountains,
as we skimmed over the water, and overhead a tinsel moon
and electric stars wheeled among dense pillowy white clouds.
It was as spectacular as the doldrum skies, which transcend
all rational, sober naturalness.

250 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Upon landing, we went in for a few minutes to see the
tiny quarters of the Rossiters, and learned anew what an
American girl can do with some yards of flowered chintz
and muslin, a few cushions, a picture or so, scraps of card-
board and coloured paper in the matter of lampshades, and
an oil stove and chafing dish. The Rossiters arrived in Pago
Pago after all the quarters had been assigned, but it did not
take the bright " Yankee" girl long to create out of nothing
a small and select paradise for two.

Tuesday, May 5, 1908.

Governor Moore bade us good-bye this morning, on his
way to Fiji to meet his successor, leaving us in the care of
Paymaster Hilton and Pay Clerk Shute. The latter comes
from Searsport, and knows my people. It does seem to me
that persons from Maine, or connected with Maine, can find
more things to talk about than those from any other State
in the Union. This is likely to be widely contradicted, I
know !

The Rainmaker was busy all morning, and this high house
shook with broadsides of wind. So loudly did rain and wind
vociferate that we, at work, listening for the whistle of the
departing Annapolis, heard nothing of it, and she passed
out of ken before we knew.

Mrs. Frazier, the Navy Chaplain's wife, sent word for us
to go around the bay with her in the afternoon, Jack on
horseback, and I in the donkey cart with her. It seemed odd
to be talking over a telephone in such surroundings mean-
while looking out over the beautiful green-bound bay. Why,
last night, playing Seeling 's Lorelei for Governor Moore (his
wife had written him to ask for it when we should come to
Tutuila), I saw through the window the rippling Rhine,
while a jutting promontory personified the German Lorelei
to a nicety. Such pictures may a casement frame!

But to come down to earth — I had a virulent attack of
prickly heat to-day, and in desperation tried the first thing

Lava-choked Graves

Lava Pouring into the Sea, Savaii

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 251

that came into my head, which happened to be a thorough
lathering of Castile soap, allowed to remain on half an hour.
Then a brisk cold shower, and the cure was complete.

Mrs. Frazier drove through the naval settlement and be-
yond along a road so narrow that only this one vehicle, made
to order for the purpose, can travel at all. One other person
in Pago Pago has a cart, but forgot to measure the highway
before sending for it. It languishes unused in a shed of
sugar-cane thatch.

The shore and the feet of the steep hills are dotted with
little hamlets of Samoan fales. They are not quite so fine
as the Manua houses, but then, Manua was not so long ago
the centre of Samoa 'Uma, whence issued the governmental
edicts for the entire group. As we jogged through the quiet
little villages, resting so peacefully under Uncle Sam 's juris-
diction, I recalled something I had read about alert and
bloody years when the Fijians came over and conquered the
Samoans, driving them from their sea coast homes back into
the rugged interior, where they perforce became mountain-
eers. To this day can be seen the remains of great roads
that the transplanted beach-lovers constructed in the
troublous past.

In Mauga's village his wife, Faapia, stepped out of her
well ordered fale and was introduced to me — a pretty
woman, fair for her race, although of pure breed. The
aristocracy once more. On our return in the dusk, she spied
us and came out again, hands full of tasteful nosegays, which
she pinned on our bosoms and set over our left ears, and in
our hair.

I saw the handsomest islander — I might almost say the
handsomest man I have ever seen. The graceful Adonis of
Hooumi pales before this Apollo of Polynesia. Covered only
with a red loin cloth, he paced majestically along, as if
happy in princely superiority of manhood, his severe
straight-featured countenance breaking into the most genial
of smiles in eyes and mouth when he answered Mrs. Frazier 's
pleasant "Talofa." His hair, in sharp-cut contours, was

252 THE LOG OF THE SNAKK

plastered white, and he walked head and shoulders above
his fellows.

Mrs. Frazier is very popular along the waterside, and I
am sure we said "Talofa — tofa, soi fua," a million times
more or less, and heard the words as many times again. We
talked of Tuimanua, whom Mrs. Frazier has entertained in
her home many an afternoon. And she says he comprehends
English very well, although he refuses to speak it. Evi-
dently we did not irk His Majesty, for he sent a letter by us
to the Governor in which he said we had been ' ' Very good ' '
and that he had been pleased with us. We are indeed
pleased, for we lack words to describe our admiration for so
great a man among his kind. Our hope is that the kingly
Manuan may die before he ever fully realises how little of a
sovereign he is in actuality. It is no pleasure to break a
heart and spirit like his — which is a wholly gratuitous and
ridiculous observation, because spirits like Tuimanua 's can-
not be broken.

Aboard the SnarJc,
At sea, Tutuila to Upolu,
Wednesday, May 6, 1908.

Sit with me here and run your glance along the "iron-
bound" leagues of Tutuila 's coast, where snow-white surf
breaks against the inky lava of forgotten volcanoes, or forces
under and out through the crevices of spouting columns.
Then follow up along the twilit foothills to where the sink-
ing sun pours streams of gold down guttered mountains, and
the clouds and mists of evening swirl and stir the colours
into a riot of brilliant green and gold. Then gaze close into
the jewelled waves that break and foam against our white
boat, and say if it is not a beautiful, beautiful world of
shimmering land and flowing water and lambent air. . . .

. . . They watched us out of sight, the wholesome, clean,
hearty young pairs of the Navy, first coming aboard to wish
godspeed and to inspect the wonderful small boat that had

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 253

borne us so far. They brought us presents, too — Samoan
baskets, and precious eggs; while on the wharf stood our
Manuan burdens, boxed and labelled for California.

We took away a new sailor, one Henry, a Rapa Islander
(Society Group) who came aboard the first day in Tutuila
and helped Tehei manfully, having him ashore in the
evening and making that homesick Brown Brother much hap-
pier. Henry seems to be an able man, and when he applied
for a berth, Jack decided to accept him, for we must rid
ourselves of poor Ernest, whose uselessness, and penchant for
ordering others around, together with his unfortunate
malady, make him most undesirable. We could not lose him
at Pago Pago, for he could not pass the Port Doctor. And
as there was no vessel there upon which he might have
shipped, we can only hope for better luck at Apia. Captain
Warren, knowing that we do not want to keep the boy,
sharpens his wits on the poor fellow to the tune of a sort of
sarcasm that completely robs Ernest of any little sense he
has.

Henry speaks half a dozen languages, and is a quick, smart
man, about thirty, partially bald, with a wry smile belied
by the good natured expression of a pair of sharp eyes that
seem to miss nothing. He has been around the world sev-
eral times, owns to a slight streak of French blood, and was
fourteen years at school in Paris.

I do not know what ails Captain Warren, he has grown so
careless. We had hardly cleared the passage this afternoon,
going out, when zip ! went the anchor chain again, and we
were bucking against the sea, weighted with the heavy hook.
Many things that should have been done in port have been
left undone, and we are none too happy over the way things
are going. It is a terrible thing to see a man in his posi-
tion, with the chance of his life to make good, letting the
chance slip.

. . . Robert Louis Stevenson's words often come to me
when I consider the superfluity of men on this small boat:

254 THE LQG OF THE SNARK

world is too much with me." There are nine of us,
and that is all of two too many in a space 56 feet long, by
15 feet at the widest.

. . . The 'longshore lights are blossoming, one by one,
and a young moon is rising in the east. I hear the inviting
whir of an electric fan below, and am going to climb into
my dainty, clean, comfy bunk and read.

"Goo' ni'!" purrs Tehei from the wheel, and Good Night
it is, with Good Morning to come, in sight of Upolu and the
smoke of Savaii's unresting volcano.

International Hotel,
Apia, Upolu, German Samoa,

Friday, May 8, 1908.

Such a sleep, and such a rejuvenated sailorwoman this
morning ! We have just come back to our rooms in the hotel,
after calling upon Mr. H. J. Moors in his home over one of
his many stores on the island. We wasted no time getting
on the subject of Stevenson, and so absorbing was it to hear
of that beloved man from the lips of one who knew him
intimately, that Jack came near forfeiting his day 's work.

. . . At seven yesterday morning we were twenty-five
miles off Upolu, but the wind dropped and we did not come
to anchor in Apia Harbor until sunset. In the late after-
noon, sailing for miles along the barrier reef that frills a
green lagoon surrounding the land like a moat, we found
the island very lovely — reminding us of Raiatea in its gen-
eral aspect. There must have been heavy rains, for we saw
numerous high waterfalls leaping sheer green walls on the
mountainsides.

As the Snark slid along, we began to exclaim at the mag-
nificent condition of this German province — the leagues of
copra plantation, extending from the shore up into the
mountainous hinterland, thousands of close-crowded acres
of heavy green palms. There was an orderly prosperity
about the country that spoke well for German management.

The sunset was a vast miracle of gorgeous suffusing colour,

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 255

softened by drifting smoke from the volcano on Savaii. We
had been watching all afternoon the white slanting column of
steam from lava running hot into the sea. Back of Apia,
upon a green ridge of Veea Mountain, the German pilot
told us lay Stevenson's tomb.

Under the jolly pilot's direction, Captain "Warren's un-
accountable resentment of which he did not try to conceal,
we made anchorage without aid from the engine. Immedi-
ately we were beset by native wash-men, bringing their soiled
letters of recommendation. The pilot had but just left, and
Jack and I had got into our shoregoing ducks, when a news-
paperman came aboard for an interview. He looked upon
Jack with adoring eyes from the moment they came to-
gether, and has made good this love-at-first-sight by offering
us the use of his two race horses — his idols, The Fop and
Emele. He did not urge them upon us when we asked if
we could get good horses ashore ; but when he found we cared
enough for horses to lug our own saddles over the world
and back, The Fop and Emele were ours — only, he suggested
that Jack would better ride Emele. His name is Charles
Roberts, an Englishman, who, with his wife, keeps a small
inn. He said his house would not be comfortable for us, or
he would insist upon our staying there. We packed a grip
and went ashore with him, where we inspected his saddles and
bridles, hanging at one end of the dim bar-room, and met
"The Missis." Every matron here is "the Missis," and I
have become "the Missis" also. But then, Nakata has al-
ways called me "Missis," probably so coached by Wada.

We put up at the highly recommended International, where
we can see the Snark's saucy flag in the distance — through
the ribbed wreck of the old Adler, lying where she went
ashore in 1889 's hurricane. Meals are served in an
open second-story at the back of the house, whence we can
look out across the reef to the sea. Mr. Easthope, sitting at
one end of his long table, resembles no one so much as the
merry Falstaff — a handsome, florid soul with smart white
moustaches and imperial, who loses and finds his h's in true

256 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Cheapside fashion. It is whispered that of old he was a
pirate and a blackbirder. If this be true, all I can say is that
he must have done his deeds with picturesque dash and style,
and that he has reformed most gracefully, for never did
mine host look or act better the part, with his true wife at
his elbow, and his beautiful half-caste daughter never far
off. When guests order drinks, his invariable "Whisky for
mine/' never comes amiss. One can easily understand, after
a look at his jovial countenance, how men must be willing to
pay for unnumbered drinks for him, just for the privilege of
hearing him order them.

... It was four o'clock when Mr. Koberts, in his light
breeks and topboots, the picture of an English jockey, brought
the horses. We were ready, and I was writing, when there
came the clatter of hoof beats in the yard. They sounded so
ringing and cheery, those small iron feet of flight, that I cried
out in delight and ran to our balcony to look down upon the
saddled backs of two of the prettiest golden sorrels I ever
want to see. I fell over several things when I flew back to
Jack, who waited laughing and commented : * ' The kid ! ' '

In a few minutes we were mounting, I on The Fop, whose
knowing eye and staid ten years belied certain frolicsome
traits I was to learn. Jack bestrode Emele, in whose flaring
nostril and white-cornered eye one may read who runs (if
he can run fast enough) disaster for him who sits not close
and well. Of course both beasts wanted to race, and we had
our hands full.

Out of town, we cantered along ferny byways edged with
sensitive plant that shrank away from our hoofs, its slant-
ing shudder communicated throughout the green mantle like
a nervous chill. The copra plantations looked in thriving
condition, the palms, young and old, set in regular rows, acre
upon acre, with sleek red and white cattle transmuting ferns
and lush grasses into butter-fat. We worked around through
a pale-pillared forest of palms and found ourselves on fine
hard beach, where Apia's racing meets are held. The ride
home was along the beach, when we didn't leave it to cut

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 257

across arms of lagoons, our animals lifting their feet like
kittens above the water. It was a delectable ride, and all-
too-short. But the horses, for all their early friskiness, had
had enough for one afternoon in such humid climate. They
are the only horses we have seen that are clean of sores. If
horses are not groomed carefully here, they contract a dis-
ease that eats their hides in spreading sores, which also at-
tack the face, sometimes entirely destroying the eyes.

. . . After dinner, we went over and talked Stevenson
again with Mr. Moors, and borrowed from his library, which
is largely stocked with books brought from Mrs. Stevenson
after her husband's death. Then his daughter, Rosa, and I
discussed fans and mats and hats, and she filled my arms
with a variety of Samoan fans when we departed, while
Jack carried away the gift of a Talking Man's fly-brush
made of white horsehair on a handle of ironwood. We were
much interested in two chair-rugs they had, made from
shredded bark and resembling long white goat-hair. The
wrong side is merely a fine woven mat. The natives no
longer make these rugs, but Mr. Moors thinks he may locate
one that we can buy.

Apia, Upolu, Samoa,
Saturday, May 9, 1908.

Stevenson's Vailima, literally " Waters Five/' named from
the streams that once met on the place, lies about three miles
of steady slope from Apia. We started in the early after-
noon— although it seems "always afternoon" in this sunny
land — Jack with Rosa Moors in a high black jaunting cart
drawn by a stout black roadster, native groom behind with
a parasol over their heads. I rode a brown mare that Rosa
brought, as I am looking for all the exercise possible.

We fared happily along the lovely climbing road, shaded
by tropic trees, bamboo, palm, fau, hibiscus, and a dozen
more, with little to remind us of our tender quest until we
turned into The Road of Loving Hearts, the Ala Loto Alofa
of the Samoans, that leads from the main highway to the

258 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

gates of Vailima. This road was made by the hands of na-
tives of lofty caste, led and helped by the six liberated chiefs
of Mataafa's following, who had been befriended by Steven-
son during political difficulties with the foreign Powers that
ended in the imprisonment of these chiefs. Stevenson 's own
words will best make clear the value of this gift of labour,
and also give a glimpse of his sane sympathy with the
Samoan nature :

"Now whether or not this impulse will last them through
the road does not matter to me one hair. It is the fact that
they have attempted it, that they have volunteered, and are
now trying to execute, a thing that was never before heard
of in Samoa. Think of it! It is road-making, the most
fruitful cause, after taxes, of all rebellion in Samoa, a thing
to which they could not be wiled with money, nor driven by
punishment. It does give me a sense of having done some-
thing in Samoa after all. ' '

This astounding memorial to the Man who Understood,
should be marked by some abiding symbol, and England
should look to it. For this Eoad of Loving Hearts, first
called by its builders The Eoad of Gratitude, is a monument
far more significant than any tomb of massive proportions.
Now, even the board, made and lettered by the chiefs, that
once pointed the way to Vailima, is gone. Stevenson — their
Story Teller, their Tusitala, touched by the tribute, had al-
ready prepared a graving to immortalise his appreciation of
what his brown brothers had done; but the brown brothers
had other plans, and he was obliged to let them inscribe the
sign-post with their own words, which, translated, read:

"Remembering the great kindness of His Highness Tusitala,
and his loving care when we were imprisoned in sore distress, we
have made for him an enduring gift, this road which we have dug
to last forever. It shall never be muddy, it shall endure, this road
that we have dug." .

We are not the first world-wanderers in a small boat who
have made the pilgrimage to Vailima. Our friend Captain
Slocum touched at Apia in the Spray, during the residence

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 259

of the widow, who presented the plucky old mariner with a
handsome set of Sailing Directions of the Mediterranean
from her husband's library. Alas, there are now no books
nor other personal possessions of the author's left in the
great house, which has been added to in order to meet the
needs of the German Governor who owns it.

The caretaker was away, and we could not even go into
the building, but Rosa took us where we could peep into the
great hall. Stevenson had a terrible time planning that
house. He would bring his projected sketches and elevations
to Mr. Moors for certain disapproval, and that critic
regularly convinced his friend that the schemes were unprac-
tical and unsuited to the tropics and his needs. Finally, the
homeless Scotsman returned from a voyage to Sydney, en-
thusiastic over the perfected drawings of an Australian archi-
tect who had caught the fine sense of his client's manorial
dream. Mr. Moors gasped when the sheets were spread out
before him. The dimensions were for a castle, or a great
mansion at the least. Poor Robert Louis wilted under the
gentle sarcasm of Moors, and came down tremendously
on all the measurements except those of the main hall, which
he would reduce but little. It was his pet hobby, that hall,
and provided with a vast fireplace, to feed a proportionately
vast chimney. "What on earth do you want that for?"
demanded Moors. "You'll never be able to use it in this
climate, and it will cost you a fortune to haul the bricks and
stones and mortar up that hill, and to build it after you get
them there."

Stevenson was crestfallen but obstinate. He could see the
practical absurdity of the fireplace, but what was a living-
hall without a fireplace ? Besides, that was the way they did
it in Scotland, and it made the room look like home. No one
could argue against this, so the fireplace went in, and one
cannot but be glad he realised his dear desire. He paid
for it, and it was one of the few desires he did realise, for all
his arduous pursuit of happiness. That Heart of Gold must
have been heavy in his bosom, for he once wrote what is a

260 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

sad admission for his lovers to read — "I was only happy
once ... it came to an end from a variety of reasons, de-
cline of health, change of place, increase of money, age with
his stealing steps ; since then, as before then, I know not what
it means. But I know pleasure still, pleasure with a thou-
sand faces and none perfect, a thousand tongues all broken,
a thousand hands and all of them with scratching nails.
High among these I place this delight of weeding out here,
alone by the garrulous water, under the silence of the high
wood, broken by incongruous sounds of birds."

From the upper front veranda we pressed our faces against
the window panes of Tusitala 's bedroom, over the inner door
of which jarred the portrait of the Kaiser. Then we gazed
through the glass into the "Temple of Peace," the inner
sanctuary where the master wove his spells. How will our
own shelves of him look to us when we see them again!
Straightway into the back of our eyes will come the vision
of a small dismantled room overlooking the slope of Veea
Mountain and the shining sea sparkling through his garden
trees.

As we looked around over the present formal garden with
its disk of lawn bordered in brilliant box, and its gay-foliaged
crotons and dracenas, there came to us the breath of the
perfumed things of the land, papaia, frangipani, waxen
gardenia, and even the scent of orange blossom. And we
thought of how the place must have appeared to its old owner
when he began to grapple with the wild for a space that
would not choke his dwelling. But he enjoyed his combat
with the growing earth. He was "aye a magerful man/'
was Stevenson, fighting for health in life, since he must live,
striving to enjoy that life while it was imposed upon him,
gaining upon his work against bitterest odds. His strife
with nature was unique — he realised this when he said, in
connection with his eternal weeding and other garden work :

"I wonder if any one ever had the same attitude to nature
as I hold. This business fascinates me like a tune or a pas-
sion, yet all the while I thrill with a strong distaste ... a

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 261

superstitious horror of the void and the powers about me, the
horror of my own devastation and continual murders. The
life of the plants comes through my finger-tips, their
struggles go to my heart like supplications, I feel myself
blood boltered — then I look back on my cleared grass, and
count myself an ally in a fair quarrel, and make stout my
heart."

One child of nature there was, however, that elicited from
him no qualms of sympathy. This was the Sensitive Plant,
whose pretty acacia-like foliage and lilac-pink pompons are
nearly as great a pest in Samoa as is the lantana in Hawaii.
It overspreads rock and roadside, height and hollow, and one
can appreciate how Stevenson regarded his continuous en-
counter with the insidious creeper: "A fool brought it to
this island in a pot, and used to lecture and sentimentalize
over the tender thing. The tender thing has now taken
charge of this island, and men fight it, with torn hands, for
bread and life."

Almost one expects to see his half sad, half whimsical face
at an upper window, or his slender back bent over the weed-
ing of the grass. Then the utter silence of all things calls
one to reality with a pain at the heart — "Alas! for Tusitala
he sleeps in the forest."

We took no guide farther than the beginning of the trail
that rises on the other side of one of the Five Rivers. Rosa
Moors wanted to send her native groom with us, as she did
not care to make the climb ; but we preferred to go alone.

Through the dense bush and forest of the mountain a broad
swath has been cut straight up the uncompromising steep, the
clearing laced back and forth with a tiny pathway, water-
eroded, beset by rock and root and clinging creeper. We
set our faces to the hidden goal and plunged up through the
cool still gloom, treading blossoming things that resembled
violet plants bearing snowdrops, and now and then stepping
into a drift of pink petals blown from trees. As we clawed
into the stiff ascent we began to be gently depressed with
the spirit of the place. At intervals a dove mourned in the

262 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

woods, and our thoughts turned to the stories we had heard of
Tusitala 's death — how he was stricken suddenly the very day
he had been talking of death and of his desire to be buried
on the mount, in the spot where the frail frame of him now
lies. "Why, the man died of too much health," Mr. Moors
had declared; "he hadn't been better for years, but his veins
could not carry the good blood he had in him. Something
went wrong, and a blood vessel burst in his brain." And
when the natives heard what had happened, and it was
verified to them, waiting without, that Tusitala, their Story
Teller, indeed lay low in death, they set up a universal wail-
ing that must sorely have tried the endurance of the mourn-
ers within.

"How did they do it?" I panted as we struggled upward
— ' ' How did they ever carry him up this place ? And what
way was there to go — this swath has been cut since ? ' '

Oh, the bereaved Samoans saw to it all, Jack told me — five
hundred of them attacked the woods by night, when they
heard the wish of their Beloved to be laid upon Veea, and in
the morning the path was ready and the pitiful spot cleared.
And they bore Tusitala on their own chieftain shoulders, with
lines carried up the mountain as well to help. One white
man came into it all, too. It was found after the funeral
that the place of burial was outside the confines of Vailima ;
whereupon the owner, Mr. Trude, promptly made over the
piece of property as a gift to the family.

If ever you go to Stevenson's tomb, do not believe the
soft-eyed native who tells you that two young palms mark
the half of the climb. It seemed ages before we reached those
trees, and we breathed ourselves for a fresh start on a tug
as long as that we had already come. But it was not half
of the half, and all at once, at a sharp turn around a large
boulder, I was suddenly confronted with the grey gabled
sarcophagus resting upon its broader foundation, and cried,
startled, "Oh, Mate — Mate!" Then we went forward hand
in hand, and tears were in our eyes to think of that little
great man lying under the weight of woful stone. A fresh

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 263

double scarlet hibiscus was upon the foundation slab, where
it must lately have been laid by some furtive living mourner,
after all the long years. The querulous pipe of a mellow-
throated bird came from the thicket close by, as if resenting
our disturbing the sacred solitude, and the rays of the low
sun slanted through the rustling f au trees and across the grey
tomb. On the western face of the gabled concrete are cast
in Samoan the words of Ruth to Naomi, with a Scotch thistle
and a hibiscus to right and left :

"Whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will
lodge ; thy people shall be my people and thy God my God ; where
thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried."

On the opposite side we read the verse, with its great sim-
plicity, that Stevenson wrote for his own grave :

"Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie
Glad did I live and gladly die
And I lay me down with a will
This be the verse you grave for me
Here he lies where he longed to be
Home is the sailor home from the sea
And the hunter home from the hill."

We turned on the brink of the descent for a last look at
the quiet stone drifted over by withered leaves, and then
dropped to the trail, full of a peaceful melancholy.
"Here he lies where all must come, after days grown weari-
some, ' ' came to my lips ; and Jack said in a subdued voice :
"I wouldn't have gone out of my way to visit the grave of
any other man in the world." It is not going out of one's
way in Paris to see Napoleon's tomb, nor to find oneself
leaning against Wellington's in St. Paul's. "But this, but
this was you," Tusitala.

"Glad did I live and gladly die," wove into our spirits as
we let ourselves down the trail, and when we crossed the river
again on its narrow broad, we were glad enough over our
own aliveness to yearn toward a deep pool under a spread-
ing bamboo tree. But Rosa was calling from the sunset

264 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

garden, and we hastened to where, on the green wheel of
lawn, she sat amidst baskets of peeled oranges, mangoes, and
loving-cups of cocoanut ready opened.

It is all over. We have seen Vailima's many porches
where our Robert Louis broke breadfruit with his loved
brown brothers in days gone by, oh, such a little while in our
thought. One thinks of Yailima as with his living presence
directing the life there; or, when he must rest, sleeping as
he wished to sleep, with patient folded hands, upon the twi-
light mountain.

A few days before his passing, the Story Teller received
this poem from Edmund Gosse :

"Now the skies are pure above you, Tusitala,
Feathered trees bow down before you,
Perfumed winds from shining water
Stir the sanguine-leaved hibiscus,
That your kingdom's dusk-eyed daughters
Weave about their shining tresses.
Dew-fed guavas drop their viscous
Honey at the sun's caresses,
Where eternal summer blesses
Your ethereal musky highlands.

"You are circled, as by magic,
In a surfy palm-built bubble, Tusitala.
Fate hath chosen, but the choice is
Half delectable, half tragic,
For we hear you speak like Moses
And we greet you back enchanted,
But reply's no sooner granted
Than the rifted cloud-land closes."

It would seem that all the gifts of circumstance surround-
ing his death were as poetic as he tried to make his life.

"Glad did I live" — "I have lived, and loved, and closed the door."

Sunday, May 10, 1908.

We have been picking up something of the history of our
Tehei. A young woman we have met saw him in town, and
they recognised each other, for it seems he was cook on the
Eimeo, a schooner belonging to her cousin, Mr. Dexter, when

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 265

that vessel was wrecked, literally blown to pieces, in the
Paumotus during the 1906 hurricane that swept the Danger-
ous Archipelago and Tahiti. Tehei and another Tahitian
were the sole survivors of the Eimeo. They managed to
catch hold of a hatch-cover that had been torn loose by the
wind, and for three days the two were in the water under
the tropic sun, one in and one out alternately, for there was
only room on the hatch for a single person to rest high and
dry. In the end they sighted the low island of Tahanea,
and by waving the rag of a shirt that was left between
them, the attention of the natives was attracted, and they
sent out a boat. And Tehei never has breathed a word about
the adventure, not even to Henry, who could have trans-
lated.

Jack rose early this morning and had his work done be-
fore breakfast, for at nine Mr. Roberts and Dr. Davis, the
dentist, were to come to take us on a ride through the cacao
plantations. And lo! Mr. Roberts said Emele was a little
light for Jack's weight, and would I mind riding her?
Would I !

We forded a river and struck into the hills where we
rode through beautiful plantations, where pretty cacao trees
grow amidst springing young papaias that flourish like
weeds in Upolu, fruiting in such rank abundance that they
are rated as food only for pigs and cattle. No self-re-
specting hotel keeper would dare place papaias — or paw-
paws, or mummy-apples, as they are variously called — on his
table. Pig-food indeed ! Why, the lack of it and our fond-
ness for it, gave us a distinct and somewhat discomfiting de-
sire to be pigs. — Which we became, to the extent of begging
pridelessly for papaia three times a day.

We passed small piled heaps of the cocoa in its crimson-
pink shell, and it tastes not badly, even in its crude state.
Five kinds of rubber trees are planted here, also. And oh !
the woods of Upolu ! They are so strange, so unreal, with the
tortured trunks of the Malili trees that spread out toward the
ground in board-like upright slabs all around, and the native

266 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

banyans that grow very high before they reach out feelers
toward earth. Umbrageous forest it is, on the one hand, so
entirely overspread with leafy creepers that one can but
think of painted stage scenery ; and on the other hand, there
are woods gladsome with hibiscus and papaia, fau and climb-
ing palm and fern — until you are breathless at the contrast
of grotesque Dorean glooms so near by.

Messrs. Harman and Radford entertained us for lunch on
the Upola Company's Plantation, of which they are mana-
gers. They impressed us as weirdly unhealthy and spir-
itless, until we came to learn that only the week previous
both had been beset, on different parts of the plantation,
by vicious Chinese coolies who beat and jumped upon
them, Mr. Radford having several ribs broken. "Gaw'
f'damee," blustered Roberts, flicking a topboot violently
with his crop to hide his emotions at sight of his battered
friend. And Radford smiled as little wearily as possible in
appreciation of the other's feeling, for it hurt him even to
smile. Such a sad-faced man; and aside from his present
condition, I knew he was homesick. "Just to walk along
Piccadilly again/' he sighed, half -smiling at his triteness,
his well-bred thin face turned wistfully toward the open
window; and once, when the rest were out inspecting the
cocoa-dryer, we fell to quoting Kipling, and he became an-
other man, and they found him laughing and talking volubly
on their return. England's men — where does one not meet
them! Here a younger son; there a cockney; now a "gen-
tleman adventurer," and then a "gentleman ranker." But
oh! the "Broken Men" — they are the saddest. However,
not one of the men we met to-day would answer to any of
these. Radford is an English gentleman, if ever there was
one, and his house-mate, as gentle, is from Australia.

I found it very interesting, sitting with all these men at
the lunch table set on a second-story porch and served by a
Chinese boy, listening to their stories, which were largely
about horses — while our own horses rolled and fed on the
grass below. The ride back to Apia was by another way,

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 267

lying through more wonderful woods high-trailing their
mantles of creepers, and underfoot grassy, fern-brushed
paths. We ended with a good gallop into town, more than
ever grateful for the boon of fine horses to ride.

Monday, May 11, 1908.

There are some odd types here in the hotel, from good
Mr. Falstaff down to the funny slim Chinaman, Ah Chong,
who slants around the room in stiff little bumps when any
one asks, " Dance, Ah Chong, dance for me." There's an
ex-sea-captain from New England, who is teased a great deal.
He is only eighty -five or so, and has a new wife and a two-
months girl baby. The old man was at about the end of his
patience with badgering one day at dinner, when I asked
him, in a most respectful tone, particularly why he lived in
Samoa. "To raise children," he growled back; and I sub-
sided, well informed. But he is proud to talk about his fine,
modern home and his family. "My children speak four or
five languages, when they get ready; but they don't always
get ready," he boasted with inflated chest; " — though I
don't know as it's anybody's business," he finished lamely,
with a malevolent glare from under his beetling eyebrows,
remembering that he was still put out over the badgering,
and also that a New Englander just must be contrary. But
he is a most kindly soul, beneath the husky shell of him.

Then there is the stony-eyed, pink-skinned, brassy young
Colonial whose papa is a wealthy canner in New Zealand,
everybody knows, because the son has said so. He walked
up to Jack the first time he saw him, asked rudely whence he
came and whither bound, from what ship he had come
ashore. And, learning at the table that Jack was off the
Snark, he has since spent his leisure moments gazing fixedly
over a cuff-high collar, plainly wondering how that soft-
shirted, curly-headed boy came into possession of a name and
a yacht anyway. He means well — every one means well;
but birth and nature are terribly against letting it show.

268 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Mr. and Mrs. Chappere, from Auckland, are delightful,
and I follow the making of their accent with my eyes and
unconsciously moving lips. Of course, I am quite aware
that they probably regard my Americanese as just as re-
markable. Last night, after dinner at the Roberts', we
came home and went swimming with the Chapperes off a
little boat-pier at the hotel. He is travelling for a biscuit
company and knows something about other commodities than
crackers — jewels for instance. We began discussing Aus-
tralian opals, and he brought out a little hemisphere of fire
and dew that made us catch our breaths at the living colour.
Jack was so interested in the opal that Mr. Chappere pre-
sented me with it. I thought I saw his wife check a fall-
ing face; so I produced my little handful of bright Paumo-
tan pearls (added to in Tahiti), easily discovered, without
asking, which they both liked best, and so managed to even
the obligation. Every little while I take out my box in
which the drop of blue and rose flame trembles in the moon-
light of the pearls.

Jack has picked up some green cat-eyes, and some grey
ones, and I am looking forward to combining them in bizarre
settings when we reach Batavia and the goldsmiths. Com-
pare this adventuresome collecting of trinkets with buying
in the conventional fashion!

Curios are high in Apia, naturally, it being on the " tour-
ist route," the basket and tapa and mat makers catering
to the steamer trade. The Samoan fans are very good, much
heavier, firmer and more useful than the flimsy Tahitian
bamboo ones. There is a great variety, and we are told that
we shall do well on Savaii, where the natives are practically
unspoiled by visitors.

Tuesday, May 12, 1908.

Yesterday we took the ocean drive that leads past the me-
morial monuments of the heroes of 1899 ; and we also came
upon the remains of the last of old Samoan war canoes, pro-
tected under a long shed. It is a double-canoe, the boats of

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 269

slightly different size and build, and must have been an im-
posing sight in action in the days when it was decorated
and manned. Now it is too far gone to allow of launching
even for exhibition.

The American Vice Consul, Mr. Parkhouse, had invited
us to dine at the Roberts Hotel, to meet the Acting Gov-
ernor, Dr. Erich Schultz. We also found Mr. Moors there
when we arrived, and several others, among them Mr. Mil-
ler, editor of the Apia paper, and Dr. Davis and his beauti-
ful Tongan bride. The main intellectual excitement of the
extremely good dinner was the trying to convert Mr. Moors
from his unguardedly expressed opinion that Kipling's
poetry is " jingle. " He soon found what a warm nest he
was in. Roberts rushed from the room, cursing volubly, re-
turning breathless and gesticulatory with a volume from
which, with tears in his eyes, he declaimed "The Broken
Men. " * ' Jingle, is it ! " he panted, nervously running over
the thumbed pages for "Gentleman Rankers." "Listen to
this : 'For things we never mention' " — and he went on, his
heart in his voice, fanning the air with his free hand in a
professional manner that made us wonder if the stage had
claimed him at some period in his varied career. Jack read
several of his favourites, and I tried out Mr. Moors with the
"L 'Envoi" commencing, "There's a whisper down the
field." The worthy Moors laughed his unembarrassed and
spontaneous laugh, and said with twinkling eyes, "Oh, it's all
very well, I know. Tell you the truth, I haven't read much
Kipling — and I'm willing to admit that all this isn't jingle.
But perhaps I don 't care for poetry, for all this stuff you 've
read doesn't affect me in the least." (Here a snort from
Roberts, who was standing before a large print of "The
Drums of the Fore and Aft," glowingly reading me the
text.)

And then the Kipling discussion languished, and Dr.
Schultz, on my right, got the folk interested in questions of
Samoa. By ten, much in need of sleep, I slipped out, and
was driven back to the hotel in Mr. Parkhouse 's trap. It

270 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

was a brilliant moonlight night, with a soft warm breeze,
and I wondered where I was, speeding along this strange
water-front with a savage coachman, my little boat-home
rocking in the harbour, not far from the romantic old wreck,
and, to the west, the intermittent glow from a great volcano
painting the moonlight lilac of the sky.

And all this day the flags have been at half-mast, on land
and water, for the little daughter of a local photographer,
who died last night very suddenly of ptomaine poisoning.
Mr. Easthope's daugher is going about with wet eyes, and
there were tears in Rosa Moors' voice when she talked to me
over the telephone about the trip to Papase 'ea this afternoon,
saying she must return in time for the funeral. This acci-
dent will make us more than ever careful on the Snark, and
more than ever strict with the galley as to serving any stale
food. It was tinned salmon that caused the death of this
child.

On The Fop and Emele we started at eleven, Rosa in her
cart carrying lunch, and accompanied by her groom, a na-
tive maid, and Miss Caruthers, daughter of Stevenson's old
friend. It was beautiful country we clawed through, which
finally became so steep that we left the horses and went on
foot to the famous Sliding Rock. We had to let ourselves
down a long bank to get to it, and at the bottom stood be-
side a mountain stream, just above us a broad waterfall only
a few feet in height, and below us the flowing thirty-foot
precipice over which we were invited to launch our precious
persons, feet first. I was very brave until my bathing-suit
was on and the fateful letting-go moment approached, when
I found all kinds of excuses for delays; but after watching
the groom and the maid go down, followed by Miss Caru-
thers, all sitting upright with their hands on the rock be-
side them, I took my place with the bunch and looked at
Jack sliding to his disappearance in the dark deep pool.
He swam out laughing and shaking his head, and sat on a
warm rock a long time jeering at me to screw my courage.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 271

I promised Rosa I would follow her. She admitted that al-
though she had shot the fall hundreds of times, she always
dreaded it. This cheered me up, and I waxed boastful over
my own swimming-tank exploits of slides and 22-foot jumps,
long dives and backward dives — until Rosa went down, and
I was obliged to make good. I took one look at Jack's odd
expression, half of incredulous fear that I might fail him,
and wiggled to the descent. It was successful, despite a
bad sidewise start. The natives were much amused because
I put cotton in my nostrils and ears. But I had noticed
the backward jerk of Jack's head when he struck the pool,
and knew his tubes were stinging from the rush of water;
and I have not forgotten the month I once lay on my back,
as a result of high jumps with unprotected ears and nos-
trils. Well, I did it! I did it! And they say there's only
one other place in the world where I could do it, and that is
on the Malay Peninsula, where we have no expectation of
going.

Before leaving the pool we girls washed our hair, rubbing
lemons into it, even the rind. The Samoan girls do this for
its softening effect and also for the delicate perfume. The
hair must be dried as quickly as possible, however, in order
that the scent may not be in the least musty. One has to
work with speed in the tropics, on account of the deteriora-
tion of things. My hair now shakes out an odour like or-
ange blossoms.

Wednesday, May 13, 1908.

Last evening Jack delivered his lecture " Revolution " at
the Central Hotel, and it provoked a discussion that lasted
until midnight. Trust the German every time for knowing
something about what is going on in the world political and
social. Jack says it was one of the most stimulating audi-
ences he ever had. And to-day at table, the guests are dis-
cussing Socialism and plying Jack with questions. Very
dissimilar his experience in Papeete, when he spoke under
the surveillance of the chief of the gendarmes, in a native

272 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Folies Bergeres — the property owners, under the compulsion
of the local authorities, refusing to rent him a hall.

We are bound for Savaii to-morrow, and this afternoon
Jack and I were crossing and recrossing each other's tracks
in a brief buying-tour. Unless you speak German, be
warned that if ever you go to Upolu and hear ' ' The German
Firm," accept the name as a matter of course, lest you be
called upon to write or pronounce, " Haupt- Agent ur
Deutsche Handels und Plantagen-Gesellschaft, der Siidsee-
Inseln zu Hamburg."

I bought some shocking lava-lavas with which to make en-
vious the Snark's crew, one in particular, in wavy stripes of
all gaudy colours that be, causing Rosa to gasp when I shook
it out. After the shopping, we drove around town in the
sunset, and I met the lawyer, Mr. Caruthers, who told me
many things about Tusitala, and gave me a picture of old
"Jack," the horse Tusitala used to ride. It is now in Mr.
Caruthers' possession, some thirty years of age, spinning out
its latter days in pleasant pastures. Mr. Moors tells us that
he sold the horse to Stevenson for fifty dollars. But this
was not the first time Moors had sold old Jack. He
originally paid fifty dollars, and later on, being offered fifty
dollars, and not needing the horse, accepted the price. The
chance arose to recover the animal at the same figure, fifty
dollars, and it again became Moors * property. But he had
got into the habit of selling Jack, and again parted with him
to a friend for the consideration of fifty dollars. Not long
afterward, the friend, owing him fifty dollars on a bet,
Moors accepted the worthy horse in payment. The next
and last sale was to Stevenson, for fifty dollars.

We have not seen the famous old high chief of Upolu,
Mata'afa; but this afternoon while driving, Rosa pointed
across lagoons and low hills to a green blowhole in the side
of a wooded mountain, and told me that Mata 'af a has a very
beautiful native place there, which he greatly loves. But it
happens that for some time each visit he has made there
from Apia has been followed by sickness ; therefore the old

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 273

autocrat has decided (like Tuimanua) that he has an aitu,
and has eschewed all sojourning in his favourite fale. And
so they pass, and in a little while all the old representatives
of true Samoan nobility will be gone. ' ' Drive away from us
sailing-gods, lest they bring disease and death, " they used
to say; but probably now only the ancient fathers of the
tribes remember the proverb. The rest are glad enough to
welcome both sailing-gods and steaming-gods, for they mean
money in exchange for goods and labour, money with which
to replace their beautiful siapos with cheap manufactured
stuff, the siapo now being made mostly for sale. ' ' The iron
of the machine has eaten into the soul of the artisan/' as
Austin Lewis says.

The Samoans have been a very superior race, with cer-
tain strict ideas of morality. The old taupon system is an
example of what they strove for. And they took great care
that there should be no intermarrying among close relatives.
Also, it does not come within our knowledge that they were
ever rapacious cannibals. A morsel of a notoriously cruel
enemy was not to be snubbed, but it must be borne in mind
that the participation in such fare carried an ethical signifi-
cance.

They are an altruistic people. In their language there is
no equivalent for the word poverty, and the nearest they
can come to expressing the idea of servant, is "one who
runs an errand for another."

The Samoans once flattened the noses of their children by
frequent pressures, much as the Hawaiian mother even to-
day is continually seen moulding the fingers of her babe into
taper form ; but it would appear that the Samoans have re-
covered from the old aversion to the "canoe noses" of the
whites, for they are now a well-featured race, according to
our biases. Sometimes I weary a little for the sight of a fine
nostril in an otherwise clearly chiselled face, but one mustn 't
be too particular !

They have a fascinatingly intricate and interesting my-
thology. The very name Sa-Moa, meaning ' * Sacred to Moa, ' '

274 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

a heaven-born ancestor, gives a line on their concepts. But
I cannot take space for the dead in this essentially living
screed, so I wish you would read G. Turner's Samoa, a book
that goes exhaustively into the lore and which will be found
anything but dull, with its striking parallels to the my-
thology of many a presumably enlightened nation.

It is not all beer and skittles for the erring ones among
these Apians. This morning, at work, a strange clanking
arrested us, and from our balcony we saw a procession of
convicts dragging their chains down the street. They were
marked with black disks on the right shoulder blade and
left breast of their grimy shirts. Some were Samoans, some
' ' black boys, ' ' the universal name for the imported labour
from darker isles, such as the Solomons. I saw one guile-
less-faced Chinaman, and wondered what he had done.
That reminds me of another celestial employed by Falstaff.
His name is Jim, and he is small and trim and good looking,
with heavy eyebrows drawn into a slight scowl. He is just
out after doing eighteen months for pilfering from Fal-
staff's cash drawer; but the proprietor seems to think there
is scant danger of a repetition.

Bougainville, seeing the Samoans so much about in canoes,
named the group The Isles of the Navigators; but it seems
to be the general judgment that these people are not nearly
such good sailors as many another race of the South Seas.

We came away from our last visit to Mr. Moors with arms
full of books about the Solomons, New Hebrides, New
Guinea, and other countries where we expect to touch. The
owner takes chances of losing them all in case we should be
wrecked. Whenever I look at these books, I get to dreaming
of the real raw edge of earth we are so soon to explore.

One pretty experience we have had in Apia — whenever
we go on the street at night, an escort of brown small fry
springs up and sees us to our destination. The noiseless
forms walk close behind in the dust, sometimes one or two
coming abreast. Nothing is said, and when we arrive, all
disappear softly. They seem to expect nothing, and display

Samoan Fale

Bush Woman, Tana

Taupous, Samoa

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 275

little curiosity. "Wouldn't it be sweet to discover that this
is some ceremonial of hospitality connected with the
stranger in their land ! I am reminded of days gone by, in
Berkeley, when, walking with my escort on fair nights to
and from the college dances, a majestic St. Bernard on many
occasions padded softly alongside. If he attended us to the
Gymnasium, he failed not to make the round trip. Caresses
he received, but returned none. Perhaps his life was too
idle, in our summer land, stirring in him old instincts of pro-
tection. To whom he belonged I never learned.

At sea, between Upolu and Savaii, Samoa,
Thursday, May 14, 1908.

"We have just passed through our worst thunder squall,
the most terrifying thunder I ever heard, even on thunder-
ous old Mt. Desert Island. It was overwhelming, the
silken-blue suffusion of the lightning, followed by frightful
crashing of rended elements. This sort of display is very in-
teresting for a while, especially when one is within several
feet of a thousand gallons of inflammable gas-engine fuel, to
say nothing of a tank of kerosene and two tanks of lubricat-
ing oil, as well as 15,000 rounds of ammunition. But one
quickly tires of the fireworks, the uncertainty and the racket,
and longs for even a dead calm. We got it — the deadest of
dead calms, and the shortest, broken like a flash by a double-
squall smiting from opposite directions, like one I have de-
scribed farther back. Now, as I write, the clouds are lift-
ing and breaking before us, disclosing a nearer view of Sa-
vaii— a huge squat shape, warted with volcanoes. And from
one living crater, like some ceaseless humour flows a stream
of red lava, the venous blood of the squat and knobby shape.
Already we can see very distinctly the wind-slanted columns
of steam rising from where the hot lava meets the sea.
Henry is much excited, for the last time he visited Savaii
there was but one column.

We left Apia yesterday under power, since the wind, which

276 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

has been very capricious the past few days, had played out
altogether. We dipped our flag to Mr. Young, who was com-
ing in from Manua, but he was too busy keeping his schooner
off the reef to bother about flags, and waved an arm in-
stead. Our engine purred away until we had cleared the
long point, Falooloo ; then we let the Snark roll in a silvery
calm, with just enough air to keep on the course. The silver
moon rose astern from the silvery sea, half-enveloped in
frosted-silver clouds, and from time to time heat lightning
flushed the low clouds on the horizon. We slept on deck,
our lighthouse a volcano; and frequently Jack and I raised
our heads to look at the pillar of flame rising to the brood-
ing clouds and illuminating their under sides in long wastes
of fiery light. To-day it is a pillar of smoke that shows us
the way. It is so wonderful, so unbelievable — sailing in a
white-speck boat in the tropic sea, steering by a volcano.

Our decks are well stocked with native kai-kai, much of
it brought by the friends who came aboard to see us off ; and
a brown and yellow turtle that must weigh over a hundred
pounds, lies heavily and sadly in the lee scuppers. If we
speak to him, he droops his eyelids and withdraws his head,
but displays no tendency to snap. This is the second edible
turtle our boys caught in Apia ; and so unusual and valuable
is such a prize, that the turtles had to be watched nights
to keep natives from marauding them where they lay in the
water alongside at ropes' ends.

Mr. Easthope's daughter brought a beautiful siapo and
handsome fans. Eosa Moors came over the side with basket-
fuls of oranges and lemons and other good things, arranged
as only she, artist that she is, can arrange everything.
Charley Roberts, bursting with ill-concealed grief over part-
ing from Jack, smuggled into our staterooms some fascina-
ting long-necked bottles of liquid sunshine from France
("Mere trash, my dear fellow, mere trash !"), while his
1 ' Missis ' ' remembered that she had left five dozen eggs in the
launch. And there were " roses, roses, riotously," and good
wishes by the bale, and farewells between people who may

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 277

never meet again, but who are glad of having met that
once. For the Snark is a ship that passes, and passes, and
keeps on passing, the round world around, never to return.
Why, the gleeful winged thing doesn't even have to return
to ports of entry to clear, what of her yacht license, which,
by international courtesy, entitles her to come and go as she
pleases, like a man-o'-war, unbound by papers of any kind
save her Bill of Health.

This morning, looking back with the glasses, we could
faintly make out Young's schooner at anchor, still outside
the reef. That is where we would have been but for our en-
gine. All our heartbreaking difficulties with the engines
fade before our present joy in them — propulsion, interior
lighting, and searchlight.

This whole day I have done nothing more practically
profitable than take a bath in the violent warm rain that
fell with the squalls; and the profitableness of this act is, I
believe, a question of climate and open to individual dis-
pute. In general the sea has been too rough to allow of
comfort in any occupation. Hunting for braces to offset the
rolls is about all one can do. There is one gratifying cir-
cumstance aboard — Ernest is missing — gone to Australia on
a steamer. Captain Warren ought to be happy, with his de-
tested Frenchman removed; but I can almost believe he
misses the luxury of some one on whom to vent his brilliant
sarcasms. Henry does not look as if it would be healthful
for any one to use him as a butt, Tehei is our brother, and
the captain has an inkling that we do not care to lose our
Japanese boys. Poor Captain Warren — he would seem to
have forgotten how ardently, in Tahiti, he wanted to re-
habilitate his reputation, and how much Jack overlooked of
his misconduct. And nowadays, he is more or less of a
blight upon the gaiety of our adventure.

But we cannot be shadowed very much, in so vivid a life.
Think of sleeping under the biggest moon ever seen, with a
great sighing leviathan of a turtle at the head of your cot,
and an active volcano for guide-post. Then to wake in the

278 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

morning to a sunrise like the gates of Paradise, with a flight
of golden angels in between. . . .

The water is flecked with ashes, and as the day draws
to a close we can see the fearsome glare of molten lava
that plunges over the rim of iron-bound coast. The col-
our is lambent rose of opal; each moment the wonder
grows. After a wintry-grey sunset, followed by coloured
hazes of the volcano smoke, we are coming near enough
to spy the actual lava-falls as they drop heavy plum-
mets into the sea-wash. Henry's eyes are large with aston-
ishment at the increase of the flow, and he and Tehei ex-
claim sharply at intervals as some augmented cascade of
liquid fire explodes in the breakers, sending up rockets
never surpassed by man's ingenuity. We are all exclaim-
ing, for that matter. The volcano is classic to-night, the
cone showing clearer, the smoke rising funnel-wise to a great
height, now and then blown into fantastic spirals by the
high winds. There is something sinister and sullen about
the glaring, flaring, unnatural light. The water alongside
is 88° Fahrenheit, warmer than the air, which is oppressive
with fumes of sulphur. We are now only half a mile from
the hell that has so long been loosed upon the ruined land,
and are beginning to realise that something dreadful is en-
acting before us — something exceptional, not yet known in
Apia, for we were unwarned of such magnitude of disaster.
The wind holds, and we are able to skim along the edge of the
tremendous spectacle, each long black land-point divulging
greater devastation of liquid fire. Whole plains have been
licked up, the red flood forcing under a cooled and
blackened crust, and only emerging at the brink where it
writhes and twists out of its confines, ever hissing into the
sea, like a myriad driven serpents.

To put on paper what I behold is like painting a picture,
and I am no artist ; but there is fascination in trying to share
with the many what so few may see. And now it is grown
too dark to write, and I shall give myself up entirely to this
terrific experience.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 279

Aboard the Snark,
Matautu Bay, Savaii, German Samoa,

Saturday, May 16, 1908.

After we had sailed to a safe distance for lying off and
on all night, the calm that had preceded the afternoon thun-
der squalls returned and left us drifting. I had a good
night below, deciding that the universe was altogether too
light and bright and diverting for any repose on deck.
Daybreak brought lovely new colours, and a transformation
of the warty monster Savaii into a colossal milky opal, what
of the delicate tints in smoke and mist that obscured its
grim ugliness. When the veils lifted, we made use of a
light breeze to carry us back near the scene of fireworks, in
order to take pictures. The wind gasped out suddenly, Mar-
tin tuned up the "masheen," and we steamed as close as we
dared to the flowing abomination of lava — the living, moving
curse that had come upon the land. Raising our eyes, we
saw vast forests standing stark and dead upon the moun-
tainsides, the edge of the blackened coast licked up with red
flames from the water's edge, where cascades of slow resist-
less lava were quenched of their heat. The water in which
we sailed was a venomous yellow-green, while close to the
lava it boiled a bright yellow. At an eighth of a mile we
tested the flood, and it went up to 90°, 10° warmer than
the thick air we breathed, shortly, as if in fear of a pesti-
lence. We were disappointed, upon closer view of the
stream of lava that sent up the most conspicuous disturbance
of steam and smoke, to find that it did not run over the low
cliff, but came out under the surface, an upper crust hav-
ing already formed. But there was ample opportunity in
other places to observe the real red stuff, and red and aw-
ful it showed even in the broad sunshine, trickling or drop-
ping into the dancing hot surf that beat loudly against the
rocks. This present eruption is overflowing the dead lava
of 1905, from the same crater; but three years before, an-
other peak turned loose and destroyed a fine section of the
country. An island in the making! And we can see it
with our own eyes!

280 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

We speculated if the hot water would kill off our bar-
nacles, and whether or not we could stand warmer baths than
the sharks, in case we took a swim. Jack climbed into the
suspended launch, taking pictures, while we throbbed along
the shore, passing the daylit wonders of last night, on and
on, every turn divulging new destruction of a land that only
yesterday was green with cocoanut and banana, mango and
citron. Then we came where we must avoid the reef which
protects Matautu Bay from the east, and lost our nearer
view of the lava fields. But we could see that the conse-
quences of the present eruption are widespread, and as we
approached Matautu, our glasses showed a village smoking
by the water 's edge under limp and ragged cocoa palms, and
Henry cried out in sorrow, for he had been in this village.

Jack did not like the way the yacht was allowed to hug
the eastern horn of the reef entrance, but did not interfere.
Our good luck was to make through safely, and we found
excellent anchorage. This harbour is much exposed at all
seasons, but it is only the north and northwest winds one
need dread, and between the first of December and last of
March, mariners are warned from visiting Matautu.

We bore various letters of introduction to "Dick" Wil-
liams, Administrator of Savaii, and had been prepared to
find him ' ' a bunch o ' good fun, ' ' which seemed to be the en-
thusiastic opinion held by his friends in Apia. It was after
three when Jack and I started with Martin for shore, Henry
also going along. No boat of any kind had come out to us
from Fagamalo village, which was rather surprising. Little
did we know the reason that kept every one on land. Henry
pointed out Mr. Williams' place, and we picked our way
over the shallows of the reef, avoiding the little rips of
foam where the water broke on higher coral. The colours
were lovely — I can never get over the enchantment of these
coral gardens of orange and blue, brown and purple, seen
through the pea-green water.

The Snark anchored near the middle of the bay, so we had
some distance to go, and when we began conning the sandy

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 281

beach for a place to run in the launch, a picture out of Pick-
wick came towards us from a pretty concrete house, and
motioned where we should land. The launch nosed into
soft sand, and we were borne ashore by native policemen,
who had donned their helmets and gilt-buttoned khaki coats
for the occasion.

We promptly fell in love with the " bunch o' good fun."

"Come on in — the 'ava's just made," he called heartily,
preceding us into the pretty house with its arched corridors
and doorways. After we had drained our cocoanut beak-
ers, we presented our letters. Mr. Williams tossed them un-
read on the table, and proceeded to be very hospitable on his
own account.

"Now, I'll tell you how I am situated," he began.
"Here's this big house, but nobody can sleep in it for the
dampness. The concrete was mixed with salt water, and I
don't know if it's ever going to dry. But come and let me
show you where I sleep," leading the way to a long wooden
structure near the water. "This is my boat-house, and in
this end is my room." We went into a small but light and
airy bedchamber partitioned off from the boat, and he con-
tinued: "You folks move right in here and be comfortable.
—No, that's all right, don't you worry. I can sleep in a
native house — they 're glad to help me out, ' ' he insisted, tug-
ging away at a beautiful native-carved fan of hard wood
that defied his efforts to get it off the wall. It came loose
finally, and he handed it to me, along with another from the
table, and a dainty hair ornament of the same carven wood.

Then he commenced planning trips. ' ' Of course you must
go to the volcano ; and to-morrow morning we '11 drive to the
next village, back the way you sailed. It's a great sight.
The lava has come through and burned most of the houses,
and now is taking a new turn that's going to finish it. — In
fact, here you've got your launch, and we can run up there
by water now, and see the lava at night."

Before we knew it we were in the boat again, Jack steer-
ing, Martin running the engine, Henry bulging his eyes over

282 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

the rail landward, and Mr. Williams' rotund figure standing
forward to pilot. And mind you — this fatherly soul was
trying to hide from us a deep anxiety for his people, now
being driven out of their homes faster than he can find
shelter for them. Small wonder that no friendly canoes
came out upon our arrival!

It was a new experience to run along in deep water close
to the sand, only once turning out for a shallow spit, and
once again to avoid the delta of a little river. It grew dark
rapidly, and we wondered how we would be able to get back.
Natives kept pace alongshore; and when we approached the
end of the sandy beach, beyond which was the forbidding
coast of fire, brown boys and men splashed into the water
and carried the whole boat ashore with us in it — as they did
the first white men. So many were they, and so curious,
that Mr. Williams thought wiser for Henry and Martin to
stand guard lest they inadvertently do the engine harm.

It was dazing, the nearness and light of the dreadful dis-
turbance ; and as we trod the beach pathway, crowded with
sheltering palms, their higher fronds tattered and crisped
by heat and fumes, we could not but shrink from the glare
of the wicked cone that was laving this land. It is mak-
ing new land — extending the confines of the island, to be
sure ; but how many hundreds of years will have to lapse
before palms take root again and green grass clothes the
black nakedness of plain and slope and shore?

Eyes smarting, breath coming painfully, we walked hand
in hand, the three of us, past deserted houses, not yet burned,
and then turned from the beach and made our way through
a marshy place, criss-crossed by fallen palms, to where the
ruin was slowly, implacably advancing. And then I saw,
close at hand, what I have all my life dreamed of beholding
— living, flowing lava from the heart of a volcano, sluggish,
pushing, sticky stuff that forced out through a cooled crust
of clinker, like rose-madder from a tube — such a terrible,
devastating liquid, growing thicker and more darkly red,
more heavily sluggish as we watched, under the cooling of

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 283

the air. Lava follows the line of least resistance, of course,
which in this case is the marshy land near the river ; and we
could see slow lines of crimson flowing into the water, which
is fast going up in steam — another disaster to the inhab-
itants. We shielded our faces and tried to get some of the
lava on sticks; but it was too thick by now, and would not
adhere.

The blazing core of the crater is seven miles in a straight
line from Matautu Bay, but the lava, as it runs, covers a
course of twice that distance. Mr. Williams figures that
by the time it reaches the sea, it is moving about five yards
a minute.

We went back to the path, and continued to where the
main flow had crossed. It was glazed over, and we were
able to step on it with assurance, although it was still very
warm. We picked our way for some distance, in order to
gain better view of a large bight of the sea where red lava
showed in a continuous cascade along the shore.

By this time we were actually shivering in a breeze that
mercifully broke through the suffocating shimmering heat,
and were glad to get back into comparatively pure air. We
passed a large two-story frame house that we had noticed
when sailing by, and Mr. Williams told us it had been locked
up, furnished and provisioned as it was, by the owner, who
was absent.

We re-embarked in the fitful light that filtered through
the jungle. It was tense work, steering in the murk; but
after a little the moon rose behind us, solemnly, slowly,
redly, like a round world of blood wheeling sadly through
the rack and ruin of space. Very quiet we were, overcome
by what we had seen and were seeing, and touched by the
trouble and apprehension of this man who has the care and
keeping of the island in his hand. By now he made no se-
cret of his anxiety — how could he, when he had revealed
the problem he must handle ?

No, Apia knew nothing of the seriousness of this immedi-
ate eruption, its sudden accession ; but the schooner carrying

284 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

the news must have passed us in the night, from what Mr.
Williams said.

"We decided to rejoin the Snark, as it was too late to
turn Mr. Williams out of his quarters, and we were set
against this anyway. It was nearly nine when we climbed
aboard, and there was only some tinned corn and boiled taro
left from supper, as they had given us up. So I told
Wada to make a little fire and scramble eggs with mush-
rooms, for we were famished. Later, I heard the captain
grumble to Martin: "Say — you had a pretty nice supper,
didn't you? — Pity I can't get in on some of the good
things!'' — And he had had the same dish the day before,
and always has the same fare we do, as he takes his meals
with us.

. . . The men are playing poker in the cockpit, and I
have come up for a breath. There are several fish on deck
aft, glistening in the now brilliant moonlight. Our de-
lighted kanakas caught them over-stern early in the even-
ing, and pronounced a silver disk-shaped one "maitai
kaikai ' ' ; but over a large bright-red fish they wagged their
dusky heads. In Tahiti it is a poisonous fish, and in Sa-
moa is supposed to be harmless, according to Henry. I told
him he would better try it before the rest of us, if he felt
so sure it is innocuous in Samoa. Whereupon he showed a
smileful of very white teeth and said, "All right — I eat."

This close view of the ruddy volcano is very impressive.
It is a lesser peak, in the side of a mountain over 5000 feet
high called Pule, meaning power, master. The crater was
about 3000 feet at the first modern eruption three years
ago; but Mr. Williams avers it has broken down at least
a thousand feet. The overflow does not now come from the
lip, but breaks out below — no one knows just where, because
most of the issue makes its way under the coating of in-
cinerated earth which so quickly skins over.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 285

Matautu, Savaii, Samoa,
Sunday, May 17, 1908.

Before we had finished breakfast on deck, a boat arrived
with a gift of flowers from the Administrator. They were
ceremoniously presented by one of the khaki-coated fita-
fitas, and were folded loosely into a green plaited cocoanut
frond — creamy blumerias, scarlet double hibiscus, and a
fragrant fluffy mass of tiny blossoms and grasses and ferns.
Now think how sweet a thing for a busy, worried man to
do! I trimmed my big Cook Island hat with hibiscus, be-
fore going ashore, and told Mr. Williams that it was a shame
under heaven for some right woman to go lonely for such a
husband. He has the kindest, gentlest ways — and an eye for
a pretty girl, too; but — ''Bless me — what would a wife-
woman do here?" he girded. "Women like luxuries, and
society, and diversion — what! — If a woman loved me, she
would be happy here? Yes — well, well; but where is the
woman to love me ? ' ' . . . And a little later : * ' Besides, my
children need me. They're all my children, these men and
women and young folk. They call me Father, and Papa
Williams — yes, they do! And when they are naughty and
are brought before me I stand them up and talk to them till
I bring the tears to their eyes." He chuckled lovably at
some remembrance, and in answer to a question went on:
' ' How do I punish them ? Why, I say, ' Father, do you call
me? Now what kind of children are you to act this way
toward your father who loves you?' — Say, they're like
lambs. They nearly die of shame and contrition. I rule
them by love — I do! I have never struck a man of them
since I've been in this position. But I had occasion to do it
long ago, two or three times only (I've been here twenty-
four years, you know). They have to realise that a man
is strong, if he's going to get any respect out of them.
Yes, I struck them two or three times long ago, and I did
it well. They know I am strong, and they respect me. But
I rule by love — I rule them by love." He was silent for a
minute, and no human being could doubt his next words :

286 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

"And they love me, in their way — not very deep, it's not
in them; but it's lots of comfort to me. And they know I
care for them. I've proved it to them before, in different
ways, and I'm proving it now. I want like everything to
take a trip with you folks, pilot you around the island —
we'd have a great time. But I can't leave, with this sure
destruction coming upon their houses. They would lose
heart, and get into a panic. It would be quite unexpected
by them if I should leave at such a time. I rule them by
love. Why, think! there are thirteen thousand people on
Savaii, and not one prisoner among them in the lot. ' '

He beamed broadly at thought of this proof of his suc-
cessful administration. When he passes a humble woman
of the common people, he says, "Talofa lava, ta maitai!"
which means, "Much love to you, lady." And the "ta
maitai," lady, brings the pleasure into her eyes. The vil-
lage Talking Man lowers his umbrella in respectful courtesy
to the Administrator. And the act is without servility.

"I haven't even looked at those letters you brought," he
said. "Say — I never read letters of introduction, until
folks have left. Letters don't make any difference to me —
I don't want them to. I want to treat folks just the same
as if they hadn't any recommendation," he twinkled.
Then, with one of his irresistible gurgles: "I never had
but one unwelcome guest. He made himself unwelcome.
Never mind how. But I told him the second day that it
would be much better for us to part right then than later.
And he took the hint, and went. He's the only one we ever
turned away, isn't he, Barts?" This to the tall trader with
whom Pa Williams takes his meals. Mr. Barts acquiesced,
and both men laughed reminiscently.

Mr. Barts' cottage has several cosy rooms, and he turned
over his large bedroom to us, taking a smaller one for himself,
so that the older man is not turned out of his boat-house,
after all. Every one seems satisfied, and we certainly are.
Mr. Barts is an athletic, fine-looking German, with courte-
ous manners, and quiet hospitality. Meals are served out-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 287

side on the porch, by a Nine Island cook, whom Mr. Barts
oversees with a househusbandly eye. Everything comes out
of cans — all fresh green stuffs are ruined by sulphur fumes
from the volcano, and we are learning new tinned delicacies.

To-day we drove to the deserted village, behind a couple
of gasping horses that became so uneasy with the heat and
foulness of air that they had to be held when we left the rigs
where lava had terminated the road. Retracing our last
night's steps, we found that the lava had steadily advanced,
burning several native houses. The fine frame one was as
yet untouched, but the low wall of lava was almost up to it.
Father Williams called to me to keep from under the cocoa-
nuts, which were drooping perilously in the ravaging heat.
The relentless molten rock surrounds and eats out their
globular bases, and the fair and stately boles fall only to
warp and scorch on the unsympathetic new surface of the
earth.

It was a fascinating but doleful scene. Looking toward
the mountain we saw only the blasted life of the jungle,
"the wilderness of birds, the wilderness of God," the Chris-
tian natives say — dead, quite dead; and near at hand, in a
little stone church, the people prayed for protection from
the slow sure fate that was encroaching upon their happy
groves and homes, now only a few yards away from the
house of praise. Papa Williams looked sadly out of his
Irish blue eyes at the pretty church, then at the ugly black
bank inching over the green sward, urged from within by
red and living force, and remarked dryly:

"I'll bet on the lava."

We stepped warily over the hot and brittle substance
that had covered the ground we walked upon the night
before, and I was in some trepidation lest my linen petticoats
flame up from the fiery blowholes and crevices. We saw
nature's cruel manufacture of tree-moulds — such as they
show on the slopes of Mauna Kea in Hawaii — the mould left
in the earth by the bases of trees burned in the quickly cool-
ing lava. We peered into little hell-holes of vicious white

288 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

heat that showed the sort of strata over which we were
treading. "Step on the smooth, curling, molasses-like
stuff," we were advised — the pahoehoe lava of Hawaii.

Last, we followed over a black and shining field that
stretched seven miles before us — the flow of 1905, much of
it now being re-flowed over. Three years ago this August
it was seven miles of almost continuous village — grassy
houses and nodding palms. This intense jetty blackness is
shocking to the senses, used as we have been to the bright
slopes of other islands — even in Hawaii, the newer volcanic
reaches are brown or dull red. Perhaps the most tragically
impressive feature of all was a family graveyard in a patch
of green but wilting grass. The mounds are made of coral-
lime plaster of pinkish-tan hue, and the lava, by some freak,
has piled up many feet on all sides, leaving several of the
tombs untouched, while others are pushed against and
cracked. We had to descend warm and brittle walls to
reach the green oasis of the dead with its wrecked graves.
The lime house of the family is not far off — what is left of
it; for the lava set fire to the woodwork, and did away
with the roof, leaving only the walls, with baffled lava piled
up twelve feet all around. In fact, we stood above and
looked down into the open interior. The lava had been too
sluggish to force into window-spaces or doors. We came to
a church that had been burned — a deserted sanctuary in
which a native had begun to build his bamboo house, which
was scorched but still standing.

Our horses we found breathing hard with nervousness
and sulphur, and as we drove home Mr. Williams talked
about his life in Savaii and his association with the people.

"Do you see this road?" he said, flicking his whip in the
fine coral powder. "It's a fine road anywhere, a bicycle
road, and it extended twelve miles, where now is the lava. —
But road-building in Samoa has its comical side as well as
its serious side. The natives don't see the comical part, and
it's my serious duty not to let them see that I think there's
anything funny or unusual in their practices. It takes tact

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 289

—but tact is merely sympathy, after all, and they know I
love them. That's the way I rule them, you see." (Would
that all rulers could earn this continuous reflection!)
"When I commenced getting the roads in order," he went
on, "I would lay my course, as the sailors say, and set the
men to work. All at once everything would come to a stand-
still, and I would be called upon by the workmen, with some
friend in tow: 'My father (or my mother, or my mother-in-
law, or my first wife's daughter by her fifth husband) is
buried where the road is digging. Can you not turn aside ? '
And bless their souls, I build around the reverend grave. I
don't care if the road is as crooked as a cow's horn — we're
not going to run a tramway here, and it doesn't hurt any
of us to let them have their way."

I recalled some curious things about Samoan burials, al-
though I don 't know if any of the old customs still prevail ;
but there was a time when corpses were embalmed and
exposed for months near the mourners' dwellings. Quite
the contrary of the Egyptian practice, Samoan embalming
was done mainly by women. One particular family of chief-
women would be proficient in the art, and do all the embalm-
ing for the community — or at least for those of rank. There
seems to have been little superstition connected with keeping
the dead unburied. It was done more out of respect and
affection, to have the deceased near to those dear in life.
When a body was eventually buried, however, it was laid
in a grave about four feet deep, spread with mats, and pro-
vided with a raised bamboo head-rest. Now this was not
entirely for the comfort of the departed on his heavenward
journey, as is the case with the North ^American Indian and
many another people, but for the very sanitary reason that
the living feared contamination from the dead person's be-
longings, preferring to forego them rather than take risks.

"We'll go in here and have some 'ava," Papa Williams
broke in upon my mortuary reverie; and we crossed the
lovely river and turned into a group of fine thatched houses
still unharmed. We bent low to enter a splendid fale, and

290 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

mats were pulled down from the polished beams and
spread for us on the tinkling white coral floor. The mem-
bers of the household took their official positions about the
interior, for it is a great matter in just what relation to
certain central pillars this or that personage disposes him-
or herself.

After a smiling and bowing period broken by Father
Williams' jokes in the native tongue, and the responsive
giggles of the girls, he suggested the 'ava. It was made
by two young taupous, she of this village and the other
from the newly burned district. The fales of Fagamalo
are crowded with refugees, four hundred having poured in
since Wednesday. The Administrator has had to provide
domiciles for fourteen hundred since August 14, 1905. The
people spend most of their time praying and singing in the
churches, trying to avert further disaster, and the older
folk are wofully cast down over the erasure of old land-
marks and traditional spots. The younger ones are more
cheerful — they find novelty living in new houses; but there
is a shadow of soberness over them, and no dancing is per-
mitted.

Following lunch, we had a peep at the Administrator's
38-foot lifeboat in the shed, and listened to how one time
he sailed it back from Apia in six and a half hours — forty-
six sea miles. And he told us about the twelve-foot tidal
wave of last October that made them all rush out and cut
loose their horses when. the wall of water was seen coming,
which raised a 400-gallon tank full of rainwater three feet
onto another platform, without straining a hoop. Savaii
would seem to be a stage for Nature's jugglery.

We visited the office in the pretty house of undried walls,
and drank 'ava and 'ava, and then 'ava and 'ava again,
made by any chance passing maiden called in by Father
Williams, a charming chief custom of Samoa. To-day, the
girls happened to be from the latest burned village, and they
were only too glad of a little diversion. In the serving of
the 'ava, a young beau, prompted by Mr. Williams, an-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 291

nounced each receiver of the cup in turn, and was obeyed by
the taupou. " 'The man who has no wife,' he says,"
chuckled our host, as the calabash was wafted to Mr. Barts.
And when Martin's portion was held poised in the girl's
brown hand, " 'Boss of the fire,'" interpreted the jolly
Irish Administrator of a German province — an allusion to
Martin's occupation as engineer. "Frau Lindler is 'The
Lady with the Golden Crown,' " Mr. Williams went on,
referring to the yellow hair of a newly arrived visitor from
Apia.

' ' How many children have you ? ' ' he inquired kindly of a
strange female who was peeping in at us out of a shower.
"She says she thinks she has two!" he laughed. Then,
turning to a perfect beauty who had strayed in, "I never
laid eyes on this girl before. She's probably from the last
burned village. She can't be a week over fourteen, but she
looks all of twenty, doesn't she?"

She certainly did, the ripe and sumptuous tropic creature,
sitting quite at ease, calmly regarding the company from
under curved lashes that veiled dark eyes made brown by the
lights in her sun-tanned curly hair. Over a broad low fore-
head, her hair was parted and rolled over the ears, and done
in a loose coil at the nape of her round girlish neck. She
was the most unsavage savage imaginable, this nut-brown
maid of Polynesia who had never been off the island. She
would have done credit to any assembly, with her graceful
port, splendid pose of head, piquant profile, arch rise of eye-
brows, and, above all, the self-contained, unembarrassed
manner — a born aristocrat.

"I tell her you say she's the prettiest girl in the world,"
Mr. "Williams informed us, after some remarks to her in
Samoan; and then he laughingly added, after listening to
something the young lady said to him, "and she says ' Per-
haps I am, I don't know.' " — A literal reasoner, she.

Handsome as are many of the Samoan women, to our minds
they are not equal to their magnificent men, gods of the
seashore who refuse to become slaves. No labour-ships come

292 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

here — no natural lord of Samoa is going to wear his heart
out upon a foreign plantation. Let planters comb the seas
elsewhere for "black boys," — New Guinea, Solomons, New
Ireland, New Hebrides. The men of Samoa 'Uma will
swing their own mighty shoulders in their own way, upon
their own strand, and praise be to them !

Monday, May 18, 1908.

I am filled with unutterable disgust over the sleepless fate
that sometimes — although only just sometimes — cuts me off
from doing the things I wish to do. Arrangements were
made for a horseback trip to the volcano to-day, but
I was too tired from a wakeful night to face long hours in
the hot sun. Martin was to have been my escort, for Jack
has an uncomfortable sore on his foot, which worries us by
its unhealable character, especially when we recollect
Ernest's disease.

So I sent the Administrator my apologies, and remained
in bed most of the day, trying to sleep. Late in the after-
noon Jack suggested a stroll, and we visited some of the
houses, where we made the owners understand that we
wanted siapos. We returned with arms full, and a boy or
two beside to carry the overflow. They are the finest and
largest siapos we have seen. In one fale we surprised three
men building a long canoe, squatted on the mats hospitably
laid for us, and enjoyed watching the adroit joiners. The
best canoes are not the stiff dugouts, but these ones made
in closely-fitted hand-hewn planks, bound and laced together
with finest skill with cocoanut fibre. The Samoan is a clever
wood-worker, and his " nails" are strong and beautiful
sennit of cocoanut, cleverly bound and woven.

Father Williams was called to Safoto, a village west of
Fagamalo, to arrange about sending some of the refugees
there. But the suggestion was not his. In the morning,
boats came here bringing welcome invitation to the homeless.
Jack and I saw these boats returning from inspection of the

THE LOG OF THE SNARE 293

lava — fine long whaleboats propelled by forty oars, their
splendid crews, the cream of Polynesia, singing part-songs
as they raced one another in deep water along the edge of
the sand. These men are almost round-shouldered with
powerfully developed muscles. But this muscle-training has
come from labour of love, at paddle and oar and fishing, and
not from degrading toil done for mere money and at com-
mand of a master. And their lives show that their en-
deavour is for the good of the mass rather than for selfish
individual ends.

Waiting on the porch near dinner-time for the return of
Father Williams, we watched the men and women passing
in their leisurely fashion, and exclaimed over and over
at some remarkable type, Hebraic, Oriental, Greek — they
were all there — noting again the physical superiority of the
males in general over the females. These have not nearly
the fine carriage and gait of their mates, and we could look
in vain for the queens of the sex one sees at every turn in
Hawaii. We kept nodding "Talofa" to the strollers, some
of whom would stop at the gate, or come frankly in to shake
hands, with renewed assurances of "Talofa lava." Among
such neighbourly callers was a trio of half -naked young girls
who pursued the not unusual course of talking at length
regardless of discrepancy of tongues. After bowing and
smiling a while at them, which only increased their flow of
words, Jack adopted their method, and in a flatteringly
genial tone took up the defensive:

"Yes, yes — I comprehend conclusively the unanswerable
mathematical logical significance of your considerate equi-
lateral triangulation ; but your deductions are unintelligibly
misleading. "

The maidens betrayed a hint of puzzlement, but rose to
the situation and nodded and smiled — while I died several
deaths to hide my laughter.

"Now, on the other hand," Jack went on gravely, "what
is your unbiased judgment of the hypothetical transforma-
tion of astronomical hypothenuses of nebulosity?"

294 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

He paused long enough to control a smile at my interpola-
tion that he resembled Zangwill's " dictionary in distress,"
then proceeded in an argumentative tone tinged with be-
coming deference:

1 'It is no use losing cognisance of the irrefragable per-
tinacity of the lachrymal pabulum. Nevertheless, I consider
that no indulgent incorrigible metaphysical matriculate will
negate the anterolateral angelolatry of strategic Zoroas-
trianism. ' '

It began to dawn upon the polite trio that perhaps they
had been making the same mistake as he, and when my
wicked man continued — "Do you not realise, that your in-
comprehension detracts lamentably from the evolving of
my trigonometrical prestigitations ? " they faded softly and
smilingly away, but without loss of dignity, their "tofa soi
fua" uttered with perfect poise and calm. What an actor
was lost when Jack London decided to write for a living!

Then everybody came for supper, and my tender con-
science was soothed by Frau Lindner's assurances that she
had been rather glad I did not go to the volcano, as it gave
her an excuse to stay behind! Martin and the rest of the
party were weary and unsuccessful. They never reached
the lip of the crater, for it rained hard on the mountain and
there was no use going the rest of the severe climb through
volcanic sand, only to miss seeing the inside of the crater
on account of cloud and rain.

After dark we visited the lava-flow, and passed scores of
natives drifting in the same direction, bulking large and
shadowy in the wavering crimson light. Mr. Williams
stopped at a house and called out a little maid, taupou of a
deserted village. Her name is Ufi, signifying The Yam, and
she is sweet and wholesome as a whole garden of tropic edi-
bles, with a flower-patch thrown in. It is fortunate she
lives in a country where women are esteemed above food,
or she might fare ill at the hands of some epicure of a high
chief. Papa Williams had already told us he had the dear-
est little girl in Savaii to show us. And never saw we a

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 295

dearer. She is not more than fourteen, built squarely and
solidly, with healthy hard limbs and firm virgin breasts ; and
her neck is like a doll's or a baby's — round and short and
kissable, like her round brown cheeks that flush to blood
pounded by a stout little heart. Taupou of taupous is Ufi,
so lovable and healthy and deliciously, adorably young that
Frau Lindner and I could not keep our eyes from her, nor
our caressing hands. Our cart broke with its load at the
bridge, and we walked on, the little frau and I on either side
of Ufi, stopping to kiss her neck, her apple-cheek, or pat her
wonderful coiffure — the out-ended fluffy hair that measures
at least eighteen inches across. She accepted our adoration
composedly, in turn patting our white arms with tender lit-
tle moans, saying * ' Lelei " in a soft, misty voice, and smiling
affectionately at us.

Terrible were the ravages of the eruption. Over yester-
day's lava, well into the sea, ran new streams, issuing like
tortured reptiles white with agony, turning to flame-colour,
then rose, and crimson and wine, the blackening coming on
slowly, as air and moisture reduced the moving matter to
dead cinder. The men approached a curling coil of the in-
describable impossible fluid, and plunged sticks into it, while
shielding their singeing faces. The boiling-hot lava thus
caught was stuck into the water, and came out black and
steaming, brittle as blown glass. Of course we had to
imbed coins in red-hot fragments which soon became jet
black, ragged-edged curios; and when we could no longer
endure the searing heat, we started back for Fagamalo, mak-
ing love to Ufi en route. Half way, Mr. Williams led us
into a spacious fale for 'ava. The family were nearly all
asleep behind high partitioning curtains of siapo — an ar-
rangement we had never before seen ; but they were only too
willing to entertain their beloved "Father" and his sisters
and brothers, for so it pleased him to introduce us. I lay
down, my head on Ufi's chubby tattooed knee, and when T
murmured lomi-lomi, a bevy of small shapes rose in the
changeful gloom, and I was surrounded by punching, slap-

296 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

ping, kneading gnomes, their bright, mischievous eyes all
that was distinct of them. Nothing would have suited me
better than to stay behind with these soothing comforters
in the big grass house.

Tuesday, May 19, 1908.

Fresh from a glorious night's sleep, bright and early this
morning I walked through the green village among the
grass houses, glancing into the cool shadow of the interiors,
where the waking ones raised auburn-bleached heads from
bamboo "pillows," and blinked good-naturedly in the red-
gold sunrise. Under my arm was a bundle of white mus-
lin— twelve yards of it, bought of Mr. Barts; and I was
bound to the fale of Andy Brunt, a half-caste trader, whose
native wife had engaged to print my cloth in siapo design
of indelible virtue. The handsome fafine sat on a mat, laid
before her the carven mould and sent for her bottles of
pigment made from bark of trees. Then she pressed scraps
of cloth on the pattern and smeared them with other scraps
dipped in the colouring stuff, until I found the tint I
wanted. This afternoon the twelve patterned yards came
back, and some day I shall startle my household with a gown
of tapa that can go to the laundry without risk. The Brunts
also had one of the remarkable rugs of "vegetable fur,"
such as we saw at Mr. Moors', and which he was unable to
duplicate for us. The Brunts' one we bought for $20.00 —
a very reasonable price.

During the day the villagers trooped to our house with
bales of siapos, and we held a bazaar surpassing that at
Manua. And such goods as we found here in Savaii — siapos
of undreamed proportions — a single one would hang the
four walls of a room. And there were oblong calabashes
wrought from a kind of ironwood, called ifilele. We
selected only the best of everything, for we must not hamper
our space aboard during our run to Fiji.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 297

At sea, from Savaii, Samoa, to Suva, Fiji,

Wednesday, May 20, 1908.

Things are not improved aboard the Siiark. And the fact
that the sea is angry and that it looks like the beginning of
a gale, does not help matters. Jack has now definitely de-
cided to get rid of Captain Warren at Suva, and take over
the navigating of the yacht. I am worrying about his
weighing himself down with added work and responsibility ;
but it seems as if his responsibility is growing anyway, cap-
tain or no captain. Warren becomes more deliberately
worthless every day, and we really do not feel safe with him
in charge. Jack waited hours to-day to see if he would not
take in the lifeboat, which was getting pounded by the big
seas — indeed, she was lifted a foot or so every time the
Snark heeled down, and the resultant jerk threatened to
carry away the davits. A suggestion was ventured by Jack
that it might be well to swing the boat in on deck, but the
captain resented this, and said very briefly that it was per-
fectly safe. Poor Jack watched the imminent wrecking of
his valuable property for a little longer, and at last said
quietly but in a way that brooked no discussion, that the
lifeboat would better be brought inboard. It was done ; but
it took over an hour. Jack wanted to prove how long it
would take in case of need, as he mistrusted certain Roscoe-
like optimistic assurances that fifteen minutes would do the
trick. It was an ungracious obedience accorded, and once,
in the midst of the sweating endeavour, in answer to some
remark of Jack's that had nothing to do with the work in
hand, Warren snapped:

' ' You told me to get the boat in, and I 'm getting it in ! "

He snarled repeatedly at the boys, all of whom were help-
ing, and when the boat was lashed on deck, we heard the
following :

"Where 're you going, Wada? Come up out o' that!
Wet, are you? Well, I guess you're not the only one who's
wet. I'm wet as you are ..." and here followed some ex-
pressions of his feelings that I need not repeat. Wada, with

298 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

recrudescent hate in his eye for which no one could blame
him, dragged up the companionway and went forward. He
was not needed on deck, he was needed below ; yet his master
had to exert his own thwarted authority on some one, and
Wada having been whipped and cowed once, was the only
one he dared vent upon. Emotional maniac — that's what
he is. Why, one day in Papeete, he mentioned Wada with
tears in his eyes, and his voice broke and trembled as he
said: "That Wada is a man, sir — he's a man, clean
through!"

So poor Wada hung around on deck a few moments, and
presently, standing at the companionway he called back to
the cockpit in a tense, high voice :

1 1 Can we go down now ? ' '

The captain sprang half over the cockpit rail. His venom
went to his head like a strong spirit as he cursed Wada, and
then, remembering me he apologised in his oily way : ' ' You
can see how it is, Mrs. London — he's getting out of hand."

Oh, yes ; I could see how it was — perfectly ; and I didn 't
love J. Langhorne Warren of Virginia the last least little
bit. Also, I knew that if he had not controlled himself, if
he had got over the cockpit rail, Jack and Martin, backed by
the kanakas, would have reached for him before ever he
could reach Wada.

But aside from the slack way the Snark has been run for
months, we have an even sorer grievance, based upon the
conduct of our captain ashore. As Wada once put it to
Nakata, not knowing he was overheard: "The captain of
the Snark ought go around like captain of gentleman 's yacht
— but no, he act like common sailor — everybody laugh and
talk about him — natives they laugh." And this is true. He
boasts frequently and proudly that he is "Captain of Jack
London's yacht, the Snark/' but he does us no credit. At
Fagamalo, he so vilely outraged the hospitality of our hosts
and his, in ways that concern the high and strict moral cus-
toms of the land, that our indecision as to disposing of him
was forced to an issue.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 299

This morning we sailed out in a light breeze about nine
o'clock, and cleared the land. Father Williams and Mr.
Barts came aboard with us, also Ufi and her taupou mate,
who had especially asked. We departed laden with fans
and hardwood canes, Solomon Island spears and a debonaire
little red god of those same islands, all gifts from the two
gentlemen. We intended to sail yesterday; but some
one suggested poker, and Jack delayed over night. The
men played until midnight, and I slept peacefully in
the next room, lulled by the blissful manipulations of two
strange sweet damsels, sitting cross-limbed on the mattress
on either side of me. When I am rich I am going to have
about me relays of Polynesian lomi-lomi experts.

Before we left the house, the Administrator went to
the lava flow, and found the church banked high, all in-
flammable material consumed. So his bet would have been
good. The lava is working down toward Fagamalo, and
Mr. Barts said he intended to begin packing his goods
and belongings as soon as he saw us off. It made us very
pensive to imagine this pretty village, in which we had been
so at home, gone to the ruin of ashes and lava. "My poor
people!" Father Williams mourned, again and again, un-
derlip a-tremble. Hail! Father Williams — you are a joy
forever ; and long may you administrate Savaii.

Thursday, May 21, 1908.

The sea, which began rising early last evening and neces-
sitated taking in the lifeboat, continued boisterous, with
plenty of wind; then we found this morning that the
barometer had dropped from 29 :95 to 29 :85. I am verging
on nausea, and Jack has already been head-over-rail. His
disagreeable sores are not improving. "For a man to live
the way I do/' he grumbles, "and to catch things like
this — " Whereupon we recall French Ernest, and also look
askance at Captain Warren's hands, which are unpleasant
with sores that will not heal. That gentleman has hardly

300 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

spoken all day, which renders meal-time very genial and
sociable — also other times. We have dubbed him The
Blight. He sits and sits in the cockpit, sometimes steering,
more often idle beside a man at the wheel, and glowers, just
glowers. What can he be thinking of? There is no dis-
cipline aboard, no work cut out for the men. Henry and
Tehei sit and sit, doing nothing when they are not steering;
no polishing, no scrubbing, no sailorizing. At first they
hunted around for work, the willing pair; but few men are
going out of their way to do anything for a master who re-
quires nothing of them.

The Apian turtle expired at nightfall. We weren't ready
for him to expire, but he fooled us. Martin thinks the life-
boat squeezed him, for about the time the captain was
struggling with his temper and the boat, the turtle heaved an
unearthly sigh, and to-day seemed very listless, with droop-
ing eyelids.

The barometer rose again this afternoon to 29:95, al-
though the weather looks about the same. We are sailing
fast, and the decks are awash amidships, but dry forward
as usual. Wada has to keep his decklights screwed tight
and has a warm time, although our thermometer is dropping
slightly.

In the slate and silver of twilight I was taking a brisk
ride on the weather quarter, balancing on the broad teak
and brass of the rail, and watching the surging whitecaps —
"flocks of Proteus" — when the most extraordinary thing
(for the Snark) happened. It took out of me all exhilara-
tion in the rushing Trades, the speeding boat, and the bulky
seas, when one of the latter, rising straight up alongside,
was a little too quick for the Snark1 's sleek avoiding stern,
and broke over my head, curling down with surprising
weight. It wasn't warm water, either. Of course I was
drenched, and the shock and chill made me almost hysterical.
But in a few minutes I was dried and clothed in oilskins,
and Jack took me forward to the lee shrouds to watch the
big waves. The water washed to our knees, clear over the

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 301

rail, and we climbed higher. I wish I could tell of the
glorious tang of life in these moments, when our brave little
ship is holding steadily, stubbornly, through thick and thin,
and we talk of our plans after Suva. Everything now is
" after Suva." Jack looks cheerily at worn and neglected
tackle (rings on the forestay dangling loose, lashing on
mizzen boom jaws gone entirely, the peevish smouldering
eye of the captain taking no care), and says, "When we get
to Suva, I'll do so and so." After Suva, the decks over
the galley will be washed first in the morning, so Wada will
not have to prepare breakfast in that awful heat. Suva is
our Mecca, and, after Suva, Paradise.

Except to say that he would like the mainsail taken in
that we might have some rest during the night, Jack has not
further interfered with his captain's management. But
there really is no management.

Although this has not been a red-letter day, and some of
our blessings would seem to be in disguise or saving for the
future (e'en ''after Suva"), we are glad to be riding close
to the mysterious ocean in our intimate small vessel, rather
than borne aloft in a "modern wedge of steel," a "floating
hotel," on which the sea is primarily a medium of conven-
ience for getting somewhere — like the undulating and beau-
tiful earth under a fast automobile. Give us the small but
doughty Snark, every time !

May 22, 1908.

One hundred and twenty-seven miles in the past twenty-
four hours, under jib, staysail and mizzen. The gale has
moderated somewhat, but we haven't dared the mainsail as
yet. The sun is perceptibly going north, and we notice a
slight coolness of wind and water as we sag southwest.

May 23, 1908.

One hundred and fifty miles.

We do not say much about the captain, but tacitly dis-
trust him more and more, the farther we fare toward the

302 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

mess of reefs we know is before us. We have a canny wari-
ness of reefs by this time.

Henry caught a bonita to-day on one of his own big pearl-
shell hooks, and we had it served in various ways — baked,
with tomato dressing, and sliced raw, native fashion, with
French dressing — better than any raw oysters in Christen-
dom or Heathendom; and chowder for supper.

May 24, 1908.

The Snark may shake herself into kindling wood for all
the captain cares. To-day the main boom tackle parted,
shortly after the mainsail was set, and the big sail jibed
over — always a dangerous contingency. Luckily the gale
had eased. The poorly-lashed boats move and grate.
Decks and tackle are untidy, and as we surge along we can
hear the regular scraping rhythm of our large anchor, which
is hanging outboard and knocking against the bow. The
man must be crazy. He knows the anchor was not stowed
on deck when we left Savaii — which has always been done
hitherto, as a matter of course — and that it is wearing the
planking thin. Surely is he stretching his length of rope
that Jack has given him, for he realises there is no more
rope. He was heard to-day muttering, "I guess I'll get my
walking papers at Suva!" He is incredible. But we do
not act as if anything were out of the way. We chat
cheerily at table, play cribbage and poker and casino even-
ings, quite as if he were normal and approved.

. . . Land! Always new, always fresh, this illusion of
discovery. Out comes the chart, and the sextant is ready
to hand for the first rift in a stubbornly overcast sky.

May 25, 1908.

If we of the Snark are out for sensations, we certainly
caught up with a few yesterday. The combination could
not be surpassed — a small boat entirely lost in a no-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 303

toriously bad tangle of deep-sea reefs, with a skipper who
had not only lost his head completely, but who sat down
with it in his hands, piteously admitted his befuddlement,
and made no effort to brace up.

Now, here is the situation: Nanuku Passage, the ship
channel into this vast archipelago, is roughly sixteen miles
wide, formed on the southeast by the islands Wailangilala,
Naitamba, and Yathata, the northwestern side bounded by
Nanuku Reef and islets, the small island of Ngamia, and a
large island, Taviuni. We were sailing a southwest course,
running before a breaking gale, and keeping a sharp look-
out for the entrance islets. Captain Warren made a six-
teen-mile miss in his calculations, so that in the middle of
the forenoon, yesterday, he picked up the westernmost of the
islets, the Nanuku Islets, whereas he thought them the east-
ernmost, Wailangilala, Naitamba, and Yathata. On this
disastrous basis, he turned and ran to the west of the west-
ernmost, thinking he was entering the Passage, whereas he
was running away from it.

Swinging along fast and free, we were all interest in the
pretty low land dots, covered with trees, when, above the
rush of wind, like the crack of doom came a sudden crash of
breakers and Henry's screech of "Breakers ahead!" They
were so close that only a terrific spurt of intelligent and
concerted energy on the part of every one on board (Jack
waited not on any captain this time) saved us from annihila-
tion. We just, and only just, evaded the creaming ledge,
and doubled back on our tracks, literally very much at sea.

Resuming our southwest course, we barely escaped an-
other bursting ledge of coral, and turned back again. And
every time we resumed our course, we got into trouble. In
the early afternoon, running deeper and deeper into the
labyrinth, no matter which way we steered, Jack, thor-
oughly alive to the peril, suggested that there was only one
thing to do, as the sun was showing signs of breaking through
the grey sky — to get our certain position by the Sumner
Line. This is a very useful method, as we have proved before,

304 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

when you are trying to find your longitude and are unable,
on account of an overcast sky at morning and noon, to ob-
tain your latitude. Warren was shaking, and said he was
unable to take observations. Jack secured one at three
o'clock and another at five, and asked Warren to work them
up. He tried, gave over, saying he was too nervous ; so Jack
turned to and did it himself, finding our position to be a
little south of the Ringgold Isles. We had worked through
and around the sunken tangle of Nanuku and Nukusemanu
Reefs, which enclose a sort of long lagoon full of scattered
dangers which we had almost miraculously avoided, con-
sidering the lively breeze.

It was well after five when the sights were worked out,
and we seemed to be clear for the time being; but after a
few miles, we discovered coral underneath us, too close
for comfort. This was Budd Reef, about eight miles
westward of the central part of the sunken reefs con-
necting Nanuku and Nukusemanu Reefs. Budd Reef, ac-
cording to the Sailing Directions, is thirty-three miles in
circumference, much of it sunken, enclosing a deep lagoon
with several islets in it. We sailed by two or three of these
islets, heliotrope-green in the imminent twilight, and Jack
saw what he thought a good anchorage. But Captain War-
ren demurred, and we kept on, the coral visible at all times
but a few feet under our keel. The swift twilight overtook
us in this position, and it was decided to beat back and forth
all night in the lee of these islets, and set our course for
Suva in the morning. This was taking chances, but what
else could we do ? Sympathetically we thought of the old ex-
plorers, Tasman, D'Urville, Bligh of the Bounty, and of
course Captain Cook, who wandered likewise in these forests
of coral, and although we had charts, little good had they
done early this day, with Warren's erroneous position.
Small solace would have been ours, had we been wrecked
here, to know we were not the first yacht that had been.

It was a queer evening. Warren refused to dine, and kept
at the wheel, tacking back and forth in a fairly moderate

Port Resolution, Tana

The Skipper, "After Suva

The Puzzled Monkey- Brow

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 305

sea; the rest of us finished supper, sat on deck a little
while, watching the glooming islets, and when Jack and I
went below, he unpacked his two old square grips that have
been our familiars on many a trip, gave me one for myself,
and repacked his with manuscript and notes, and his gold.
I was blithely instructed to stow my own valuables in
the other grip ; and, this done, we kissed good night and re-
tired peacefully to our little bunks. I think we must have
been tired, or resigned, or both; for never on the long voy-
age of the Snark have we put in a better eight hours than
on this risky night.

The mornings are so wonderful, so various. There never
was another in my life at all like this. Coming on deck at
five, the trade wind flooded me through and through with
unwonted coolness — a coolness without bite, a coolness liquid
and suffusing, with no hint of sharpness. The whole uni-
verse was heliotrope, a flat tint laid upon the bowl of the
sky where a gold sliver of new moon was painted above the
two hilly islets showing softly green through their darker
heliotrope. Small creaming waves rippled by on long swells
that were grey-purple with a flush of red from the shallow
coral. It was like some gently-coloured pastel, with the un-
derlying details and colour growing as one gazed.

Captain Warren looked a wreck. He is only a child ; but
he is not a good child. In spite of his flunk the day before,
he now regarded us with a white expectancy of praise for
his wan hours of watching. "I never closed an eye all
night — I brought you through safe!" he quavered. Sheer
luck it was that saved us, not he, for it had been simply
hit or miss chance in the dark ; and even as he spoke, Henry
at the masthead yelled " Breakers!" and we had to hustle
mightily to skirt the streak of white water close upon us.
(Jack has only now confessed to me that during the sixty
days' traverse to the Marquesas, he more than once found
Warren asleep at the wheel in the night.)

At six the mainsail was hoisted, and in a fair breeze our

306 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

intrepid keel cleared the uncertain lagoon and swept south-
east for Somo Somo Strait, on our starboard Vanua Levu,
next largest of all the Fijis, and Taviuni, fourth largest, to
port.

It has been a happy day. Jack has smiled all over, stepped
merrily, and hummed at his writing; and more than once
we have looked at each other and chuckled over the manner
of our retirement last night.

We breakfasted on deck, not wanting to miss anything;
and then I brought my books to the cockpit, to study up a
little on Fiji. I found that there are two hundred and
fifty-five islands and islets of all constructions from low
coral to high volcanic, in an area of 8000 square miles, and,
dull slump from childhood horrific connotations of "Fi-
jian/' that the natives are "nominally Christians," reformed
of cannibalism and other sweet practices of less than seventy
years ago, such as the binding of live human bodies to
lengths of banana trees, for boat-rollers to launch great
war canoes — to the music of mortal shrieks accompanied by
crunching bones and tearing flesh. But there were merciful
impulses among the Fijians, as displayed in the following
custom : When parents had lived so long that it was deemed
a kindness to kill them, their devoted children affectionately
bade them farewell with kisses, before wrapping the living
bodies in fine (but not too fine!) mats, burying them alive,
and faithfully treading down the squirming graves. These
lovable deeds were invariably performed when the yam and
taro were in season, so that great feasts might be enjoyed
to celebrate the timely passing of the beloved.

It is small wonder that few persons know the accepted
spelling of Fiji. Here are several that England had to
select from: Beetee; Fegee; Fejee; Fidjee; Fidje; Fid-
schi; Feigee; Vihi; Viji; Viti — and the natives call them-
selves Kai-Viti. We civilised people are Kai-Papalanhi.

The Fiji Islands grow sandalwood, tobacco, breadfruit,
bananas, and all the rest of the tropical blessings, and in ad-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 307

dition are especially suited to cotton-raising. It is interest-
ing to read that some of their cotton was used in our Civil
War.

The more I dip into the South Pacific Ocean Directory,
the more I believe that to me it is going to take its place as
the most fascinating of all books. Few volumes four inches
thick are casually attractive; but once studying this one's
pages, in connection with an adventure like ours, nothing
can equal it for romance. The personal opinions of the
compilers lend a pleasant spice of humour — as, for instance,
one writer, after noting that the Taviuni inhabitants were
formerly the most cannibalistic of all the Fijians, with prac-
tices quite too revolting to mention, tacks on the gratuitous
observation: "However, they stand as records degrading
to our nature."

Somo Somo Strait is four and a half miles at the narrow-
est. The big mountainous islands rise four thousand feet,
hooded in rolling glories of tropic clouds. Here and there
waterfalls drop their white plummets or blow rainbow veils
across the green steeps.

Not the least of yesterday's impressions was the absence
of life on the islets among which we were lost, and this
morning we saw our first Fijians. Well for our peace of
mind that we knew them to be friendly, for the bushy-
headed, negroid-featured, staring-black-eyed savages were
not reassuring on the face of it. A cutter put out from a
village on Taviuni, under a cloud of canvas, and as it drew
near we could see the white flash of their grins as the men
shouted and waved to us. We waved back, and put our best
foot forward for a spurt with them, although knowing well-
that the Snark's sail-plan was not for racing with sloop-
rigged vessels. As the woolly piratical-looking crew gained
on us, Captain Warren ordered Martin to start the engine.
This did not strike us as a sporting proposition, and we said
so ; but Warren coaxed, Jack shrugged, and Martin went be-
low. We could see gesticulations of surprise on the driving

308 THE LOG OF THE SNARE

cutter as we gathered speed, which changed to derisive point-
ings and laughter as they finally won by in spite of our
engine, and heard its chug-chug.

Nearing the end of the warm afternoon, our breeze
has dropped to a mild summer fan infinitely restful after
days of buffeting. Jack is reading under the cockpit awn-
ing, which is stretched for the first time since Samoa. He
has finished his story "Chun Ah Chun," one of a collection
of Hawaii yarns that he will entitle The House of Pride.
I have completed the typing of it and, drawn by his subject,
have put in a couple of hours on the shaping up of my own
book of Hawaii.

Koro Sea, Fiji Archipelago,
May 26, 1908.

In all our "Snarking," to-day occurred our first "gam-
ming"— exchanging calls with another vessel at sea. We
were skating quietly over the Koro Sea, in the heart of this
vast archipelago, the water smooth as a blue jewel, crusted
in rough-cut gems — these the distant summer isles of green
and gold that encircled us. From one of these, Koro, we
made out a speck of a white-sailed boat coming our way.
It proved to be a* cutter much like the one we raced yester-
day, but only a single shock-headed native was visible. He
shouted and gesticulated, and a white man stuck his head
up from below, rubbing his eyes sleepily. A yawn paused
midway as he caught sight of us :

"What ship is that?"

"Snark, San Francisco!" Captain Warren returned.

The man sprang to the rail and yelled excitedly:

"Not Jack London's yacht!"

Being assured by us, he fell into his small boat, while all
hands were called to take in our spanker and spinnaker —
the latter set for the first time in many a long day. Then
we lumbered ahead creakily under short canvas, and had a
good deep-sea gossip with our Yankee visitor, Frank Whit-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 309

comb, who was so elated over meeting Jack — evidently an
idol of his — that he could hardly talk coherently. Every
time he started to answer questions about the islands, he
would break off with something like:

"Well — Jack London! — I can't believe it!" And again,
"To think of my ever seeing Jack London and the Snark!"
And over and over: "This is the greatest day of my life,
I tell you!"

He was enthusiastic over the lines and compactness of the
yacht, and kept repeating, "Now this is a proper boat, this
is." Or "My! but this is the kind of boat I'd like to have
to cruise around here in!"

He paddled back to his sloop, and returned with welcome
potatoes, onions, yams, and some taro. Then, after an ex-
change of addresses and some bottles of our Tahiti wine,
and the promise on Jack's part to send him a Snark book
when it is published, he departed, reiterating to the last that
it was the happiest day of his life. . . . We may never meet
the good-hearted fellow again; but this brief kindly contact
will be unforgettable.

Suva, the capital of the Fijis, on Viti Leva, the largest
of the group, is a much visited port, so I shall briefly run
through our delightful week there, on to the day when
our new skipper, one Jack London, took the Snark out of
Suva Harbor, bound for the difficult New Hebrides, with
their cannibals and burning mountains.

We received a most lovely impression of Suva as we
throbbed through the reef entrance and crossed the long har-
bour. The quaint English town rises terrace upon terrace
against green hills, the houses smothered in splendid trees.
Viti Levu is eighty-five miles long by fifty-seven wide, its
beautiful mountains climbing to a height of 4000 feet,
capped with the inevitable tropic clouds.

The Harbourmaster, Captain C. Woolley, with open-

310 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

armed hospitality came out to pilot us to an anchorage.
Captain Warren, soiled, unshaven, unbelievably unkempt,
insulted him with a cold shoulder and the ungracious sug-
gestion that he guessed he could bring in the ship without
any help. I saw Jack flush painfully ; but Captain Woolley,
recovering from his surprise at such treatment from a yacht-
master, smiled a little smile and said:

"I am not going to charge anything for conning the
Snark in, Captain!" and turned to Jack and me. He
piloted us to a very convenient anchorage to the boat wharf,
and made arrangements for Jack and me at Mrs. MacDon-
ald's Hotel.

Captain Warren went ashore shortly after our arrival,
quite unconcerned over the condition of our pretty bow (the
anchor had worn clear through the planking), and of vari-
ous other inexcusable damages. He did not go near the
yacht for two days, accumulated many drinks, and strutted
around town like a pouter pigeon, meanwhile bragging that
he was captain of the Snark. The first time he went aboard,
it was to show off his command to a guest — when he was
informed by a delighted Wada that his things had been
sent ashore to the hotel by Mr. London's order, and that
there he was to report. He reported, and I confess I was
eavesdropper to the interview that culminated in his dis-
missal— on the captain's part entirely a whine that Jack was
influenced by the fact that he had been in the penitentiary.
However, Jack left no honest doubt in his mind that that
was the very reason he had been kept on from Papeete
— to give him his opportunity. Within a couple of days,
Warren had secured a chance to work his passage on the five-
masted schooner Samar, in port, bound for Australia. He
quit us several hundred dollars overdrawn — all of which
was part of the "rope" Jack had given him.

As we entered the harbour, the British Cruiser Cambrian
steamed out, taking the High Commissioner of the South
Seas, Sir Everard Im Thurm, on a tour of inspection to the

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 311

west. Captain Lewes of the Cambrian, and his wife, Jack
had met in Korea; and now Captain Woolley invited us to
join a party the following day in a walk out on the barrier
reef at low tide, the party to include Lady Im Thurm and
Mrs. Lewes, the latter having stayed in Suva to keep Lady
Im Thurm company at the Government Residence. We
gladly accepted, and during that novel tramp learned things
about reefs that made us more than ever anxious to avoid
them in the Stiark.

We occupied two cosy little English rooms at the hotel,
with four-posters and candles, and Mrs. MacDonald made us
feel quite at home. She has lived in the Fijis for many
years, and distinctly remembers times when the natives were
not nearly so "nominally Christian" as now; and many and
absorbing were her tales over afternoon tea in her shady
green balcony, of the sailing she did with her husband years
ago to the various islands.

The steward in the hotel dining-room is a diminutive Solo-
mon Islander, called Johnny, who grew up here. I can see
him yet, ludicrously dignified and condescending, forced,
from briefness of stature, to look aloft when every instinct
of his courteous hauteur calls for a downward glance. He
has a funny thin-lipped mouth, big staring black eyes and
a button of a snub-nose, his seal-brown countenance shad-
owed by a tremendous black poll of inky wool sharp-carven
as a wooden image. Johnny announces meal-time with a
stately solo on a large cowbell. Meal-time! How we did
consume the fresh vegetables, and real cream, and cheeses,
to say nothing of good red English beef, broiled wild
pigeons, and many kinds of fish. At our table sat a kindly
old man, Mr. Watson, who has kept a curio shop here for
many years. He found me a few fans and things, and clubs
for Jack; but he had to make quite a search for them.
Fans are especially scarce, as the natives, now they can buy
white men's commodities, have almost given over fashioning
the old-time articles. The Fijian fans are much heavier and

312 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

better woven than any I have yet found — compact and firm,
with thick short handles. Jack's clubs are exceedingly fine,
carved out of rich-coloured hard wood.

At table, Jack had the seat occupied by Madame Melba
on her last visit. Suva is a profitable port for artists.
Madame Carreno is a great favourite, and I met one of her
pupils at the Warden's one day. One of our most vivid
memories of the place will always be Blanche Arral, the Bel-
gian concert soprano, and her husband Herold Bassett, who
were at another hotel, surrounded by the most entrancing
''boxes" labelled "On Tour/' a French maid, a skurry of
fluffy blue-blooded Skye terriers, and a cluster of blue-eyed
Siamese cats presented the diva by the King of Siam.
They are a fascinating combination, the Arral-Bassett ; and
her tropical wardrobe — I spent an entire afternoon of sheer
delight in it. Suva was buzzing with enthusiasm over Mme.
Arral's voice.

The main street, along the water front, as seen from our
balcony, was always alluring with its procession of strange
life. The contract labour here is largely Hindoo, and the
heavily be-turbaned men and heavily be-silvered women
looked very foreign even among the natives. One conspicu-
ous custom of the Hindoos is their public shaving at the
shore edge of the street.

The Fijians are very different from our Polynesian
friends, sharing, as they do, in the Melanesian strain, which
renders them darker of skin and negroid of feature. Our
next islanders, the New Hebrideans, are sans Polynesian,
and are rated as the lowest of the Melanesians to boot. The
Fiji men struck me as far superior to their women. It is
said, however, that the chief-women in Fiji, especially
among the mountaineers, are strikingly beautiful; but we
saw none of them.

And through this driftage of varying blacks and browns
up and down the long thoroughfare, the big equipages of

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 313

elegant, luxurious Englishwomen clank by, and everywhere
is the military neatness and impressiveness of English atmos-
phere.

We worked hard in Suva, answering mail, and doing our
regular work as well. One item of news from home was
that The Pacific Monthly was to bring out serially Jack's
novel Success, which they have decided to entitle Martin
Eden. But our work did not prevent us from making some
very pleasant social contacts. We were entertained at the
home of Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths, of the Fiji Times (she is
from Texas, and edits this bright sheet, besides bringing up
her seven children), and they also took us on a pigeon-
hunting expedition, where we saw many miles of the rich
tilled and tillable lands of the island. Lady Im Thurm's
and the Warden's and many another card were left at our
hotel, and we met the townsfolk at teas and receptions — one
of them at the Government Residence; and there was one
evening's dancing at the house of Lady Im Thurm's secre-
tary, Mr. Rankin, where we saw a native dance which some-
what resembles the Samoan siva-siva.

It was very cool in Suva, so cool we were threatened with
colds. There is dengue fever here, too, and Jack and I were
of no mind to repeat our Florida sufferings with the same,
which we knew under the name of Boo-Hoo Fever, from its
ability to make one weep at the most trivial things. Earth-
quakes are also among Fiji's attractions, and we had a good
stiff one ; but there are no active volcanoes, alas !

Besides the pigeon-shooting trip, our only other exploring
out of Suva was to Rewa Town, a famous native village up
the Rewa River.

We started in the morning on a little river steamer that
made us homesick for the Sacramento, and, as we got under
way, the schooner Samar was shaking out her sails for de-
parture. Passing the Snark, we waved our hands at Wada,
working on deck, and pointed toward the big schooner's

314 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

preparations, for Wada knew Warren was to sail in her.
Wada misunderstood our gestures, ran to the flag-halyards,
and dipped the flag three times. Jack and I laughed, won-
dering if Warren thought the salute was for him. Before
we entered the river, the Samar was under way, every sail
drawing, and that was the passing of our third and last cap-
tain of the Snark.

We were well conducted on this bit of tourist route, by
our native guide, a natty youth with the fuzziest of head-
dresses, brushed stiffly up and cut in the usual sculptural
fashion. He wore a white shirt and a coat of very visible
stripe, and carried a cane with a nonchalance that would
have been impressive but for bare legs and feet, and his
nether garment, which was a white lava-lava.

Our attention was much taken up with the other passen-
gers— bushy-haired natives with leaf -tobacco over their ears,
and a little Hindoo huddle of women and their delicate-
featured, turbaned men. These little women bore gorgeous
ornaments, for thus do they carry their own and their hus-
bands' wealth. Silver is beaten into anklets, armlets, brace-
lets, earrings, and every other conceivable decoration, and
gold coins are immediately appropriated as ornaments. —
And thus the Far East toward which we are reaching, lures
us on our way.

It is twelve miles by steamer to Rewa Town, and I do not
know which of the several mouths of the stream we entered.
It was narrow, and edged with rooty mangrove swamps, and
our little steamer poked her nose into them more than once
and had to back out. The Big Water, as the natives call the
main river, is dotted with fairy green islets, exquisitely
reflected in the smooth stream, and we passed gay boatloads
of natives. The river, now flanked by valuable sugar-cane
plantations, rises some forty miles beyond Rewa Town, in
the mountains — very dangerous territory for explorers not
so long ago.

We landed on a flat bank of rich black earth at the vil-
lage, and immediately noticed our old Samoan acquaintance,

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 315

the sensitive plant, which shrank inhospitably from our
feet. Eatu Joni E. Malaitini, the Roka, or Chief, of Rewa,
took gracious charge of us. He is another specimen of the
physical aristocracy — head and shoulders above the common
people, and straightens up with a proud ' * I am ! ' ' when
asked if he is pure Fijian. We noticed the humble saluta-
tions of the women to him as he paced along.

The first point of interest was the English church built by
the natives — a beautiful structure with two square towers,
like Westminster, and a rounding back, on the lines of Notre
Dame. In the vestry we noted big savage war-drums made
from logs — now used for the peaceful call to prayer.

Fijian houses are very fine in workmanship, the chief-
houses having great beams covered with the finest sennit
of cocoanut fibre. Roofs are sharply peaked, or gabled,
and of immense height, the ends curving up, Japanese
fashion, with black ridgepoles. The thatch is sugar-cane,
and the outside walls of the houses are covered with some
sort of dry brown leaves. Interiors are very dark, smoky
from floor-fires, with but one door and a couple of small
deep-set windows. After accustoming our eyes to the acrid
gloom, we could see the lofty sennit-beamed ceilings, and
judged some of the ridgepoles to be as high as fifty feet.
Along the irregular paths among the houses rise occasional
carven king posts, some of them thirty feet tall, of splendid
hardwood. We longed to send one home as a souvenir.

Into the most imposing of these remarkable buildings we
were conducted with great ceremony, and presented, with
still more form, to a shrivelled object in the centre of the
long floor, disposed upon thick-woven mats. It was the old
chief, Ratu Rabici, the most ancient thing I ever saw alive.
He was shaking with years and alcohol, being a noted toper ;
but in spite of his emaciated mummy-face, with its lack-
lustre eyes, large ears, and a monkey-trick of scratching his
protuberant ribs with a skinny claw, he managed to convey
to us something of his unmistakable kingliness. I was dying
to question what might be his honourable tally of human

316 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

feasts, but realised that, even were I so rude, I would not
get the right answer.

It was good to be out in the blowing sunny air again,
among the breadfruit and tree ferns, where we found women
making pottery — some of the older ones with a finger or so
missing, it being an old custom to cut off a finger in token
of mourning for the dead.

In one of the more modern native houses, full of light
and sun, reclining on deep-piled mats we partook of one of
the best native feasts we had had south of the Equator. And
while we ate and drank at our ease on the satin-smooth hand-
woven mats, from somewhere came young voices singing
Christian hymns. One of them was "Pass me not, 0 gentle
Saviour, ' ' and I smiled to think how old Moody and Sankey
would have beamed to hear it in this outlandish environment.

Aboard the SnarJc, Fiji to New Hebrides,
Saturday, June 6, 1908.

You might think that SnarJc departures had by this time
lost their novelty. Not so. Our departure this morning
from Suva had all the snap and go of a new adventure ; and
rightly so, for it was literally a new adventure. Jack was
captain, Henry (who had had desertion in his eye "before
Suva") was now mate, and the newest thing aboard was the
spirit that sailed with us. It was "After Suva," and Jack
was happy. Every one was merry; every one had reason
to be. The Blight had been wiped out, and Mr. London
was skipper. Tehei for the past week was so happy over
the prospect, that, when Jack raised his pay, the dear child-
man begged to be allowed to work for nothing; but "Noth-
ing doing!" was Jack's reply. Nakata was all teeth, and
went about his work emitting happy little noises. Martin
wore a face of extreme contentment ; and Wada hummed in
his hot little galley.

Anent Jack's taking command, Martin tells the following

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 317

geress" of a hotel in Suva, who volunteered that she'd heard
in town that the Snark was going to sail without Captain
"Warren. Martin answered that this was true, but that Mr.
London was going to be skipper.

' ' I should think you 'd all be scared to death to go without
a captain — I would!"

"But Mr. London is going to be captain," Martin re-
peated.

"My goodness — it doesn't seem right for a little boat like
that not to have a captain ! ' ' she pursued, with feminine dis-
regard of any one's speech but her own.

"Well, we all think Mr. London is a better captain than
any the Snark has had yet," Martin warmed up. "He can
navigate all around Captain Warren, and — "

"Oh, it doesn't seem to me safe for you fellows to trust
yourselves at sea in a boat like that without a captain."

Martin ground his teeth and forthwith discovered he had
business down street, leaving the woman to vapour over the
dread future of the Snark.

Our first memory and our last of Suva Harbor will always
be of the unremitting kindness of Captain Woolley. He saw
us safely out as he had seen us safely in, and rendered us a
thousand other kindnesses.

The northwest trade was blowing a youthful gale, and
as our course was southwest, we boomed along before it.
In order to make good time, and sail free of the honeycomb
of reefs to starboard, Jack set the spinnaker. We rushed
along with a corkscrew sort of motion, our copper heel in
a churning cream of foam. Pretty work it was, steering
through the blowing world of sea, and we were not alone in
it, for there were many little white cutters in sight.

... It's going to be a rough night, and we shall miss
Mrs. MacDonald's fluffy, stationary beds.

318 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

June 7, 1908.— 150 miles.

And it was. I fell asleep toward morning, and was
dreaming heavily of a free-for-all fight of the Snark crew
with Captain Warren, when I was shaken awake by Henry's
laugh on deck — a musical yet rollicking gurgle of utter con-
tent, like an American negro's. And when I came on deck,
gentle Tehei was singing a himine at his work. Henry un-
earthed some hitherto unheard-of (by us) navigation books,
and pottered with them at odd moments. The morning
faces of all hands brought to our minds that this is the first
time we've ever had a true "Snarking" crowd aboard.

Jack slept but three hours, owing to a bad cold as
well as the responsibility of the boat, and did not try to
write to-day, but busied himself getting hold of everything,
and, most important, brushing up on navigation. He gave
us all a serious talk about our individual responsibilities, at
the wheel, and such matters. Watching him to-day, it puz-
zles me how he is going to accomplish all he has laid out,
in addition to his writing.

Nakata and I figured out additional little conveniences
for Jack in his stateroom — a pencil rack here, a book rack
there. I took the chronometer time for him when he was
making observations. I have a feeling that he has not been
altogether satisfied with the way they have worked out.

No land in sight, not even a reef. Wind increased until
Jack ordered the spinnaker and headsails in, and in the
afternoon we sped under mainsail and spanker.

We are so full of plans. Adventure looms bigger than
ever; and why shouldn't it, with our first cannibal islands
but a few days away? — and volcanoes. I shall take my vol-
canoes in quite an easy matter-of-fact way ere long! Cap-
tain Cook — of course — discovered Tanna, with its living
crater, on August 4, 1774. Read what he wrote about it and
wonder if we of the Snark are at all bored :

"At daybreak, August 4, we saw a low island (Immer) to
the northwestward . . . having passed close to it during the

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 319

night, and a high one nearly east (Futuna) at the distance
of eight or nine leagues. The large island (Tanna), toward
which we still directed our course, extended from N.W. to
S.E. and consisted of a high range of mountains. Towards
the southeastern extremity, at the end of a secondary range
of hills, we discovered a volcano, of which we had really seen
the fire at night. It was a low hill, much lower than any
in the same range, and of a conical shape, with a crater in
the middle. Its colour was reddish-brown, consisting of a
heap of burnt stones, perfectly barren, but it afforded a very
striking sight to our eyes. A column of heavy smoke rose
up from time to time, like a great tree, whose crown gradu-
ally spread as it ascended. It is the most powerful volcano
in the group. The whole island, except the volcano, is well
wooded and contains abundance of fine cocoa-palms ; its ver-
dure, even at this season, which is the winter of these re-
gions, was very rich and beautiful."

In 1872, Commander Markham visited the crater, which
was found to be about 600 feet in diameter. The officers of
H.M.S. Pearl, in 1875, found its height to be 980 feet. Mr.
F. A. Campbell says: "This volcano is a splendid light-
house ; there is no mistaking it ; the noise of its eruptions is
heard distinctly upon Aneityum, fully forty miles away."

Monday, June 8, 1908.

The coolness of the weather has made us hunt for blankets
at night and warm raiment by day. I have caught Jack's
cold, a sore throat, and neuralgia in the face.

There was a sharp squall in the afternoon, followed by
calm, and the warmth was grateful to us with colds.

The day has ended very joyously for Jack. "Without go-
ing into technical details — I should promptly be swamped
if I did — he has discovered why he was going wrong in
working out his sights since we left Fiji. He had forgotten
one very important factor: that a degree — sixty miles — is
only sixty miles at the Equator ; and that the world is smaller

320 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

and smaller around the farther one is from the Equator.
Down here, in 19° South Latitude, he had been figuring
sixty miles to a degree. As he says, any one who wants to
break all speed records circling the world, has only to sail
around in a fast steamer in the latitude of Cape Horn !

Just the same, Jack will not feel entirely satisfied until
day after to-morrow, when, according to his calculations, we
should see our first high New Hebrides island, Futuna.

Tuesday, June 9, 1908.

A shark! We lured him and caught him with all the
customary excitement. He was a five-footer, and no one who
ate a steak from him at breakfast had any criticism to make,
either of meat or cooking.

Quite calm all forenoon, with low rain-curtains on the
eastern horizon. About 3:30 the wind came out of the
southwest, and the sea made up. Barometer falling.

We play three-handed Hearts evenings. But Jack and
Martin are having everything their own way, while I mourn
my bad luck.

Wednesday, June 10, 1908.

We're all a-tiptoe now, to see how right Jack is. Land
must be near, for there is a lot of flotsam on the water, and
many brown-and-white birds about. The night was rough,
as the Snark shuddered into the big seas, but all slept well,
except Martin, who has caught our cold. Wind lessened to-
ward sunset, and barometer is 30:10 — which we find is nor-
mal here.

We have been loafing about the cockpit in a burnished
gold sunset, talking about our landfall to-morrow. Jack
smiled his wise little smile at my jibes, and said:

"That's all right, my dear; but you watch my smoke. I
tell you that about six to-morrow morning you'll see the
prettiest classic blue cone your heart could desire, rising a
couple of thousand feet out of the sea to the southwest."

THE LOG OF THE SNAKK 321

He altered the course so that the Snark should pass Futuna
ten miles to the northward, and the last thing he said on go-
ing below, was to Wada:

"Wada San, your watch to-morrow morning, you look
sharp, you see land on weather bow."

Aboard the Snark,

Port Resolution, Tana, New Hebrides,
Thursday, June 11, 1908.

We are so proud of ourselves. Not that we mere mortals
have anything to be proud of, except our godlike skipper,
one J. L., whose mystical rites and figurings bore out his
prophecy and guided our ''frail barque" into this turbulent
harbour. Turbulent does not refer to the waters of Port
Resolution, but to the bottom thereof. Not long ago, inside
forty years — large ships could anchor here, and now only
vessels of our draft can float free. Each new survey has
been put out of line by the upheavals of this restless island.
And one is never for a moment unconscious of its instability,
what of the intermittent dull rumble of the volcano. The
1901 Sailing Directions are the latest we have ; and it would
be more interesting than comfortable for us if it were now
about time for the bottom of the bay again to heave up and
strand us high and dry.

The Snark logged a steady six knots all last night, but
Jack confesses he slept little. He kept waking and think-
ing: "Just suppose I am wrong, and run into the damned
thing!" He went on deck at three, during Henry's watch.
The log recorded forty-two miles. At 5:30 he went up
again, and Wada, at the wheel, had seen no land. Jack
planted himself on the cockpit rail and gloomily stared
southwest. I rose at six, and joined him just an instant
after he had spotted the dim but unmistakable high cone.
And it was exactly where it ought to be! I could have
wept with delight, but remained very still, for Jack was still,
too, although pleased clear through, with that little half-

322 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

bashful smile he wears when he sits under praise. It was a
great moment, in its small way, and it is the small things
that make great contentment. This was his first unaided
landfall, as captain and navigator of his own little ship,
with the burden of lives in his care.

We could not go below, but sat and dreamed our
dreams in the growing day. The west was all silver and
rose, the east steel and lilac, with low clouds scrolled back
like Gargantuan rolls of sleeping mats, and to the south
Futuna grew like a mirage on a clear horizon, or a Japanese
painting on grey silk. The ocean, grey and dull-glossy, and
slow like a flow of lava, seemed to show the bulge of the earth
between us and the island. The sun rose suddenly, an
irregular molten nugget of intolerable brilliance bursting
from a low grey cloud lined with gold. The cloud-mats be-
came bales of precious stuffs of undreamed dyes. Then all
dazzling hurt of colour and gilt toned into the soothing pearl
and blue of broad morning, the sea into a rapture of azure,
and we all woke to noisy congratulations over our fair pros-
pect, at a ripping good breakfast of hoteakes and shark-
steak.

Jack had said we would pass Futuna at ten miles. At
eight o'clock he took its distance by the sextant and found
it to be 9.3 miles away. It is a steep truncated cone, 1931
feet high, ten miles around, and not peopled from the New
Hebrides, but by some Polynesian canoe-drift.

Henry, aloft, had sighted Tanna at seven o'clock, dead
ahead, and during the day our steady six knots brought us
into better and better view of the towering smoke of the vol-
cano, Mt. Yasowa. To the south we had Anehenm, and to
the north Aniwa.

As we approached Tanna, Jack bade me take the wheel,
sent Henry aloft and Martin below to be ready to throw on
the propeller. With his glasses Jack swept the land for miles
but could detect no opening in the crashing, unbroken rock
coast. He took his compass bearings — one of Futuna, an-
other of Aniwa, laid them off on the chart, and found the

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 323

Snark's true course to be straight for this apparent ruin.
He had me hold on until we were not more than an eighth
of a mile from the thundering surf, much to the concern
of Tehei and Henry, who declared there was no entrance.
Then I was directed to steer parallel with the coast. They
were taut minutes, I'll own — taking orders over that huge
oily swell, so near to swift destruction. It was not as if
this were a solid and dependable island of staid habits. Our
only information about the reef passage was seven years old,
and we did not know what had happened since, or when we
mii/ht grind on disastrous bottom.

But Jack kept on abreast, and presently we recognised
certain landmarks described in the Directions — a yellow
sandstone bluff and a pyramidal rock; then, just where it
ought to be, a narrow opening appeared, but outside of it a
line of breakers. Henry and Tehei regarded it with troubled
eyes. As we ran on, still abreast, we saw that the line of
white water overlapped the line from the other side, and a
narrow place showed where the sea was calm. I put down
the wheel, Martin threw on the propeller, and to Jack's
"Steady!" and hand-movements, I steered in, full of re-
lief, while the boys took in sail. We rounded a little point
and saw the mission station, and when Wada, at the lead-
line, reported "Two fathoms!" I put the wheel down, Mar-
tin shut off the engine, and the anchor-chain grated
through the hawse-hole. It was five o'clock. Henry
gravely paced a few measures of a hula, Nakata pirouetted
and flashed his teeth, and then we were diverted by the
things that were putting out to us from all directions.

Tlif-y looked like an all-star troupe of comedians made up
for a minstrel show. All were undersized, except one, a
Futuna boy who was tall and large and handsome, with
laughing eyes wide-set, and a mouth all smiling Polynesian
curves. One Tanese, a spry, slender soul, with near-set
black eyes, wore sideburn whiskers combined with a fierce
moustache. Another, a holy-mannered, fanatical-eyed elder
of the church on the hill, had a fringe of thin black whis-

324 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

kers halo-ing his rotund countenance, the lower part of the
fringe growing beneath the chin in a way that made him
resemble an American backwoods farmer gone wrong. But
he proved a lovable chap. The rest of the men were all indi-
viduals of one kind or another of striking personality ; most
of them spoke English of sorts, and all were connoisseurs of
sea-biscuit and tobacco.

And yet, five miles back in the bush, the savages are un-
reclaimed ancestor-worshippers who eat one another to this
day, although Mr. Watt, the missionary, assures us that an
European is perfectly safe anywhere on Tanna. It is thirty
years since a white man was killed here, and he was shot,
and not kai-kai'd. He died in the house where Mr. Watt
lives.

From the little station in a bight of the bay, came the
Scotch trader, Mr. Wyllie, with gifts of fruit, and we kept
him for supper. He is a vast ashen man, with ashen brown
eyes very wide apart, ashen hair, mobile ashen mouth and
a classic ashen nose. He looks as if the tropics have burned
him to this ashen hue.

Mr. Brown, a Christian native, "Joseph Brown, please,"
elder of the Presbytery, came out with a message from Mr.
Watt, that owing to prayers ashore, the supper hour, and
the lateness of our arrival, he and his wife had not come
out, and hoped we could return with the bearer. Tehei,
blissful and self-conscious, ran the launch for us. As we
climbed up the perfumed twilight bank, a woman spoke to
our guide softly and inquiringly from a gloom of bananas,
then fled before, white-robed, laughing and calling back
tantalisingly to him in a love-toned voice.

Port Resolution, June 12, 1908.

There's certainly something disjointed about it — so lovely
a land, and so low an order of inhabitants. The beautiful
harbour, like a pale flawed emerald, reminds us of Taiohae,
the painted-scene walls farther removed. Distant classic

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 325

Mount Mirren rises opposite the narrow reef entrance, and
the verdant flanking hills fold down on either side — a most
gratifying composition for a picture. The missionary's
dwelling is on Point Resolution, and across the narrow bay
boils a hot salt-water geyser, whence Mr. Watt and his fam-
ily derive their bath water, in barrels per native canoe.
This may be the very geyser where vanquished foes once were
parboiled and devoured — a different way of preparing ''long

And the natives: As I write, near by but not too near
(they may be clean but they don't look it), squat a half-
dozen of the strangest human beings I ever beheld outside
a feeble-minded institution. We had heard they were the
lowest of the Melanesians, but they excel all expectations.
Bodies are thin and unbeautiful, with bulges in the wrong
places ; legs show thin and crooked, and their generally evil,
low-browed malformed Black-Papuan faces are curiously re-
pulsive. One old fellow, a trifle less unpleasant than the
rest, has an expression that is intended to be benevolent, on
a nut-wrinkly face with unsecret, sky-turned nostrils, the
eyes most remarkable with the vacillating intentness of a
monkey, while he endeavours to compose his attention on
the typewriter, at which I have been working on deck. He
is quite the nearest to a chimpanzee that I ?ve ever seen. The
gaze focuses, wavers, comes back, and his lips narrow and
widen with an undeveloped attempt at a human smile. The
only way to fix an image like this, is to sit right down and
write.

Another old baboon is titillating in a hysterical rising-
and-falling squat, aft where Jack is showing him a kaleido-
scope. Nervous little lean brown arms of others are reach-
ing for the thing, and there are lingering low cries over the
changing figures. Jack looks a white giant among them.
"And God made them!" he passed across their kinky heads
to me just now — vast contrast to the chiselled heads of
Fiji and Samoa. Their talk matches their shifting eyes —
nervous, crafty little short sounds, and no arresting words.

326 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

About twenty different dialects are spoken in the New
Hebrides, sometimes several on the same island. As no
steamers can enter here (they must lie outside if any one
wants to land in a boat), the island is seldom visited. So
we and our foreign vessel are a whole vaudeville show to
these near-Simians. There is nothing even "nominally
Christian " in the appearance of this gathering. New
Hebrideans are all looked upon as treacherous, although the
Tanese are milder than most. In the history of the islands,
when the missionaries treated with the natives, the latter
would only go so far as to promise that they would not harm
them with their own hands; then they would hire other na-
tives to do the murdering — a grim observance of the letter
of the agreement. Natives of the northern islands have
been especially ferocious toward intruders, and the list of
slaughtered missionaries is a long one. Mr. Watt has quite
a congregation in his mission, but a good portion have the
Futuna Polynesian strain.

Mr. Watt is a big man of sixty, kindly and obliging, and
has already this morning added to last night's offering
of pleasant fruits and vegetables. He also offered us the
use of his cool dark-room. Mrs. Watt is his second wife —
a buxom woman of forty. They have two young children,
and all reside in harmony in a comfortable house almost
in the shadow of an imposing white monument that marks
the green resting-place of the first Mrs. Watt — in the very
house garden. The present Mrs. Watt called our attention
to it on our stroll. Mr. Watt, from whom we naturally
expected to drink endless absorbing reminiscences of early
precarious years on Tana, either does not care to talk, or
else has no imagination. Perhaps he is like Conrad's good
skipper in Typhoon, who entered "Dirty Weather" in
his log, after passing through the core of a great circular
storm.

Later. . . . After another visit at the Watts' to-day,
where we were refreshed with rose-apples, sour-sop and
sweet-sop, cocoanut water, and saw breadfruit and banyan

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 327

and banana trees in abundance, we went to the head of the
little three-quarter-mile bay in Mr. Wyllie's flat-bottomed
skiff and visited him in his store, on a tiny blue reedy la-
goon surrounded by dense tropical vegetation. An old
paralysed black heathen sat on the beach where we landed,
and looked at me and my camera with sullen, unsympa-
thetic gaze — sans fear, sans interest, sans understanding,
sans everything. It would seem that the only idea these
people ever possessed was to kill. With that ambition
quenched by the joint French and Australian colonies, they
resolve into mere nonentities. Evidently all their craft
went to the one passion; and their general lack of clever
house-building or mat-weaving, or ornament-devising, would
bear this out. Mr. Watt pointed to a coarse mat on his
floor: "I taught a Futuna woman how to make it," he
said, "and the Futuna woman was largely Polynesian/'
Simple, suspicious, blood-mad people they were. Robbed of
their natural quarry, they are rapidly decreasing. Mr
Frank Stanton, a younger trader with Mr. Wyllie, told us
to-day that right before you, in apparently ordinary con-
versation, they can plot to take your life, using sentiments
already agreed upon, about common things. This came out
after a little incident that happened at the store. I was
imitating cat-calls to mystify the fox terrier, and a small
Tanese boy in a group outside elected to think I was mak-
ing fun of him and his companions. You should have seen
the black looks of the murderous mites ! Many a white head
has been lost for less offence.

. . . The bay is the tender milky green of absinthe with
little vagrant flaws of wind ruffling the wavelets with spar-
kling white. A softly flooding tide rocks my boat of
dreams, and the air is full of intangible lights and subtle
rainbow tints as sunset begins its painting of land and
sea. It is good to be alive, on the highway of the sea, with
its crowding waves upon the backs of waves ; and it is good
to be snugly cradled at anchor inside the silver-rimmed
breakers.

328 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Port Resolution, Saturday, June 13, 1908.

Late afternoon, and I am dangling my feet in the water
over the side of a skiff, to rest them after the unwonted
heating and blistering they have had tramping to the vol-
cano, six miles away.

This morning we were roused early by natives dynamiting
fish near by in canoes. Immediately following the blast,
men dive overboard and bring up the stunned fish, while
others spear the fish from the boat as they float up.

While we were packing lunch for our trek into the
"bush," the missionary came out with drinking cocoanuts,
lemons, and two wild ducks, which made Jack very desir-
ous for supper time. Mr. Watt was accompanied by two
Aniwa housemaids, who wanted to see the Snark.

One of our two thin-flanked Tanese guides was a " re-
turned Queenslander " — a native sent back from the plan-
tations when Australia ''went white." He could not be
convinced that the SnarJc is not recruiting plantation
labourers.

Each new wonder island I have thought the last word in
beauty; but to-day's impressions eclipsed all others. We
plunged into an abrupt wilderness of trees and hanging,
creeping, trailing, veiling things so green, so spectacular that
I was soon tired of exclaiming, and moved in a trance.
There is almost as much child-time romance and glamour
to me in a banyan as in a volcano or an atoll. And to-
day I tangled in the incredible downward tentacles of in-
numerable real, true banyans that covered broad spaces of
the rich earth. Along the way grew little odourless white
violet-things, and a running vine with a violet leaf and red
berries, and there was a hardy vine with a morning-glory
sort of blossom, pink-purple and white. It lies on the
ground, clinging, and wickedly trips a tired foot. Another
vine we called a "live wire," for it stings to sudden cau-
tion.

We pushed aside giant brakes, and made our way under

Houseboys at PenndufTryn

A Dream of the Southern Seas

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 329

the finest tree-ferns we have ever seen, even in Jamaica —
and one heavier and darker green variety here has a tall
trunk spotted leopard-like, the spots being round indenta-
tions at close range, and the fronds look as if stamped from
deep-napped green plush. These are so abundant in places
that, as Jack remarked, "One can't see tree ferns for tree
ferns." There is a fine cane growing here, too, something
like the Marquesan, and it flowers and feathers out like pam-
pas ; and one species of palm showed bright and hard in the
soft general green, with big fronds apparently clipped
squarely off short of their legitimate points. Strange para-
sitic, clambering, choking things veiled the forms of the for-
est, and one of them fairly furred the limbs of the large
trees.

The eerie stillness of the jungle was shattered now and
again by explosive grunts of startled pigs, which, although
nominally wild, are the known property of various natives.
In fact, the whole jungle is a wild-pig run, the ground every-
where, under the larger trees, thoroughly snout-ploughed.
Trudging over the black-rooted, bountiful earth, we were
aware of the slow flight of flying-foxes overhead, softly,
heavily flapping their velvet wings. And at irregular in-
tervals would come the growl and rumble and shock of vol-
canic explosions.

A big father of banyans marked where we should strike
up hill to the right, and shortly we were in an altogether
different environment — volcanic sandy lands of coarse
grass, interspersed with hot steam-geyser sections where we
walked on a crunching crust. Once I broke through to a
boot-top in natural red paint — red-hot, too, it seemed to me
— and simultaneously burst a deafening reverberation from
the crater as if I had pressed a button. I wasted no time
getting that boot off. Coming home, Jack stepped into a
nasty red-paint hole and the steam rushed forth so hot and
strong that my helping hand was scalded. The guide pointed
out a spot where a white man had heart-failure. I couldn't
blame him, if his heart was weak, for I was unable to control

330 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

the sting of nervous fright from heart to finger-tips, every
time the monster let loose that awful roar.

Off to the side we glimpsed pretty sandy sinks, and little
round fairyland valleys where the trees were ferns, and
threw lovely lacy shadows. The first views of the volcano,
from some trick of atmosphere, were very unreal, and
seemed an endless distance away. From the crater rose a
milky-opalescent quiver of smoke, swirled by pearly puffs
from some special impulse at the depths. There was some-
thing uncanny about our progress. We traversed a little
plain of iron-coloured sand, wind-rippled, bounded ahead
by a rose-bed bank where mocking voices repeated our
every word, word for word, but changing the inflections —
spiritless, bodiless, the like of which we had never heard be-
fore nor shall ever hear again.

I did not know our guide "boy" was plum-coloured, un-
til I got him into surroundings of plummy-brownish old
lava. Flesh, scant raiment, and lava-lava, all were plum —
even his eyes plum-purple. Once, returning, he went ahead
down a narrow gulch defile where all the ferns were dead
and red-brown and touched to Etruscan gold by the late
sun, and the half-wild creature was likewise gilded.

We did not feel the altitude — it is less than a thousand
feet to the top of the crater, which is nearly two miles
around by now. Panting up the creaky final steep of
coarse sand, to the crusty edge, Jack and I speculated as
to just exactly what our judgment would be to do if the
earth should suddenly shake and crumble in a real eruption,
as it has done before and might do again. Jack said, "I'd
grab your hand and hike down the slope as fast as God'd
let me!" We had but just gained the ragged summit and
made ready to peer into the maw as the smoke should clear,
when there was the most infernal crash and burst and shake
of ground. Without a thought but escape, we just exactly
"grabbed" hands and went down that fearful, reverberat-
ing, grinding incline on our flying heels for a dozen leaps or
so, until we suddenly realised what a scream our involun-

THE LOG OF THE SNAKK 331

tary action was. We halted, looked at each other, and
began to laugh. And we laughed and laughed until we
cried, and sat down to laugh, and rolled with laughter, and
laughed all the way up again. Partially we were com-
forted by the fact that our two brown companions had fled
faster and farther than we, and they have been here count-
less times. One of them, indeed, refused to come back ; but
the other, with a long feather in his wind-tossed, scraggly
wool, looked no end picturesque on the sharp edge, with the
far wall of the crater, smoky-dim, for a background.

This time we were not to be driven away by any pyro-
technics of old Yasowa, and waited hand in hand at the
brink for the void of smoke to dissipate. And then, we
gazed down unspeakable depths and glimpsed a ragged red
ridge losing itself in the lower abyss of fumes and smoke.
Dore would have revelled in it. Following around the crisp
and crackling edge where the sand fell away from the hard,
old lava, we began to realise with grim interest that our
foothold was the uncertain roof of the main vent of the vol-
cano, which curved down and back underneath. We could
make out two holes, with a saddle-ridge between us and the
smaller hole on .the opposite side of the crater. Now one
would explode, now the other, and rocks would fly up
swiftly, growing larger and larger to our vision, then sink
apparently slowly, softly, or run down declivities where
they had been shot. White smoke and steam would fill
the great hot well, and we would sit and wait for it to
clear. The only way to describe the sound is to suggest a
titanic grumbling, gnashing being trying to free itself from
pent chambers of earth; or, less fancifully — cannon of all
sizes and sounds, accompanied by musketry; then add to
both fancies a violent thunder-storm breaking over the deaf-
ening clatter of a busy day in a boiler factory.

Our lunch was eaten sitting with backs to the crater, and
we never lost the rhythm of mastication when the dogs let
loose in the kennels underground. From here we could see
the green world of island stretching out across blue-shadowy

332 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

valleys to Mirren and the other high peaks. Tana is only
seventeen miles long by seven in width, so we gained a
comprehensive impression, with the blue-flushed horizon
ringing us three quarters around.

I was a footsore sailor as we followed down the mountain
behind our savage guide with his triumphant cock-feather
atop, and his swinging, slashing bush-knife clearing short
cuts through dense growths.

The Watts bade us in for tea ; and now I am going to climb
aboard and ask my gentle friend Tehei to lomi-lomi these
broken ankles; for to-morrow is another tramp, to a native
village in the mountains. Jack's feet are tired also; but he
is not making so much fuss about it.

Sunday, June 14, 1908.

We are tired again to-night, and Martin also, for we
walked and climbed a twelve miles round trip to the bush
village. The latter, in addition to scratches, is fuming be-
cause the Reverend Watt quietly but firmly declined to lend
his dark-room on the Sabbath, because of the deleterious
effect it would exercise upon his congregation. Martin,
muttering that he never heard of a native who wanted to
work on any day of the week, no matter what the example,
went to developing the day's films in the hot Snark bath-
room; result, mostly failures. We are all heartbroken, for
the pictures we took of the queer hairy human animals in
the bush would have been invaluable to us. Martin will
never forgive the missionary.

Jack started the day with a hair-cut, Henry at the helm
— I mean the scissors. I put tapes around my lame ankles,
and laced my walking boots tighter than yesterday. Said
boots, a sailor shirt, broad hat, khaki riding breeks, and a
22 automatic rifle for sport, made up my equipment. Mar-
tin remarked with a smiling eye that Mrs. London looked
"very pantesque this morning." Which rather personal
observation may be indulgently allowed, for Martin has ever

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 333

been the soul of impersonal comradeship and delicacy
toward me. Indeed, the tacit taking of me as "one of the
boys" has been one of the most charming things about the
spirit aboard the Snark — combined always with the ready
hand to help and protect "the best man aboard/' as Dutch
Herrmann would say. I remember, one time when I was
railing to Jack about the way Captain Warren had thrown
us down, Jack chided:

"Yes, I know; but don't forget one thing: he was al-
ways good to you, not only in his personal treatment, but
in turning over to you any loot of any sort — whether it was
a mat some one had given him, or a pair of gold-lipped
pearl shells, or a pearl."

. . . We got away at nine, this time in care of Mr. Stanton
— a true-blue-eyed, serious mannered, clean young Colonial,
the type of earnest, self-respectful Englishman, made of
grit — so much so that he can never grow fat. He has suf-
fered terribly from the malignant, devastating malarial
fever that all have to reckon with who dally long in Me-
lanesia.

The country traversed yesterday was quite unpeopled
so far as we could see. But to-day we passed occasional
slovenly grass huts, some of them enclosed in pandanus-
plaited fences — the only decent workmanship of any kind
that we saw. The women were deadly unfeminine — nearly
resembling the men in face and voice, ageless, sexless, dirty ;
and they and their men displayed an ungracious inhospi-
tality that made us think vividly and lovingly of the Soci-
eties and the Samoas. In spite of the scant differentiation
between the sexes, these men are notoriously jealous of their
females, and special scrutiny of the latter on our part was
met by ugly scowls. If any savage smiled, for any reason,
it was momentary, monkeyish, and instantly over.

Our way led to the left this time, and shortly I was forg-
ing ahead, for I love to go first along a trail, first in a new
vista with a sense of breaking my own trail. I fear there is
little of the burden-bearing, heel-obedient squaw in my

334 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

make-up ! We travelled beautiful ferny trails where we
had to use both arms to press aside the enormous green
fronds. But the woods were not so spectacular as on the
volcano side, and many a time Jack and I could nurse a
homesick feeling on the familiarity of this scene or that. I
even discovered five-finger ferns.

Flying-foxes drifted aloft, and we heard querulous little
chatterings among parroquets we never glimpsed in the thick
foliage ; and there were myriads of wee green canaries flitting
and twittering among the lower leaves, and strange small
black and white birds with snubby heads.

The chief articles of export of the New Hebrides are
copra, small shipments of coffee, bananas, maize, sago, and,
in latter days, diminishing quantities of whale oil, sandal-
wood, and beche de mer. Traces of gold, nickel and cop-
per have been found, and Martin spied something that he
declared was coal. We saw copra drying on patches of
volcanic rocky ground hot in the sun.

When we sat to rest in the shade, Jack and Mr. Stanton
talked about wars, in Korea and South Africa, and
swapped experiences.

It is like wandering in Eden, to trip along in the wilder
parts of this blossoming isle. As we began to ascend moun-
tain fastnesses to the village, I wondered if Jack's and mine
were the first boots up the uncanny runway, for Stanton
went barefoot, and Martin emulated him. This runway
was a matchless approach to a mountain stronghold, for the
narrow perpendicular sides were above our heads, and the
point where we emerged in a high meadow containing the
village, would spell unavoidable death for every single per-
son who should show himself, were the natives hostile. Stan-
ton had assured us of our safety from any tricks, but based
the assurance upon the fact that he knew the head man, who
was in debt to him for certain favours, and we were ex-
pected. Just the same, when we came in sight there was an
alert movement ahead, of all the figures on the short fine
grass where they lay about, and subdued exclamations from

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 335

some grimy hovels of grass, mere roofs without walls, off
to the right where we caught sight of the disappearing
backs of women.

I had never seen animal-hairy humans, and the score or
so of naked men that gathered shiftily and uneasily to meet
us, were for the most part very fuzzy indeed. It was al-
most a fine black fur that matted their chests and limbs.
They were better formed and fuller-fleshed than the salt-
water natives, and their faces showed more diversity and
character. It was rather startling to note that some of
the faces were painted — strange countenances reminiscent
of old civilisations — a notable sprinkling of a Phoeni-
cian type; a decided suggestion of the Hindoo; and one
bearded old patriarch, despite unspeakable encrustations of
filth (" Sty-baked' ' Martin put it) was a veritable Moses of
the old Masters — in miniature, to be sure.

After a protracted pow-wow on Stanton's part with his
chief-friend and the council, it was granted that we might
photograph the men — but not the women. Any attempt of
Jack or Martin to take a snap at them where they crept
among the houses to look at us, was met with undisguised
scowls and mutterings. I was allowed to approach the low
plaited fence, but when I trained my pocket kodak, there was
an instant disturbance behind me among the men. So I
smiled and nodded submission and kept the lens in the same
direction, but turned my own side toward the women,
snapping them while I enthusiastically admired the pros-
pect up-mountain.

The women were shyly friendly with me, from over the
plaited screen, and did a great deal of giggling. The
chances are they had never seen a white woman, as it
is very unlikely that they are allowed far from the village,
and we are told that no white woman has been in the village
before me. The babies were round and dimpled brown cu-
pids, their ear-lobes scooped out and filled with hair-pins,
bone rings, safety pins — all sorts of " truck" brought home
by the foraging fathers; and strings of shells girdled their

336 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

pot-bellied little loins. These people are polygamous, and
the wives are equally fond of one another's children, even
in the same plural household. One old lady, fat and black
and fuzzy, was the picture of a southern mammy.

But the gathered clan of obscene, hairy men on the grassy
meadow-slope, their only covering a string or a strap, and
a wrapping or bandage of astounding phallic advertise-
ment, was a far wilder sight. They were so uneasy, so shift-
ing— lying down, getting up, moving here and there and
back again, like a band of monkeys, and never turning their
backs to us — a trick of caution that white men would do
well to imitate in this corner of the world. We were quite
aware that our unwilling hosts were armed, too, with spears
and bows and arrows, and they evidenced their conscious-
ness of our rifles by undisguised covetousness of them.

We did not stay long, and I for one breathed easier when
we were clear of the descending runway and in the open once
more. We lunched under a banyan, took a good rest, prac-
tised with our rifles on tiny leaves on top branches of high
trees, and reached the traders' store in good time to pick
up Mr. Wyllie for supper aboard the yacht.

Aboard the Snark,
Tana to Efate, New Hebrides,
Monday, June 15, 1908.

At three this afternoon Martin started the engine, I went to
the wheel, Henry to his post at masthead, and Jack forward
to con. We had intended to put in at Wysissi Bay, a few
miles from Port Resolution, but changed our minds after
we got outside, and set our course for the port of Vila, on
Efate, or Sandwich Island.

This forenoon Martin, Nakata and our two Polynesians
took the volcano trip, all barefoot. Wada did not go, as he
has developed a sore on his leg, from a cut he got on the
coral — like the ones Jack had. They are known as Fiji sores,
and Solomon Island sores, so the doctor in Suva told us.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 337

Some one called them yaws, but Stanton says yaws are a
much worse thing. One's skin is thin and tender after a
while in the tropics, and the least abrasion, say from scratch-
ing a mosquito bite, is apt to become infected, most likely by
flies, whereupon trouble begins, and the difficulty of healing
is appalling. Jack and I had been so alarmed about his
sores that we had privately talked about laying up the
Snark in Fiji and taking steamer to Australia and the doc-
tors. But Jack is not one to be idle while he waits. He
read up in our little medical library aboard, found nothing
like his trouble, closed the books, opened the glass doors of
the medicine chest, and selected the most violent enemy he
could locate with which to fight these malignant and active
ulcers. "Corrosive sublimate " sounded more fiery and radi-
cal than anything else, and he started dosing the five sores on
his instep and ankles (where he had scratched Samoan mos-
quito bites) with wet dressings of a solution of corrosive sub-
limate, occasionally alternating with peroxide of hydrogen.
Four of the ulcers were entirely well by the time we reached
Fiji, and the last is almost closed up — all of them thoroughly
healed from the inside out.

There are myriads of flies in Tana, and many of the na-
tives who came aboard had ulcers, so it is probable Wada
got his infection by these means. Jack has warned him,
and Martin and the others, to use antiseptics on the fresh
abrasions they got on the volcano trip, but they do not seem
impressed. I am not afraid, for I practically never * ' catch ' '
anything.

... I was up early this morning, in time to see the sun
gild the tops of the green, green hills, and light up the
heliotrope of the bay. Mt. Yasowa boomed dully, and na-
tives were dynamiting fish. Henry and Tehei went out to
get some for our breakfast, and came back grinning from
ear to ear, with small mackerel, and a long fish with a red-
tipped sword on its nose. A bevy of low-chattering, watch-
ful naked cannibals paddled out aboard, and one of them,
who seemed a wag among them, a canny-uncanny wizened

338 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

ape, insisted that he had seen Jack before, to our gales of
glee.

Everybody came to see us off, and brought basketfuls of
fruit and vegetables ; but so far as the kindly Reverend Watt
was concerned, Martin remained unforgiving of his ruined
pictures.

We ran the engine for three hours, then set sail; but it
soon fell calm, and we are now drifting, with plenty of lee-
way. We are all very alert, for it is no joke to be wrecked
hereabout.

Yasowa flared into the sky as dark came on, and then a
big bright moon rose, so we have ample light for our night
watches.

Tuesday, June 16, 1908.

At six I was on deck, and our patent log told of thirty-
six miles to the good since we stopped the engine yesterday.
We lay west of Erromanga, called Martyr Isle, from the
many missionaries horribly butchered by the cannibals, and
were drifting on a flat, grey sea, with no wind. Behind
the long black island, grisly mysterious in the half-light,
the fires of the sun were kindling, — lifting, flaring, fading,
burning again, then changing into an unendurable splen-
dour of blue and gold, in lateral bands, the massy clouds
above shimmering gold and palest green, with palpitating
purple shadows. Then followed broad fanrays of intoler-
able gold. To the southeast, Tana was shrouded in a blue
opal mist, throbbing with liquid rainbow colours. The
whole universe palpitated in an excess of passionate colour.

A little wind sprang up abaft, and we rippled ahead over a
beautiful sea while the world resumed a normal appearance.
Jack and I boxed in our bathing suits, treated each other to
a salt pailing, feasted on hotcakes and Papeete honey, and
put in a good day's work. About four the sea began to
make, and we partook of Wada's wild duck and plum-duff
dinner on a rolling boat.

THE LOG OP THE SNARK 339

At sea, New Hebrides to Solomon Islands,

Friday, June 26, 1908.

This is the day we should have sighted San Christoval
Island in the Solomons, but the weather has been so beastly,
with such dense cloud and mist where land ought to be, that
we have had to be very cautious lest we run into some un-
seen peril of rock or reef. We have lain off and on all
night, and heaved to at daylight to watch for a rift in the
tiresome smoky cloud to show us the land. It must be near,
for to-day a butterfly tangled in our rigging, and we have
seen a number of white land-birds.

Kemembering the Snark's refusal to heave to on that
memorable night out from San Francisco, and in spite of
better luck on a later occasion, we were a trifle apprehensive.
This morning when I awoke and realised that the men were
inducing this mano3uvre, I called up to Jack:

" Won't she?"

Came his puzzling response:

"Isn't she?"

I repeated:

"Mate — won't she heave to?"

"Isn't she hove to, Mate?" he returned, and I scrambled
on deck to find the little old tub safely and successfully
hove to in a misty-moisty world of wet, and Jack grinning
with achievement.

While all eyes are straining for the four-thousand-
foot outlines of San Christoval, for a landmark, the course
we want to make is between two small islands near the
southwestern end of San Christoval — Santa Catalina and
Santa Anna, four miles apart. Jack has decided to run in
to Port Mary on Santa Anna, the western of the two, as
the old sailing directions state there were a trader and a
missionary there. We do not know what may have hap-
pened since, but are going to take chances. Nakata is clean-
ing the "arsenal," just to have it in efficient order. Mate
is ill, and I can see he is anxious to prove his navigation cor-

340 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

rect, for this is not a reassuring place in which to go wrong.
He had little rest last night, for thunder squalls were almost
incessant, from ten o'clock on. The thunder was sometimes
like a steady drumming, or the thrumming of gongs, and
the lightning burst the bonds of the dark with brazen con-
tempt for everything human or made by human hands.
The forked and streaked thunder-bolts rove high heaven
and shot crashing into the sea. Oh — one presses close to
the nakedness and smallness of life at such times. Hour
after hour the noise and illumination continued, and I caught
myself in forbidden self-pity of nerve-weariness and eye-
weariness. I had tried the cockpit floor, along with Jack,
in our oilskins; then I fled to the dry white privacy of my
stateroom, and pitied him wet and sick outside. I tried to
sleep, but the lightning had crept inside my head, behind my
eyes, into my very soul.

... At Vila, I was too occupied trotting about to write,
and have been working hard these seven days at sea since
leaving Vila. We arrived there on Wednesday, June 17,
in a fine rain so dense that Jack made port by judgment
rather than sight. It was squally, with a rushing, foaming,
following sea. The engine chugged away sturdily, for a
change; I steered, and Jack peered ahead for breakers.
The mists parted and dispersed only as we slipped into the
green land-locked harbour, and we bit into good anchorage in
thirteen fathoms, to discover ourselves with plenty of com-
pany— nine or ten small vessels, five of them ketches, the
others sloops and schooners, scattered the mile and a half
breadth of the bay. And, of all things, Jack's friend Cap-
tain Lewes and the Cambrian had just steamed out.

I noticed that the French Residence and a French
schooner flew their flags at half mast, and I pulled ours
part-way down. The grewsome result was that the French
captain of police, Paul Mattei, put immediately out, expect-
ing to find some one dead aboard! It turned out that the
captain of the French schooner had lately died.

Natives flocked aboard, a less scrubby lot than the Tanese,

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 341

but not much to boast of. These Efate islanders are among
the better sort, possessing a slight strain of Polynesian. We
traded tobacco sticks and bead necklaces and things for
rather fine- woven basket-bags, and a fluffy dancing skirt of
shredded fibre dyed a plummy wine-colour.

We called upon the Acting English Resident, Mr.
Jacomb, an Oxford man, and upon the French Resident,
Charles Noufflard. They returned our calls next day, also
Captain Harrowell, English chief of the native constabulary,
and we were entertained by them ashore. Captain Har-
rowell seized Jack's hand in both his and cried: "And
this is Jack London ! — Why, he 's a household word in Eng-
land ! ' ' We dined with him and Mr. Jacomb, all in faultless
evening dress, with noiseless Chinese servants, and a white
silk punkah waving overhead.

M. Noufflard had us to lunch — all charming apology be-
cause he had just arrived and his household was not yet
running smoothly. However, he had enough of his Parisian
treasures unpacked to set a beautiful table, which was served
by a shy native house-boy trained by Noufflard 's predeces-
sor. At both of these meals ashore we were honoured with
cocoanut-palm salad — made from the very tip-top of the
tree, which loses its life thereby. " Funeral salad," Martin
cheerily dubs it.

The English cruiser Prometheus arrived on the 18th, and
by her courtesy we had her blacksmiths aboard to do some
repairing, — a broken spinnaker boom, and other items. And
Jack and I went over with our chronometer to rate it.

The British Colonial officials are strict, and our yacht
license availed us nothing ; we were obliged to clear, like any
merchant vessel. We did so, and got away on June 20,
sliding out under full canvas, dipping our flag to the
cruiser, which dipped and cheered in return.

That night there was a red glow in the eastern sky, prob-
ably Ambrym volcano. Next day we could see two beau-
tiful smoking cones rising out of the horizon — the most
wonderful experience. One was Ambrym, the other Aoba,

342 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

or Leper Island, 4000 feet high. Big Mallicolo, on our port
side, tempted us repeatedly to put into its fascinating green
baylets; but we were anxious to get ahead to the Solomons,
where we might find a doctor.

Jack has gleaned enough from our medical shelf to feel
confident in diagnosing his trouble as fistula — caused by he
knows not what, unless it be some infinitesimal fishbone.
He has a new crop of sores, too — and ample company, for
Martin, Wada, and Nakata, who disregarded all advice about
corrosive sublimate, are all now nursing bad ulcers — Nakata,
especially, has our sympathy, for a large space on his calf,
which he inadvertently burned with a hot iron, has become
infected. Jack has his sores well in hand; but the others
are praying for stronger and stronger cures, even corrosive
sublimate being too slow for them. Wada talks in his sleep,
and dreams of happy days in Papeete with his native sweet-
heart.

But Henry and Tehei are gloriously healthy. Tehei has
been catching fish — big rainbow-bubbles of bonitas — and his
yells of joy as he lands them blobbing on the deck, are a
tonic to all on board. Jack says it's worth a hundred dol-
lars to hear Tehei catch a bonita.

We sighted one of the Banks Group on the 23d. They
were discovered by Captain Bligh, in an open boat on May
14, 1879, during his remarkable voyage from Tofoa to
Timor, after the mutiny of the Bounty. They did not dare
land and expose themselves to the atrocities of the cannibal
natives, preferring the perils of the open boat.

Jack finished an article, which he calls The Amateur Navi-
gator, and is now at work on a Hawaiian short story. He is
certainly doing all a mortal man could accomplish.

One evening we were playing cards in the cabin, when
Jack, who was facing the open door into my room, exclaimed
in a tone almost of awe:

" Great God!"

I went cold, and followed his bulging gaze, expecting to
see nothing less than half the warm South Sea pouring in.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 343

What I did see was hardly more reassuring — an enormous
centipede, fully six inches, making unerringly up the bunk-
side for my pillow. Martin nailed it with Jack's big office
shears, and was so calm about it that I asked him why.
"Oh," he said, "I don't mind them. In Tahiti, the first
day I got up, after six weeks in hospital, I sat on one. It
didn't hurt much."

Our course from Efate had been nearly north; but pass-
ing between the Banks Group to starboard, and big 5000-
foot Espiritu Santo to port, we quit the New Hebrides and
set the course northwest for the Solomons. We were con-
tent to be well away from Santo, as it is treacherously reefy,
and the natives bear an especially unsavoury reputation,
being the very aristocracy and autocracy of the New Hebri-
deans, athletic, strong, cruel, and well supplied with of-
fensive weapons.

Oh, it is a wild part of the world, this — wild peoples, wild
weather, and a wild boisterous sea at times. On the 24th
we white ones all fell ill with violent headaches, as if we had
been poisoned. Not the least of our comforts were Tehei's
ministrations with his gentle hands, in hours of lomi-lomi —
his tauromi. To our repeated mauruuruu's he would nod
and bob and smile with the most benevolent manner.

It all wore off next day, but we felt weak and "rocky/'
according to Martin.

In addition to the myriad other things he is handling,
Jack has a navigation class of two, Martin and Henry. I
am glad of this, for we would be in parlous pickle if Jack
were, say, too ill to navigate. While this is going on, I work
with Nakata and Tehei at their English. Nakata is nothing
short of brilliant, and has already gone far past Wada in
our speech; but Tehei is despairingly an infant, and can
hold nothing in his head over night.

344 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Aboard the Snark, Port Mary (Upuna),
Island of Santa Anna (Owa Raha),
Sunday, June 28, 1908.

Curious Sabbaths these, at the ends of the earth. A week
ago we were in the bush village on Tana, and now, here we
are at last in our first port in the Solomon Group, inhabited
by the most bloodthirsty and treacherous of any known
savages — head-hunters who prowl for prey by night, on land
and sea, rarely attacking unless their victims are at their
mercy without risk to themselves. And this is going on
to-day — indeed, on the next small island to the northwest,
Ugi, where we are bound, the trader before the present
one was surprised and murdered by a canoe-raid from the
big bad island of Malaita — the worst in the world.

We are anchored in eighteen fathoms, with 250 feet of
chain. In fact, the good old hook is in a hole in the sandy
bottom ; and we are about four cable-lengths from the beach
village. The bay is on the west side of the little island,
which rises 500 feet and is beautifully wooded.

Yesterday we were a tired and yawning lot of Snarkites,
after another shouting night of thunder. The sky was ter-
rific, brilliant intermittent flashes opening up deep heavens
of illuminated cloudlands, followed by fierce hells of light-
ning-bolts and pitchy dark. We lay off and on again that
night of the 26th, and yesterday was calm and lovely as a
day in the Doldrums, the ocean like a billowing breadth of
woven blue fabric, so fine were the rippling wrinkles, strewn
with tiny violet Portuguese men-o'-war. All day we could
see San Christoval ; but our ' ' tempery ' ' engine saw fit to go
on strike, and there was no wind. We worked as usual, and
Jack was much gratified to find in his books a diagram of a
different application of the Sumner Method, which he had
already reasoned out independently for himself the previous
day.

At sunset Santa Anna pricked out of the horizon — " Ex-
actly where I wanted it," Jack affirmed. There was noth-
ing to do but heave to again for the night, the isle of our de-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 345

sire melting in copper mist. Over the mainland — San
Christoval — there were gigantic piles of smoky cloud, letting
forth great bursts of sunset flame — reminding one of mighty
sacrificial fires of the gods of the Solomons at cannibal rites.
Out of the gorgeous chaos of colour and fire, there upthrust
a lofty cloud-pillar like grey marble, that slowly blossomed
out two broad wings of gold from its head. Never was
anything like it in the kaleidoscope of the sky. And off to
the east a false beautiful sunset flaunted fanrays of vivid
azure against a background of palest rose-tourmaline that
burned to ashy crimson. Higher up grew fairy mountain
ranges of pure gold and ruby, with delicate straight cloud-
lines drawn across. Tradewind clouds puffed up like pink
roses out of the soft purple and rose sea, and to the south a
city of dreams glinted on the horizon. Close at hand myr-
iads of fish leaped in the coloured flood, and subsided only
when the brilliancy went out of the world. Then San
Christoval bulked ominously in its cowl of cloud, and we
could not but imagine the benighted bush-heathen in their
mountain lairs, killing and eating, hating and loving — with
scant love — fattening their little women and children for
the feasting. There are some much-hackneyed lines in
"Greenland's Icy Mountains" that come unbidden in the
face of the facts of life in Melanesia.

When morning broke, this Sunday morning, we found we
had drifted slightly but made no headway. It is vast com-
fort to find our sinned-against Snark doing the normally-ex-
pected, and not the "inconceivable and monstrous !"

Martin started the propeller at 6:30, and Jack set our
course for Santa Anna, or where it should be, for only
squalls could be seen in that direction. We "steamed" for
seven hours, without a dissent from the engine, at first on
a calm sea, and later with a brisk trade wind in addition.
1 i Just see us kite ! ' y Martin panted from out of his diminu-
tive hatch. The sparkling water was littered with flotsam
— seaweed, fruit, banyan-leaves, twigs, grasses, cocoanut
shells.

346 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

We were puzzled by what appeared to be a long yellow
shoal ahead, and I confess to a little prickle of nerves when
our bow cut into the discoloured water — merely a calm
streak yellowed by a peculiar light effect from the sky. Over
the long glassy swell of it we fared, flying-fish darting about,
every one alert, and Henry and Tehei dropping vowelly ex-
clamations, their eyes sparkling. One or the other was aloft
all the time. Jack was tense and keyed-up, and I could
see he was suffering physically ; but he was living high, just
the same, and his eyes were blue and snapping.

As we neared the channel between the two small islands,
we noticed lines of black dots on the long low points reach-
ing out from either island. Through the binoculars it
was with a real, scary thrill I made sure that the ones on
the port bow were moving back and forth restlessly. Soon
the glasses showed them to be unmistakable human beings —
black, naked, gesticulating, and increasing in numbers.
The dots on the Santa Anna point of reef proved to be
merely rocks. I can assure you that every man of us — in-
cluding myself — knew exactly where his gun lay. There
is nothing too bad that the books can say about the Solomon
Islanders, and from Samoa on, the word of mouth confirma-
tions have been a-plenty, so we were wide-awake and cautious.

No canoes put out, however, and we sailed on, I at the
wheel, rounding the reef of Santa Anna and, finally, in a
sudden, whipping rain-squall, passing through the narrow
entrance. I'll never forget the picture, while I stole glances
from the compass by which I was steering my very best,
guided by Jack's hand-waved directions and frequent shout,
over the noise of the engine: "Steady!" Across the
jagged jumble of outer reef along which we slid looking for
the passage, with a background of palms and lofty thatched
roofs and a wooded hillside, rose stately the most beautiful
canoes, more beautiful than Venetian gondolas — elegant of
body, with high graceful ends, carved, painted, outlined
with white cowrie shells, and manned by woolly-headed,
gleaming-bodied, excited blacks. It was all so savagely

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 347

beautiful, so unreal — so much stage-scenery faultlessly exe-
cuted and acted. And we were hardly at anchor, directed
to our present holding-place by a native who spoke a queer
sort of English, than we could see a bevy of similar canoes
approaching from Santa Catalina. It would seem that few
vessels enter the Archipelago from the eastern end.

The islander who piloted us to our anchorage, gave his
name:

"I Peter. I Christian. "

But he looks it not. And it turns out that, being the
worst of the boiling at Port Mary, and even now awaiting
judgment from the Commissioner for threatening the man-
ager of the Company (for whom he gathers copra) with a
spear, he was the only one who mentioned his claim to re-
ligion, or took the trouble to be decent to us. He does not
know why we are here, or who we are — perhaps to watch
him, for all he can tell. Very ingratiating he is, very non-
chalant and careless, in an elegant sort of way, and, as he
is likely to be useful in finding curios for us, we meet him
half-way. He has the most remarkable eyes, brilliant,
shallow, wicked, with a soulless glitter of utter conscience-
lessness.

Peter explained, in what is called beche de mer English,
that there was only one white man here, Tom Butler, whose
shack we could see ashore, and that Tom Butler was away
getting copra on the other side of the island, and would be
back to-morrow. But Tom got wind of us and returned to-
day, rowed by two black "boys," in a whaleboat. He is as
near a dead man as a live man can be — a ghastly object. He
wabbled aboard almost helpless, a dead hand bumping
against the gangway ropes — some tropic ailment having
robbed it of all sensation and power.

" Lucky it's not your right hand," Jack sympathised.

"But I'm left-handed," Butler quavered with a sickly
smile on his bloodless face. He resembles a white-faced,
snub-nosed, freckled Irish school-urchin, and his one ob-
session is his friend the trader at Ugi — "Jack at Ugi." All

348 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

the sense he seems to have he expends in being kind to us
with what is left of his Irish good-heartedness. After one
becomes used to his graveyard personality and the wandering
bluish gaze that slowly focuses as he gathers his faculties to
answer a question, he does not bother one 's sympathies much,
because what there is of him is perfectly self-satisfied. But
conversation boils down to something like this:

1 ' How 's copra here ? — much of it ? "

An eye-focusing pause.

"Oh, plenty; but Jack at Ugi got out a hundred tons last
Christmas. ' '

Or:

"So you have no missionaries here any more?"

"No — no — but there's lots of 'em down at Jack's at Ugi."

"Pretty snug little harbour this," Jack remarks.

"Sure — yes — but there's a better one down at Jack's at
Ugi."

Christmas is the one event of the year to Butler. He
spends it with Jack at Ugi. He looks forward to it, and
back upon it. Indeed, he practically never opens his mouth
without working in some reference to Jack at Ugi.

We went ashore with Tom Butler in the whaleboat to his
shack — a ragged wooden cottage with thatched roof. He was
too weak to open his double-padlocked door, so I did it for
him, and then poked about the premises seeing what I could
see, while Jack, very much under the weather, lolled supine
in a rotting canvas chair on the rickety porch. Then there
dropped in the queerest bunch of callers I ever had — stark
naked women and girls, with close-cropped woolly heads and
horrid blackened teeth. The young women had rather pretty
figures, except for a peculiar horizontal elongation of their
breasts; but any facial beauty they might have is sadly
marred by their unlovely cropped heads, which make them
resemble microcephalous idiots. One Neapolitan-looking girl
from the other side of the island, must have been a sport,
or had some Polynesian (she did not look like a half-caste),
for she had fine, wavy brown hair several inches long stand-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 349

ing out all over her head, softly. The men allow their own
hair to attain a sizable fuzz. Did I say the females were
stark naked? The maidens usually wear a single strand of
twine or cocoanut fibre around the waist, the matrons be-
ing distinguished by the addition of a single string de-
pendent in front. Very much overdressed wives attach to
their waist-string a grassy fringe fore and aft, about six
inches square. I tried to bargain for one of these ' ' dresses, ' '
but the woman shot a terrified glance at her man as she
vehemently shook her head at me. Tom Butler explained
that it would be a mortal offence for her to part with her
fringe.

Three slim virgins volunteered a dance, to the music (?) of
a jew's-harp at the mouth of one — a slow-stepping hula in
which the dancers incline backward from head to knee, the
lower-leg and feet angling to keep the curious balance. This
performance took place surreptitiously in the cottage, as it
seems the males do not approve of strange white men wit-
nessing it.

I have always idolised the human form — filled my house
with copies of Greek statuary, collected pictures of nudes,
and revelled in the beauty of the cinctured native peoples
we have seen on this voyage; but I must confess that there
is a startle when one first sees women going about entirely
naked. I shall become used to it in no time, I suppose;
but the initial impression is a bit of a shock. The men
here all wear a loin-cloth, no matter how short it may be
of its purpose.

These people are as different as can be from the monkey-
ish travesties of human beings on Tana. They are well-
sized, and well-formed, muscular, graceful. Their shoul-
ders are peculiar, however — massive enough, but lacking the
squareness we admire. They round down upon the arms in-
stead of outjutting.

And oh, the ornaments! We have become more or less
inured to the lovely practice of civilised women piercing
their ears; but here, when you see the lobe-hole stretched

350 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

until it accommodates a wooden disk eight inches in cir-
cumference, it makes you think.

. . . We have returned to the yacht laden with yams,
cocoanuts and papaias. The bay is beautiful — never did I
see water so brilliantly, luminously turquoise — with a daz-
zling band of white beach that is not white but cream, not
cream but pink, a rim of sparkling foam at the water's
edge breaking against the ornate canoes hauled up, and
lovely emerald arboreal foliage behind, palms, papaias, hau
trees, and luxuriant thicket, broken here and there by the
sombre, uncanny roofs of the canoe houses where dead
chiefs are hung to dry.

Monday, June 29, 1908.

We had to keep anchor watches all last night, for it was
squally, and the bottom is rather skaty. In case of drag-
ging, we hoped the anchor would hold against the sides of
that hole it is in.

Also, it is well to keep watches here on general principle.
While the natives of this outlying island are fairly well
disposed, Tom Butler says that raids from Malaita are al-
ways imminent, under cover of darkness and squalls, and
nothing is more to the taste of the Malaitan head-hunters
than to "cut out" a schooner laden with tobacco and other
loot.

It has been drizzling stickily all day, and we have stayed
aboard rocking gently to our long cable. But don't think
that we have been idle. The word went forth that we would
trade stick-tobacco for curios; and in no time it was easy
to forecast that the oldest treasures of the village would
soon go up in tobacco smoke, for although no women came
out, their choicest ornaments did — evidently seized upon
by the men-folk and brought for barter.

They wanted beads as well as tobacco ; and in short order
we learned that the changing styles in adornment, of which
we had been told, is no myth. Just now the fashion calls

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 351

for a medium-sized bead — a small-pea size, and the people
have evinced a most unaccountable — to us — aversion to
certain handsome necklaces of graduated turquoise-blue
beads. They will accept them as a gift — they'll accept any-
thing that way; but if we indicate an exchange, they shrug
and grin half-insolently.

All day they have clambered over the side, eager, ava-
ricious, bringing treasure undreamed in carved nose-rings
of thick turtle-shell; baskets ("bastiks") ; shell-like flow-
ers; garters of small white cowries on bands of finest
cocoanut-sennit ; elongated black cannibal calabashes show-
ing more than the beginnings of art — indeed, the scrolls
and figures on the ends are almost classic; beautiful giant
"clam1' shells with fluted lips, the insides like purest white
marble polished to satin gloss — full of delicious meat, raw
or cooked ; and two actual clam-pearls — one large and round,
one acorn-shaped, the surfaces like porcelain ; bracelets from
the island of Rubiana, of delicate-tinted, hand-wrought
shell, finely etched in patterns — each bracelet must have
taken months to make with stone tools; armlets worked out
of the big white clam shells, that Tom Butler avers it takes
a black a year to do; and one native, an athletic young
hunter, brought bush-pigeons, trading them for a delicate
flowered silkaline kerchief, which he now wears dangling
from a greasy belt, against a dingy and very dirty lava-lava.

Jack took a fancy to buy back their beads of other days
and modes, and we have a heap of rococo things such as
armlets and broad girdles — the large beads wrought into
fine plaited sennit. One is all green beads, another bright
blue, another red and black — things beautiful enough to
scheme a gown on.

Many a curio we bought right off its wearer, this lending
an added value in our eyes. I can see some early antisepticis-
ing of the articles — such as one irresistible bead garter that
was untied from a sore leg! Tehei is even now washing
our dozens of Rubiana bracelets and the turtle shell nose-
rings.

352 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

These people are "Black Papuan," but not as black as
the New Guinea Papuan, so say the books. And in their
dark-skinned visages one sees as it were all the features and
combinations of all the varied white races of Europe, as
well as the Orient. A fattish old soul, contemplatively puff-
ing away at a clay pipe, was the perfection of a stolid blear-
eyed German, but for his colour. Another, for all the
world a comical little Irishman, tried to palm off a very
rotten calabash, and joined in the insane, brief cackle of
merriment that went up from his fellows when we threw it
aside. Still another was a typical Mexican — all he needed
was a sombrero. One boy was the image of any city rowdy,
on whom we kept a wary eye; but the more we saw of
him the better we liked him; he was merely a good
1 'mixer."

There was a pretty, impudent American-faced chap, of the
weak and conceited sort that can get very nasty on occasion ;
and there was every sort of Jew on earth. One Moorish
old chief, too dignified to barter directly, went home and
sent his ornaments by some one else. We even found strong
resemblances to numbers of our American friends ! A thin,
yellow-brown variation, with a few grey bristles on his lip,
was the vegetable Chinaman of my childhood.

Peter was much in evidence, excessively dandified, and on
easy terms with us. We found another Tomi than Taiohae
Tomi — a good-looking, intelligent fellow, high with the chief,
to whom we made presents, and who is also, with Peter,
drumming up curios for us. Our private opinion is that
they are a proper pair of villains, although too wise to get
into any trouble with so well-armed and mysterious a craft
as ours.

And then there's the Devil. His diabolical face and
body seem at variance with an unusually mild and harm-
less disposition. Martin was just pouring an avalanche of
stick-tobacco alongside Jack sitting on the deck-cot, when
the Devil, in a canoe, squinted his basilisk eyes over the
teak rail. * * My God ! ' ' said Martin, and froze to the vision.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 353

Jack looked at the thing and said: "I wouldn't call him
that, Martin!"

It came over the rail, and sat down upon it. It wore a
soft, old felt hat, that drooped limply around the face.
The eyes are what I call half -moon eyes — the iris high on
the ball, and partly covered by the upper lid. The thing is
horribly near-sighted and squints its face into the most
infernal expressions. On the top of the end of its nose
is a tiny carved sliver of bone, set in a hole long-healed
for the purpose, the sliver curving up like a diminutive
rhinoceros horn, the sight of which makes one wrinkle one's
own nose with involuntary and misplaced sympathy. Jack
handed the Devil a small iron puzzle, and he snatched it
with hooked fingers. I looked for a barbed tail, but found
it not; and the feet were just as spraddly and hand-like
as those of the rest of the spawn. He sat for hours over that
puzzle, squinting ferociously. I was obsessed to decorate
the creature, and hung about its neck the most delicate opa-
lescent and blue beads. I took a picture of it, too, and
then got it to remove its funny schoolboy hat. Lo! its
hair was a yellow-bleached fuzz all over the crankiest coni-
cal head ever born.

Peter wears the nose-spike, too, and also one of the popu-
lar nose-rings that hang over the mouth and is of consider-
able irk when eating.

In addition to the disks of wood or clam-shell in their
strained ear-lobes, the men have found other rich possi-
bilities of disfigurement. They pierce holes along the edges
of the ear, and in the topmost hole thrust a stick of polished
white wood the size and length of a pencil or a sturdy sec-
tion of macaroni. From the other perforations in the tor-
mented gristle depend little bunches of small beads and
porpoise-teeth, dangling coquettishly and ticklingly into the
hollows of the organ of hearing. This dainty custom ob-
tains with both sexes. They scorn not the tin keys that
come with canned goods, nor the wire handles of tin pails,
nor yet large rusty nails. The weighted lobes frequently

354 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

hang nearly to the shoulder, and some are torn clear through,
hanging in two shreds. One haughty councillor of the chief
struts unapproachably with a white door-knob bumping on
his grimy chest. Another, high in diplomatic circles, has a
really handsome thing on his breast — a round flat disk four
inches in diameter, of snowy clam-shell, worked thin by un-
told labour, and etched deep with symbolic figures. I am
simulating a careless and rather contemptuous attitude
toward it, a feeble interest, for it is evidently of vast value
to the owner. But I think that by weight of tobacco and
beads cleverly displayed whenever he is around, the great
man may talk business.

They do not know what to make of the cameras, and are
in dread that the black cases will go off. Nevertheless they
brace up to the ordeal, although with an awful fixity of
gaze. The deck, during the trading, was fraught with the
most laughable un-misleading stage whispers concerning
values of articles. It was very plain, among other things,
that I was a great curiosity, and my comradely relations
with my husband a source of wondering speculation. I
believe they considered it surprising that the wealthy owner
of so much tobacco should have but one wife anyway.

And in all this melee, trading, sorting, cleansing, and
packing away our clutter of curios, we were ever courteous,
careful not to antagonise, and we unostentatiously avoided
letting our visitors get behind us.

Tuesday, June 30, 1908.

Another squally night, another forenoon of trading under
the awnings; and as Jack was feeling much better, we had
a jolly time. One filthy native produced a gold sovereign
and offered it for tobacco ; but that sort of thing is outside
our sphere as a pleasure yacht, for we may only exchange
commodities, and sell nothing.

Nakata went ashore to do the washing, where we found him
in the afternoon, near the trader's cottage, cross-legged be-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 355

fore a flat stone, scrubbing away, and opposite him two nude
females likewise engaged, and all getting acquainted in beche
de mer English. Wada, hearing of the social perquisites
of laundering ashore, firmly but inconspicuously gleaned
every washable article on the yacht, and departed for the
chaste strand forthright.

Jack, Martin and I wandered along a sylvan pathway
under the palms, to the village, and found it quite unlike
anything we have yet seen. The straggling oblong houses
have very low sides and long-eaved roofs. Doors do not
extend to the ground, but are reached across a waist-high,
roofed platform resting on logs. There are no windows
whatever, and the interiors are dark and smelly. Children
squat and squabble on the platforms, while shy women lurk
in the shadows behind. Tomi, whose house is rather su-
perior, introduced us to his two wives — the first plural
wives I have ever met. They were appropriately gowned
for our reception, in single strings of tiniest coloured beads
on cotton thread.

We noticed innumerable sores on both men and women —
mainly on the legs, which invite more abrasions ; and Martin
groaned in disgust and sympathy, meanwhile spreading his
shin-bandages a little wider, for there are myriads of busy
flies. As the men gathered around, we noticed several who
were minus a leg or an arm.

"Him fella boy bite 'm fella shark," was the unmistak-
able explanation. And the rascals deliberately advise us
that swimming here is absolutely safe !

We are grappling valiantly with the current speech. This
morning, having traded for a basket I particularly liked,
Jack addressed the former owner as follows:

"You catch me fella one fella bastik all the same along
this fella bastik — sayve?"

And "How much you want along this fella or that?" is
the beginning of a haggle.

Tom Butler's conversation is largely composed of this jar-
gon. He says "Man pig and woman pig," "Man fowl,

356 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

woman fowl," and, in describing a short distance, "A long
way a little bit."

The women in general are very like the men in manner,
after they have quickly conquered their bashfulness. They
are beasts of burden, carry loads, and do heavy work, while
the men "do the jamboree." And speaking of jamborees,
we indicated in lovely beche de mer that we should appre-
ciate a dance. By now, anxious to please the possessors of
so much tobacco, beads and " calico," they were willing to
let the women perform for us; so we were led to an open
space, where we sat about on the grass (fervently hoping
there were no sore-germs in it), and saw a strange weaving
circle through the most remarkable and not unbeautiful
gyrations. We could only guess at the various signifi-
cances of it, the stealthy, graceful hunting-step of Peter
and Tomi, the monkey-movements of the pot-bellied brown
babies, and the delicate sensuous danse au ventre of the
girls — all to the quaint humming vibrations of the Jew's-
harp.

We tendered appropriate presents to the dancers, and
then Peter and Tomi stole Jack and Martin, Henry and
Tehei (who had followed along), and took them to a couple
of the big canoe houses — long gabled roofs supported by
carven posts. The sides are low, with equally low front
walls, the big end-spaces above wide open.

The nearest view I am supposed to get into these sacred
edifices is from the water, for no female foot is permitted,
on pain of unnameable punishment, or death, to defile even
the ground in front. At the first house I went a little
nearer than was prudent, in a vain attempt to filch a peep
inside, but murmurs from my following of dark heathen
made me turn leisurely away as if I had never thought
of such a thing. Jack is teasing me because I am of such
an inferior clay and sex that I cannot follow him. He did
not see much, however — the carved kingposts with obscene
figures atop (there is one twelve feet high at a ''four
corners" in the village), a handsome canoe or so, and a

A Tambo Canoe House

Mangrove

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 357

grisly package suspended from the ridgepole, said to con-
tain evaporated remains of chiefs. Henry still insists: "I
smell something that first place. " Jack says he only
imagined it. But in the second canoe house (I did manage
an angle where I could obtain a glimpse), there was ample
odour of a fresher sort, for a pig, on its back, was being
singed, with a lot of men bending over it in the smoke.

I found more curious relics to-day, among them several
black wooden trays, carved into fish shapes. I can picture
a planked striped bass on one of them some day, in our
Wolf House in the Valley of the Moon. We came upon a
comically industrious group of artisans under the beach
palms, working feverishly on new imitations of the ancient
oval calabashes we like, as well as some small and laughably
indecent wooden figures, which were being painted with
natural pigments. The workers grinned sheepishly when
we caught them manufacturing " antiques" with which to
beguile our tobacco. Jack contemplated them for a while,
then observed:

" They 're like the man who was so greedy that when he
was wrecked on an uninhabited island, it wasn't ten
minutes before he had his hands in the pockets of the naked
savages. ' '

There is no true hospitality nor generosity among these
savages. It is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, quite
literally sometimes. One old man, at the dance, asked for
tobacco, got it, and later gave me a yellow-and-red fine-
plaited armlet. It is the only gift we have received. This
man, Butler tells us, is an unprecedented old murderer, a
terror in the islands, and has killed more men than he can
remember. And he, as well as others of his tribe, continu-
ally warn us against Malaita — Mala, they call the island.

I washed my hands very thoroughly after returning to
the yacht — not because the hands I had perforce to shake
were the hands of murderers and man-eaters, but because
they were such unsanitary hands !

The Snark is a pretty vision from the beach, riding at

358 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

anchor, shining white, scraped and brassy, all trig and
trim, with long booms out on either side, and the life-boat
and launch moored thereto. No natives are allowed aboard
in Jack's absence, but there are always a few small canoes
hovering about.

We are reading A Naturalist Among the Head Hunters,
by G. M. Woodford, and it is like a half fairy tale and half
ogre tale. The Solomons, by the way, were so named be-
cause their early discoverers believed them to be the source
of King Solomon's wealth of gold. Mendaiia saw them
first, only seventy-five years after Columbus discovered
America. Woodford tells of the great beauty and variety
of the flora, and the insects interested him vastly. This is
not surprising, when one learns that the butterflies were of
such proportions that to secure them he had to use a shot-
gun of some sort. In the 80 's he sent home to England
many skins of birds new to science — rare pigeons, parrots,
and so forth; and lizards and rats several feet long. And
as for the people — after years spent among them, he con-
cludes that the longer he lives the more he realises that he
possesses only the most superficial knowledge of them and
their customs. It is as intricate a puzzle as Lafcadio Hearn
encountered with the Japanese.

Wednesday, July 1, 1914.

Jack is so improved that we have been jubilant to-day.
There was more trading in the forenoon — Jack has not writ-
ten, these Port Mary mornings, because of the rich oppor-
tunity for curios; and Martin and I labelled the things
and sorted them for packing.

Wada reported, concerning his wash-day ashore : ' ' Those
girl no like Papeete vahine — no hair on head — no good sing,
no good that monkey-talk English."

Henry and Tehei rowed over to join some natives who
were dynamiting fish, and brought back a few plump and
toothsome mullet; but Henry shook his head portentously,
and explained:

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 359

" Never I see such t'ing. Dynamite go, fish stun, I grab
fish, shark he come quick — like that! — and take fish right
out of my hand. No more for me ! "

It is true — the harbour sharks, instead of fleeing at the
detonation, know it as a dinner-gong and gather to dis-
pute the feast.

Peter and Tomi, our two villainous but obliging col-
leagues, got up a big dance ashore, and thither we went after
dinner, laden with a sack of prizes. It was a very pom-
pous affair, with a bevy of dancers and quite an orchestra
of heathenish wooden instruments. The performers started
in two long lines from a weather-beaten carved pillar, then
moved around the clacking, intoning orchestra in opposite
circling rings. The figures were much the same as yester-
day's, but more elaborate. The dancers were all gay with
cocoanut foliage and flowers, beautifully disposed in girdles,
armlets, garters, and wreaths for their heads. The steps are
very like those of the Igorrotes. Jack and I reclined and
watched and dreamed, laughed at the frolicsome bronze
pickaninnies, and were glad we were alive.

After the distribution of presents, we returned along the
sylvan palmy path to Tom Butler 's, where we paid our fare-
well call. There is not much left of the old man, but all
there is left is all good, and he has been more than kind to us.
His last words to us were :

"Now you'll see Jack at Ugi. My word, but he'll give
you a good time — plenty of milk — he's got cows, you know,
and better bullamacow than yours. Good luck to you —
and he waved his live hand.

"Bullamacow" means beef. It is surmised that when
the first bull and cow were brought to the islands, they
were introduced as "a bull and a cow."

Ugi, Solomon Islands,
Thursday, June 2, 1908.

This has been one long day of nature-beauty and human
interest, with the ever present spice of anticipatory danger

360 THE LOG OF THE SNAKK

from earth and its inhabitants. "We have not apprehended
the latter very much — what most worries is the unreliable-
ness of reef-charting, and uncertainty of nature in the mat-
ter of tides and currents. The Solomons stretch northwest
and southeast for nearly a thousand miles, with an area of
15,000 square miles — more than twice the area of Wales.
There are nearly a dozen principal islands, and a lot of
lesser ones. And in this long tangle of islands great and
small, weather conditions and all other conditions are such
that it would seem if a man could sail safely through them,
he could sail anywhere.

Jack was called at 5:30 this morning, and before Martin
had coaxed the engine to work, we were half out of the reef
passage under sail, and, once clear of Port Mary, picked up
a good breeze — which they call the Southeast Monsoon. It
is stimulating to sail before a wind with a name like that.

We breakfasted on pigeon and mullet, while engine and
wind swept us along the green coast of San Christoval.
Ugi, which is the larger of two, called the Isles du Golfe,
lies to the north, about midway of the big island, and we
wanted to make it before dark. Night sailing hereabout is
very undesirable. All of us were unremittingly on lookout
for rocks and shoals and reefs, and we saw them a-plenty.
There was black weather ahead for a while, ugly squalls
with whipped-white seas, and San Christoval was swathed
in dun clouds. As the day cleared, and clouds lifted and
melted away in the sunshine, the island unfolded a kingdom
of hills and mountains, billowing and jutting up from the
water's edge to over 4000 feet, the mist-wreathed valleys
looping garland-wise among climbing green peaks that
1 'stood up like the thrones of kings." There was a savage
royal beauty about the land, as the clouds tore apart from
the face of it — "Ramparts of slaughter and peril, Blazing,
amazing, aglow."

Henry has learned who it is we quote so often, and this
morning remarked sagely:

"That man Kipling he good — he know things."

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 361

By noon all was veiled in mist and rain again, which in
turn cleared away from the water's edge, lifting, lifting,
like a slow curtain, revealing tier upon tier of rounded
woodsy hills.

After dinner, Ugi showed up ahead like a little blue vel-
vet hat on the water, its top being flattened; and we made
out some dots of islets on the starboard bow — the Three Sis-
ters. We glow with pleasure and reassurance when we can
positively identify any landmark.

About the middle of the afternoon we discovered a whale-
boat coming from the mainland, and presently welcomed
aboard Frederick A. Drew, missionary of the Melanesian
Society, Church of England. Whalers once frequented the
harbour of Makira on the western side of San Christoval;
but now, on all this island, seventy-six miles long by twenty-
three at the widest, Frederick Drew and one trader, Larry
Keefe, are the only white men. Mr. Drew was a picture
standing in the boat as she neared, rowed by three handsome
San Christoval mission boys. He is the slight, strong, blond
type of wiry young English rover who has grit enough to go
anywhere and do anything. He met us with frank blue eyes
and friendly smile, and immediately he stepped aboard
everybody was laughing in the best of fellowship because he
wore the familiar badge of Melanesia — a white rag about the
shin. Promptly arose a discussion between him and Martin
as to the best cures, Mr. Drew backing Jack on corrosive
sublimate, and Martin arguing for blue-stone, probably think-
ing it more efficacious because of its exceeding painfulness.

Mr. Drew 's three black youths are beauties, with soft, shy
manners and chastened sweet expressions on pleasant-
featured faces. One of them, with a strikingly Egyptian
profile, wears a little crucifix "to keep a man from harm."
I wonder what the foreign talisman really means to him.

Of course we had them all aboard — the black boys taking
turns steering the whaleboat, which we towed. Mr. Drew
showed us to the best anchorage off Ete Ete, the native vil-
lage, and we shall celebrate the Fourth of July with a gen-

362 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

eral try-out of our guns, hoping for a salutary effect upon
the Ugi inhabitants, for the other side of the small island
is peopled by the Malaitans who have killed many traders
at Ugi. The long-ago first labour-trade ship that visited
Ugi, the Colleen Bawn, disappeared there. In justice to the
Ugians, however, the crew got no more than they deserved,
for the doings of the slave-traders were not nice and pretty.
"Jack," alas! was not "at Ugi," but Mr. Hansel Ham-
mond, an Australian, is, and a good sort we found him,
plucky fellow. We invited him and Mr. Drew for supper,
and kept them painting local colour until after dark.
"Jack," whose other name is Larkin, has only escaped prob-
able butchery like his predecessors "at Ugi," to go away
somewhere to die of heart disease, taking his native wife and
half-caste child with him. Perhaps Tom Butler may pass
quietly away without ever knowing. Half dead as he is, I
am thinking the one thing that could hurt him would be to
know of misfortune to his Jack at Ugi. On the other hand,
so godlike to him is Jack at Ugi, that he might believe no
mortal tale concerning him!

Ugi, Fourth of July, 1908.

We haled forth every dispensable bottle, match-box, piece
of cardboard, cocoanut shell, and went at a demonstration
of marksmanship that ought to make us taboo from any
"monkeying" in these parts. Mausers, automatic rifles,
Colt pistols, Smith & Wesson revolvers, and Mr. Ham-
mond's Sniders, all proved whether or not they were rusty.

Mr. Hammond keeps us supplied with generous gallons of
fresh milk, rich and spicy-flavoured, white-man's vegetables,
and papaias and limes. We have him to all meals, and yes-
terday morning went ashore with him. Ete Ete village is
off to the right of the well-kept, white-painted trading sta-
tion on stilts, with a score of enormous bulls and cows
browsing near by in long, lush grasses. We found the na-
tive houses similar but superior to those at Port Mary, and

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 363

the natives generally of a better class. All the "boys" look
young, as if they had stopped aging at twenty — until they
are very old. It is hard to tell a youth of twenty-one from
a man of forty.

The old chief, Ramana, is a character. He told me with
cackling glee and horrible grimaces, of the numerous white
men he had killed in his day, when "him fella white man
gammon along him fella mouth too much." But you can-
not get any of them to admit they have "kai-kai'd" human
flesh. They know our abhorrence of this practice, and look
sheepish and silly when questioned directly. My introduc-
tion to old Ramana was unexpected and rather startling. I
approached the little canoe which he was hauling out on the
beach, and took hold of the curved prow to examine its carv-
ing. The slender curve broke off in my hands, and I
jumped at the grunt the old man let out. But he laughed
at me — women are foolish cattle anyhow, he thinks. I must
not shake his sacred hand (goodness knows I am not
anxious!), for he is taboo to the touch of the lesser animals.

We visited the old rascal in his house, almost as big and
imposing as a Port Mary canoe house, and upheld by simi-
larly wrought hardwood posts. Jack bargained with him
through Mr. Hammond for eight of these pillars, for they
are magnificent curios — the figures Egyptian in effect, the
carving wonderfully good. One represents a man sitting
on the tips of a shark's open jaws, the square, well-carved
hands resting on his knees. One old god laughably re-
sembles our Dante-esque poet friend, George Sterling.

Ramana wanted spot cash silver shillings for his goods,
and his hoarse whispers aside to the trader, to put up
prices and protect him, were very human indeed. He was
well pleased with seven shillings for five of the posts, and I
forget what we paid for the other three, one of which Mar-
tin spoke for. There were several less ornate poles in the
building, with capitals half-Gothic and some nearly Doric.
But we had to consider our already cluttered space aboard,
and reluctantly turned to smaller curiosities such as cala-

364 THE LOG OF THE SNARR

bashes, nose-rings, bracelets, and kai-kai spoons that looked
like beautiful shoe-horns of turtle shell, nautilus, and
mother-of-pearl.

Ramana led us through quite a maze of little streets into
a mysterious, dusky, musty old ruin, and, when we grew used
to the unwindowed gloom, we made out, high on a shelf,
an enormous black calabash with scrolled ends. They lifted
it down, in a rain of dust and crawly things, and it was big
enough to hold a whole roast man — and probably had done
so on more than one grisly occasion. But it was so very
ancient that it fell into pieces when we turned it about. I
was very loath to give it up ; but Jack convinced me of the
futility of getting it home in any kind of shape. I was
comforted presently when Ramana found another half as
big and in good preservation.

At every cross street in Ete Ete stands a tall kingpost,
brown and weather-beaten, with an image on it. One of
these has a face composed entirely of scrolls — like an Eng-
lish judge with his wig over his face.

In some houses, it was explained to us, each supporting
post is owned by a different "boy." I shall always be won-
dering how long it will take for old Ramana 's depleted pal-
ace to collapse.

Plaited grass bracelets decorated the eaves of one dilapi-
dated roof. Everything is falling into decay and disuse,
and many of the places are empty, for the people are dying
off slowly but steadily. There are few children born, and
most of these have dreadful perforating sores. We saw one
pretty baby sitting, actually sitting on buttocks that were
nearly corroded off with running corruption. It turned
whimpering from us on the high platform under the eaves
and crawled away; and, as like as not, a healthy native
was soon sitting in the filthy, infectious spot.

A scant few of the natives have soft brown hair, like the
girl on Santa Anna. The women here at Ugi wear a long
chemise-like garment, but are otherwise much the same in
type as the Port Mary ones.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 365

The village must have been very beautiful in its heyday,
with its king-posted corners and handsome thatched houses.
And there is a thatched fence enclosing the village, over
which one goes on stiles made of logs. Men have their dogs
here, too, a sneaking breed resembling the "dingo" of Aus-
tralia, and looking to us like our California coyote.

We dipped a little way into the woods, which were very
lovely, all lighted up with red and yellow flowered trees,
and warm like a conservatory, with little lizards rustling the
stillness as they darted across the paths and up the viny
tree trunks.

In the afternoon of yesterday, Mr. Hammond took us fish-
dynamiting around a point of the island. We rowed in a
painted world of water and sky, the emerald and sapphire
deeps so clear we could see the shadowy white sand below,
and uprising from it entrancing coral gardens — great hum-
mocks of flowered colour, brown with blue tips, red and
yellow. Certain of the bunches spread as high as forty feet
from the bottom. Sometimes the forms branched, and some-
times grew in mushroom shapes. In the lovely opal spaces
between and underneath, all sorts of brilliant coloured fish
hung, or darted about as we stirred the surface. One ex-
pected golden-haired mermaids to swim out in the tinted
underglooms of the coral.

To-day, after our noisy forenoon, we have traded peace-
fully on deck, the natives bringing out things they learned
yesterday would tempt us. We have more of the Rubiana
bracelets, and a couple of exquisitely fine basket-bags from
the Santa Cruz Islands. Jack is happy over scores of
beautifully wrought pearl-shell fish-hooks, great and small,
and we have packed them into carved boxes of wood and
etched bamboo, with sliding tops. These boxes are used for
lime, which the natives carry and eat frequently. We saw
one or two doing this at Port Mary.

Jack has traded my much-jeered-at Apian lava-lava, the
snaky horror of undulating coloured lines, to a tall fellow

366 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

who went over-rail into his canoe and put it on in place of
the dingy small-cloth, hung back and front, in which he
came aboard. He holds the new lava-lava in place by a
broad thin hip-band of shiny bark that makes him look like
a bronze figure with a metal girdle close welded.

Some of the men are pot-bellied and unlovely of line, and
some are degenerate of feature, with small heads, and re-
ceding chins with hollows underneath. But these are off-
set by many fine specimens. One of them stood at the bow
of a whaleboat, tall, lustreless black, supple, poised with a
stick of dynamite in his hand, and we pleasured in the
grace and precision of him in the throwing, and the per-
fectness of his dive after the gleaming white-and-silver fish
that popped to the surface after the detonation.

When our guests were gone this evening, and the crew
were breathing deep in slumber on the deck amidship, Jack
and I stole aft and sat on the rail in the starred darkness
of sky and water — just sat and talked low of the romance
of the adventure of ''Man, the most unseaworthy of all the
earth brood," and we joyed quietly in our fortune that we
care for "the old trail, the out trail, our own trail," that
calls us over the world.

Indispensable Straits,
Sunday, July 5, 1908.

We put merrily to sea again this morning, carrying five
nationalities — for Mr. Drew and his black boys accompanied
us, and all took part in the working of the ship. The en-
gine started off well, but exasperatingly quit shortly after-
ward. "Adrift in the cannibal isles," Martin popped up
from his tiny hatch, getting a breath of relief from the con-
glomeration of gases below.

There is an ill-concealed, amused interest being mani-
fested toward me. An Ugi mosquito bite has refused to
heal, and although I am obediently saturating it with cor-
rosive sublimate, I do not believe it is a "Solomon Island

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 367

sore." But Jack and the chortling, doctoring crew hold
other views.

... In a wonderful sunset of all the blatant colours of
the East, Mr. Drew held High Church service, his black
disciples taking part, with our Tahitians reverently kneel-
ing by. Japan hovered on the edges, respectfully curious.
The Egyptian scarfs in the sky faded to changeable silken
veils, and we slipped along in a world of trembling azure
isles, while the moon blossomed large and golden in the east.
And then, in the midst of savagedom, there floated up from
the phonograph in the cabin, "Guide me, 0 Thou Great
Jehovah!"

July G, 1908.

Jack kept the deck all night, for we had the slightest of
breezes, and treacherous currents almost carried us on Mura,
an eighty-foot-high islet with a nasty reef. How we did
strain our eyes on the dim dun shape, and strain our ears
to the swish of the light breakers, and pore over the unre-
liable chart on the cabin table! Morning found us about
parallel with the northeast end of San Christoval and the
southwest point of Malaita, which stretches over a hundred
miles to the northeast.

Looking over Captain Warren's log, I find that he never
kept it after April 19, at Pago Pago, Tutuila — and then
only put down the date, without note or comment.

If we should be wrecked now, what a floating museum
would be all about, for we are laden with spoils, even to the
life-boat on deck, which carries the precious old calabashes.

A mild breeze came up in the afternoon and we set the
spinnaker. Shortly after, Mr. Drew 's whaleboat line parted,
and every one jumped to Jack's orders to take in spinnaker
and work back for the boat with its apprehensive black
steersman. It was surprising to find how scared he was;
but Mr. Drew says these people get into a "blue funk" very
easily, and are not to be depended upon in time of danger.

368 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Pennduffryn Plantation,
Island of Guadalcanal,

Solomon Islands,
Thursday, July 9, 1908.

Here I find myself, in the queerest situation, in a big
house with a retinue of servants culled from cannibal tribes,
on a copra plantation in the heart of the Terrible Solo-
mons. I am guest of the English owner and his Aus-
tralian-French manager, and my own man is gone across
the water properly to enter the Snark at the port of call,
Gubutu, on Florida Island (Ngela). Incidentally, this will
be the third night Jack was ever away from me. As the
Snark is to be left at Gubutu to be scraped by native div-
ers, Jack must return in the whaleboat ; so both he and our
host, Mr. Harding, convinced me to stay comfortably ashore
and rest up, as the return trip in the open boat means two
or three hours at best in blistering sun and glare. Such a
life it is! We found night before last that we could not
make Gubutu before dark, so dropped anchor in eight
fathoms near this plantation house, which Mr. Drew
knew.

Mr. Bernays, the manager, came out, and was mightily
pleased to find we were the Snark, although he laughingly
assured us he would be fined by the Government for coming
aboard a vessel that had not entered at the port of call.
While we were talking with him, the plantation cutter
Scorpion rippled softly alongside, just in from some other
island, and Tom Harding called across. Bernays explained
us, and Harding, meanwhile voicing orders to his crew of
black boys, invited us ashore for the night. A most pictur-
esque figure is this handsome Englishman, of medium height
and weight, with blue eyes and black lashes and hair, a
cupid-bow mouth with even teeth and a small moustache.
He is clad in white " singlet" and white lava-lava with
coloured border, and barefoot. On his head is an enormous
Baden-Powell, and in his ears are gold rings which lend a
Neapolitan touch, while from his neck depends a gold chain

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 369

with a locket in which he carries a miniature of his wife,
the Baroness Eugenie, a Castilian. The lady is now in Syd-
ney, and her husband has given me her rooms and her par-
ticular servant, a bushy-haired brown Malaita youth of fif-
teen, in singlet and lava-lava, a white shell armlet, and a
string of blue beads around his neck. His name is Vaia-
Buri, and he has a partly concealed superciliousness in his
port that makes one speculate on what he might do if he
weren't afraid to do it. Nakata, whom Jack left with me,
is vastly interesting to the blacks.

Mr. Harding 's partner, George Darbishire, is also absent.
Their business is trading and copra, and there are some five
hundred acres under cultivation. They have three vessels —
the cutter Scorpion, a ketch called Hekla, and the schooner
Eugenie — pride of Harding 's heart, built on his idea of
American lines.

The house is composed of four houses, two very large, and
one small one off Mrs. Harding 's quarters, used as bathroom
and dressing room. The cook house makes the fourth. The
buildings are enclosed in a long "compound," and no
strange "boy" is permitted therein. Also, no native boy
except a house-boy is ever even allowed on the porches.
"Can you trust your men on the Snark?" was one of Hard-
ing's first questions to Jack.

As a precaution against escapes from the plantation, or
worse, our whaleboat had to be sent back to the yacht for
the night. They tell us of shocking murders of late, sev-
eral schooners having been ' ' cut out ' ' and burned, and their j
masters killed. The latest outrage was early in June, at \
Marovo Lagoon on the Island of New Georgia to the north- ^
west, where the captain, Oliver Burns, was tomahawked, and
his vessel destroyed.

In my charmingly furnished boudoir there is a rack of
rifles, always loaded and ready, and I am to keep my re-
volver with me night and day. There is always danger
from an uprising of the plantation boys.

It would look as if we had really arrived. . . .

370 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Day before yesterday's sail was in a fair breeze, along
the coast of this magnificent island, Guadalcanal, with dread
Malaita looming to starboard, and Ngela, our destination,
dim ahead. About noon we passed a little islet, Nura,
which looked to be under cultivation. The water had lost
its deep sea tones, and was sparkling grey under the hot sun,
and in the late afternoon we saw a sharp demarkation ahead,
as startling as that off Santa Anna. This time it was no
trick of light, but actual discolouration from river waters.
The plantation is bounded to the west by the Balesuna, a
shallow tropical stream, and there is a sort of slough to the
east, where alligator traps are always set.

As we approached Pennduffryn that night, I hated to take
the wheel and ponder the compass, night was so beautiful
and there was so much to see. The mountains, away back
on the other side of the island, rise to 8000 feet, the near-
est peak, Lion's Head, thrusting up superbly into the sky.
There was a deafening chorus of crickets from the shore,
and I could hear the neigh of a horse. Harding has two
slender thoroughbreds, by the way, and a shed outside full
of saddles and gear.

These four houses are high up on piling, with an arrange-
ment of iron pans on the piles to keep out ants. Looped
lengths of spare anchor chain, painted black, are slung on
the floor-beams. Sometimes we can hear the horses fussing
around underneath, out of the steaming sun. One lives in
a succession of temblors, for every human step rocks the
stilted dwellings. From the high verandas that encircle
them, one can observe the immediate life of the compound.
The three main buildings are in line, first the bathroom, then
the house where are my quarters, a large drawing-room, and
several other bedrooms, and the last house has the offices and
a big men's room, one ell containing the long eating table,
and an English billiard table in the main part.

Jack and I slept late this morning in the Spanish lady's
pretty room; and when we were ready for breakfast we
summoned Vaia-Buri, who served breakfast on the veranda

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 371

— fresh soft-boiled eggs, coffee, and "scones" — what we
would call soda biscuits, and hard as stones. The Solomon
cook has a terrible time with his memory. Never is he
known to make anything twice the same, except split-pea
soup, and the discouraged planters have it at every meal.

Yesterday we brought all our curios ashore, to be boxed
for San Francisco. We also added our phonograph to the
three already in the men's room, and Claude Bernays
threatens to wear out Caruso's record of the Brindisi Drink-
ing Song.

Although less than four years built, this establishment
has an old and settled look. It must be because of the com-
fortable scale on which it is conducted, and the luxuries of
civilisation that crowd the drawing-room. In fact, the
fine curios all about strike one as rather foreign ! And just
about the time you are thinking that, a chorus of blood-
curdling shrill yells raises on the beach, and you run to the
veranda to see a whaleboat rushing out of the breakers and
up to the compound, on the shining shoulders of fifty black
boys.

Mr. Harding took me for a walk this afternoon about the
plantation, a bewildering network of palmy paths among
flourishing young cocoanuts, and little bridges over water-
ways, for the ground is frequently inundated. The palms
are young and squat, but extremely luxuriant. There are
acres of Ceylon rubber trees as well. Little white cocka-
toos flitted among rustling foliage so green it cast a green
shadow. One field is given up to vegetables, tomatoes, corn
and potatoes. Think of having corn on the cob again, and
string beans! I saw the boys at work, and they did not
look enthusiastic. I noticed a new kink in decoration—
pig-tails, freshly severed, pulled through the holes in ears
and noses! They also wore in artificial orifices safety-pins,
wire nails, metal hairpins, rusty iron handles of cooking
utensils, and some had cheap "trade" penknives clasped on
their woolly black locks for safe keeping. On the chest
of one sweating labourer I noticed the brass wheel of a clock.

372 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

These men work hard and long hours, on a fare of sweet
potatoes (kumara), nothing but sweet potatoes, boiled.
Some of them have to walk half an hour to the midday meal
— sweet potatoes. Sometimes they may catch a fish, or come
by a few bananas. But sweet potatoes form practically
their exclusive diet. Any stealing of cocoanuts is severely
punished. It is the "rule of the strong hand," and one
can only look and listen. Comment would be silly and
futile.

I saw the barracks after working hours, the " Marys," as
the women are known here, about the cooking of the dinner
of sweet potatoes — which, by the way, are not very sweet,
but like a cross with a white potato, and of excellent quality.
The men lay around resting, or were squatting in small low
houses, some of them playing on plaintive little reed pipes.
The Marys are not pretty, and are held in low esteem by
their menkind, isolated in disgrace when sick, as things un-
clean. A few pot-bellied babies sprawled about. Harding
told me of a delegation of boys who came to him one day and
demanded that the drinking-tank should be emptied, wasted,
because a woman who was not sick had taken water for one
who was sick. "One fella Mary, she take watter along one
fella Mary she sick too much. No good ! ' ' Harding tried to
treat the matter lightly, and faced mutiny. So the perfectly
good contents of the tank were thrown out and the tank re-
plenished with undefined water.

Besides sores, and bush-poisoning, and a disease called
bukua (pronounced buck-wah) that makes the skin grey
and in a pattern like ringworm, the plantation hands are
subject to an acute and terrible dysentery that takes them
off fast. I saw the hospital — a long thatched shed furnished
solely with an inclined bed of hard board the full length of
one wall.

At sunset, before supper, Mr. Harding took me swimming
down by the little jetty, where the sea spread white ruffles,
frill upon frill, on the creamy-pink sand. We supped in
the drawing-room, he and Mr. Bernays and I, all in even-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 373

ing dress. We were served by Vaia-Buri, who is very
meek and lowly in the presence of "big fella marster be-
long white man/' and another house-boy yclept Ornfere, a
delicate-featured, poet-browed lad. Never did a formal
dinner party hear such commands as Harding and Bernays
gave the " niggers/' as they habitually style the boys.
Harding desires a bottle of claret:

"Vaia-Buri, you sawee go catch along him fella bottel be-
long me fella — quick!"

Or:

"Ornfere, you fella go sing out along Vaia-Buri tell him
fella he come along me fella. Sawee?"

Sometimes a few extra "fellas" are peppered upon the
commands, as if the speaker were determined at all per-
sonal cost to make a complete maniac of the bewildered and
scared idiot before him. Harding elucidates at length that
it is the height of foolhardiness to be pleasant or apprecia-
tive with them; that they regard kindness as fear or cow-
ardice, and are likely to take serious advantage of it; that
a Solomon Islander's first thought upon meeting a white
man is: "Will he kill me?" And, if his judgment re-
assures him, his second thought is: "Can I kill him?"
They have a passion for head-hunting, and the next thing
to a white one is to remove any other kind. If a recruit dies
on a plantation, his tribe require a head from the planta-
tion ; and it does not matter much whether it is a big fella
marster 's head or that of some other recruit. They await
their chance patiently, and frequently get their head.

The recruits sign on for from one to three years, at £6
a year. But when a man's time is up, he is more than
likely to be in debt to the plantation store ("sittore") for
tobacco, "calico," knives, and beads, or else to have forfeited
his wages in fines for misbehaviour.

Not unnaturally, they are arrant thieves, and appropriate
everything they can lay their hands on. The boat-houses
are kept locked at night to prevent the men from stealing
the boats and running away. Harding told me of a native

374 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

who died, and whom he buried alongside the boat-house, as
the boys would not go near a dead body. Then there was
almost a mutiny, the boys vociferating that devils were
knocking at their door-posts and that the Marys had run
away in fear, and the children were ailing. When they be-
come restless on the plantation, no white fella marster is
rash enough to combat their panic or their taboos — tambos
they say here. Harding had to exhume the corpse unaided,
as no boy would touch it, and bury it in another place.
Strange to say, the minute he began filling in the shallow
grave, several husky blacks jumped in and began to stamp
it down.

But the most remarkable thing Harding has told me, is
that a little way south of Guadalcanal are two islands, Bel-
lona and Rennel, where the natives, of pure Polynesian
blood, are still living in the stone age — a very rare state in
this day and year. To the north of the Solomons, also, are
two islands, Lua-nua and Tasman, with a nearly pure Poly-
nesian population, but these are in touch with civilisation,
as steamers call there. Mr. Harding says that Jack and I
will make the mistake of our lives if we do not stay around
here a few months, making Pennduffryn our base for cruises
that are unmatched by anything left in the world. I am
so fascinated by the prospect that I have promised to do
something I seldom attempt — coax my husband. Now that
Jack is feeling so well on the mend, the only reason we
should hurry through the Solomons is to anticipate the bad
weather season in Torres Straits, and get on up to Batavia
and Java.

Saturday, July 11, 1908.

And my skipper says Yes. He is enthusiastic over the
idea, and Mr. Harding offers to pilot us to Bellona and Ren-
nel when we are ready to go. The Snark adventure is only
just beginning — indeed, to-morrow we do our first real ex-
ploring, a trip up the Balesuna in canoes, to a village where
no white woman has been, and, a few miles beyond, a place

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 375

where no white man ever set foot. It was up a river farther
to the west that the ill-fated Austrian Expedition explored,
sent here on the Austrian man-o'-war Albatross only a few
years ago. They penetrated into the foothills, made apparent
friends with the natives, let them handle and grasp the sig-
nificance of their firearms. The natives cunningly bided
their time until the white men grew careless and confident,
and then massacred all but two or three, who escaped to the
coast.

The village Saarli is in sight of the foothills, but we do
not plan to venture farther. And yet, the inhabitants of
Guadalcanal are considered " friendly" compared with the
Malaitans !

Harding has planned the trip for a long time, and is glad
to make this the occasion. He has some sort of friendship
with the chiefs of these two villages — based, of course, on
what they can get out of him in trade goods, and, for his
part, on the protection their favour means.

I could not help but scan anxiously for the returning
whaleboat yesterday, and had a clear day for watching —
once so clear that we could see the sun-flash on the Resident
Commissioner's house on Ngela. We are delighted to find
that the Commissioner is none other than Mr. Woodford,
author of the book we so often refer to. Mr. Woodford
was unfortunately absent when Jack sailed into Gubutu, and
he had to deal with a deputy who very tersely demanded
the penalty of five pounds for our breach of quarantine.
Jack says it is cheap at the price when he considers the six
hundred extra miles he would have had to sail if he had en-
tered properly in the first place, beat back to see Port Mary
and then covered the return trip to Pennduffryn. We are
going to frame the receipt for the fine.

I killed a little hawk at eighty yards this afternoon, with
my 22 Automatic rifle, greatly to Mr. Harding 's surprise,
I think. He had been boasting of his lady wife 's fine marks-

376 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

manship, and I said laughingly that being one-eighth
Spanish myself, I should like to see what I could do. They
wage war continually on these small hawks, which kill the
pretty kingfishers that build about the place, and also an-
other species that look like humming birds.

Jack made the whaleboat trip from Gubutu in two hours,
arriving here at six. When I saw his scarlet sunburn, I was
glad I had not gone.

Wednesday, July 15, 1908.

The day after Jack's return, he came down suddenly with
an attack of the vicious malaria one must battle with in the
Solomons. Promptly he went out of his head, and after
raving a while, fell asleep in the violent sweat we induced
with blankets and hot-water bottles. In three hours from
the time he was stricken, he was on his feet, weak but cheer-
ful, and enjoyed a hearty dinner. Mr. Bernays played doc-
tor and dosed the patient thoroughly with quinine. I was
inclined to be alarmed by the suddenness of the attack, and
the raving of the unconscious man ; but the matter-of-f actness
of Bernays and Harding pulled me together.

. . . There is such a glamour over the past three days that
I hesitate to write about them. ' ' Sun he come up ! " was our
pretty call from Vaia-Buri on Saturday morning early, and
before sun he had got up more than a long way little bit, we
were on the way up the cool green-arbour ed Balesuna in
canoes paddled, or "washee'd," by kinky -haired servitors.
Nakata was on his back with malaria, and could not go.
Mr. Harding and I travelled in a canoe paddled by Ornfere
and Forndoa, another house-boy, while Jack (reinforced with
fifteen grains of quinine against a second bout of fever, and
rather shaky with the medicine), along with Bernays and
Martin, came next. A dinghy carried the outfit of tents,
blankets and kai-kai.

The river is too beautiful for words, narrow and tortuous,

A Kingpost and a King (note Ear-lobes)

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 377

green as a bower, the banks all painted sliding scenery of
verdant jungle, trailed with vivid flame-red blossoms and
vari-coloured morning glories, and mangroves reaching
their fingered roots into the flowing green water with its
bank reflections.

We heard the light clatter of parroquets, and the sweet,
querulous calls of strange birds. Once, the astounding
resonant conch-boom of a hornbill broke the rippling still-
ness. We saw magnificent breadfruit trees with their
knobby, glossy fruit, and recognised our Hawaiian familiars,
the hau and lauhala. Sometimes, through a break in dense
woods we could glimpse the Lion's Head, "Tatuvi," reared
into the everlasting tropic clouds.

We sped fast against the slow current, and fought ex-
citingly up occasional riffles; and more than once we hung
on sandbars, where great black velvet butterflies, accom-
panied by flocks of little blue ones, floated out to see the fun.
The "boys" were certainly not lazy, and worked with a will
to free the boats. Bernays blasted fish in a green pool at
one side in a wide space, and, once, the fuse was too short
and the stick exploded almost immediately it left his hand.
His handsome sullen face went white under its deep tan.
11 Every fellow that monkeys with the stuff gets his sooner
or later," he observed carelessly after a moment.

In a clearing on the right bank a group of wild women
came hurrying, clad in full short ballet-skirts of dried
grasses that bobbed and wabbled amorously at every move-
ment. We were evidently a pure novelty to them, for their
faces were studies in startled wonder.

Finally arrived at Binu, late in the afternoon, we had a
good supply of fish, and wild pigeons which we had shot on
the way. There were few villagers about, and the men evi-
dently expected us. They spoke the beche de mer English,
and were friendly — in fact, most of them are familiar with
the plantation. It is the bush natives who seem to be un-
tameable ; and the ' ' salt water ' ' peoples, who are not exactly
angels of mercy themselves, are more scared of their bush

378 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

relatives than are the white conquerors from England and
Germany.

While our three tents and kitchen arrangements were be-
ing set up in a bosky grove, we looked about the village,
which was notable principally for its inferiority. The
dwellings lacked the imposingness of even those on Santa
Anna and Ugi. There was one large house that we were
barred from entering, and over the door a crocodile skull
with all the teeth intact. I wanted the skull, and Harding
broached the barter. There was considerable pow-wow, but
the shillings won the day. The women were unapproach-
ably shy, fleeing even from me, in a giggly panic and flurry
of rustling ballet-skirts. The men whom Harding talked
with shook their heads ominously when they learned we were
bound for Saarli, and all but two or three resisted his prizes
to join the trip.

Harding and Bernays were begged to look at a sick man
in a filthy hut. I was not invited, on account of the nature
of the ravaging disease. Jack said it was a horrible sight.

After our hearty supper of fish, pigeon, and roast sweet
potatoes, we sat around a small but cheery white-man's
campfire, and Jack and I listened to the outlandish experi-
ences of our companions — narrow escapes from the natives
on the Malaita coast, and narrow escapes on reefs in bad
weather. In fact, the whole of life in this "neck of the
woods" Harding summed up when he concluded: "No use
in any man saying he's safe in the Solomons, because he
isn't."

It was a weird place to spend the night. Every one slept
but me, and I could hear the strange uneasy noises made by
our native escort in their slumber. It was as if they never
rested from fear, even in sleep. Then there were crawly
things in the coarse damp grass outside, and queer sounds in
the distance and in the trees and from the river, while, near
at hand, the rasping song of fever mosquitoes made me glad
of our net. But I did not lie conscious from nervousness —
something had flown in my eye around the campfire, and it

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 379

hurt all night; so that when we struck camp early in the
morning, I travelled with a thumping headache.

The river was more shallow and riffly hence on, and
the boys worked hard. The two or three who went on with
us from Binu were augmented by a picturesque score at
least, unable to resist the adventure. Some of them pre-
ceded us, and every little while we would be startled and
interested over a handful of woolly savages ahead on a
sandy spit, or suddenly appearing on the bank, only to find
they were from Binu, and wanted to go along. They
looked as if ready to fight any common foe, armed with
bows and arrows, spears, and naked trade knives stuck
through bark or leather belts about their hips. Bernays
assured us, however, that they were just as likely to desert
as stay, in event of trouble. Bernays retains no illusions
about the "niggers," as he invariably calls them.

Some of these islanders are the biggest men we have seen
since Samoa and Fiji — indeed, the people of Guadalcanal
are said to be the best bodied in the Solomons. I saw some
remarkable types of other peoples, particularly of the Se-
mitic; and one old man with a lofty mien and a beard,
might have been a king in Babylon.

It was a spiteful, squally day, and once we were driven
to take refuge ashore under an umbrageous tree, where we
ate a brief lunch of soggy scones and jam. When the rain
eased, we climbed the steep bank, to learn what sort of coun-
try our eyes, first of all blue eyes, would see behind the
fringe of river vegetation. And what we beheld made Ber-
nays and Harding curse under their breath with the rich
wonder and possibility of it — a boundless champaign of
grassland, league upon league of it rippling in the wind,
sloping almost imperceptibly to low foothills that flank the
upthrusting mountains about the Lion's Head. The grass
was very long and rank, green beyond description, and in
the eyes of the planters as we stood there, long, and silently,
were dreams of the wealthy future when not they, but those
to come after them, should see their cane harvested on these

380 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

illimitable plains and the sugar transported to waiting
steamships at great wharves on the coast.

We walked back quietly to the boats, Harding being
especially overcome by what he had seen. "I knew it was
there," he said; " — I knew it had to be there; but I didn't
dream the immensity of the savannah. "

By two in the afternoon we were scaling a muddy river
bluff to Saarli, which was only an excuse for a village, the
scant inhabitants of which had a way of fading away when
scrutinised too closely. The men recovered themselves, but
the women remained bashful. Only my interest in the
babies would stay them for more than a few minutes.

My head was pounding so badly that I lay down most of
the time. There was not much to see anyway — it was
mainly the fact of being there, the first white faces, that
constituted the novelty. We walked to where we could
again view the grass-waving savannah, and the natives shook
their heads and contorted their faces over their atrocious
brothers of the bush, when we pointed to the foothills now
not far away, and made motions as if we wanted them to
take us there.

Harding 's brain was in a buzz over what he was seeing.
He studied those hilly approaches to the mountain strong-
holds of the head-hunters, and in the evening went so far
as to suggest to Jack that they get up an expedition into
the bush, some time during our stay at Pennduffryn. Jack
said, ' ' Sure ! " in his easy way ; and then I was frightened,
for this would mean a man-trip, and I would have to face
being left behind to await nameless horrors; for know that
the wily man-eaters of the bush have their paths and run-
ways full of pitfalls and poisoned traps — such as horrid
contrivances where a man steps on something that lets loose
a poisoned dart from a strung bow at the side, and various
and crafty and deadly other manners of obtaining the heads
of enemies or friends for the smoking. I said very little,
only, "Would you go?" Women who would keep their
men have learned in long ages gone not to stand in the way

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 381

of heart's desire, even where it leads afield. Of Harding
I learned more of the dangers than I had read in the books.
He had burned himself out a little, perhaps, for presently,
sensing my worry, he said:

"I'll tell you — I won't say anything more about it to
Jack." I thought that very "decent" of him, as he would
say, but turned it off with, "Oh, well, but if he wants to
go . . ." However, aside from much interesting conversa-
tion about general conditions in the interior, Jack has not
pursued the subject. Oh — it might be done, and safely; but
it is a ticklish risk.

There was rain during the night, and we had a damp and
soggy time of it, with broken sleep. I for one was glad of
the morning sunshine and a dry place with Jack in the
dinghy, which followed Bernays' canoe.

The Saarli natives were hugely pleased with the remainder
of our kai-kai, and watched us from the bluff as we got under
way. The morning was a bright Elysium, after the dank
rain, the Lion's Head thrust through a cloud-wreath against
a blue sky, and the abundant foliage on the river's brink
shining and sparkling. We saw a hornbill on a high
branch, and some one shot, but missed it.

There were some close calls from capsizing in the riffles
and on snags in our swift water-flight, and we often profited
by Bernays' disastrous haps on ahead. Harding 's canoe
hung up on a snag and came away with a hole in the bot-
tom. From Harding 's face and eloquent fists we judged
he was using language and that the boys were having a warm
time of it.

So fast did we travel, however, what of current and oars
and paddles, that we were at the plantation in less than
three hours. There we found George Darbishire, returned
from Sydney by the Burns Philp steamer Moresby. Dar-
bishire is a big blond Englishman, vastly tall, very pink,
and so lovable a personality that to shake his long, kind,
freckled hand is to find a friend.

Perhaps the utter dissimilarity of Darbishire and Harding,

382 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

physically and mentally, may account for the devoted
friendship that evidently exists between them. They are
very close, and, from certain signs, we fear they are in some
trouble, concerning which * i Darby, ' ' as every one calls him,
took the trip to Sydney. He brought bad news of the Eu-
genie, too, having heard at Gubutu that she is on a reef on
Malaita. Harding wears a very long face for so round a
face, for the schooner is the idol of all his possessions. Jack
has put the Snark at his disposal to take back to Malaita a
bunch of "boys" who have finished their term on the plan-
tation. Jack says I may go, but Harding strongly dis-
approves— has ideas about where "a woman" should go and
not go — wouldn't let his wife travel to Malaita on the
Eugenie, nor would he allow me to do so. (We had sug-
gested going on one of her recruiting trips.) I wonder how
he reconciles his censorship with my many months on the
Snark.

Darbishire quotes Kipling voluminously, and is overjoyed
that we love him also. We lounge in long chairs on the
verandas, and watch through our eyelashes the occasional
dim schooners and cutters plying the sparkling level of In-
dispensable Straits, and listen to our favourite poems as Dar-
bishire recites them, no matter how long, from Me Andrews'
Hymn to the Recessional.

From July 15 to August 8, we spent at Pennduffryn, with
the exception of an abortive start for Bellona and Rennel,
on July 24. Jack beat me to the fever, coming down sud-
denly one day. The heat flared up in him, he went promptly
out of his head and thus missed consciousness of the severer
aches and pains, and in three hours was almost quite him-
self again — merely a little weak. A few days after I had
a touch of it, but only a touch, which led me to hope I might
escape any bad attacks. And I took the first quinine of
my life !

Harding had implored the boon of piloting the Snark to
Bellona and Rennel, and requested that we let him take a

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 383

crew of his own boys, to which Jack consented, although
he and I much preferred otherwise.

The Snark got under way at six A. M., after waiting all
night for a "land breeze" Harding said never failed after
sunset. We were simply cluttered with the black crew,
who, whatever they might or might not be on the Scorpion,
were perfect numbskulls on the Snark. Harding 's temper
was not improved by their stupidity before us under his
orders, and their utter vacuity under Jack or Henry on
their watches. I could hear exasperated inarticulate "lan-
guage" of both the latter when they tried to accomplish
anything with the stranger crew, especially in the fierce
squalls we encountered. Although Jack had paid for the
scraping of the Snark's copper by divers at Gubutu, she
several times refused to come about, and he could only con-
clude that she was badly barnacled — which Darbishire later
discovered to be the case when he sent his boys under to
investigate.

We did not get far, what of light adverse airs and per-
verse currents, but beat our way around the first point, a
few miles west of the plantation, where we went to anchor
in the company of two other ketches that were in the
same case. The Eugenie (the report of her going ashore
had been a joke of Darbishire 's) bound with recruits for
Malaita, sailed by, her larger sail plan enabling her to out-
sail the rest of us. But she suddenly turned around and
ran back to Pennduffryn, much to Harding 's discomfiture,
for he had launched into praises of his pet. Later in the
day we weighed anchor and went ahead a few miles, during
which we encountered the squalls and had the trouble about
tacking.

Harding had a severe sick headache, and was anything but
a cheerful comrade. His squally watch from eight to twelve
that black night, with his scared and inadequate "niggers,"
was a rather pitifully ludicrous incident — for us. Every-
thing was at sixes and sevens, and the general disgust re-
sulted in a change of course that blew us back to Pennduffryn

384 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

in the early dawn. I went on deck at seven, and could not
believe my eyes when I saw Darbishire and Bernays manip-
ulating signal flags in the most absurd messages to us, which
did not in the least cheer up poor Harding.

We found the Eugenie at anchor, and on the veranda her
mainsail was being mended of a bad rent. Wada was tot-
tering around after an attack of fever that had kept him
from the ill-fated Bellona and Rennel cruise, Nakata having
taken his place as cook and acquitted himself splendidly.
An observant stripling, Nakata.

Next day, Wada was pacing the deck of the Snark in a
blue funk over the fever, and over a skin irritation called
ngari-ngari that itches and burns like a thousand attacks
of poison oak. The native name means scratch-scratch. I
have a touch of it myself, so I can sympathise. It is a
vegetable poisoning, and we have learned that the Sophie
Sutherland (Jack's old sealing schooner) which came to the
Solomons some years back, lost her crew from ngari-ngari.
They went into the hills, were poisoned by the bush, scratched
themselves without control and without antiseptics, and
ended in a terrible fester that caused their deaths.

Nakata has suffered two severe attacks of fever, but con-
tinues inexhaustibly cheerful. Henry had a milder attack,
and refused Jack 's quinine capsules because they did not look
like the tablets dispensed by the doctor at Tutuila. Martin
was so downcast over his ulcers, that he was badly dis-
affected and almost ready to quit the Snark at the prospect
of several months in the Archipelago ; but he became so inter-
ested in the social life ashore, the billiards, and poker, and
various mild gambling, that he changed his mind.

Ornfere's cooking lapsed to such an extent that Har-
ding was glad for us to bring Wada ashore, until he went
sick with fever and hypochondria. And the anxious,
poetic-faced Ornfere's imitations of the Japanese's dough-
nuts, dumplings, bread, and cake, were something ap-
palling.

Jack has finished a beautiful South Sea story entitled

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 385

The Heathen, based upon a noble and sublimated Tehei, and
is now deep in a novel — Adventure, with the stage of action
right here on Pennduffryn Plantation. He warns me that I
need not be surprised if he runs away with his heroine, Joan
Lackland, as he is quite falling in love with her. Besides
our steady work these past three weeks and over, we have
boxed, ridden horseback, and swam at sunset, sometimes in
tropic showers when the palms lay against the stormy sky
like green enamel on a slate background — with ever an eye
for alligators. One was seen near the Snark, also a shark.
Tehei has enthusiastically joined with Bernays in his trap-
making and -setting, although with no better reward so far
than sand-tracks and broken traps. Bernays seeks their de-
struction grimly and unceasingly, for "They killed the best
dog I ever had/' he says. Speaking of dogs, there is one
here, a jet-black, large mongrel terrier of parts, who gaily
answers to ' ' Satan ' ' whenever he is called to show off. Made
of coiled springs, he can jump straight into the air to impos-
sible heights for food or sticks, or unhusked cocoanuts which
he incredibly strips with his teeth and claws in short order.
He is the terror of the " niggers, " and a word to him clears
the compound of an unruly crowd in less time than the
spoken command. Jack is putting him and certain tales of
his valour into Adventure. Sometimes we visit the "quar-
ters ' ' after dark, armed, and escorted by Satan.

Bernays' devotion to the Brindisi Drinking Song has in no
wise abated; only, he now protects himself and the playing
record with a tomahawk in one hand and a New Guinea club
in the other. "New Guinea" reminds me that aboard the
Makambo one forenoon where we went out to breakfast, we
met a Mrs. Donald McKay, whose husband is exploring in
New Guinea. I felt sorry for the lady, for she is presumably
as happy and peaceful in her mind as I would be if Jack
were in the Guadalcanal bush.

We miss the pleasant fruits of Polynesia — the oranges, and
bananas, mangoes, and limes. And we should thrive better
if we had them. Jack seems headed for another spell of the

386 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

sickness of before and during our "discovery" of the Solo-
mons, and I am afraid of the dysentery for him, as it has
broken loose among the boys, and several are in the pitiful
shack dubbed ' ' hospital. ' ' Jack took a look at them the other
day. One, lying in pain and dissolution, had a weeping,
frightened brother at his feet, who could not be made to
understand that his noisy grief was deleterious to the sick
man. And the masters are not happy over the loss of their
boys. Bernays, who works hard, says bitterly: "They die
on purpose, the brutes ! ' ' These islanders have no more re-
sistance than a mosquito, no hold on life, and succumb men-
tally as well as physically.

On August 8, 1908, 'the ketch Minota dropped in, and Cap-
tain Jansen renewed his invitation for the Malaita recruiting
trip. We looked at each other, Jack and I, nodded, and
packed our grips and the typewriter. Meanwhile, Jack ar-
ranged that the Snark be taken to Gubutu, at which place
we would join her in a week or ten days and sail her to
Ysabel Island, where we had learned we could safely careen
and make a raid on her barnacles.

We rowed aboard the Minota after a gay and festive din-
ner, in a lovely night of stars with a pleasant light breeze
ruffling the spangled water, and slipped out to a string of
Darbishire's ridiculous code messages winking from the sig-
nal staff in the compound.

The Minota was originally a gentleman's yacht in Aus-
tralia— a beautiful rakish thing of teak and bronze and lofty
cedar, fin-keeled, very fast, and now owned by a wealthy
planter of the Solomons, Captain Sven^on, a man famed
for the number and success of his ventures in the Solomons
and elsewhere. She was not much larger than the Snark,
but her interior consisted merely of a main cabin, and one
stateroom for'ard. Captain Jansen and the mate would
have it that we take their quarters, and themselves turned
in on the long bunks in the cabin. The door to our room

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 387

still bore the tomahawk marks where the Malaitans at Langa
Langa several months before broke in for the trove of rifles
and ammunition locked therein, after bloodily slaughtering
Jansen's predecessor, Captain Mackenzie. The burning of
the vessel was somehow prevented by the black crew, but this
was so unprecedented that the owner feared some complicity
between them and the attacking party. However, it could
not be proved, and we sailed with the majority of this same
crew. The present skipper smilingly warned us that the same
tribe still required two more heads from the Minota, to square
up for deaths on the Ysabel plantation.

Nakata and Wada accompanied us, the latter in a pale
panic lest he lose his precious head, the former cannily
alert ; and, besides the four/ whites of us, the ship 's comple-
ment was made up of a double-crew of fifteen and between
thirty and forty recruits who had served their three years
on Ysabel and were being returned to their tribespeople.
And what was my surprise, when I explored the dimly-lighted
cabin, to meet the shy, half-wild eyes of a kinky-headed
"Mary" peering from a dark cubby under the deck, behind
the companion steps. Captain Jansen explained that a
Malaitan chief, in return for some favour, or to curry one,
had honoured him with the gift of his daughter Tesema — a
tidy morsel, should big fella marster belong white man choose
to kai-kai the noble damsel — for thus are the poor females
disposed of at the whim of their ruthless kin.

1 i She 's a very embarrassing parcel, ' ' the captain said, with
a grimace of distaste, ' ' but I thought too much of my neck to
refuse her. ' ' He called her out, and she came crawling
obediently and stood before us, in a single calico chemise, the
first garment she had ever known. 1 ' Look at her — she 's got
buJcua from head to foot ! ' ' And even as he spoke, her hands
were busy scratching the dandruffy, ringwormy skin. Cap-
tain Jansen was heading for a Mission as soon as he finished
his recruiting. " It 's all I can do, ' ' he said. " If I leave her
anywhere else, ten to one she'd be kai-kai 'd before I'm out

388 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

of sight. — The fleshy parts of a woman's forearm and leg are
the favourite feast-bits. . . . But they wouldn't get so much
off her, ' ' he concluded, looking at the slim, scared being.

It was insufferably hot in our bunks, which were high, with
the heated ceiling close. The deck was packed with blacks,
who, when they were not sleeping in their brutish, restless,
muttering way, chattered incessantly in staccato high eunuch-
voices, a polyglot of native dialects and beche de mer, with
frequent interpolations of "My word!" "Fella," "You
gammon along me," "No fear!" that were comically start-
ling. Jack laughed right out when one bush-boy, uncon-
genial to the sea, who had been moaning in incipient nausea,
exclaimed: "Belly belong me walk about too much!"
Whereupon another falsetto piped up in sympathy, "Belly
belong me sing out ! ' ' Then would come sudden breaks into
light, short child-laughter.

What could their meagre infantile brains find to talk about
so interminably? A miserable black wild-dog puppy from
the Ysabel bush, termed by Jansen "The Wandering
Sausage," hunting for human kindness and nursing, wailed
and yapped at the thoughtless pinches and pushes and slaps
with which it was bandied about. Peggy, a blue-blooded
Irish terrier of five tender but dauntless months, from Sven-
son's famous breed on Ysabel, and the pride of Jansen 's hopes
for a "nigger chaser," stirred up added ructions by bullying
the weanling baby-dog. There was not a single minute of
silence on the Minota that long, sweltering night. And yet
it was wonderful to lie there, pistols and extra cartridges
under our pillows, a rifle apiece alongside on the couch,
realising the slashing riskiness of the situation, nothing be-
tween us and danger except our wardfulness and our lucky
stars.

When I came on deck, the "boys" were making their
toilettes with native combs and cheap new trade mirrors, to
an intermittent accompaniment of short bells, which struck
whenever certain small trade chests were opened or shut.
The "bokkis (box) belong bell" (a trade-box with a bell

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 389

that rings when the lid is raised or lowered) is the pride and
ambition of the plantation hand, and I can imagine is one of
the fruitful causes of the scant remains of wages at the final
expenditure when the working term is up. They were gab-
bling and giggling like a lot of girls — and singing in their
emasculated voices, monotonous, but not unmusical, intervals.

One person who affords great amusement is the mate of
the Minota. He is a good-looking German, with large brown
eyes, straight nose, and small mouth ; but he has a loose-seated
way of wearing his baggy trousers that gives him a ludi-
crously Dutch aspect.

Our clean, swift hull had made good time in the smooth
water, helped by a favouring tide, and Malaita was clearer
in the opal-misty morning than was Guadalcanal astern.
Nakata, industrious and full of quinine, was a picture of
intentional cheer, I think partly to offset his weak brother
Wada who, cooking for us four in the tiny open deck-galley,
was reduced to just simply a white-livered sea-cook. It was
shocking to see a Japanese so go to pieces. There was no
"buck up" in him. But then Wada, despite his manifold
virtues theretofore, always was suggestive of an Indian in his
appearance.

It commenced to look very much like business when the
boat's crew went about rigging a significant double line
fence of barbed wire above the yacht's six-inch rail, the only
break being at the narrow gangway, which would be espe-
cially guarded in port.

Jack and I worked all morning in the stateroom. The
captain, who had been led into a relation of certain tragic
passages in his life (he had fled home and stepmother at
eleven) threw himself down in the cabin and slept — ''Just
to forget, good folk — that's what I am always trying to do."
He came from New York State, of Knickerbocker stock, and
is unconsciously Rembrandtesque in every posture of his
fine body and blond Dutch face, pale-blue dreaming eyes, and
an invariable small felt hat over an ear.

Our first anchorage was to be at Su'u, on southwest Malaita.

390 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

The chart presented an unbroken line ; but as we neared in
the late afternoon, a small deep indentation pricked into the
coast. The fifteen Su'u boys were eager children, scan-
ning the dim land, never still a moment in their excite-
ment, bodies or limbs or tongues, chattering like cockatoos
and wildly gesticulating as they recognised landmarks at
close range. And I know I shall never again hear the bell of
a cash-register without being transported to the Minota's
savage-cluttered deck, for every child-man incessantly hunted
for the ghost of an excuse to keep opening his melodious
bokkis belong bell.

The Rembrandt skipper awoke his own care-free, happy-
go-lucky self, passing in turn into an alert navigator, his
light-blue eyes roving keenly about as ' ' Johnny, ' ' the pick of
the boat crew, sounded along inshore. The bay might have
been absolutely uninhabited for aught we could detect of
man or evidence of man. Not even the whistle of a " watch-
bird" broke the primeval stillness of jungle that grew to the
water — a warning that often acquaints the visitor of prowl-
ers ashore. "You wouldn't dream that a hundred pairs of
eyes or so were looking right at us now, would you?" the
captain said. "They're not missing an eye-winker — I know
them, ' ' he finished grimly.

"If I had a kicker, we'd go in closer," he remarked when
the anchor rumbled down. "But you can't get out quick
enough without it, if you have to. "

The landing of the fifteen Su'us on a clear stretch of beach
opposite the jungly side of the harbour was accomplished
before dark without event other than the appearance of two
or three of their people to greet them. The mate went in the
boat, armed with Snider rifle and a formidable six-shooter,
Johnny at the steering sweep, and the boat's crew rowing
each with a Snider or a Lee-Enfield beside him on the thwart.
Captain Jansen, gun ready for prompt assistance, sensed our
tense interest, and posted us on the manoeuvre. When a re-
cruiting boat nears shore, it is turned around and the landing
effected stern-first, the crew resting on their oars, prepared to

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 391

pull away at an instant's order if necessary. Thus, also,
every man faces the enemy, and the blacks are more afraid of
hostile tribes than are their white masters. Many a " pier-
head" recruit, fleeing from his own village, is gathered in
under fire. We saw the boys climb ashore, and the mate and
Johnny talk with the strangers; then the boat rowed safely
back, the mate reporting that we would get no recruits
this trip, and that the men he talked with were ominous with
trouble brewing ashore.

The Minota's boat works under small security, for the
size of the yacht precludes carrying the otherwise invariable
"covering-boat" that hovers, well armed, about the boat
that lands and takes off recruits. ' ' Captain Jansen certainly
has his nerve with him, ' ' Jack commented admiringly to me,
after that gentleman had explained the custom.

After supper, a merry repast in which we made shift with
two knives (" knife-fees"), two spoons and one fork (the
Langa-Langa loot had not yet been replaced from Aus-
tralia), Jansen fished up a tiny Edison phonograph, and we
lay around aft on deck, listening blissfully to cracked and
much worn records of "Narcissus," "Pirates of Penzance,"
"Marching Through Georgia," and "Red Wing," over and
over, meanwhile teasing and fondling by turns the ubiquitous
yellow-velvet Peggy, who never rested night or day unless
from sheer inability to keep going. She picked a scrap with
as much abandon as she adorably and stormily apologised
when brought to time for her sharp needles of teeth, and
when nothing else was doing for the moment, went stalking
her low-born victim, the wild-puppy. Wada lay at a dis-
tance, with drawn face and hopeless eyes, while Nakata rattled
on affably with the blacks, doubtless going them one better in
their outrageous English. Their shining black and white
eyeballs, and the sweet face of the sick little Mary at the
companionway in the lantern flicker, lent all the local glamour
that one could ask. We felt the jab of our pistols at our
belts when we turned on deck, and Jack whispered, ' l Quick,
Mate! Where are you?" as "Red Wing" commenced again

392 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

and the captain rolled over to peer between the barbed-wire
strands toward a slight noise off-shore. It was a small canoe,
and it came alongside where Johnny stood with his rifle at
the gangway. A solitary naked youth brought word from
the "friendly" chief Ishikola, that no white man must step
ashore on the morrow. Jansen pondered as to the friendli-
ness of this warning — ' ' Or is he cuddling some crafty scheme
of his own ? ' ' Suspicious lights could be seen all that night,
blinking among the trees, trending toward Ishikola 's vil-
lage— for Jansen did not permit himself to sleep under such
suspicious circumstances. ' ' That 's what my nap was for this
forenoon," he reminded us.

I slept heavily from sheer exhaustion, and opened my door
just in time to see Peggy take a short-cut into the cabin from
the deck — an unbroken fall of eight feet — and lie still where
she landed on her tender spine. Captain Jansen dropped his
razor and sprang for her, gentle as any woman, and felt her
over for a broken back. It was five minutes before she
showed signs of coming to, and we were all more affected
than we cared to talk about until we made sure she was
sound.

The lovely sun-dyed mists in wood and hill thickened into
a drizzle. A couple of handsome high-ended canoes paddled
alongside from hidden places in the mangroves, and in one of
them Johnny's sharp eyes discovered a rifle. When the
naked rascals fell to the fact that the captain was ' ' on, ' ' they
pushed quickly away from the yacht and did not return.
Jansen said three of them were the bad ' ' bush ' ' people, down
from the heights to take the least advantage that might open
up. They were strong-bodied, fit warriors, and their punc-
tured and decorated crafty-sullen visages were the beau ideal
of one 's fondest dreams of howling cannibals. ' ' The paddlers
are salt-water," Jansen called our attention, " — praise the
Lord the bush boys can't swim. A bunch of good swimmers
can steal upon a vessel and board her quicker than you can
drop them off. A stick of dynamite is the only thing that will
scatter them. You don 't have to light it, and even if you did,

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 393

there wouldn't be a nigger in sight when it went off — they're
that slick."

A smudgy smoke rose from the beach, and our boat went
over, this being a sign of recruits. With the glasses we could
make out three naked men and a pickaninny, and a cluster
of spears leaning against a tree. Our men were especially
wary, for the very air breathed treachery. Instead of re-
cruits, when they backed up to the beach, old chief Ishikola
himself embarked, and paid us a visit. Glancing up the
gangway, he spied me fella white Mary, and immediately
shrank into himself until a fathom of white "calico" was
passed down. Arrayed in this modest drapery, he limped
aboard, and after greeting Captain Jansen, turned to us
strangers :

"My word! you fella come long way too much big sea."

Once a fine-bodied man, a downward deep thrust of spear
in the left hip had rendered him badly crouched on that side.
The dirt-encrusted old knave, squatting on deck and inform-
ing the captain that big fella too much bad business was
brewing for us from the bushmen ashore if we gave the slight-
est loophole of carelessness, flirted brazenly with the white
fella Mary he too good. He played deliberate peek-a-boo
from behind the captain, leered like a good fella old devil,
grimaced, and even winked in true white masher fashion.
Captain Jansen, greatly diverted, and seeing the chief some-
what puzzled by my bloomers (he had seen duck-skirted mis-
sionaries), soberly assured him:

"This fella no fella Mary, Ishikola; he fella boy — my
word!"

Ishikola 's jaw fell, and he thrust a blank face far out to
study the phenomenon. Never did woman receive a more
searching look-over, up and down and back again. I had to
remember who and what he was in order not to feel em-
barrassed. Slowly the wrinkle-cracked wooden face lighted
up, and the jaw closed only to open in a grin that matched
the laugh in his wicked smoky-black eyes, as he emphatically
enunciated :

394 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

"Nofe-ah!"

He joined in our laugh ; but his dignity was wounded, and
he paid little further attention to me.

Our skipper embraced the occasion to try out the firearms,
and we made the tight little bight reverberate. After which,
Captain Jansen coolly invited us to go close in to the man-
groves and dynamite fish for supper. The sheer impudence
of it appealed. The debonaire brass of this south-sea sailor-
adventurer is an amaze.

We went. Bristling with rifles, every man of us (!) with
a pistol in his belt, we approached to within less than thirty
feet of a fallen tree out jutting from that soundless, moveless
wall of mangroves, reversed the boat, and the charge was
tossed into the water. And simultaneously with the explo-
sion, like screen pictures on a prepared scene, there appeared
a score of stark naked cannibals, armed to the eyebrows with
every fighting device known to savage man, while one, who
had leaped to the end of the fallen tree, held his rifle on us.
And he and Johnny, who had as instantly sprung to position,
stood muzzle toward muzzle. Absolute silence, absolute im-
mobility, save for shifting eyeballs — but the eyeballs of the
two with guns never wavered for a long minute. Then the
savage on the fallen limb slowly, slowly lowered his barrel,
and his eyes fell as he smiled sheepishly. The anti-climax,
when the whole kit of warriors laid down their weapons and
dived with our boys at Captain Jansen 's invitation to help
themselves to the white-bellied litter of floating fish, was
positively painful. The snap of the string of curious intent-
ness made me almost cry when I began to laugh at the comedy.
And it was Captain Jansen 's pure, insolent bravado, based
on his knowledge of primitive psychology, that made the
prank possible. He knew nothing would happen; and yet,
one false move ... he acknowledges this himself.

"I don't know a white man who has gone ashore in here
of late years. Things have changed with the recruiting, and
with the return of the blacks from 'All-white Australia/ '
he told us. ' ' Count Festetics and his American wife landed

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 395

from their yacht, but that must have been ten or twelve years
back. They walked some distance in, and the only living
things they came across were three or four Marys, with their
bones broken, staked to their necks in running water, be-
ing made tender for the roasting."

. . . And all the time "Just Because You Made Those
Goo-goo Eyes" and other equally apposite selections were
bawling across the water from the Minota, where the pensive
German mate, Snider beside him, handy if needful, beguiled
the hour away.

The following morning,

August 11, 1908.

We got away from Su'u at nine in a warm drizzle. In
lieu of either wind or " kicker," the sweeps had to be em-
ployed, for, once the anchor is broken out, no chance must be
taken of going aground in a hostile neighbourhood. I could
see the crew, as well as the remaining return boys, hold their
breaths while they measured the distance between the vessel
and any possible entanglement. They all know what it
means to be on the wrong side of fate in such misadventure.

Our course was northwest, along the coast to Langa Langa,
where the Minota and her problematically faithful crew
were to stop for the first time since Mackenzie's murder.
The wind freshened and drove the rain away, the mate
brought up a long cushion, and I lay, with a hot headache,
watching through our barbed railing the slow unfolding of
Malaita, hill and vale, and finally the green crown of Mt.
Kolorat, over four thousand feet high. No sooner was the
grand panorama fairly clear, than we began to notice waver-
ing pillars of smoke that steadily increased in numbers scat-
tered all through the bush region to the green summits.

Our blithe buccaneer of a skipper stood with legs apart,
carelessly intent, infinitely graceful, and relishing grapples
with danger as the food of life, I do believe.

" Signal fires," he indicated to us. "Not a mother's son
on this side Malaita but knows this ship and is watching every

396 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

move toward Langa Langa. I'll bet they're laying wagers
on whether she'll dare to go into Langa Langa after the
Mackenzie fracas. ' '

The wind blew up a small tempest by noon, and we did not
fancy lunching below ; so we backed up against the skylight
and managed our plates with one hand while we hung on with
the other in the rolls. Johnny, at the wheel, more appre-
hensive than efficient, demonstrated himself no artist at easing
over the big seas ; and the biggest of three swept our dinner
into the buried lee scuppers, along with my parasol and
everything else portable on deck, and dipped several yards of
the spanker canvas. The captain fetched up in a swashing
entanglement of things against the barbed wire, and extri-
cated himself with most picturesque language as the vessel
righted, and a gallant apology to "the Missis."

' ' Another thing you can 't teach the best nigger in the Solo-
mons, ' ' he chuckled ruefully, after dodging a skating chest on
the back wash, and contemplating his torn singlet, * ' is how to
steer. They go to pieces when the least strain is put on their
judgment. I'd trust Johnny anywhere but at the wheel —
and in a fight against his own people. You can't depend on
any one of them for that — strange to say, not even when
they've good reason not to fall into the hands of their own
village. ' '

Here Peggy, who had been moping aimlessly all morning,
appeared wearily at the lurching companionway, gazing ap-
pealingly out of flour-rimmed topaz eyes, her entire person a
shapeless ruin of white flour.

1 ( My word ! She 's been sleeping in the flour barrel ! ' ' the
mate cried, reaching for her. But the next lurch was too
quick for him, and he and Peggy rolled down the steps to-
gether into an avalanche of sweet potatoes that had got loose
below. The next time I descended, I found that the two big
drawers under my bunk were opening and shutting with the
rolls, and it was more funny than scary to discover that they
were filled with dynamite, detonators, and ammunition.

We made a five hours' run from Su'u to Langa Langa, and

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 397

there saw our first reef villages. I had nearly forgotten what
little I had read of them, and they impinged on my willing
imagination with the charm and surprise of a dream come
true. Who in God's white world ever heard of this great
island of Mala, garlanded with palm-plumed little Venices,
tiny sea cities builded upon outlying coral by the weaker
brothers of the bush who long ago were driven beyond the
beaches of their own land ? Very curious and beautiful are
these snug strongholds against man and nature, close-walled
with firm masonry of coral blocks to resist the smashing sea,
the straight lines of walls broken by thatched village roofs
and the graceful bendings and sketchy angles of cocoanut
palms. The openings for canoe landings are narrow and
rough and steep, as if cannon had tumbled in a thick section
of wall, the sides waving with ferns.

To such an outland citadel we were bound, Langa Langa.
We made our way around a mess of reef into a passage the
outer side of which was the reef village, and anchored between
it and the near-by mainland. As we entered the passage, a
canoe came out, and an excited salt-water native informed us
of the not surprising coincidence that the Cambrian had just
steamed out (Captain Lewes again!), and that her mission
had been to locate the murderers of the Minota's master.
We gathered that the officers with their men had marched
into the bush a short distance, and, the criminals not being
forthcoming, burned five suspected villages, and killed a few
pigs, leaving with the ultimatum that if the men were not
delivered up at the stated next visitation of the Cambrian,
worse things would follow. Immediately the innocent burned
villagers had pitched into battle with the guilty, and "hell
he pop" was the order of the day up bush. Captain Jansen
left no item of this intelligence dark to his crew, who, if they
had had any notion of collusion with the shore, now could see
that the Minota was fairly tambo for the time being.

Fairy shallops, with great cocoanut fronds for sails, came
skimming from every direction across the lagoon, which was
flat as a mosaic floor of lapis lazuli, turquoise, and jade.

398 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

They clustered about us a dozen deep, the natives, mostly
salt-water, cackling subduedly about the Minota, and I
could catch a bit of hastily concealed pantomime now and
again, that showed they were recalling the tomahawking of
her last big fella marster belong white man. Next to the
ship, I seemed to be the attraction, and the paddlers stood up
to get a look at me. Only one did Captain Jansen allow on
board, a chief called " Billy," who was glibly effusive, and
confidential about current affairs. When I say he was al-
lowed on board, I must qualify. No sooner had he stepped
on deck and started forward, than the captain halted him
with a peremptory but kindly :

"Hey! You! Billy — you better drain overboard, my
word!"

And then we saw that he had an enormous and very active
ulcer on his buttock. He begged for medicines and applied
them, over the edge of the rail, while he recounted all he
knew of matters ashore.

Billy was much taken with the chance to talk with a white
Mary, having met some of the missionary women, and was
very gallant despite his disadvantageous posture for social
amenities. Thus did he bid me to his village :

"You come along island belong me, to-morrow, Mary —
Missis ? ' '

"Yes, Billy, I come, sure."

"You no gammon along me?" he quizzed. And, being
reassured, he smiled fatly. ' ' My word ! You bring me fella
wife soma tobacco ? " in a wheedling tone.

"All right," I promised, "I bring tobacco wife belong
you. — But what present you big fella chief bring me, Billy ? ' '

Billy got around it nicely:

"Me fella no have present for Mary — Missis," he ex-
plained. "S'pose you fella man, me give him fella present
one spear belong me."

And he made good, presenting Jack next day with a deadly
poison-tipped spear that I could not bind up quick enough
for fear we might abrade ourselves on it.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 399

Fancy the German planters in the Archipelago, who have
never learned English, essaying beche de mer. It is said to
be one of the funniest things imaginable.

It was a treat to watch Jansen. Apparently nonchalant
and unobservant, he had an almost unbelievable awareness
of everything going on. "Hi! Whiskers! Get away from
that rail ! " he would rap out, three quarters back toward the
inquisitive climber. Aboard and ashore, he avoided risking
his back near a "nigger," and cautioned us likewise. With
the chiefs he was all easy affability, breaking off to give a
command, or order some one off, in an unequivocal, even tone
that even a raw savage, unless he were a born idiot, could not
misunderstand.

A few fowls were offered, with the question: "You fella
want kokoroko belong me?" and became ours for stick to-
bacco ; also a garfish or two, long-nosed fish with teeth, that
go human aristocracy one better, for their very bones are
blue! And glad we were for this fresh addition to a very
much tinned larder. Sometimes I hoped I'd never see a tin
again.

The canoe people had magnificent brown muscled shoul-
ders, round-sloping down the arms, and splendid torsos;
but when they stood erect, their legs were comic, short and
bandied, with warped and weazened calves. The reef
dwellers have little walking to develop their underpinnings.

We rowed over to the elongated reef city and looked about,
the older women, unsightly, dragged-out hags, skurrying the
young girls into the houses as we approached. We saw two
or three who were comely, but the clipped heads, as usual,
robbed all but the exceptions of their looks. They were
mostly naked, old and young, and the heads of the little tots
of pickaninnies were shaved all but a bleached tuft atop,
which might have been left to handle them with. All ages
were nose-ringed and bead-necklaced, and wore an endless
choice of unlikely objects in their tortured ears. We saw a
squatting group of Marys shaping and drilling " money "-
tiny pierced disks of shell both pink and white, which are

400 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

strung on cocoanut fibre. A fathom of the pink brings a
golden sovereign.

Of course it is not to be expected that these earth-edge
mortals could raise any produce in such small and unfavour-
able spaces. They must depend upon fish as their main
staple. The bush people, on the other hand, desiring fishy
sustenance, an armed truce obtains at frequent intervals,
wherein the Marys of both factions hold a market on the
open beach, under guard of their respective lords, and trade
vegetables, fruits, and fowls, for sea food. One large fish
brings twenty taro, for example. Just now, with the condi-
tions up bush, the salt water folk were hungry for fruit, and
we saw grimy little pickaninnies whimpering for their
' * tucker. " " What name altogether you cry along tucker ? ' '
Johnny demanded good-naturedly of one disconsolate kiddie.

A detached portion of the walled town was reached by a
bridging tree-trunk; and here, as at Port Mary, Jack was
able to crow, for even this white fella Mary was not allowed
to profane it with her foot. Jack walked across with the
other males, joking me as I was rowed by in the boat. As I
stepped ashore blackness spread over everything. I com-
menced to shake uncontrollably, and called to the others.
''Fever," Jansen pronounced laconically, and I was taken
back to the Minota. Followed three hours of racking nerve
breakdown in a raging fever, during which Jack turned to
nobly with blankets and hot-water bottles and steaming
drinks brought by a pitying Nakata, to induce the sweat that
is the only relief.

"By the shivering fits which chill us,
By the feverish heats which grill us,
By the pains acute which fill us,
By the aches which maul and mill us — "

I thought I knew all of it by the time I had been sponged
off — a heavenly process that marks an immortal bliss of
easement. Jack allowed himself only one jibe — that the
fever was precipitated by shock at being excluded from the
bridge.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 401

In the evening, burned-out and weak, but happy, I was
on deck, listening to "Narcissus" and "Red Wing,"
cuddling a convalescent Peggy, watching the ebb on the
black reefs, where red fires glowed in the villages. Single
silhouetted canoes with their gondola ends, glided across the
lagoon where a golden moon dropped golden pools in the
night-purple tide. The mountains melted in soft luminous-
ness, their summits frosted with light clouds. Never in all
my years shall I hear the dear, foolish

". . . moon's shining bright on pretty Red Wing,
The breeze is dying, the night bird's crying,"

without a tightening of the heart.

Thursday, August 13, 1908.

Captain Jansen had by now accomplished several things
that brought him here, such as recovering a spare sail
from the village that had stolen it on the Minota's last visit,
and collecting good gold from Chief Billy for two deserters
of his tribal brothers from the plantation. As there was no
chance of gathering any recruits from the troubled bush
region, we set out for Malu, on the north side of the island,
to land the last of the homing blacks and drum up a new
supply.

Johnny, losing his head as we were getting under way,
jammed the wheel in the wrong direction, and nearly
crammed us on the inshore reef. It was an apprehensive
moment, even Captain Jansen knitting his blond brows as he
watched the inches finally widen between the boat and the
milky-purple menace below the pale-green water. Even
with the punitive Cambrian so shortly departed, for the
Minota, of all vessels, to hang up at Langa Langa, might
mean a concerted rush that would finish us all in smoke and
blood.

We wove along the lagoon made by the tfuter and inner
reefs, picking our way so swiftly among prismatic coral

402 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

shallows in bright green water to the guidance of a man at
the cross-trees, that the near coral islets and low lands of
the mainland, belted with mangroves, produced the illusion
of shifting in an opposite direction from the mountain be-
hind. The low, continuous ivory-sanded reef to seaward
showed the kind of "land" the natives have built upon, and
now and again a tiny village broke the line. Beyond the
narrow strip, across a white-crested indigo sea, to the west
we could glimpse Ysabel Island, showing on the heaving
horizon in a string of isolated hummocks.

Four miles of this exquisite traverse brought us to Auki,
a beautiful walled double-village on the reef off a bight in
the mainland. An enormous banyan had taken root in Auki,
and overhung the wall. Close alongside, as in a moat, a
shell-garish war canoe rocked. We almost touched the mossy
coral wall as we went about to head-reach out a narrow pas-
sage to the open water. We could smell the salt deep-sea
smell distinctly as we emerged from the lagoon. A little
later, we spied a schooner anchored off shore, and Captain
Jansen recognised it as the Melanesian Missionary Society's
Evangel. They have a mission near by, and one at Malu;
but not a trader has been able to stick on Malaita.

It was ten at night when we came to anchor at the extreme
northwest end of Malaita, between Cape Astrolabe and the
tiny island of Bassakanna. Here Captain Jansen told us
he had once been becalmed for four days, the tide carrying
him back and forth against his will. And here, on another
occasion, he had picked up the survivors of the Sewall ship
Rappahannock.

The Eugenie was a short distance ahead, and she, too, went
to anchor for want of wind. Captain Keller rowed aboard
for a "gam" — a good looking fellow of but twenty-two, of
German descent, who seemed very young to be in command
of a schooner in such waters. He volunteered that he had
never learned navigation.

And all this day, Jack had been kind enough not to jeer
at me, for, at last, I had a well-developed Solomon Island

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 403

sore just abaft my left outside ankle-bone. He saturated
it with corrosive sublimate, for I was too shattered with the
left-over of my fever to have the nerve to doctor the aching
thing myself. But I tied a raffish bow in the bandage, and
Jack said that even in my rags I was picturesque.

August 14, 1908.

With the aid of tide, and a mere zephyr, with steady work-
ing of the sweeps, we rounded Astrolabe, entered Malu Bay,
and landed the recruits — outdistancing the Eugenie, which
was too big to sweep. The missionary at Malu, Mr. J. St.
George Caulfeild, came out, rowed by his mission boys, and
told us the natives were in a subdued state, as the Cambrian
had lately paid an admonitory visit. We were in turn able
to give him the news of the Cambrian's actions at Langa
Langa. He congratulated us upon getting out safely from
both that port and Su'u, as the moral effect on the natives
is very salutary to the white man hereabout. Any new dis-
aster to a white vessel makes them bold, he explained. Mr.
Caulfeild has stuck it out at Malu longer than any other mis-
sionary. If the bushmen didn't get him, the fever did.
He either died here, or fled to Australia. The first mis-
sionary, in the early nineties, lived only five months. And
Caulfeild goes about entirely unarmed, with the gentle belief
that his faith, combined with the superstitious awe of his
fearlessness that obtains among the people, will protect him.
He even dares to interfere with some of their practices, going
so far as to try to prevent contemplated bloody tragedies that
he gets wind of. He came here with a deep-seated prejudice
against taking quinine for fever, which he lived up to for
some time; but he confessed that he had come to it finally.
He is a slenderly built, sandy-haired man, one of the sweetest
and most unaffectedly righteous souls we ever knew. On
a high bluff, reached only by a slippery and difficult defile,
so narrow and so beset with rock and root that one man
could hold it against a thousand, we found the grass-plaited

404 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

mission church, and the good man's tiny abode on stilts, with
a little cookshed near by.
It was not until the next day,

August 15, 1908.

A whistle was heard ashore that betokened recruits. We
could see our boat, with the rowers resting on their oars,
while Johnny talked from the stern to the beach. Every
time a recruit stepped into the boat, a yell went up from the
boys on the Minota. The new boys were innocent of cover-
ing, and a white breech-clout was handed to each, before
he came overside, awkward and shy as a wild animal. The
bewildered and scared but willing captive was then hurried
into the cabin, where his picturesque name, be it Kapu,
or Nati, or Gogoomy, or Mgava, was written in a book, and
his hand guided to affix a cross thereto. The deck then be-
came his quarters, where he was promptly assimilated by the
inquisitive crew.

Never believe that the untutored heathen has good teeth.
He hasn't. His teeth decay and ache and become unsightly,
just as do our teeth, only we have the means of arresting
disease. In addition to these ills, often brought about by
lack of right nutriment, the islespeople 's custom of blacken-
ing their teeth, before referred to, renders their mouths
hideous. Only from Caulfeild at Malu did we learn the true
inwardness — abundantly backed by Johnny, and Ugi, Man-
oumie, and Lalaperu, other stars of the Minota's crew — of
the process. We had always been assured by the planters
that the discolouration arose from lime-eating and chewing
betel nut. It seems that a certain mineral found in land-
slides and erosions of the earth, is worked into powder, and
put indelibly upon the teeth when young, the process taking
an uncomfortable twenty-four hours during which the
patient has no wink of sleep.

Jack and I absorbed many significant items of Solomon
life. Jansen mentioned to Caulfeild the murder of a planter
in the Group :

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 405

" Which murder do you mean?" mildly inquired the gentle
disciple of peace. ". . . Oh, man, that was a month ago.
I thought maybe you were referring to ... or ..." And
then would follow the curdling details of one or more out-
rages that had been committed in the interim.

"They're careless — they get careless, and let the beggars
get behind them," Jansen would complain. "Mackenzie,
poor chap, had no manner of business to be alone on this
boat that day, or any day. A Mary did the trick, I under-
stand— a nice harmless female woman peaceably aboard with
three or four men. Mackenzie 'd no business to be fooled."

Caulfeild told with a shudder how a chief on one of the
islands had stalked into a mission dining-room and tossed a
white trader's freshly severed head down the long table — a
head that had once talked and eaten at that very board.
And there were sanguinary tales of the reeking bush, such
as what happened at one place on Malaita, where two hun-
dred men were cut up by their enemies, and the women
forced to carry the decapitated heads down to the beach,
where they were themselves beheaded. Jansen had already
recounted to us how, five months previous, thirteen boys ran
away in a stolen whaleboat from Ysabel plantation, and dur-
ing their voyage to Malaita killed a Guadalcanal boy, and
one other, who were with them, and kept the heads under the
sternsheets. Jansen, who had followed in the Minota, re-
covered the boat, and saw the butchery mess, which, he as-
sured us, was very "loud" by that time. All these months
Chief Billy has been in possession of the mast, boom, and
sail of this very boat, but Jansen has recovered them and they
are snugly stowed below. It is nothing to find an arm or
a leg, fresh or otherwise, hanging in a tree — ghastly warning
or signal of one tribe or faction to another.

And in this atmosphere of merciless carnage, Jack and I
performed our regular work, read books, played cards, and
taught Nakata English. I embroidered on fine linen in odd
moments, and nursed the drilling hole in my ankle, feeling
still uncertain and rather vague from the fever. Nakata

406 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

was our joy and luxury, helpful, interested, and appreciative
of this rare opportunity to observe the fringe of the earth.
He called my attention to the beauty of the woods ashore,
where a river flowed across the pink-tan coral sand into the
sea, and especially to the splendid depth of blue shadows
among the enormous trees.

Sunday, August 16, 1908.

We were fortunate enough to witness a big "market" on
the broad beach this forenoon. While I mingled with the
women, at least two hundred of them, Jack guarded me
from a little distance, and our whaleboat hovered just off
shore for the same purpose. I could glimpse the bush men,
with their Sniders, spears, and arrows, in the gloom at the
edge of the forest, and the canoes of the beach people pro-
tected their Marys in like fashion. The majority of the
women were not large, perfectly naked, except for a string
of sennit, and went about their exchange of comestibles in
business-like fashion, with a great hubbub of dialects. I
was less than a nine minutes ' marvel, so intent were they on
trade. But before their little minds tired of me, they felt
me over, examined my pongee, laughed at the bandage-bow
on my ankle, and one old mother, all kindly pucker of
wrinkles, looked at my hands, and rubbed her calloused ones
against them, explaining, in unmistakable pantomime, that
the softness of mine was because they had done no work.

There was noticeable lack of variety in the food stuffs.
Dried fish of half a dozen kinds, a limited choice of vege-
tables and a few fowls, were all they offered. The mission-
ary told us that there is sickness because the people have too
little change.

The bush women are physically superior to the beach
Marys, well up to their stalwart warriors in size, for moun-
tain climbing has developed them to fine proportions. Some
of them have really beautiful bodies, with long, strong legs
such as artists paint on Greek girls playing ball. Their only
imperfection seems to lie in the unlovely, shaven heads.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 407

I had been conning over a fascinating plan to adopt some
attractive pickaninny, and take her home with me. Visions
of a perfectly trained treasure of a maid lured me on to
inquire of Mr. Caulfeild if such a scheme would be possible.
He thought ,it would be easy to get permission from the Resi-
dent Commissioner, and I was sure I had found exactly the
right girl at the mission — a fine looking child of nine or so,
with intelligent brown eyes, wide apart, pleasant mouth with
good teeth, and a well-shaped head ringed with soft brown
curls. Her euphonious cognomen was Fakamam, and I had
busied my brain already with diminutives coined out of the
unlikely material. However, everything was settled for me,
when the little maid's cannibal aunties and uncles up-bush
(her father was a convict in Fiji, and her mother's head had
been smoked) took a hand, and refused to let her go, claim-
ing that they had to be responsible to him for his daughter.
Nakata, I think, was more relieved than was Jack at the out-
come of my quest. Nakata was appalled into bold utterance :

* ' Why, Missis-n, where could we put her on Snark f Your
room too pickaninny altogether, and oh! Missis-n, she can't
sleep out in cabin — and you many times say would not have
even little dog aboard Snark extra ! ' '

. . . Later in the day we sailed out of Malu, following in
an easterly direction the inward curve of the land, to a
couple of reef villages, Sio and Suava, where the natives were
so frank and friendly that Jack and I waxed reminiscent of
Polynesia. Their gentleness must have been the weakness
that led them to flee to the land's end, for they are farther
out than most of the similar settlements. Quite an expanse
of navigable shallow lies between them and the mainland.

We were promptly surrounded with a bevy of canoes, and,
contrary to the other anchorages, young women and children
flocked out, laughing and coquetting, chirping and twittering
with excitement over me, all naked as the day they first saw
the light, many of them very prettily formed. A score of yel-
low-headed kiddies swarmed over our sides, and were not re-
pulsed, for Jansen knew his ground here. We saw some

408 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

funny ornaments and clothing. A young chief, Eiraba,
wore an exceedingly short coat patched variously as a crazy-
quilt — and nothing else. And one older fellow, otherwise
naked, was decked in a battered derby hat, with a broken
saucer bumping on his unclean and matted chest.
In the morning,

August 17, 1908.

Sinulia, big fella marster belong Sio, whose grey head and
rugged features were startlingly like those of the actor, Louis
James, paid us a call and invited us to inspect his village.
His daughter, Vavia, sat in a canoe alongside, making mo-
tions for me to come ashore — a tawny-skinned, beautifully
formed girl, apparently about nineteen, with hazel eyes and
light soft curling hair, bleached, of course. As we entered
the village, up the mossy, ferny break in the deep masonry,
the golden princess Vavia took possession of me, while Jack
and the captain were entertained in her father's house, into
which no female might trespass. In fact, while the old man
had been most affable to me, and liked to talk with me, he
had himself made clear that he was tambo from the touch of
any Mary, and I was therefore deprived of the dubious boon
of shaking his dirty old hand.

It had begun to drizzle, and Vavia hovered me in under
the long eaves of a house, where, pressed from all sides by
her nude maidens, I was subjected to the most searching
examination I had yet encountered, Vavia putting up my
sleeves to the shoulder, and caressing my flesh with her
small hands, making little velvety cries and moans over
the white surface and texture, and sniffing the length of
arm as daintily as a child scenting the perfume of a flower.
At this extremely close range I was shocked to find that the
secret of her gold-tan hue was plain and simple bukua, which
had ravaged the entire brown cuticle, and left her an even
shade that matched her bleached hair and yellow eyes. Con-
sidering the tint of the latter, however, I judged she must
originally have been one of the lighter tones of the countless

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 409

variations of black and brown that the Solomon Island
''blacks" sport. I was rather shy of her contiguity, this
warm and sticky-wet day ; but she seemed to have passed the
dandruffy stage, and I was helpless anyway, unless I gave
them all hurt by withdrawing. So I yielded myself to the
experience of being adored by the little naked ladies of
Melanesia, who were lavishly sweet in their attentions. And
they bore such charming names — Mahua and Lurilna, Rarita,
Ema, Masema, Heura, and Kassua, and a dozen others as
musical. They had seen the missionary women, so I was not
an unmitigated curiosity. Vavia finally, by patient reiter-
ation of signs and sounds, got me to comprehend that she
wanted me to sing. I hummed a familiar hymn, thinking
that would most probably be what she had heard. She laid
her face near mine, and, fluttering her small hands, followed
me note for note, in a soft humming voice, an almost inap-
preciable interval behind, until I was sure she had heard
the air before. Then I tried something that it was impossi-
ble she could know, and to my delight and astonishment, she
repeated her achievement in a perfectly true voice. She
reminded me of Bihaura, in her serious application. And
she was so very, very winsome and pretty, was Vavia, with
her round-breasted, round-limbed body and the infantile fair
curls on her round head. She made me pensive and very
wistful, for I am sure she was more than a half-soul — such
as are the bulk of these evil, sub-human creatures who people
her land. We were loath to let each other go, Vavia and I,
lingering behind the rest at the end, with clinging fingers.
How she wanted to learn, and how I should have loved to
teach her.

Sio is an exquisite gem of the sea, perched on the coral, in
two sections, with a tiny lagoon between, wherein float canoes
inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Great banyans grow among the
thatched houses and overhang the low battlements of the
walls, and the cocoanut palms are heavy and fruitful. The
lanes echo to voices of plump pickaninnies, and we saw never
a half-caste — the grim reason being, so we were led to be-

410 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

lieve, that any child showing white blood is destroyed at
birth.

Tuesday, August 18, 1908.

We returned to Main for the purpose of picking up a
bunch of promised recruits on our way to Gubutu and the
Snark. But no arrangement of one's activities in the Solo-
mons ever eventuates as mapped out. And here was where
Jack and I went through an almost classic experience, viewed
with the Melanesian twist.

Captain Jansen decided to lie at Malu over night, so we
took advantage of the afternoon to see a little more of the
shore. Mr. Caulfeild, who came out with generous offerings
of fresh vegetables and bread, warned us that a bad lot were
prowling about near the beach, led by a certain chief so
notoriously pernicious and the author of so many murders
that the government had been looking for him a long time.
So we landed with eyes open and revolvers handy. My back
had by now grown callous to the irk of the holster. Jack
and I, in bathing suits, treated ourselves to a bath in the
dark still river, overarched with lofty trees, some of them
banyans that covered acres with their tentacles — vegetable
octopuses. The pink strand and blue-green bay, with the
sparkling sunlit reef, was a dazzling contrast to the dense
green gloom where we stood shoulder-deep in the cool slow
flood of the river. Men from the Minota stood guard, and
we were careful to hide our guns at a little distance from
our heaps of clothes, as, in case the latter were taken, the
savages thinking the arms would be in them, we ourselves
could rush to the guns. It sounds lurid and spectacular, I
know, but was all necessary commonplace. It was not a case
of the horse-play theatricals sometimes practised on "new
chums. ' '

After our dramatic ablutions, Captain Jansen took us for
a walk through the mangroves alongshore, going ahead with
pistol in hand. This was the first time we had ever tried
to make our way among these remarkable roots. The earth

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 411

was of a rich black, saturated, "squdgy, sludgy" quality,
and where we turned uphill the bush trail reeked with
dampness and mould. We felt very subdued in this atmos-
phere of dark-souled savagery, spoke low and stepped warily.
But Captain Jansen did not lead far — even he, so unafraid,
knew where special caution should enter in. If any human
thing lurked in the jungle, we saw it not, and the silence was
heavy and oppressive.

By the time we were once more on the sunny hot shingle of
coral and shell, the bad high-bush chief with his gang had
come into the open, or nearly so, keeping just inside the edge
of the trees — a tall, lean, sneaking individual with cunning
eyes set near together, and an unclean fringe of whisker.
The smiling friendliness of our meeting with him was rather
comic, as we all were patently pretending that we were not
taking inventory of one another's weapons, and the mock
armed equality was rather overborne when that engaging
swashbuckler, Jansen, with the most ingratiating insouciance
took the chief's old Snider and emptied the horrible, soft-
nosed cartridges into my hand.

"Nice little barn-door that would make in one's carcass,
no?" he commented, returning the loaded gun to its owner,
and taking another from one of the blacks.

"Look at this old cartridge, all made over. This beggar
is a returned Queenslander, and they're the worst of the lot,
for they know firearms and teach the rest how to make this
sort of thing. They smuggled guns back into the bush with
them, and there's been the devil to pay ever since."

He also referred to what we had already learned, that
these people know nothing of marksmanship, and for this
reason, and also to conserve their scarce ammunition, they
shoot only at close range, and from the hip — insuring the
most awful abdominal damage to the victim.

At Jansen 's sociable suggestion, as if for the special en-
tertainment of the others, Jack emptied a few magazines
from his Colt's Automatic, and the bushmen stared and
emitted guttural sounds of astonishment and awe at the

412 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

stream of lead the pickaninny fella gun belong white man
could pour out. My modest Smith & Wesson, being in the
hands of a mere Mary, impressed them to foot-shifting
embarrassment. The fact that we can hit objects at a dis-
tance also acts as a check to undue mischievousness on their
part. And in view of later happenings, our bombast was
lucky for us.

Wednesday, August 19, 1908.

At nine-thirty, after a wade in the river, we of the Minota
set sail in an ebb tide for the final lap of our ' ' blackbirding ' '
cruise, with some forty new recruits on deck, to say nothing
of a half dozen Marys bound for another port beyond Gubutu.
The wind was baffling, and the current setting strong upon
the ugly point of reef. Just as we were about to clear it,
the wind broke off several points. We tried to go about, but
the Minota for once missed stays. Jansen never had got back
two of three anchors lost at Langa Langa, and he now let go
the one remaining one, giving plenty of chain that it might get
a hold in the coral. The bronze fin keel ground on the reef,
and the main topmast, which we knew to be risky from dry-
rot (although only four years old) angled from the upright
mast in a way that threatened our skulls. A huge comber
raised and threw us farther on the reef just at the instant
the vessel fetched up on the slack of the cable, and the chain
parted — our only anchor gone. We swung around and
plunged bow-first into the breakers, crunching deeper and
deeper into the brittle surface of the adamant ledge.

The instant the Minota struck, the boat's crew had sprung
to their rifles and stood facing shoreward. This seemed to
us a touch showy and unnecessary ; but in an incredibly few
minutes the bay, which had been deserted except for a few
desultory small fishing canoes, was thronged with boat-loads
of eager headhunters, rifles and spears and clubs sticking out
in all directions. The captain told us this springing of the
crew to arms in such situation is drilled into them from the
start.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 413

While the whaleboat started off with a tow-line in an at-
tempt to keep us from smashing farther on the coral, and
Jansen and the fever-shaky mate rigged up a scrap anchor
from out the ballast, a dead-line of a hundred feet was estab-
lished, and the hungry-looking savages hung there in their
gorgeous war canoes, willing to wait any length of time for
the Minota to break up and yield her loot of tobacco and
stores, not to mention other, rounder prizes.

The crew behaved splendidly, likely as not, in the main,
more from deadly fear of the hostile bushmen than special
sense of loyalty to their masters. Some of the recruits had
sprung for the rigging and clung there frozen with fright;
but the captain got most of them below deck, and presently
had them hard at work passing the pig-iron ballast up on
deck, where, as the tide fell and the vessel jammed down
harder and harder on her keel and rolled over from side to
side, the eighty-pound pigs hurtled dangerously back and
forth. I came near losing a finger in one dizzy lurch.

The missionary, whose boys had run to him with the news
that we were * ' lost, ' ' hastened out in his whaleboat, and then,
Jack with him, approached the dead-line of black canoes,
where the two eloquently tried with much tobacco to bribe
some native to go with a message to the Eugenie, five miles
away, near Sio, either to sail to our rescue, or bring anchors
and cable. Our first kedge to the reef-shallow on the other
side of the passage had parted the line, and our plight was
increasing momentarily, with a heavy surf in the squalls.

At length, one old man, alone in a tiny canoe, despite
murmurings from the others, fell to the bait of an entire half-
case of tobacco — a prince's ransom — and forthwith started
with Jack's note. He set out in a gusty squall, and it did
not seem as if the frail shell could live in the smother.

In the meantime, while work went on aboard, and divers
tried to raise the lost anchor, and the shivering sick mate
went aloft to try to chop down the tottering topmast, that
good man Caulfeild, unarmed himself, harangued the
malevolent dead-line in true militant fashion, telling them in

414 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

thrilling beche de mer that they need not expect to get any
tobacco from the Minota; that what they would get was bul-
lets, close up too much, thick and fast, if they dared come
any closer. So convincing was he, and so determined did
we appear with our arsenal, and the advantage of the near
Eugenie already being advised of our predicament, that the
unpitying vultures finally dispersed their close formation,
and lay around in the bay and off shore. ' ' They 11 get even
with Caulf eild for this, I fear, ' ' Jansen said.

Signal fires were sending up their bending smoke-pillars
all over the steep mountains, and we could not fail to note the
gathering of clans beachward; while the longest war canoes
we ever saw were coming along the coast and entering
the bay — some of them paddling near and showing the
faces of returned recruits we had landed at Sio. One big
canoe, propelled by women, dipped out after a while, and
was allowed to take off our Marys. This relieved the boat
of weight, and Captain Jansen considered the situation well
enough in hand for the moment to send ashore spare sails
and other heavy gear, which were stored in a little shack
he kept there for such things. The returning boat reported
a restless and augmenting mob ; and the exodus from bush to
beach was taken advantage of to hold a big market. The
crew also brought back lengths of trees they had cut, to put
under our keel for its protection from the coral, and our
divers did some splendid work placing these logs. As the
water lowered and wind increased in ugly squalls, the
swelling breakers lifted our helpless hull repeatedly, crash-
ing it down with terrific shocks, when it would roll the
deck almost perpendicular only to duplicate the perform-
ance to the other side. Everything broke loose, above and
below, and the blacks, certain the bottom would cave in,
made frantic crushing rushes for the deck, only to return
laughing foolishly. The wretched Peggy screeched honestly
and shamelessly, as she swept across the floor in an avalanche
of potatoes, limes, flour, and bilge-water; the men yelled,

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 415

breakers crashed, and it was altogether a nerve-racking
bedlam.

And yet, I wasn't afraid. When one is in the midst of
such a situation, the interest is so breathless, so absorbing,
and so much there is to do, that an element of keen joy of
living enters in. Right in the thick of the first trouble, not
wishing to be in the way, I called Nakata (Wada was useless
with fear), and we fought our way through everything below
to the stateroom, where, alongside the banging drawers of
explosives, we packed our belongings in compactest form
and order — manuscript, clothes, money, typewriter — ready
for prompt transportation in case we had to take to the
whaleboat. My helper was cheerful, even enthusiastic:

"Why, Missis-n, this more like old years with my father,
in fish sampan in what-you-call Inland Sea — oh, Missis-n
— big blowing, big trouble, many time!"

It was fully three hours before the Eugenie's whaleboat
surged into sight across the white-whipped peaks of surf, the
yellow-haired master standing at the steering-sweep — white
man to the rescue of white man the world over. Jack and
I were solemnly touched with the romance and beauty and
bloodedness of it. Captain Keller with his men and ours
worked for heartbreaking hours trying to kedge the Minota
off with the new anchors. It was a stirring spectacle, the
boys shining with sweat under the brassy midday sun, shout-
ing and crying the invariable necessary accompaniment to
their every endeavour.

But the scene we shall always remember above all others>
was when the missionary, after striving steadily with the rest
to help us out of peril, said smilingly:

"Well, we've tried and tried, one way; now I'm going to
try the other way."

He forthwith gathered about him his boys, who had been
put in charge of certain of our rifles (the captain thought
wiser to disarm several of the crew who hailed from Malu),
and they descended into the wrecked cabin, finding foothold

416 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

where they could, for the floor had been ripped up to get at
the ballast. And down there in the dim light, with the ves-
sel heaving, falling, crashing, the blue-eyed man of Christ
uncovered his fair head and prayed aloud in the shouting
din where above men toiled with fervent profanity, his meek
disciples bending their brown faces on their hands folded on
the muzzles of the guns. Ensued a moment of silent prayer,
and then the child-men 's voices, led by the white man 's bari-
tone, rose and fell in " Nearer, My God to Thee."

And when it was ended, they returned soberly on deck
to work with the heathen.

Jack finally consented to let Mr. Caulfeild take ashore the
typewriter and one suitcase of manuscript and notes, for fear
of salt water below. Care was observed in not sending a
noticeable amount of luggage, lest our enemies get an idea
we were abandoning the ship. Nakata went along to carry
the machine up the steep ridge; and when he came back,
with the missionary, Jack had decided after all to make
safe the remainder of our things, and I heard him say,
''And Mrs. London will go ashore also." I was glad of
this, for nine hours of the keen excitement, to say nothing
of the violent pounding, had nearly exhausted me. Caul-
feild assured us I would be certainly as secure in the
tambo of his precinct as on the Minota; so I dropped into the
whaleboat on a big swell, Peggy in my arms, and was rowed
to a point on the beach nearest the trail. Jack sent Nakata
and Wada with me, and we carried the ship's money and
the mail. Willing hands of Christian boys helped us up,
and Nakata bustled about making me comfortable in Mr.
Caulfeild 's one-room shack, with a mere closet adjoining
which contained his bed. Wada, with his spine of jelly,
was of little assistance; but his countryman foraged in the
vegetable garden and rustling cornfield in a little meadow,
and served me a delicious and welcome supper. He is pos-
sessed by the very spirit of loving service, that brown cherub.

A letter home, written during that grave night, tells
freshly how I spent the hours :

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 417

"And here I am, at eight-thirty, alone on the windy ridge
but for the two Japanese boys, and a small black Christian
who is patrolling the premises on his own account in defence
of the 'white Mary/ with a long strong bow and a quiver
of arrows. He just now, on one of my scouting essays,
told me quaintly in stage whisper that Malu beach is full of
* wicked men' — which means that the murderous bushmen
are gathering in greater numbers, reinforced by neighbouring
salt-water men of the worse sort. No man or woman ever
knows what freaks of fancy may actuate the cannibal brain,
so I think I shall not go to bed in the tempting nest Nakata
has laid for my broken back and aching limbs and head, al-
though I am dead tired from the long day of buffeting down
there on the crashing reef.

"I am writing at a little green-topped table on which lie
my five-shooter and a Winchester automatic rifle containing
eleven cartridges. Outside is an intermittent gale of wind,
thrashing the banyans and palms, whipping the breakers
into hoarse, coarse roaring, varied by blasts of thunder, and
lightning of all descriptions ; and through the clamour I can
just catch the pulling-calls of desperately hauling men on
yacht and reef, as they work to clear the vessel at high water
— and I hope and strain hope until it hurts, that she is even
now leaving the bed she made for herself in the coral, to float
in the merciful deep water of the bay. I cannot see, I do
not know; when I go out, every quarter hour, I can only
glimpse a light far below on the reef, which is blotted out by
the wet veil of a squall. I hear no shots, and am fairly cer-
tain our crowd is not being annoyed by the scoundrelly man-
eaters ashore. I am not exactly happy, with my man out
there, tired and anxious and supperless; and the yacht, in
spite of almost unbelievable staunchness, may break up in the
night. They could get away in the whaleboats, but what
would they meet if they tried to land on the beach — the sav-
ages knowing the ship had been deserted !

"My house reels and whirls, 'lifts and 'scends,' all but
bumps. I came ashore for rest, and rest there is none, for

418 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

the terrible swaying and pounding and grounding of many
hours is in my brain, and I swirl and sway on solid ground.

"How good Jack's face would look in the doorway.

"My two boys are sleeping on the floor near by, Wada
moaning and twitching in a light attack of fever, and Nakata
dead-o, with a tired face.

"9:05. Just HOW I went out reconnoitring, to the cau-
tious edge of the bluff, but could detect through the glasses
no change in position of the distressed ketch's light. Nor
did I see the redeemed James on guard. I stepped quietly
about in the dense blackness twinkling with fireflies, and saw
glow-worms softly luminous in the damp wold. In a long
silken thrall of lightning my staring eyes saw that one of the
piles under the high cottage was of a peculiar bungling shape ;
and I walked toward it with gun poised, ' singing out ' sharply
in the vernacular : ' What name stop you fella ? — What name
belong you ? '

1 ' ' Jam-ees, ' meekly responded the uncouth post, and in
the utter blackness my faithful policeman added: 'I walk-
about look my eye belong me. '

"Fortunately I never was timid about being alone in a
house, or I should be * properly, ' as they say here, scared out
of my wits to-night, in spite of the missionary's assurances,
for it comes to mind that I heard him say, before the Minota
hung up, that last night he found footprints in a freshly
made vegetable plot, where his own boys know better than
to tread, and other signs of prowlers.

"10:45. If only the earth would not seem to heave and
plunge so! I am tired, tired, tired, and have been awake
since three this morning, when, on board the Minota, the
recruits began cooking their breakfast of sweet potatoes.
The native cook, Bichu, had deserted at Sio.

" — Wouldn't it be funny if I actually should have to
fire on some one ? Well, if it is necessary, I '11 call up a firm
New England jaw, and go to it; and if I fire, I'll not miss, I
promise !

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 419

"Thursday, August 20.

"The missionary returned last night about 11:30, just as
I was falling into a doze in spite of myself. I must have
heard Nakata start for the door, for before I knew it, I was
there ahead of him, and met that gentle soul, Caulfeild, re-
volver in my hand, albeit with the muzzle pointed downward.
He reported that they had failed to move the yacht at high
water, because every line bent had parted at strain. (In
twenty-four hours she had parted two anchor-chains and
eight sturdy hawsers. ) She still stuck fast, and was striking
hard, although there was no break yet in the bottom ; and he
said he had left Jack asleep for the moment. He also said
the beach was covered with armed bushmen.

''I went to bed, first being sure that Nakata was making
our good friend comfortable, and when I opened my eyes at
6 :30, found I had not moved from where I fell asleep. The
weather was still blustery, and the sky soiled with thunder
clouds, but the sea had abated. Captain Keller had re-
turned to the Eugenie during the night, and his whaleboat
was washed on the rocks twice in squalls; but he made the
schooner, and brought her to Malu in the forenoon — her ar-
rival was a beautiful sight that brought tears to our eyes.
Her presence, coupled with the stubborn refusal of the
Minota to become flotsam and jetsam, had a pacifying effect
on the cannibal horde.

"Last evening, Mr. Caulfeild carried a warning to the
Minota that one of the new recruits aboard had a price on
his head of fifty fathoms of shell-money and forty pigs ; and
the modified desire of the baffled headhunters was to capture
this valuable cranium. Jansen decided to take the offensive,
and went in the whaleboat to the beach, where, interpreted
by Ugi (the Red Jew we called him, from his fairness and
a ruddy tone in his wool), he had told the sullen, uneasy
pack a few things — the essential one being that any canoe
sighted that night within range, would be 'pumped full of
lead.' Ugi warmed to a fine frenzy, and finally jumped up

420 THE LOG OF THE SNAEK

and down in the sternsheets, waving his arms and screaming
shrilly that if they harmed a hair of his captain's head, he
would drink his blood and die with him ! It was an amazing
performance, proving the spark in the clay that will out.

"Jack came ashore this morning. I met him on the trail
in a shower of sunshine and rainbow from a breaking sky.
He was very, very weary, but full of enthusiasm over indomi-
table mankind that can fashion such a boat as the Minota,
and fight so unwaveringly and cheerfully for endless, unsleep-
ing hours. The mate, by the way, had been thrown into a
fearful attack of fever, and had lain in the cabin, senseless
and raving by turns, but had risen later on, weak and shat-
tered, determined to go on working.

"Captain Jansen kept some of his crew on guard at the
storehouse all night. When Mr. Caulfeild came ashore near
midnight, a bolder chief was trying to break through the
guard. Caulfeild took him by the shoulders and threw him
backward. And he and the muttering, scowling spawn did
not dare touch the white man who blazed at them with his
straight blue eyes — not yet; but I fear, I fear. — A shack
on the beach under the bluff, belonging to one of the mission
boys, was burned during the night, in retaliation for his
helping the white men.

"Small Nakata, with a parental arm half around Jack's
husky shoulders, fathered him into the house, brought him
every convenience of toilette that he could muster, the while
setting the wan Wada at the preparation of a hot break-
fast of rolls, eggs, and coffee — and a steaming tender ear of
sweet corn. How could one help loving such a creature, and
being willing to live and die with him — die for him, if need
came?

"This evening we packed our things back down the drip-
ping trail, and were taken aboard the Eugenie. I was to
voyage on Harding 's tambo idol in spite of him, and beyond
choice in the matter."

The Minota was not pulled free until the afternoon of the

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 421

21st — two nights and three days she withstood the punish-
ment of sea and coral. Three whaleboats towed the gallant
shell of her to an anchorage, and a great cheering went up
from us in the schooner, with a "Hurrah for the Dutch!"
— our black boys dancing, and yelling "Hita! Hita!" in
shrill falsetto. The Eugenie was to take us to Gubutu, land
her raw recruits at Pennduffryn, and return as quickly as
possible to Malu. Captain Jansen came aboard to shake
hands good-bye, Jack said a few warm words for the wonder-
ful time he had made possible for us, and Jansen reddened
pleasedly, but only said, as they wrung hands :

"That's all right, old man — leave the change on the plate.
— And you, Mrs. London, won't you please leave Peggy for
me at Meringe, and tell Schroeder to bite her tail off good
and short, and I'll pick her up when I land the boys. She
already hates a nigger — the very spit of her mother! and I
want her ready to train."

Then, not wasting a minute of precious time in getting to
work reballasting and patching up his raffle of rigging, he
swung overside into his boat with a "Right 0 — so long,
good people. — ' See y ' in Liverpool ! ' '

The Eugenie sailed in the afternoon of the 22d, and, to
make assurance doubly sure (she had already made one un-
successful unaided attempt to get out), had three whaleboats
tow her past the bursting surf. Then, a boisterous trade-
wind and -sea favouring, we swept around the uttermost
capes of black-hearted Malaita, and down to Florida (Ngela),
sailing past the trading station at Gubutu, into the Tulagi
anchorage near by, where is the government seat. An aeon
of time might have passed over our heads in the race of man,
for from primordial red savagery we crossed smoothly into
the machine age. The harbour of Tulagi presented a most
populous twentieth-century picture — the Makambo, in from
Sydney, the Cambrian, from anywhere and everywhere, and
we dropped hook just astern of the Evangel; while a little
distance off, we saw our own Snark, and the planters of

422 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Pennduffryn putting off in surprised haste at sight of Jack
and me aboard their schooner. Harding 's face was a study
when I grinned at him over the rail.

We were lunched on the Makambo and the Cambrian, at
last meeting up with Captain Lewes, who was the soul of
kindness, sending his electricians aboard the Snark, and
placing any and all things at our disposal. And we were
invited aboard the Evangel, where we met the women and
men who spend the best part of their lives going about these
soul-slumbering islands. Miss Florence S. H. Young, the
head of the South Sea Evangelical Society, twenty years ago
became interested in the work through trying to civilise the
Solomon men working on her father's sugar plantations in
Queensland; and, when Australia voted "all white," she
followed the expelled labourers and continued and enlarged
her activities.

We were bidden to the Residency on the shining, gardened
bluff, by our Naturalist Among the Head Hunters, Mr. C.
M. Woodford, and his good wife, who was over the water
from England to see him. And he was no disappointment,
this clear-eyed man who has served and studied the most of
his life in "the terrible Solomons" — a man of learning and
of great personal charm, with valuable tomes to his credit on
the subject of the flora and the insect life of the Archipelago.

Jack had by now definitely concluded to lay up the Snark
at Marau Sound, near Pennduffryn, with her crew, take a
run to Sydney on the next following trip of the Makambo,
and go into hospital for an operation. So we engaged passage
ahead, with Captain Mortimer, and went aboard our blessed
boat for the short cruise to Meringe Lagoon on Ysabel, with
a run north to Lua-Nua (Lord Howe, — the Ongtong-Java of
the discoverer), and Tasman, for a few days. This would
partially compensate for the failure of the Bellona and Ren-
nel adventure, for Harding had backed and filled until Jack
was possessed with one of his deep disgusts, and I knew that
that particular picnic would never come off. On

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 423

Wednesday, August 26, 1908.

We left Tulagi, watered at Gubutu, and, with Tehei aloft
to watch for coral patches, had just cleared the wharf and
got well under way, when an unmistakable American voice
shouted from an anchored ketch :

' ' Long time since I 've seen that flag here ! ' '

' ' How long ? ' ' Jack demanded genially.

"Oh, several years," the man replied. " — I guess you
knew the schooner, Sophie Sutherland — Alec McLean! — eh?
How about that Sea Wolf!"

And in the brief passing, we learned that he was a Penn-
sylvanian, and that he wished there was room for him on the
Snark. How many wished that! We did not blame them
—we were so glad to be there ourselves. And the happen-
ings of our wonderful nine days on the Minota seemed very
remote — like the fulfilment of a long ago dream.

We had an inspiriting brush with a big recruiting schooner,
the Malekula, whose men we knew at Pennduffryn, until our
engine, ever faithful in failure, broke down. After a night
of brisk but steady wind and sea, in which Jack kept un-
broken vigil (for there were coral shoals to dodge), in the
morning,

August 27, 1908.

We found ourselves rocking along the northern coast of
Ysabel, her mountains all lovely colours in the dewy waking
day. Meringe Lagoon is a passage formed by a garland of
coral and islets off the mainland, the waves of which lap the
roots of mangroves where, above the water, cluster very
edible rough -shelled oysters. "Wait till we tell 'em at
home that we have picked oysters off trees," Jack grinned,
as the first one slipped down his throat. " — Say, that
tastes like another ! ' ' And a round dozen followed after.

We came to rest in five fathoms, and were first greeted
from the beach by a brace of enormous terriers, one red and
rough and the other smooth as a sorrel horse. The pair

424 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

trotted like a span of ponies, and barked with throats like
bells.

U0h, they're Prince and Biddy," Jack cried, and Peggy
set up a hysterical howl, overbalanced, and plopped over
the rail. Once in the water — for the first time in her life —
instead of trying to get back, she made valiantly for the
maternal bosom, where Biddy, beautiful with motherhood,
raising and setting her narrow feet alternately in the edge of
the tide, received her lost daughter with a thorough going
over of tongue and paw, to see if she were clean and sound,
while the interested but more dignified sire stood a little
apart, occasionally wagging his shaggy stub-tail. I have for-
gotten to mention that Peggy, most human of four-footed
beings, had contracted at Tulagi a perfectly human and very
painful malady — urticaria. Pitiable as were her deep eyes
of suffering, she was a mirth-provoking figure, for her poor
little face, broad puppy-paws, and lank and as yet un-
trimmed tail, were all shapeless with knobs. She tried to
hide herself under canvas, anything — but any contact, how-
ever slight, made her shriek with sensitive agony. "I'm
not surprised a bit at Peggy contracting a human disease,"
Jack had commented. He had had urticaria himself, and
was in full sympathy despite his laughter at the asymetrical,
unfinished form of her, like a partially thumbed dog of clay.

Next arrived John Schroeder, and his assistant Mr. Mere-
dith. Mr. Schroeder is brother-in-law to Captain Svenson,
and manager of the plantation. He placed his house at our
disposal, and regretted that he was minus a cook, so he
could not ask us to lunch. We had both men eat with us,
of course, and listened to advice about careening the Snark.
At high tide we ran her aground on a steep-to part of the
beach indicated, and strange enough it was to feel her fore-
foot stop on the firm sand — touching for the first time in
her tale of many thousands of miles of sea-faring. As the
tide went out, and the hull lay over, all hands and the cook

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 425

went about removing the astounding accumulation of bar-
nacles, working until ten at night. It was a wonder she had
handled as well as she had. ''Gee! They're like oysters/'
Jack delivered himself, trying to pry a large shell loose from
the man-o'-war copper that we hadn't laid eyes on since the
boat was launched from the ways in South San Francisco.
Mr. Schroeder strongly advised that I sleep ashore, as
the yacht would assume all sorts of unrestful angles. Jack
begged me to comply, although he felt that he must stay
aboard, as there was more or less risk to the boat in careen-
ing on so sharp an incline. He sent Nakata along with me,
and

August 28, 1908.

When I arose at six, to the resonant boom of a wooden
drum in the quarters of the Malaita boys, after eight un-
troubled hours, I found the little man curled fast asleep
before my door, where he had lain all night. He sat up,
wide awake on the instant, rubbing his cheerful eyes. Al-
ways he knows exactly where he is at the moment of awaken-
ing— no slow Oriental drowse in his return to consciousness.

Wada, who had perked up considerably when he sailed out
of Malu on the Eugenie, had lapsed when the Snark touched
Ysabel. We explained — what he could see with his own
eyes — that the Ysabel natives are of a better grade (they
have a very slight infusion of Polynesian), that there are no
bad bushmen. All to no avail; he knew the plantation was
worked by Malaitans, and his terror augmented, throwing
him into fever again.

When Mendana, nearly four hundred years ago, discov-
ered ''Santa Ysabel de la Estrella," he found the natives
lived principally on cocoanuts and roots, and was beginning
to think they lacked animal food, when a chief sent him a
lordly present, a quarter of a boy, with the hand and arm at-
tached, and was deeply offended when it was promptly
buried. We trusted Wada had not heard this scrap of his-

426 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

tory. As soon as he went down with fever, Nakata, to our
surprise and pleasure, stepped gaily into the galley, and pre-
pared a meal of which oysters fried in batter was but the
appetizer. "Oh," he grinned, "I 'look 'm eye belong me'
one year now, and I t'ink I can cook good 'kai-kai.' " And
"Perhaps," he added musingly, "I shall be with you always;
and I like to learn all kinds of work."

To my delight — and sorrow, when I thought of parting —
Peggy established herself my shadow, as if she considered her-
self my particular property and devoted slave. Mr. Schroe-
der had done his worst — and best — to her, as was eloquently
attested by a gory bandage at one end and a plaintive voice
at the other. Never was there such a puppy. Her brother,
Possum, himself an adorable armful, appeared a mongrel
beside this fine, super-soul of a dog, Peggy — "Peg-tail" for
the nonce. Martin earned indignant protest from Jack and
me when he said, honestly :

"She's a nice enough dog, I'll admit; but I can't see she's
any different from any ordinary yellow cur. ' '

The only criticism of Peggy ever wrung from Jack was
when, having wallowed instinctively and luxuriously and
thoroughly in a rotting carcass on the beach, she tempestu-
ously flung herself to cuddle in his neck, where he lay
against a rock on the beach:

"You brute— you filthy imp— Peggy, Peggy, I thought
you were a white woman!" he concluded accusingly to the
abject heap that cowered where he had involuntarily flung
her.

Well it was that Jack stayed by the yacht, for, having
worked a little farther up the slope at high water, she nearly
capsized outward at low. Jack went through a terribly
anxious period as he observed that she did not right in the
rising tide, and the water crept and crept over the rail, up
the vertical deck, until it lapped the edge of the skylight.
Then he acted, and things popped for a while as additional
lines were carried ashore from the mastheads. It was nip

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 427

and tuck for a time, but at last the heavy hull slowly began
righting. Every one looked strained after the close call.

For me, the two weeks at Meringe Lagoon were a stretch
of almost unmitigated repose and beauty — long nights of
sleep, rainbow mornings on the curving pink north beach,
on the way to the Snark, Prince and Biddy, those wedded
comrades, racing and frisking along to a swim aboard, where
they knew awaited them a bite or two of delicious fried
pigeon, or broiled goat (Martin went hunting on a tiny
reef island), or succulent, coloured fishes; happy hours of
work aboard or ashore, romps with the pups, and an occa-
sional swim — always a risky amusement, what of sharks
and crocodiles, both of which we saw from the yacht. Our
stay was delayed beyond the few days we expected, waiting
for bigger tides to careen the hull properly.

I had been looking forward for months to finding turtle
shell, and here the natives brought a " scale" or so aboard,
the armour of the huge Hawksbill turtle, some of the pieces
eighteen and twenty inches long, and broad in proportion.
But Mr. Schroeder, learning my desire, opened up a box
of specially selected pieces, already sealed for shipment,
and told me to select the best of his best. Of course, Jack
would not listen to a gift of such value, for the choice shell
brings a large price in Sydney, and our friend at length,
overborne, consented to talk business. It was the thickest and
most beautifully marked shell we ever saw, and Jack revelled
with me in picking out a goodly pile. Already I was sketch-
ing designs for combs and pins, and dressing-table boxes,
while Nakata, fired with enthusiasm, could hardly wait to get
where he might buy tools and learn to work the enticing
material.

Martin tramped to a hill village, but we did not go into
the interior. Only one trip we made from the Lagoon, and
that was to a dot of uninhabited islet, Kiaba, a few miles
directly north, to shoot the pigeons that home there after- N
noons from their mainland feeding. Mr. Schroeder took us

428 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

across the indigo summer sea in a nineteen-foot open cutter
with a large sail. Kiaba is nothing more or less than a round
miniature sea-girt garden of Eden, a dozen feet high and a
third of a mile across its sanded floor, ringed with a gleam-
ing beach of disintegrated coral, a handful of which looks
like ground colours. The woods are a breathless Paradise
of big white-shafted trees and lightsome foliage of banyan
and bamboo, tendrilled with lacy creepers. The stillness was
broken only by the coo and rustle of pigeons and the stir of
strange forms that clung to trunk and limb. It seemed a
shame to discharge a gun in such environment — until we had
a good look at our first iguana, three and a half feet in
length. "Gee! look at the alligator up a tree!" Martin
gasped; and I wondered if this could be one of Woodford's
"lizards several feet long." At any rate, so utterly evil
is the appearance of an iguana, so absolutely is it a conven-
tional devil in shape and style, that it invites destruction.
We played it was the Serpent, and blew off its horny head.
Yet it is as harmless as it is horrible, the poor iguana.

Martin and I, with much yelling and laughter, chased a
frightened shark in the reefy shallows off shore, trying to
hit it with our pistols. On the jewelled beach, where our
every step flushed a clatter of tiny hermit-crabs, Schroeder
found a turtle 's nest, from which we gathered a hundred eggs
like ping-pong balls, buried eighteen inches in the sand. I
never ate anything better, in way of an omelette, than those
Nakata made from the tiny soft-shelled eggs. The con-
sistency was as if they had been mixed with a pinch of fine
corn-meal, and the flavour was excellent.

There must have been too much excitement for me, or it
might have been the extra coolness of the day, for I was
stricken suddenly with fever, and went through a novel
sweating — swathed in the boat 's canvas, and laid on the beach
in the sun, with my head shaded. How touchingly kind and
tender men can be ! They carried me back to Ysabel in the
bottom of the cutter, weak and with a racing pulse, but noisy
and optimistic. Fever grows to be all in the day's work

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 429

here — Wada to the contrary; and Henry is not as yet re-
signed to its recurrences.

Seventeen pigeons were all we bagged, and Jack had been
hugely put out at finding that the smokeless cartridges he
had ordered were black powder. But it was a red letter
day anyway.

The Southern Cross dipped behind a towering height of
Ysabel as we ran homeward, and a silver moon two days old
sank into the fainting rose of the west. Soon the bright
sky clouded over, and our placid day of sun and smooth
sea was followed by a night of rain and squalls — the "dusty"
weather that comes with the moon's first quarter. But be-
fore the wind blew up, we gave the shore and ourselves a
treat with the searchlight, fish leaping by thousands out of
the illuminated water, where the reflections of our mooring
cables wrinkled like black snakes.

The upshot of the outing to Kiaba, in spite of caution, was
bush-poisoning for us all — the excruciating " scratch-
scratch," ngari-ngari, that did for the Sophie Sutherland's
doomed crew. Jack had it the worst, Martin and I ruefully
admitted while we vainly tried to keep our hands quiet.
Nakata had caught it on Guadalcanal, and to our great sym-
pathy confessed that he had not sat down for a month, and
that he was now obliged to tie his hands at night. We all
pitched into the lysol, and added another kind of doctoring
to our list, alternately dosing Solomon sores with peroxide
of hydrogen and other things — our bottle of corrosive subli-
mate solution having been finished on the Minota, and our
main supply of tablets left at Pennduffryn. Jack, who had
now completed his article " Cruising in the Solomons," set
to work on another, "The Amateur M.D.," wherein he ex-
ploited his medical experience from pulling teeth on Nuka-
Hiva to abating "scratch-scratch" on Ysabel.

On September 7, Wada, terrified by light recurrent attacks
of fever, parted with his last vestige of common sense, and
with the Snark. I was not on board when he announced his
intention to quit. It followed the serving of a very much

430 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

overripe goat-stew with a cup of inexcusably weak and dish-
watery tea, all of which Jack pushed aside. Wada was some-
what taken aback by the way Jack accepted and accelerated
his resignation. "Very well, Wada — pack up your things
quick, while I get your money; and, Henry, you have the
boat ready. "

Months of wages were due, and an extra regular allow-
ance or present Jack had credited him ever since the beating
up Warren had meted him — altogether an unwise sum for
a lone Japanese to carry about on his person should the
natives get wind of it. Poor muddled mortal — he had a
notion he could walk right into the plantation kitchen, as he
had heard Mr. Schroeder say they were distressed for want
of a cook; but direly as that true gentleman needed one, he
met Wada's shameless proposal with cool refusal.

Nakata helped his friend pack and land, then came imme-
diately back to the Snark, stepped into the galley and said he
would be glad to cook for us any length of time it might take
to get another cook. But he made it plain that no salary
could tempt him to cook permanently. ' ; I t 'ink sea-cook all
get crazy in head ! ' ' he smiled his reason. In return for his
help in the difficulty, Jack promised him the steamer trip to
Australia, a new suit of clothes, and other emoluments.
There was more than a touch of pathos in the boy's sturdy
attempt throughout to be loyal both to us and to his coun-
tryman.

After Schroeder 's turn-down, Wada declared he would go
a-tramping in the bush, albeit he was scared of his very life.
But it was discovered that he was hiding in a near-by native
hut, in hope that Schroeder 's mind might change when we
were safe out of ken.

A conviction had been growing in my brain that it would
not be good for Peggy and myself to part. The little super-
animal clung to me night and day, and, when not in actual
contact, sat and regarded me with fathomless great eyes of
love and speculation that made me almost apprehensive. So,
when the day of sailing came round, I left a letter for Cap-

The Impact of Civilisation

Crew of Snark at Pennduffryn

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 431

tain Jansen, stating the case clearly — that I could not yet
bring myself to separate from Peggy, and would deliver her
over to him when we returned to Pennduffryn. . . . Jack
watched me curiously — I had merely stated my intention and
asked no advice. I suppose he concluded that, doing such
an unusual thing — for me — as to steal another person's
property, I must be acting in the only way I could act.

Thursday, September 10, 1908.

Jack says he never shall know just what did happen when
we attempted to get away from Meringe Lagoon — or, at least,
the cause of what happened. The yacht was floated at 3 A. M.,
and lay at her largest anchor, which was properly provided
with a tripping-line to make sure it could not foul. At
eight, when we began heaving, the thing would not hoist, and,
at the same time, seemed to be dragging, as if it had got
caught under a cable. The boat with her skating hook was
drifting fast toward a ledge of inshore reef, and our friends
on the beach began to look anxious. The anchor still failing
to break out, still dragging, we hove until we parted the big
main hawser and the tripping line.

"Find it, and you can have it!" Jack shouted shoreward,
once he was clear of entanglement. Fortunately we were
not really crippled by the loss, as it was an emergency
anchor, say for on a lee shore in a blow ; but we were sorry to
let it go.

There was a heavy cross-sea outside, which, with the brisk
easterly wind, made every soul of us sick except Henry, who,
like Herrmann of old, is blessedly immune. We have logged
no less than a steady seven knots all day in the adverse sea,
and figure, at this clip, to see Lua-Nua (Lord Howe) early
to-morrow forenoon — one hundred and fifty miles north of
Meringe.

We parted with some of our stores to Mr. Schroeder, as the
non-arrival of the Minota, by way of Gubutu, has left him
short ; and today Nakata, creeping about after a tussle with

432 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

fever, announced with concerned and puckered visage that
we had kept no flour for ourselves. Martin exploded "Im-
possible!" But his search of the snug forepeak was fruit-
less— or flourless. However, toward night, when we all began
to sit up and feel hollow, our stout pilot bread was as satisfy-
ing, we thought, as Nakata's hot soda-biscuits that we didn't
get.

The weather is very smoky, and we are wondering if it
betokens a trade gale.

September 11, 1908.

Wind dropped, and, to make sure of port to-day, the engine
went to work at nine and a half knots, acting the best it ever
has yet. Jack roughly calculated our distance from Lua-Nua
at 6 A. M. to be twenty miles. Everybody felt better, and
Nakata's fever had burned out. He was even chirpy enough
mildly to criticise some of Wada's galley practices, the while
he whipped batter for shrimp fritters.

The island failed to show at the anticipated time, but the
sky was clear enough for Jack to take a morning sight. Then,
alas, when he came to work it out, he found he had left at
Pennduffryn the corrected tables he had so laboriously made
up. Hence, also out of practice these many weeks, he was
forced to dig his results the hardest way. And such results !
According to them we have sailed right over Lord Howe, and
no explanation can be deduced for being so out of our course.

We beguiled ourselves with Peggy, who was very dull yes-
terday— probably seasick. In spite of our declaration never
to risk pets on so small a boat, we now find ourselves with
this fragile-boned creature, and a still more fragile feathered
one, a white cockatoo with strawberry-pink crest and round
dilating yellow-and-black eyes, which Martin mutinously
brought from Tulagi. As its wings have been abbreviated,
it is in as much peril about the ship as is Peggy — more, for
it cannot get out of the way so quickly with its two legs.
Peggy is jealous of the cockatoo, and droops dispiritedly
when she hears our gales of laughter at the canny bird's

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 433

pranks. When he cannot get what he wants, after storming
up and down the deck and ruffling his indignant feathers he
changes tactics, climbs up our wincing arms, lays his flat-
tening crest against our ears, and caresses and wheedles in
the most ingratiating upward inflection :

"Hello! Cock-ee/ Cock-ee/"

Something seems to tell Peggy that she will be hurt if she
tampers with the sharp-nosed beak or prickly toes; and
something also warns her that any annihilating rush at the
despised biped would be an infringement of our property
rights. Peggy is taught more from within than without. —
Which reminds me that to-day, in five minutes, she learned
to "speak," and in the same five minutes grasped that
she must speak like a lady, * ' ever gentle, soft, and low, ' ' and
not like wild-dog puppies from the unregenerate and vulgar
bush. To carry chicken bones to the painted covering-board,
whence they must not be worried off to the white-scoured
deck planking, will require two lessons — not because she
fails to compass the idea, but because, with a ravenous grow-
ing-appetite, she forgets in her eagerness. And she does
apologise so generously with her snuggling black velvet
muzzle and great speaking eyes, the while she wags the un-
lovely rag on her violated tail.

It was a strange sweet evening we spent on deck, in our
puzzling frame of mind, the softly piled clouds, lighted by a
drifting moon, casting white reflections in the dark grey sea.
Jack hove the yacht to (she handles "like a witch" with her
clean hull), and lay on his side on a cot, with the blissful
puppy curled in the hollow of his arm ; and Martin, tired from
hours in the engine room, and feverish in addition, flattened
out on a deck mattress, with the cockatoo, head-under-wing,
on his chest. I nestled under the light covers of a cot beneath
the awning, and hummed Hawaiian airs to my thrumming
ukulele, until the men all were breathing deep, except Tehei
who had taken Martin's watch.

434 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

September 12, 1908.

Did ever a yacht's company spend such a day? Land
there should have been, and land there was none. It is the
season of especially unsettled weather, even for the Solomons,
wherein the southeast trade changes to the northwest mon-
soon, and everything is topsy-turvy. Jack got a most unsat-
isfactory observation, which again attested that we had fabu-
lously sailed over the dry land and shallow waters of an enor-
mous atoll. Our patent log seems to be in perfect condition,
and we can only wonder if the chronometer is out of order.
Martin, who has been with the Snark continuously si&ce we
left Pennduffryn on the Minota, swears by his budding beard
that he has never neglected the daily winding. Can tho equa-
torial current be setting us off our course ? With the worry
of this unaccountable situation, with fever threatening, and a
new crop of small sores eating into his nerves, I don 't see how
my husband can be so merry — except that he relishes a set-to
with adventure and the unknown. On top of everything, he
inadvertently got a bad sunburning on his back, while reading
at the wheel in a net singlet, and I have been soaping it at
intervals, which has drawn the heat and brought great relief.

Martin tried to run the engine, collapsed, and had to
lay up. Peggy sustained a fall which would have been a
header if she hadn't curved and landed on the end of her
outraged appendage, to an accompaniment of piercing shrieks
which Cockee accurately duplicated. As if the general at-
mosphere were too surcharged for any thinking bird, the
cockatoo has muttered and stuttered and nearly burst himself
the livelong day, trying to say something besides "Hello,
Cock-ee/" Once, when Jack had persistently replaced the
spoon in his tea (of which Cockee is inordinately fond), after
the bird had removed it repeatedly with great pains and was
ever about to sip, there was no mistaking the fervid swear-
tone that filled his throat, although no words could he muster.

I took the second dog-watch for Martin, and enjoyed once
again the two hours of solitude in a black and unstable world.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 435

It was squally, with a rough sea. Full many a month it is
since I have stood a watch, and my only steering has been
when making entrances and departures.

September 13, 1908.

There has been very little of the conventionally enjoyable
in to-day 's programme. As if there weren 't novelty enough,
we three white ones have been deathly sick the forepart of
the day, undoubtedly poisoned from tinned cabbage, although
we had hardly swallowed any of it before deciding it was
"off."

Weather variable, with a mean, seasicky swell. Jack se-
cured three sights, seven o'clock, nine, and ten, but no noon
observation to follow; nor could he obtain any latitude yes-
terday. He is trying to hold his weatherly position — to the
east — beating to wind 'ard under short canvas and heaving to
at night, until such time as he can secure a good sun- or star-
observation in order to find his latitude. This determined,
he will head by log to the latitude of Lord Howe, and run
both that latitude and the island down together to the west-
ward. We humorously think of ourselves as in one of "the
outermost pits of the sea/' where sun and stars and all sta-
bilities have deserted us. Once, to-day, we saw an ominous
black cloud, while under it a waterspout formed and spiralled
— the first I ever witnessed.

. . . 'Tis the twitching hour of midnight, when tired wives
yawn ; and I have just watched Jack fall uneasily asleep in
a copious sweat, after a raving period of intolerable fever-
burning. The blast of fever struck him after supper, just as
we vociferously won to victory over Martin in a rubber of
dummy whist. Our vanquished opponent, who was suffering
the tortures of the unredeemed with corroding bluestone on
his shin-sores, and had preceded the playing by wiping up
the cabin floor with his writhing person in the first agonies of
the fearful application, lost his temper at our noisy victory.

436 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

This being the only time since the Snark's keel was laid that
we had ever seen our blond friend's temper disturbed, I
think it must have been the shock that overthrew Jack's equi-
librium !

With the exception of the man on watch, I am the only one
awake, and I am very much awake. This is a commonplace
of my life — to be in a state of luminous consciousness in the
dark hours, while all else is normally reposing. But every-
thing becomes commonplace where there is no standard of
commonplaceness. Consider us here, aimlessly adrift in a
black and starless world of water above and below, the land
of our objective sunk beneath the sea for aught we can dis-
prove, calmly going about our work-a-day business quite as
if we weren't lost.

. . . Jack is sleeping with one eye half open, and I wish he
would either close it or wake up, he looks so ghastly. The
past two weeks have been very wearing on him — the responsi-
bility of the ship careened on that risky incline, the loss of
rest, and the shocks of fever. But he takes his attacks easier
than do I, for at their height his mind wanders, and in the
easement of temperature he falls asleep, and so misses the
conscious nerve-suffering that I endure because I cannot go
out of my head.

September 14, 1908.

The first I heard through the skylight (it had been too wet
to sleep on deck) was an inexcusable punning exclamation
from Martin:

"Lord! Howe did we miss that island!"

And that was but the forerunner of similar combinations,
which I leave to any imagination foolish enough to dwell
upon their possibilities. Even poor little Nakata, moaning
and turning in violent malaria, while we steamed and grilled
him in the hot cabin, gave forth little cackles in his conscious
moments at our brilliant competition (American humour is an
open book to Nakata), and finally poked a scarlet face from
a blanket scarce as red, and finished us all with a trembly:

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 437

"Lord! Howe I wish there was no fever in the Solomon
Islands — don't I?" and then wept at his own quip, from
sheer nerve-rack and weakness.

Yes — and what a pity that so wonderful a space of great
islands, so rich in promise, should be so variously unhealth-
ful. But never mind — such things are beaten out slowly —
the day will come when, along with the wondrous savannahs
on Guadalcanal, all these lands will be brought under scien-
tific cultivation and control, the striped mosquito that is the
author of so much suffering and disability shall be destroyed,
there shall be no devastating ulcer-poisoning and filthy flies
to carry it to flesh that is no longer unantisepticised — a time
when the islands will lie blossoming under the light of ap-
plied knowledge, and disease and unnecessary death shall be
no more. As we of to-day cannot gaze upon this certain
reality of the future, it is good to see it in the mind's eye.

Eain, rain, rain; and the barometer rises and falls as if
indicating the insanity of the universe. There is no sun to
dry out above and below, and we must endure, with what
fortitude we may, the encroaching mouldiness and staleness
and stuffiness of our quarters. I peer into lockers, fingering
the wax-paper wrappings of my perishable clothing to see
if they are intact, for these are disastrous conditions for silk-
stuffs and gold threads, and the very atmosphere implants
indelible rust-spots in linen and cotton.

Tehei cooked to-day, and Martin was barely able to help
with the dishes ; while Jack, in his stateroom, hot and sealed
against the torrential downpour, added new items to his
"Amateur M.D." There was no chance for a noon sight,
and a late partial observation proved of little value. Coming
below to put away his sextant, he smiled brightly at me and
said:

"The most remarkable thing about our whole remarkable
situation, Mate Woman, is the way you, most sensitive of
women, nearly transparent from lack of sleep, go about doing
anything and everything, and actually enjoying it all. The
more I see of you, the more I marvel at you, ' '

438 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

I was really taken aback, with surprise as well as pleasure,
for it hadn't occurred to me that I might be otherwise than
happy-hearted, despite tiredness and the unresting gnaw of
two small sores that have taken hold on my instep. I am
happy ; I am having a good time — the time of times ; for I am
doing what I want to do, in the company I crave, with * ' life
and love to spare, " and too absorbed in the potentialities of
being to be more than superficially arrested by the flip of
little irks or fears. Believe me — there 's been more vital snap
of interest in the few hours of waging war with Jack's fever
yesterday and Nakata's to-day, than in a month of placid
existence in well regulated conditions. And then, think of
coming up for a breath of squally air, and taking a turn
barefoot along the streaming deck, wondering the while if it
has settled down for weeks of rain, or how near we can come
to missing Roncador Reef to the south (called The Snorer,
and 18 miles in circumference) , or if we may drift far enough
south and east to encounter Bradley Reef — both deep-sea
banes of mariners — or how many other reefs there may be
that are uncharted.

Happy ? I never was so happy in my life, take it all round,
nor with more reason. Jack says we are

'*. . . those fools who could not rest
In the dull earth we left behind,
But burned with passion for the West
And drank strange frenzy from its wind."

September 15, 1908.

Driven out at six by the insufferable stickiness, I found
Jack at the wheel all glowing in a deep red sunrise, with
Martin and Nakata laid out completely, while Tehei puffed
and perspired in the suffocating galley, and went about the
cabin work.

"My Lord, Howe bluff you look in that good sun!" I ven-
tured to Jack, who came back at me gaily, nodding to the
tragic spectacle on deck:

"With our sick beneath the awnings
On the road to . . where?"

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 439

1 1 Don 't know, and don 't care, ' ' expressed my feelings, for I
had slept well, if briefly, and the sun was drying and cheer-
ful, if hot. Jack was able to get morning sights, but noon
was cloudy and he failed of his latitude.

Martin 's illnesses are of an exclusive sort — unlike the com-
mon fever. I can't make it out. He absolutely declines to
admit that he has fever, and will take no quinine, and as a
matter of fact, I cannot see that he is especially feverish.
He is up and down, supine for hours, then recuperates and
sails into a whist-game with dash and ambition. It may be
that he is subtly poisoned by the chain of bandaged ulcers
on the lean blades of his shins.

When other interests flag, there are always the cockroaches.
I go on still hunts for them, whopping the daring ones that
scout from the overhead sliding boxes in the cabin, and occa-
sionally taking down those same boxes and raiding the shell-
backed pests that have grown too large to scout, and which
finally die imprisoned. But no cockroaches on the ^Snark
approach in size the enormous night-frights we had on the
Minota, when they debouched in myriads in the dark and
spread wings at being disturbed. Ours do not seem to have
developed wings ; but they have teeth, and steal nibbles at our
toes while we sleep.

. . . There is more than a vague depression among us this
evening, in spite of Tehei 's nice supper, an exciting rubber of
whist and my efforts on the "baby guitar" to 'liven
things up.

"The hospital ship Snark," Jack summed it up, and there
was a little catch in his voice, for on my bunk lay Peggy the
Beloved, pulling at our heartstrings in her pain, one leg
apparently useless from a fall through the skylight into my
room — the eager child could not wait to go around ; and on a
cushion in Martin's bed a limp cockatoo that has grown
strangely dear, with his affection and intelligence and his
sense of humour, breathes with difficulty and half-closed, filmy
eyes. Tehei, with a dozen things to do at dinner time, rushed
to drop the skylight in a sharp rainsquall, and shut it on the

440 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

napping bird roosting under the edge. The frail frame of
him seems to be crushed, but we want to give him every
chance. Just now we feel guilty that we ever broke our rule
about pets on the voyage.

Tehei has been touched by the over-animal consciousness
displayed by Peggy and the bird, and shakes his head again
and again, with his sweet Polynesian smile:

"No dog — no fowl — I no can say. They got somet'ing in
here, and here, like you, like me, ' ' tapping his breast and fore-
head. These two denizens of earth and air have met with
and grown to us with all there is in them of common likeness
of entity.

We are hove to ' ' under a bright and starry sky, ' ' but there
is no sight nor sound of land.

Wednesday, September 16, 1908.

This is my day to feel dumpy and dull, with neuralgia in
the head to enliven the dulness. But Martin, Nakata, Peggy
and Cockee have brightened, and Tehei is glad to return to
deck duty. Henry replenished the board with a baby shark
and a fine bonita. The heat of the clear day calls to mind
that we are nearer the Equator by a presumable two degrees
or so — although Jack declared in the morning that he might
be several degrees north of the Line for all he knew ! But he
was able to take a perfect noon observation, and steered for
the latitude of Lord Howe. At six in the afternoon, he told
us he figured we were about seventeen miles from the island.

September 17, 1908.

This afternoon the engine was set going, and, with perfect
trade-wind weather assisting, we surged due south. The sea
was like dark-blue crinkled satin, and sun and wind freshened
the boat and all on it with new life. I climbed up on a shroud
and let the flowing liquid breeze blow through me as it seemed,
and was possessed with an enchanted sense of detachment and

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 441

the illimitability of the cloud-land and the world of water.
Solid land does not exist in such exaltations.

Henry and Tehei, as the sunset wore, kept insisting that we
were near land — perhaps they smelled it unconsciously; and
we were taking one last sweep of the waving purple horizon,
when Tehei, who had gone aloft, screamed like a child :

"Lan* ho!"

We could not see it from the deck, but Henry climbed up
and verified the glorious find, while Jack noted the bearings,
west by south, one-half south. The grand little Snark hove
to beautifully, even working to wind'ard a little under stay-
sail, jib, and mizzen. Jack glowed at the excellent per-
formance— " The old girl— eh?"

Our immediate joy was short-lived, and a small but real
grief fell upon us all. The lovable cockatoo, who had rallied
in the forenoon, had been wilting perceptibly, and it was
plain that the only kindness would be to end his misery. But
who was to do it ? Martin, whose bird he was, backed down
with a sick face; Tehei begged off, with tears; Nakata said,
"I'd rather not," and Jack, with misty eyes looking at the
poor thing caressing his hand with its gentle crest, said to
Henry :

"I'll do it, Henry, if no one else will, because it must be
done ; but how do you feel about it ? "

Henry, grave and concerned, came up nobly:

"I no like, Mr. London. . . . But I do for you. Give
here."

The last sound our pretty white pet ever uttered was when
I took his broken body for a moment and laid it against
my neck.

"Cock-ee/' he said in the shadow of his sweet and whee-
dling tone that ended in a little rasp. — Just a wisp of sentient
down, he was, with a modicum of plucky spirit; but he left
his mark on us all, and we separated very quietly and mourn-
fully for the night.

442 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Lua-Nua (Lord Howe, or Ongtong Java Atoll),
Friday, September 18, 1908.

Not only are we rocking at anchor after eight days in an
apparently chartless void, but we are encompassed by our
first atoll, albeit this rosy coral ring is so big we cannot see
the far low side of it. A one hundred and fifty mile hoop
gives a brave diameter.

Hove to, we drifted S.S.W. during the night, at five o'clock
set sail north, and shortly sighted land again, three miles to
west'ard. But just when a good position had been attained
for the reef opening, a succession of squalls overtook us, and
we dared not risk an entrance that could not be seen; so
Jack hove to the obedient little ship until the watery
swift tempest abated, when he put me at the wheel,
Martin at the engine, and Henry aloft, and we raced through
the swirling passage into the choppy sea of a fresh squall.
From outside we had glimpsed two white cutters across the
line of reef, but the first craft to reach us was a welcome
outrigger canoe, the sight of which filled our cannibal-cau-
tious souls with sense of rest and security ; while Henry and
Tehei gurgled and glowed with delight and anticipation,
eager from their hearts to find if they and the gentle-faced,
tattooed strangers (who, by the way, were of much smaller
stature) could speak a common tongue. They could, al-
though with various garnishments borrowed from their own
slight strain from the southerly ; and we white ones met them
with beche de mer and our mild mixture of Polynesian patois
— while Nakata's language, all his own combination, was
entirely adequate. As soon as we looked into the inquisitive
but friendly faces of the three paddlers, came the realisation
how little affection we had learned for the western breeds —
our feeling for the people of Melanesia was one of fascinated
interest, but developed no ties such as now pulled when these
dusky men of Lua-Nua clambered over-rail. One, a benevo-
lent middle-aged fellow with a tuft of curly hair over each
ear and a straggling beard touched with grey, seemed to be a
personage.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 443

' ' How do ? — Me fella Bob. I pilot — I take you Lua-Nua —
right 0. I like you — any amount."

' ' Any amount " is a favourite expression of old Bob 's, and
it is infinitely entertaining to hear his musical husky voice
saying, "My word!" " Right 0!" and other exclamations
gleaned from English and Australian traders.

Old Bob 's two companions took our breath away with their
beauty — princes of youth, heads a-toss with sun-touched
ringlets, eyes sweet and long-lashed, and mouths fine and
small, curling lovably over white small teeth.

Bob, after the exchange of greetings, became very im-
portant in his role of pilot, and, with austere face and
solemn arm-weavings in the mist, warded off the rain; the
young princes the while reciting measures of warning incanta-
tion to the gods of ill weather. We were thus poetically
guided to an anchorage near the village, which lies snug
under beautiful tufted palms.

These people are in one respect like the bird family. Their
beauty is mostly vested in the males. When we came to
observe the girls and women, there was no comparison, and
they were still further set at disadvantage by cropped skulls,
one of several un-pretty Melanesian customs that have crept
in.

Harold Markham, trader for the Company, a husky sailor-
built blond Australian, had started out in his cutter through
a smaller passage, but lost us in the wet gusts that blotted
out everything. He now followed in the way we had come,
and, among other things, recounted how the big schooner
Malakula, on her last trip, entirely missed the opening and
had to enter forty miles away, at the next entrance.
Markham took us ashore, where, in his neat high-pillared
house, the first notable incident was the meeting of Peggy
with a good-humoured, lumbering, white bull-pup. Our
patently inadequate terrier advanced stalkingly on thin, stiff-
stilted legs, her back ruffed like a wild boar's, and when the
unsuspecting bull tipped her over at the first friendly on-
slaught, she came up in a still frenzy of outraged dignity,

444 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

lips tight-snarled, and stood over the abject flattened white-
jelly puppy with blood-curdling growls of menace.

"The big bull has no chance altogether," chuckled
Markham.

Next, we met the lady of his choice of Lua-Nuans, a healthy,
beaming bronze girl of seventeen or so, of whom he is un-
affectedly proud and fond. He explained frankly the un-
faceable loneliness of a life like his, at the ends of the earth,
and how happy ' ' I and my wife ' ' are together ; planned trips
with her to other islands in leaves of absence ; and, dropping
into her vernacular for a moment, accompanying his words
with free pantomime, he laughingly translated her pleased
exclamations over the pretties he was promising. It did
give me a queer little start, though, when, with the most un-
embarrassed air in the world, he told how he had paid ten
gold sovereigns to the parents for their daughter, who, he
added with utmost childlike pride, was of high degree.

"An' she's a sight better off with me — right as rain," he
confided. ' ' You '11 soon notice she 's entirely deaf in one ear,
an' the other side nearly so. The vahines would plague her,
but as my wife she's protected from all that — my word! I
should say so. — Also, a woman that can 't hear don 't talk one
to death, and she can't squabble with the other vahines,
either. — An' she don't take to clothes at all," he went on,
with charming naivete. "All she wants is a new fathom of
gay calico an' a change of beads ... an' soap: she's daffy
over soap. "Whenever I don't see her around, I only need
look under the shower I fixed outside there on the veranda,
an ' she 's there latherin ' herself from head to foot. ' '

The modest young matron, with not a stitch above the
waist and only a scarlet-patterned pareu below, smiled con-
tentedly and affectionately at her lord, as his gestures told
her the matter of his monologue.

The whole spirit of the situation was so clean, orderly, and
natural, that I decided I was having the oddest, maddest,
merriest time of all our "Snarking" in the unswept corners
of earth, and planned no end of good fun with the girl when

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 445

I could get her aboard to surprise her bright eyes with gar-
ments such as she had never seen, and, perhaps, dress her up
as one would a new doll. There is no danger of bankrupting
Markham by my foolishness, because I find these primitive
minds grasp but a bit at a time, and are shocked into only
the briefest interest in things complicated. I would back
the speed of Peggy's reasoning against that of a large per-
centage of these natives. And, if a dog's logic reaches its
limit at a given period, so does the savage 's. One thing more
than reconciles me to my inability to adopt Fakamam — they
tell me that the average maid of Melanesia reaches her apogee
of mental development somewhere along in her mid-teens,
and is a burden thereafter.

The third and last member of Markham 's household is a
mild-faced Solomon Island cook, who, despite his deceptive
weak prettiness, is deservedly serving an aggregation of sen-
tences that cover eight years, for murders, escapes in hand-
cuffs, thefts of whaleboats — a history of bloodcurdling
crimes and reprisals too long to go in here, but which so
tickles Jack's fancy that he intends making a short story of
it, to be called "Mauki," and including it in his collection
South Sea Tales.

There was quite a gathering around the tiny compound
when we came out for a walk, gracefully formed, gracefully
moving men and women, and a tumble of cherubic kiddies.
Among them we saw two or three albinos. They were rather
weird and ghastly — white human beings on the face of it,
and yet not white. Their eyes were not pink, but very faded,
and their pinky-white skins blotched with light freckles.
The hair was almost white.

"We found there were two villages instead of one, at some
little distance apart. No maiden may cross from her village
to the other, except to marry; and it is compulsory to wed
men of the opposite community. Even with this precaution
fairly close inbreeding must obtain, for there are but five
thousand inhabitants on the entire coral circle.

It was sheer bliss to pad along the soft pathways under

446 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

thick palms, all in a green-golden atmosphere, and be accosted
courteously and unaffectedly by a beautiful race with whom
smiles are currency and love the password. Into the lofty
gloom of the king's house we were ushered, and there pre-
sented with grave pomp to a man who lost none of his magnif-
icence because he was not great of stature. Henry and
Tehei, six feet in bare soles, seemed gentle giants loom-
ing in the cocoanut-scented twilit spaces. A small fire
burned in the centre, sending up an aromatic smoke. The
rest of the large floor was covered with coarse, clean mats,
while finer ones were laid for us by the hands of the king's
two wives. Children flitted about, lovely curly-pated cupids.
We duly submitted our offering of tobacco, with bead neck-
lets and bracelets for the "queens," and in true Polynesian
spirit a return was ready to hand — a shark's jaws, with row
upon row of jagged teeth.

As our eyes grew accustomed to the half-light, the beauty
of the king shone out more and more ; and in the corners and
mid-distances of the interior, groups were disposed, leaning,
crouching, sitting, standing, in lovely unconscious composi-
tions, while the doorways framed sweet faces with tumbled
curls that were touched with the gilt of afternoon sunlight.
The forms seemed perfect, with skins of satin, unhidden save
for small loincloths, and the men moved like actors, deliber-
ately, unhurriedly, with calm, sure eyes in which there was
no boldness. The colour of their tattooed skins is variously
bronze and copper, but many rub in a yellow oil with a certain
leaf that turns them a greenish hue which is less unpleasant
than curious — like the mellow greening that copper and
bronze attain.

On returning to the yacht, we found Bob had already
drummed up trade for us, and before the blue and silver
sunset I had filled a large fine-woven basket-bag, the gift of
Mr. Caulfeild, with turtle ornaments, string upon string of
' ' money, ' ' and wide girdles made of ' ' money, ' ' both shell and
cocoanut wood, and an assortment of shells, the most impor-
tant ones being two "orange-cowries" of splendid colour,

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 447

rare and much coveted by collectors, who pay for them in
Sydney five pounds a pair. There were little tiaras of shark-
teeth, with tie-strings of sennit, and, to Jack's delight, some
fine specimens of whale-teeth. The fans submitted were
exactly like those in Samoa. .

' ' Man-fowl and woman-fowl he stop, ' ' Bob introduced the
chickens, a man-fowl bringing about eight and a half cents
to its owner, and the woman-fowl a little more, what of her
capacity for " pickaninny he stop along woman-fowl too
much."

September 19, 1908.

Jack says "Lucky we were not at sea last night," for it
blew worse than any time in the Snark's history. It was
quite rough enough inside, and one of the blackest nights in
our experience. The sky seemed to press down. But it was
not so black in the early evening as Martin adjudged. He
came up from the lighted cabin and gazed overside. * ' My !
I never saw it so black ! " he said. Jack and I, who were al-
ready on deck and our eyes better focused, began to laugh,
for within six inches of Martin's face hung a pair of heavy
blue-flannel bloomers of mine, winter wear put out to 'air.

Our men-fowl crowed me awake before five, and a rainy
forenoon was not specially inspiriting. But the pleasant,
eager traders 'livened things, and I became possessed of three
new clam-pearls. Jack turned some small iron puzzles over
to the visitors, who were like a lot of holiday children, bobbing
their ringlets and crying over and over : ' ' Ah he he ! Ah he
he ! Ah he he ! " " Wow-ow-ow! Wow-ow-ow!" and laugh-
ing heartily with me at my amusement.

The Tongan Wesleyan missionary, Mr. Nau, with his wife
and daughter, and his Tongan associate, Mr. Bolgar, paid us
a call — big, gracious Polynesian love people, all of them,
with whom Henry and Tehei were overjoyed to talk. Tehei
has been under the weather all day with headache, but we
cannot discover any fever.

Peggy, still uncertain on her off hind-leg, took another fall,

448 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

and lamed the nigh fore-leg, so that she is neither seaman-
like nor silent in her meanderings. But meander she will, as
long as any brown-skinned human stranger is aboard her
ship, although she seems to divine the difference, undoubtedly
from her association with our two Polynesians, between the
Lua-Nuans and the burly, Semitic-faced Solomons.

Jack is a bit shaky with fever, and a peculiar swelling
has appeared in his hands, the sensation being similar to
chilblains. It hurts him to close them, and the skin peels off
in patches, with other skins readily forming and peeling
underneath. I do not believe his nervous system was ever
made to thrive in the tropics.

. . . Just now, as I write in bed, there came a fluttering of
wings, distinct through the ripping of thunder, against the
ventilator, and Jack, roused out of his first drowse, dropped
from his bunk and went up in the rain expecting to find a
bat. Instead, his hands encountered a white bird that had
stunned itself on the rigging. He straightened it out, and
it presently flew away. When Jack came down again, he
put a damp and towelled head through our tiny doorway
and blinked smiling at me :

"It's a royal life we lead, isn't it? There's nothing in
the world to equal it ! ' '

September 20, 1908.

Tehei has fever at last, and is very languidly and pallidly
interested in himself and his symptoms, with a sweet smile
watching Nakata pull together and return to the galley. It is
now three weeks since my last attack; and Jack's threatening
state yesterday proved only a slight cold.

Markham brought his lady-love aboard, and I dressed her
up in stays and lingerie and an evening gown and sent her on
deck, to the huge entertainment of the men. But it was as I
thought — beyond the gift of some scented toilet soap, a string
of beads, and a gay pareu, she was not at all covetous —
although I have a suspicion that steady association with a
certain huge powder-puff would tempt her.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 449

Ashore in the afternoon, we were treated to a big dance,
called "sing-sing." The women hula'd in dresses of grass
and leaves and gay calico, and a bevy of naked girl-babies
mingled, dancing amorously with unwitting faces, tiny
point-fingered hands on swaying hips, while King Kepea and
his councillors watched us to see how we took it; for they
seem to have gathered a notion, probably from the enlightened
Tongans, that the hula is not a white man's dance. One
cross-eyed infant, girdled in flowers, danced herself into a
frenzy of contortions of body and plump limbs, until her
mother caught her up amidst shrieks of laughter from every-
body, and held her kicking on high.

The incongruity of actions among these simple folk (who
are far more comely and gracious than the general run of
one's white acquaintances), when they become absorbed in
trivial and childish affairs, is rather rude on one's imagina-
tion. We had brought a half sack of sweet potatoes for His
Majesty, and a big square tin of assorted "lollies," and the
handsome chief kept a keen and frequent-dropping eye and
hand on these treasures — as did some of his court who sat
around on hand-wrought four-legged stools of hard wood.
And / had my eye on the king's seat, which was the best of
the lot, and which I intended to possess sooner or later. The
dignified and graceful acceptance by the lofty-miened prime
ministers (Bob among them), of a single potato or a sticky
handful of lollies, sorely tried our gravity. Some inimitable
young prince, flaunting his love-locks in the sun, made bash-
ful eyes at us behind a slanting palm, until he was beckoned
to come up and receive a fistful of the garish-coloured dainties
— at which a coquettish hoyden swayed close to him from a
dance figure, snatched his prize and broke into a run, he
after her, and both laughing shrilly. There were practically
no dances new to us, even the "jumping widows" of Taiohae
being represented by various vahines who bumped stiffly up
and down in the midst of a weaving circle.

Old Bob was general of affairs, and fearfully important.
When the entertainment waned, he called our attention to a

450 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

half dozen fowls lying bound beside the king, who looked
uneasy, as if he were afraid we might depart before he could
get something off his mind. And then his high Majesty
majestically suggested that we buy his six "woman-fowl"!
The descent from sublime to ridiculous was so abrupt that
Jack and I stood open-mouthed for an instant, and Martin
made an actual shy away from the august presence. "Well,
what do you know about that!" he breathed — "well — I'm a
son of a seacook!" (Martin's words often contain the spirit
if not the sound of his emotions.)

Oh, we bought the chickens, never fear; and as the ele-
gancies of our language are not understood here, Jack's genial
and respectful ' ' Good-bye, you old robber ! ' ' and my ' ' Fare-
well, you magnificent skinflint ! ' ' carried nothing but pleasure
and sense of well-being to the soul of the sovereign. Henry
looked aghast at our temerity; but as nothing fell from
heaven, and as not even the astute Bob suspicioned the mock
homage, our big Rapa Islander smiled his whimsical three-
cornered smile and chuckled all the way to the beach. Henry
hasn't spent most of his years on white men's boats without
learning a bit of their humour. He was about to toss me over
his great shoulder (he has relegated to himself the duty of
passing "Missis" high and dry from beach to boat and vice
versa), when a hubbub arose ashore, and there was an exodus
of the crowd across the belt of land. Something was up, and
we joined the rush, praying against hope that we might be
about to witness the drawing ashore of a lost canoe drifted
from some far palmy isle. This drift peopled Lord Howe
and Tasman, Bellona and Rennel, and at long intervals, still
other canoes are cast up. Sometimes the voyagers are all
dead — we are possessed of several spears from such a funeral
canoe that was once washed on the reef. But think of the
meeting when the strays from fabled lands are still breathing,
and are welcomed and resuscitated by their saviours ! It was
not to be that we should gaze upon such a scene ; far from it,
what we saw was a steamer plying slowly outside the reef
toward an opening farther west, and Markham told us it was

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 451

the Sumatra — smallest of the North German Lloyd fleet,
which makes more or less regular trips among the German
islands for copra and to bring stores ; and he said we would
take a run down to her in the cutter to-morrow, with our
mail, as she does not like to come to the shallower waters at
this end.

On our walk to-day, we found the breadth of this coral
band to be not more than three hundred yards at the widest,
and could realise how easy it must have been for the first
white men who came here to subjugate the natives. Although
in the main descendants of a purely Polynesian drift from
the eastward, they had a leaven from an occasional Melanesian
contribution in the season of the northwest monsoon, and
were hostile to white invaders. They fought well and
bravely, but learned their bloody and heartbreaking lesson,
and the entire population of the atoll is as peaceable as we
see them here. The story of their trimming by the "inevi-
table white man" is so stirring that Jack will add it also to
his collection, calling it ' l Yah ! Yah ! Yah ! ' ' which was the
gleeful slogan of one of the reckless white mariners who took
an important hand in the trimming.

Owing to bad weather, we had not been tempted much
inshore since our arrival, and now took occasion to examine
the Lua-Nua cemetery — the most remarkable thing in its
way that we have ever come across — itself worth a voyage to
this great atoll, which, in spite of contiguity and control,
belongs to the Solomons neither geographically nor ethno-
logically.

This burial ground, wandering along for some distance, is
really very beautiful, although it is hard to say exactly why,
for it is comparable to nothing in the world. Through the
emerald-green forest of luxuriant palms, you come upon
what most nearly resembles a miniature ruined city all in
white coral, tipped and decorated with rose-red pigment — a
little Pompeii with painted walls and silent streets. The
buildings are rows of tombstones, the graves are covered with
fine white coral sand, and widows and widowers sweep these

452 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

graves regularly every day for hours, over periods that en-
dure according to the devotion of the bereft. Once I acci-
dentally stepped on a square of wood lying in the way.
Markham's girl drew me aside quickly. "Make," she whis-
pered— the Hawaiian word for "dead."

The "widowers' (and widows') houses" stand at intervals
on the other side of a sort of avenue running parallel with the
city of the dead, and we saw the mourners (more women than
men) wrapped to the eyes in what looked to be literally sack-
cloth, of an ashen and dusty dunness. They answered our
i ' alohas ' ' with most unbecoming cheer and merriment.

We passed several turtle-pools — small dark holes criss-
crossed with logs, in which the captives slowly grow new
houses for their backs after the harvest of shell has been
cruelly ripped off.

In some of the homes we visited, sweet-faced vahines gave
me presents — bead-necklaces and bracelets, and fans. I had
my own pockets and Jack's full of pretty trade articles, and
made them happy in return.

During the latter part of our stroll, Peggy disappeared,
and I reached Markham's house in a panic. Markham sent
several natives to look for her, and they met a curly-headed
youth hastening beachward with the puppy, who, when her
eyes lighted on us, went into a perfectly feminine hysteria.
A ship 's dog, unused to regular exercise, is very likely to run
amuck when it discovers endless pathways for the chasing.

September 22, 1908.

At nine yesterday we started with Markham in his cutter
with the impossibly huge sail and absurdly short tiller, and
two leaf-chapleted sons of high men in Lua-Nua, Matukea
and Tunaka — beauties, both of them, in face and form, and
as stupid of wit as they were beautiful. They appeared to
have no judgment whatever in handling the cutter, and
Markham was obliged to watch them every minute of the
thrilling traverse. No use scolding them — they only look

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 453

puzzled and grieved, then smile irresistibly with a flash of
teeth and dimples, and return to their singing and de-
claiming for fair weather.

We were bound for the station Nuareber, miles away, where
the Sumatra was anchored, and the cutter raced along like an
ice-boat with her enormous canvas spread to the squalls.
Time and again it seemed we must capsize, and Markham's
cheering assurance that there were only fish sharks in the
lagoon did not make me any less desirous of keeping up on
the windward rail. As we had started in the rain, I had not
changed from bloomers, and merely added an oilskin and a
pongee parasol for sun or rain, packing a skirt with Jack's
inevitable book and magazines. There was quite a swell as
we ranged alongside the black side of the steamer, and I en-
tertained visions of courteous Teutonic officers reaching to
help the white lady aboard. A couple of Black Papuan
sailors looked lazily down upon us, and made no offer to as-
sist. Jack prepared to board the ship in order to give me a
hand up, when a door opened and two immaculate plump
pink Germans looked frowningly out, then, to our amaze-
ment, closed the door again. "What are we to them?" Jack
laughed, landing on the deck at the next rise of the cutter.
"Up with you! — they took you for a boy."

Markham found Captain Miileitner, and soon everything
was ours, the two officers profuse with apologies, saying they
had seen only the native boys in the cutter. We gave our
mail to them, for the Sumatra expected to connect with an
Australian steamer shortly. Of course, with our delay in
reaching Lord Howe, we knew we should miss the Makambo,
and now planned to take her next following trip, six weeks
later.

We had a capital lunch with our hosts, the captain explain-
ing in his broken English (not beche de mer, alas!) the
various German delicacies. But the sauerkraut and noodles
and Pilsener and Rhine wine needed no interpretation, and
the ship was able to spare us an assortment of things for the
Snark — sausages, Camembert cheeses, sauerkraut, fruits,

454 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

cakes, and toothsome potpourris of German tidbits in gay
tins. We were served by slender young Chinese with refined
faces and soft manners, and beautiful hands. The sailors,
Black Papuan from New Britain, were blacker than any
Solomon Islanders, and we could not but compare their lean,
asymetrical bodies and round, knobby, sloping shoulders with
our shapely cupids on the cutter.

After lunch, the weather being fine, with an untroubled
lagoon, Captain Miileitner announced that he wanted to see
the Snark and would take us back. Jack was glad of this,
especially as he was very anxious to rate our chronometer.
But our scheme failed early, all because of the inability of
those love-children in the towing cutter to steer after the
Sumatra's stern. The cutter capsized, and was dragged
under, coming up and submerging repeatedly before the
steamer could be stopped. One of the Lua-Nuans went
free after the first immersion ; but the other, as if from sheer
inability to let go, hung on to the stern and came up blowing
prodigiously each time. Fortunately he did release his hold
before a final twist drew the dismasted cutter clear under the
Sumatra's propeller. We saw everything in the clear water
— the pretty hull sink and twist beneath and then float to the
surface on the other side, bottom up. The boy was now
astride a trade chest, with other litter around him, including
my parasol, his eyes bulging with fright, while his com-
panion swam frantically to join him. And presently, hear-
ing our chorus of mirth at their panic, the pair were laughing
with us between panting breaths.

The loss of time occasioned by the accident was so consid-
erable that the captain said he would entertain us over night
instead of putting us aboard the Snark, while the Sumatra
went on with her business and Markham got the cutter, whose
hull was intact, in shape at Nuareber. We spent a luxurious
evening lounging in hammocks and big rattan chairs on the
long, canopied after deck, listening to a variety of splendid
operatic records on a big phonograph. Jack slept here, along
with the others ; but the captain insisted, with elaborate bows,

Guadalcanal

The Squall off Lord Howe

A Cannibal Venice

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 455

that "Frau London" occupy his stateroom, a large and
handsome apartment, well stocked with firearms. Mr. Timm,
chief engineer, sold us some New Britain and New Guinea
curios. One was a long spear, jagged with rows of sharks '-
teeth, encased in a woven sennit sheath — a very choice acqui-
sition. He told us stories of these wild countries that sent
our thoughts far beyond the trip to Sydney, when we should
return to join the Snark and fare westward again.

At nine this morning, we set sail for the Snark, and it took
six long hours beating to windward to cover the distance we
had sped in an hour the day before in the running cutter.

Monday, September 28, 1908.

For a week we have lain here, just pleasuring in the life,
and because we have ample time on our hands. Also, and
most important, Jack has been lying in wait for observations,
so that he could settle the little matter of the chronometer.
He has tested it by longitude sights, and discovered it to be
something like three minutes out — a very grave total error,
when it is considered that each minute is equivalent to fifteen
miles. By repeated observations, he rated the chronometer,
finding that it had a daily losing error of seven-tenths of a
second. Nearly a year ago, when we left Hawaii, the thing
had the same losing error. That error was always added
each day, and has not changed, according to these Lord
Howe observations. So what in the name of all watch-
makers made our chronometer put on speed and catch up
with itself three minutes ? There is no explanation, unless it
was allowed to run down in our absence, and was wound
and corrected by some chronometer at Tulagi. But Martin
stoutly avers that nothing of the kind took place. It is very
curious.

Tehei, frightened by his fever, begged leave to spend a
couple of days ashore to visit and pray with the Tongan mis-
sionaries. He came back more optimistic, but is very self-
centred in the observation of symptoms. I once had a male

456 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

relative-by-marriage who eternally searched for symptoms —
and found them — so that he was always ill or on the verge of
becoming so. Tehei reminds me of him.

Jack's hands have not improved — in fact, he is sorely
bothered by them — even holding a pen is uncomfortable,
and a pull on a rope is positively painful.

Nakata, flouting all symptoms, although he has not been
entirely free from fever for some time, goes about the cook-
ing without complaint, and many's the delicious odour that
floats out from his galley — steaming clam-meat from fluted
marble shells, sizzling small-fry brought by the natives,
wholesome boiling or frying taro. The people here and in
the Solomons are largely tambo in respect to clam-meat, as a
devil-devil resides therein. So we, who are especially fond
of it, raw or cooked, have difficulty in obtaining all we want.
Henry has come nobly to the rescue, with indulgent amuse-
ment at the superstition of the lesser breeds, and dives over-
side when, in the clear brine, we locate on the white bottom,
sixty feet below, a desirable shell. Slowly filling his deep
lungs, he leaves the rail feet-first, then, well under, turns
over and swims down leisurely, as leisurely picks up the
shell, and rises very slowly, in order not to change the atmos-
pheric pressure too abruptly, which is the cause of the ter-
rible "bends." He is quietly pleased over our praise, al-
though he knows we know he has only done half the depth
of his old-time record. Henry hasn't that slightly de-
pressed chest for nothing.

Jack and I have done a little swimming around the yacht,
and the other day, while he was resting on the rail with a
dripping and solicitous Peggy beside him, both watching me
under water, he saw not fifteen feet below me a long shape.
Then I saw it, too — only a fish-shark warranted not to bite
. . . but I made my record climb up the gangway ladder.

I do not feel well any of the time — am tired and listless;
but a strange elation of happiness possesses me, and all's
well.

Every day Bob, who affectionately calls me "Mamma,"

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 457

and assures me I am the first white Mary who has visited
this end of the island, comes out with something we want,
whether tattoo-sticks pointed with sharks '-teeth, or strings of
little carved-wood cups, wooden or stone poi-pounders — fine
specimens from the Stone Age brought here by the canoe-
drift from the high islands — or broad bead girdles of gor-
geous hues. And I lie on a cot under the awning and listen
dreamily to the musical-husky voices and the soft lapping of
little waves against our tumble-home sides, and look out
across the warm blues of the lagoon to the isle-dotted pink
reef, and am just . . . happy.

Or at night, on deck, we watch the searchlight on shore
and water, fish leaping to the illumination, screaming terri-
fied white birds fretting the brilliant green foliage, while
weird cries and shouts rise from the villagers, and groups of
naked brown forms dance singing on the gleaming sand.

One evening we went fishing with Markham and his girl
on the inside reef by lantern light. There had been an
astounding sunset, crude blue-and-pink fanrays out of a
brazen green-orange horizon band, the reef islets picked out
in dead black. The swift passing of all the riot of rude
colour was succeeded by a purple night-sky spangled with
enormous electric stars, low-hung; and as we glided across
the warm water, down out of a sudden blot of cloud shot
crackling a round red ball that died through red and rose to
pale nothingness ere it reached the sea. A ferine chorus of
panic yells went up from the beach at the meteorite, and two
scarlet-cinctured, curl-crowned amphibians in our canoe
emitted queer little guttural cries and with their arms wove
magic spells against devil-devils.

It was a wonderful night. Great stars, reflected in the
lagoon, made a strange blue light, softened by fleecy vagrant
clouds that also met their reflections in the waveless water.
The girl beside me caressed my tired body and limbs with
the everlasting blessing of lomi-lomi, and the brown prince-
things sang and laughed in undertones at their fishing. The
water was so quiet that we could see by the starlight the

458 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

moony gleam of the sandy bottom, broken with grey fanciful
shapes of branching coral. A low groan and growl from the
outer surf came across the palmy strand, but we hung mo-
tionless in a magic still circle swept softly by perfumed airs.

. . . And to-morrow we hoist anchor for Pelau, at the
other end of the atoll, thence straight north for indefinite
two-score miles to a ring of reef not a seventh the size of
this — Tasman, or Niumano Atoll.

At sea, Lord Howe to Tasman,
Friday, October 2, 1908.

To the south Lord Howe has sunk beneath a waving hori-
zon of cobalt blue, and the dear old bowsprit is questing
northward where Tasman lies but a fraction over four de-
grees below the fervid Line. And fervid enough it is aboard,
despite a flowing breeze.

On the morning of Tuesday, the 29th, we sailed for Pelau
accompanied by two natives, Kelango, a nephew of Bob's,
and Boonaa, the very picture of an Abyssinian. The two
put in their time on the bowsprit, guiding us among the
brilliant coral patches in the rippling lagoon.

King Kepea rendered a farewell largess of one hundred
young drinking-cocoanuts, and that coveted four-legged
"throne," which shall be my pet footstool some day in our
Wolf House on Sonoma Mountain. He also sent a score of
fowls, these, as we had come to learn, to be paid for.

Mr. Markham came out, and the girl was a sumptuous
vision, swathed in sky-blue pareu held by a wide blue-
beaded band close around her bronze body under the breasts.
But she was entirely put in the shade when there hove over-
rail our friend Bob, who had spent good money at the store
on a coarse white cotton chemise (surmounted by an em-
broidered frill), that reached below his lean knees. Imagine
the bewhiskered, fuzz-tufted, benevolent old fellow in this
outrageous rig, stiff with pride in his unimpeachable cor-

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 459

rectness — and our struggle not to shout with laughter. And
at the last, tarrying with us until he became separated from
his canoe, he dived overside and rose waving a lean brown
arm out of its embroidered puff -sleeve, before he struck for
shore with a "Good-bye, my mamma! Good-bye, my
friend!"

Jack trusted Henry with the wheel and went below to
start his story "Mauki," which has greatly stirred his imag-
ination. I spent most of the day fitting up our tiny state-
rooms with yielding depths of fine mats on the floors,
others soft-folded on the bunks, and rearranging things gen-
erally. They are such clean comfort, these native weaves,
in this melting temperature.

At 5 :30, with an hour of the engine, we came to rest in
sixty feet of green-crystal water, and our eyes could follow
the chain link by link to where the anchor hid under a dull-
blue coral-hummock. Rosy rock-cod and dun fish-sharks
could be clearly seen hovering in the shadows cast by sea
gardens or gliding from tree to tree out of the violet glooms
into opalescent sungleams and back again, and large beche
de mer slugs lay like blots on the wavy white bottom.

Before the natives commenced to swarm out, Mr. Bolgar
(Mr. Nau and he had preceded us to Pelau) paid us a call,
and more to our amusement than surprise at first, warned us
against the natives, whose breeding includes a streak of
Malayan as well as Melanesian. "S'pose you frien's look
out along Queenslander fella," he explained. This we per-
fectly understood, as the presence of a "returned Queens-
lander" would make us keep an eye out for at least small
failings, although nothing worse in this safe environment.

There is not a white face in Pelau, and we quickly com-
prehended the variance of the people from those at the other
end. No lovely youths here — these were very like Solomon
Islanders in shape and feature, although as elaborately if
not as finely tattooed as any Samoan. All over their faces
the patterns stray, and it makes one's flesh creep to look at
heavy designs on the tender skin under their eyes, so

460 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

exquisite must have been the torture of the artist's handi-
work. The children are well sketched on their little chests,
and childless wives and the men wear irregular knicker-
bockers of intricate drawing. Some of them had " fella
muskets" limned on their satiny torsos.

Early next morning the roar of surf outside roused me,
and I dived for a cool swim with Jack before breakfast, as
the sharks really seemed to stay on bottom near the fish.
Imagine lying face-downward on the tepid beryl floor of
water, eyes open to the coral groves and lazy-shifting life of
the lagoon, and trying to spy a hide-and-seek anchor at the
end of a chain that partly lies in irregular lines and loose
coils in the slack of the tide; or, coming up for a lung of
fresh air, leisurely swimming under the beloved copper hull
of your boat, and turning face-up to look at her iron keel
before rising on the other side. It is all so indolent-easy.
If Jack and I did everything in the tropics as moderately
as we live in the water, I am beginning to believe there would
be little sickness for us.

A strange canoe with upright carved ends ranged along-
side while we were having our fresh-laid breakfast-eggs on
deck, her paddlers equally strange — two Mongolian-faced
men under broad Chinese hats. One of them submitted a
large, perfectly round clam pearl, at which I tried not to
look too possessively, for he held it at a price that would
have commanded a true oyster pearl. Jack advised : ' ' Let
him wait a day or two — he'll find his mistake and come
down." But he never could be convinced that it was not a
proper "poe" (Tahitian for pearl), and we sailed without
it, as I preferred to hoard the price against our pearl-junket-
ing in Torres Straits.

Mr. Nau and Mr. Bolgar sent out an invitation to visit
them, and under their commodious oblong roof, as we rested
on thick mats, we met the royalty, King Pongavali of Pelau,
and drank the good health of His Majesty and his wives and
prime ministers in endless libations of tender cocoanuts.
Many of the types were curious — not like the Solomons, not

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 461

like anything1 we knew — stern visages set around with Faun-
tleroy locks, faces slow to smile, their watchful black eyes
lid-dropping when too closely scrutinised.

Mr. Nau 's sweet vahine piled in my lap several fine Samoan
mats, one of them thickly fringed with vari-coloured wor-
sted, an especial treasure in her eyes. While we were under
shelter a heavy shower cleared the oppressive air, and we
walked about the green island, where I was allowed to go and
come unchallenged in rickety devil-devil houses such as
Jack and Martin had never seen, nor even Henry and poor
weak Tehei, who could not resist coming ashore.

The Pelauans are not so fastidious as the Lua-Nuans, and
these devil-devil houses are noisome with a clutter of offer-
ings of dirt-encrusted turtle shell, native kai-kai spoons of
the same shell and of mother-of-pearl, malodorous ragged
garments — I saw a grimy plaid shawl — dog-skulls, sharks '-
jaws, repulsive strings of fish-tails, and, under one conse-
crated thatch, a week-dead black cat swayed and swung and
perfumed the breeze. At all times watchers squat or lie in
these twilight temples — unpleasant creatures, some of them
with loathly skin diseases.

We picked up a few fine curios — Jack was especially
elated over several adzes of petrified shell that were routed
from obscurity by the ancient fathers of the tribe, wrought
years before white men introduced the first iron.

When we returned aboard, a large crowd saw us off, and
then dispersed to sleep away the heat. Just before sunset, in
what I suppose one might call the cool of the afternoon, we
roused from our deck-mats and brought to light some foolish
miracles to astound the gathering that paddled out to see
what it could see. Some were absorbed in " tuppenny " wire
puzzles until the marvelling murmurs of others called them
to where stupid paper wafers spread into coloured lilies in
pans of water, or Japanese flowers burst into swift blossom-
ing in little pots, or harmless grey lumps of clay turned into
writhing snakes of fire at the touch of a match. Next day
the King, being indisposed and bored, despatched a courier

462 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

with request that we bring or send similar wonders for his
amusement. It was too hot to leave the awnings, so we sent
the things. We noticed that no reciprocal gift was forth-
coming. How radically different peoples in the same part of
the world can be! The missionary's wife was ill, so the
household did not come to dinner as arranged. Very few
canoes paddled out — either we must have gleaned all the
curios, or else we had nothing the population wanted.

By the time we were ready to depart, our anchor chain, to
say nothing of the anchor, had become so involved in the
coral groves that we had to send native divers down to disen-
tangle them, and could watch their every movement. I
steered out the narrow reef entrance under power, snapping
breakers close on each hand.

Jack, in addition to writing and navigating and general
captaining, is studying up everything on the medical shelf
relating to Tehei's sickness, and is treating him very care-
fully; for blackwater fever undoubtedly it is, and black-
water is no joke. What a terrible thing a death on the
happy Snark would be! But we are not dwelling upon
death, but life and recovery. Unfortunately, Tehei's mind,
whether conscious or wandering, works directly against our
efforts. He seems sweetly determined to become an angel,
and meets all cheer-provoking suggestion with patient smiles ;
while all his childish-lisping talk is in the missionary nomen-
clature. His worship leads curiously into the channel of
aitu observance. To-day I overheard him whispering; "0
God, don't kill me! 0 God, don't kill me!" But we have
simply got to pull him through.

Saturday, October 3, 1908.

Except for making safely out of Lord Howe at three yes-
terday, we did not employ the engine, but sailed on in the
warm-blowing afternoon, through a glorious equatorial sun-
set, and into a scintillating night of electric moon and stars
and phosphorescent water, until, at half past ten, Martin

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 463

sighted Tasman low-lying not far off. Jack hove to, but
was up and down all night to be sure of holding his weather
position. He looked very tired-eyed this morning, and I
could see his burning, stinging hands gave him no respite.
Happily, his natural curiosity is such that the study and
working through even his own physical misfortunes (let
alone others') nearly offset the personal pain and irk.
Hence, his temper is equable, and no one else is forced to
suffer unduly on his account.

Under power, once near Tasman, we skirted her purling
reef, all strung with deep-green wooded islets, Henry at
masthead, bald and hatless under the roasting noonday sky.
Martin was triumphant above all Solomon sores at the way
his smooth-running masheen was "sewing" on distillate;
and Tehei, deciding to live until he beheld one more frag-
ment of this mundane sphere, crept on deck and eased him-
self on to a mattress. Peggy, gallant soul, sat beside me,
golden ears pricked, restless of paw, while I turned for the
southeast entrance. A dun squall-curtain that had been
swinging toward the opening swerved away and left fair
going.

"The dear old tub — I love every plank and sheet and
pulley!" Jack laughed to me from the bow where he was
directing my course.

"This is an atoll what is," was his next call, for at last
we were gliding into the fairy ring of our dreams, re-
stricted enough for one to realise its bounds at a circling
glance. Here the water is deep, and no coral patches could
we see.

Out came Mr. McNicoll, a small, hard-bitten Scotsman,
who holds power of life and death over the rapidly dimin-
ishing handful of almost pure Polynesians on this privately-
owned island. He is here only temporarily, having come
to help the manager, Mr. Oberg, to suppress an uprising of
the natives consequent upon a scourge of dysentery intro-
duced by Oberg 's Black Papuan boat crew. So autocratic
has Mr. McNicoll become in his long years of lording it over

464 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

the dark races, and doing the thinking for their dull wits,
that it never occurs to him that he cannot exercise unques-
tioned authority with other persons' brown boys. Hence,
there were at least surprised looks on the faces of Henry and
Nakata when our caller ordered them around quite as a
matter of course. Henry's triangular smile took on a twist
of resentment, but Nakata saw the humour, and was all
polite respect and obedience to the quondam "bossing." I
thought it was exceedingly funny, until the interesting char-
acter squarely kicked Peggy, merely because she happened
to be standing between him and the mongrel he desired to
kick. Peggy's tear-dimmed eyes wrung a protest from me,
whereupon McNicoll was all apology for his thoughtlessness,
and jokingly remarked that he fancied Peggy's tail had
been bobbed "so's to make room for her on the schooner."
Then he relieved his embarrassment by kicking the right
dog with the threat that he'd throw a leg o' Moses at him if
he didn't keep out o' way.

But McNicoll was solid at heart, and displayed every con-
sideration, sending out fruit and vegetables to ''Captain
London and the Mate," bringing his sturdy, lawful native
wife to see us — a stolid New Ireland woman in decent
muslin wrapper — and their three-year-old son, the most
beautiful child I ever saw. Other and older sons and daugh-
ters are being educated elsewhere. McNicoll is evidently a
man keen to his responsibilities as a parent. He is full of
story and anecdote, and will ever stand out in my memory,
if for no other reason than that he is the first white man I
ever talked with who has eaten human flesh, or, rather, ad-
mitted the same — albeit this one swears he did not know it
was human flesh until afterward. "Man, man, I was fair
blowed, I was, any amount, I tell you, by Jove!" he de-
claimed; then, to my question: "It was nigger meat, any-
ways, and . . . well, you might say it's more like pig-flesh
than anything else, fine-grained, y'know ..." and he
trailed off into hair-lifting tales of his years in New Guinea,
New Britain, New Ireland — where the natives are blacker in

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 465

body, and soul, if that be possible, than the Malaitans. A
missing thumb on his left hand was torn out by a winch
when he, alone, hoisted overboard sling-loads of five hun-
dred coolies dead from cholera, somewhere on the China
coast.

McNicoll has lately buried twenty-three of the inhabitants
here, dead from dysentery. There remain but ninety-three
natives, thirty-six of whom are women, and there are only
two children in the whole community.

This man verified Jack's diagnosis of Tehei's condition,
and told dreadful instances of the mortality from black-
water. As to Jack's hands, he examined the peeling upon
peeling that was visible, and the painful, dry, hot swelling,
and said he had once had something like it, but had got over
it; didn't know what it was — maybe the salt, maybe the sun,
and that Jack's and his own were the only cases he had ever
seen.

Niumanu, Tasman,
Sunday, October 4, 1908.

The rain pelted all night, and the men were driven from
their deck mattresses; but I, under a flap of canvas, stuck it
out, with Peggy, who had been rudely detached from Jack's
side when he was washed out, curled beside me. Peggy
loves me more and more, but when night falls she hunts the
shelter of Jack's arms, and, if he has to desert her, she goes
to Martin, whom she has won to her in spite of himself, and
who now considers her "a pretty good little yellow dog."

This forenoon McNicoll placed his whaleboat, manned by
magnificent Black Papuans, at our disposal for the day. He
also ordered a dance, in a space among tall dense trees — the
most ideally primitive and savage dance we ever watched.
Men and women were clad in bushy ballet-skirts of grass
and leaves and feathers, dancing angularly with quick jerks
and flirts of the undulating fringes. One man was a small
satyr among his wood-fellows, and as they all moved hither
and thither into the twilight, fireflies wove like shuttles

466 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

among them and shot in and out the dark pillars of the
forest.

A small, sweet, listless people are these Niumanus, soft-
voiced, soft-mannered, without ambition enough to persist as
a race. A wonder it is they gathered sufficient impetus to
protest against the dysentery ; but it was little more than an
hysterical protest against fate.

The village is very picturesque, smothered in tufted, laden
palms full of birds, and we saw only one devil-devil house,
from the door of which a coffee-coloured little Mephisto
peered. The rapidly dwindling female members of the pop-
ulation are the most comely we have seen in this part of the
South Seas, despite their cropped skulls. What hair they
have lies in tender, tawny-tipped ringlets. We did not see
the pitiful remnant of Niumanu's childhood.

And the burying-place — that is even more curious than
Lua-Nua's, although quite different. The import of the
relics that decorate the rickety graves was very stimulating
to our white imaginations. One tomb, plastered with pink
lime, bore the rusted wraith of an old musket; another, a
bronze rudder-pintle, green-crusted; a group of graves
bristled with bayonets corroded to mere uneven toothpicks,
while rust-splintered marlinspikes and crowbars stuck up at
intervals, and one lone mound boasted an almost unrecog-
nisable sauce-pan — indeed, here were all the copper and
hardware that had been taken from two New England whale-
ships that the once adventuresome people of Tasman had ' ' cut
out" more than a century ago. One of these ships, the
Sailing Directions says, they captured inside the lagoon, but
the other they went out after in their canoes.

McNicoll happened to remark that some of the older graves
near the reef had been washed open by the surf. Martin
departed forthwith to see if he could find a skull. He was
not allowed to get away with it for nothing, however, the
natives, first shocked, then covetous, considering it worth
three sticks of tobacco. "Some cheap head!" Martin com-
mented, turning the ghastly trophy in his hands.

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 467

Monday, October 5, 1908.

This would have been one of our loveliest days in the
tropics except for the heat that boiled our white blood. I
have been frantic with prickly heat that rose in a rash, and
Jack suffered greatly with his turgid hands. And I do not
think our breakfast of tinned sauerkraut and frankfurters
was the most approved diet for the climate! At any rate,
we enjoyed an inactive day, indolently discussing the possi-
bility of missing the next steamer to Sydney. Fancy being
so moderate that one misses sailings five weeks apart!

Nakata seemed possessed with good spirits, and his vibrant
Japanese lilts soared out and upward from the galley to a
low accompaniment of self-pitying groans from Tehei, one of
whose aberrations is that we over-persuaded him to come
on the Snark. Martin was indignant, and reminded him
sharply of the five different refusals Jack had given when
Tehei began first to hint and then to beg to be allowed to
sail with us. Jack gave the demented child a good talk-
ing-to, in the hope of bracing him up, but such result is not
apparent. He turns an obstinate face to the wall and says
no word. Meanwhile his fever is well in hand under Jack's
unremitting treatment ; but Tehei has long since decided that
the only way to abate his homesickness is by way of steamer
from Sydney, since there are no connections to be made from
the Solomons; and gloom has settled upon his soul. This
evening, to my ukulele, Nakata and Henry danced a merry
figure or two on deck in the moonlight; but Tehei stuck it
out in the hot cabin and would not be beguiled.

Tuesday, October 6, 1908.

Early in our first sleep last night we were aroused by a
low warning rumble from Peggy, and almost before we could
locate the canoe, three womanish, ringleted men, with great
soft eyes, were perched upon our rail, explaining that they
wanted to ship on the Snark. It was all part of the recent
panic — the poor things want to get away.

468 THE LOG .OF THE SNARK

This morning we were under way about nine, Mr. Oberg
and his crew helping us break out the anchor and hoist the
canvas. Jack says these blacks, although willing enough,
are very awkward sailors compared with the Polynesians.
There was a certain relief in getting away from this anchor-
age, as the reef to the west was a trifle too close for mental
repose.

And so we have left our first atolls — rosy garlands flung
upon the sapphire sea — and are pointed for the Solomons
again, which, while we do not love them, are more like home
and headquarters than any other place in this wild region.

Tehei is almost laughable. Without deigning to notice
Jack and me, or even Henry, he languidly ordered break-
fast of Nakata, who offered us something very like a wink
as he humoured the sick man. I think Tehei would have
liked the last hen (the rest have flown overboard), but he
did not have quite the courage to suggest it. The hen, by
the way, a small brown person, is conducting a most scandal-
ous flirtation with a sleek drake that McNicoll gave us.

This evening I took my watch. We are short-handed,
with Tehei laid up and Wada gone. After I had turned in
on my deck-cot, the squalls set in. Such rain ! Such blasts
of wind! Such sudden going-over of the hull, until the lee
rail and half the launch were buried! And such rushes to
the main-sheet! Henry handles the boat well, without or-
ders, bringing her up into the wind and keeping the head-
sails shaking just enough. He has a fine feel of a boat.

Wednesday, October 7, 1908.

It is one year to-day since we picked our way out
among the floating islets of lilies in Hilo Harbor. I spent
this forenoon on my cot, in a dead calm, trying to make up
sleep. We are a little less than one hundred and fifty miles
from Manning Straits. After the calm, came light airs, but
only just enough for steerage-way.

Martin went at the forepeak, and gave it a " turning out,"

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 469

aired our precious saddlery, and discovered three tins of
flour, along with two dozen tins of oysters and some fine
dried apples, peaches and apricots.

And we saw two big dolphin — the first since before Nuka-
Hiva.

Thursday, October 8, 1908.

So tired, so tired . . . spent forenoon in bed. But my
passive illness is nothing beside the active stress of Jack's
lamentable hands. Sydney is becoming very desirable, with
its advice and help.

Last evening I took my watch — although Jack had ar-
ranged otherwise. Had good weather, but the next watch
was fierce with squalls from black curtains on the horizon,
and the mizzen had to be lowered. The awning was taken
in, and the Snark looked bared for action. We ran fast,
wary of the big mainsail jibing over in the "hummers."
The worst squall came from two directions almost simulta-
neously. There was no sleep until nearly four. We were
glad to be no nearer Manning Straits, which are imperfectly
charted, and treacherous with reefs and warring currents.

Tehei went quite "luny," in a calm before dawn, took his
best suit of clothes on deck, threw it overboard, and was
preparing1 to follow, when Martin caught him. He evi-
dently desired to enter the isles of the blest in pleasant rai-
ment.

Friday, October 9, 1908.

I have heard Jack tell of the sun-dogs in the Arctic, and I
surely never expected to see my first sun-dogs on a hot day
under the Equator! But that is just the novelty which
greeted us from this forenoon's sky — two soft blobby false
suns, one on either side the true luminary. Another un-
usual occurrence was Henry's taking the chronometer time
for Jack's morning sight. Henry has been working very
faithfully of late at his navigation.

470 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Later in the day we could see the dim blue tops of Ysabel
rising from the horizon to the southeast, and a tangle of
islands ahead that made our senses prick with caution once
more.

This being Martin's birthday, we made Cupid stew (see
Jack's play, Scorn of Women, for recipe) of the flirtatious
brown hen, and opened a bottle of the Sumatra's Rhine wine.
The Snark logged along slowly and evenly, into a lovely sun-
set of lavender and rose and gold, with glorious piled clouds
on Ysabel's peaks, and woolly puffs dotting the horizon.
Before the huge crimson sun had touched the western waves,
like a pale reflection the full moon had grown in the low
sky opposite, so silvery delicate that it seemed a transparent
gossamer hoop through which the ineffable colours drifted
and filtered.

Jack hove to for the night, and while we drank in the rest-
ful beauty, and cooled in the evening air, the anthropomor-
phic Tehei, below, called upon his concept of the Deity not
to kill him. Henry, his sneer almost a triangle, called down
in his husky staccato :

"Hey! Tehei! You killing you 'self ! God, he no Solo-
mon to kill you — you kill you 'self, I tell you!"

I cannot reconcile this futile, febrile thing with the
old Tehei. He is behaving according to his lights — of
course; but methinks they are rushlights, and burn but
dimly.

. . . Midnight: I feel quite weak from relief. Nakata,
a little less careful than usual, had eaten some salmon that
was past virtue. Shortly before nine, when all were asleep,
the little man became violently ill with ptomaine poisoning,
and for three hours Jack and I wrestled for his life with
every means at our command — and won. He is sleeping
now like a tired baby. It was terrible, fighting one rigid
convulsion after another, conquering, and watching the at-
tacks grow less frequent. Nakata 's last observation before
he drifted into sleep, was: "Never I want to taste mustard
again!"

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 471

Saturday, Oct. 10, 1908.

Blue sky, blue water, snowy surf, low woolpacks on the
blue rim of the world, light breeze, mountains of Ysabel to
port, and the blue velvet hills of Choiseul to starboard —
and you think you have it all, a picture of peace and security.
But the two hours I steered this morning, nine to eleven,
through torrential currents and tide-rips that brimmed and
followed and seemed ever about to roll over our stern, was
one of my most exciting experiences.

We saw our way largely through the eyes of Henry, aloft,
who called down to Jack, forward, who in turn shouted
instructions to me above the racket of engine and rushing
water and impact of wind. The steering gear was stiff, and
Jack told off Nakata to help me at the wheel if I found it
too much for my strength. But I managed it unaided from
start to finish. There is a wicked reef off Ysabel, in Man-
ning Straits, and the tide-rips look like surf on reef, so that
I needed quite desperate nerve at times to obey orders and
steer unswervingly straight for a toothed line of white
water. Some day I shall learn never to question Jack's
judgment, no matter how secretly, in matters of the sea. In
spite of two charts, which, in addition to being frankly in-
adequate and unreliable, flatly contradicted each other, — in
spite of phenomena that to the rest of us, even Henry,
appeared convincingly disastrous, my blue-eyed sailor ex-
ercised his everlasting unerring judgment in this intricate
maze of rock and coral, shoal and crazy current. "Oh —
just my luck!" he will say; but I know better. We who
sail with him are not born to be drowned ! I have observed
him too much to have any doubts.

My happy heart! My brave boat! The tonic of explor-
ing in uncharted places, wondering each moment if the
keel will not bump on a hummock of coral in the watery,
swirling plain of shallows! A few remembered words of
advice and reminiscence from men who have been here, or
know others who have been, is all we have to go by ; the rest
is guesswork and judgment.

472 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

" Watch out lively! We're going into another rip!"

And I watch — meeting with all my weight on the brassy
teak wheel the shock of the combing, fighting water; and
then —

"Mate Woman!"

"Yes!"

"Keep her off— keep her off!"

And keep her off I do, noting Henry's warning wave as
well, as he sees a coral peril near at hand.

With the engine working full power, and every stitch of
canvas drawing in a bright gale, we sail like mad; but the
adverse current pulls so strong that, looking overside into
the blue-green water, we see coral patches standing still so
far as our progress is concerned. Nakata, peering over,
sees, looks up at the marble-hard sails, and down again, in-
credulously :

"Snark stand still!"

But slowly, slowly, almost inch by inch, we win through,
and are slashing along in gentler water, the contrary cur-
rents left behind, all sense of danger sloughed off in the
whirling background. Henry descends and stretches him-
self, and recounts a tale of ripping tides where two strong
men were needed at the wheel; then, three, and the vessel
swung around in spite of their combined effort. Henry's
imagination makes his broken English very dramatic; then
he trails off with liquid chucklings in his veiled voice, while
his black eyes shine with old Paumotan memories.

And through all the tumble and activity of the Straits,
I am conscious of the pleasure of the keen whip of wind on
bare calves and feet and the sting of spindrift on my
cheeks, and, greatest of all satisfactions, the sense of doing
my part, of being needed and making good in my station at
the helm.

1 ' Can you beat it ! " would come the laughing shout of my
skipper, who waves both arms in entire forgetfulness of his
painful hands. Fine mental healing, this !

We had hooked a long, slender fish on our troll line as we

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 473

were negotiating a succession of rips, and the silver-blue
sword was dragged from crest to crest of the creaming rollers
by the combined speed of the yacht and the warring current.
Not a moment before, Nakata, who was quite himself after
his sickness, had broached the puzzling problem of dinner;
and now, out of the chaotic passage, the little man served a
delicious platter of that fish, dressed over with tomatoes and
onions, and accompanied by German beer.

New Georgia is visible dead ahead, and all is plain sailing.
Jack has fallen into a doze, and I yearn over his face, gone
tired and sick as he relaxes. And I love the gear about him,
the gear of his sea avocation — the spread chart, held flat with
the dividers and parallel rulers; the binoculars, the sextant
in its case, and the perpetually low-ticking chronometer.

Sunday, October 11, 1908.

A bad squall took us aback last night. Henry, alone at
the helm, rang the bell to the engine room ; I yelled to Jack,
who landed on his feet at one bound, and started through
the cabin. He stumbled over Martin, who had struck the
floor on all fours, while Nakata, falling upon Martin from the
upper berth, was saying " Excuse me!" in mid-air. The
squall nearly buried the launch on the port rail, and the
wind came from every quarter, accompanied by a deafening
and blinding electrical display. The main sheet and main
peak halyards carried away, and things were very tense for a
while. During the night the mizzen was taken in twice, and
hoisted as many times. — Just a sample of night sailing in the
Solomon Archipelago.

Monday, October 12, 1908.

Last evening, during my watch, I had the one, grisly, hair-
raising scare of the Snark voyage. It was an eerie night to
be alone on deck. The lightning was almost continuous, and
in rocking calms between windy puffs, the intermittent rat-
tle and patter of loose blocks, and the whine of boom- jaws

474 THE LOG OF THE SNAEK

against tortured masts, were extremely uncanny. Then
would burst the squalls, with the clouds spitting flame, and
the sharp rat-tat of reef -points and the taut hum of the rig-
ging, and the unearthly swish of unseen waves, were no more
soothing to my strung nerves. I am not overly timid, but
for once I was not in tune with the responsibility of my post.
Jack, coming up for a look around before turning in, must
have sensed my distress, for he said:

' ' This is a nasty night. I '11 stay up with you. ' '
With him, I found the night very wonderful, and we
amused ourselves counting the seconds between lightning
flash and crack of thunder. Sometimes they were almost
simultaneous, so close were the bolts. Then again, we counted
several seconds. It was in a particularly long period that I
received my terrifying experience. There was no breath of
wind. Jack sat beside the rudder box, while I stood before
him, facing aft, and rubbing his hot hands. There had been
a blinding blue flash, an awful illumination, right in my
face, and the moon at my back, veiled in a blue cloud, shed a
ghostly gleam on Jack's upturned face. Then something
seemed to be happening to us. Jack was staring horribly,
and I leaned nearer, myself staring, fascinated by what I
saw. It seemed that some spell was laid upon us, separating
us as if all space intervened, and that we knew it, each to
each, and were powerless to help ourselves. He seemed
striving vainly to speak, his mouth open, and my horror-
stricken eyes saw his jaw fall. I thought all the thoughts of
my life, quickly, distinctly. I felt the voiceless tragedy of
this ending to our exceptional life and of our existence on
the Snark. I thought we were both dying, that some un-
learned manifestation of electricity had taken possession of
us and the end had come. Then, as I gazed and strove to
hold our ebbing lives together, consciousness began to wane,
and with a great effort I tried to let go Jack's hand from my
two, saying: "Let go! Let go!'* In my half -trance, the
idea persisted that we had established some sort of "circle"
that was paralysing our faculties. Also, I consciously stood

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 475

clear of the iron wheel and other metal in the cockpit. Then
Jack spoke :

" What is the matter ?"

I came to myself and found, with relief that was a pang,
that he had merely been counting the seconds, with his mouth
and eyes open, and the whole million years I had suffered
were encompassed in the space of eight seconds. I was
shaking all over, but my ego succeeded in gasping :

"But I did behave with presence of mind, according to
my lights, when I let go of your hands ! ' '

"You behaved with judgment enough, I'll admit, " he
joked; "but your physics were darned bad!"

I agreed with him ; but the freezing horror was still in my
blood, and it was some time before it seemed to flow warmly
again. The remainder of the night was fine, and we slept
soundly.

The engine has been chugging away all this day, but we
have made few knots, what of head-sea and -wind. Every
one seems fit ; even Tehei, evidently deciding, as Jack put it,
that his tactics were * ' buying him nothing, ' ' greeted me with
a smiling : ' ' Good morning, Bihaura, ' ' and ' ' Good morning,
Tehei, " to Jack. After which Jack haled him, gently
enough, to the wheel, despite protest, and made him steer.
The S nark's course was erratic in the extreme, for Tehei was
weak as a cat, and wabbled badly. But the method worked —
the man was stung to interest in life and to appetite, and ate
a hearty dinner. Jack let him rest well, then helped him to
the wheel again. "I'll make a man of him yet," he bragged
to me.

It is high time we connected with Pennduffryn. Our
kerosene is getting low ; we have bread for but one more day ;
yeast and flour are gone; our last rice was consumed three
days ago. We are pretty well down to our German tins,
with their enormous duty.

476 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Pepesala, Cape Marsh,
Pavuvu or Russell Group,
Tuesday, October 13, 1908.

Not much headway in the night, with light wind and north
current. This morning Nakata came down with fever, and,
in one of his lucid moments, made all of us, except Tehei,
laugh when he chattered whimsically :

" Please, Lord, don't kill me!"

To assist Henry, I peeled the onions (our last vegetable)
while I steered, under power, with my feet, and I smiled to
hear the Rapa Islander 's picturesque language as he struggled
with can-openers on cans that had been intended to yield to
their ''keys/' which had futilely broken off.

Into West Bay, or, more poetically, "The Bay of a Thou-
sand Ships," the Snark glided before noon; and out to us
came George Washington, or some one very like — Mr. Kiss-
ling, trader here at Cape Marsh. We had him to our midday
meal, and found him a mine of interest. Twenty-three years
in the South Seas, he bears many a mark of his prolonged
tussle with nature and with man's devices. His great chest
is coral-scarred, deep, to the bone, from some battle with the
breakers. One leg was dynamited, and, while he can walk on
it, the rended tissues have developed into a chronic sore.
Mr. Kissling knew Stevenson, and loved him for his cheer
against odds; and he remembers Lord Pembroke, who, al-
though his income was half a million a year, preferred to
roam rather than spend conventionally, and lost his yacht
Albatross in the Ringgold Group — not far from the scene of
our close call.

We had tea and dinner ashore, and I found a little organ
in the trader's living room. Amongst other things he had
once been a church organist !

Peggy had us in tears of laughter over her pompous ap-
proach to a monster mastiff, a good natured, indulgent soul
who was awkwardly nonplussed by this intrepid insect that
braced up so menacingly to him. Her superiority once
established, she made friends with him and with a fat terrier

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 477

of her own persuasion that was playing with an enormous
Maltese tomcat grown lean with lizards. A family of guinea
pigs caused Peggy to bark her head nearly off; and the
sheep . . . But she respected the two big white cows, and
we had already taught her that ducks and hens are taboo.
She doesn't even see them as she stalks by, although I think
I can detect a slight lop to one ear.

A walk about Levers Pacific Plantation showed us a very
beautiful as well as unique island, for a slanting up-thrust of
coral formation has created a basin that forms a lovely lake
of fresh water. Looking seaward through the oblique pillars
of feathered palms, in the blue lagoon with its purple coral-
shadows, and in the waters beyond, we could see innumerable
green islets, each a ' ' fragment of Paradise. ' '

In company with Mr. Kissling, and Messrs. Hickie and
Birley, two young Englishmen in charge of the estates here,
we saw the plantations, and were greatly struck with the
deforesting that had been accomplished — a large area cleared
of all but the grotesque stumps of colossal " board-trees, "
like those of Upolu. The great bases still stand, flanked by
their satin-grey bastions.

"We are now looking forward almost eagerly to Penn-
duffryn, to get our mail and make ready for the steamer
to Sydney, which leaves Aola, a station to the east of
Pennduffryn, on November 5. We have sojourned in these
Solomon Islands long enough for" the present — too long for
our good. Glorious earth monuments of verdure that they
are, yet, in their existent state, they are no place for white
men and women. Indeed, their own aborigines do not thrive j
what with fever, ulcers, skin diseases and worse, bad teeth,
and innutrition, they are a sorry lot in the main. And a
Polynesian fares little better here than a white man. When
we return from Australia, all mended and fresh for a new
start, we shall go aboard the Snark and immediately fill away
to the west — always west, and north of west, and south of
west, the round world 'round until we are bound at last
around Cape Horn and north to San Francisco .Bay.

478 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

Thursday, October 15, 1908.

On a "windless, glassy floor," engine purring fault-
lessly, we slipped out of the Bay of a Thousand Ships and
by the fantastic green litter of the Pavuvu islets, like leaves
strewn on a peacock-blue mantle; on, hour after hour, past
Savo, the volcano island, where the water appeared dusty,
as if from volcanic ash; along beautiful Guadalcanal, her
mountain-laps cradling the mist; flying-fish scudding from
our sleek forefoot and tripping over the top of the absinthe
water. Tehei, contentedly munching a ripe guava, steered
for an hour or so. Jack was in great fettle — undoubtedly
with sense of safe ending to a voyage in such adverse en-
vironment. Coming toward me with his merry walk, he
stopped to listen to the regular throb of the engine, and said
very quietly, stating the mere fact: "I have figured that,
counting repairs, Martin's salary, and so forth, that that
engine has cost me one hundred dollars for every mile she
has run.— But what of it?" he added brightly. "We're
here, aren't we?" Which same is his invariable cheery
conclusion to all irking propositions.

"Look at Peg," Jack remarked softly just now; and I
raised my gaze to see the little slender golden thing sitting
before me on the deck, very upright on her thin, aristocratic
toes, regarding my face in the same searching, boding
manner as when we neared the end of our stay at Meringe.
There has been nothing unusual going on aboard, save that I
got out a box of handsome ribbons and made wide girdles for
summer gowns in Sydney. How does she fore-sense change ?
Even if she could understand our speech, there has been no
speech — how can I talk about the possibility of relinquishing
her? By all right of sentiment, she is my dog. Her eyes
. . . here they are before me, and I cannot describe them
. . . up-cast, large beyond all eyes of dogs — stirless, stead-
fast, so deep, so deep . . . there is no plumbing the warm
brown of the pure pools, where little golden lights play up
like live things ; not little devils — though they could be such

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 479

— but glints of feeling made visible, love-lights from heart
and brain. For Peggy loves with all of her, profoundly.
How did the Creator come to house such great capacity of
lovingness in so lowly a frame?

. . . Safe at anchor once more off Pennduffryn, and as
there is a crowd of guests ashore, we shall sleep aboard to-
night, and sail early for Tulagi, for our mail is being held
there for us.

The cruise came near a disastrous ending. After dark,
and before the moon rose, we headed in for what tallied with
the signal lights we knew so well, and in relation to which
we knew our anchorage perfectly. We discovered, and none
too quickly, that we were at Boucher 's Plantation, some miles
to the west, and that he had adopted the same system of
lanterns — rather a disturbing factor on this perilous coast,
where the Pennduffryn lights are the only ones described in
the Admiralty Directory. The warm night seemed suddenly
to chill when we found our position, but, all working in uni-
son, we swung around just in the nick of time, and soon
afterward rumbled down the anchor in its old place off the
tiny quay at Pennduffryn. A ghostly schooner, the Lily,
rustled by under sweeps in the misty moonlight, and passed
the word o' night.

THE ENDING

THERE is little more to tell. We did not dream that
these were our last hours of travel on the Snark. The
three weeks at Pennduffryn we put in busily despite illness.
Days were spent in the shady grove of piles under the build-
ings, sorting, labelling and packing in great cases our vast
accumulation of Melanesian curios for shipment. Jack wrote
daily, except when the violence of fever attacks laid him
low. His various ailments grew steadily worse. His hands
alone were enough to drive a man wild — eleven skins peeling
off simultaneously, one above another. Out of my own
fever, and the anaemic and neurasthenic condition I had
fallen into, augmented by worry over Jack, came moods of
despondency, most unlike my happy-go-lucky wont. And
instead of inviting repose, I foolishly worked harder than
ever, and developed a siege of insomnia.

The life of the plantation at this stage in its downfall would
make a romantic story in itself. The little Spanish Baroness
Eugenie, Mrs. Harding, who had returned from Sydney, hid
under forced gaiety, innate charm and loveableness, and the
most enchanting of wardrobes, the tragedy of the disappear-
ance of her own fortune as well as her husband's and Dar-
bishire 's. When she married Harding, in South America, she
forfeited all but her title, the baronial jewels, and a mere
modicum of her rightful fortune ; and the latter had melted
away in the failing plantation.

"I will show you my coronet and jewels some day," she
mused, in a confidential moment, her incredibly large black
eyes very wide. ' ' They are in the Bank — and I cannot sell
them, alas!"

The entertainment was lavish — perhaps this sort of thing
was at the bottom of the failure to make things go ; but they

480

Snark Careened at Meringe

The Rembrandt Skipper

A. Polvnpsifln

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 481

died game and gay, all of them. Two dining-rooms ran full
blast. The house was packed, among the guests being three
men of different nationalities, taking moving pictures for
Pathe Freres, and at many a meal eight languages were
spoken — all of which Mrs. Harding understood, even to
Swedish, and nothing could be passed about and escape her
quick ear and brain. There were fancy dress and masquerade
evenings, horseback rides, musicales, all night poker, billiards
— anything and everything that two women and a dozen men
could devise to enliven a house party, and make every one
forget that the establishment was in its last days. It was
admirable, and very pathetic. And splendidly English.

The schooner Eugenie had been chartered for Bellona and
Beimel by some nitrate people, and had never returned to
the Minota at Malu. The mate of the Minota, who had now
left her, told us the ketch had got safely away for Tulagi for
stores, thence to Meringe ; and he further reported that Cap-
tain Jansen had been "wild" when he discovered Peggy 's
loss, but had been pacified when he read my letter. When
he came to Pennduffryn, before we sailed for Sydney, he
formally presented me with what he could see was entirely
mine own, saying, with a twinkle in his Dutch blue €yes:

"She's spoiled for a nigger chaser anyway, now. My
word! I couldn't make anything out of such a lady's-
dog!"

Peggy helped me wondrously through all those feverish,
sick days in the hot northwest season. Never a night, no
matter how late, did I leave the drawing-room, but the little
velvet form, outside on the porch, was pressing against me,
seeing me to my netted cot in the grass bathroom on stilts.
No awkward age was ever hers; she was a thing with the
grace of God in her, mentally and materially. And she gave
all her big and gallant soul in love.

With Captain Jansen, on the Minota, came Wada, landed
back upon us despite his wishes or ours, by the very
law of the land. He could not stay in the islands because
no one would be responsible for him; he could not leave,

482 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

because there was no one to put up the hundred pounds bond
required in Australia on any dark skin. Mr. Schroeder, to
save the boy's life when he was very low with fever in a
native hut, took him in, and when he was better, had him
cook, without wages, until the first chance to get him away
from Ysabel, which was on the Minota, where in the galley he
worked his passage. Meekly he came aboard the Snark to
cook without wages until such time as we should return from
Sydney, and sail to some port where he could take leave
freely.

How blindly we plan. How little we thought, that starry,
musky night under the Southern Cross, when we paid our
farewell call on the Snark — now in charge of the Minota' s
mate — that this would be the last time we should ever descend
her teak gangway ladder in these waters.

Martin as well as Nakata took steamer for Sydney, as there
was purchasing for him to attend to, and he wanted to see
doctors himself. Jack and I, in Captain Mortimer's roomy
quarters, actually loafed . on the twelve days of the M a-
kambo's stormy voyage to Sydney, both of us suffering
greatly and additionally from a prickly heat that boiled up
in a fiery rash which in turn burst into water.

During the five weeks when Jack lay in a private hospital
in North Sydney after an operation for, not one fistula, but
two, his surgeon, Dr. Clarence Read, flanked by several skin
specialists, puzzled and studied and theorised over his pitiful
hands, the like of which they had never seen nor even heard.
All agreed that the trouble was non-parasitic, and there-
fore concluded that it was entirely of nervous origin. And
a different skin malady showed on his elbows, which they
recognised as psoriasis, truly and actually the leprosy
of the Bible, the ' ' silvery skin, ' ' cures of which occur spon-
taneously, but of which no other cure is known.

One day, during my reading aloud to the convalescent, I
said tentatively — and it had taken much thought and self-
abnegation to come to it:

"If you think we'd better give up the Snark voyage ..."

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 483

' ' Oh, nothing like that, ' ' Jack answered brightly. ' l We 're
going around the world in the Snark, you know. ' '

But the unhealing weeks went by, and one day Jack gave
me the result of his consideration of his case: that the one
thing that would set him straight would be to return once
more to his own habitat, to California, where his nerve equi-
librium had always been stable. This, of course, meant the
ending of our voyage. Although I had not ceased from
thinking along these lines, the actual facing of the issue was
too much in the low state of my nerves, and I broke down
and sobbed unrestrainedly. This precipitated fever, and for
days I lay in a little bed in the same room with Jack.

In short, Martin was sent back to the Solomons, accom-
panied by an old skipper, Captain Reed, to bring the yacht
to Sydney, where she would be put up for sale.

In the meantime, we rented an apartment in Sydney, and
worked and played as best we might, among other trips taking
in the wonderful Jenolan Caves. But it was not all pleasure,
for Jack's hands did not improve, but went on swelling and
peeling prodigiously. The only relief was in massage, which
caused them to break into wringing perspiration. His toe-
nails became affected, growing as thick as their length in
twenty-four hours, when he would file them down, only to
have a recurrence.

We tried Tasmania, visited Hobart Town, and spent a
month in a cool hotel resort at Brown's River, where the
country was very like California, and our general tone was
better for the time being.

We had been back in Sydney for some time when the Snark
arrived, all hands alive and well, except . . .

Neither Martin nor Captain Reed had the courage or heart
to bring the tidings, so the little old skipper wrote :

' ' I am very sorry to report that your little dog Peggy died
off Bellona and Rennel, three days out from the Solomons."

I do not think Jack is ashamed of the tears he shed with
me that night. She was too good to be true, Peggy, dear
heart, dear heart. I cannot, must not say much . . . only

484 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

. . . the day before she died, wan and weak she came and
sat before Martin, as she had sat before me that last day
going back to Pennduffryn, and looked long and questioningly
into his face with her dolorous eyes. I know, Jack knows
. . . she was asking for him, for me, some word, some mes-
sage, trying, at the end of her blameless days, to pass across
all space and difference of kind, her deathless faith. I have
claimed much for Peggy . . . not too much, I swear, for
those few who have known such a creature — if there could
be another — and who will understand, quite.

It was a terrible strain, going daily to the Snark on a little
ferry boat, to oversee the packing of gear that we were send-
ing home. I know I shed tears during each return trip. I
blush to think how little of help I was to Jack in the matter
of cheer ; but he says that out of it all he gathered the great-
est proof of the success of the Snark adventure, that the one
small woman, frail out of all proportion to the husky men,
should be so broken at the abandonment of the voyage.

Martin continued on around the world by devious ways.
Wada sailed as cook on some outgoing steamer. Henry and
Tehei returned to the Society Islands ; but Nakata went with
Jack and me from Newcastle, N.S.W., one fine day, on an
English tramp, the Tymeric, Captain Macllwaine, bound
with " coals from Newcastle" to Guayaquil, Ecuador. We
were glad her orders were changed at the last moment and
that we were to have a final flare of adventure in a new coun-
try before reaching home. Jack's general health benefited
by the voyage, and he was able to box lustily with the three
sturdy young English officers. But I fell from one fever fit
into another, during a many days' gale early in the passage,
and this weakened me sadly. However, the forty-three days
in the tramp were an experience worth having.

One last link of our South Sea chain we picked up one
morning at sunrise, when a squall-curtain lifted and parted
over Pitcairn Island, high and sheer, green and gold and
unreal in the rainbow shimmer. I looked out of my porthole

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 485

with sick eyes of disappointment as my fancy wandered north-
west over a thousand miles of the Paumotus, of which Pit-
cairn is the one high, last, southern sentinel. Then in the
fever I slept and dreamed we put out in a boat from the
Tymeric and found a bay (that does not exist) inside the
breakers, and went in and landed. Awakening with a start,
I turned quickly to the porthole. It was still there — I had
dozed but a moment — a sun-shot emerald, with the grey velvet
pall of mist falling, falling, until it was blotted out. Isle of
my dreams, waking and sleeping — when shall I see you, or
any one of you, again !

"We crossed the Andes, on the side of old Chimborazo itself,
at an altitude of 12,000 feet, the summit white and stark
10,000 feet above, to Quito, 10,000 feet in the air. After a
month altogether in Ecuador, in which we escaped the ram-
pant yellow fever, malaria, pneumonia, smallpox, bubonic
plague, bacillary dysentery, and several other perils (not
the least of which was an accident on the wonderful railway,
of which we saw two frightful examples), we sailed for New
Orleans, per Canal Zone, celebrating the Fourth of July,
1909, in true American fashion at Panama.

Nakata, our little rock of ages in all sickness and stress,
was in due time safely entered into the United States, with
less pow-wow than we had expected, to our mutual rejoicing.

Steadily, rapidly, Jack won back to health in his Califor-
nia environment. In a very few months not a trace of any
of his curious maladies remained, glory be. But to his ana-
lytical mind the greatest cause for congratulation is that he
found out what was the matter with his hands. He came
across a book by Lieutenant Colonel Charles E. Woodruff of
the United States Army, entitled Effects of Tropical Light on
White Men. We later met Colonel Woodruff in San Fran-
cisco, and he told us he had been similarly afflicted, and had
had the same experience with physicians. They sat on his
case, and could come to no conclusion. It is very simple.
Both he and Jack, and there must be many others whom we

486 THE LOG OF THE SNARK

have not met, have a strong predisposition toward the tissue-
destructiveness of tropical light. The ultra-violet rays tear
them to pieces, just as so many experimenters with the X-ray
were torn to pieces before they learned to protect themselves.
I continued to suffer severe but lessening attacks of fever
for nearly a year, and it took almost as long to recover my
balance of nerves. The last touch of fever I ever felt waa
when, in June, 1910, after fulfilling the godspeed of the sweet
vahines of Polynesia, I lost my girl baby, Joy.

The Snark was sold long afterward, for a mere fraction of
her cost, to an English syndicate which operated her, trad-
ing and recruiting, in the New Hebrides. The next we
heard, she was sealing in Bering Sea, and later on we met
several persons who had been aboard of her at Kodiak,
Alaska, in 1911, while one told us he had subsequently seen
her at Seattle, in August, 1912 — painted green! Jack and
I, landing in Seattle the month previous, from a five-months'
wind-jamming voyage from Baltimore around Cape Horn
on the Sewall ship Dirigo, thus narrowly missed meeting up
with our little old boat of dreams. I dare not think how it
would have affected me.

It was not until we had returned to California, after the
voyage of the Snark was over, that we learned that the much
sinned-against craft had been built two feet shorter than her
specifications called for — this in addition to the extra two
feet draft. The marvel is that she sailed as well as she did.

Now, one word: Jack has been severely and ignorantly
criticised by untravelled book reviewers for the unreality
and unveracity of his tales of the cannibal countries we vis-
ited, such as his novel Adventure. And yet, in this Year
of Our Lord, 1915, quite fresh in our minds is the report
lately come to hand that Captain Keller of the Eugenie,
who came to our rescue on the Malaita coast, and Claude
Bernays of Pennduffryn Plantation, both lost th^ir bon-
nie handsome heads in the Solomons, the former aboard. r_i$f
vessel, the second on his own plantation. Poor Darbishire

THE LOG OF THE SNARK 487

died of dysentery in the Gilbert Group only last year, leav-
ing a young English wife and a fine boy.

It is all a sweet memory to Jack and me, our life on the
Snark, and Martin and Nakata swear allegiance to any new
venture we may pursue. There is now a little Mrs. Martin
who also wishes to be counted in.

And, believe it or not, ye of little faith in the joy that was
ours on the voyage, our one ultimate hope of earthly bliss
is to fit out another and larger boat, and do it all over again,
and more — and do it more leisurely, more wisely under the
tropic sun.

THE END

Printed in the United States of America.

*HE following pages contain advertisements of
books by the same author or on kindred subjects.

The Cruise of the Snark

BY JACK LONDON

Author of "The Call of the Wild," "The Sea-Wolf," "The Scarlet
Plague," etc.

Illustrated with over 150 halftones from photographs by the author, and a
frontispiece in colors.

Decorated cloth, 8vo, $2.00

One of the most adventurous voyages ever planned was that of
Mr. London's famous Snark, the little craft in which he and Mrs.
London set forth to sail around the world. Mr. London has told
the story in a fashion to bring out all the excitement of the cruise.

Those who have read Mrs. London's sparkling Log of the Snark
will enjoy Mr. London's Cruise of the Snark as well.

''Deserves an honourable place in the literature of travel and
adventure." — Outlook.

"Nowhere is it without that insistent touch of personality that
makes everything from Mr. London's pen irresistible."

— Boston Transcript.

"In Mr. London's most rapid and vivid style."— N. Y. World.

"A delight."— Philadelphia Ledger.

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York

ILLUSTRATED BOOKS OF TRAVEL

Highways and Byways of New England

BY CLIFTON JOHNSON

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which are reproduced from photographs taken by the author, main-
tain the standard established by the pictures in his previous works.

Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming
to Mexico.

BY ELLSWORTH L. KOLB

With a preface by Owen Wister. New edition, with additional
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Cloth, 8vo

Mr. Kolb's absorbing narrative of the trip which he made
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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Publishers 64^66 Fifth Avenue New York

NEW MACMILLAN FICTION

The Star Rover

BY JACK LONDON

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Cloth, jsmo

Daring in its theme and vivid in execution, this is one of the most
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Heart's Kindred

BY ZONA GALE

Author of " Christmas," " The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre," etc.

Cloth, i2mt

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In Hearfs Kindred is reflected that humanness and breadth of
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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York

NEW MACMILLAN FICTION

The Research Magnificent

BY H. G. WELLS
Author of " The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman," etc.

Cloth, izvno

A book of real distinction is this novel from the pen of an
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"A book with the whole world for background."

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NEW MACMILLAN FICTION

Old Delabole

BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS

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Cloth, tamo

A critic in reviewing Brunei's Tower remarked that it would seem that Eden
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White is a slow and careful writer, a fact to which the long intervals between his books
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will be found no exception. It gives us of the best of his creative genius.

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York

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