THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
CHAPTER I — Foreword
It began in the swimming pool at Glen Ellen.
Between swims it was our wont to come out and lie in the sand and let
our skins breathe the warm air and soak in the sunshine. Roscoe was a
yachtsman. I had followed the sea a bit. It was inevitable that we
should talk about boats. We talked about small boats, and the
seaworthiness of small boats. We instanced Captain Slocum and his
three years' voyage around the world in the Spray.
We asserted that we were not afraid to go around
the world in a small boat, say forty feet long. We asserted
furthermore that we would like to do it. We asserted finally that
there was nothing in this world we'd like better than a chance to do
it.
"Let us do it," we said . . . in fun.
Then I asked Charmian privily if she'd really care
to do it, and she said that it was too good to be true.
The next time we breathed our skins in the sand by
the swimming pool I said to Roscoe, "Let us do it."
I was in earnest, and so was he, for he said:
"When shall we start?"
I had a house to build on the ranch, also an
orchard, a vineyard, and several hedges to plant, and a number of
other things to do. We thought we would start in four or five years.
Then the lure of the adventure began to grip us. Why not start at
once? We'd never be younger, any of us. Let the orchard, vineyard, and
hedges be growing up while we were away. When we came back, they would
be ready for us, and we could live in the barn while we built the
house.
So the trip was decided upon, and the building of
the Snark began. We named her the Snark because we could not think of
any other name- -this information is given for the benefit of those
who otherwise might think there is something occult in the name.
Our friends cannot understand why we make this
voyage. They shudder, and moan, and raise their hands. No amount of
explanation can make them comprehend that we are moving along the line
of least resistance; that it is easier for us to go down to the sea in
a small ship than to remain on dry land, just as it is easier for them
to remain on dry land than to go down to the sea in the small ship.
This state of mind comes of an undue prominence of the ego. They
cannot get away from themselves. They cannot come out of themselves
long enough to see that their line of least resistance is not
necessarily everybody else's line of least resistance. They make of
their own bundle of desires, likes, and dislikes a yardstick wherewith
to measure the desires, likes, and dislikes of all creatures. This is
unfair. I tell them so. But they cannot get away from their own
miserable egos long enough to hear me. They think I am crazy. In
return, I am sympathetic. It is a state of mind familiar to me. We are
all prone to think there is something wrong with the mental processes
of the man who disagrees with us.
The ultimate word is I LIKE. It lies beneath
philosophy, and is twined about the heart of life. When philosophy has
maundered ponderously for a month, telling the individual what he must
do, the individual says, in an instant, "I LIKE," and does something
else, and philosophy goes glimmering. It is I LIKE that makes the
drunkard drink and the martyr wear a hair shirt; that makes one man a
reveller and another man an anchorite; that makes one man pursue fame,
another gold, another love, and another God. Philosophy is very often
a man's way of explaining his own I LIKE.
But to return to the Snark, and why I, for one,
want to journey in her around the world. The things I like constitute
my set of values. The thing I like most of all is personal
achievement--not achievement for the world's applause, but achievement
for my own delight. It is the old "I did it! I did it! With my own
hands I did it!" But personal achievement, with me, must be concrete.
I'd rather win a water-fight in the swimming pool, or remain astride a
horse that is trying to get out from under me, than write the great
American novel. Each man to his liking. Some other fellow would prefer
writing the great American novel to winning the water-fight or
mastering the horse.
Possibly the proudest achievement of my life, my
moment of highest living, occurred when I was seventeen. I was in a
three-masted schooner off the coast of Japan. We were in a typhoon.
All hands had been on deck most of the night. I was called from my
bunk at seven in the morning to take the wheel. Not a stitch of canvas
was set. We were running before it under bare poles, yet the schooner
fairly tore along. The seas were all of an eighth of a mile apart, and
the wind snatched the whitecaps from their summits, filling. The air
so thick with driving spray that it was impossible to see more than
two waves at a time. The schooner was almost unmanageable, rolling her
rail under to starboard and to port, veering and yawing anywhere
between south-east and south-west, and threatening, when the huge seas
lifted under her quarter, to broach to. Had she broached to, she would
ultimately have been reported lost with all hands and no tidings.
I took the wheel. The sailing-master watched me for
a space. He was afraid of my youth, feared that I lacked the strength
and the nerve. But when he saw me successfully wrestle the schooner
through several bouts, he went below to breakfast. Fore and aft, all
hands were below at breakfast. Had she broached to, not one of them
would ever have reached the deck. For forty minutes I stood there
alone at the wheel, in my grasp the wildly careering schooner and the
lives of twenty-two men. Once we were pooped. I saw it coming, and,
half-drowned, with tons of water crushing me, I checked the schooner's
rush to broach to. At the end of the hour, sweating and played out, I
was relieved. But I had done it! With my own hands I had done my trick
at the wheel and guided a hundred tons of wood and iron through a few
million tons of wind and waves.
My delight was in that I had done it--not in the
fact that twenty- two men knew I had done it. Within the year over
half of them were dead and gone, yet my pride in the thing performed
was not diminished by half. I am willing to confess, however, that I
do like a small audience. But it must be a very small audience,
composed of those who love me and whom I love. When I then accomplish
personal achievement, I have a feeling that I am justifying their love
for me. But this is quite apart from the delight of the achievement
itself. This delight is peculiarly my own and does not depend upon
witnesses. When I have done some such thing, I am exalted. I glow all
over. I am aware of a pride in myself that is mine, and mine alone. It
is organic. Every fibre of me is thrilling with it. It is very
natural. It is a mere matter of satisfaction at adjustment to
environment. It is success.
Life that lives is life successful, and success is
the breath of its nostrils. The achievement of a difficult feat is
successful adjustment to a sternly exacting environment. The more
difficult the feat, the greater the satisfaction at its
accomplishment. Thus it is with the man who leaps forward from the
springboard, out over the swimming pool, and with a backward
half-revolution of the body, enters the water head first. Once he
leaves the springboard his environment becomes immediately savage, and
savage the penalty it will exact should he fail and strike the water
flat. Of course, the man does not have to run the risk of the penalty.
He could remain on the bank in a sweet and placid environment of
summer air, sunshine, and stability. Only he is not made that way. In
that swift mid-air moment he lives as he could never live on the bank.
As for myself, I'd rather be that man than the
fellows who sit on the bank and watch him. That is why I am building
the Snark. I am so made. I like, that is all. The trip around the
world means big moments of living. Bear with me a moment and look at
it. Here am I, a little animal called a man--a bit of vitalized
matter, one hundred and sixty-five pounds of meat and blood, nerve,
sinew, bones, and brain,--all of it soft and tender, susceptible to
hurt, fallible, and frail. I strike a light back-handed blow on the
nose of an obstreperous horse, and a bone in my hand is broken. I put
my head under the water for five minutes, and I am drowned. I fall
twenty feet through the air, and I am smashed. I am a creature of
temperature. A few degrees one way, and my fingers and ears and toes
blacken and drop off. A few degrees the other way, and my skin
blisters and shrivels away from the raw, quivering flesh. A few
additional degrees either way, and the life and the light in me go
out. A drop of poison injected into my body from a snake, and I cease
to move--for ever I cease to move. A splinter of lead from a rifle
enters my head, and I am wrapped around in the eternal blackness.
Fallible and frail, a bit of pulsating, jelly-like
life--it is all I am. About me are the great natural forces--colossal
menaces, Titans of destruction, unsentimental monsters that have less
concern for me than I have for the grain of sand I crush under my
foot. They have no concern at all for me. They do not know me. They
are unconscious, unmerciful, and unmoral. They are the cyclones and
tornadoes, lightning flashes and cloud-bursts, tide-rips and tidal
waves, undertows and waterspouts, great whirls and sucks and eddies,
earthquakes and volcanoes, surfs that thunder on rock-ribbed coasts
and seas that leap aboard the largest crafts that float, crushing
humans to pulp or licking them off into the sea and to death--and
these insensate monsters do not know that tiny sensitive creature, all
nerves and weaknesses, whom men call Jack London, and who himself
thinks he is all right and quite a superior being.
In the maze and chaos of the conflict of these vast
and draughty Titans, it is for me to thread my precarious way. The bit
of life that is I will exult over them. The bit of life that is I, in
so far as it succeeds in baffling them or in bitting them to its
service, will imagine that it is godlike. It is good to ride the
tempest and feel godlike. I dare to assert that for a finite speck of
pulsating jelly to feel godlike is a far more glorious feeling than
for a god to feel godlike.
Here is the sea, the wind, and the wave. Here are
the seas, the winds, and the waves of all the world. Here is ferocious
environment. And here is difficult adjustment, the achievement of
which is delight to the small quivering vanity that is I. I like. I am
so made. It is my own particular form of vanity, that is all.
There is also another side to the voyage of the
Snark. Being alive, I want to see, and all the world is a bigger thing
to see than one small town or valley. We have done little outlining of
the voyage. Only one thing is definite, and that is that our first
port of call will be Honolulu. Beyond a few general ideas, we have no
thought of our next port after Hawaii. We shall make up our minds as
we get nearer, in a general way we know that we shall wander through
the South Seas, take in Samoa, New Zealand, Tasmania, Australia, New
Guinea, Borneo, and Sumatra, and go on up through the Philippines to
Japan. Then will come Korea, China, India, the Red Sea, and the
Mediterranean. After that the voyage becomes too vague to describe,
though we know a number of things we shall surely do, and we expect to
spend from one to several months in every country in Europe.
The Snark is to be sailed. There will be a gasolene
engine on board, but it will be used only in case of emergency, such
as in bad water among reefs and shoals, where a sudden calm in a swift
current leaves a sailing-boat helpless. The rig of the Snark is to be
what is called the "ketch." The ketch rig is a compromise between the
yawl and the schooner. Of late years the yawl rig has proved the best
for cruising. The ketch retains the cruising virtues of the yawl, and
in addition manages to embrace a few of the sailing virtues of the
schooner. The foregoing must be taken with a pinch of salt. It is all
theory in my head. I've never sailed a ketch, nor even seen one. The
theory commends itself to me. Wait till I get out on the ocean, then
I'll be able to tell more about the cruising and sailing qualities of
the ketch.
As originally planned, the Snark was to be forty
feet long on the water-line. But we discovered there was no space for
a bath-room, and for that reason we have increased her length to
forty-five feet. Her greatest beam is fifteen feet. She has no house
and no hold. There is six feet of headroom, and the deck is unbroken
save for two companionways and a hatch for'ard. The fact that there is
no house to break the strength of the deck will make us feel safer in
case great seas thunder their tons of water down on board. A large and
roomy cockpit, sunk beneath the deck, with high rail and self-
bailing, will make our rough-weather days and nights more comfortable.
There will be no crew. Or, rather, Charmian,
Roscoe, and I are the crew. We are going to do the thing with our own
hands. With our own hands we're going to circumnavigate the globe.
Sail her or sink her, with our own hands we'll do it. Of course there
will be a cook and a cabin-boy. Why should we stew over a stove, wash
dishes, and set the table? We could stay on land if we wanted to do
those things. Besides, we've got to stand watch and work the ship. And
also, I've got to work at my trade of writing in order to feed us and
to get new sails and tackle and keep the Snark in efficient working
order. And then there's the ranch; I've got to keep the vineyard,
orchard, and hedges growing.
When we increased the length of the Snark in order
to get space for a bath-room, we found that all the space was not
required by the bath-room. Because of this, we increased the size of
the engine. Seventy horse-power our engine is, and since we expect it
to drive us along at a nine-knot clip, we do not know the name of a
river with a current swift enough to defy us.
We expect to do a lot of inland work. The smallness
of the Snark makes this possible. When we enter the land, out go the
masts and on goes the engine. There are the canals of China, and the
Yang-tse River. We shall spend months on them if we can get permission
from the government. That will be the one obstacle to our inland
voyaging--governmental permission. But if we can get that permission,
there is scarcely a limit to the inland voyaging we can do.
When we come to the Nile, why we can go up the
Nile. We can go up the Danube to Vienna, up the Thames to London, and
we can go up the Seine to Paris and moor opposite the Latin Quarter
with a bow-line out to Notre Dame and a stern-line fast to the Morgue.
We can leave the Mediterranean and go up the Rhone to Lyons, there
enter the Saone, cross from the Saone to the Maine through the Canal
de Bourgogne, and from the Marne enter the Seine and go out the Seine
at Havre. When we cross the Atlantic to the United States, we can go
up the Hudson, pass through the Erie Canal, cross the Great Lakes,
leave Lake Michigan at Chicago, gain the Mississippi by way of the
Illinois River and the connecting canal, and go down the Mississippi
to the Gulf of Mexico. And then there are the great rivers of South
America. We'll know something about geography when we get back to
California.
People that build houses are often sore perplexed;
but if they enjoy the strain of it, I'll advise them to build a boat
like the Snark. Just consider, for a moment, the strain of detail.
Take the engine. What is the best kind of engine--the two cycle? three
cycle? four cycle? My lips are mutilated with all kinds of strange
jargon, my mind is mutilated with still stranger ideas and is
foot-sore and weary from travelling in new and rocky realms of
thought.--Ignition methods; shall it be make-and-break or jump-spark?
Shall dry cells or storage batteries be used? A storage battery
commends itself, but it requires a dynamo. How powerful a dynamo? And
when we have installed a dynamo and a storage battery, it is simply
ridiculous not to light the boat with electricity. Then comes the
discussion of how many lights and how many candle-power. It is a
splendid idea. But electric lights will demand a more powerful storage
battery, which, in turn, demands a more powerful dynamo.
And now that we've gone in for it, why not have a
searchlight? It would be tremendously useful. But the searchlight
needs so much electricity that when it runs it will put all the other
lights out of commission. Again we travel the weary road in the quest
after more power for storage battery and dynamo. And then, when it is
finally solved, some one asks, "What if the engine breaks down?" And
we collapse. There are the sidelights, the binnacle light, and the
anchor light. Our very lives depend upon them. So we have to fit the
boat throughout with oil lamps as well.
But we are not done with that engine yet. The
engine is powerful. We are two small men and a small woman. It will
break our hearts and our backs to hoist anchor by hand. Let the engine
do it. And then comes the problem of how to convey power for'ard from
the engine to the winch. And by the time all this is settled, we
redistribute the allotments of space to the engine-room, galley,
bath-room, state-rooms, and cabin, and begin all over again. And when
we have shifted the engine, I send off a telegram of gibberish to its
makers at New York, something like this: Toggle-joint abandoned change
thrust-bearing accordingly distance from forward side of flywheel to
face of stern post sixteen feet six inches.
Just potter around in quest of the best steering
gear, or try to decide whether you will set up your rigging with
old-fashioned lanyards or with turnbuckles, if you want strain of
detail. Shall the binnacle be located in front of the wheel in the
centre of the beam, or shall it be located to one side in front of the
wheel?-- there's room right there for a library of sea-dog
controversy. Then there's the problem of gasolene, fifteen hundred
gallons of it--what are the safest ways to tank it and pipe it? and
which is the best fire-extinguisher for a gasolene fire? Then there is
the pretty problem of the life-boat and the stowage of the same. And
when that is finished, come the cook and cabin-boy to confront one
with nightmare possibilities. It is a small boat, and we'll be packed
close together. The servant-girl problem of landsmen pales to
insignificance. We did select one cabin-boy, and by that much were our
troubles eased. And then the cabin-boy fell in love and resigned.
And in the meanwhile how is a fellow to find time
to study navigation--when he is divided between these problems and the
earning of the money wherewith to settle the problems? Neither Roscoe
nor I know anything about navigation, and the summer is gone, and we
are about to start, and the problems are thicker than ever, and the
treasury is stuffed with emptiness. Well, anyway, it takes years to
learn seamanship, and both of us are seamen. If we don't find the
time, we'll lay in the books and instruments and teach ourselves
navigation on the ocean between San Francisco and Hawaii.
There is one unfortunate and perplexing phase of
the voyage of the Snark. Roscoe, who is to be my co-navigator, is a
follower of one, Cyrus R. Teed. Now Cyrus R. Teed has a different
cosmology from the one generally accepted, and Roscoe shares his
views. Wherefore Roscoe believes that the surface of the earth is
concave and that we live on the inside of a hollow sphere. Thus,
though we shall sail on the one boat, the Snark, Roscoe will journey
around the world on the inside, while I shall journey around on the
outside. But of this, more anon. We threaten to be of the one mind
before the voyage is completed. I am confident that I shall convert
him into making the journey on the outside, while he is equally
confident that before we arrive back in San Francisco I shall be on
the inside of the earth. How he is going to get me through the crust I
don't know, but Roscoe is ay a masterful man.
P.S.--That engine! While we've got it, and the
dynamo, and the storage battery, why not have an ice-machine? Ice in
the tropics! It is more necessary than bread. Here goes for the
ice-machine! Now I am plunged into chemistry, and my lips hurt, and my
mind hurts, and how am I ever to find the time to study navigation?
CHAPTER II
"Spare no money," I said to Roscoe. "Let
everything on the Snark be of the best. And never mind decoration.
Plain pine boards is good enough finishing for me. But put the money
into the construction. Let the Snark be as staunch and strong as any
boat afloat. Never mind what it costs to make her staunch and
strong; you see that she is made staunch and strong, and I'll go on
writing and earning the money to pay for it."
And I did . . . as well as I could; for the Snark
ate up money faster than I could earn it. In fact, every little
while I had to borrow money with which to supplement my earnings.
Now I borrowed one thousand dollars, now I borrowed two thousand
dollars, and now I borrowed five thousand dollars. And all the time
I went on working every day and sinking the earnings in the venture.
I worked Sundays as well, and I took no holidays. But it was worth
it. Every time I thought of the Snark I knew she was worth it.
For know, gentle reader, the staunchness of the
Snark. She is forty-five feet long on the waterline. Her garboard
strake is three inches thick; her planking two and one-half inches
thick; her deck- planking two inches thick and in all her planking
there are no butts. I know, for I ordered that planking especially
from Puget Sound. Then the Snark has four water-tight compartments,
which is to say that her length is broken by three water-tight
bulkheads. Thus, no matter how large a leak the Snark may spring,
Only one compartment can fill with water. The other three
compartments will keep her afloat, anyway, and, besides, will enable
us to mend the leak. There is another virtue in these bulkheads. The
last compartment of all, in the very stern, contains six tanks that
carry over one thousand gallons of gasolene. Now gasolene is a very
dangerous article to carry in bulk on a small craft far out on the
wide ocean. But when the six tanks that do not leak are themselves
contained in a compartment hermetically sealed off from the rest of
the boat, the danger will be seen to be very small indeed.
The Snark is a sail-boat. She was built primarily
to sail. But incidentally, as an auxiliary, a seventy-horse-power
engine was installed. This is a good, strong engine. I ought to
know. I paid for it to come out all the way from New York City.
Then, on deck, above the engine, is a windlass. It is a magnificent
affair. It weighs several hundred pounds and takes up no end of
deck-room. You see, it is ridiculous to hoist up anchor by
hand-power when there is a seventy-horse-power engine on board. So
we installed the windlass, transmitting power to it from the engine
by means of a gear and castings specially made in a San Francisco
foundry.
The Snark was made for comfort, and no expense
was spared in this regard. There is the bath-room, for instance,
small and compact, it is true, but containing all the conveniences
of any bath-room upon land. The bath-room is a beautiful dream of
schemes and devices, pumps, and levers, and sea-valves. Why, in the
course of its building, I used to lie awake nights thinking about
that bath-room. And next to the bathroom come the life-boat and the
launch. They are carried on deck, and they take up what little space
might have been left us for exercise. But then, they beat life
insurance; and the prudent man, even if he has built as staunch and
strong a craft as the Snark, will see to it that he has a good
life-boat as well. And ours is a good one. It is a dandy. It was
stipulated to cost one hundred and fifty dollars, and when I came to
pay the bill, it turned out to be three hundred and ninety-five
dollars. That shows how good a life-boat it is.
I could go on at great length relating the
various virtues and excellences of the Snark, but I refrain. I have
bragged enough as it is, and I have bragged to a purpose, as will be
seen before my tale is ended. And please remember its title, "The
Inconceivable and Monstrous." It was planned that the Snark should
sail on October 1, 1906. That she did not so sail was inconceivable
and monstrous. There was no valid reason for not sailing except that
she was not ready to sail, and there was no conceivable reason why
she was not ready. She was promised on November first, on November
fifteenth, on December first; and yet she was never ready. On
December first Charmian and I left the sweet, clean Sonoma country
and came down to live in the stifling city--but not for long, oh,
no, only for two weeks, for we would sail on December fifteenth. And
I guess we ought to know, for Roscoe said so, and it was on his
advice that we came to the city to stay two weeks. Alas, the two
weeks went by, four weeks went by, six weeks went by, eight weeks
went by, and we were farther away from sailing than ever. Explain
it? Who?--me? I can't. It is the one thing in all my life that I
have backed down on. There is no explaining it; if there were, I'd
do it. I, who am an artisan of speech, confess my inability to
explain why the Snark was not ready. As I have said, and as I must
repeat, it was inconceivable and monstrous.
The eight weeks became sixteen weeks, and then,
one day, Roscoe cheered us up by saying: "If we don't sail before
April first, you can use my head for a football."
Two weeks later he said, "I'm getting my head in
training for that match."
"Never mind," Charmian and I said to each other;
"think of the wonderful boat it is going to be when it is
completed."
Whereat we would rehearse for our mutual
encouragement the manifold virtues and excellences of the Snark.
Also, I would borrow more money, and I would get down closer to my
desk and write harder, and I refused heroically to take a Sunday off
and go out into the hills with my friends. I was building a boat,
and by the eternal it was going to be a boat, and a boat spelled out
all in capitals--B--O--A- -T; and no matter what it cost I didn't
care. So long as it was a BOAT.
And, oh, there is one other excellence of the
Snark, upon which I must brag, namely, her bow. No sea could ever
come over it. It laughs at the sea, that bow does; it challenges the
sea; it snorts defiance at the sea. And withal it is a beautiful
bow; the lines of it are dreamlike; I doubt if ever a boat was
blessed with a more beautiful and at the same time a more capable
bow. It was made to punch storms. To touch that bow is to rest one's
hand on the cosmic nose of things. To look at it is to realize that
expense cut no figure where it was concerned. And every time our
sailing was delayed, or a new expense was tacked on, we thought of
that wonderful bow and were content.
The Snark is a small boat. When I figured seven
thousand dollars as her generous cost, I was both generous and
correct. I have built barns and houses, and I know the peculiar
trait such things have of running past their estimated cost. This
knowledge was mine, was already mine, when I estimated the probable
cost of the building of the Snark at seven thousand dollars. Well,
she cost thirty thousand. Now don't ask me, please. It is the truth.
I signed the cheques and I raised the money. Of course there is no
explaining it, inconceivable and monstrous is what it is, as you
will agree, I know, ere my tale is done.
Then there was the matter of delay. I dealt with
forty-seven different kinds of union men and with one hundred and
fifteen different firms. And not one union man and not one firm of
all the union men and all the firms ever delivered anything at the
time agreed upon, nor ever was on time for anything except pay-day
and bill-collection. Men pledged me their immortal souls that they
would deliver a certain thing on a certain date; as a rule, after
such pledging, they rarely exceeded being three months late in
delivery. And so it went, and Charmian and I consoled each other by
saying what a splendid boat the Snark was, so staunch and strong;
also, we would get into the small boat and row around the Snark, and
gloat over her unbelievably wonderful bow.
"Think," I would say to Charmian, "of a gale off
the China coast, and of the Snark hove to, that splendid bow of hers
driving into the storm. Not a drop will come over that bow. She'll
be as dry as a feather, and we'll be all below playing whist while
the gale howls."
And Charmian would press my hand enthusiastically
and exclaim: "It's worth every bit of it--the delay, and expense,
and worry, and all the rest. Oh, what a truly wonderful boat!"
Whenever I looked at the bow of the Snark or
thought of her water- tight compartments, I was encouraged. Nobody
else, however, was encouraged. My friends began to make bets against
the various sailing dates of the Snark. Mr. Wiget, who was left
behind in charge of our Sonoma ranch was the first to cash his bet.
He collected on New Year's Day, 1907. After that the bets came fast
and furious. My friends surrounded me like a gang of harpies, making
bets against every sailing date I set. I was rash, and I was
stubborn. I bet, and I bet, and I continued to bet; and I paid them
all. Why, the women-kind of my friends grew so brave that those
among them who never bet before began to bet with me. And I paid
them, too.
"Never mind," said Charmian to me; "just think of
that bow and of being hove to on the China Seas."
"You see," I said to my friends, when I paid the
latest bunch of wagers, "neither trouble nor cash is being spared in
making the Snark the most seaworthy craft that ever sailed out
through the Golden Gate--that is what causes all the delay."
In the meantime editors and publishers with whom
I had contracts pestered me with demands for explanations. But how
could I explain to them, when I was unable to explain to myself, or
when there was nobody, not even Roscoe, to explain to me? The
newspapers began to laugh at me, and to publish rhymes anent the
Snark's departure with refrains like, "Not yet, but soon." And
Charmian cheered me up by reminding me of the bow, and I went to a
banker and borrowed five thousand more. There was one recompense for
the delay, however. A friend of mine, who happens to be a critic,
wrote a roast of me, of all I had done, and of all I ever was going
to do; and he planned to have it published after I was out on the
ocean. I was still on shore when it came out, and he has been busy
explaining ever since.
And the time continued to go by. One thing was
becoming apparent, namely, that it was impossible to finish the
Snark in San Francisco. She had been so long in the building that
she was beginning to break down and wear out. In fact, she had
reached the stage where she was breaking down faster than she could
be repaired. She had become a joke. Nobody took her seriously; least
of all the men who worked on her. I said we would sail just as she
was and finish building her in Honolulu. Promptly she sprang a leak
that had to be attended to before we could sail. I started her for
the boat-ways. Before she got to them she was caught between two
huge barges and received a vigorous crushing. We got her on the
ways, and, part way along, the ways spread and dropped her through,
stern-first, into the mud.
It was a pretty tangle, a job for wreckers, not
boat-builders. There are two high tides every twenty-four hours, and
at every high tide, night and day, for a week, there were two steam
tugs pulling and hauling on the Snark. There she was, stuck, fallen
between the ways and standing on her stern. Next, and while still in
that predicament, we started to use the gears and castings made in
the local foundry whereby power was conveyed from the engine to the
windlass. It was the first time we ever tried to use that windlass.
The castings had flaws; they shattered asunder, the gears ground
together, and the windlass was out of commission. Following upon
that, the seventy-horse-power engine went out of commission. This
engine came from New York; so did its bed-plate; there was a flaw in
the bed-plate; there were a lot of flaws in the bed-plate; and the
seventy-horse-power engine broke away from its shattered
foundations, reared up in the air, smashed all connections and
fastenings, and fell over on its side. And the Snark continued to
stick between the spread ways, and the two tugs continued to haul
vainly upon her.
"Never mind," said Charmian, "think of what a
staunch, strong boat she is."
"Yes," said I, "and of that beautiful bow."
So we took heart and went at it again. The ruined
engine was lashed down on its rotten foundation; the smashed
castings and cogs of the power transmission were taken down and
stored away--all for the purpose of taking them to Honolulu where
repairs and new castings could be made. Somewhere in the dim past
the Snark had received on the outside one coat of white paint. The
intention of the colour was still evident, however, when one got it
in the right light. The Snark had never received any paint on the
inside. On the contrary, she was coated inches thick with the grease
and tobacco-juice of the multitudinous mechanics who had toiled upon
her. Never mind, we said; the grease and filth could be planed off,
and later, when we fetched Honolulu, the Snark could be painted at
the same time as she was being rebuilt.
By main strength and sweat we dragged the Snark
off from the wrecked ways and laid her alongside the Oakland City
Wharf. The drays brought all the outfit from home, the books and
blankets and personal luggage. Along with this, everything else came
on board in a torrent of confusion--wood and coal, water and
water-tanks, vegetables, provisions, oil, the life-boat and the
launch, all our friends, all the friends of our friends and those
who claimed to be their friends, to say nothing of some of the
friends of the friends of the friends of our crew. Also there were
reporters, and photographers, and strangers, and cranks, and
finally, and over all, clouds of coal-dust from the wharf.
We were to sail Sunday at eleven, and Saturday
afternoon had arrived. The crowd on the wharf and the coal-dust were
thicker than ever. In one pocket I carried a cheque-book, a
fountain-pen, a dater, and a blotter; in another pocket I carried
between one and two thousand dollars in paper money and gold. I was
ready for the creditors, cash for the small ones and cheques for the
large ones, and was waiting only for Roscoe to arrive with the
balances of the accounts of the hundred and fifteen firms who had
delayed me so many months. And then -
And then the inconceivable and monstrous happened
once more. Before Roscoe could arrive there arrived another man. He
was a United States marshal. He tacked a notice on the Snark's brave
mast so that all on the wharf could read that the Snark had been
libelled for debt. The marshal left a little old man in charge of
the Snark, and himself went away. I had no longer any control of the
Snark, nor of her wonderful bow. The little old man was now her lord
and master, and I learned that I was paying him three dollars a day
for being lord and master. Also, I learned the name of the man who
had libelled the Snark. It was Sellers; the debt was two hundred and
thirty-two dollars; and the deed was no more than was to be expected
from the possessor of such a name. Sellers! Ye gods! Sellers!
But who under the sun was Sellers? I looked in my
cheque-book and saw that two weeks before I had made him out a
cheque for five hundred dollars. Other cheque-books showed me that
during the many months of the building of the Snark I had paid him
several thousand dollars. Then why in the name of common decency
hadn't he tried to collect his miserable little balance instead of
libelling the Snark? I thrust my hands into my pockets, and in one
pocket encountered the cheque-hook and the dater and the pen, and in
the other pocket the gold money and the paper money. There was the
wherewithal to settle his pitiful account a few score of times and
over--why hadn't he given me a chance? There was no explanation; it
was merely the inconceivable and monstrous.
To make the matter worse, the Snark had been
libelled late Saturday afternoon; and though I sent lawyers and
agents all over Oakland and San Francisco, neither United States
judge, nor United States marshal, nor Mr. Sellers, nor Mr. Sellers'
attorney, nor anybody could be found. They were all out of town for
the weekend. And so the Snark did not sail Sunday morning at eleven.
The little old man was still in charge, and he said no. And Charmian
and I walked out on an opposite wharf and took consolation in the
Snark's wonderful bow and thought of all the gales and typhoons it
would proudly punch.
"A bourgeois trick," I said to Charmian, speaking
of Mr. Sellers and his libel; "a petty trader's panic. But never
mind; our troubles will cease when once we are away from this and
out on the wide ocean."
And in the end we sailed away, on Tuesday
morning, April 23, 1907. We started rather lame, I confess. We had
to hoist anchor by hand, because the power transmission was a wreck.
Also, what remained of our seventy-horse-power engine was lashed
down for ballast on the bottom of the Snark. But what of such
things? They could be fixed in Honolulu, and in the meantime think
of the magnificent rest of the boat! It is true, the engine in the
launch wouldn't run, and the life-boat leaked like a sieve; but then
they weren't the Snark; they were mere appurtenances. The things
that counted were the water-tight bulkheads, the solid planking
without butts, the bath- room devices--they were the Snark. And then
there was, greatest of all, that noble, wind-punching bow.
We sailed out through the Golden Gate and set our
course south toward that part of the Pacific where we could hope to
pick up with the north-east trades. And right away things began to
happen. I had calculated that youth was the stuff for a voyage like
that of the Snark, and I had taken three youths--the engineer, the
cook, and the cabin-boy. My calculation was only two-thirds OFF; I
had forgotten to calculate on seasick youth, and I had two of them,
the cook and the cabin boy. They immediately took to their bunks,
and that was the end of their usefulness for a week to come. It will
be understood, from the foregoing, that we did not have the hot
meals we might have had, nor were things kept clean and orderly down
below. But it did not matter very much anyway, for we quickly
discovered that our box of oranges had at some time been frozen;
that our box of apples was mushy and spoiling; that the crate of
cabbages, spoiled before it was ever delivered to us, had to go
overboard instanter; that kerosene had been spilled on the carrots,
and that the turnips were woody and the beets rotten, while the
kindling was dead wood that wouldn't burn, and the coal, delivered
in rotten potato-sacks, had spilled all over the deck and was
washing through the scuppers.
But what did it matter? Such things were mere
accessories. There was the boat--she was all right, wasn't she? I
strolled along the deck and in one minute counted fourteen butts in
the beautiful planking ordered specially from Puget Sound in order
that there should be no butts in it. Also, that deck leaked, and it
leaked badly. It drowned Roscoe out of his bunk and ruined the tools
in the engine-room, to say nothing of the provisions it ruined in
the galley. Also, the sides of the Snark leaked, and the bottom
leaked, and we had to pump her every day to keep her afloat. The
floor of the galley is a couple of feet above the inside bottom of
the Snark; and yet I have stood on the floor of the galley, trying
to snatch a cold bite, and been wet to the knees by the water
churning around inside four hours after the last pumping.
Then those magnificent water-tight compartments
that cost so much time and money--well, they weren't water-tight
after all. The water moved free as the air from one compartment to
another; furthermore, a strong smell of gasolene from the after
compartment leads me to suspect that some one or more of the
half-dozen tanks there stored have sprung a leak. The tanks leak,
and they are not hermetically sealed in their compartment. Then
there was the bath-room with its pumps and levers and sea-valves--it
went out of commission inside the first twenty hours. Powerful iron
levers broke off short in one's hand when one tried to pump with
them. The bathroom was the swiftest wreck of any portion of the
Snark.
And the iron-work on the Snark, no matter what
its source, proved to be mush. For instance, the bed-plate of the
engine came from New York, and it was mush; so were the casting and
gears for the windlass that came from San Francisco. And finally,
there was the wrought iron used in the rigging, that carried away in
all directions when the first strains were put upon it. Wrought
iron, mind you, and it snapped like macaroni.
A gooseneck on the gaff of the mainsail broke
short off. We replaced it with the gooseneck from the gaff of the
storm trysail, and the second gooseneck broke short off inside
fifteen minutes of use, and, mind you, it had been taken from the
gaff of the storm trysail, upon which we would have depended in time
of storm. At the present moment the Snark trails her mainsail like a
broken wing, the gooseneck being replaced by a rough lashing. We'll
see if we can get honest iron in Honolulu.
Man had betrayed us and sent us to sea in a
sieve, but the Lord must have loved us, for we had calm weather in
which to learn that we must pump every day in order to keep afloat,
and that more trust could be placed in a wooden toothpick than in
the most massive piece of iron to be found aboard. As the
staunchness and the strength of the Snark went glimmering, Charmian
and I pinned our faith more and more to the Snark's wonderful bow.
There was nothing else left to pin to. It was all inconceivable and
monstrous, we knew, but that bow, at least, was rational. And then,
one evening, we started to heave to.
How shall I describe it? First of all, for the
benefit of the tyro, let me explain that heaving to is that sea
manoeuvre which, by means of short and balanced canvas, compels a
vessel to ride bow-on to wind and sea. When the wind is too strong,
or the sea is too high, a vessel of the size of the Snark can heave
to with ease, whereupon there is no more work to do on deck. Nobody
needs to steer. The lookout is superfluous. All hands can go below
and sleep or play whist.
Well, it was blowing half of a small summer gale,
when I told Roscoe we'd heave to. Night was coming on. I had been
steering nearly all day, and all hands on deck (Roscoe and Bert and
Charmian) were tired, while all hands below were seasick. It
happened that we had already put two reefs in the big mainsail. The
flying-jib and the jib were taken in, and a reef put in the
fore-staysail. The mizzen was also taken in. About this time the
flying jib-boom buried itself in a sea and broke short off. I
started to put the wheel down in order to heave to. The Snark at the
moment was rolling in the trough. She continued rolling in the
trough. I put the spokes down harder and harder. She never budged
from the trough. (The trough, gentle reader, is the most dangerous
position all in which to lay a vessel.) I put the wheel hard down,
and still the Snark rolled in the trough. Eight points was the
nearest I could get her to the wind. I had Roscoe and Bert come in
on the main-sheet. The Snark rolled on in the trough, now putting
her rail under on one side and now under on the other side.
Again the inconceivable and monstrous was showing
its grizzly head. It was grotesque, impossible. I refused to believe
it. Under double-reefed mainsail and single-reefed staysail the
Snark refused to heave to. We flattened the mainsail down. It did
not alter the Snark's course a tenth of a degree. We slacked the
mainsail off with no more result. We set a storm trysail on the
mizzen, and took in the mainsail. No change. The Snark roiled on in
the trough. That beautiful bow of hers refused to come up and face
the wind.
Next we took in the reefed staysail. Thus, the
only bit of canvas left on her was the storm trysail on the mizzen.
If anything would bring her bow up to the wind, that would. Maybe
you won't believe me when I say it failed, but I do say it failed.
And I say it failed because I saw it fail, and not because I believe
it failed. I don't believe it did fail. It is unbelievable, and I am
not telling you what I believe; I am telling you what I saw.
Now, gentle reader, what would you do if you were
on a small boat, rolling in the trough of the sea, a trysail on that
small boat's stern that was unable to swing the bow up into the
wind? Get out the sea-anchor. It's just what we did. We had a patent
one, made to order and warranted not to dive. Imagine a hoop of
steel that serves to keep open the mouth of a large, conical, canvas
bag, and you have a sea-anchor. Well, we made a line fast to the
sea-anchor and to the bow of the Snark, and then dropped the
sea-anchor overboard. It promptly dived. We had a tripping line on
it, so we tripped the sea-anchor and hauled it in. We attached a big
timber as a float, and dropped the sea-anchor over again. This time
it floated. The line to the bow grew taut. The trysail on the mizzen
tended to swing the bow into the wind, but, in spite of this
tendency, the Snark calmly took that sea-anchor in her teeth, and
went on ahead, dragging it after her, still in the trough of the
sea. And there you are. We even took in the trysail, hoisted the
full mizzen in its place, and hauled the full mizzen down flat, and
the Snark wallowed in the trough and dragged the sea-anchor behind
her. Don't believe me. I don't believe it myself. I am merely
telling you what I saw.
Now I leave it to you. Who ever heard of a
sailing-boat that wouldn't heave to?--that wouldn't heave to with a
sea-anchor to help it? Out of my brief experience with boats I know
I never did. And I stood on deck and looked on the naked face of the
inconceivable and monstrous--the Snark that wouldn't heave to. A
stormy night with broken moonlight had come on. There was a splash
of wet in the air, and up to windward there was a promise of
rain-squalls; and then there was the trough of the sea, cold and
cruel in the moonlight, in which the Snark complacently rolled. And
then we took in the sea-anchor and the mizzen, hoisted the reefed
staysail, ran the Snark off before it, and went below--not to the
hot meal that should have awaited us, but to skate across the slush
and slime on the cabin floor, where cook and cabin-boy lay like dead
men in their bunks, and to lie down in our own bunks, with our
clothes on ready for a call, and to listen to the bilge-water
spouting knee-high on the galley floor.
In the Bohemian Club of San Francisco there are
some crack sailors. I know, because I heard them pass judgment on
the Snark during the process of her building. They found only one
vital thing the matter with her, and on this they were all agreed,
namely, that she could not run. She was all right in every
particular, they said, except that I'd never be able to run her
before it in a stiff wind and sea. "Her lines," they explained
enigmatically, "it is the fault of her lines. She simply cannot be
made to run, that is all." Well, I wish I'd only had those crack
sailors of the Bohemian Club on board the Snark the other night for
them to see for themselves their one, vital, unanimous judgment
absolutely reversed. Run? It is the one thing the Snark does to
perfection. Run? She ran with a sea-anchor fast for'ard and a full
mizzen flattened down aft. Run? At the present moment, as I write
this, we are bowling along before it, at a six-knot clip, in the
north-east trades. Quite a tidy bit of sea is running. There is
nobody at the wheel, the wheel is not even lashed and is set over a
half-spoke weather helm. To be precise, the wind is north-east; the
Snark's mizzen is furled, her mainsail is over to starboard, her
head-sheets are hauled flat: and the Snark's course is
south-south-west. And yet there are men who have sailed the seas for
forty years and who hold that no boat can run before it without
being steered. They'll call me a liar when they read this; it's what
they called Captain Slocum when he said the same of his Spray.
As regards the future of the Snark I'm all at
sea. I don't know. If I had the money or the credit, I'd build
another Snark that WOULD heave to. But I am at the end of my
resources. I've got to put up with the present Snark or quit--and I
can't quit. So I guess I'll have to try to get along with heaving
the Snark to stern first. I am waiting for the next gale to see how
it will work. I think it can be done. It all depends on how her
stern takes the seas. And who knows but that some wild morning on
the China Sea, some gray- beard skipper will stare, rub his
incredulous eyes and stare again, at the spectacle of a weird, small
craft very much like the Snark, hove to stern-first and riding out
the gale?
P.S. On my return to California after the voyage,
I learned that the Snark was forty-three feet on the water-line
instead of forty- five. This was due to the fact that the builder
was not on speaking terms with the tape-line or two-foot rule.
CHAPTER III
No, adventure is not dead, and in spite of the
steam engine and of Thomas Cook & Son. When the announcement of the
contemplated voyage of the Snark was made, young men of "roving
disposition" proved to be legion, and young women as well--to say
nothing of the elderly men and women who volunteered for the voyage.
Why, among my personal friends there were at least half a dozen who
regretted their recent or imminent marriages; and there was one
marriage I know of that almost failed to come off because of the Snark.
Every mail to me was burdened with the letters of
applicants who were suffocating in the "man-stifled towns," and it
soon dawned upon me that a twentieth century Ulysses required a corps
of stenographers to clear his correspondence before setting sail. No,
adventure is certainly not dead--not while one receives letters that
begin:
"There is no doubt that when you read this
soul-plea from a female stranger in New York City," etc.; and wherein
one learns, a little farther on, that this female stranger weighs only
ninety pounds, wants to be cabin-boy, and "yearns to see the countries
of the world."
The possession of a "passionate fondness for
geography," was the way one applicant expressed the wander-lust that
was in him; while another wrote, "I am cursed with an eternal yearning
to be always on the move, consequently this letter to you." But best
of all was the fellow who said he wanted to come because his feet
itched.
There were a few who wrote anonymously, suggesting
names of friends and giving said friends' qualifications; but to me
there was a hint of something sinister in such proceedings, and I went
no further in the matter.
With two or three exceptions, all the hundreds that
volunteered for my crew were very much in earnest. Many of them sent
their photographs. Ninety per cent. offered to work in any capacity,
and ninety-nine per cent. offered to work without salary.
"Contemplating your voyage on the Snark," said one, "and
notwithstanding its attendant dangers, to accompany you (in any
capacity whatever) would be the climax of my ambitions." Which reminds
me of the young fellow who was "seventeen years old and ambicious,"
and who, at the end of his letter, earnestly requested "but please do
not let this git into the papers or magazines." Quite different was
the one who said, "I would be willing to work like hell and not demand
pay." Almost all of them wanted me to telegraph, at their expense, my
acceptance of their services; and quite a number offered to put up a
bond to guarantee their appearance on sailing date.
Some were rather vague in their own minds
concerning the work to be done on the Snark; as, for instance, the one
who wrote: "I am taking the liberty of writing you this note to find
out if there would be any possibility of my going with you as one of
the crew of your boat to make sketches and illustrations." Several,
unaware of the needful work on a small craft like the Snark, offered
to serve, as one of them phrased it, "as assistant in filing materials
collected for books and novels." That's what one gets for being
prolific.
"Let me give my qualifications for the job," wrote
one. "I am an orphan living with my uncle, who is a hot revolutionary
socialist and who says a man without the red blood of adventure is an
animated dish-rag." Said another: "I can swim some, though I don't
know any of the new strokes. But what is more important than strokes,
the water is a friend of mine." "If I was put alone in a sail-boat, I
could get her anywhere I wanted to go," was the qualification of a
third--and a better qualification than the one that follows, "I have
also watched the fish-boats unload." But possibly the prize should go
to this one, who very subtly conveys his deep knowledge of the world
and life by saying: "My age, in years, is twenty-two."
Then there were the simple straight-out, homely,
and unadorned letters of young boys, lacking in the felicities of
expression, it is true, but desiring greatly to make the voyage. These
were the hardest of all to decline, and each time I declined one it
seemed as if I had struck Youth a slap in the face. They were so
earnest, these boys, they wanted so much to go. "I am sixteen but
large for my age," said one; and another, "Seventeen but large and
healthy." "I am as strong at least as the average boy of my size,"
said an evident weakling. "Not afraid of any kind of work," was what
many said, while one in particular, to lure me no doubt by
inexpensiveness, wrote: "I can pay my way to the Pacific coast, so
that part would probably be acceptable to you." "Going around the
world is THE ONE THING I want to do," said one, and it seemed to be
the one thing that a few hundred wanted to do. "I have no one who
cares whether I go or not," was the pathetic note sounded by another.
One had sent his photograph, and speaking of it, said, "I'm a
homely-looking sort of a chap, but looks don't always count." And I am
confident that the lad who wrote the following would have turned out
all right: "My age is 19 years, but I am rather small and consequently
won't take up much room, but I'm tough as the devil." And there was
one thirteen-year-old applicant that Charmian and I fell in love with,
and it nearly broke our hearts to refuse him.
But it must not be imagined that most of my
volunteers were boys; on the contrary, boys constituted a very small
proportion. There were men and women from every walk in life.
Physicians, surgeons, and dentists offered in large numbers to come
along, and, like all the professional men, offered to come without
pay, to serve in any capacity, and to pay, even, for the privilege of
so serving.
There was no end of compositors and reporters who
wanted to come, to say nothing of experienced valets, chefs, and
stewards. Civil engineers were keen on the voyage; "lady" companions
galore cropped up for Charmian; while I was deluged with the
applications of would- be private secretaries. Many high school and
university students yearned for the voyage, and every trade in the
working class developed a few applicants, the machinists,
electricians, and engineers being especially strong on the trip. I was
surprised at the number, who, in musty law offices, heard the call of
adventure; and I was more than surprised by the number of elderly and
retired sea captains who were still thralls to the sea. Several young
fellows, with millions coming to them later on, were wild for the
adventure, as were also several county superintendents of schools.
Fathers and sons wanted to come, and many men with
their wives, to say nothing of the young woman stenographer who wrote:
"Write immediately if you need me. I shall bring my typewriter on the
first train." But the best of all is the following--observe the
delicate way in which he worked in his wife: "I thought I would drop
you a line of inquiry as to the possibility of making the trip with
you, am 24 years of age, married and broke, and a trip of that kind
would be just what we are looking for."
Come to think of it, for the average man it must be
fairly difficult to write an honest letter of self-recommendation. One
of my correspondents was so stumped that he began his letter with the
words, "This is a hard task"; and, after vainly trying to describe his
good points, he wound up with, "It is a hard job writing about one's
self." Nevertheless, there was one who gave himself a most glowing and
lengthy character, and in conclusion stated that he had greatly
enjoyed writing it.
"But suppose this: your cabin-boy could run your
engine, could repair it when out of order. Suppose he could take his
turn at the wheel, could do any carpenter or machinist work. Suppose
he is strong, healthy, and willing to work. Would you not rather have
him than a kid that gets seasick and can't do anything but wash
dishes?" It was letters of this sort that I hated to decline. The
writer of it, self-taught in English, had been only two years in the
United States, and, as he said, "I am not wishing to go with you to
earn my living, but I wish to learn and see." At the time of writing
to me he was a designer for one of the big motor manufacturing
companies; he had been to sea quite a bit, and had been used all his
life to the handling of small boats.
"I have a good position, but it matters not so with
me as I prefer travelling," wrote another. "As to salary, look at me,
and if I am worth a dollar or two, all right, and if I am not, nothing
said. As to my honesty and character, I shall be pleased to show you
my employers. Never drink, no tobacco, but to be honest, I myself,
after a little more experience, want to do a little writing."
"I can assure you that I am eminently respectable,
but find other respectable people tiresome." The man who wrote the
foregoing certainly had me guessing, and I am still wondering whether
or not he'd have found me tiresome, or what the deuce he did mean.
"I have seen better days than what I am passing
through to-day," wrote an old salt, "but I have seen them a great deal
worse also."
But the willingness to sacrifice on the part of the
man who wrote the following was so touching that I could not accept:
"I have a father, a mother, brothers and sisters, dear friends and a
lucrative position, and yet I will sacrifice all to become one of your
crew."
Another volunteer I could never have accepted was
the finicky young fellow who, to show me how necessary it was that I
should give him a chance, pointed out that "to go in the ordinary
boat, be it schooner or steamer, would be impracticable, for I would
have to mix among and live with the ordinary type of seamen, which as
a rule is not a clean sort of life."
Then there was the young fellow of twenty-six, who
had "run through the gamut of human emotions," and had "done
everything from cooking to attending Stanford University," and who, at
the present writing, was "A vaquero on a fifty-five-thousand-acre
range." Quite in contrast was the modesty of the one who said, "I am
not aware of possessing any particular qualities that would be likely
to recommend me to your consideration. But should you be impressed,
you might consider it worth a few minutes' time to answer. Otherwise,
there's always work at the trade. Not expecting, but hoping, I remain,
etc."
But I have held my head in both my hands ever
since, trying to figure out the intellectual kinship between myself
and the one who wrote: "Long before I knew of you, I had mixed
political economy and history and deducted therefrom many of your
conclusions in concrete."
Here, in its way, is one of the best, as it is the
briefest, that I received: "If any of the present company signed on
for cruise happens to get cold feet and you need one more who
understands boating, engines, etc., would like to hear from you, etc."
Here is another brief one: "Point blank, would like to have the job of
cabin-boy on your trip around the world, or any other job on board. Am
nineteen years old, weigh one hundred and forty pounds, and am an
American."
And here is a good one from a man a "little over
five feet long": "When I read about your manly plan of sailing around
the world in a small boat with Mrs. London, I was so much rejoiced
that I felt I was planning it myself, and I thought to write you about
filling either position of cook or cabin-boy myself, but for some
reason I did not do it, and I came to Denver from Oakland to join my
friend's business last month, but everything is worse and
unfavourable. But fortunately you have postponed your departure on
account of the great earthquake, so I finally decided to propose you
to let me fill either of the positions. I am not very strong, being a
man of a little over five feet long, although I am of sound health and
capability."
"I think I can add to your outfit an additional
method of utilizing the power of the wind," wrote a well-wisher,
"which, while not interfering with ordinary sails in light breezes,
will enable you to use the whole force of the wind in its mightiest
blows, so that even when its force is so great that you may have to
take in every inch of canvas used in the ordinary way, you may carry
the fullest spread with my method. With my attachment your craft could
not be UPSET."
The foregoing letter was written in San Francisco
under the date of April 16, 1906. And two days later, on April 18,
came the Great Earthquake. And that's why I've got it in for that
earthquake, for it made a refugee out of the man who wrote the letter,
and prevented us from ever getting together.
Many of my brother socialists objected to my making
the cruise, of which the following is typical: "The Socialist Cause
and the millions of oppressed victims of Capitalism has a right and
claim upon your life and services. If, however, you persist, then,
when you swallow the last mouthful of salt chuck you can hold before
sinking, remember that we at least protested."
One wanderer over the world who "could, if
opportunity afforded, recount many unusual scenes and events," spent
several pages ardently trying to get to the point of his letter, and
at last achieved the following: "Still I am neglecting the point I set
out to write you about. So will say at once that it has been stated in
print that you and one or two others are going to take a cruize around
the world a little fifty- or sixty-foot boat. I therefore cannot get
myself to think that a man of your attainments and experience would
attempt such a proceeding, which is nothing less than courting death
in that way. And even if you were to escape for some time, your whole
Person, and those with you would be bruised from the ceaseless motion
of a craft of the above size, even if she were padded, a thing not
usual at sea." Thank you, kind friend, thank you for that
qualification, "a thing not usual at sea." Nor is this friend ignorant
of the sea. As he says of himself, "I am not a land-lubber, and I have
sailed every sea and ocean." And he winds up his letter with:
"Although not wishing to offend, it would be madness to take any woman
outside the bay even, in such a craft."
And yet, at the moment of writing this, Charmian is
in her state- room at the typewriter, Martin is cooking dinner,
Tochigi is setting the table, Roscoe and Bert are caulking the deck,
and the Snark is steering herself some five knots an hour in a
rattling good sea--and the Snark is not padded, either.
"Seeing a piece in the paper about your intended
trip, would like to know if you would like a good crew, as there is
six of us boys all good sailor men, with good discharges from the Navy
and Merchant Service, all true Americans, all between the ages of 20
and 22, and at present are employed as riggers at the Union Iron
Works, and would like very much to sail with you."--It was letters
like this that made me regret the boat was not larger.
And here writes the one woman in all the
world--outside of Charmian- -for the cruise: "If you have not
succeeded in getting a cook I would like very much to take the trip in
that capacity. I am a woman of fifty, healthy and capable, and can do
the work for the small company that compose the crew of the Snark. I
am a very good cook and a very good sailor and something of a
traveller, and the length of the voyage, if of ten years' duration,
would suit me better than one. References, etc."
Some day, when I have made a lot of money, I'm
going to build a big ship, with room in it for a thousand volunteers.
They will have to do all the work of navigating that boat around the
world, or they'll stay at home. I believe that they'll work the boat
around the world, for I know that Adventure is not dead. I know
Adventure is not dead because I have had a long and intimate
correspondence with Adventure.
CHAPTER IV
"But," our friends objected, "how dare you go to
sea without a navigator on board? You're not a navigator, are you?"
I had to confess that I was not a navigator, that
I had never looked through a sextant in my life, and that I doubted
if I could tell a sextant from a nautical almanac. And when they
asked if Roscoe was a navigator, I shook my head. Roscoe resented
this. He had glanced at the "Epitome," bought for our voyage, knew
how to use logarithm tables, had seen a sextant at some time, and,
what of this and of his seafaring ancestry, he concluded that he did
know navigation. But Roscoe was wrong, I still insist. When a young
boy he came from Maine to California by way of the Isthmus of
Panama, and that was the only time in his life that he was out of
sight of land. He had never gone to a school of navigation, nor
passed an examination in the same; nor had he sailed the deep sea
and learned the art from some other navigator. He was a San
Francisco Bay yachtsman, where land is always only several miles
away and the art of navigation is never employed.
So the Snark started on her long voyage without a
navigator. We beat through the Golden Gate on April 23, and headed
for the Hawaiian Islands, twenty-one hundred sea-miles away as the
gull flies. And the outcome was our justification. We arrived. And
we arrived, furthermore, without any trouble, as you shall see; that
is, without any trouble to amount to anything. To begin with, Roscoe
tackled the navigating. He had the theory all right, but it was the
first time he had ever applied it, as was evidenced by the erratic
behaviour of the Snark. Not but what the Snark was perfectly steady
on the sea; the pranks she cut were on the chart. On a day with a
light breeze she would make a jump on the chart that advertised "a
wet sail and a flowing sheet," and on a day when she just raced over
the ocean, she scarcely changed her position on the chart. Now when
one's boat has logged six knots for twenty-four consecutive hours,
it is incontestable that she has covered one hundred and forty-four
miles of ocean. The ocean was all right, and so was the patent log;
as for speed, one saw it with his own eyes. Therefore the thing that
was not all right was the figuring that refused to boost the Snark
along over the chart. Not that this happened every day, but that it
did happen. And it was perfectly proper and no more than was to be
expected from a first attempt at applying a theory.
The acquisition of the knowledge of navigation
has a strange effect on the minds of men. The average navigator
speaks of navigation with deep respect. To the layman navigation is
a deed and awful mystery, which feeling has been generated in him by
the deep and awful respect for navigation that the layman has seen
displayed by navigators. I have known frank, ingenuous, and modest
young men, open as the day, to learn navigation and at once betray
secretiveness, reserve, and self-importance as if they had achieved
some tremendous intellectual attainment. The average navigator
impresses the layman as a priest of some holy rite. With bated
breath, the amateur yachtsman navigator invites one in to look at
his chronometer. And so it was that our friends suffered such
apprehension at our sailing without a navigator.
During the building of the Snark, Roscoe and I
had an agreement, something like this: "I'll furnish the books and
instruments," I said, "and do you study up navigation now. I'll be
too busy to do any studying. Then, when we get to sea, you can teach
me what you have learned." Roscoe was delighted. Furthermore, Roscoe
was as frank and ingenuous and modest as the young men I have
described. But when we got out to sea and he began to practise the
holy rite, while I looked on admiringly, a change, subtle and
distinctive, marked his bearing. When he shot the sun at noon, the
glow of achievement wrapped him in lambent flame. When he went
below, figured out his observation, and then returned on deck and
announced our latitude and longitude, there was an authoritative
ring in his voice that was new to all of us. But that was not the
worst of it. He became filled with incommunicable information. And
the more he discovered the reasons for the erratic jumps of the
Snark over the chart, and the less the Snark jumped, the more
incommunicable and holy and awful became his information. My mild
suggestions that it was about time that I began to learn, met with
no hearty response, with no offers on his part to help me. He
displayed not the slightest intention of living up to our agreement.
Now this was not Roscoe's fault; he could not
help it. He had merely gone the way of all the men who learned
navigation before him. By an understandable and forgivable confusion
of values, plus a loss of orientation, he felt weighted by
responsibility, and experienced the possession of power that was
like unto that of a god. All his life Roscoe had lived on land, and
therefore in sight of land. Being constantly in sight of land, with
landmarks to guide him, he had managed, with occasional
difficulties, to steer his body around and about the earth. Now he
found himself on the sea, wide- stretching, bounded only by the
eternal circle of the sky. This circle looked always the same. There
were no landmarks. The sun rose to the east and set to the west and
the stars wheeled through the night. But who may look at the sun or
the stars and say, "My place on the face of the earth at the present
moment is four and three-quarter miles to the west of Jones's Cash
Store of Smithersville"? or "I know where I am now, for the Little
Dipper informs me that Boston is three miles away on the second
turning to the right"? And yet that was precisely what Roscoe did.
That he was astounded by the achievement, is putting it mildly. He
stood in reverential awe of himself; he had performed a miraculous
feat. The act of finding himself on the face of the waters became a
rite, and he felt himself a superior being to the rest of us who
knew not this rite and were dependent on him for being shepherded
across the heaving and limitless waste, the briny highroad that
connects the continents and whereon there are no mile-stones. So,
with the sextant he made obeisance to the sun-god, he consulted
ancient tomes and tables of magic characters, muttered prayers in a
strange tongue that sounded like INDEXERRORPARALLAXREFRACTION, made
cabalistic signs on paper, added and carried one, and then, on a
piece of holy script called the Grail--I mean the Chart--he placed
his finger on a certain space conspicuous for its blankness and
said, "Here we are." When we looked at the blank space and asked,
"And where is that?" he answered in the cipher-code of the higher
priesthood, "31-15-47 north, 133-5-30 west." And we said "Oh," and
felt mighty small.
So I aver, it was not Roscoe's fault. He was like
unto a god, and he carried us in the hollow of his hand across the
blank spaces on the chart. I experienced a great respect for Roscoe;
this respect grew so profound that had he commanded, "Kneel down and
worship me," I know that I should have flopped down on the deck and
yammered. But, one day, there came a still small thought to me that
said: "This is not a god; this is Roscoe, a mere man like myself.
What he has done, I can do. Who taught him? Himself. Go you and do
likewise--be your own teacher." And right there Roscoe crashed, and
he was high priest of the Snark no longer. I invaded the sanctuary
and demanded the ancient tomes and magic tables, also the prayer-
wheel--the sextant, I mean.
And now, in simple language. I shall describe how
I taught myself navigation. One whole afternoon I sat in the
cockpit, steering with one hand and studying logarithms with the
other. Two afternoons, two hours each, I studied the general theory
of navigation and the particular process of taking a meridian
altitude. Then I took the sextant, worked out the index error, and
shot the sun. The figuring from the data of this observation was
child's play. In the "Epitome" and the "Nautical Almanac" were
scores of cunning tables, all worked out by mathematicians and
astronomers. It was like using interest tables and
lightning-calculator tables such as you all know. The mystery was
mystery no longer. I put my finger on the chart and announced that
that was where we were. I was right too, or at least I was as right
as Roscoe, who selected a spot a quarter of a mile away from mine.
Even he was willing to split the distance with me. I had exploded
the mystery, and yet, such was the miracle of it, I was conscious of
new power in me, and I felt the thrill and tickle of pride. And when
Martin asked me, in the same humble and respectful way I had
previously asked Roscoe, as to where we were, it was with exaltation
and spiritual chest-throwing that I answered in the cipher-code of
the higher priesthood and heard Martin's self- abasing and
worshipful "Oh." As for Charmian, I felt that in a new way I had
proved my right to her; and I was aware of another feeling, namely,
that she was a most fortunate woman to have a man like me.
I couldn't help it. I tell it as a vindication of
Roscoe and all the other navigators. The poison of power was working
in me. I was not as other men--most other men; I knew what they did
not know,-- the mystery of the heavens, that pointed out the way
across the deep. And the taste of power I had received drove me on.
I steered at the wheel long hours with one hand, and studied mystery
with the other. By the end of the week, teaching myself, I was able
to do divers things. For instance, I shot the North Star, at night,
of course; got its altitude, corrected for index error, dip, etc.,
and found our latitude. And this latitude agreed with the latitude
of the previous noon corrected by dead reckoning up to that moment.
Proud? Well, I was even prouder with my next miracle. I was going to
turn in at nine o'clock. I worked out the problem, self- instructed,
and learned what star of the first magnitude would be passing the
meridian around half-past eight. This star proved to be Alpha
Crucis. I had never heard of the star before. I looked it up on the
star map. It was one of the stars of the Southern Cross. What!
thought I; have we been sailing with the Southern Cross in the sky
of nights and never known it? Dolts that we are! Gudgeons and moles!
I couldn't believe it. I went over the problem again, and verified
it. Charmian had the wheel from eight till ten that evening. I told
her to keep her eyes open and look due south for the Southern Cross.
And when the stars came out, there shone the Southern Cross low on
the horizon. Proud? No medicine man nor high priest was ever
prouder. Furthermore, with the prayer-wheel I shot Alpha Crucis and
from its altitude worked out our latitude. And still furthermore, I
shot the North Star, too, and it agreed with what had been told me
by the Southern Cross. Proud? Why, the language of the stars was
mine, and I listened and heard them telling me my way over the deep.
Proud? I was a worker of miracles. I forgot how
easily I had taught myself from the printed page. I forgot that all
the work (and a tremendous work, too) had been done by the
masterminds before me, the astronomers and mathematicians, who had
discovered and elaborated the whole science of navigation and made
the tables in the "Epitome." I remembered only the everlasting
miracle of it-- that I had listened to the voices of the stars and
been told my place upon the highway of the sea. Charmian did not
know, Martin did not know, Tochigi, the cabin-boy, did not know. But
I told them. I was God's messenger. I stood between them and
infinity. I translated the high celestial speech into terms of their
ordinary understanding. We were heaven-directed, and it was I who
could read the sign-post of the sky!--I! I!
And now, in a cooler moment, I hasten to blab the
whole simplicity of it, to blab on Roscoe and the other navigators
and the rest of the priesthood, all for fear that I may become even
as they, secretive, immodest, and inflated with self-esteem. And I
want to say this now: any young fellow with ordinary gray matter,
ordinary education, and with the slightest trace of the
student-mind, can get the books, and charts, and instruments and
teach himself navigation. Now I must not be misunderstood.
Seamanship is an entirely different matter. It is not learned in a
day, nor in many days; it requires years. Also, navigating by dead
reckoning requires long study and practice. But navigating by
observations of the sun, moon, and stars, thanks to the astronomers
and mathematicians, is child's play. Any average young fellow can
teach himself in a week. And yet again I must not be misunderstood.
I do not mean to say that at the end of a week a young fellow could
take charge of a fifteen-thousand-ton steamer, driving twenty knots
an hour through the brine, racing from land to land, fair weather
and foul, clear sky or cloudy, steering by degrees on the compass
card and making landfalls with most amazing precision. But what I do
mean is just this: the average young fellow I have described can get
into a staunch sail-boat and put out across the ocean, without
knowing anything about navigation, and at the end of the week he
will know enough to know where he is on the chart. He will be able
to take a meridian observation with fair accuracy, and from that
observation, with ten minutes of figuring, work out his latitude and
longitude. And, carrying neither freight nor passengers, being under
no press to reach his destination, he can jog comfortably along, and
if at any time he doubts his own navigation and fears an imminent
landfall, he can heave to all night and proceed in the morning.
Joshua Slocum sailed around the world a few years
ago in a thirty- seven-foot boat all by himself. I shall never
forget, in his narrative of the voyage, where he heartily indorsed
the idea of young men, in similar small boats, making similar
voyage. I promptly indorsed his idea, and so heartily that I took my
wife along. While it certainly makes a Cook's tour look like thirty
cents, on top of that, amid on top of the fun and pleasure, it is a
splendid education for a young man--oh, not a mere education in the
things of the world outside, of lands, and peoples, and climates,
but an education in the world inside, an education in one's self, a
chance to learn one's own self, to get on speaking terms with one's
soul. Then there is the training and the disciplining of it. First,
naturally, the young fellow will learn his limitations; and next,
inevitably, he will proceed to press back those limitations. And he
cannot escape returning from such a voyage a bigger and better man.
And as for sport, it is a king's sport, taking one's self around the
world, doing it with one's own hands, depending on no one but one's
self, and at the end, back at the starting-point, contemplating with
inner vision the planet rushing through space, and saying, "I did
it; with my own hands I did it. I went clear around that whirling
sphere, and I can travel alone, without any nurse of a sea-captain
to guide my steps across the seas. I may not fly to other stars, but
of this star I myself am master."
As I write these lines I lift my eyes and look
seaward. I am on the beach of Waikiki on the island of Oahu. Far, in
the azure sky, the trade-wind clouds drift low over the blue-green
turquoise of the deep sea. Nearer, the sea is emerald and light
olive-green. Then comes the reef, where the water is all slaty
purple flecked with red. Still nearer are brighter greens and tans,
lying in alternate stripes and showing where sandbeds lie between
the living coral banks. Through and over and out of these wonderful
colours tumbles and thunders a magnificent surf. As I say, I lift my
eyes to all this, and through the white crest of a breaker suddenly
appears a dark figure, erect, a man-fish or a sea-god, on the very
forward face of the crest where the top falls over and down, driving
in toward shore, buried to his loins in smoking spray, caught up by
the sea and flung landward, bodily, a quarter of a mile. It is a
Kanaka on a surf-board. And I know that when I have finished these
lines I shall be out in that riot of colour and pounding surf,
trying to bit those breakers even as he, and failing as he never
failed, but living life as the best of us may live it. And the
picture of that coloured sea and that flying sea-god Kanaka becomes
another reason for the young man to go west, and farther west,
beyond the Baths of Sunset, and still west till he arrives home
again.
But to return. Please do not think that I already
know it all. I know only the rudiments of navigation. There is a
vast deal yet for me to learn. On the Snark there is a score of
fascinating books on navigation waiting for me. There is the
danger-angle of Lecky, there is the line of Sumner, which, when you
know least of all where you are, shows most conclusively where you
are, and where you are not. There are dozens and dozens of methods
of finding one's location on the deep, and one can work years before
he masters it all in all its fineness.
Even in the little we did learn there were slips
that accounted for the apparently antic behaviour of the Snark. On
Thursday, May 16, for instance, the trade wind failed us. During the
twenty-four hours that ended Friday at noon, by dead reckoning we
had not sailed twenty miles. Yet here are our positions, at noon,
for the two days, worked out from our observations:
Thursday 20 degrees 57 minutes 9 seconds N 152
degrees 40 minutes 30 seconds W Friday 21 degrees 15 minutes 33
seconds N 154 degrees 12 minutes W
The difference between the two positions was
something like eighty miles. Yet we knew we had not travelled twenty
miles. Now our figuring was all right. We went over it several
times. What was wrong was the observations we had taken. To take a
correct observation requires practice and skill, and especially so
on a small craft like the Snark. The violently moving boat and the
closeness of the observer's eye to the surface of the water are to
blame. A big wave that lifts up a mile off is liable to steal the
horizon away.
But in our particular case there was another
perturbing factor. The sun, in its annual march north through the
heavens, was increasing its declination. On the 19th parallel of
north latitude in the middle of May the sun is nearly overhead. The
angle of arc was between eighty-eight and eighty-nine degrees. Had
it been ninety degrees it would have been straight overhead. It was
on another day that we learned a few things about taking the
altitude of the almost perpendicular sun. Roscoe started in drawing
the sun down to the eastern horizon, and he stayed by that point of
the compass despite the fact that the sun would pass the meridian to
the south. I, on the other hand, started in to draw the sun down to
south-east and strayed away to the south-west. You see, we were
teaching ourselves. As a result, at twenty-five minutes past twelve
by the ship's time, I called twelve o'clock by the sun. Now this
signified that we had changed our location on the face of the world
by twenty- five minutes, which was equal to something like six
degrees of longitude, or three hundred and fifty miles. This showed
the Snark had travelled fifteen knots per hour for twenty-four
consecutive hours--and we had never noticed it! It was absurd and
grotesque. But Roscoe, still looking east, averred that it was not
yet twelve o'clock. He was bent on giving us a twenty-knot clip.
Then we began to train our sextants rather wildly all around the
horizon, and wherever we looked, there was the sun, puzzlingly close
to the sky-line, sometimes above it and sometimes below it. In one
direction the sun was proclaiming morning, in another direction it
was proclaiming afternoon. The sun was all right--we knew that;
therefore we were all wrong. And the rest of the afternoon we spent
in the cockpit reading up the matter in the books and finding out
what was wrong. We missed the observation that day, but we didn't
the next. We had learned.
And we learned well, better than for a while we
thought we had. At the beginning of the second dog-watch one
evening, Charmian and I sat down on the forecastle-head for a rubber
of cribbage. Chancing to glance ahead, I saw cloud-capped mountains
rising from the sea. We were rejoiced at the sight of land, but I
was in despair over our navigation. I thought we had learned
something, yet our position at noon, plus what we had run since, did
not put us within a hundred miles of land. But there was the land,
fading away before our eyes in the fires of sunset. The land was all
right. There was no disputing it. Therefore our navigation was all
wrong. But it wasn't. That land we saw was the summit of Haleakala,
the House of the Sun, the greatest extinct volcano in the world. It
towered ten thousand feet above the sea, and it was all of a hundred
miles away. We sailed all night at a seven-knot clip, and in the
morning the House of the Sun was still before us, and it took a few
more hours of sailing to bring it abreast of us. "That island is
Maui," we said, verifying by the chart. "That next island sticking
out is Molokai, where the lepers are. And the island next to that is
Oahu. There is Makapuu Head now. We'll be in Honolulu to-morrow. Our
navigation is all right."
CHAPTER V
"It will not be so monotonous at sea," I promised
my fellow-voyagers on the Snark. "The sea is filled with life. It is
so populous that every day something new is happening. Almost as
soon as we pass through the Golden Gate and head south we'll pick up
with the flying fish. We'll be having them fried for breakfast.
We'll be catching bonita and dolphin, and spearing porpoises from
the bowsprit. And then there are the sharks--sharks without end."
We passed through the Golden Gate and headed
south. We dropped the mountains of California beneath the horizon,
and daily the surf grew warmer. But there were no flying fish, no
bonita and dolphin. The ocean was bereft of life. Never had I sailed
on so forsaken a sea. Always, before, in the same latitudes, had I
encountered flying fish.
"Never mind," I said. "Wait till we get off the
coast of Southern California. Then we'll pick up the flying fish."
We came abreast of Southern California, abreast
of the Peninsula of Lower California, abreast of the coast of
Mexico; and there were no flying fish. Nor was there anything else.
No life moved. As the days went by the absence of life became almost
uncanny.
"Never mind," I said. "When we do pick up with
the flying fish we'll pick up with everything else. The flying fish
is the staff of life for all the other breeds. Everything will come
in a bunch when we find the flying fish."
When I should have headed the Snark south-west
for Hawaii, I still held her south. I was going to find those flying
fish. Finally the time came when, if I wanted to go to Honolulu, I
should have headed the Snark due west, instead of which I kept her
south. Not until latitude 19 degrees did we encounter the first
flying fish. He was very much alone. I saw him. Five other pairs of
eager eyes scanned the sea all day, but never saw another. So sparse
were the flying fish that nearly a week more elapsed before the last
one on board saw his first flying fish. As for the dolphin, bonita,
porpoise, and all the other hordes of life--there weren't any.
Not even a shark broke surface with his ominous
dorsal fin. Bert took a dip daily under the bowsprit, hanging on to
the stays and dragging his body through the water. And daily he
canvassed the project of letting go and having a decent swim. I did
my best to dissuade him. But with him I had lost all standing as an
authority on sea life.
"If there are sharks," he demanded, "why don't
they show up?"
I assured him that if he really did let go and
have a swim the sharks would promptly appear. This was a bluff on my
part. I didn't believe it. It lasted as a deterrent for two days.
The third day the wind fell calm, and it was pretty hot. The Snark
was moving a knot an hour. Bert dropped down under the bowsprit and
let go. And now behold the perversity of things. We had sailed
across two thousand miles and more of ocean and had met with no
sharks. Within five minutes after Bert finished his swim, the fin of
a shark was cutting the surface in circles around the Snark.
There was something wrong about that shark. It
bothered me. It had no right to be there in that deserted ocean. The
more I thought about it, the more incomprehensible it became. But
two hours later we sighted land and the mystery was cleared up. He
had come to us from the land, and not from the uninhabited deep. He
had presaged the landfall. He was the messenger of the land.
Twenty-seven days out from San Francisco we
arrived at the island of Oahu, Territory of Hawaii. In the early
morning we drifted around Diamond Head into full view of Honolulu;
and then the ocean burst suddenly into life. Flying fish cleaved the
air in glittering squadrons. In five minutes we saw more of them
than during the whole voyage. Other fish, large ones, of various
sorts, leaped into the air. There was life everywhere, on sea and
shore. We could see the masts and funnels of the shipping in the
harbour, the hotels and bathers along the beach at Waikiki, the
smoke rising from the dwelling-houses high up on the volcanic slopes
of the Punch Bowl and Tantalus. The custom-house tug was racing
toward us and a big school of porpoises got under our bow and began
cutting the most ridiculous capers. The port doctor's launch came
charging out at us, and a big sea turtle broke the surface with his
back and took a look at us. Never was there such a burgeoning of
life. Strange faces were on our decks, strange voices were speaking,
and copies of that very morning's newspaper, with cable reports from
all the world, were thrust before our eyes. Incidentally, we read
that the Snark and all hands had been lost at sea, and that she had
been a very unseaworthy craft anyway. And while we read this
information a wireless message was being received by the
congressional party on the summit of Haleakala announcing the safe
arrival of the Snark.
It was the Snark's first landfall--and such a
landfall! For twenty- seven days we had been on the deserted deep,
and it was pretty hard to realize that there was so much life in the
world. We were made dizzy by it. We could not take it all in at
once. We were like awakened Rip Van Winkles, and it seemed to us
that we were dreaming. On one side the azure sea lapped across the
horizon into the azure sky; on the other side the sea lifted itself
into great breakers of emerald that fell in a snowy smother upon a
white coral beach. Beyond the beach, green plantations of sugar-cane
undulated gently upward to steeper slopes, which, in turn, became
jagged volcanic crests, drenched with tropic showers and capped by
stupendous masses of trade-wind clouds. At any rate, it was a most
beautiful dream. The Snark turned and headed directly in toward the
emerald surf, till it lifted and thundered on either hand; and on
either hand, scarce a biscuit-toss away, the reef showed its long
teeth, pale green and menacing.
Abruptly the land itself, in a riot of
olive-greens of a thousand hues, reached out its arms and folded the
Snark in. There was no perilous passage through the reef, no emerald
surf and azure sea-- nothing but a warm soft land, a motionless
lagoon, and tiny beaches on which swam dark-skinned tropic children.
The sea had disappeared. The Snark's anchor rumbled the chain
through the hawse-pipe, and we lay without movement on a "lineless,
level floor." It was all so beautiful and strange that we could not
accept it as real. On the chart this place was called Pearl Harbour,
but we called it Dream Harbour.
A launch came off to us; in it were members of
the Hawaiian Yacht Club, come to greet us and make us welcome, with
true Hawaiian hospitality, to all they had. They were ordinary men,
flesh and blood and all the rest; but they did not tend to break our
dreaming. Our last memories of men were of United States marshals
and of panicky little merchants with rusty dollars for souls, who,
in a reeking atmosphere of soot and coal-dust, laid grimy hands upon
the Snark and held her back from her world adventure. But these men
who came to meet us were clean men. A healthy tan was on their
cheeks, and their eyes were not dazzled and bespectacled from gazing
overmuch at glittering dollar-heaps. No, they merely verified the
dream. They clinched it with their unsmirched souls.
So we went ashore with them across a level
flashing sea to the wonderful green land. We landed on a tiny wharf,
and the dream became more insistent; for know that for twenty-seven
days we had been rocking across the ocean on the tiny Snark. Not
once in all those twenty-seven days had we known a moment's rest, a
moment's cessation from movement. This ceaseless movement had become
ingrained. Body and brain we had rocked and rolled so long that when
we climbed out on the tiny wharf kept on rocking and rolling. This,
naturally, we attributed to the wharf. It was projected psychology.
I spraddled along the wharf and nearly fell into the water. I
glanced at Charmian, and the way she walked made me sad. The wharf
had all the seeming of a ship's deck. It lifted, tilted, heaved and
sank; and since there were no handrails on it, it kept Charmian and
me busy avoiding falling in. I never saw such a preposterous little
wharf. Whenever I watched it closely, it refused to roll; but as
soon as I took my attention off from it, away it went, just like the
Snark. Once, I caught it in the act, just as it upended, and I
looked down the length of it for two hundred feet, and for all the
world it was like the deck of a ship ducking into a huge head-sea.
At last, however, supported by our hosts, we
negotiated the wharf and gained the land. But the land was no
better. The very first thing it did was to tilt up on one side, and
far as the eye could see I watched it tilt, clear to its jagged,
volcanic backbone, and I saw the clouds above tilt, too. This was no
stable, firm-founded land, else it would not cut such capers. It was
like all the rest of our landfall, unreal. It was a dream. At any
moment, like shifting vapour, it might dissolve away. The thought
entered my head that perhaps it was my fault, that my head was
swimming or that something I had eaten had disagreed with me. But I
glanced at Charmian and her sad walk, and even as I glanced I saw
her stagger and bump into the yachtsman by whose side she walked. I
spoke to her, and she complained about the antic behaviour of the
land.
We walked across a spacious, wonderful lawn and
down an avenue of royal palms, and across more wonderful lawn in the
gracious shade of stately trees. The air was filled with the songs
of birds and was heavy with rich warm fragrances--wafture from great
lilies, and blazing blossoms of hibiscus, and other strange gorgeous
tropic flowers. The dream was becoming almost impossibly beautiful
to us who for so long had seen naught but the restless, salty sea.
Charmian reached out her hand and clung to me--for support against
the ineffable beauty of it, thought I. But no. As I supported her I
braced my legs, while the flowers and lawns reeled and swung around
me. It was like an earthquake, only it quickly passed without doing
any harm. It was fairly difficult to catch the land playing these
tricks. As long as I kept my mind on it, nothing happened. But as
soon as my attention was distracted, away it went, the whole
panorama, swinging and heaving and tilting at all sorts of angles.
Once, however, I turned my head suddenly and caught that stately
line of royal palms swinging in a great arc across the sky. But it
stopped, just as soon as I caught it, and became a placid dream
again.
Next we came to a house of coolness, with great
sweeping veranda, where lotus-eaters might dwell. Windows and doors
were wide open to the breeze, and the songs and fragrances blew
lazily in and out. The walls were hung with tapa-cloths. Couches
with grass-woven covers invited everywhere, and there was a grand
piano, that played, I was sure, nothing more exciting than
lullabies. Servants-- Japanese maids in native costume--drifted
around and about, noiselessly, like butterflies. Everything was
preternaturally cool. Here was no blazing down of a tropic sun upon
an unshrinking sea. It was too good to be true. But it was not real.
It was a dream- dwelling. I knew, for I turned suddenly and caught
the grand piano cavorting in a spacious corner of the room. I did
not say anything, for just then we were being received by a gracious
woman, a beautiful Madonna, clad in flowing white and shod with
sandals, who greeted us as though she had known us always.
We sat at table on the lotus-eating veranda,
served by the butterfly maids, and ate strange foods and partook of
a nectar called poi. But the dream threatened to dissolve. It
shimmered and trembled like an iridescent bubble about to break. I
was just glancing out at the green grass and stately trees and
blossoms of hibiscus, when suddenly I felt the table move. The
table, and the Madonna across from me, and the veranda of the
lotus-eaters, the scarlet hibiscus, the greensward and the
trees--all lifted and tilted before my eyes, and heaved and sank
down into the trough of a monstrous sea. I gripped my chair
convulsively and held on. I had a feeling that I was holding on to
the dream as well as the chair. I should not have been surprised had
the sea rushed in and drowned all that fairyland and had I found
myself at the wheel of the Snark just looking up casually from the
study of logarithms. But the dream persisted. I looked covertly at
the Madonna and her husband. They evidenced no perturbation. The
dishes had not moved upon the table. The hibiscus and trees and
grass were still there. Nothing had changed. I partook of more
nectar, and the dream was more real than ever.
"Will you have some iced tea?" asked the Madonna;
and then her side of the table sank down gently and I said yes to
her at an angle of forty-five degrees.
"Speaking of sharks," said her husband, "up at
Niihau there was a man--" And at that moment the table lifted and
heaved, and I gazed upward at him at an angle of forty-five degrees.
So the luncheon went on, and I was glad that I
did not have to bear the affliction of watching Charmian walk.
Suddenly, however, a mysterious word of fear broke from the lips of
the lotus-eaters. "Ah, ah," thought I, "now the dream goes
glimmering." I clutched the chair desperately, resolved to drag back
to the reality of the Snark some tangible vestige of this lotus
land. I felt the whole dream lurching and pulling to be gone. Just
then the mysterious word of fear was repeated. It sounded like
REPORTERS. I looked and saw three of them coming across the lawn.
Oh, blessed reporters! Then the dream was indisputably real after
all. I glanced out across the shining water and saw the Snark at
anchor, and I remembered that I had sailed in her from San Francisco
to Hawaii, and that this was Pearl Harbour, and that even then I was
acknowledging introductions and saying, in reply to the first
question, "Yes, we had delightful weather all the way down."
CHAPTER VI
That is what it is, a royal sport for the natural
kings of earth. The grass grows right down to the water at Waikiki
Beach, and within fifty feet of the everlasting sea. The trees also
grow down to the salty edge of things, and one sits in their shade
and looks seaward at a majestic surf thundering in on the beach to
one's very feet. Half a mile out, where is the reef, the
white-headed combers thrust suddenly skyward out of the placid
turquoise-blue and come rolling in to shore. One after another they
come, a mile long, with smoking crests, the white battalions of the
infinite army of the sea. And one sits and listens to the perpetual
roar, and watches the unending procession, and feels tiny and
fragile before this tremendous force expressing itself in fury and
foam and sound. Indeed, one feels microscopically small, and the
thought that one may wrestle with this sea raises in one's
imagination a thrill of apprehension, almost of fear. Why, they are
a mile long, these bull-mouthed monsters, and they weigh a thousand
tons, and they charge in to shore faster than a man can run. What
chance? No chance at all, is the verdict of the shrinking ego; and
one sits, and looks, and listens, and thinks the grass and the shade
are a pretty good place in which to be.
And suddenly, out there where a big smoker lifts
skyward, rising like a sea-god from out of the welter of spume and
churning white, on the giddy, toppling, overhanging and downfalling,
precarious crest appears the dark head of a man. Swiftly he rises
through the rushing white. His black shoulders, his chest, his
loins, his limbs--all is abruptly projected on one's vision. Where
but the moment before was only the wide desolation and invincible
roar, is now a man, erect, full-statured, not struggling frantically
in that wild movement, not buried and crushed and buffeted by those
mighty monsters, but standing above them all, calm and superb,
poised on the giddy summit, his feet buried in the churning foam,
the salt smoke rising to his knees, and all the rest of him in the
free air and flashing sunlight, and he is flying through the air,
flying forward, flying fast as the surge on which he stands. He is a
Mercury--a brown |
