The Cruise of the Snark.....................................................................................................................................1

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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 achievementnot 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 waterfight 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

Possibly the proudest achievement of my life, my moment of highest living, occurred when I was seventeen. I

was in a threemasted 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

southeast and southwest, 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 sailingmaster 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 twentytwo men. Once we were pooped. I saw it coming, and,

halfdrowned, 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 itnot 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

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 halfrevolution 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 midair 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 mana bit of vitalized matter, one

hundred and sixtyfive 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 backhanded 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 movefor 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, jellylike lifeit is all I am. About me are the great natural

forcescolossal 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

cloudbursts, tiderips and tidal waves, undertows and waterspouts, great whirls and sucks and eddies,

earthquakes and volcanoes, surfs that thunder on rockribbed coasts and seas that leap aboard the largest

crafts that float, crushing humans to pulp or licking them off into the sea and to deathand these insensate

monsters do not know that tiny sensitive creature, all nerves and weaknesses, whom men call Jack London,

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

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

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

sailingboat 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

As originally planned, the Snark was to be forty feet long on the waterline. But we discovered there was no

space for a bathroom, and for that reason we have increased her length to fortyfive 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 roughweather days and nights more

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 cabinboy. 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

When we increased the length of the Snark in order to get space for a bathroom, we found that all the space

was not required by the bathroom. Because of this, we increased the size of the engine. Seventy

horsepower our engine is, and since we expect it to drive us along at a nineknot clip, we do not know the

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 Yangtse River. We

shall spend months on them if we can get permission from the government. That will be the one obstacle to

our inland voyaginggovernmental permission. But if we can get that permission, there is scarcely a limit to

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 bowline out to

Notre Dame and a sternline 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

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

enginethe 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 footsore and weary from travelling in new and rocky realms

of thought.Ignition methods; shall it be makeandbreak or jumpspark? 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 candlepower. It is a splendid idea.

But electric lights will demand a more powerful storage battery, which, in turn, demands a more powerful

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

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 engineroom, galley, bathroom, staterooms, 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: Togglejoint abandoned change thrustbearing accordingly distance from

Just potter around in quest of the best steering gear, or try to decide whether you will set up your rigging with

oldfashioned 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 seadog controversy. Then there's the problem of gasolene, fifteen hundred gallons

of itwhat are the safest ways to tank it and pipe it? and which is the best fireextinguisher for a gasolene

fire? Then there is the pretty problem of the lifeboat and the stowage of the same. And when that is finished,

come the cook and cabinboy to confront one with nightmare possibilities. It is a small boat, and we'll be

packed close together. The servantgirl problem of landsmen pales to insignificance. We did select one

cabinboy, and by that much were our troubles eased. And then the cabinboy fell in love and resigned.

And in the meanwhile how is a fellow to find time to study navigationwhen 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

There is one unfortunate and perplexing phase of the voyage of the Snark. Roscoe, who is to be my

conavigator, 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

P.S.That engine! While we've got it, and the dynamo, and the storage battery, why not have an

icemachine? Ice in the tropics! It is more necessary than bread. Here goes for the icemachine! 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

"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.

For know, gentle reader, the staunchness of the Snark. She is fortyfive feet long on the waterline. Her

garboard strake is three inches thick; her planking two and onehalf 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 watertight compartments, which is to say that her length is broken by

three watertight 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

The Snark is a sailboat. She was built primarily to sail. But incidentally, as an auxiliary, a

seventyhorsepower 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 deckroom. You see, it is ridiculous to hoist

up anchor by handpower when there is a seventyhorsepower 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

The Snark was made for comfort, and no expense was spared in this regard. There is the bathroom, for

instance, small and compact, it is true, but containing all the conveniences of any bathroom upon land. The

bathroom is a beautiful dream of schemes and devices, pumps, and levers, and seavalves. Why, in the

course of its building, I used to lie awake nights thinking about that bathroom. And next to the bathroom

come the lifeboat 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 lifeboat 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 ninetyfive dollars. That shows how good a lifeboat 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

citybut 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

The eight weeks became sixteen weeks, and then, one day, Roscoe cheered us up by saying: "If we don't sail

"Never mind," Charmian and I said to each other; "think of the wonderful boat it is going to be when it is

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 capitalsBOA T; and no matter what

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

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

Then there was the matter of delay. I dealt with fortyseven 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 payday and

billcollection. 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

"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

And Charmian would press my hand enthusiastically and exclaim: "It's worth every bit of itthe delay, and

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 womenkind of my friends grew so brave that those

"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 Gatethat is

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 boatways. 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

It was a pretty tangle, a job for wreckers, not boatbuilders. There are two high tides every twentyfour

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 seventyhorsepower engine went out of commission. This engine came from New York; so

did its bedplate; there was a flaw in the bedplate; there were a lot of flaws in the bedplate; and the

seventyhorsepower 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

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 awayall 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 tobaccojuice 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

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 confusionwood and coal, water and

watertanks, vegetables, provisions, oil, the lifeboat 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

We were to sail Sunday at eleven, and Saturday afternoon had arrived. The crowd on the wharf and the

coaldust were thicker than ever. In one pocket I carried a chequebook, a fountainpen, 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

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 thirtytwo dollars; and the deed was no more than was to be expected from the possessor of

But who under the sun was Sellers? I looked in my chequebook and saw that two weeks before I had made

him out a cheque for five hundred dollars. Other chequebooks 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 chequehook 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 overwhy hadn't he given me a chance? There was no explanation; it was merely the

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

"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

seventyhorsepower 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 lifeboat leaked like a sieve; but then they weren't the

Snark; they were mere appurtenances. The things that counted were the watertight bulkheads, the solid

planking without butts, the bath room devicesthey were the Snark. And then there was, greatest of all,

We sailed out through the Golden Gate and set our course south toward that part of the Pacific where we

could hope to pick up with the northeast trades. And right away things began to happen. I had calculated

that youth was the stuff for a voyage like that of the Snark, and I had taken three youthsthe engineer, the

cook, and the cabinboy. My calculation was only twothirds 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

potatosacks, 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 boatshe 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 engineroom, 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

Then those magnificent watertight compartments that cost so much time and moneywell, they weren't

watertight 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 halfdozen

tanks there stored have sprung a leak. The tanks leak, and they are not hermetically sealed in their

compartment. Then there was the bathroom with its pumps and levers and seavalvesit 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 ironwork on the Snark, no matter what its source, proved to be mush. For instance, the bedplate 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

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 bowon 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

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 flyingjib

and the jib were taken in, and a reef put in the forestaysail. The mizzen was also taken in. About this time

the flying jibboom 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

mainsheet. The Snark rolled on in the trough, now putting her rail under on one side and now under on the

Again the inconceivable and monstrous was showing its grizzly head. It was grotesque, impossible. I refused

to believe it. Under doublereefed mainsail and singlereefed 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

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 seaanchor. 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 seaanchor. Well, we made a

line fast to the seaanchor and to the bow of the Snark, and then dropped the seaanchor overboard. It

promptly dived. We had a tripping line on it, so we tripped the seaanchor and hauled it in. We attached a big

timber as a float, and dropped the seaanchor 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 seaanchor 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 seaanchor behind her. Don't

Now I leave it to you. Who ever heard of a sailingboat that wouldn't heave to?that wouldn't heave to with

a seaanchor 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 monstrousthe 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 rainsqualls; 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 seaanchor and the mizzen, hoisted the reefed

staysail, ran the Snark off before it, and went belownot to the hot meal that should have awaited us, but to

skate across the slush and slime on the cabin floor, where cook and cabinboy 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 bilgewater

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 seaanchor 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 sixknot clip, in the northeast trades.

Quite a tidy bit of sea is running. There is nobody at the wheel, the wheel is not even lashed and is set over a

halfspoke weather helm. To be precise, the wind is northeast; the Snark's mizzen is furled, her mainsail is

over to starboard, her headsheets are hauled flat: and the Snark's course is southsouthwest. 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

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 quitand 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

P.S. On my return to California after the voyage, I learned that the Snark was fortythree feet on the

waterline instead of forty five. This was due to the fact that the builder was not on speaking terms with the

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 wellto 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

Every mail to me was burdened with the letters of applicants who were suffocating in the "manstifled

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 deadnot while one receives

"There is no doubt that when you read this soulplea 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

The possession of a "passionate fondness for geography," was the way one applicant expressed the

wanderlust 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

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

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 ninetynine 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

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 dishrag." 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 sailboat, I could get her anywhere I wanted to

go," was the qualification of a thirdand a better qualification than the one that follows, "I have also

watched the fishboats 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 twentytwo."

Then there were the simple straightout, 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 homelylooking 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 thirteenyearold applicant that Charmian and I fell in love

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

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 followingobserve 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

Come to think of it, for the average man it must be fairly difficult to write an honest letter of

selfrecommendation. 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

"But suppose this: your cabinboy 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, selftaught 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,

"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

"I have seen better days than what I am passing through today," wrote an old salt, "but I have seen them a

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

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

Then there was the young fellow of twentysix, 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 fiftyfivethousandacre 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

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 cabinboy

on your trip around the world, or any other job on board. Am nineteen years old, weigh one hundred and forty

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 cabinboy 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

wellwisher, "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

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

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 sixtyfoot 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 landlubber, 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 seaand 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

And here writes the one woman in all the worldoutside 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

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.

"But," our friends objected, "how dare you go to sea without a navigator on board? You're not a navigator,

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, twentyone hundred seamiles 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 twentyfour consecutive hours, it is incontestable that she has covered one

hundred and fortyfour 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 selfimportance 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

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

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 threequarter 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 milestones. So,

with the sextant he made obeisance to the sungod, he consulted ancient tomes and tables of magic

INDEXERRORPARALLAXREFRACTION, made cabalistic signs on paper, added and carried one, and

then, on a piece of holy script called the GrailI mean the Charthe 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 ciphercode of the higher priesthood, "311547 north, 133530 west."

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 likewisebe

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 wheelthe sextant, I

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 lightningcalculator 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 chestthrowing that I answered in the ciphercode 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

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 menmost 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 halfpast 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

prayerwheel 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 cabinboy, 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 heavendirected, and

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 selfesteem. And I want to say this now: any young fellow with ordinary gray matter,

ordinary education, and with the slightest trace of the studentmind, 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 fifteenthousandton 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 sailboat 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 sevenfoot 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 manoh, 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 startingpoint, 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 seacaptain to guide my steps across the

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 tradewind clouds drift low over the bluegreen turquoise of the deep sea. Nearer,

the sea is emerald and light olivegreen. 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 manfish or a seagod, 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 surfboard. 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 seagod Kanaka becomes another reason for the young man to go west, and farther west, beyond

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 dangerangle 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

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 twentyfour 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

Thursday 20 degrees 57 minutes 9 seconds N 152 degrees 40 minutes 30 seconds W Friday 21 degrees 15

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 eightyeight and eightynine 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 southeast and strayed away to the southwest. You

see, we were teaching ourselves. As a result, at twentyfive 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 twentyfour consecutive hoursand

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 twentyknot 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 skyline,

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 rightwe 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 dogwatch

one evening, Charmian and I sat down on the forecastlehead for a rubber of cribbage. Chancing to glance

ahead, I saw cloudcapped 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 sevenknot 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 tomorrow. Our navigation is all right."

"It will not be so monotonous at sea," I promised my fellowvoyagers 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

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

"Never mind," I said. "Wait till we get off the coast of Southern California. Then we'll pick up the flying

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

"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 southwest for Hawaii, I still held her south. I was going to find those

flying fish. Finally the time came when, if I wanted to go to Honolulu, I should have headed the Snark due

west, instead of which I kept her south. 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 lifethere 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

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

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.

Twentyseven 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 dwellinghouses high up on the volcanic

slopes of the Punch Bowl and Tantalus. The customhouse 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

It was the Snark's first landfalland 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 sugarcane undulated gently upward to steeper slopes, which, in turn, became

jagged volcanic crests, drenched with tropic showers and capped by stupendous masses of tradewind 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 biscuittoss away, the reef showed its

Abruptly the land itself, in a riot of olivegreens 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 darkskinned tropic children. The sea

had disappeared. The Snark's anchor rumbled the chain through the hawsepipe, 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

coaldust, 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 dollarheaps. No, they merely verified the dream. They

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 twentyseven days we had been rocking

across the ocean on the tiny Snark. Not once in all those twentyseven 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

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, firmfounded 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 fragranceswafture 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 mefor 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

Next we came to a house of coolness, with great sweeping veranda, where lotuseaters 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 tapacloths. Couches with grasswoven covers invited everywhere, and there was a

grand piano, that played, I was sure, nothing more exciting than lullabies. Servants Japanese maids in

native costumedrifted 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

We sat at table on the lotuseating 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

lotuseaters, the scarlet hibiscus, the greensward and the treesall 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

"Will you have some iced tea?" asked the Madonna; and then her side of the table sank down gently and I

"Speaking of sharks," said her husband, "up at Niihau there was a man" And at that moment the table lifted

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 lotuseaters. "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."

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 whiteheaded combers thrust suddenly skyward out of the

placid turquoiseblue 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

bullmouthed 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 suddenly, out there where a big smoker lifts skyward, rising like a seagod 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

limbsall 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, fullstatured, 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 Mercurya brown Mercury. His heels are winged, and in them is

the swiftness of the sea. In truth, from out of the sea he has leaped upon the back of the sea, and he is riding

the sea that roars and bellows and cannot shake him from its back. But no frantic outreaching and balancing

is his. He is impassive, motionless as a statue carved suddenly by some miracle out of the sea's depth from

which he rose. And straight on toward shore he flies on his winged heels and the white crest of the breaker.

There is a wild burst of foam, a long tumultuous rushing sound as the breaker falls futile and spent on the

beach at your feet; and there, at your feet steps calmly ashore a Kanaka, burnt, golden and brown by the

tropic sun. Several minutes ago he was a speck a quarter of a mile away. He has "bitted the bullmouthed

breaker" and ridden it in, and the pride in the feat shows in the carriage of his magnificent body as he glances

for a moment carelessly at you who sit in the shade of the shore. He is a Kanakaand more, he is a man, a

member of the kingly species that has mastered matter and the brutes and lorded it over creation.

And one sits and thinks of Tristram's last wrestle with the sea on that fatal morning; and one thinks further, to

the fact that that Kanaka has done what Tristram never did, and that he knows a joy of the sea that Tristram

never knew. And still further one thinks. It is all very well, sitting here in cool shade of the beach, but you are

a man, one of the kingly species, and what that Kanaka can do, you can do yourself. Go to. Strip off your

clothes that are a nuisance in this mellow clime. Get in and wrestle with the sea; wing your heels with the

skill and power that reside in you; bit the sea's breakers, master them, and ride upon their backs as a king

And that is how it came about that I tackled surfriding. And now that I have tackled it, more than ever do I

hold it to be a royal sport. But first let me explain the physics of it. A wave is a communicated agitation. The

water that composes the body of a wave does not move. If it did, when a stone is thrown into a pond and the

ripples spread away in an ever widening circle, there would appear at the centre an ever increasing hole. No,

the water that composes the body of a wave is stationary. Thus, you may watch a particular portion of the

ocean's surface and you will see the sane water rise and fall a thousand times to the agitation communicated

by a thousand successive waves. Now imagine this communicated agitation moving shoreward. As the

bottom shoals, the lower portion of the wave strikes land first and is stopped. But water is fluid, and the upper

portion has not struck anything, wherefore it keeps on communicating its agitation, keeps on going. And

when the top of the wave keeps on going, while the bottom of it lags behind, something is bound to happen.

The bottom of the wave drops out from under and the top of the wave falls over, forward, and down, curling

and cresting and roaring as it does so. It is the bottom of a wave striking against the top of the land that is the

But the transformation from a smooth undulation to a breaker is not abrupt except where the bottom shoals

abruptly. Say the bottom shoals gradually for from quarter of a mile to a mile, then an equal distance will be

occupied by the transformation. Such a bottom is that off the beach of Waikiki, and it produces a splendid

surf riding surf. One leaps upon the back of a breaker just as it begins to break, and stays on it as it

And now to the particular physics of surfriding. Get out on a flat board, six feet long, two feet wide, and

roughly oval in shape. Lie down upon it like a small boy on a coaster and paddle with your hands out to deep

water, where the waves begin to crest. Lie out there quietly on the board. Sea after sea breaks before, behind,

and under and over you, and rushes in to shore, leaving you behind. When a wave crests, it gets steeper.

Imagine yourself, on your hoard, on the face of that steep slope. If it stood still, you would slide down just as

a boy slides down a hill on his coaster. "But," you object, "the wave doesn't stand still." Very true, but the

water composing the wave stands still, and there you have the secret. If ever you start sliding down the face

of that wave, you'll keep on sliding and you'll never reach the bottom. Please don't laugh. The face of that

wave may be only six feet, yet you can slide down it a quarter of a mile, or half a mile, and not reach the

bottom. For, see, since a wave is only a communicated agitation or impetus, and since the water that

composes a wave is changing every instant, new water is rising into the wave as fast as the wave travels. You

slide down this new water, and yet remain in your old position on the wave, sliding down the still newer

water that is rising and forming the wave. You slide precisely as fast as the wave travels. If it travels fifteen

miles an hour, you slide fifteen miles an hour. Between you and shore stretches a quarter of mile of water. As

the wave travels, this water obligingly heaps itself into the wave, gravity does the rest, and down you go,

sliding the whole length of it. If you still cherish the notion, while sliding, that the water is moving with you,

thrust your arms into it and attempt to paddle; you will find that you have to be remarkably quick to get a

stroke, for that water is dropping astern just as fast as you are rushing ahead.

And now for another phase of the physics of surfriding. All rules have their exceptions. It is true that the

water in a wave does not travel forward. But there is what may be called the send of the sea. The water in the

overtoppling crest does move forward, as you will speedily realize if you are slapped in the face by it, or if

you are caught under it and are pounded by one mighty blow down under the surface panting and gasping for

half a minute. The water in the top of a wave rests upon the water in the bottom of the wave. But when the

bottom of the wave strikes the land, it stops, while the top goes on. It no longer has the bottom of the wave to

hold it up. Where was solid water beneath it, is now air, and for the first time it feels the grip of gravity, and

down it falls, at the same time being torn asunder from the lagging bottom of the wave and flung forward.

And it is because of this that riding a surfboard is something more than a mere placid sliding down a hill. In

I deserted the cool shade, put on a swimming suit, and got hold of a surfboard. It was too small a board. But

I didn't know, and nobody told me. I joined some little Kanaka boys in shallow water, where the breakers

were well spent and smalla regular kindergarten school. I watched the little Kanaka boys. When a

likelylooking breaker came along, they flopped upon their stomachs on their boards, kicked like mad with

their feet, and rode the breaker in to the beach. I tried to emulate them. I watched them, tried to do everything

that they did, and failed utterly. The breaker swept past, and I was not on it. I tried again and again. I kicked

twice as madly as they did, and failed. Half a dozen would be around. We would all leap on our boards in

front of a good breaker. Away our feet would churn like the sternwheels of river steamboats, and away the

I tried for a solid hour, and not one wave could I persuade to boost me shoreward. And then arrived a friend,

Alexander Hume Ford, a globe trotter by profession, bent ever on the pursuit of sensation. And he had found

it at Waikiki. Heading for Australia, he had stopped off for a week to find out if there were any thrills in

surfriding, and he had become wedded to it. He had been at it every day for a month and could not yet see

"Get off that board," he said. "Chuck it away at once. Look at the way you're trying to ride it. If ever the nose

of that board hits bottom, you'll be disembowelled. Here, take my board. It's a man's size."

I am always humble when confronted by knowledge. Ford knew. He showed me how properly to mount his

board. Then he waited for a good breaker, gave me a shove at the right moment, and started me in. Ah,

On I dashed, a hundred and fifty feet, and subsided with the breaker on the sand. From that moment I was

lost. I waded back to Ford with his board. It was a large one, several inches thick, and weighed all of

seventyfive pounds. He gave me advice, much of it. He had had no one to teach him, and all that he had

laboriously learned in several weeks he communicated to me in half an hour. I really learned by proxy. And

inside of half an hour I was able to start myself and ride in. I did it time after time, and Ford applauded and

advised. For instance, he told me to get just so far forward on the board and no farther. But I must have got

some farther, for as I came charging in to land, that miserable board poked its nose down to bottom, stopped

abruptly, and turned a somersault, at the same time violently severing our relations. I was tossed through the

air like a chip and buried ignominiously under the downfalling breaker. And I realized that if it hadn't been

for Ford, I'd have been disembowelled. That particular risk is part of the sport, Ford says. Maybe he'll have it

happen to him before he leaves Waikiki, and then, I feel confident, his yearning for sensation will be satisfied

When all is said and done, it is my steadfast belief that homicide is worse than suicide, especially if, in the

former case, it is a woman. Ford saved me from being a homicide. "Imagine your legs are a rudder," he said.

"Hold them close together, and steer with them." A few minutes later I came charging in on a comber. As I

neared the beach, there, in the water, up to her waist, dead in front of me, appeared a woman. How was I to

stop that comber on whose back I was? It looked like a dead woman. The board weighed seventyfive

pounds, I weighed a hundred and sixtyfive. The added weight had a velocity of fifteen miles per hour. The

board and I constituted a projectile. I leave it to the physicists to figure out the force of the impact upon that

poor, tender woman. And then I remembered my guardian angel, Ford. "Steer with your legs!" rang through

my brain. I steered with my legs, I steered sharply, abruptly, with all my legs and with all my might. The

board sheered around broadside on the crest. Many things happened simultaneously. The wave gave me a

passing buffet, a light tap as the taps of waves go, but a tap sufficient to knock me off the board and smash

me down through the rushing water to bottom, with which I came in violent collision and upon which I was

rolled over and over. I got my head out for a breath of air and then gained my feet. There stood the woman

before me. I felt like a hero. I had saved her life. And she laughed at me. It was not hysteria. She had never

dreamed of her danger. Anyway, I solaced myself, it was not I but Ford that saved her, and I didn't have to

feel like a hero. And besides, that legsteering was great. In a few minutes more of practice I was able to

thread my way in and out past several bathers and to remain on top my breaker instead of going under it.

I looked seaward where he pointed, and saw the great smoking combers that made the breakers I had been

riding look like ripples. I don't know what I might have said had I not recollected just then that I was one of a

kingly species. So all that I did say was, "All right, I'll tackle them tomorrow."

The water that rolls in on Waikiki Beach is just the same as the water that laves the shores of all the Hawaiian

Islands; and in ways, especially from the swimmer's standpoint, it is wonderful water. It is cool enough to be

comfortable, while it is warm enough to permit a swimmer to stay in all day without experiencing a chill.

Under the sun or the stars, at high noon or at midnight, in midwinter or in midsummer, it does not matter

when, it is always the same temperaturenot too warm, not too cold, just right. It is wonderful water, salt as

old ocean itself, pure and crystalclear. When the nature of the water is considered, it is not so remarkable

So it was, next morning, when Ford came along, that I plunged into the wonderful water for a swim of

indeterminate length. Astride of our surfboards, or, rather, flat down upon them on our stomachs, we

paddled out through the kindergarten where the little Kanaka boys were at play. Soon we were out in deep

water where the big smokers came roaring in. The mere struggle with them, facing them and paddling

seaward over them and through them, was sport enough in itself. One had to have his wits about him, for it

was a battle in which mighty blows were struck, on one side, and in which cunning was used on the other

sidea struggle between insensate force and intelligence. I soon learned a bit. When a breaker curled over

my head, for a swift instant I could see the light of day through its emerald body; then down would go my

head, and I would clutch the board with all my strength. Then would come the blow, and to the onlooker on

shore I would be blotted out. In reality the board and I have passed through the crest and emerged in the

respite of the other side. I should not recommend those smashing blows to an invalid or delicate person.

There is weight behind them, and the impact of the driven water is like a sandblast. Sometimes one passes

through half a dozen combers in quick succession, and it is just about that time that he is liable to discover

Out there in the midst of such a succession of big smoky ones, a third man was added to our party, one

Freeth. Shaking the water from my eyes as I emerged from one wave and peered ahead to see what the next

one looked like, I saw him tearing in on the back of it, standing upright on his board, carelessly poised, a

young god bronzed with sunburn. We went through the wave on the back of which he rode. Ford called to

him. He turned an airspring from his wave, rescued his board from its maw, paddled over to us and joined

Ford in showing me things. One thing in particular I learned from Freeth, namely, how to encounter the

occasional breaker of exceptional size that rolled in. Such breakers were really ferocious, and it was unsafe to

meet them on top of the board. But Freeth showed me, so that whenever I saw one of that calibre rolling

down on me, I slid off the rear end of the board and dropped down beneath the surface, my arms over my

head and holding the board. Thus, if the wave ripped the board out of my hands and tried to strike me with it

(a common trick of such waves), there would be a cushion of water a foot or more in depth, between my head

and the blow. When the wave passed, I climbed upon the board and paddled on. Many men have been terribly

The whole method of surfriding and surffighting, learned, is one of nonresistance. Dodge the blow that is

struck at you. Dive through the wave that is trying to slap you in the face. Sink down, feet first, deep under

the surface, and let the big smoker that is trying to smash you go by far overhead. Never be rigid. Relax.

Yield yourself to the waters that are ripping and tearing at you. When the undertow catches you and drags

you seaward along the bottom, don't struggle against it. If you do, you are liable to be drowned, for it is

stronger than you. Yield yourself to that undertow. Swim with it, not against it, and you will find the pressure

removed. And, swimming with it, fooling it so that it does not hold you, swim upward at the same time. It

The man who wants to learn surfriding must be a strong swimmer, and he must be used to going under the

water. After that, fair strength and commonsense are all that is required. The force of the big comber is

rather unexpected. There are mixups in which board and rider are torn apart and separated by several

hundred feet. The surfrider must take care of himself. No matter how many riders swim out with him, he

cannot depend upon any of them for aid. The fancied security I had in the presence of Ford and Freeth made

me forget that it was my first swim out in deep water among the big ones. I recollected, however, and rather

suddenly, for a big wave came in, and away went the two men on its back all the way to shore. I could have

One slides down the face of a breaker on his surfboard, but he has to get started to sliding. Board and rider

must be moving shoreward at a good rate before the wave overtakes them. When you see the wave coming

that you want to ride in, you turn tail to it and paddle shoreward with all your strength, using what is called

the windmill stroke. This is a sort of spurt performed immediately in front of the wave. If the board is going

fast enough, the wave accelerates it, and the board begins its quarterofamile slide.

I shall never forget the first big wave I caught out there in the deep water. I saw it coming, turned my back on

it and paddled for dear life. Faster and faster my board went, till it seemed my arms would drop off. What

was happening behind me I could not tell. One cannot look behind and paddle the windmill stroke. I heard the

crest of the wave hissing and churning, and then my board was lifted and flung forward. I scarcely knew what

happened the first half minute. Though I kept my eyes open, I could not see anything, for I was buried in the

rushing white of the crest. But I did not mind. I was chiefly conscious of ecstatic bliss at having caught the

wave. At the end, of the halfminute, however, I began to see things, and to breathe. I saw that three feet of

the nose of my board was clear out of water and riding on the air. I shifted my weight forward, and made the

nose come down. Then I lay, quite at rest in the midst of the wild movement, and watched the shore and the

bathers on the beach grow distinct. I didn't cover quite a quarter of a mile on that wave, because, to prevent

the board from diving, I shifted my weight back, but shifted it too far and fell down the rear slope of the

It was my second day at surfriding, and I was quite proud of myself. I stayed out there four hours, and when

it was over, I was resolved that on the morrow I'd come in standing up. But that resolution paved a distant

place. On the morrow I was in bed. I was not sick, but I was very unhappy, and I was in bed. When

describing the wonderful water of Hawaii I forgot to describe the wonderful sun of Hawaii. It is a tropic sun,

and, furthermore, in the first part of June, it is an overhead sun. It is also an insidious, deceitful sun. For the

first time in my life I was sunburned unawares. My arms, shoulders, and back had been burned many times in

the past and were tough; but not so my legs. And for four hours I had exposed the tender backs of my legs, at

right angles, to that perpendicular Hawaiian sun. It was not until after I got ashore that I discovered the sun

had touched me. Sunburn at first is merely warm; after that it grows intense and the blisters come out. Also,

the joints, where the skin wrinkles, refuse to bend. That is why I spent the next day in bed. I couldn't walk.

And that is why, today, I am writing this in bed. It is easier to than not to. But tomorrow, ah, tomorrow, I

shall be out in that wonderful water, and I shall come in standing up, even as Ford and Freeth. And if I fail

tomorrow, I shall do it the next day, or the next. Upon one thing I am resolved: the Snark shall not sail from

Honolulu until I, too, wing my heels with the swiftness of the sea, and become a sunburned, skinpeeling

When the Snark sailed along the windward coast of Molokai, on her way to Honolulu, I looked at the chart,

then pointed to a lowlying peninsula backed by a tremendous cliff varying from two to four thousand feet in

height, and said: "The pit of hell, the most cursed place on earth." I should have been shocked, if, at that

moment, I could have caught a vision of myself a month later, ashore in the most cursed place on earth and

having a disgracefully good time along with eight hundred of the lepers who were likewise having a good

time. Their good time was not disgraceful; but mine was, for in the midst of so much misery it was not meet

for me to have a good time. That is the way I felt about it, and my only excuse is that I couldn't help having a

For instance, in the afternoon of the Fourth of July all the lepers gathered at the racetrack for the sports. I

had wandered away from the Superintendent and the physicians in order to get a snapshot of the finish of one

of the races. It was an interesting race, and partisanship ran high. Three horses were entered, one ridden by a

Chinese, one by an Hawaiian, and one by a Portuguese boy. All three riders were lepers; so were the judges

and the crowd. The race was twice around the track. The Chinese and the Hawaiian got away together and

rode neck and neck, the Portuguese boy toiling along two hundred feet behind. Around they went in the same

positions. Halfway around on the second and final lap the Chinese pulled away and got one length ahead of

the Hawaiian. At the same time the Portuguese boy was beginning to crawl up. But it looked hopeless. The

crowd went wild. All the lepers were passionate lovers of horseflesh. The Portuguese boy crawled nearer and

nearer. I went wild, too. They were on the home stretch. The Portuguese boy passed the Hawaiian. There was

a thunder of hoofs, a rush of the three horses bunched together, the jockeys plying their whips, and every last

onlooker bursting his throat, or hers, with shouts and yells. Nearer, nearer, inch by inch, the Portuguese boy

crept up, and passed, yes, passed, winning by a head from the Chinese. I came to myself in a group of lepers.

They were yelling, tossing their hats, and dancing around like fiends. So was I. When I came to I was waving

I tried to check myself. I assured myself that I was witnessing one of the horrors of Molokai, and that it was

shameful for me, under such circumstances, to be so lighthearted and lightheaded. But it was no use. The

next event was a donkeyrace, and it was just starting; so was the fun. The last donkey in was to win the race,

and what complicated the affair was that no rider rode his own donkey. They rode one another's donkeys, the

result of which was that each man strove to make the donkey he rode beat his own donkey ridden by some

one else, Naturally, only men possessing very slow or extremely obstreperous donkeys had entered them for

the race. One donkey had been trained to tuck in its legs and lie down whenever its rider touched its sides

with his heels. Some donkeys strove to turn around and come back; others developed a penchant for the side

of the track, where they stuck their heads over the railing and stopped; while all of them dawdled. Halfway

around the track one donkey got into an argument with its rider. When all the rest of the donkeys had crossed

the wire, that particular donkey was still arguing. He won the race, though his rider lost it and came in on

foot. And all the while nearly a thousand lepers were laughing uproariously at the fun. Anybody in my place

All the foregoing is by way of preamble to the statement that the horrors of Molokai, as they have been

painted in the past, do not exist. The Settlement has been written up repeatedly by sensationalists, and usually

by sensationalists who have never laid eyes on it. Of course, leprosy is leprosy, and it is a terrible thing; but

so much that is lurid has been written about Molokai that neither the lepers, nor those who devote their lives

to them, have received a fair deal. Here is a case in point. A newspaper writer, who, of course, had never been

near the Settlement, vividly described Superintendent McVeigh, crouching in a grass hut and being besieged

nightly by starving lepers on their knees, wailing for food. This hairraising account was copied by the press

all over the United States and was the cause of many indignant and protesting editorials. Well, I lived and

slept for five days in Mr. McVeigh's "grass hut" (which was a comfortable wooden cottage, by the way; and

there isn't a grass house in the whole Settlement), and I heard the lepers wailing for foodonly the wailing

was peculiarly harmonious and rhythmic, and it was accompanied by the music of stringed instruments,

violins, guitars, ukuleles, and banjos. Also, the wailing was of various sorts. The leper brass band wailed, and

two singing societies wailed, and lastly a quintet of excellent voices wailed. So much for a lie that should

never have been printed. The wailing was the serenade which the glee clubs always give Mr. McVeigh when

Leprosy is not so contagious as is imagined. I went for a week's visit to the Settlement, and I took my wife

alongall of which would not have happened had we had any apprehension of contracting the disease. Nor

did we wear long, gauntleted gloves and keep apart from the lepers. On the contrary, we mingled freely with

them, and before we left, knew scores of them by sight and name. The precautions of simple cleanliness seem

to be all that is necessary. On returning to their own houses, after having been among and handling lepers, the

nonlepers, such as the physicians and the superintendent, merely wash their faces and hands with mildly

That a leper is unclean, however, should be insisted upon; and the segregation of lepers, from what little is

known of the disease, should be rigidly maintained. On the other hand, the awful horror with which the leper

has been regarded in the past, and the frightful treatment he has received, have been unnecessary and cruel. In

order to dispel some of the popular misapprehensions of leprosy, I want to tell something of the relations

between the lepers and nonlepers as I observed them at Molokai. On the morning after our arrival Charmian

and I attended a shoot of the Kalaupapa Rifle Club, and caught our first glimpse of the democracy of

affliction and alleviation that obtains. The club was just beginning a prize shoot for a cup put up by Mr.

McVeigh, who is also a member of the club, as also are Dr. Goodhue and Dr. Hollmann, the resident

physicians (who, by the way, live in the Settlement with their wives). All about us, in the shooting booth,

were the lepers. Lepers and nonlepers were using the same guns, and all were rubbing shoulders in the

confined space. The majority of the lepers were Hawaiians. Sitting beside me on a bench was a Norwegian.

Directly in front of me, in the stand, was an American, a veteran of the Civil War, who had fought on the

Confederate side. He was sixty five years of age, but that did not prevent him from running up a good score.

Strapping Hawaiian policemen, lepers, khakiclad, were also shooting, as were Portuguese, Chinese, and

kokuasthe latter are native helpers in the Settlement who are nonlepers. And on the afternoon that

Charmian and I climbed the twothousandfoot pali and looked our last upon the Settlement, the

superintendent, the doctors, and the mixture of nationalities and of diseased and non diseased were all

Not so was the leper and his greatly misunderstood and feared disease treated during the middle ages in

Europe. At that time the leper was considered legally and politically dead. He was placed in a funeral

procession and led to the church, where the burial service was read over him by the officiating clergyman.

Then a spadeful of earth was dropped upon his chest and he was deadliving dead. While this rigorous

treatment was largely unnecessary, nevertheless, one thing was learned by it. Leprosy was unknown in

Europe until it was introduced by the returning Crusaders, whereupon it spread slowly until it had seized

upon large numbers of the people. Obviously, it was a disease that could be contracted by contact. It was a

contagion, and it was equally obvious that it could be eradicated by segregation. Terrible and monstrous as

was the treatment of the leper in those days, the great lesson of segregation was learned. By its means leprosy

And by the same means leprosy is even now decreasing in the Hawaiian Islands. But the segregation of the

lepers on Molokai is not the horrible nightmare that has been so often exploited by YELLOW writers. In the

first place, the leper is not torn ruthlessly from his family. When a suspect is discovered, he is invited by the

Board of Health to come to the Kalihi receiving station at Honolulu. His fare and all expenses are paid for

him. He is first passed upon by microscopical examination by the bacteriologist of the Board of Health. If the

bacillus leprae is found, the patient is examined by the Board of Examining Physicians, five in number. If

found by them to be a leper, he is so declared, which finding is later officially confirmed by the Board of

Health, and the leper is ordered straight to Molokai. Furthermore, during the thorough trial that is given his

case, the patient has the right to be represented by a physician whom he can select and employ for himself.

Nor, after having been declared a leper, is the patient immediately rushed off to Molokai. He is given ample

time, weeks, and even months, sometimes, during which he stays at Kalihi and winds up or arranges all his

business affairs. At Molokai, in turn, he may be visited by his relatives, business agents, etc., though they are

not permitted to eat and sleep in his house. Visitors' houses, kept "clean," are maintained for this purpose.

I saw an illustration of the thorough trial given the suspect, when I visited Kalihi with Mr. Pinkham, president

of the Board of Health. The suspect was an Hawaiian, seventy years of age, who for thirty four years had

worked in Honolulu as a pressman in a printing office. The bacteriologist had decided that he was a leper, the

Examining Board had been unable to make up its mind, and that day all had come out to Kalihi to make

When at Molokai, the declared leper has the privilege of re examination, and patients are continually

coming back to Honolulu for that purpose. The steamer that took me to Molokai had on board two returning

lepers, both young women, one of whom had come to Honolulu to settle up some property she owned, and

the other had come to Honolulu to see her sick mother. Both had remained at Kalihi for a month.

The Settlement of Molokai enjoys a far more delightful climate than even Honolulu, being situated on the

windward side of the island in the path of the fresh northeast trades. The scenery is magnificent; on one side

is the blue sea, on the other the wonderful wall of the pali, receding here and there into beautiful mountain

valleys. Everywhere are grassy pastures over which roam the hundreds of horses which are owned by the

lepers. Some of them have their own carts, rigs, and traps. In the little harbour of Kalaupapa lie fishing boats

and a steam launch, all of which are privately owned and operated by lepers. Their bounds upon the sea are,

of course, determined: otherwise no restriction is put upon their seafaring. Their fish they sell to the Board

of Health, and the money they receive is their own. While I was there, one night's catch was four thousand

And as these men fish, others farm. All trades are followed. One leper, a pure Hawaiian, is the boss painter.

He employs eight men, and takes contracts for painting buildings from the Board of Health. He is a member

of the Kalaupapa Rifle Club, where I met him, and I must confess that he was far better dressed than I.

Another man, similarly situated, is the boss carpenter. Then, in addition to the Board of Health store, there are

little privately owned stores, where those with shopkeeper's souls may exercise their peculiar instincts. The

Assistant Superintendent, Mr. Waiamau, a finely educated and able man, is a pure Hawaiian and a leper. Mr.

Bartlett, who is the present storekeeper, is an American who was in business in Honolulu before he was

struck down by the disease. All that these men earn is that much in their own pockets. If they do not work,

they are taken care of anyway by the territory, given food, shelter, clothes, and medical attendance. The

Board of Health carries on agriculture, stockraising, and dairying, for local use, and employment at fair

wages is furnished to all that wish to work. They are not compelled to work, however, for they are the wards

of the territory. For the young, and the very old, and the helpless there are homes and hospitals.

Major Lee, an American and long a marine engineer for the Inter Island Steamship Company, I met actively

at work in the new steam laundry, where he was busy installing the machinery. I met him often, afterwards,

"Give us a good breeze about how we live here. For heaven's sake write us up straight. Put your foot down on

this chamberofhorrors rot and all the rest of it. We don't like being misrepresented. We've got some

Man after man that I met in the Settlement, and woman after woman, in one way or another expressed the

same sentiment. It was patent that they resented bitterly the sensational and untruthful way in which they

In spite of the fact that they are afflicted by disease, the lepers form a happy colony, divided into two villages

and numerous country and seaside homes, of nearly a thousand souls. They have six churches, a Young

Men's Christian Association building, several assembly halls, a band stand, a racetrack, baseball grounds,

"They are so contented down there," Mr. Pinkham told me, "that you can't drive them away with a shotgun."

This I later verified for myself. In January of this year, eleven of the lepers, on whom the disease, after

having committed certain ravages, showed no further signs of activity, were brought back to Honolulu for

reexamination. They were loath to come; and, on being asked whether or not they wanted to go free if found

In the old days, before the discovery of the leprosy bacillus, a small number of men and women, suffering

from various and wholly different diseases, were adjudged lepers and sent to Molokai. Years afterward they

suffered great consternation when the bacteriologists declared that they were not afflicted with leprosy and

never had been. They fought against being sent away from Molokai, and in one way or another, as helpers

and nurses, they got jobs from the Board of Health and remained. The present jailer is one of these men.

Declared to be a nonleper, he accepted, on salary, the charge of the jail, in order to escape being sent away.

At the present moment, in Honolulu, there is a bootblack. He is an American negro. Mr. McVeigh told me

about him. Long ago, before the bacteriological tests, he was sent to Molokai as a leper. As a ward of the

state he developed a superlative degree of independence and fomented much petty mischief. And then, one

day, after having been for years a perennial source of minor annoyances, the bacteriological test was applied,

"Ah, ha!" chortled Mr. McVeigh. "Now I've got you! Out you go on the next steamer and good riddance!"

But the negro didn't want to go. Immediately he married an old woman, in the last stages of leprosy, and

began petitioning the Board of Health for permission to remain and nurse his sick wife. There was no one, he

said pathetically, who could take care of his poor wife as well as he could. But they saw through his game,

and he was deported on the steamer and given the freedom of the world. But he preferred Molokai. Landing

on the leeward side of Molokai, he sneaked down the pali one night and took up his abode in the Settlement.

He was apprehended, tried and convicted of trespass, sentenced to pay a small fine, and again deported on the

steamer with the warning that if he trespassed again, he would be fined one hundred dollars and be sent to

prison in Honolulu. And now, when Mr. McVeigh comes up to Honolulu, the bootblack shines his shoes for

"Say, Boss, I lost a good home down there. Yes, sir, I lost a good home." Then his voice sinks to a

confidential whisper as he says, "Say, Boss, can't I go back? Can't you fix it for me so as I can go back?"

He had lived nine years on Molokai, and he had had a better time there than he has ever had, before and after,

As regards the fear of leprosy itself, nowhere in the Settlement among lepers, or nonlepers, did I see any

sign of it. The chief horror of leprosy obtains in the minds of those who have never seen a leper and who do

not know anything about the disease. At the hotel at Waikiki a lady expressed shuddering amazement at my

having the hardihood to pay a visit to the Settlement. On talking with her I learned that she had been born in

Honolulu, had lived there all her life, and had never laid eyes on a leper. That was more than I could say of

myself in the United States, where the segregation of lepers is loosely enforced and where I have repeatedly

Leprosy is terrible, there is no getting away from that; but from what little I know of the disease and its

degree of contagiousness, I would by far prefer to spend the rest of my days in Molokai than in any

tuberculosis sanatorium. In every city and county hospital for poor people in the United States, or in similar

institutions in other countries, sights as terrible as those in Molokai can be witnessed, and the sum total of

these sights is vastly more terrible. For that matter, if it were given me to choose between being compelled to

live in Molokai for the rest of my life, or in the East End of London, the East Side of New York, or the

Stockyards of Chicago, I would select Molokai without debate. I would prefer one year of life in Molokai to

five years of life in the above mentioned cesspools of human degradation and misery.

In Molokai the people are happy. I shall never forget the celebration of the Fourth of July I witnessed there.

At six o'clock in the morning the "horribles" were out, dressed fantastically, astride horses, mules, and

donkeys (their own property), and cutting capers all over the Settlement. Two brass bands were out as well.

Then there were the pau riders, thirty or forty of them, Hawaiian women all, superb horsewomen dressed

gorgeously in the old, native riding costume, and dashing about in twos and threes and groups. In the

afternoon Charmian and I stood in the judge's stand and awarded the prizes for horsemanship and costume to

the pau riders. All about were the hundreds of lepers, with wreaths of flowers on heads and necks and

shoulders, looking on and making merry. And always, over the brows of hills and across the grassy level

stretches, appearing and disappearing, were the groups of men and women, gaily dressed, on galloping

horses, horses and riders flowerbedecked and flowergarlanded, singing, and laughing, and riding like the

wind. And as I stood in the judge's stand and looked at all this, there came to my recollection the lazar house

of Havana, where I had once beheld some two hundred lepers, prisoners inside four restricted walls until they

died. No, there are a few thousand places I wot of in this world over which I would select Molokai as a place

of permanent residence. In the evening we went to one of the leper assembly halls, where, before a crowded

audience, the singing societies contested for prizes, and where the night wound up with a dance. I have seen

the Hawaiians living in the slums of Honolulu, and, having seen them, I can readily understand why the

lepers, brought up from the Settlement for reexamination, shouted one and all, "Back to Molokai!"

One thing is certain. The leper in the Settlement is far better off than the leper who lies in hiding outside.

Such a leper is a lonely outcast, living in constant fear of discovery and slowly and surely rotting away. The

action of leprosy is not steady. It lays hold of its victim, commits a ravage, and then lies dormant for an

indeterminate period. It may not commit another ravage for five years, or ten years, or forty years, and the

patient may enjoy uninterrupted good health. Rarely, however, do these first ravages cease of themselves.

The skilled surgeon is required, and the skilled surgeon cannot be called in for the leper who is in hiding. For

instance, the first ravage may take the form of a perforating ulcer in the sole of the foot. When the bone is

reached, necrosis sets in. If the leper is in hiding, he cannot be operated upon, the necrosis will continue to eat

its way up the bone of the leg, and in a brief and horrible time that leper will die of gangrene or some other

terrible complication. On the other hand, if that same leper is in Molokai, the surgeon will operate upon the

foot, remove the ulcer, cleanse the bone, and put a complete stop to that particular ravage of the disease. A

month after the operation the leper will be out riding horseback, running foot races, swimming in the

breakers, or climbing the giddy sides of the valleys for mountain apples. And as has been stated before, the

The old horrors of leprosy go back to the conditions that obtained before the days of antiseptic surgery, and

before the time when physicians like Dr. Goodhue and Dr. Hollmann went to live at the Settlement. Dr.

Goodhue is the pioneer surgeon there, and too much praise cannot be given him for the noble work he has

done. I spent one morning in the operating room with him and of the three operations he performed, two were

on men, newcomers, who had arrived on the same steamer with me. In each case, the disease had attacked in

one spot only. One had a perforating ulcer in the ankle, well advanced, and the other man was suffering from

a similar affliction, well advanced, under his arm. Both cases were well advanced because the man had been

on the outside and had not been treated. In each case. Dr. Goodhue put an immediate and complete stop to the

ravage, and in four weeks those two men will be as well and ablebodied as they ever were in their lives. The

only difference between them and you or me is that the disease is lying dormant in their bodies and may at

Leprosy is as old as history. References to it are found in the earliest written records. And yet today

practically nothing more is known about it than was known then. This much was known then, namely, that it

was contagious and that those afflicted by it should be segregated. The difference between then and now is

that today the leper is more rigidly segregated and more humanely treated. But leprosy itself still remains

the same awful and profound mystery. A reading of the reports of the physicians and specialists of all

countries reveals the baffling nature of the disease. These leprosy specialists are unanimous on no one phase

of the disease. They do not know. In the past they rashly and dogmatically generalized. They generalize no

longer. The one possible generalization that can be drawn from all the investigation that has been made is that

leprosy is FEEBLY CONTAGIOUS. But in what manner it is feebly contagious is not known. They have

isolated the bacillus of leprosy. They can determine by bacteriological examination whether or not a person is

a leper; but they are as far away as ever from knowing how that bacillus finds its entrance into the body of a

non leper. They do not know the length of time of incubation. They have tried to inoculate all sorts of

They are baffled in the discovery of a serum wherewith to fight the disease. And in all their work, as yet, they

have found no clue, no cure. Sometimes there have been blazes of hope, theories of causation and much

heralded cures, but every time the darkness of failure quenched the flame. A doctor insists that the cause of

leprosy is a longcontinued fish diet, and he proves his theory voluminously till a physician from the

highlands of India demands why the natives of that district should therefore be afflicted by leprosy when they

have never eaten fish, nor all the generations of their fathers before them. A man treats a leper with a certain

kind of oil or drug, announces a cure, and five, ten, or forty years afterwards the disease breaks out again. It is

this trick of leprosy lying dormant in the body for indeterminate periods that is responsible for many alleged

cures. But this much is certain: AS YET THERE HAS BEEN NO AUTHENTIC CASE OF A CURE.

Leprosy is FEEBLY CONTAGIOUS, but how is it contagious? An Austrian physician has inoculated himself

and his assistants with leprosy and failed to catch it. But this is not conclusive, for there is the famous case of

the Hawaiian murderer who had his sentence of death commuted to life imprisonment on his agreeing to be

inoculated with the bacillus leprae. Some time after inoculation, leprosy made its appearance, and the man

died a leper on Molokai. Nor was this conclusive, for it was discovered that at the time he was inoculated

several members of his family were already suffering from the disease on Molokai. He may have contracted

the disease from them, and it may have been well along in its mysterious period of incubation at the time he

was officially inoculated. Then there is the case of that hero of the Church, Father Damien, who went to

Molokai a clean man and died a leper. There have been many theories as to how he contracted leprosy, but

nobody knows. He never knew himself. But every chance that he ran has certainly been run by a woman at

present living in the Settlement; who has lived there many years; who has had five leper husbands, and had

children by them; and who is today, as she always has been, free of the disease.

As yet no light has been shed upon the mystery of leprosy. When more is learned about the disease, a cure for

it may be expected. Once an efficacious serum is discovered, and leprosy, because it is so feebly contagious,

will pass away swiftly from the earth. The battle waged with it will be short and sharp. In the meantime, how

to discover that serum, or some other unguessed weapon? In the present it is a serious matter. It is estimated

that there are half a million lepers, not segregated, in India alone. Carnegie libraries, Rockefeller universities,

and many similar benefactions are all very well; but one cannot help thinking how far a few thousands of

dollars would go, say in the leper Settlement of Molokai. The residents there are accidents of fate, scapegoats

to some mysterious natural law of which man knows nothing, isolated for the welfare of their fellows who

else might catch the dread disease, even as they have caught it, nobody knows how. Not for their sakes

merely, but for the sake of future generations, a few thousands of dollars would go far in a legitimate and

scientific search after a cure for leprosy, for a serum, or for some undreamed discovery that will enable the

medical world to exterminate the bacillus leprae. There's the place for your money, you philanthropists.

There are hosts of people who journey like restless spirits round and about this earth in search of seascapes

and landscapes and the wonders and beauties of nature. They overrun Europe in armies; they can be met in

droves and herds in Florida and the West Indies, at the Pyramids, and on the slopes and summits of the

Canadian and American Rockies; but in the House of the Sun they are as rare as live and wriggling dinosaurs.

Haleakala is the Hawaiian name for "the House of the Sun." It is a noble dwelling, situated on the Island of

Maui; but so few tourists have ever peeped into it, much less entered it, that their number may be practically

reckoned as zero. Yet I venture to state that for natural beauty and wonder the naturelover may see

dissimilar things as great as Haleakala, but no greater, while he will never see elsewhere anything more

beautiful or wonderful. Honolulu is six days' steaming from San Francisco; Maui is a night's run on the

steamer from Honolulu; and six hours more if he is in a hurry, can bring the traveller to Kolikoli, which is ten

thousand and thirtytwo feet above the sea and which stands hard by the entrance portal to the House of the

Sun. Yet the tourist comes not, and Haleakala sleeps on in lonely and unseen grandeur.

Not being tourists, we of the Snark went to Haleakala. On the slopes of that monster mountain there is a cattle

ranch of some fifty thousand acres, where we spent the night at an altitude of two thousand feet. The next

morning it was boots and saddles, and with cowboys and packhorses we climbed to Ukulele, a mountain

ranch house, the altitude of which, fiftyfive hundred feet, gives a severely temperate climate, compelling

blankets at night and a roaring fireplace in the livingroom. Ukulele, by the way, is the Hawaiian for

"jumping flea" as it is also the Hawaiian for a certain musical instrument that may be likened to a young

guitar. It is my opinion that the mountain ranchhouse was named after the young guitar. We were not in a

hurry, and we spent the day at Ukulele, learnedly discussing altitudes and barometers and shaking our

particular barometer whenever any one's argument stood in need of demonstration. Our barometer was the

most graciously acquiescent instrument I have ever seen. Also, we gathered mountain raspberries, large as

hen's eggs and larger, gazed up the pasture covered lava slopes to the summit of Haleakala, fortyfive

hundred feet above us, and looked down upon a mighty battle of the clouds that was being fought beneath us,

Every day and every day this unending battle goes on. Ukiukiu is the name of the tradewind that comes

raging down out of the north east and hurls itself upon Haleakala. Now Haleakala is so bulky and tall that it

turns the northeast tradewind aside on either hand, so that in the lee of Haleakala no tradewind blows at

all. On the contrary, the wind blows in the counter direction, in the teeth of the northeast trade. This wind is

called Naulu. And day and night and always Ukiukiu and Naulu strive with each other, advancing, retreating,

flanking, curving, curling, and turning and twisting, the conflict made visible by the cloudmasses plucked

from the heavens and hurled back and forth in squadrons, battalions, armies, and great mountain ranges. Once

in a while, Ukiukiu, in mighty gusts, flings immense cloudmasses clear over the summit of Haleakala;

whereupon Naulu craftily captures them, lines them up in new battleformation, and with them smites back

at his ancient and eternal antagonist. Then Ukiukiu sends a great cloudarmy around the easternside of the

mountain. It is a flanking movement, well executed. But Naulu, from his lair on the leeward side, gathers the

flanking army in, pulling and twisting and dragging it, hammering it into shape, and sends it charging back

against Ukiukiu around the western side of the mountain. And all the while, above and below the main

battlefield, high up the slopes toward the sea, Ukiukiu and Naulu are continually sending out little wisps of

cloud, in ragged skirmish line, that creep and crawl over the ground, among the trees and through the

canyons, and that spring upon and capture one another in sudden ambuscades and sorties. And sometimes

Ukiukiu or Naulu, abruptly sending out a heavy charging column, captures the ragged little skirmishers or

drives them skyward, turning over and over, in vertical whirls, thousands of feet in the air.

But it is on the western slopes of Haleakala that the main battle goes on. Here Naulu masses his heaviest

formations and wins his greatest victories. Ukiukiu grows weak toward late afternoon, which is the way of all

tradewinds, and is driven backward by Naulu. Naulu's generalship is excellent. All day he has been

gathering and packing away immense reserves. As the afternoon draws on, he welds them into a solid

column, sharppointed, miles in length, a mile in width, and hundreds of feet thick. This column he slowly

thrusts forward into the broad battlefront of Ukiukiu, and slowly and surely Ukiukiu, weakening fast, is split

asunder. But it is not all bloodless. At times Ukiukiu struggles wildly, and with fresh accessions of strength

from the limitless northeast, smashes away half a mile at a time of Naulu's column and sweeps it off and

away toward West Maui. Sometimes, when the two charging armies meet end on, a tremendous

perpendicular whirl results, the cloudmasses, locked together, mounting thousands of feet into the air and

turning over and over. A favourite device of Ukiukiu is to send a low, squat formation, densely packed,

forward along the ground and under Naulu. When Ukiukiu is under, he proceeds to buck. Naulu's mighty

middle gives to the blow and bends upward, but usually he turns the attacking column back upon itself and

sets it milling. And all the while the ragged little skirmishers, stray and detached, sneak through the trees and

canyons, crawl along and through the grass, and surprise one another with unexpected leaps and rushes; while

above, far above, serene and lonely in the rays of the setting sun, Haleakala looks down upon the conflict.

And so, the night. But in the morning, after the fashion of tradewinds, Ukiukiu gathers strength and sends

the hosts of Naulu rolling back in confusion and rout. And one day is like another day in the battle of the

Again in the morning, it was boots and saddles, cowboys, and packhorses, and the climb to the top began.

One packhorse carried twenty gallons of water, slung in fivegallon bags on either side; for water is precious

and rare in the crater itself, in spite of the fact that several miles to the north and east of the craterrim more

rain comes down than in any other place in the world. The way led upward across countless lava flows,

without regard for trails, and never have I seen horses with such perfect footing as that of the thirteen that

composed our outfit. They climbed or dropped down perpendicular places with the sureness and coolness of

There is a familiar and strange illusion experienced by all who climb isolated mountains. The higher one

climbs, the more of the earth's surface becomes visible, and the effect of this is that the horizon seems uphill

from the observer. This illusion is especially notable on Haleakala, for the old volcano rises directly from the

sea without buttresses or connecting ranges. In consequence, as fast as we climbed up the grim slope of

Haleakala, still faster did Haleakala, ourselves, and all about us, sink down into the centre of what appeared a

profound abyss. Everywhere, far above us, towered the horizon. The ocean sloped down from the horizon to

us. The higher we climbed, the deeper did we seem to sink down, the farther above us shone the horizon, and

the steeper pitched the grade up to that horizontal line where sky and ocean met. It was weird and unreal, and

vagrant thoughts of Simm's Hole and of the volcano through which Jules Verne journeyed to the centre of the

And then, when at last we reached the summit of that monster mountain, which summit was like the bottom

of an inverted cone situated in the centre of an awful cosmic pit, we found that we were at neither top nor

bottom. Far above us was the heaventowering horizon, and far beneath us, where the top of the mountain

should have been, was a deeper deep, the great crater, the House of the Sun. Twentythree miles around

stretched the dizzy wells of the crater. We stood on the edge of the nearly vertical western wall, and the floor

of the crater lay nearly half a mile beneath. This floor, broken by lavaflows and cindercones, was as red

and fresh and uneroded as if it were but yesterday that the fires went out. The cindercones, the smallest over

four hundred feet in height and the largest over nine hundred, seemed no more than puny little sand hills, so

mighty was the magnitude of the setting. Two gaps, thousands of feet deep, broke the rim of the crater, and

through these Ukiukiu vainly strove to drive his fleecy herds of tradewind clouds. As fast as they advanced

through the gaps, the heat of the crater dissipated them into thin air, and though they advanced always, they

It was a scene of vast bleakness and desolation, stern, forbidding, fascinating. We gazed down upon a place

of fire and earthquake. The tieribs of earth lay bare before us. It was a workshop of nature still cluttered

with the raw beginnings of worldmaking. Here and there great dikes of primordial rock had thrust

themselves up from the bowels of earth, straight through the molten surface ferment that had evidently

cooled only the other day. It was all unreal and unbelievable. Looking upward, far above us (in reality

beneath us) floated the cloudbattle of Ukiukiu and Naulu. And higher up the slope of the seeming abyss,

above the cloudbattle, in the air and sky, hung the islands of Lanai and Molokai. Across the crater, to the

southeast, still apparently looking upward, we saw ascending, first, the turquoise sea, then the white

surfline of the shore of Hawaii; above that the belt of tradeclouds, and next, eighty miles away, rearing

their stupendous hulks out of the azure sky, tipped with snow, wreathed with cloud, trembling like a mirage,

It is told that long ago, one Maui, the son of Hina, lived on what is now known as West Maui. His mother,

Hina, employed her time in the making of kapas. She must have made them at night, for her days were

occupied in trying to dry the kapas. Each morning, and all morning, she toiled at spreading them out in the

sun. But no sooner were they out, than she began taking them in, in order to have them all under shelter for

the night. For know that the days were shorter then than now. Maui watched his mother's futile toil and felt

sorry for her. He decided to do somethingoh, no, not to help her hang out and take in the kapas. He was too

clever for that. His idea was to make the sun go slower. Perhaps he was the first Hawaiian astronomer. At any

rate, he took a series of observations of the sun from various parts of the island. His conclusion was that the

sun's path was directly across Haleakala. Unlike Joshua, he stood in no need of divine assistance. He gathered

a huge quantity of coconuts, from the fibre of which he braided a stout cord, and in one end of which he made

a noose, even as the cowboys of Haleakala do to this day. Next he climbed into the House of the Sun and

laid in wait. When the sun came tearing along the path, bent on completing its journey in the shortest time

possible, the valiant youth threw his lariat around one of the sun's largest and strongest beams. He made the

sun slow down some; also, he broke the beam short off. And he kept on roping and breaking off beams till the

sun said it was willing to listen to reason. Maui set forth his terms of peace, which the sun accepted, agreeing

to go more slowly thereafter. Wherefore Hina had ample time in which to dry her kapas, and the days are

longer than they used to be, which last is quite in accord with the teachings of modern astronomy.

We had a lunch of jerked beef and hard poi in a stone corral, used of old time for the nightimpounding of

cattle being driven across the island. Then we skirted the rim for half a mile and began the descent into the

crater. Twentyfive hundred feet beneath lay the floor, and down a steep slope of loose volcanic cinders we

dropped, the surefooted horses slipping and sliding, but always keeping their feet. The black surface of the

cinders, when broken by the horses' hoofs, turned to a yellow ochre dust, virulent in appearance and acid of

taste, that arose in clouds. There was a gallop across a level stretch to the mouth of a convenient blowhole,

and then the descent continued in clouds of volcanic dust, winding in and out among cindercones,

brickred, old rose, and purplish black of colour. Above us, higher and higher, towered the craterwalls,

while we journeyed on across innumerable lavaflows, turning and twisting a devious way among the

adamantine billows of a petrified sea. Sawtoothed waves of lava vexed the surface of this weird ocean,

while on either hand arose jagged crests and spiracles of fantastic shape. Our way led on past a bottomless pit

At the lower end of the crater was our camping spot, in a small grove of olapa and kolea trees, tucked away in

a corner of the crater at the base of walls that rose perpendicularly fifteen hundred feet. Here was pasturage

for the horses, but no water, and first we turned aside and picked our way across a mile of lava to a known

waterhole in a crevice in the craterwall. The waterhole was empty. But on climbing fifty feet up the

crevice, a pool was found containing half a dozen barrels of water. A pail was carried up, and soon a steady

stream of the precious liquid was running down the rock and filling the lower pool, while the cowboys

below were busy fighting the horses back, for there was room for one only to drink at a time. Then it was on

to camp at the foot of the wall, up which herds of wild goats scrambled and blatted, while the tent arose to the

sound of riflefiring. Jerked beef, hard poi, and broiled kid were the menu. Over the crest of the crater, just

above our heads, rolled a sea of clouds, driven on by Ukiukiu. Though this sea rolled over the crest

unceasingly, it never blotted out nor dimmed the moon, for the heat of the crater dissolved the clouds as fast

as they rolled in. Through the moonlight, attracted by the campfire, came the crater cattle to peer and

challenge. They were rolling fat, though they rarely drank water, the morning dew on the grass taking its

place. It was because of this dew that the tent made a welcome bedchamber, and we fell asleep to the

chanting of hulas by the unwearied Hawaiian cowboys, in whose veins, no doubt, ran the blood of Maui, their

The camera cannot do justice to the House of the Sun. The sublimated chemistry of photography may not lie,

but it certainly does not tell all the truth. The Koolau Gap may be faithfully reproduced, just as it impinged on

the retina of the camera, yet in the resulting picture the gigantic scale of things would be missing. Those walls

that seem several hundred feet in height are almost as many thousand; that entering wedge of cloud is a mile

and a half wide in the gap itself, while beyond the gap it is a veritable ocean; and that foreground of

cindercone and volcanic ash, mushy and colourless in appearance, is in truth gorgeoushued in brick red,

terracotta rose, yellow ochre, and purplish black. Also, words are a vain thing and drive to despair. To say

that a crater wall is two thousand feet high is to say just precisely that it is two thousand feet high; but there

is a vast deal more to that craterwall than a mere statistic. The sun is ninetythree millions of miles distant,

but to mortal conception the adjoining county is farther away. This frailty of the human brain is hard on the

sun. It is likewise hard on the House of the Sun. Haleakala has a message of beauty and wonder for the

human soul that cannot be delivered by proxy. Kolikoli is six hours from Kahului; Kahului is a night's run

We climbed the craterwalls, put the horses over impossible places, rolled stones, and shot wild goats. I did

not get any goats. I was too busy rolling stones. One spot in particular I remember, where we started a stone

the size of a horse. It began the descent easy enough, rolling over, wobbling, and threatening to stop; but in a

few minutes it was soaring through the air two hundred feet at a jump. It grew rapidly smaller until it struck a

slight slope of volcanic sand, over which it darted like a startled jackrabbit, kicking up behind it a tiny trail of

yellow dust. Stone and dust diminished in size, until some of the party said the stone had stopped. That was

because they could not see it any longer. It had vanished into the distance beyond their ken. Others saw it

rolling farther onI know I did; and it is my firm conviction that that stone is still rolling.

Our last day in the crater, Ukiukiu gave us a taste of his strength. He smashed Naulu back all along the line,

filled the House of the Sun to overflowing with clouds, and drowned us out. Our raingauge was a pint cup

under a tiny hole in the tent. That last night of storm and rain filled the cup, and there was no way of

measuring the water that spilled over into the blankets. With the raingauge out of business there was no

longer any reason for remaining; so we broke camp in the wetgray of dawn, and plunged eastward across

the lava to the Kaupo Gap. East Maui is nothing more or less than the vast lava stream that flowed long ago

through the Kaupo Gap; and down this stream we picked our way from an altitude of six thousand five

hundred feet to the sea. This was a day's work in itself for the horses; but never were there such horses. Safe

in the bad places, never rushing, never losing their heads, as soon as they found a trail wide and smooth

enough to run on, they ran. There was no stopping them until the trail became bad again, and then they

stopped of themselves. Continuously, for days, they had performed the hardest kind of work, and fed most of

the time on grass foraged by themselves at night while we slept, and yet that day they covered twentyeight

legbreaking miles and galloped into Hana like a bunch of colts. Also, there were several of them, reared in

the dry region on the leeward side of Haleakala, that had never worn shoes in all their lives. Day after day,

and all day long, unshod, they had travelled over the sharp lava, with the extra weight of a man on their

The scenery between Vieiras's (where the Kaupo Gap empties into the sea) and Lana, which we covered in

half a day, is well worth a week or month; but, wildly beautiful as it is, it becomes pale and small in

comparison with the wonderland that lies beyond the rubber plantations between Hana and the Honomanu

Gulch. Two days were required to cover this marvellous stretch, which lies on the windward side of

Haleakala. The people who dwell there call it the "ditch country," an unprepossessing name, but it has no

other. Nobody else ever comes there. Nobody else knows anything about it. With the exception of a handful

of men, whom business has brought there, nobody has heard of the ditch country of Maui. Now a ditch is a

ditch, assumably muddy, and usually traversing uninteresting and monotonous landscapes. But the Nahiku

Ditch is not an ordinary ditch. The windward side of Haleakala is serried by a thousand precipitous gorges,

down which rush as many torrents, each torrent of which achieves a score of cascades and waterfalls before it

reaches the sea. More rain comes down here than in any other region in the world. In 1904 the year's

downpour was four hundred and twenty inches. Water means sugar, and sugar is the backbone of the territory

of Hawaii, wherefore the Nahiku Ditch, which is not a ditch, but a chain of tunnels. The water travels

underground, appearing only at intervals to leap a gorge, travelling high in the air on a giddy flume and

plunging into and through the opposing mountain. This magnificent waterway is called a "ditch," and with

There are no carriage roads through the ditch country, and before the ditch was built, or bored, rather, there

was no horsetrail. Hundreds of inches of rain annually, on fertile soil, under a tropic sun, means a steaming

jungle of vegetation. A man, on foot, cutting his way through, might advance a mile a day, but at the end of a

week he would be a wreck, and he would have to crawl hastily back if he wanted to get out before the

vegetation overran the passage way he had cut. O'Shaughnessy was the daring engineer who conquered the

jungle and the gorges, ran the ditch and made the horsetrail. He built enduringly, in concrete and masonry,

and made one of the most remarkable waterfarms in the world. Every little runlet and dribble is harvested

and conveyed by subterranean channels to the main ditch. But so heavily does it rain at times that countless

The horsetrail is not very wide. Like the engineer who built it, it dares anything. Where the ditch plunges

through the mountain, it climbs over; and where the ditch leaps a gorge on a flume, the horsetrail takes

advantage of the ditch and crosses on top of the flume. That careless trail thinks nothing of travelling up or

down the faces of precipices. It gouges its narrow way out of the wall, dodging around waterfalls or passing

under them where they thunder down in white fury; while straight overhead the wall rises hundreds of feet,

and straight beneath it sinks a thousand. And those marvellous mountain horses are as unconcerned as the

trail. They foxtrot along it as a matter of course, though the footing is slippery with rain, and they will

gallop with their hind feet slipping over the edge if you let them. I advise only those with steady nerves and

cool heads to tackle the Nahiku Ditch trail. One of our cowboys was noted as the strongest and bravest on

the big ranch. He had ridden mountain horses all his life on the rugged western slopes of Haleakala. He was

first in the horsebreaking; and when the others hung back, as a matter of course, he would go in to meet a

wild bull in the cattlepen. He had a reputation. But he had never ridden over the Nahiku Ditch. It was there

he lost his reputation. When he faced the first flume, spanning a hairraising gorge, narrow, without railings,

with a bellowing waterfall above, another below, and directly beneath a wild cascade, the air filled with

driving spray and rocking to the clamour and rush of sound and motionwell, that cowboy dismounted

from his horse, explained briefly that he had a wife and two children, and crossed over on foot, leading the

The only relief from the flumes was the precipices; and the only relief from the precipices was the flumes,

except where the ditch was far under ground, in which case we crossed one horse and rider at a time, on

primitive logbridges that swayed and teetered and threatened to carry away. I confess that at first I rode such

places with my feet loose in the stirrups, and that on the sheer walls I saw to it, by a definite, conscious act of

will, that the foot in the outside stirrup, overhanging the thousand feet of fall, was exceedingly loose. I say "at

first"; for, as in the crater itself we quickly lost our conception of magnitude, so, on the Nahiku Ditch, we

quickly lost our apprehension of depth. The ceaseless iteration of height and depth produced a state of

consciousness in which height and depth were accepted as the ordinary conditions of existence; and from the

horse's back to look sheer down four hundred or five hundred feet became quite commonplace and

nonproductive of thrills. And as carelessly as the trail and the horses, we swung along the dizzy heights and

And such a ride! Falling water was everywhere. We rode above the clouds, under the clouds, and through the

clouds! and every now and then a shaft of sunshine penetrated like a searchlight to the depths yawning

beneath us, or flashed upon some pinnacle of the craterrim thousands of feet above. At every turn of the trail

a waterfall or a dozen waterfalls, leaping hundreds of feet through the air, burst upon our vision. At our first

night's camp, in the Keanae Gulch, we counted thirtytwo waterfalls from a single viewpoint. The vegetation

ran riot over that wild land. There were forests of koa and kolea trees, and candlenut trees; and then there

were the trees called ohiaai, which bore red mountain apples, mellow and juicy and most excellent to eat.

Wild bananas grew everywhere, clinging to the sides of the gorges, and, overborne by their great bunches of

ripe fruit, falling across the trail and blocking the way. And over the forest surged a sea of green life, the

climbers of a thousand varieties, some that floated airily, in lacelike filaments, from the tallest branches

others that coiled and wound about the trees like huge serpents; and one, the eiei, that was for all the world

like a climbing palm, swinging on a thick stem from branch to branch and tree to tree and throttling the

supports whereby it climbed. Through the sea of green, lofty treeferns thrust their great delicate fronds, and

the lehua flaunted its scarlet blossoms. Underneath the climbers, in no less profusion, grew the

warmcoloured, strangelymarked plants that in the United States one is accustomed to seeing preciously

conserved in hot houses. In fact, the ditch country of Maui is nothing more nor less than a huge

conservatory. Every familiar variety of fern flourishes, and more varieties that are unfamiliar, from the tiniest

maidenhair to the gross and voracious staghorn, the latter the terror of the woodsmen, interlacing with itself

Never was there such a ride. For two days it lasted, when we emerged into rolling country, and, along an

actual wagonroad, came home to the ranch at a gallop. I know it was cruel to gallop the horses after such a

long, hard journey; but we blistered our hands in vain effort to hold them in. That's the sort of horses they

grow on Haleakala. At the ranch there was great festival of cattle driving, branding, and horsebreaking.

Overhead Ukiukiu and Naulu battled valiantly, and far above, in the sunshine, towered the mighty summit of

Sandwich Islands to Tahiti.There is great difficulty in making this passage across the trades. The whalers

and all others speak with great doubt of fetching Tahiti from the Sandwich islands. Capt. Bruce says that a

vessel should keep to the northward until she gets a start of wind before bearing for her destination. In his

passage between them in November, 1837, he had no variables near the line in coming south, and never could

So say the sailing directions for the South Pacific Ocean; and that is all they say. There is not a word more to

help the weary voyager in making this long traversenor is there any word at all concerning the passage

from Hawaii to the Marquesas, which lie some eight hundred miles to the northeast of Tahiti and which are

the more difficult to reach by just that much. The reason for the lack of directions is, I imagine, that no

voyager is supposed to make himself weary by attempting so impossible a traverse. But the impossible did

not deter the Snark,principally because of the fact that we did not read that particular little paragraph in the

sailing directions until after we had started. We sailed from Hilo, Hawaii, on October 7, and arrived at

Nukahiva, in the Marquesas, on December 6. The distance was two thousand miles as the crow flies, while

we actually travelled at least four thousand miles to accomplish it, thus proving for once and for ever that the

shortest distance between two points is not always a straight line. Had we headed directly for the Marquesas,

Upon one thing we were resolved: we would not cross the Line west of 130 degrees west longitude. For here

was the problem. To cross the Line to the west of that point, if the southeast trades were well around to the

southeast, would throw us so far to leeward of the Marquesas that a headbeat would be maddeningly

impossible. Also, we had to remember the equatorial current, which moves west at a rate of anywhere from

twelve to seventyfive miles a day. A pretty pickle, indeed, to be to leeward of our destination with such a

current in our teeth. No; not a minute, nor a second, west of 130 degrees west longitude would we cross the

Line. But since the southeast trades were to be expected five or six degrees north of the Line (which, if they

were well around to the southeast or south southeast, would necessitate our sliding off toward south

southwest), we should have to hold to the eastward, north of the Line, and north of the southeast trades, until

I have forgotten to mention that the seventyhorsepower gasolene engine, as usual, was not working, and

that we could depend upon wind alone. Neither was the launch engine working. And while I am about it, I

may as well confess that the fivehorsepower, which ran the lights, fans, and pumps, was also on the

sicklist. A striking title for a book haunts me, waking and sleeping. I should like to write that book some

day and to call it "Around the World with Three Gasolene Engines and a Wife." But I am afraid I shall not

write it, for fear of hurting the feelings of some of the young gentlemen of San Francisco, Honolulu, and

It looked easy on paper. Here was Hilo and there was our objective, 128 degrees west longitude. With the

northeast trade blowing we could travel a straight line between the two points, and even slack our sheets off a

goodly bit. But one of the chief troubles with the trades is that one never knows just where he will pick them

up and just in what direction they will be blowing. We picked up the northeast trade right outside of Hilo

harbour, but the miserable breeze was away around into the east. Then there was the north equatorial current

setting westward like a mighty river. Furthermore, a small boat, by the wind and bucking into a big headsea,

does not work to advantage. She jogs up and down and gets nowhere. Her sails are full and straining, every

little while she presses her leerail under, she flounders, and bumps, and splashes, and that is all. Whenever

she begins to gather way, she runs ker chug into a big mountain of water and is brought to a standstill. So,

with the Snark, the resultant of her smallness, of the trade around into the east, and of the strong equatorial

current, was a long sag south. Oh, she did not go quite south. But the easting she made was distressing. On

October 11, she made forty miles easting; October 12, fifteen miles; October 13, no easting; October 14,

thirty miles; October 15, twentythree miles; October 16, eleven miles; and on October 17, she actually went

to the westward four miles. Thus, in a week she made one hundred and fifteen miles easting, which was

equivalent to sixteen miles a day. But, between the longitude of Hilo and 128 degrees west longitude is a

difference of twentyseven degrees, or, roughly, sixteen hundred miles. At sixteen miles a day, one hundred

days would be required to accomplish this distance. And even then, our objective, l28 degrees west longitude,

was five degrees north of the Line, while Nukahiva, in the Marquesas, lay nine degrees south of the Line

There remained only one thing to doto work south out of the trade and into the variables. It is true that

Captain Bruce found no variables on his traverse, and that he "never could make easting on either tack." It

was the variables or nothing with us, and we prayed for better luck than he had had. The variables constitute

the belt of ocean lying between the trades and the doldrums, and are conjectured to be the draughts of heated

air which rise in the doldrums, flow high in the air counter to the trades, and gradually sink down till they fan

the surface of the ocean where they are found. And they are found where they are found; for they are wedged

between the trades and the doldrums, which same shift their territory from day to day and month to month.

We found the variables in 11 degrees north latitude, and 11 degrees north latitude we hugged jealously. To

the south lay the doldrums. To the north lay the northeast trade that refused to blow from the northeast. The

days came and went, and always they found the Snark somewhere near the eleventh parallel. The variables

were truly variable. A light headwind would die away and leave us rolling in a calm for fortyeight hours.

Then a light headwind would spring up, blow for three hours, and leave us rolling in another calm for

fortyeight hours. Thenhurrah!the wind would come out of the west, fresh, beautifully fresh, and send

the Snark along, wing and wing, her wake bubbling, the logline straight astern. At the end of half an hour,

while we were preparing to set the spinnaker, with a few sickly gasps the wind would die away. And so it

went. We wagered optimistically on every favourable fan of air that lasted over five minutes; but it never did

But there were exceptions. In the variables, if you wait long enough, something is bound to happen, and we

were so plentifully stocked with food and water that we could afford to wait. On October 26, we actually

made one hundred and three miles of easting, and we talked about it for days afterwards. Once we caught a

moderate gale from the south, which blew itself out in eight hours, but it helped us to seventyone miles of

easting in that particular twentyfour hours. And then, just as it was expiring, the wind came straight out

from the north (the directly opposite quarter), and fanned us along over another degree of easting.

In years and years no sailing vessel has attempted this traverse, and we found ourselves in the midst of one of

the loneliest of the Pacific solitudes. In the sixty days we were crossing it we sighted no sail, lifted no

steamer's smoke above the horizon. A disabled vessel could drift in this deserted expanse for a dozen

generations, and there would be no rescue. The only chance of rescue would be from a vessel like the Snark,

and the Snark happened to be there principally because of the fact that the traverse had been begun before the

particular paragraph in the sailing directions had been read. Standing upright on deck, a straight line drawn

from the eye to the horizon would measure three miles and a half. Thus, seven miles was the diameter of the

circle of the sea in which we had our centre. Since we remained always in the centre, and since we constantly

were moving in some direction, we looked upon many circles. But all circles looked alike. No tufted islets,

gray headlands, nor glistening patches of white canvas ever marred the symmetry of that unbroken curve.

Clouds came and went, rising up over the rim of the circle, flowing across the space of it, and spilling away

The world faded as the procession of the weeks marched by. The world faded until at last there ceased to be

any world except the little world of the Snark, freighted with her seven souls and floating on the expanse of

the waters. Our memories of the world, the great world, became like dreams of former lives we had lived

somewhere before we came to be born on the Snark. After we had been out of fresh vegetables for some time,

we mentioned such things in much the same way I have heard my father mention the vanished apples of his

boyhood. Man is a creature of habit, and we on the Snark had got the habit of the Snark. Everything about her

and aboard her was as a matter of course, and anything different would have been an irritation and an offence.

There was no way by which the great world could intrude. Our bell rang the hours, but no caller ever rang it.

There were no guests to dinner, no telegrams, no insistent telephone jangles invading our privacy. We had no

engagements to keep, no trains to catch, and there were no morning newspapers over which to waste time in

learning what was happening to our fifteen hundred million other fellowcreatures.

But it was not dull. The affairs of our little world had to be regulated, and, unlike the great world, our world

had to be steered in its journey through space. Also, there were cosmic disturbances to be encountered and

baffled, such as do not afflict the big earth in its frictionless orbit through the windless void. And we never

knew, from moment to moment, what was going to happen next. There were spice and variety enough and to

"Eastnortheast," he gives me the course. "She's eight points off, but she ain't steering."

Small wonder. The vessel does not exist that can be steered in so absolute a calm.

"I had a breeze a little while agomaybe it will come back again," Hermann says hopefully, ere he starts

The mizzen is in and fast furled. In the night, what of the roll and the absence of wind, it had made life too

hideous to be permitted to go on rasping at the mast, smashing at the tackles, and buffeting the empty air into

hollow outbursts of sound. But the big mainsail is still on, and the staysail, jib, and flyingjib are snapping

and slashing at their sheets with every roll. Every star is out. Just for luck I put the wheel hard over in the

opposite direction to which it had been left by Hermann, and I lean back and gaze up at the stars. There is

nothing else for me to do. There is nothing to be done with a sailing vessel rolling in a stark calm.

Then I feel a fan on my cheek, faint, so faint, that I can just sense it ere it is gone. But another comes, and

another, until a real and just perceptible breeze is blowing. How the Snark's sails manage to feel it is beyond

me, but feel it they do, as she does as well, for the compass card begins slowly to revolve in the binnacle. In

reality, it is not revolving at all. It is held by terrestrial magnetism in one place, and it is the Snark that is

revolving, pivoted upon that delicate cardboard device that floats in a closed vessel of alcohol.

So the Snark comes back on her course. The breath increases to a tiny puff. The Snark feels the weight of it

and actually heels over a trifle. There is flying scud overhead, and I notice the stars being blotted out. Walls

of darkness close in upon me, so that, when the last star is gone, the darkness is so near that it seems I can

reach out and touch it on every side. When I lean toward it, I can feel it loom against my face. Puff follows

puff, and I am glad the mizzen is furled. Phew! that was a stiff one! The Snark goes over and down until her

leerail is buried and the whole Pacific Ocean is pouring in. Four or five of these gusts make me wish that the

jib and flyingjib were in. The sea is picking up, the gusts are growing stronger and more frequent, and there

is a splatter of wet in the air. There is no use in attempting to gaze to windward. The wall of blackness is

within arm's length. Yet I cannot help attempting to see and gauge the blows that are being struck at the

Snark. There is something ominous and menacing up there to windward, and I have a feeling that if I look

long enough and strong enough, I shall divine it. Futile feeling. Between two gusts I leave the wheel and run

forward to the cabin companionway, where I light matches and consult the barometer. "2990" it reads. That

sensitive instrument refuses to take notice of the disturbance which is humming with a deep, throaty voice in

the rigging. I get back to the wheel just in time to meet another gust, the strongest yet. Well, anyway, the

wind is abeam and the Snark is on her course, eating up easting. That at least is well.

The jib and flyingjib bother me, and I wish they were in. She would make easier weather of it, and less risky

weather likewise. The wind snorts, and stray raindrops pelt like birdshot. I shall certainly have to call all

hands, I conclude; then conclude the next instant to hang on a little longer. Maybe this is the end of it, and I

shall have called them for nothing. It is better to let them sleep. I hold the Snark down to her task, and from

out of the darkness, at right angles, comes a deluge of rain accompanied by shrieking wind. Then everything

No sooner does the wind ease than the sea picks up. The combers are breaking now, and the boat is tossing

like a cork. Then out of the blackness the gusts come harder and faster than before. If only I knew what was

up there to windward in the blackness! The Snark is making heavy weather of it, and her leerail is buried

oftener than not. More shrieks and snorts of wind. Now, if ever, is the time to call the men. I WILL call them,

I resolve. Then there is a burst of rain, a slackening of the wind, and I do not call. But it is rather lonely, there

at the wheel, steering a little world through howling blackness. It is quite a responsibility to be all alone on

the surface of a little world in time of stress, doing the thinking for its sleeping inhabitants. I recoil from the

responsibility as more gusts begin to strike and as a sea licks along the weather rail and splashes over into the

cockpit. The salt water seems strangely warm to my body and is shot through with ghostly nodules of

phosphorescent light. I shall surely call all hands to shorten sail. Why should they sleep? I am a fool to have

any compunctions in the matter. My intellect is arrayed against my heart. It was my heart that said, "Let them

sleep." Yes, but it was my intellect that backed up my heart in that judgment. Let my intellect then reverse the

judgment; and, while I am speculating as to what particular entity issued that command to my intellect, the

gusts die away. Solicitude for mere bodily comfort has no place in practical seamanship, I conclude sagely;

but study the feel of the next series of gusts and do not call the men. After all, it IS my intellect, behind

everything, procrastinating, measuring its knowledge of what the Snark can endure against the blows being

struck at her, and waiting the call of all hands against the striking of still severer blows.

Daylight, gray and violent, steals through the cloudpall and shows a foaming sea that flattens under the

weight of recurrent and increasing squalls. Then comes the rain, filling the windy valleys of the sea with

milky smoke and further flattening the waves, which but wait for the easement of wind and rain to leap more

wildly than before. Come the men on deck, their sleep out, and among them Hermann, his face on the broad

grin in appreciation of the breeze of wind I have picked up. I turn the wheel over to Warren and start to go

below, pausing on the way to rescue the galley stovepipe which has gone adrift. I am barefooted, and my toes

have had an excellent education in the art of clinging; but, as the rail buries itself in a green sea, I suddenly sit

down on the streaming deck. Hermann goodnaturedly elects to question my selection of such a spot. Then

comes the next roll, and he sits down, suddenly, and without premeditation. The Snark heels over and down,

the rail takes it green, and Hermann and I, clutching the precious stovepipe, are swept down into the

leescuppers. After that I finish my journey below, and while changing my clothes grin with

No, it is not all monotony. When we had worried along our easting to 126 degrees west longitude, we left the

variables and headed south through the doldrums, where was much calm weather and where, taking

advantage of every fan of air, we were often glad to make a score of miles in as many hours. And yet, on such

a day, we might pass through a dozen squalls and be surrounded by dozens more. And every squall was to be

regarded as a bludgeon capable of crushing the Snark. We were struck sometimes by the centres and

sometimes by the sides of these squalls, and we never knew just where or how we were to be hit. The squall

that rose up, covering half the heavens, and swept down upon us, as likely as not split into two squalls which

passed us harmlessly on either side while the tiny, innocent looking squall that appeared to carry no more

than a hogshead of water and a pound of wind, would abruptly assume cyclopean proportions, deluging us

with rain and overwhelming us with wind. Then there were treacherous squalls that went boldly astern and

sneaked back upon us from a mile to leeward. Again, two squalls would tear along, one on each side of us,

and we would get a fillip from each of them. Now a gale certainly grows tiresome after a few hours, but

squalls never. The thousandth squall in one's experience is as interesting as the first one, and perhaps a bit

more so. It is the tyro who has no apprehension of them. The man of a thousand squalls respects a squall. He

It was in the doldrums that our most exciting event occurred. On November 20, we discovered that through

an accident we had lost over onehalf of the supply of fresh water that remained to us. Since we were at that

time fortythree days out from Hilo, our supply of fresh water was not large. To lose over half of it was a

catastrophe. On close allowance, the remnant of water we possessed would last twenty days. But we were in

the doldrums; there was no telling where the southeast trades were, nor where we would pick them up.

The handcuffs were promptly put upon the pump, and once a day the water was portioned out. Each of us

received a quart for personal use, and eight quarts were given to the cook. Enters now the psychology of the

situation. No sooner had the discovery of the water shortage been made than I, for one, was afflicted with a

burning thirst. It seemed to me that I had never been so thirsty in my life. My little quart of water I could

easily have drunk in one draught, and to refrain from doing so required a severe exertion of will. Nor was I

alone in this. All of us talked water, thought water, and dreamed water when we slept. We examined the

charts for possible islands to which to run in extremity, but there were no such islands. The Marquesas were

the nearest, and they were the other side of the Line, and of the doldrums, too, which made it even worse. We

were in 3 degrees north latitude, while the Marquesas were 9 degrees south latitudea difference of over a

thousand miles. Furthermore, the Marquesas lay some fourteen degrees to the west of our longitude. A pretty

pickle for a handful of creatures sweltering on the ocean in the heat of tropic calms.

We rigged lines on either side between the main and mizzen riggings. To these we laced the big deck awning,

hoisting it up aft with a sailing pennant so that any rain it might collect would run forward where it could be

caught. Here and there squalls passed across the circle of the sea. All day we watched them, now to port or

starboard, and again ahead or astern. But never one came near enough to wet us. In the afternoon a big one

bore down upon us. It spread out across the ocean as it approached, and we could see it emptying countless

thousands of gallons into the salt sea. Extra attention was paid to the awning and then we waited. Warren,

Martin, and Hermann made a vivid picture. Grouped together, holding on to the rigging, swaying to the roll,

they were gazing intently at the squall. Strain, anxiety, and yearning were in every posture of their bodies.

Beside them was the dry and empty awning. But they seemed to grow limp and to droop as the squall broke

in half, one part passing on ahead, the other drawing astern and going to leeward.

But that night came rain. Martin, whose psychological thirst had compelled him to drink his quart of water

early, got his mouth down to the lip of the awning and drank the deepest draught I ever have seen drunk. The

precious water came down in bucketfuls and tubfuls, and in two hours we caught and stored away in the tanks

one hundred and twenty gallons. Strange to say, in all the rest of our voyage to the Marquesas not another

drop of rain fell on board. If that squall had missed us, the handcuffs would have remained on the pump, and

we would have busied ourselves with utilizing our surplus gasolene for distillation purposes.

Then there was the fishing. One did not have to go in search of it, for it was there at the rail. A threeinch

steel hook, on the end of a stout line, with a piece of white rag for bait, was all that was necessary to catch

bonitas weighing from ten to twentyfive pounds. Bonitas feed on flyingfish, wherefore they are

unaccustomed to nibbling at the hook. They strike as gamely as the gamest fish in the sea, and their first run

is something that no man who has ever caught them will forget. Also, bonitas are the veriest cannibals. The

instant one is hooked he is attacked by his fellows. Often and often we hauled them on board with fresh,

One school of bonitas, numbering many thousands, stayed with us day and night for more than three weeks.

Aided by the Snark, it was great hunting; for they cut a swath of destruction through the ocean half a mile

wide and fifteen hundred miles in length. They ranged along abreast of the Snark on either side, pouncing

upon the flying fish her forefoot scared up. Since they were continually pursuing astern the flyingfish that

survived for several flights, they were always overtaking the Snark, and at any time one could glance astern

and on the front of a breaking wave see scores of their silvery forms coasting down just under the surface.

When they had eaten their fill, it was their delight to get in the shadow of the boat, or of her sails, and a

But the poor flyingfish! Pursued and eaten alive by the bonitas and dolphins, they sought flight in the air,

where the swooping seabirds drove them back into the water. Under heaven there was no refuge for them.

Flyingfish do not play when they essay the air. It is a lifeanddeath affair with them. A thousand times a

day we could lift our eyes and see the tragedy played out. The swift, broken circling of a guny might attract

one's attention. A glance beneath shows the back of a dolphin breaking the surface in a wild rush. Just in front

of its nose a shimmering palpitant streak of silver shoots from the water into the aira delicate, organic

mechanism of flight, endowed with sensation, power of direction, and love of life. The guny swoops for it

and misses, and the flying fish, gaining its altitude by rising, kitelike, against the wind, turns in a

halfcircle and skims off to leeward, gliding on the bosom of the wind. Beneath it, the wake of the dolphin

shows in churning foam. So he follows, gazing upward with large eyes at the flashing breakfast that navigates

an element other than his own. He cannot rise to so lofty occasion, but he is a thoroughgoing empiricist, and

he knows, sooner or later, if not gobbled up by the guny, that the flyingfish must return to the water. And

then breakfast. We used to pity the poor winged fish. It was sad to see such sordid and bloody slaughter.

And then, in the night watches, when a forlorn little flyingfish struck the mainsail and fell gasping and

splattering on the deck, we would rush for it just as eagerly, just as greedily, just as voraciously, as the

dolphins and bonitas. For know that flyingfish are most toothsome for breakfast. It is always a wonder to me

that such dainty meat does not build dainty tissue in the bodies of the devourers. Perhaps the dolphins and

bonitas are coarserfibred because of the high speed at which they drive their bodies in order to catch their

Sharks we caught occasionally, on large hooks, with chainswivels, bent on a length of small rope. And

sharks meant pilotfish, and remoras, and various sorts of parasitic creatures. Regular man eaters some of

the sharks proved, tigereyed and with twelve rows of teeth, razorsharp. By the way, we of the Snark are

agreed that we have eaten many fish that will not compare with baked shark smothered in tomato dressing. In

the calms we occasionally caught a fish called "hake" by the Japanese cook. And once, on a spoonhook

trolling a hundred yards astern, we caught a snakelike fish, over three feet in length and not more than three

inches in diameter, with four fangs in his jaw. He proved the most delicious fish delicious in meat and

The most welcome addition to our larder was a green seaturtle, weighing a full hundred pounds and

appearing on the table most appetizingly in steaks, soups, and stews, and finally in a wonderful curry which

tempted all hands into eating more rice than was good for them. The turtle was sighted to windward, calmly

sleeping on the surface in the midst of a huge school of curious dolphins. It was a deepsea turtle of a surety,

for the nearest land was a thousand miles away. We put the Snark about and went back for him, Hermann

driving the granes into his head and neck. When hauled aboard, numerous remora were clinging to his shell,

and out of the hollows at the roots of his flippers crawled several large crabs. It did not take the crew of the

Snark longer than the next meal to reach the unanimous conclusion that it would willingly put the Snark

But it is the dolphin that is the king of deepsea fishes. Never is his colour twice quite the same. Swimming

in the sea, an ethereal creature of palest azure, he displays in that one guise a miracle of colour. But it is

nothing compared with the displays of which he is capable. At one time he will appear greenpale green,

deep green, phosphorescent green; at another time bluedeep blue, electric blue, all the spectrum of blue.

Catch him on a hook, and he turns to gold, yellow gold, all gold. Haul him on deck, and he excels the

spectrum, passing through inconceivable shades of blues, greens, and yellows, and then, suddenly, turning a

ghostly white, in the midst of which are bright blue spots, and you suddenly discover that he is speckled like

a trout. Then back from white he goes, through all the range of colours, finally turning to a motherofpearl.

For those who are devoted to fishing, I can recommend no finer sport than catching dolphin. Of course, it

must be done on a thin line with reel and pole. A No. 7, O'Shaughnessy tarpon hook is just the thing, baited

with an entire flyingfish. Like the bonita, the dolphin's fare consists of flyingfish, and he strikes like

lightning at the bait. The first warning is when the reel screeches and you see the line smoking out at right

angles to the boat. Before you have time to entertain anxiety concerning the length of your line, the fish rises

into the air in a succession of leaps. Since he is quite certain to be four feet long or over, the sport of landing

so gamey a fish can be realized. When hooked, he invariably turns golden. The idea of the series of leaps is to

rid himself of the hook, and the man who has made the strike must be of iron or decadent if his heart does not

beat with an extra flutter when he beholds such gorgeous fish, glittering in golden mail and shaking itself like

a stallion in each midair leap. 'Ware slack! If you don't, on one of those leaps the hook will be flung out and

twenty feet away. No slack, and away he will go on another run, culminating in another series of leaps. About

this time one begins to worry over the line, and to wish that he had had nine hundred feet on the reel

originally instead of six hundred. With careful playing the line can be saved, and after an hour of keen

excitement the fish can be brought to gaff. One such dolphin I landed on the Snark measured four feet and

Hermann caught dolphins more prosaically. A handline and a chunk of sharkmeat were all he needed. His

handline was very thick, but on more than one occasion it parted and lost the fish. One day a dolphin got

away with a lure of Hermann's manufacture, to which were lashed four O'Shaughnessy hooks. Within an hour

the same dolphin was landed with the rod, and on dissecting him the four hooks were recovered. The

dolphins, which remained with us over a month, deserted us north of the line, and not one was seen during the

So the days passed. There was so much to be done that time never dragged. Had there been little to do, time

could not have dragged with such wonderful seascapes and cloudscapesdawns that were like burning

imperial cities under rainbows that arched nearly to the zenith; sunsets that bathed the purple sea in rivers of

rose coloured light, flowing from a sun whose diverging, heavenclimbing rays were of the purest blue.

Overside, in the heat of the day, the sea was an azure satiny fabric, in the depths of which the sunshine

focussed in funnels of light. Astern, deep down, when there was a breeze, bubbled a procession of

milkyturquoise ghoststhe foam flung down by the hull of the Snark each time she floundered against a

sea. At night the wake was phosphorescent fire, where the medusa slime resented our passing bulk, while far

down could be observed the unceasing flight of comets, with long, undulating, nebulous tailscaused by the

passage of the bonitas through the resentful medusa slime. And now and again, from out of the darkness on

either hand, just under the surface, larger phosphorescent organisms flashed up like electric lights, marking

collisions with the careless bonitas skurrying ahead to the good hunting just beyond our bowsprit.

We made our easting, worked down through the doldrums, and caught a fresh breeze out of southbywest.

Hauled up by the wind, on such a slant, we would fetch past the Marquesas far away to the westward. But the

next day, on Tuesday, November 26, in the thick of a heavy squall, the wind shifted suddenly to the

southeast. It was the trade at last. There were no more squalls, naught but fine weather, a fair wind, and a

whirling log, with sheets slacked off and with spinnaker and mainsail swaying and bellying on either side.

The trade backed more and more, until it blew out of the northeast, while we steered a steady course to the

southwest. Ten days of this, and on the morning of December 6, at five o'clock, we sighted land "just where it

ought to have been," dead ahead. We passed to leeward of Uahuka, skirted the southern edge of Nukahiva,

and that night, in driving squalls and inky darkness, fought our way in to an anchorage in the narrow bay of

Taiohae. The anchor rumbled down to the blatting of wild goats on the cliffs, and the air we breathed was

heavy with the perfume of flowers. The traverse was accomplished. Sixty days from land to land, across a

To the eastward Uahuka was being blotted out by an evening rain squall that was fast overtaking the

Snark. But that little craft, her big spinnaker filled by the southeast trade, was making a good race of it. Cape

Martin, the southeasternmost point of Nukuhiva, was abeam, and Comptroller Bay was opening up as we

fled past its wide entrance, where Sail Rock, for all the world like the spritsail of a Columbia River

But we were more interested in the recesses of Comptroller Bay, where our eyes eagerly sought out the three

bights of land and centred on the midmost one, where the gathering twilight showed the dim walls of a valley

extending inland. How often we had pored over the chart and centred always on that midmost bight and on

the valley it openedthe Valley of Typee. "Taipi" the chart spelled it, and spelled it correctly, but I prefer

"Typee," and I shall always spell it "Typee." When I was a little boy, I read a book spelled in that

mannerHerman Melville's "Typee"; and many long hours I dreamed over its pages. Nor was it all

dreaming. I resolved there and then, mightily, come what would, that when I had gained strength and years, I,

too, would voyage to Typee. For the wonder of the world was penetrating to my tiny consciousnessthe

wonder that was to lead me to many lands, and that leads and never pails. The years passed, but Typee was

not forgotten. Returned to San Francisco from a seven months' cruise in the North Pacific, I decided the time

had come. The brig Galilee was sailing for the Marquesas, but her crew was complete and I, who was an

ableseaman before the mast and young enough to be overweeningly proud of it, was willing to condescend

to ship as cabinboy in order to make the pilgrimage to Typee. Of course, the Galilee would have sailed from

the Marquesas without me, for I was bent on finding another Fayaway and another KoryKory. I doubt that

the captain read desertion in my eye. Perhaps even the berth of cabinboy was already filled. At any rate, I

Then came the rush of years, filled brimming with projects, achievements, and failures; but Typee was not

forgotten, and here I was now, gazing at its misty outlines till the squall swooped down and the Snark dashed

on into the driving smother. Ahead, we caught a glimpse and took the compass bearing of Sentinel Rock,

wreathed with pounding surf. Then it, too, was effaced by the rain and darkness. We steered straight for it,

trusting to hear the sound of breakers in time to sheer clear. We had to steer for it. We had naught but a

compass bearing with which to orientate ourselves, and if we missed Sentinel Rock, we missed Taiohae Bay,

and we would have to throw the Snark up to the wind and lie off and on the whole nightno pleasant

prospect for voyagers weary from a sixty days' traverse of the vast Pacific solitude, and landhungry, and

Abruptly, with a roar of sound, Sentinel Rock loomed through the rain dead ahead. We altered our course,

and, with mainsail and spinnaker bellying to the squall, drove past. Under the lea of the rock the wind

dropped us, and we rolled in an absolute calm. Then a puff of air struck us, right in our teeth, out of Taiohae

Bay. It was in spinnaker, up mizzen, all sheets by the wind, and we were moving slowly ahead, heaving the

lead and straining our eyes for the fixed red light on the ruined fort that would give us our bearings to

anchorage. The air was light and baffling, now east, now west, now north, now south; while from either hand

came the roar of unseen breakers. From the looming cliffs arose the blatting of wild goats, and overhead the

first stars were peeping mistily through the ragged train of the passing squall. At the end of two hours, having

come a mile into the bay, we dropped anchor in eleven fathoms. And so we came to Taiohae.

In the morning we awoke in fairyland. The Snark rested in a placid harbour that nestled in a vast

amphitheatre, the towering, vineclad walls of which seemed to rise directly from the water. Far up, to the

east, we glimpsed the thin line of a trail, visible in one place, where it scoured across the face of the wall.

We were not long in getting ashore and astride horses, though the consummation of our pilgrimage had to be

deferred for a day. Two months at sea, barefooted all the time, without space in which to exercise one's

limbs, is not the best preliminary to leather shoes and walking. Besides, the land had to cease its nauseous

rolling before we could feel fit for riding goatlike horses over giddy trails. So we took a short ride to break

in, and crawled through thick jungle to make the acquaintance of a venerable mossgrown idol, where had

foregathered a German trader and a Norwegian captain to estimate the weight of said idol, and to speculate

upon depreciation in value caused by sawing him in half. They treated the old fellow sacrilegiously, digging

their knives into him to see how hard he was and how deep his mossy mantle, and commanding him to rise

up and save them trouble by walking down to the ship himself. In lieu of which, nineteen Kanakas slung him

on a frame of timbers and toted him to the ship, where, battened down under hatches, even now he is cleaving

the South Pacific Hornward and toward Europethe ultimate abidingplace for all good heathen idols, save

for the few in America and one in particular who grins beside me as I write, and who, barring shipwreck, will

grin somewhere in my neighbourhood until I die. And he will win out. He will be grinning when I am dust.

Also, as a preliminary, we attended a feast, where one Taiara Tamarii, the son of an Hawaiian sailor who

deserted from a whaleship, commemorated the death of his Marquesan mother by roasting fourteen whole

hogs and inviting in the village. So we came along, welcomed by a native herald, a young girl, who stood on

a great rock and chanted the information that the banquet was made perfect by our presencewhich

information she extended impartially to every arrival. Scarcely were we seated, however, when she changed

her tune, while the company manifested intense excitement. Her cries became eager and piercing. From a

distance came answering cries, in men's voices, which blended into a wild, barbaric chant that sounded

incredibly savage, smacking of blood and war. Then, through vistas of tropical foliage appeared a procession

of savages, naked save for gaudy loincloths. They advanced slowly, uttering deep guttural cries of triumph

and exaltation. Slung from young saplings carried on their shoulders were mysterious objects of considerable

Nothing but pigs, innocently fat and roasted to a turn, were inside those wrappings, but the men were carrying

them into camp in imitation of old times when they carried in "longpig." Now long pig is not pig.

Longpig is the Polynesian euphemism for human flesh; and these descendants of maneaters, a king's son at

their head, brought in the pigs to table as of old their grandfathers had brought in their slain enemies. Every

now and then the procession halted in order that the bearers should have every advantage in uttering

particularly ferocious shouts of victory, of contempt for their enemies, and of gustatory desire. So Melville,

two generations ago, witnessed the bodies of slain Happar warriors, wrapped in palmleaves, carried to

banquet at the Ti. At another time, at the Ti, he "observed a curiously carved vessel of wood," and on looking

into it his eyes "fell upon the disordered members of a human skeleton, the bones still fresh with moisture,

Cannibalism has often been regarded as a fairy story by ultracivilized men who dislike, perhaps, the notion

that their own savage forebears have somewhere in the past been addicted to similar practices. Captain Cook

was rather sceptical upon the subject, until, one day, in a harbour of New Zealand, he deliberately tested the

matter. A native happened to have brought on board, for sale, a nice, sundried head. At Cook's orders strips

of the flesh were cut away and handed to the native, who greedily devoured them. To say the least, Captain

Cook was a rather thoroughgoing empiricist. At any rate, by that act he supplied one ascertained fact of

which science had been badly in need. Little did he dream of the existence of a certain group of islands,

thousands of miles away, where in subsequent days there would arise a curious suit at law, when an old chief

of Maui would be charged with defamation of character because he persisted in asserting that his body was

the living repository of Captain Cook's great toe. It is said that the plaintiffs failed to prove that the old chief

I suppose I shall not have the chance in these degenerate days to see any longpig eaten, but at least I am

already the possessor of a duly certified Marquesan calabash, oblong in shape, curiously carved, over a

century old, from which has been drunk the blood of two shipmasters. One of those captains was a mean

man. He sold a decrepit whaleboat, as good as new what of the fresh white paint, to a Marquesan chief. But

no sooner had the captain sailed away than the whaleboat dropped to pieces. It was his fortune, some time

afterwards, to be wrecked, of all places, on that particular island. The Marquesan chief was ignorant of

rebates and discounts; but he had a primitive sense of equity and an equally primitive conception of the

economy of nature, and he balanced the account by eating the man who had cheated him.

We started in the cool dawn for Typee, astride ferocious little stallions that pawed and screamed and bit and

fought one another quite oblivious of the fragile humans on their backs and of the slippery boulders, loose

rocks, and yawning gorges. The way led up an ancient road through a jungle of hau trees. On every side were

the vestiges of a onetime dense population. Wherever the eye could penetrate the thick growth, glimpses

were caught of stone walls and of stone foundations, six to eight feet in height, built solidly throughout, and

many yards in width and depth. They formed great stone platforms, upon which, at one time, there had been

houses. But the houses and the people were gone, and huge trees sank their roots through the platforms and

towered over the underrunning jungle. These foundations are called paepaesthe pipis of Melville, who

The Marquesans of the present generation lack the energy to hoist and place such huge stones. Also, they lack

incentive. There are plenty of paepaes to go around, with a few thousand unoccupied ones left over. Once or

twice, as we ascended the valley, we saw magnificent paepaes bearing on their general surface pitiful little

straw huts, the proportions being similar to a voting booth perched on the broad foundation of the Pyramid of

Cheops. For the Marquesans are perishing, and, to judge from conditions at Taiohae, the one thing that

retards their destruction is the infusion of fresh blood. A pure Marquesan is a rarity. They seem to be all

halfbreeds and strange conglomerations of dozens of different races. Nineteen able labourers are all the

trader at Taiohae can muster for the loading of copra on shipboard, and in their veins runs the blood of

English, American, Dane, German, French, Corsican, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Hawaiian, Paumotan,

Tahitian, and Easter Islander. There are more races than there are persons, but it is a wreckage of races at

best. Life faints and stumbles and gasps itself away. In this warm, equable climea truly terrestrial

paradisewhere are never extremes of temperature and where the air is like balm, kept ever pure by the

ozoneladen southeast trade, asthma, phthisis, and tuberculosis flourish as luxuriantly as the vegetation.

Everywhere, from the few grass huts, arises the racking cough or exhausted groan of wasted lungs. Other

horrible diseases prosper as well, but the most deadly of all are those that attack the lungs. There is a form of

consumption called "galloping," which is especially dreaded. In two months' time it reduces the strongest

man to a skeleton under a gravecloth. In valley after valley the last inhabitant has passed and the fertile soil

has relapsed to jungle. In Melville's day the valley of Hapaa (spelled by him "Happar") was peopled by a

strong and warlike tribe. A generation later, it contained but two hundred persons. Today it is an untenanted,

We climbed higher and higher in the valley, our unshod stallions picking their steps on the disintegrating

trail, which led in and out through the abandoned paepaes and insatiable jungle. The sight of red mountain

apples, the ohias, familiar to us from Hawaii, caused a native to be sent climbing after them. And again he

climbed for cocoanuts. I have drunk the cocoanuts of Jamaica and of Hawaii, but I never knew how

delicious such draught could be till I drank it here in the Marquesas. Occasionally we rode under wild limes

and orangesgreat trees which had survived the wilderness longer than the motes of humans who had

We rode through endless thickets of yellowpollened cassiif riding it could be called; for those fragrant

thickets were inhabited by wasps. And such wasps! Great yellow fellows the size of small canary birds,

darting through the air with behind them drifting a bunch of legs a couple of inches long. A stallion abruptly

stands on his forelegs and thrusts his hind legs skyward. He withdraws them from the sky long enough to

make one wild jump ahead, and then returns them to their index position. It is nothing. His thick hide has

merely been punctured by a flaming lance of wasp virility. Then a second and a third stallion, and all the

stallions, begin to cavort on their forelegs over the precipitous landscape. Swat! A whitehot poniard

penetrates my cheek. Swat again!! I am stabbed in the neck. I am bringing up the rear and getting more than

my share. There is no retreat, and the plunging horses ahead, on a precarious trail, promise little safety. My

horse overruns Charmian's horse, and that sensitive creature, freshstung at the psychological moment,

planks one of his hoofs into my horse and the other hoof into me. I thank my stars that he is not steelshod,

and halfarise from the saddle at the impact of another flaming dagger. I am certainly getting more than my

"Get out of the way! I'm coming!" I shout, frantically dashing my cap at the winged vipers around me.

On one side of the trail the landscape rises straight up. On the other side it sinks straight down. The only way

to get out of my way is to keep on going. How that string of horses kept their feet is a miracle; but they

dashed ahead, overrunning one another, galloping, trotting, stumbling, jumping, scrambling, and kicking

methodically skyward every time a wasp landed on them. After a while we drew breath and counted our

injuries. And this happened not once, nor twice, but time after time. Strange to say, it never grew

monotonous. I know that I, for one, came through each brush with the undiminished zest of a man flying

from sudden death. No; the pilgrim from Taiohae to Typee will never suffer from ennui on the way.

At last we arose above the vexation of wasps. It was a matter of altitude, however, rather than of fortitude.

All about us lay the jagged backbones of ranges, as far as the eye could see, thrusting their pinnacles into

the tradewind clouds. Under us, from the way we had come, the Snark lay like a tiny toy on the calm water

of Taiohae Bay. Ahead we could see the inshore indentation of Comptroller Bay. We dropped down a

thousand feet, and Typee lay beneath us. "Had a glimpse of the gardens of paradise been revealed to me I

could scarcely have been more ravished with the sight"so said Melville on the moment of his first view of

the valley. He saw a garden. We saw a wilderness. Where were the hundred groves of the breadfruit tree he

saw? We saw jungle, nothing but jungle, with the exception of two grass huts and several clumps of

cocoanuts breaking the primordial green mantle. Where was the Ti of Mehevi, the bachelors' hall, the palace

where women were taboo, and where he ruled with his lesser chieftains, keeping the halfdozen dusty and

torpid ancients to remind them of the valorous past? From the swift stream no sounds arose of maids and

matrons pounding tapa. And where was the hut that old Narheyo eternally builded? In vain I looked for him

perched ninety feet from the ground in some tall cocoanut, taking his morning smoke.

We went down a zigzag trail under overarching, matted jungle, where great butterflies drifted by in the

silence. No tattooed savage with club and javelin guarded the path; and when we forded the stream, we were

free to roam where we pleased. No longer did the taboo, sacred and merciless, reign in that sweet vale. Nay,

the taboo still did reign, a new taboo, for when we approached too near the several wretched native women,

the taboo was uttered warningly. And it was well. They were lepers. The man who warned us was afflicted

horribly with elephantiasis. All were suffering from lung trouble. The valley of Typee was the abode of

death, and the dozen survivors of the tribe were gasping feebly the last painful breaths of the race.

Certainly the battle had not been to the strong, for once the Typeans were very strong, stronger than the

Happars, stronger than the Taiohaeans, stronger than all the tribes of Nukuhiva. The word "typee," or,

rather, "taipi," originally signified an eater of human flesh. But since all the Marquesans were humanflesh

eaters, to be so designated was the token that the Typeans were the humanflesh eaters par excellence. Not

alone to Nukuhiva did the Typean reputation for bravery and ferocity extend. In all the islands of the

Marquesas the Typeans were named with dread. Man could not conquer them. Even the French fleet that took

possession of the Marquesas left the Typeans alone. Captain Porter, of the frigate Essex, once invaded the

valley. His sailors and marines were reinforced by two thousand warriors of Happar and Taiohae. They

penetrated quite a distance into the valley, but met with so fierce a resistance that they were glad to retreat

Of all inhabitants of the South Seas, the Marquesans were adjudged the strongest and the most beautiful.

Melville said of them: "I was especially struck by the physical strength and beauty they displayed . . . In

beauty of form they surpassed anything I had ever seen. Not a single instance of natural deformity was

observable in all the throng attending the revels. Every individual appeared free from those blemishes which

sometimes mar the effect of an otherwise perfect form. But their physical excellence did not merely consist in

an exemption from these evils; nearly every individual of the number might have been taken for a sculptor's

model." Mendana, the discoverer of the Marquesas, described the natives as wondrously beautiful to behold.

Figueroa, the chronicler of his voyage, said of them: "In complexion they were nearly white; of good stature

and finely formed." Captain Cook called the Marquesans the most splendid islanders in the South Seas. The

men were described, as "in almost every instance of lofty stature, scarcely ever less than six feet in height."

And now all this strength and beauty has departed, and the valley of Typee is the abode of some dozen

wretched creatures, afflicted by leprosy, elephantiasis, and tuberculosis. Melville estimated the population at

two thousand, not taking into consideration the small adjoining valley of Hooumi. Life has rotted away in

this wonderful garden spot, where the climate is as delightful and healthful as any to be found in the world.

Not alone were the Typeans physically magnificent; they were pure. Their air did not contain the bacilli and

germs and microbes of disease that fill our own air. And when the white men imported in their ships these

various microorganisms or disease, the Typeans crumpled up and went down before them.

When one considers the situation, one is almost driven to the conclusion that the white race flourishes on

impurity and corruption. Natural selection, however, gives the explanation. We of the white race are the

survivors and the descendants of the thousands of generations of survivors in the war with the micro

organisms. Whenever one of us was born with a constitution peculiarly receptive to these minute enemies,

such a one promptly died. Only those of us survived who could withstand them. We who are alive are the

immune, the fitthe ones best constituted to live in a world of hostile microorganisms. The poor

Marquesans had undergone no such selection. They were not immune. And they, who had made a custom of

eating their enemies, were now eaten by enemies so microscopic as to be invisible, and against whom no war

of dart and javelin was possible. On the other hand, had there been a few hundred thousand Marquesans to

begin with, there might have been sufficient survivors to lay the foundation for a new racea regenerated

race, if a plunge into a festering bath of organic poison can be called regeneration.

We unsaddled our horses for lunch, and after we had fought the stallions apartmine with several fresh

chunks bitten out of his backand after we had vainly fought the sandflies, we ate bananas and tinned

meats, washed down by generous draughts of cocoanut milk. There was little to be seen. The jungle had

rushed back and engulfed the puny works of man. Here and there paipais were to be stumbled upon, but

there were no inscriptions, no hieroglyphics, no clues to the past they attestedonly dumb stones, builded

and carved by hands that were forgotten dust. Out of the paipais grew great trees, jealous of the wrought

We gave up the jungle and sought the stream with the idea of evading the sandflies. Vain hope! To go in

swimming one must take off his clothes. The sandflies are aware of the fact, and they lurk by the river bank

in countless myriads. In the native they are called the naunau, which is pronounced "nownow." They are

certainly well named, for they are the insistent present. There is no past nor future when they fasten upon

one's epidermis, and I am willing to wager that Omer Khayyam could never have written the Rubaiyat in the

valley of Typeeit would have been psychologically impossible. I made the strategic mistake of undressing

on the edge of a steep bank where I could dive in but could not climb out. When I was ready to dress, I had a

hundred yards' walk on the bank before I could reach my clothes. At the first step, fully ten thousand

naunaus landed upon me. At the second step I was walking in a cloud. By the third step the sun was dimmed

in the sky. After that I don't know what happened. When I arrived at my clothes, I was a maniac. And here

enters my grand tactical error. There is only one rule of conduct in dealing with naunaus. Never swat them.

Whatever you do, don't swat them. They are so vicious that in the instant of annihilation they eject their last

atom of poison into your carcass. You must pluck them delicately, between thumb and forefinger, and

persuade them gently to remove their proboscides from your quivering flesh. It is like pulling teeth. But the

difficulty was that the teeth sprouted faster than I could pull them, so I swatted, and, so doing, filled myself

full with their poison. This was a week ago. At the present moment I resemble a sadly neglected smallpox

Hooumi is a small valley, separated from Typee by a low ridge, and thither we started when we had

knocked our indomitable and insatiable ridinganimals into submission. As it was, Warren's mount, after a

mile run, selected the most dangerous part of the trail for an exhibition that kept us all on the anxious seat for

fully five minutes. We rode by the mouth of Typee valley and gazed down upon the beach from which

Melville escaped. There was where the whaleboat lay on its oars close in to the surf; and there was where

Karakoee, the taboo Kanaka, stood in the water and trafficked for the sailor's life. There, surely, was where

Melville gave Fayaway the parting embrace ere he dashed for the boat. And there was the point of land from

which Mehevi and Mowmow and their following swam off to intercept the boat, only to have their wrists

gashed by sheathknives when they laid hold of the gunwale, though it was reserved for Mowmow to

We rode on to Hooumi. So closely was Melville guarded that he never dreamed of the existence of this

valley, though he must continually have met its inhabitants, for they belonged to Typee. We rode through the

same abandoned paepaes, but as we neared the sea we found a profusion of cocoanuts, breadfruit trees and

taro patches, and fully a dozen grass dwellings. In one of these we arranged to pass the night, and

preparations were immediately put on foot for a feast. A young pig was promptly despatched, and while he

was being roasted among hot stones, and while chickens were stewing in cocoanut milk, I persuaded one of

the cooks to climb an unusually tall cocoanut palm. The cluster of nuts at the top was fully one hundred and

twentyfive feet from the ground, but that native strode up to the tree, seized it in both hands, jackknived at

the waist so that the soles of his feet rested flatly against the trunk, and then he walked right straight up

without stopping. There were no notches in the tree. He had no ropes to help him. He merely walked up the

tree, one hundred and twentyfive feet in the air, and cast down the nuts from the summit. Not every man

there had the physical stamina for such a feat, or the lungs, rather, for most of them were coughing their lives

away. Some of the women kept up a ceaseless moaning and groaning, so badly were their lungs wasted. Very

few of either sex were fullblooded Marquesans. They were mostly half breeds and threequarterbreeds of

French, English, Danish, and Chinese extraction. At the best, these infusions of fresh blood merely delayed

The feast was served on a broad paepae, the rear portion of which was occupied by the house in which we

were to sleep. The first course was raw fish and poipoi, the latter sharp and more acrid of taste than the poi

of Hawaii, which is made from taro. The poipoi of the Marquesas is made from breadfruit. The ripe fruit,

after the core is removed, is placed in a calabash and pounded with a stone pestle into a stiff, sticky paste. In

this stage of the process, wrapped in leaves, it can be buried in the ground, where it will keep for years.

Before it can be eaten, however, further processes are necessary. A leafcovered package is placed among

hot stones, like the pig, and thoroughly baked. After that it is mixed with cold water and thinned outnot

thin enough to run, but thin enough to be eaten by sticking one's first and second fingers into it. On close

acquaintance it proves a pleasant and most healthful food. And breadfruit, ripe and well boiled or roasted! It

is delicious. Breadfruit and taro are kingly vegetables, the pair of them, though the former is patently a

misnomer and more resembles a sweet potato than anything else, though it is not mealy like a sweet potato,

The feast ended, we watched the moon rise over Typee. The air was like balm, faintly scented with the breath

of flowers. It was a magic night, deathly still, without the slightest breeze to stir the foliage; and one caught

one's breath and felt the pang that is almost hurt, so exquisite was the beauty of it. Faint and far could be

heard the thin thunder of the surf upon the beach. There were no beds; and we drowsed and slept wherever

we thought the floor softest. Near by, a woman panted and moaned in her sleep, and all about us the dying

I first met him on Market Street in San Francisco. It was a wet and drizzly afternoon, and he was striding

along, clad solely in a pair of abbreviated kneetrousers and an abbreviated shirt, his bare feet going

slickslick through the pavementslush. At his heels trooped a score of excited gamins. Every headand

there were thousands turned to glance curiously at him as he went by. And I turned, too. Never had I seen

such lovely sunburn. He was all sunburn, of the sort a blond takes on when his skin does not peel. His long

yellow hair was burnt, so was his beard, which sprang from a soil unploughed by any razor. He was a tawny

man, a goldentawny man, all glowing and radiant with the sun. Another prophet, thought I, come up to town

A few weeks later I was with some friends in their bungalow in the Piedmont hills overlooking San Francisco

Bay. "We've got him, we've got him," they barked. "We caught him up a tree; but he's all right now, he'll feed

from the hand. Come on and see him." So I accompanied them up a dizzy hill, and in a rickety shack in the

He hastened to meet us, arriving in the whirl and blur of a handspring. He did not shake hands with us;

instead, his greeting took the form of stunts. He turned more handsprings. He twisted his body sinuously, like

a snake, until, having sufficiently limbered up, he bent from the hips, and, with legs straight and knees

touching, beat a tattoo on the ground with the palms of his hands. He whirligigged and pirouetted, dancing

and cavorting round like an inebriated ape. All the sunwarmth of his ardent life beamed in his face. I am so

He sang it all evening, ringing the changes on it with an endless variety of stunts. "A fool! a fool! I met a fool

in the forest!" thought I, and a worthy fool he proved. Between handsprings and whirligigs he delivered his

message that would save the world. It was twofold. First, let suffering humanity strip off its clothing and run

wild in the mountains and valleys; and, second, let the very miserable world adopt phonetic spelling. I caught

a glimpse of the great social problems being settled by the city populations swarming naked over the

landscape, to the popping of shotguns, the barking of ranchdogs, and countless assaults with pitchforks

The years passed, and, one sunny morning, the Snark poked her nose into a narrow opening in a reef that

smoked with the crashing impact of the tradewind swell, and beat slowly up Papeete harbour. Coming off to

us was a boat, flying a yellow flag. We knew it contained the port doctor. But quite a distance off, in its wake,

was a tiny out rigger canoe that puzzled us. It was flying a red flag. I studied it through the glasses, fearing

that it marked some hidden danger to navigation, some recent wreck or some buoy or beacon that had been

swept away. Then the doctor came on board. After he had examined the state of our health and been assured

that we had no live rats hidden away in the Snark, I asked him the meaning of the red flag. "Oh, that is

And then Darling, Ernest Darling flying the red flag that is indicative of the brotherhood of man, hailed us.

"Hello, Jack!" he called. "Hello, Charmian! He paddled swiftly nearer, and I saw that he was the tawny

prophet of the Piedmont hills. He came over the side, a sungod clad in a scarlet loincloth, with presents of

Arcady and greeting in both his handsa bottle of golden honey and a leafbasket filled WITH great golden

mangoes, golden bananas specked with freckles of deeper gold, golden pineapples and golden limes, and

juicy oranges minted from the same precious ore of sun and soil. And in this fashion under the southern sky, I

Tahiti is one of the most beautiful spots in the world, inhabited by thieves and robbers and liars, also by

several honest and truthful men and women. Wherefore, because of the blight cast upon Tahiti's wonderful

beauty by the spidery human vermin that infest it, I am minded to write, not of Tahiti, but of the Nature Man.

He, at least, is refreshing and wholesome. The spirit that emanates from him is so gentle and sweet that it

would harm nothing, hurt nobody's feelings save the feelings of a predatory and plutocratic capitalist.

When we dropped anchor, lowered a small boat into the water, and started ashore, the Nature Man joined us.

Now, thought I, I shall be pestered to death by this crank. Waking or sleeping I shall never be quit of him

But never in my life was I more mistaken. I took a house and went to live and work in it, and the Nature Man

never came near me. He was waiting for the invitation. In the meantime he went aboard the Snark and took

possession of her library, delighted by the quantity of scientific books, and shocked, as I learned afterwards,

by the inordinate amount of fiction. The Nature Man never wastes time on fiction.

After a week or so, my conscience smote me, and I invited him to dinner at a downtown hotel.

He arrived, looking unwontedly stiff and uncomfortable in a cotton jacket. When invited to peel it off, he

beamed his gratitude and joy, and did so, revealing his sungold skin, from waist to shoulder, covered only

by a piece of fishnet of coarse twine and large of mesh. A scarlet loincloth completed his costume. I began

my acquaintance with him that night, and during my long stay in Tahiti that acquaintance ripened into

"So you write books," he said, one day when, tired and sweaty, I finished my morning's work.

Aha, thought I, now at last is he going to pester me with his literary efforts. My soul was in revolt. I had not

"This is the book I write," he explained, smashing himself a resounding blow on the chest with his clenched

fist. "The gorilla in the African jungle pounds his chest till the noise of it can be heard half a mile away."

"A pretty good chest," quoth I, admiringly; "it would even make a gorilla envious."

And then, and later, I learned the details of the marvellous book Ernest Darling had written. Twelve years ago

he lay close to death. He weighed but ninety pounds, and was too weak to speak. The doctors had given him

up. His father, a practising physician, had given him up. Consultations with other physicians had been held

upon him. There was no hope for him. Overstudy (as a school teacher and as a university student) and two

successive attacks of pneumonia were responsible for his breakdown. Day by day he was losing strength. He

could extract no nutrition from the heavy foods they gave him; nor could pellets and powders help his

stomach to do the work of digestion. Not only was he a physical wreck, but he was a mental wreck. His mind

was overwrought. He was sick and tired of medicine, and he was sick and tired of persons. Human speech

jarred upon him. Human attentions drove him frantic. The thought came to him that since he was going to

die, he might as well die in the open, away from all the bother and irritation. And behind this idea lurked a

sneaking idea that perhaps he would not die after all if only he could escape from the heavy foods, the

So Ernest Darling, a bag of bones and a death'shead, a perambulating corpse, with just the dimmest flutter

of life in it to make it perambulate, turned his back upon men and the habitations of men and dragged himself

for five miles through the brush, away from the city of Portland, Oregon. Of course he was crazy. Only a

But in the brush, Darling found what he was looking forrest. Nobody bothered him with beefsteaks and

pork. No physicians lacerated his tired nerves by feeling his pulse, nor tormented his tired stomach with

pellets and powders. He began to feel soothed. The sun was shining warm, and he basked in it. He had the

feeling that the sun shine was an elixir of health. Then it seemed to him that his whole wasted wreck of a

body was crying for the sun. He stripped off his clothes and bathed in the sunshine. He felt better. It had done

As he grew better, he sat up and began to take notice. All about him were the birds fluttering and chirping,

the squirrels chattering and playing. He envied them their health and spirits, their happy, carefree existence.

That he should contrast their condition with his was inevitable; and that he should question why they were

splendidly vigorous while he was a feeble, dying wraith of a man, was likewise inevitable. His conclusion

was the very obvious one, namely, that they lived naturally, while he lived most unnaturally therefore, if he

Alone, there in the brush, he worked out his problem and began to apply it. He stripped off his clothing and

leaped and gambolled about, running on all fours, climbing trees; in short, doing physical stunts,and all the

time soaking in the sunshine. He imitated the animals. He built a nest of dry leaves and grasses in which to

sleep at night, covering it over with bark as a protection against the early fall rains. "Here is a beautiful

exercise," he told me, once, flapping his arms mightily against his sides; "I learned it from watching the

roosters crow." Another time I remarked the loud, sucking intake with which he drank cocoanutmilk. He

explained that he had noticed the cows drinking that way and concluded there must be something in it. He

He noted that the squirrels lived on fruits and nuts. He started on a fruitandnut diet, helped out by bread,

and he grew stronger and put on weight. For three months he continued his primordial existence in the brush,

and then the heavy Oregon rains drove him back to the habitations of men. Not in three months could a

ninety pound survivor of two attacks of pneumonia develop sufficient ruggedness to live through an Oregon

He had accomplished much, but he had been driven in. There was no place to go but back to his father's

house, and there, living in close rooms with lungs that panted for all the air of the open sky, he was brought

down by a third attack of pneumonia. He grew weaker even than before. In that tottering tabernacle of flesh,

his brain collapsed. He lay like a corpse, too weak to stand the fatigue of speaking, too irritated and tired in

his miserable brain to care to listen to the speech of others. The only act of will of which he was capable was

to stick his fingers in his ears and resolutely to refuse to hear a single word that was spoken to him. They sent

for the insanity experts. He was adjudged insane, and also the verdict was given that he would not live a

By one such mental expert he was carted off to a sanatorium on Mt. Tabor. Here, when they learned that he

was harmless, they gave him his own way. They no longer dictated as to the food he ate, so he resumed his

fruits and nutsolive oil, peanut butter, and bananas the chief articles of his diet. As he regained his strength

he made up his mind to live thenceforth his own life. If he lived like others, according to social conventions,

he would surely die. And he did not want to die. The fear of death was one of the strongest factors in the

genesis of the Nature Man. To live, he must have a natural diet, the open air, and the blessed sunshine.

Now an Oregon winter has no inducements for those who wish to return to Nature, so Darling started out in

search of a climate. He mounted a bicycle and headed south for the sunlands. Stanford University claimed

him for a year. Here he studied and worked his way, attending lectures in as scant garb as the authorities

would allow and applying as much as possible the principles of living that he had learned in squirreltown.

His favourite method of study was to go off in the hills back of the University, and there to strip off his

clothes and lie on the grass, soaking in sunshine and health at the same time that he soaked in knowledge.

But Central California has her winters, and the quest for a Nature Man's climate drew him on. He tried Los

Angeles and Southern California, being arrested a few times and brought before the insanity commissions

because, forsooth, his mode of life was not modelled after the mode of life of his fellowmen. He tried

Hawaii, where, unable to prove him insane, the authorities deported him. It was not exactly a deportation. He

could have remained by serving a year in prison. They gave him his choice. Now prison is death to the Nature

Man, who thrives only in the open air and in God's sunshine. The authorities of Hawaii are not to be blamed.

Darling was an undesirable citizen. Any man is undesirable who disagrees with one. And that any man should

disagree to the extent Darling did in his philosophy of the simple life is ample vindication of the Hawaiian

So Darling went thence in search of a climate which would not only be desirable, but wherein he would not

be undesirable. And he found it in Tahiti, the gardenspot of gardenspots. And so it was, according to the

narrative as given, that he wrote the pages of his book. He wears only a loincloth and a sleeveless fishnet

shirt. His stripped weight is one hundred and sixtyfive pounds. His health is perfect. His eyesight, that at

one time was considered ruined, is excellent. The lungs that were practically destroyed by three attacks of

I shall never forget the first time, while talking to me, that he squashed a mosquito. The stinging pest had

settled in the middle of his back between his shoulders. Without interrupting the flow of conversation,

without dropping even a syllable, his clenched fist shot up in the air, curved backward, and smote his back

between the shoulders, killing the mosquito and making his frame resound like a bass drum. It reminded me

"The gorilla in the African jungle pounds his chest until the noise of it can be heard half a mile away," he will

announce suddenly, and thereat beat a hairraising, devil's tattoo on his own chest.

One day he noticed a set of boxinggloves hanging on the wall, and promptly his eyes brightened.

And there and then we stripped and put on the gloves. Bang! a long, gorilla arm flashed out, landing the

gloved end on my nose. Biff! he caught me, in a duck, on the side of the head nearly knocking me over

sidewise. I carried the lump raised by that blow for a week. I ducked under a straight left, and landed a

straight right on his stomach. It was a fearful blow. The whole weight of my body was behind it, and his body

had been met as it lunged forward. I looked for him to crumple up and go down. Instead of which his face

beamed approval, and he said, "That was beautiful." The next instant I was covering up and striving to protect

myself from a hurricane of hooks, jolts, and uppercuts. Then I watched my chance and drove in for the solar

plexus. I hit the mark. The Nature Man dropped his arms, gasped, and sat down suddenly.

And inside thirty seconds he was on his feetay, and returning the compliment, for he hooked me in the

solar plexus, and I gasped, dropped my hands, and sat down just a trifle more suddenly than he had.

All of which I submit as evidence that the man I boxed with was a totally different man from the poor,

ninetypound weight of eight years before, who, given up by physicians and alienists, lay gasping his life

away in a closed room in Portland, Oregon. The book that Ernest Darling has written is a good book, and the

Hawaii has wailed for years her need for desirable immigrants. She has spent much time, and thought, and

money, in importing desirable citizens, and she has, as yet, nothing much to show for it. Yet Hawaii deported

the Nature Man. She refused to give him a chance. So it is, to chasten Hawaii's proud spirit, that I take this

opportunity to show her what she has lost in the Nature Man. When he arrived in Tahiti, he proceeded to seek

out a piece of land on which to grow the food he ate. But land was difficult to findthat is, inexpensive land.

The Nature Man was not rolling in wealth. He spent weeks in wandering over the steep hills, until, high up

the mountain, where clustered several tiny canyons, he found eighty acres of brushjungle which were

apparently unrecorded as the property of any one. The government officials told him that if he would clear

Immediately he set to work. And never was there such work. Nobody farmed that high up. The land was

covered with matted jungle and overrun by wild pigs and countless rats. The view of Papeete and the sea was

magnificent, but the outlook was not encouraging. He spent weeks in building a road in order to make the

plantation accessible. The pigs and the rats ate up whatever he planted as fast as it sprouted. He shot the pigs

and trapped the rats. Of the latter, in two weeks he caught fifteen hundred. Everything had to be carried up on

Gradually he began to win out. A grasswalled house was built. On the fertile, volcanic soil he had wrested

from the jungle and jungle beasts were growing five hundred cocoanut trees, five hundred papaia trees, three

hundred mango trees, many breadfruit trees and alligatorpear trees, to say nothing of vines, bushes, and

vegetables. He developed the drip of the hills in the canyons and worked out an efficient irrigation scheme,

ditching the water from canyon to canyon and paralleling the ditches at different altitudes. His narrow

canyons became botanical gardens. The arid shoulders of the hills, where formerly the blazing sun had

parched the jungle and beaten it close to earth, blossomed into trees and shrubs and flowers. Not only had the

Nature Man become selfsupporting, but he was now a prosperous agriculturist with produce to sell to the

Then it was discovered that his land, which the government officials had informed him was without an

owner, really had an owner, and that deeds, descriptions, etc., were on record. All his work bade fare to be

lost. The land had been valueless when he took it up, and the owner, a large landholder, was unaware of the

extent to which the Nature Man had developed it. A just price was agreed upon, and Darling's deed was

Next came a more crushing blow. Darling's access to market was destroyed. The road he had built was fenced

across by triple barb wire fences. It was one of those jumbles in human affairs that is so common in this

absurdest of social systems. Behind it was the fine hand of the same conservative element that haled the

Nature Man before the Insanity Commission in Los Angeles and that deported him from Hawaii. It is so hard

for selfsatisfied men to understand any man whose satisfactions are fundamentally different. It seems clear

that the officials have connived with the conservative element, for to this day the road the Nature Man built is

closed; nothing has been done about it, while an adamant unwillingness to do anything about it is evidenced

on every hand. But the Nature Man dances and sings along his way. He does not sit up nights thinking about

the wrong which has been done him; he leaves the worrying to the doers of the wrong. He has no time for

bitterness. He believes he is in the world for the purpose of being happy, and he has not a moment to waste in

The road to his plantation is blocked. He cannot build a new road, for there is no ground on which he can

build it. The government has restricted him to a wildpig trail which runs precipitously up the mountain. I

climbed the trail with him, and we had to climb with hands and feet in order to get up. Nor can that wildpig

trail be made into a road by any amount of toil less than that of an engineer, a steamengine, and a steel

cable. But what does the Nature Man care? In his gentle ethics the evil men do him he requites with

"Never mind their pesky road," he said to me as we dragged ourselves up a shelf of rock and sat down,

panting, to rest. "I'll get an air machine soon and fool them. I'm clearing a level space for a landing stage for

the airships, and next time you come to Tahiti you will alight right at my door."

Yes, the Nature Man has some strange ideas besides that of the gorilla pounding his chest in the African

jungle. The Nature Man has ideas about levitation. "Yes, sir," he said to me, "levitation is not impossible.

And think of the glory of itlifting one's self from the ground by an act of will. Think of it! The astronomers

tell us that our whole solar system is dying; that, barring accidents, it will all be so cold that no life can live

upon it. Very well. In that day all men will be accomplished levitationists, and they will leave this perishing

planet and seek more hospitable worlds. How can levitation be accomplished? By progressive fasts. Yes, I

have tried them, and toward the end I could feel myself actually getting lighter."

"Of course," he added, "these are only theories of mine. I like to speculate upon the glorious future of man.

"Seven hours," was the answer. "But in ten years I'll be sleeping only six hours, and in twenty years only five

"Just that. Exactly that. When I am a hundred I shall not require sleep. Also, I shall be living on air. There are

"I never heard of him if he did. But it is only a theory of mine, this living on air. It would be fine, wouldn't it?

Of course it may be impossiblemost likely it is. You see, I am not unpractical. I never forget the present.

When I soar ahead into the future, I always leave a string by which to find my way back again."

I fear me the Nature Man is a joker. At any rate he lives the simple life. His laundry bill cannot be large. Up

on his plantation he lives on fruit the labour cost of which, in cash, he estimates at five cents a day. At

present, because of his obstructed road and because he is head over heels in the propaganda of socialism, he

is living in town, where his expenses, including rent, are twentyfive cents a day. In order to pay those

The Nature Man is not bigoted. When there is nothing better to eat than meat, he eats meat, as, for instance,

when in jail or on shipboard and the nuts and fruits give out. Nor does he seem to crystallize into anything

"Drop anchor anywhere and the anchor will dragthat is, if your soul is a limitless, fathomless sea, and not

dogpound," he quoted to me, then added: "You see, my anchor is always dragging. I live for human health

and progress, and I strive to drag my anchor always in that direction. To me, the two are identical. Dragging

anchor is what has saved me. My anchor did not hold me to my deathbed. I dragged anchor into the brush

and fooled the doctors. When I recovered health and strength, I started, by preaching and by example, to

teach the people to become nature men and nature women. But they had deaf ears. Then, on the steamer

coming to Tahiti, a quartermaster expounded socialism to me. He showed me that an economic square deal

was necessary before men and women could live naturally. So I dragged anchor once more, and now I am

working for the cooperative commonwealth. When that arrives, it will be easy to bring about nature living.

"I had a dream last night," he went on thoughtfully, his face slowly breaking into a glow. "It seemed that

twentyfive nature men and nature women had just arrived on the steamer from California, and that I was

Ah, me, Ernest Darling, sunworshipper and nature man, there are times when I am compelled to envy you

and your carefree existence. I see you now, dancing up the steps and cutting antics on the veranda; your hair

dripping from a plunge in the salt sea, your eyes sparkling, your sungilded body flashing, your chest

resounding to the devil's own tattoo as you chant: "The gorilla in the African jungle pounds his chest until the

noise of it can be heard half a mile away." And I shall see you always as I saw you that last day, when the

Snark poked her nose once more through the passage in the smoking reef, outward bound, and I waved

goodbye to those on shore. Not least in goodwill and affection was the wave I gave to the golden sungod

On the arrival of strangers, every man endeavoured to obtain one as a friend and carry him off to his own

habitation, where he is treated with the greatest kindness by the inhabitants of the district; they place him on a

The Snark was lying at anchor at Raiatea, just off the village of Uturoa. She had arrived the night before, after

dark, and we were preparing to pay our first visit ashore. Early in the morning I had noticed a tiny outrigger

canoe, with an impossible spritsail, skimming the surface of the lagoon. The canoe itself was coffin shaped,

a mere dugout, fourteen feet long, a scant twelve inches wide, and maybe twentyfour inches deep. It had no

lines, except in so far that it was sharp at both ends. Its sides were perpendicular. Shorn of the outrigger, it

would have capsized of itself inside a tenth of a second. It was the outrigger that kept it right side up.

I have said that the sail was impossible. It was. It was one of those things, not that you have to see to believe,

but that you cannot believe after you have seen it. The hoist of it and the length of its boom were sufficiently

appalling; but, not content with that, its artificer had given it a tremendous head. So large was the head that

no common sprit could carry the strain of it in an ordinary breeze. So a spar had been lashed to the canoe,

projecting aft over the water. To this had been made fast a sprit guy: thus, the foot of the sail was held by the

It was not a mere boat, not a mere canoe, but a sailing machine. And the man in it sailed it by his weight and

his nerveprincipally by the latter. I watched the canoe beat up from leeward and run in toward the village,

its sole occupant far out on the outrigger and luffing up and spilling the wind in the puffs.

"Well, I know one thing," I announced; "I don't leave Raiatea till I have a ride in that canoe."

A few minutes later Warren called down the companionway, "Here's that canoe you were talking about."

Promptly I dashed on deck and gave greeting to its owner, a tall, slender Polynesian, ingenuous of face, and

with clear, sparkling, intelligent eyes. He was clad in a scarlet loincloth and a straw hat. In his hands were

presentsa fish, a bunch of greens, and several enormous yams. All of which acknowledged by smiles

(which are coinage still in isolated spots of Polynesia) and by frequent repetitions of mauruuru (which is the

Tahitian "thank you"), I proceeded to make signs that I desired to go for a sail in his canoe.

His face lighted with pleasure and he uttered the single word, "Tahaa," turning at the same time and pointing

to the lofty, cloud draped peaks of an island three miles awaythe island of Tahaa. It was fair wind over,

but a headbeat back. Now I did not want to go to Tahaa. I had letters to deliver in Raiatea, and officials to

see, and there was Charmian down below getting ready to go ashore. By insistent signs I indicated that I

desired no more than a short sail on the lagoon. Quick was the disappointment in his face, yet smiling was the

"Come on for a sail," I called below to Charmian. "But put on your swimming suit. It's going to be wet."

It wasn't real. It was a dream. That canoe slid over the water like a streak of silver. I climbed out on the

outrigger and supplied the weight to hold her down, while Tehei (pronounced Tayhayee) supplied the nerve.

He, too, in the puffs, climbed part way out on the outrigger, at the same time steering with both hands on a

I carefully shifted my weight inboard in order to maintain the equilibrium as the sail emptied.

I slid out on the opposite side over the water on a spar lashed across the canoe, and we were full and away on

Those three phrases, "Ready about," "Hard alee," and "All right," comprised Tehei's English vocabulary and

led me to suspect that at some time he had been one of a Kanaka crew under an American captain. Between

the puffs I made signs to him and repeatedly and interrogatively uttered the word SAILOR. Then I tried it in

atrocious French. MARIN conveyed no meaning to him; nor did MATELOT. Either my French was bad, or

else he was not up in it. I have since concluded that both conjectures were correct. Finally, I began naming

over the adjacent islands. He nodded that he had been to them. By the time my quest reached Tahiti, he

caught my drift. His thoughtprocesses were almost visible, and it was a joy to watch him think. He nodded

his head vigorously. Yes, he had been to Tahiti, and he added himself names of islands such as Tikihau,

Rangiroa, and Fakarava, thus proving that he had sailed as far as the Paumotusundoubtedly one of the

After our short sail, when he had returned on board, he by signs inquired the destination of the Snark, and

when I had mentioned Samoa, Fiji, New Guinea, France, England, and California in their geographical

sequence, he said "Samoa," and by gestures intimated that he wanted to go along. Whereupon I was hard put

to explain that there was no room for him. "Petit bateau" finally solved it, and again the disappointment in his

face was accompanied by smiling acquiescence, and promptly came the renewed invitation to accompany

Charmian and I looked at each other. The exhilaration of the ride we had taken was still upon us. Forgotten

were the letters to Raiatea, the officials we had to visit. Shoes, a shirt, a pair of trousers, cigarettes matches,

and a book to read were hastily crammed into a biscuit tin and wrapped in a rubber blanket, and we were over

"When shall we look for you?" Warren called, as the wind filled the sail and sent Tehei and me scurrying out

And away we went. The wind had increased, and with slacked sheets we ran off before it. The freeboard of

the canoe was no more than two and a half inches, and the little waves continually lapped over the side. This

required bailing. Now bailing is one of the principal functions of the vahine. Vahine is the Tahitian for

woman, and Charmian being the only vahine aboard, the bailing fell appropriately to her. Tehei and I could

not very well do it, the both of us being perched part way out on the outrigger and busied with keeping the

canoe bottomside down. So Charmian bailed, with a wooden scoop of primitive design, and so well did she

Raiatea and Tahaa are unique in that they lie inside the same encircling reef. Both are volcanic islands,

ragged of skyline, with heavenaspiring peaks and minarets. Since Raiatea is thirty miles in circumference,

and Tahaa fifteen miles, some idea may be gained of the magnitude of the reef that encloses them. Between

them and the reef stretches from one to two miles of water, forming a beautiful lagoon. The huge Pacific seas,

extending in unbroken lines sometimes a mile or half as much again in length, hurl themselves upon the reef,

overtowering and falling upon it with tremendous crashes, and yet the fragile coral structure withstands the

shock and protects the land. Outside lies destruction to the mightiest ship afloat. Inside reigns the calm of

untroubled water, whereon a canoe like ours can sail with no more than a couple of inches of freeboard.

We flew over the water. And such water!clear as the clearest springwater, and crystalline in its clearness,

all intershot with a maddening pageant of colours and rainbow ribbons more magnificently gorgeous than any

rainbow. Jade green alternated with turquoise, peacock blue with emerald, while now the canoe skimmed

over reddish purple pools, and again over pools of dazzling, shimmering white where pounded coral sand lay

beneath and upon which oozed monstrous seaslugs. One moment we were above wondergardens of coral,

wherein coloured fishes disported, fluttering like marine butterflies; the next moment we were dashing across

the dark surface of deep channels, out of which schools of flying fish lifted their silvery flight; and a third

moment we were above other gardens of living coral, each more wonderful than the last. And above all was

the tropic, tradewind sky with its fluffy clouds racing across the zenith and heaping the horizon with their

Before we were aware, we were close in to Tahaa (pronounced Tahhah ah, with equal accents), and Tehei

was grinning approval of the vahine's proficiency at bailing. The canoe grounded on a shallow shore, twenty

feet from land, and we waded out on a soft bottom where big slugs curled and writhed under our feet and

where small octopuses advertised their existence by their superlative softness when stepped upon. Close to

the beach, amid cocoanut palms and banana trees, erected on stilts, built of bamboo, with a grass thatched

roof, was Tehei's house. And out of the house came Tehei's vahine, a slender mite of a woman, kindly eyed

and Mongolian of featurewhen she was not North American Indian. "Bihaura," Tehei called her, but he did

not pronounce it according to English notions of spelling. Spelled "Bihaura," it sounded like Beeahoorah,

She took Charmian by the hand and led her into the house, leaving Tehei and me to follow. Here, by

signlanguage unmistakable, we were informed that all they possessed was ours. No hidalgo was ever more

generous in the expression of giving, while I am sure that few hidalgos were ever as generous in the actual

practice. We quickly discovered that we dare not admire their possessions, for whenever we did admire a

particular object it was immediately presented to us. The two vahines, according to the way of vahines, got

together in a discussion and examination of feminine fripperies, while Tehei and I, manlike, went over

fishingtackle and wildpighunting, to say nothing of the device whereby bonitas are caught on fortyfoot

poles from double canoes. Charmian admired a sewing basketthe best example she had seen of Polynesian

basketry; it was hers. I admired a bonita hook, carved in one piece from a pearlshell; it was mine. Charmian

was attracted by a fancy braid of straw sennit, thirty feet of it in a roll, sufficient to make a hat of any design

one wished; the roll of sennit was hers. My gaze lingered upon a poipounder that dated back to the old stone

days; it was mine. Charmian dwelt a moment too long on a wooden poibowl, canoeshaped, with four legs,

all carved in one piece of wood; it was hers. I glanced a second time at a gigantic cocoanut calabash; it was

mine. Then Charmian and I held a conference in which we resolved to admire no morenot because it did

not pay well enough, but because it paid too well. Also, we were already racking our brains over the contents

of the Snark for suitable return presents. Christmas is an easy problem compared with a Polynesian

We sat on the cool porch, on Bihaura's best mats while dinner was preparing, and at the same time met the

villagers. In twos and threes and groups they strayed along, shaking hands and uttering the Tahitian word of

greetingIoarana, pronounced yorahnah. The men, big strapping fellows, were in loincloths, with here

and there no shirt, while the women wore the universal ahu, a sort of adult pinafore that flows in graceful

lines from the shoulders to the ground. Sad to see was the elephantiasis that afflicted some of them. Here

would be a comely woman of magnificent proportions, with the port of a queen, yet marred by one arm four

timesor a dozen timesthe size of the other. Beside her might stand a sixfoot man, erect,

mightymuscled, bronzed, with the body of a god, yet with feet and calves so swollen that they ran together,

forming legs, shapeless, monstrous, that were for all the world like elephant legs.

No one seems really to know the cause of the South Sea elephantiasis. One theory is that it is caused by the

drinking of polluted water. Another theory attributes it to inoculation through mosquito bites. A third theory

charges it to predisposition plus the process of acclimatization. On the other hand, no one that stands in

finicky dread of it and similar diseases can afford to travel in the South Seas. There will be occasions when

such a one must drink water. There may be also occasions when the mosquitoes let up biting. But every

precaution of the finicky one will be useless. If he runs barefoot across the beach to have a swim, he will

tread where an elephantiasis case trod a few minutes before. If he closets himself in his own house, yet every

bit of fresh food on his table will have been subjected to the contamination, be it flesh, fish, fowl, or

vegetable. In the public market at Papeete two known lepers run stalls, and heaven alone knows through what

channels arrive at that market the daily supplies of fish, fruit, meat, and vegetables. The only happy way to go

through the South Seas is with a careless poise, without apprehension, and with a Christian Sciencelike faith

in the resplendent fortune of your own particular star. When you see a woman, afflicted with elephantiasis

wringing out cream from cocoanut meat with her naked hands, drink and reflect how good is the cream,

forgetting the hands that pressed it out. Also, remember that diseases such as elephantiasis and leprosy do not

We watched a Raratongan woman, with swollen, distorted limbs, prepare our cocoanut cream, and then went

out to the cookshed where Tehei and Bihaura were cooking dinner. And then it was served to us on a

drygoods box in the house. Our hosts waited until we were done and then spread their table on the floor. But

our table! We were certainly in the high seat of abundance. First, there was glorious raw fish, caught several

hours before from the sea and steeped the intervening time in limejuice diluted with water. Then came roast

chicken. Two cocoanuts, sharply sweet, served for drink. There were bananas that tasted like strawberries and

that melted in the mouth, and there was bananapoi that made one regret that his Yankee forebears ever

attempted puddings. Then there was boiled yam, boiled taro, and roasted feis, which last are nothing more or

less than large mealy, juicy, redcoloured cooking bananas. We marvelled at the abundance, and, even as we

marvelled, a pig was brought on, a whole pig, a sucking pig, swathed in green leaves and roasted upon the hot

stones of a native oven, the most honourable and triumphant dish in the Polynesian cuisine. And after that

came coffee, black coffee, delicious coffee, native coffee grown on the hillsides of Tahaa.

Tehei's fishingtackle fascinated me, and after we arranged to go fishing, Charmian and I decided to remain

all night. Again Tehei broached Samoa, and again my petit bateau brought the disappointment and the smile

of acquiescence to his face. Bora Bora was my next port. It was not so far away but that cutters made the

passage back and forth between it and Raiatea. So I invited Tehei to go that far with us on the Snark. Then I

learned that his wife had been born on Bora Bora and still owned a house there. She likewise was invited, and

immediately came the counter invitation to stay with them in their house in Born Bora. It was Monday.

Tuesday we would go fishing and return to Raiatea. Wednesday we would sail by Tahaa and off a certain

point, a mile away, pick up Tehei and Bihaura and go on to Bora Bora. All this we arranged in detail, and

talked over scores of other things as well, and yet Tehei knew three phrases in English, Charmian and I knew

possibly a dozen Tahitian words, and among the four of us there were a dozen or so French words that all

understood. Of course, such polyglot conversation was slow, but, eked out with a pad, a lead pencil, the face

of a clock Charmian drew on the back of a pad, and with ten thousand and one gestures, we managed to get

At the first moment we evidenced an inclination for bed the visiting natives, with soft Iaoranas, faded away,

and Tehei and Bihaura likewise faded away. The house consisted of one large room, and it was given over to

us, our hosts going elsewhere to sleep. In truth, their castle was ours. And right here, I want to say that of all

the entertainment I have received in this world at the hands of all sorts of races in all sorts of places, I have

never received entertainment that equalled this at the hands of this brownskinned couple of Tahaa. I do not

refer to the presents, the freehanded generousness, the high abundance, but to the fineness of courtesy and

consideration and tact, and to the sympathy that was real sympathy in that it was understanding. They did

nothing they thought ought to be done for us, according to their standards, but they did what they divined we

waited to be done for us, while their divination was most successful. It would be impossible to enumerate the

hundreds of little acts of consideration they performed during the few days of our intercourse. Let it suffice

for me to say that of all hospitality and entertainment I have known, in no case was theirs not only not

excelled, but in no case was it quite equalled. Perhaps the most delightful feature of it was that it was due to

no training, to no complex social ideals, but that it was the untutored and spontaneous outpouring from their

The next morning we went fishing, that is, Tehei, Charmian, and I did, in the coffinshaped canoe; but this

time the enormous sail was left behind. There was no room for sailing and fishing at the same time in that

tiny craft. Several miles away, inside the reef, in a channel twenty fathoms deep, Tehei dropped his baited

hooks and rocksinkers. The bait was chunks of octopus flesh, which he bit out of a live octopus that writhed

in the bottom of the canoe. Nine of these lines he set, each line attached to one end of a short length of

bamboo floating on the surface. When a fish was hooked, the end of the bamboo was drawn under the water.

Naturally, the other end rose up in the air, bobbing and waving frantically for us to make haste. And make

haste we did, with whoops and yells and driving paddles, from one signalling bamboo to another, hauling up

Steadily, to the eastward, an ominous squall had been rising and blotting out the bright tradewind sky. And

we were three miles to leeward of home. We started as the first windgusts whitened the water. Then came

the rain, such rain as only the tropics afford, where every tap and main in the sky is open wide, and when, to

top it all, the very reservoir itself spills over in blinding deluge. Well, Charmian was in a swimming suit, I

was in pyjamas, and Tehei wore only a loincloth. Bihaura was on the beach waiting for us, and she led

Charmian into the house in much the same fashion that the mother leads in the naughty little girl who has

It was a change of clothes and a dry and quiet smoke while kaikai was preparing. Kaikai, by the way, is the

Polynesian for "food" or "to eat," or, rather, it is one form of the original root, whatever it may have been,

that has been distributed far and wide over the vast area of the Pacific. It is kai in the Marquesas, Raratonga,

Manahiki, Niue, Fakaafo, Tonga, New Zealand, and Vate. In Tahiti "to eat" changes to amu, in Hawaii and

Samoa to ai, in Ban to kana, in Nina to kana, in Nongone to kaka, and in New Caledonia to ki. But by

whatsoever sound or symbol, it was welcome to our ears after that long paddle in the rain. Once more we sat

in the high seat of abundance until we regretted that we had been made unlike the image of the giraffe and the

Again, when we were preparing to return to the Snark, the sky to windward turned black and another squall

swooped down. But this time it was little rain and all wind. It blew hour after hour, moaning and screeching

through the palms, tearing and wrenching and shaking the frail bamboo dwelling, while the outer reef set no a

mighty thundering as it broke the force of the swinging seas. Inside the reef, the lagoon, sheltered though it

was, was white with fury, and not even Tehei's seamanship could have enabled his slender canoe to live in

By sunset, the back of the squall had broken though it was still too rough for the canoe. So I had Tehei find a

native who was willing to venture his cutter across to Raiatea for the outrageous sum of two dollars, Chili,

which is equivalent in our money to ninety cents. Half the village was told off to carry presents, with which

Tehei and Bihaura speeded their parting guestscaptive chickens, fishes dressed and swathed in wrappings

of green leaves, great golden bunches of bananas, leafy baskets spilling over with oranges and limes, alligator

pears (the butterfruit, also called the avoca), huge baskets of yams, bunches of taro and cocoanuts, and last

While on the way to the cutter we met the only white man on Tahaa, and of all men, George Lufkin, a native

of New England! Eightysix years of age he was, sixtyodd of which, he said, he had spent in the Society

Islands, with occasional absences, such as the gold rush to Eldorado in 'fortynine and a short period of

ranching in California near Tulare. Given no more than three months by the doctors to live, he had returned to

his South Seas and lived to eightysix and to chuckle over the doctors aforesaid, who were all in their graves.

Feefee he had, which is the native for elephantiasis and which is pronounced fayfay. A quarter of a century

before, the disease had fastened upon him, and it would remain with him until he died. We asked him about

kith and kin. Beside him sat a sprightly damsel of sixty, his daughter. "She is all I have," he murmured

The cutter was a small, slooprigged affair, but large it seemed alongside Tehei's canoe. On the other hand,

when we got out on the lagoon and were struck by another heavy windsquall, the cutter became liliputian,

while the Snark, in our imagination, seemed to promise all the stability and permanence of a continent. They

were good boatmen. Tehei and Bihaura had come along to see us home, and the latter proved a good

boatwoman herself. The cutter was well ballasted, and we met the squall under full sail. It was getting dark,

the lagoon was full of coral patches, and we were carrying on. In the height of the squall we had to go about,

in order to make a short leg to windward to pass around a patch of coral no more than a foot under the

surface. As the cutter filled on the other tack, and while she was in that "dead" condition that precedes

gathering way, she was knocked flat. Jibsheet and mainsheet were let go, and she righted into the wind.

Three times she was knocked down, and three times the sheets were flung loose, before she could get away

By the time we went about again, darkness had fallen. We were now to windward of the Snark, and the squall

was howling. In came the jib, and down came the mainsail, all but a patch of it the size of a pillowslip. By

an accident we missed the Snark, which was riding it out to two anchors, and drove aground upon the inshore

coral. Running the longest line on the Snark by means of the launch, and after an hour's hard work, we

The day we sailed for Bora Bora the wind was light, and we crossed the lagoon under power to the point

where Tehei and Bihaura were to meet us. As we made in to the land between the coral banks, we vainly

"We can't wait," I said. "This breeze won't fetch us to Bora Bora by dark, and I don't want to use any more

You see, gasolene in the South Seas is a problem. One never knows when he will be able to replenish his

But just then Tehei appeared through the trees as he came down to the water. He had peeled off his shirt and

was wildly waving it. Bihaura apparently was not ready. Once aboard, Tehei informed us by signs that we

must proceed along the land till we got opposite to his house. He took the wheel and conned the Snark

through the coral, around point after point till we cleared the last point of all. Cries of welcome went up from

the beach, and Bihaura, assisted by several of the villagers, brought off two canoeloads of abundance. There

were yams, taro, feis, breadfruit, cocoanuts, oranges, limes, pineapples, watermelons, alligator pears,

pomegranates, fish, chickens galore crowing and cackling and laying eggs on our decks, and a live pig that

Under the rising moon we came in through the perilous passage of the reef of Bora Bora and dropped anchor

off Vaitape village. Bihaura, with housewifely anxiety, could not get ashore too quickly to her house to

prepare more abundance for us. While the launch was taking her and Tehei to the little jetty, the sound of

music and of singing drifted across the quiet lagoon. Throughout the Society Islands we had been continually

informed that we would find the Bora Borans very jolly. Charmian and I went ashore to see, and on the

village green, by forgotten graves on the beach, found the youths and maidens dancing, flowergarlanded and

flowerbedecked, with strange phosphorescent flowers in their hair that pulsed and dimmed and glowed in

the moonlight. Farther along the beach we came upon a huge grass house, ovalshaped seventy feet in length,

where the elders of the village were singing himines. They, too, were flower garlanded and jolly, and they

welcomed us into the fold as little lost sheep straying along from outer darkness.

Early next morning Tehei was on board, with a string of freshcaught fish and an invitation to dinner for that

evening. On the way to dinner, we dropped in at the himine house. The same elders were singing, with here

or there a youth or maiden that we had not seen the previous night. From all the signs, a feast was in

preparation. Towering up from the floor was a mountain of fruits and vegetables, flanked on either side by

numerous chickens tethered by cocoanut strips. After several himines had been sung, one of the men arose

and made oration. The oration was made to us, and though it was Greek to us, we knew that in some way it

"Impossible," I muttered back. "Why should they be giving it to us? Besides, there is no room on the Snark

for it. We could not eat a tithe of it. The rest would spoil. Maybe they are inviting us to the feast. At any rate,

Nevertheless we found ourselves once more in the high seat of abundance. The orator, by gestures

unmistakable, in detail presented every item in the mountain to us, and next he presented it to us in toto. It

was an embarrassing moment. What would you do if you lived in a hall bedroom and a friend gave you a

white elephant? Our Snark was no more than a hall bedroom, and already she was loaded down with the

abundance of Tahaa. This new supply was too much. We blushed, and stammered, and mauruuru'd. We

mauruuru'd with repeated nui's which conveyed the largeness and overwhelmingness of our thanks. At the

same time, by signs, we committed the awful breach of etiquette of not accepting the present. The himine

singers' disappointment was plainly betrayed, and that evening, aided by Tehei, we compromised by

accepting one chicken, one bunch of bananas, one bunch of taro, and so on down the list.

But there was no escaping the abundance. I bought a dozen chickens from a native out in the country, and the

following day he delivered thirteen chickens along with a canoeload of fruit. The French storekeeper

presented us with pomegranates and lent us his finest horse. The gendarme did likewise, lending us a horse

that was the very apple of his eye. And everybody sent us flowers. The Snark was a fruitstand and a

greengrocer's shop masquerading under the guise of a conservatory. We went around flowergarlanded all

the time. When the himine singers came on board to sing, the maidens kissed us welcome, and the crew, from

captain to cabinboy, lost its heart to the maidens of Bora Bora. Tehei got up a big fishing expedition in our

honour, to which we went in a double canoe, paddled by a dozen strapping Amazons. We were relieved that

The days passed, but the abundance did not diminish. On the day of departure, canoe after canoe put off to us.

Tehei brought cucumbers and a young papaia tree burdened with splendid fruit. Also, for me he brought a

tiny, double canoe with fishing apparatus complete. Further, he brought fruits and vegetables with the same

lavishness as at Tahaa. Bihaura brought various special presents for Charmian, such as silkcotton pillows,

fans, and fancy mats. The whole population brought fruits, flowers, and chickens. And Bihaura added a live

sucking pig. Natives whom I did not remember ever having seen before strayed over the rail and presented

me with such things as fishpoles, fishlines, and fishhooks carved from pearlshell.

As the Snark sailed out through the reef, she had a cutter in tow. This was the craft that was to take Bihaura

back to Tahaabut not Tehei. I had yielded at last, and he was one of the crew of the Snark. When the cutter

cast off and headed east, and the Snark's bow turned toward the west, Tehei knelt down by the cockpit and

breathed a silent prayer, the tears flowing down his cheeks. A week later, when Martin got around to

developing and printing, he showed Tehei some of the photographs. And that brownskinned son of

Polynesia, gazing on the pictured lineaments of his beloved Bihaura broke down in tears.

But the abundance! There was so much of it. We could not work the Snark for the fruit that was in the way.

She was festooned with fruit. The lifeboat and launch were packed with it. The awning guys groaned

under their burdens. But once we struck the full tradewind sea, the disburdening began. At every roll the

Snark shook overboard a bunch or so of bananas and cocoanuts, or a basket of limes. A golden flood of limes

washed about in the leescuppers. The big baskets of yams burst, and pineapples and pomegranates rolled

back and forth. The chickens had got loose and were everywhere, roosting on the awnings, fluttering and

squawking out on the jibboom, and essaying the perilous feat of balancing on the spinnakerboom. They

were wild chickens, accustomed to flight. When attempts were made to catch them, they flew out over the

ocean, circled about, and came lack. Sometimes they did not come back. And in the confusion, unobserved,

"On the arrival of strangers, every man endeavoured to obtain one as a friend and carry him off to his own

habitation, where he is treated with the greatest kindness by the inhabitants of the district: they place him on a

At five in the morning the conches began to blow. From all along the beach the eerie sounds arose, like the

ancient voice of War, calling to the fishermen to arise and prepare to go forth. We on the Snark likewise

arose, for there could be no sleep in that mad din of conches. Also, we were going stonefishing, though our

Tautaitaora is the name for stonefishing, tautai meaning a "fishing instrument." And taora meaning

"thrown." But tautai taora, in combination, means "stonefishing," for a stone is the instrument that is

thrown. Stonefishing is in reality a fish drive, similar in principle to a rabbitdrive or a cattledrive,

though in the latter affairs drivers and driven operate in the same medium, while in the fishdrive the men

must be in the air to breathe and the fish are driven through the water. It does not matter if the water is a

hundred feet deep, the men, working on the surface, drive the fish just the same.

This is the way it is done. The canoes form in line, one hundred to two hundred feet apart. In the bow of each

canoe a man wields a stone, several pounds in weight, which is attached to a short rope. He merely smites the

water with the stone, pulls up the stone, and smites again. He goes on smiting. In the stern of each canoe

another man paddles, driving the canoe ahead and at the same time keeping it in the formation. The line of

canoes advances to meet a second line a mile or two away, the ends of the lines hurrying together to form a

circle, the far edge of which is the shore. The circle begins to contract upon the shore, where the women,

standing in a long row out into the sea, form a fence of legs, which serves to break any rushes of the frantic

fish. At the right moment when the circle is sufficiently small, a canoe dashes out from shore, dropping

overboard a long screen of cocoanut leaves and encircling the circle, thus reinforcing the palisade of legs. Of

"Tres jolie," the gendarme said, after explaining by signs and gestures that thousands of fish would be caught

of all sizes from minnows to sharks, and that the captured fish would boil up and upon the very sand of the

It is a most successful method of fishing, while its nature is more that of an outing festival, rather than of a

prosaic, foodgetting task. Such fishing parties take place about once a month at Bora Bora, and it is a

custom that has descended from old time. The man who originated it is not remembered. They always did this

thing. But one cannot help wondering about that forgotten savage of the long ago, into whose mind first

flashed this scheme of easy fishing, of catching huge quantities of fish without hook, or net, or spear. One

thing about him we can know: he was a radical. And we can be sure that he was considered featherbrained

and anarchistic by his conservative tribesmen. His difficulty was much greater than that of the modern

inventor, who has to convince in advance only one or two capitalists. That early inventor had to convince his

whole tribe in advance, for without the cooperation of the whole tribe the device could not be tested. One

can well imagine the nightly powwowings in that primitive island world, when he called his comrades

antiquated mossbacks, and they called him a fool, a freak, and a crank, and charged him with having come

from Kansas. Heaven alone knows at what cost of grey hairs and expletives he must finally have succeeded in

winning over a sufficient number to give his idea a trial. At any rate, the experiment succeeded. It stood the

test of truthit worked! And thereafter, we can be confident, there was no man to be found who did not

Our good friends, Tehei and Bihaura, who were giving the fishing in our honour, had promised to come for

us. We were down below when the call came from on deck that they were coming. We dashed up the

companionway, to be overwhelmed by the sight of the Polynesian barge in which we were to ride. It was a

long double canoe, the canoes lashed together by timbers with an interval of water between, and the whole

decorated with flowers and golden grasses. A dozen flowercrowned Amazons were at the paddles, while at

the stern of each canoe was a strapping steersman. All were garlanded with gold and crimson and orange

flowers, while each wore about the hips a scarlet pareu. There were flowers everywhere, flowers, flowers,

flowers, without out end. The whole thing was an orgy of colour. On the platform forward resting on the

bows of the canoes, Tehei and Bihaura were dancing. All voices were raised in a wild song or greeting.

Three times they circled the Snark before coming alongside to take Charmian and me on board. Then it was

away for the fishinggrounds, a fivemile paddle dead to windward. "Everybody is jolly in Bora Bora," is the

saying throughout the Society Islands, and we certainly found everybody jolly. Canoe songs, shark songs,

and fishing songs were sung to the dipping of the paddles, all joining in on the swinging choruses. Once in a

while the cry Mao! was raised, whereupon all strained like mad at the paddles. Mao is shark, and when the

deepsea tigers appear, the natives paddle for dear life for the shore, knowing full well the danger they run of

having their frail canoes overturned and of being devoured. Of course, in our case there were no sharks, but

the cry of mao was used to incite them to paddle with as much energy as if a shark were really after them.

On the platform Tehei and Bihaura danced, accompanied by songs and choruses or by rhythmic

handclappings. At other times a musical knocking of the paddles against the sides of the canoes marked the

accent. A young girl dropped her paddle, leaped to the platform, and danced a hula, in the midst of which,

still dancing, she swayed and bent, and imprinted on our cheeks the kiss of welcome. Some of the songs, or

himines, were religious, and they were especially beautiful, the deep basses of the men mingling with the

altos and thin sopranos of the women and forming a combination of sound that irresistibly reminded one of

an organ. In fact, "kanaka organ" is the scoffer's description of the himine. On the other hand, some of the

chants or ballads were very barbaric, having come down from pre Christian times.

And so, singing, dancing, paddling, these joyous Polynesians took us to the fishing. The gendarme, who is

the French ruler of Bora Bora, accompanied us with his family in a double canoe of his own, paddled by his

prisoners; for not only is he gendarme and ruler, but he is jailer as well, and in this jolly land when anybody

goes fishing, all go fishing. A score of single canoes, with outriggers, paddled along with us. Around a point

a big sailingcanoe appeared, running beautifully before the wind as it bore down to greet us. Balancing

precariously on the outrigger, three young men saluted us with a wild rolling of drums.

The next point, half a mile farther on, brought us to the place of meeting. Here the launch, which had been

brought along by Warren and Martin, attracted much attention. The Bora Borans could not see what made it

go. The canoes were drawn upon the sand, and all hands went ashore to drink cocoanuts and sing and dance.

Here our numbers were added to by many who arrived on foot from nearby dwellings, and a pretty sight it

was to see the flowercrowned maidens, hand in hand and two by two, arriving along the sands.

"They usually make a big catch," Allicot, a halfcaste trader, told us. "At the finish the water is fairly alive

"All?" I groaned, for already the Snark was loaded down with lavish presents, by the canoeload, of fruits,

"Yes, every last fish," Allicot answered. "You see, when the surround is completed, you, being the guest of

honour, must take a harpoon and impale the first one. It is the custom. Then everybody goes in with their

hands and throws the catch out on the sand. There will be a mountain of them. Then one of the chiefs will

make a speech in which he presents you with the whole kit and boodle. But you don't have to take them all.

You get up and make a speech, selecting what fish you want for yourself and presenting all the rest back

"It has never happened," was the answer. "It is the custom to give and give back again."

The native minister started with a prayer for success in the fishing, and all heads were bared. Next, the chief

fishermen told off the canoes and allotted them their places. Then it was into the canoes and away. No

women, however, came along, with the exception of Bihaura and Charmian. In the old days even they would

have been tabooed. The women remained behind to wade out into the water and form the palisade of legs.

The big double canoe was left on the beech, and we went in the launch. Half the canoes paddled off to

leeward, while we, with the other half, headed to windward a mile and a half, until the end of our line was in

touch with the reef. The leader of the drive occupied a canoe midway in our line. He stood erect, a fine figure

of an old man, holding a flag in his hand. He directed the taking of positions and the forming of the two lines

by blowing on a conch. When all was ready, he waved his flag to the right. With a single splash the throwers

in every canoe on that side struck the water with their stones. While they were hauling them backa matter

of a moment, for the stones scarcely sank beneath the surfacethe flag waved to the left, and with admirable

precision every stone on that side struck the water. So it went, back and forth, right and left; with every wave

of the flag a long line of concussion smote the lagoon. At the same time the paddles drove the canoes forward

and what was being done in our line was being done in the opposing line of canoes a mile and more away.

On the bow of the launch, Tehei, with eyes fixed on the leader, worked his stone in unison with the others.

Once, the stone slipped from the rope, and the same instant Tehei went overboard after it. I do not know

whether or not that stone reached the bottom, but I do know that the next instant Tehei broke surface

alongside with the stone in his hand. I noticed this same accident occur several times among the nearby

canoes, but in each instance the thrower followed the stone and brought it back.

The reef ends of our lines accelerated, the shore ends lagged, all under the watchful supervision of the leader,

until at the reef the two lines joined, forming the circle. Then the contraction of the circle began, the poor

frightened fish harried shoreward by the streaks of concussion that smote the water. In the same fashion

elephants are driven through the jungle by motes of men who crouch in the long grasses or behind trees and

make strange noises. Already the palisade of legs had been built. We could see the heads of the women, in a

long line, dotting the placid surface of the lagoon. The tallest women went farthest out, thus, with the

exception of those close inshore, nearly all were up to their necks in the water.

Still the circle narrowed, till canoes were almost touching. There was a pause. A long canoe shot out from

shore, following the line of the circle. It went as fast as paddles could drive. In the stern a man threw

overboard the long, continuous screen of cocoanut leaves. The canoes were no longer needed, and overboard

went the men to reinforce the palisade with their legs. For the screen was only a screen, and not a net, and the

fish could dash through it if they tried. Hence the need for legs that ever agitated the screen, and for hands

that splashed and throats that yelled. Pandemonium reigned as the trap tightened.

But no fish broke surface or collided against the hidden legs. At last the chief fisherman entered the trap. He

waded around everywhere, carefully. But there were no fish boiling up and out upon the sand. There was not

a sardine, not a minnow, not a polly wog. Something must have been wrong with that prayer; or else, and

more likely, as one grizzled fellow put it, the wind was not in its usual quarter and the fish were elsewhere in

Well, it was the stonefishing that had brought us to Bora Bora, and it was our luck to draw the one chance in

five. Had it been a raffle, it would have been the other way about. This is not pessimism. Nor is it an

indictment of the plan of the universe. It is merely that feeling which is familiar to most fishermen at the

There are captains and captains, and some mighty fine captains, I know; but the run of the captains on the

Snark has been remarkably otherwise. My experience with them has been that it is harder to take care of one

captain on a small boat than of two small babies. Of course, this is no more than is to be expected. The good

men have positions, and are not likely to forsake their onethousandto fifteenthousandton billets for the

Snark with her ten tons net. The Snark has had to cull her navigators from the beach, and the navigator on the

beach is usually a congenital inefficientthe sort of man who beats about for a fortnight trying vainly to find

an ocean isle and who returns with his schooner to report the island sunk with all on board, the sort of man

whose temper or thirst for strong waters works him out of billets faster than he can work into them.

The Snark has had three captains, and by the grace of God she shall have no more. The first captain was so

senile as to be unable to give a measurement for a boomjaw to a carpenter. So utterly agedly helpless was

he, that he was unable to order a sailor to throw a few buckets of salt water on the Snark's deck. For twelve

days, at anchor, under an overhead tropic sun, the deck lay dry. It was a new deck. It cost me one hundred

and thirtyfive dollars to recaulk it. The second captain was angry. He was born angry. "Papa is always

angry," was the description given him by his halfbreed son. The third captain was so crooked that he

couldn't hide behind a corkscrew. The truth was not in him, common honesty was not in him, and he was as

far away from fair play and squaredealing as he was from his proper course when he nearly wrecked the

It was at Suva, in the Fijis, that I discharged my third and last captain and took up gain the role of amateur

navigator. I had essayed it once before, under my first captain, who, out of San Francisco, jumped the Snark

so amazingly over the chart that I really had to find out what was doing. It was fairly easy to find out, for we

had a run of twentyone hundred miles before us. I knew nothing of navigation; but, after several hours of

reading up and half an hour's practice with the sextant, I was able to find the Snark's latitude by meridian

observation and her longitude by the simple method known as "equal altitudes." This is not a correct method.

It is not even a safe method, but my captain was attempting to navigate by it, and he was the only one on

board who should have been able to tell me that it was a method to be eschewed. I brought the Snark to

Hawaii, but the conditions favoured me. The sun was in northern declination and nearly overhead. The

legitimate "chronometersight" method of ascertaining the longitude I had not heard ofyes, I had heard of

it. My first captain mentioned it vaguely, but after one or two attempts at practice of it he mentioned it no

I had time in the Fijis to compare my chronometer with two other chronometers. Two weeks previous, at

Pago Pago, in Samoa, I had asked my captain to compare our chronometer with the chronometers on the

American cruiser, the Annapolis. This he told me he had done of course he had done nothing of the sort;

and he told me that the difference he had ascertained was only a small fraction of a second. He told it to me

with finely simulated joy and with words of praise for my splendid timekeeper. I repeat it now, with words

of praise for his splendid and unblushing unveracity. For behold, fourteen days later, in Suva, I compared the

chronometer with the one on the Atua, an Australian steamer, and found that mine was thirtyone seconds

fast. Now thirtyone seconds of time, converted into arc, equals seven and onequarter miles. That is to say,

if I were sailing west, in the nighttime, and my position, according to my dead reckoning from my afternoon

chronometer sight, was shown to be seven miles off the land, why, at that very moment I would be crashing

on the reef. Next I compared my chronometer with Captain Wooley's. Captain Wooley, the harbourmaster,

gives the time to Suva, firing a gun signal at twelve, noon, three times a week. According to his chronometer

mine was fiftynine seconds fast, which is to say, that, sailing west, I should be crashing on the reef when I

I compromised by subtracting thirtyone seconds from the total of my chronometer's losing error, and sailed

away for Tanna, in the New Hebrides, resolved, when nosing around the land on dark nights, to bear in mind

the other seven miles I might be out according to Captain Wooley's instrument. Tanna lay some six hundred

miles west southwest from the Fijis, and it was my belief that while covering that distance I could quite

easily knock into my head sufficient navigation to get me there. Well, I got there, but listen first to my

troubles. Navigation IS easy, I shall always contend that; but when a man is taking three gasolene engines

and a wife around the world and is writing hard every day to keep the engines supplied with gasolene and the

wife with pearls and volcanoes, he hasn't much time left in which to study navigation. Also, it is bound to be

easier to study said science ashore, where latitude and longitude are unchanging, in a house whose position

never alters, than it is to study navigation on a boat that is rushing along day and night toward land that one is

trying to find and which he is liable to find disastrously at a moment when he least expects it.

To begin with, there are the compasses and the setting of the courses. We sailed from Suva on Saturday

afternoon, June 6, 1908, and it took us till after dark to run the narrow, reefridden passage between the

islands of Viti Levu and Mbengha. The open ocean lay before me. There was nothing in the way with the

exception of Vatu Leile, a miserable little island that persisted in poking up through the sea some twenty

miles to the westsouthwest just where I wanted to go. Of course, it seemed quite simple to avoid it by

steering a course that would pass it eight or ten miles to the north. It was a black night, and we were running

before the wind. The man at the wheel must be told what direction to steer in order to miss Vatu Leile. But

what direction? I turned me to the navigation books. "True Course" I lighted upon. The very thing! What I

"The True Course is the angle made with the meridian by a straight line on the chart drawn to connect the

Just what I wanted. The Snark's position was at the western entrance of the passage between Viti Levu and

Mbengha. The immediate place she was bound to was a place on the chart ten miles north of Vatu Leile. I

pricked that place off on the chart with my dividers, and with my parallel rulers found that westbysouth

was the true course. I had but to give it to the man at the wheel and the Snark would win her way to the safety

But alas and alack and lucky for me, I read on. I discovered that the compass, that trusty, everlasting friend of

the mariner, was not given to pointing north. It varied. Sometimes it pointed east of north, sometimes west of

north, and on occasion it even turned tail on north and pointed south. The variation at the particular spot on

the globe occupied by the Snark was 9 degrees 40 minutes easterly. Well, that had to be taken in to account

"The Correct Magnetic Course is derived from the True Course by applying to it the variation."

Therefore, I reasoned, if the compass points 9 degrees 40 minutes eastward of north, and I wanted to sail due

north, I should have to steer 9 degrees 40 minutes westward of the north indicated by the compass and which

was not north at all. So I added 9 degrees 40 minutes to the left of my westbysouth course, thus getting my

Again alas and alack! The Correct Magnetic Course was not the Compass Course. There was another sly little

devil lying in wait to trip me up and land me smashing on the reefs of Vatu Leile. This little devil went by the

"The Compass Course is the course to steer, and is derived from the Correct Magnetic Course by applying to

Now Deviation is the variation in the needle caused by the distribution of iron on board of ship. This purely

local variation I derived from the deviation card of my standard compass and then applied to the Correct

Magnetic Course. The result was the Compass Course. And yet, not yet. My standard compass was amidships

on the companionway. My steering compass was aft, in the cockpit, near the wheel. When the steering

compass pointed westbysouth three quarterssouth (the steering course), the standard compass pointed

westonehalfnorth, which was certainly not the steering course. I kept the Snark up till she was heading

westbysouththreequarters south on the standard compass, which gave, on the steering compass,

The foregoing operations constitute the simple little matter of setting a course. And the worst of it is that one

must perform every step correctly or else he will hear "Breakers ahead!" some pleasant night, a nice

seabath, and be given the delightful diversion of fighting his way to the shore through a horde of man

Just as the compass is tricky and strives to fool the mariner by pointing in all directions except north, so does

that guide post of the sky, the sun, persist in not being where it ought to be at a given time. This carelessness

of the sun is the cause of more troubleat least it caused trouble for me. To find out where one is on the

earth's surface, he must know, at precisely the same time, where the sun is in the heavens. That is to say, the

sun, which is the timekeeper for men, doesn't run on time. When I discovered this, I fell into deep gloom and

all the Cosmos was filled with doubt. Immutable laws, such as gravitation and the conservation of energy,

became wobbly, and I was prepared to witness their violation at any moment and to remain unastonished. For

see, if the compass lied and the sun did not keep its engagements, why should not objects lose their mutual

attraction and why should not a few bushel baskets of force be annihilated? Even perpetual motion became

possible, and I was in a frame of mind prone to purchase Keeley Motor stock from the first enterprising

agent that landed on the Snark's deck. And when I discovered that the earth really rotated on its axis 366

times a year, while there were only 365 sunrises and sunsets, I was ready to doubt my own identity.

This is the way of the sun. It is so irregular that it is impossible for man to devise a clock that will keep the

sun's time. The sun accelerates and retards as no clock could be made to accelerate and retard. The sun is

sometimes ahead of its schedule; at other times it is lagging behind; and at still other times it is breaking the

speed limit in order to overtake itself, or, rather, to catch up with where it ought to be in the sky. In this last

case it does not slow down quick enough, and, as a result, goes dashing ahead of where it ought to be. In fact,

only four days in a year do the sun and the place where the sun ought to be happen to coincide. The

remaining 361 days the sun is pothering around all over the shop. Man, being more perfect than the sun,

makes a clock that keeps regular time. Also, he calculates how far the sun is ahead of its schedule or behind.

The difference between the sun's position and the position where the sun ought to be if it were a decent,

selfrespecting sun, man calls the Equation of Time. Thus, the navigator endeavouring to find his ship's

position on the sea, looks in his chronometer to see where precisely the sun ought to be according to the

Greenwich custodian of the sun. Then to that location he applies the Equation of Time and finds out where

the sun ought to be and isn't. This latter location, along with several other locations, enables him to find out

The Snark sailed from Fiji on Saturday, June 6, and the next day, Sunday, on the wide ocean, out of sight of

land, I proceeded to endeavour to find out my position by a chronometer sight for longitude and by a

meridian observation for latitude. The chronometer sight was taken in the morning when the sun was some 21

degrees above the horizon. I looked in the Nautical Almanac and found that on that very day, June 7, the sun

was behind time 1 minute and 26 seconds, and that it was catching up at a rate of 14.67 seconds per hour. The

chronometer said that at the precise moment of taking the sun's altitude it was twentyfive minutes after eight

o'clock at Greenwich. From this date it would seem a schoolboy's task to correct the Equation of Time.

Unfortunately, I was not a schoolboy. Obviously, at the middle of the day, at Greenwich, the sun was 1

minute and 26 seconds behind time. Equally obviously, if it were eleven o'clock in the morning, the sun

would be 1 minute and 26 seconds behind time plus 14.67 seconds. If it were ten o'clock in the morning,

twice 14.67 seconds would have to be added. And if it were 8: 25 in the morning, then 3.5 times 14.67

seconds would have to be added. Quite clearly, then, if, instead of being 8:25 A.M., it were 8:25 P.M., then

8.5 times 14.67 seconds would have to be, not added, but SUBTRACTED; for, if, at noon, the sun were 1

minute and 26 seconds behind time, and if it were catching up with where it ought to be at the rate of 14.67

seconds per hour, then at 8.25 P.M. it would be much nearer where it ought to be than it had been at noon.

So far, so good. But was that 8:25 of the chronometer A.M., or P.M.? I looked at the Snark's clock. It marked

8:9, and it was certainly A.M. for I had just finished breakfast. Therefore, if it was eight in the morning on

board the Snark, the eight o'clock of the chronometer (which was the time of the day at Greenwich) must be a

different eight o'clock from the Snark's eight o'clock. But what eight o'clock was it? It can't be the eight

o'clock of this morning, I reasoned; therefore, it must be either eight o'clock this evening or eight o'clock last

It was at this juncture that I fell into the bottomless pit of intellectual chaos. We are in east longitude, I

reasoned, therefore we are ahead of Greenwich. If we are behind Greenwich, then today is yesterday; if we

are ahead of Greenwich, then yesterday is to day, but if yesterday is today, what under the sun is

today!to morrow? Absurd! Yet it must be correct. When I took the sun this morning at 8:25, the sun's

"But today is today," my literal mind insists. "I must correct the sun for today and not for yesterday."

"That's all very well," my literal mind continues, "If I were in Greenwich I might be in yesterday. Strange

things happen in Greenwich. But I know as sure as I am living that I am here, now, in today, June 7, and

that I took the sun here, now, today, June 7. Therefore, I must correct the sun here, now, today, June 7."

"Never mind what Lecky says," interrupts my literal mind. "Let me tell you what the Nautical Almanac says.

The Nautical Almanac says that today, June 7, the sun was 1 minute and 26 seconds behind time and

catching up at the rate of 14.67 seconds per hour. It says that yesterday, June 6, the sun was 1 minute and 36

seconds behind time and catching up at the rate of 15.66 seconds per hour. You see, it is preposterous to think

Back and forth they wrangle until my head is whirling around and I am ready to believe that I am in the day

I remembered a parting caution of the Suva harbourmaster: "IN EAST LONGITUDE TAKE FROM THE

Then a new thought came to me. I corrected the Equation of Time for Sunday and for Saturday, making two

separate operations of it, and lo, when the results were compared, there was a difference only of fourtenths

of a second. I was a changed man. I had found my way out of the crypt. The Snark was scarcely big enough

to hold me and my experience. Fourtenths of a second would make a difference of only onetenth of a

All went merrily for ten minutes, when I chanced upon the following rhyme for navigators:

Heavens! The Snark's time was not as good as Greenwich time. When it was 8 25 at Greenwich, on board the

Snark it was only 8:9. "Greenwich time best, longitude west." There I was. In west longitude beyond a doubt.

"Very well," answers my logical mind. "To be correct, 8.25 P.M. is really twenty hours and twentyfive

minutes, and that is certainly better than eight hours and nine minutes. No, there is no discussion; you are in

"We sailed from Suva, in the Fijis, didn't we?" it demands, and logical mind agrees. "And Suva is in east

longitude?" Again logical mind agrees. "And we sailed west (which would take us deeper into east

longitude), didn't we? Therefore, and you can't escape it, we are in east longitude."

"Greenwich time best, longitude west," chants my logical mind; "and you must grant that twenty hours and

"All right," I break in upon the squabble; "we'll work up the sight and then we'll see."

"But there is no 184 degrees west longitude, nor east longitude, nor any other longitude. The largest meridian

Having got this far, literal mind collapses from the brain strain, logical mind is dumb flabbergasted; and as

for me, I get a bleak and wintry look in my eyes and go around wondering whether I am sailing toward the

Then a thin small voice, which I do not recognize, coming from nowhere in particular in my consciousness,

"The total number of degrees is 360. Subtract the 184 degrees west longitude from 360 degrees, and you will

"That is sheer speculation," objects literal mind; and logical mind remonstrates. "There is no rule for it."

"The thing is selfevident," I continue. "184 degrees west longitude means a lapping over in east longitude of

four degrees. Besides I have been in east longitude all the time. I sailed from Fiji, and Fiji is in east longitude.

But other troubles and doubts awaited me. Here is a sample of one. In south latitude, when the sun is in

northern declination, chronometer sights may be taken early in the morning. I took mine at eight o'clock.

Now, one of the necessary elements in working up such a sight is latitude. But one gets latitude at twelve

o'clock, noon, by a meridian observation. It is clear that in order to work up my eight o'clock chronometer

sight I must have my eight o'clock latitude. Of course, if the Snark were sailing due west at six knots per

hour, for the intervening four hours her latitude would not change. But if she were sailing due south, her

latitude would change to the tune of twentyfour miles. In which case a simple addition or subtraction would

convert the twelve o'clock latitude into eight o'clock latitude. But suppose the Snark were sailing southwest.

This is the illustration. At eight A.M. I took my chronometer sight. At the same moment the distance

recorded on the log was noted. At twelve M., when the sight for latitude was taken. I again noted the log,

which showed me that since eight o'clock the Snark had run 24 miles. Her true course had been west 0.75

south. I entered Table I, in the distance column, on the page for 0.75 point courses, and stopped at 24, the

number of miles run. Opposite, in the next two columns, I found that the Snark had made 3.5 miles of

southing or latitude, and that she had made 23.7 miles of westing. To find my eight o'clock' latitude was easy.

I had but to subtract 3.5 miles from my noon latitude. All the elements being present, I worked up my

But this was my eight o'clock longitude. Since then, and up till noon, I had made 23.7 miles of westing. What

was my noon longitude? I followed the rule, turning to Traverse Table No. II. Entering the table, according to

rule, and going through every detail, according to rule, I found the difference of longitude for the four hours

to be 25 miles. I was aghast. I entered the table again, according to rule; I entered the table half a dozen times,

according to rule, and every time found that my difference of longitude was 25 miles. I leave it to you, gentle

reader. Suppose you had sailed 24 miles and that you had covered 3.5 miles of latitude, then how could you

have covered 25 miles of longitude? Even if you had sailed due west 24 miles, and not changed your latitude,

how could you have changed your longitude 25 miles? In the name of human reason, how could you cover

It was a reputable traverse table, being none other than Bowditch's. The rule was simple (as navigators' rules

go); I had made no error. I spent an hour over it, and at the end still faced the glaring impossibility of having

sailed 24 miles, in the course of which I changed my latitude 3.5 miles and my longitude 25 miles. The worst

of it was that there was nobody to help me out. Neither Charmian nor Martin knew as much as I knew about

navigation. And all the time the Snark was rushing madly along toward Tanna, in the New Hebrides.

How it came to me I know notcall it an inspiration if you will; but the thought arose in me: if southing is

latitude, why isn't westing longitude? Why should I have to change westing into longitude? And then the

whole beautiful situation dawned upon me. The meridians of longitude are 60 miles (nautical) apart at the

equator. At the poles they run together. Thus, if I should travel up the 180 degrees meridian of longitude until

I reached the North Pole, and if the astronomer at Greenwich travelled up the 0 meridian of longitude to the

North Pole, then, at the North Pole, we could shake hands with each other, though before we started for the

North Pole we had been some thousands of miles apart. Again: if a degree of longitude was 60 miles wide at

the equator, and if the same degree, at the point of the Pole, had no width, then somewhere between the Pole

and the equator that degree would be half a mile wide, and at other places a mile wide, two miles wide, ten

All was plain again. The Snark was in 19 degrees south latitude. The world wasn't as big around there as at

the equator. Therefore, every mile of westing at 19 degrees south was more than a minute of longitude; for

sixty miles were sixty miles, but sixty minutes are sixty miles only at the equator. George Francis Train broke

Jules Verne's record of around the world. But any man that wants can break George Francis Train's record.

Such a man would need only to go, in a fast steamer, to the latitude of Cape Horn, and sail due east all the

way around. The world is very small in that latitude, and there is no land in the way to turn him out of his

course. If his steamer maintained sixteen knots, he would circumnavigate the globe in just about forty days.

But there are compensations. On Wednesday evening, June 10, I brought up my noon position by dead

reckoning to eight P.M. Then I projected the Snark's course and saw that she would strike Futuna, one of the

easternmost of the New Hebrides, a volcanic cone two thousand feet high that rose out of the deep ocean. I

altered the course so that the Snark would pass ten miles to the northward. Then I spoke to Wada, the cook,

"Wada San, tomorrow morning, your watch, you look sharp on weather bow you see land."

And then I went to bed. The die was cast. I had staked my reputation as a navigator. Suppose, just suppose,

that at daybreak there was no land. Then, where would my navigation be? And where would we be? And how

would we ever find ourselves? or find any land? I caught ghastly visions of the Snark sailing for months

through ocean solitudes and seeking vainly for land while we consumed our provisions and sat down with

Rather did "I waken to the voiceless dark," and listen to the creaking of the bulkheads and the rippling of the

sea alongside as the Snark logged steadily her six knots an hour. I went over my calculations again and again,

striving to find some mistake, until my brain was in such fever that it discovered dozens of mistakes.

Suppose, instead of being sixty miles off Futuna, that my navigation was all wrong and that I was only six

miles off? In which case my course would be wrong, too, and for all I knew the Snark might be running

straight at Futuna. For all I knew the Snark might strike Futuna the next moment. I almost sprang from the

bunk at that thought; and, though I restrained myself, I know that I lay for a moment, nervous and tense,

My sleep was broken by miserable nightmares. Earthquake seemed the favourite affliction, though there was

one man, with a bill, who persisted in dunning me throughout the night. Also, he wanted to fight; and

Charmian continually persuaded me to let him alone. Finally, however, the man with the everlasting dun

ventured into a dream from which Charmian was absent. It was my opportunity, and we went at it, gloriously,

all over the sidewalk and street, until he cried enough. Then I said, "Now how about that bill?" Having

conquered, I was willing to pay. But the man looked at me and groaned. "It was all a mistake," he said; "the

That settled him, for he worried my dreams no more; and it settled me, too, for I woke up chuckling at the

episode. It was three in the morning. I went up on deck. Henry, the Rapa islander, was steering. I looked at

the log. It recorded fortytwo miles. The Snark had not abated her sixknot gait, and she had not struck

Futuna yet. At halfpast five I was again on deck. Wada, at the wheel, had seen no land. I sat on the cockpit

rail, a prey to morbid doubt for a quarter of an hour. Then I saw land, a small, high piece of land, just where it

ought to be, rising from the water on the weatherbow. At six o'clock I could clearly make it out to be the

beautiful volcanic cone of Futuna. At eight o'clock, when it was abreast, I took its distance by the sextant and

Then, to the south, Aneiteum rose out of the sea, to the north, Aniwa, and, dead ahead, Tanna. There was no

mistaking Tanna, for the smoke of its volcano was towering high in the sky. It was forty miles away, and by

afternoon, as we drew close, never ceasing to log our six knots, we saw that it was a mountainous, hazy land,

with no apparent openings in its coastline. I was looking for Port Resolution, though I was quite prepared to

find that as an anchorage, it had been destroyed. Volcanic earthquakes had lifted its bottom during the last

forty years, so that where once the largest ships rode at anchor there was now, by last reports, scarcely space

and depth sufficient for the Snark. And why should not another convulsion, since the last report, have closed

I ran in close to the unbroken coast, fringed with rocks awash upon which the crashing tradewind sea burst

white and high. I searched with my glasses for miles, but could see no entrance. I took a compass bearing of

Futuna, another of Aniwa, and laid them off on the chart. Where the two bearings crossed was bound to be

the position of the Snark. Then, with my parallel rulers, I laid down a course from the Snark's position to Port

Resolution. Having corrected this course for variation and deviation, I went on deck, and lo, the course

directed me towards that unbroken coastline of bursting seas. To my Rapa islander's great concern, I held on

But I altered the course and ran along parallel with the coast. Charmian was at the wheel. Martin was at the

engine, ready to throw on the propeller. A narrow silt of an opening showed up suddenly. Through the glasses

I could see the seas breaking clear across. Henry, the Rapa man, looked with troubled eyes; so did Tehei, the

I confess I thought so, too; but I ran on abreast, watching to see if the line of breakers from one side the

entrance did not overlap the line from the other side. Sure enough, it did. A narrow place where the sea ran

smooth appeared. Charmian put down the wheel and steadied for the entrance. Martin threw on the engine,

A trader's house showed up in the bight of the bay. A geyser, on the shore, a hundred yards away; spouted a

column of steam. To port, as we rounded a tiny point, the mission station appeared.

"Three fathoms," cried Wada at the leadline. "Three fathoms," "two fathoms," came in quick succession.

Charmian put the wheel down, Martin stopped the engine, and the Snark rounded to and the anchor rumbled

down in three fathoms. Before we could catch our breaths a swarm of black Tannese was alongside and

aboardgrinning, apelike creatures, with kinky hair and troubled eyes, wearing safetypins and claypipes

in their slitted ears: and as for the rest, wearing nothing behind and less than that before. And I don't mind

telling that that night, when everybody was asleep, I sneaked up on deck, looked out over the quiet scene, and

"Why not come along now?" said Captain Jansen to us, at Penduffryn, on the island of Guadalcanar.

Charmian and I looked at each other and debated silently for half a minute. Then we nodded our heads

simultaneously. It is a way we have of making up our minds to do things; and a very good way it is when one

has no temperamental tears to shed over the last tinof condensed milk when it has capsized. (We are living

on tinned goods these days, and since mind is rumoured to be an emanation of matter, our similes are

"You'd better bring your revolvers along, and a couple of rifles," said Captain Jansen. "I've got five rifles

aboard, though the one Mauser is without ammunition. Have you a few rounds to spare?"

We brought our rifles on board, several handfuls of Mauser cartridges, and Wada and Nakata, the Snark's

cook and cabinboy respectively. Wada and Nakata were in a bit of a funk. To say the least, they were not

enthusiastic, though never did Nakata show the white feather in the face of danger. The Solomon Islands had

not dealt kindly with them. In the first place, both had suffered from Solomon sores. So had the rest of us (at

the time, I was nursing two fresh ones on a diet of corrosive sublimate); but the two Japanese had had more

than their share. And the sores are not nice. They may be described as excessively active ulcers. A mosquito

bite, a cut, or the slightest abrasion, serves for lodgment of the poison with which the air seems to be filled.

Immediately the ulcer commences to eat. It eats in every direction, consuming skin and muscle with

astounding rapidity. The pinpoint ulcer of the first day is the size of a dime by the second day, and by the

Worse than the sores, the two Japanese had been afflicted with Solomon Island fever. Each had been down

repeatedly with it, and in their weak, convalescent moments they were wont to huddle together on the portion

of the Snark that happened to be nearest to faraway Japan, and to gaze yearningly in that direction.

But worst of all, they were now brought on board the Minota for a recruiting cruise along the savage coast of

Malaita. Wada, who had the worse funk, was sure that he would never see Japan again, and with bleak,

lacklustre eyes he watched our rifles and ammunition going on board the Minota. He knew about the Minota

and her Malaita cruises. He knew that she had been captured six months before on the Malaita coast, that her

captain had been chopped to pieces with tomahawks, and that, according to the barbarian sense of equity on

that sweet isle, she owed two more heads. Also, a labourer on Penduffryn Plantation, a Malaita boy, had just

died of dysentery, and Wada knew that Penduffryn had been put in the debt of Malaita by one more head.

Furthermore, in stowing our luggage away in the skipper's tiny cabin, he saw the axe gashes on the door

where the triumphant bushmen had cut their way in. And, finally, the galley stove was without a pipesaid

The Minota was a teakbuilt, Australian yacht, ketchrigged, long and lean, with a deep finkeel, and

designed for harbour racing rather than for recruiting blacks. When Charmian and I came on board, we found

her crowded. Her double boat's crew, including substitutes, was fifteen, and she had a score and more of

"return" boys, whose time on the plantations was served and who were bound back to their bush villages. To

look at, they were certainly true headhunting cannibals. Their perforated nostrils were thrust through with

bone and wooden bodkins the size of leadpencils. Numbers of them had punctured the extreme meaty point

of the nose, from which protruded, straight out, spikes of turtleshell or of beads strung on stiff wire. A few

had further punctured their noses with rows of holes following the curves of the nostrils from lip to point.

Each ear of every man had from two to a dozen holes in it holes large enough to carry wooden plugs three

inches in diameter down to tiny holes in which were carried claypipes and similar trifles. In fact, so many

holes did they possess that they lacked ornaments to fill them; and when, the following day, as we neared

Malaita, we tried out our rifles to see that they were in working order, there was a general scramble for the

empty cartridges, which were thrust forthwith into the many aching voids in our passengers' ears.

At the time we tried out our rifles we put up our barbed wire railings. The Minota, crowndecked, without

any house, and with a rail six inches high, was too accessible to boarders. So brass stanchions were screwed

into the rail and a double row of barbed wire stretched around her from stem to stern and back again. Which

was all very well as a protection from savages, but it was mighty uncomfortable to those on board when the

Minota took to jumping and plunging in a seaway. When one dislikes sliding down upon the lee rail

barbed wire, and when he dares not catch hold of the weather rail barbed wire to save himself from sliding,

and when, with these various disinclinations, he finds himself on a smooth flushdeck that is heeled over at

an angle of fortyfive degrees, some of the delights of Solomon Islands cruising may be comprehended.

Also, it must be remembered, the penalty of a fall into the barbed wire is more than the mere scratches, for

each scratch is practically certain to become a venomous ulcer. That caution will not save one from the wire

was evidenced one fine morning when we were running along the Malaita coast with the breeze on our

quarter. The wind was fresh, and a tidy sea was making. A black boy was at the wheel. Captain Jansen, Mr.

Jacobsen (the mate), Charmian, and I had just sat down on deck to breakfast. Three unusually large seas

caught us. The boy at the wheel lost his head. Three times the Minota was swept. The breakfast was rushed

over the leerail. The knives and forks went through the scuppers; a boy aft went clean overboard and was

dragged back; and our doughty skipper lay half inboard and half out, jammed in the barbed wire. After that,

for the rest of the cruise, our joint use of the several remaining eating utensils was a splendid example of

primitive communism. On the Eugenie, however, it was even worse, for we had but one teaspoon among four

Our first port was Su'u on the west coast of Malaita. The Solomon Islands are on the fringe of things. It is

difficult enough sailing on dark nights through reefspiked channels and across erratic currents where there

are no lights to guide (from northwest to southeast the Solomons extend across a thousand miles of sea, and

on all the thousands of miles of coasts there is not one lighthouse); but the difficulty is seriously enhanced by

the fact that the land itself is not correctly charted. Su'u is an example. On the Admiralty chart of Malaita the

coast at this point runs a straight, unbroken line. Yet across this straight, unbroken line the Minota sailed in

twenty fathoms of water. Where the land was alleged to be, was a deep indentation. Into this we sailed, the

mangroves closing about us, till we dropped anchor in a mirrored pond. Captain Jansen did not like the

anchorage. It was the first time he had been there, and Su'u had a bad reputation. There was no wind with

which to get away in case of attack, while the crew could be bushwhacked to a man if they attempted to tow

"But just in case she did?" I insisted. He considered for a moment and shifted his glance from the mate

buckling on a revolver to the boat's crew climbing into the whaleboat each man with a rifle.

"We'd get into the whaleboat, and get out of here as fast as God'd let us," came the skipper's delayed reply.

He explained at length that no white man was sure of his Malaita crew in a tight place; that the bushmen

looked upon all wrecks as their personal property; that the bushmen possessed plenty of Snider rifles; and that

he had on board a dozen "return" boys for Su'u who were certain to join in with their friends and relatives

The first work of the whaleboat was to take the "return" boys and their tradeboxes ashore. Thus one danger

was removed. While this was being done, a canoe came alongside manned by three naked savages. And when

I say naked, I mean naked. Not one vestige of clothing did they have on, unless noserings, earplugs, and

shell armlets be accounted clothing. The head man in the canoe was an old chief, oneeyed, reputed to be

friendly, and so dirty that a boat scraper would have lost its edge on him. His mission was to warn the

skipper against allowing any of his people to go ashore. The old fellow repeated the warning again that night.

In vain did the whaleboat ply about the shores of the bay in quest of recruits. The bush was full of armed

natives; all willing enough to talk with the recruiter, but not one would engage to sign on for three years'

plantation labour at six pounds per year. Yet they were anxious enough to get our people ashore. On the

second day they raised a smoke on the beach at the head of the bay. This being the customary signal of men

desiring to recruit, the boat was sent. But nothing resulted. No one recruited, nor were any of our men lured

ashore. A little later we caught glimpses of a number of armed natives moving about on the beach.

Outside of these rare glimpses, there was no telling how many might be lurking in the bush. There was no

penetrating that primeval jungle with the eye. In the afternoon, Captain Jansen, Charmian, and I went

dynamiting fish. Each one of the boat's crew carried a LeeEnfield. "Johnny," the native recruiter, had a

Winchester beside him at the steering sweep. We rowed in close to a portion of the shore that looked

deserted. Here the boat was turned around and backed in; in case of attack, the boat would be ready to dash

away. In all the time I was on Malaita I never saw a boat land bow on. In fact, the recruiting vessels use two

boatsone to go in on the beach, armed, of course, and the other to lie off several hundred feet and "cover"

the first boat. The Minota, however, being a small vessel, did not carry a covering boat.

We were close in to the shore and working in closer, sternfirst, when a school of fish was sighted. The fuse

was ignited and the stick of dynamite thrown. With the explosion, the surface of the water was broken by the

flash of leaping fish. At the same instant the woods broke into life. A score of naked savages, armed with

bows and arrows, spears, and Sniders, burst out upon the shore. At the same moment our boat's crew, lifted

their rifles. And thus the opposing parties faced each other, while our extra boys dived over after the stunned

Three fruitless days were spent at Su'u. The Minota got no recruits from the bush, and the bushmen got no

heads from the Minota. In fact, the only one who got anything was Wade, and his was a nice dose of fever.

We towed out with the whaleboat, and ran along the coast to Langa Langa, a large village of saltwater

people, built with prodigious labour on a lagoon sandbankliterally BUILT up, an artificial island reared

as a refuge from the bloodthirsty bushmen. Here, also, on the shore side of the lagoon, was Binu, the place

where the Minota was captured half a year previously and her captain killed by the bushmen. As we sailed in

through the narrow entrance, a canoe came alongside with the news that the manofwar had just left that

morning after having burned three villages, killed some thirty pigs, and drowned a baby. This was the

Cambrian, Captain Lewes commanding. He and I had first met in Korea during the JapaneseRussian War,

and we had been crossing each ether's trail ever since without ever a meeting. The day the Snark sailed into

Suva, in the Fijis, we made out the Cambrian going out. At Vila, in the New Hebrides, we missed each other

by one day. We passed each other in the nighttime off the island of Santo. And the day the Cambrian arrived

at Tulagi, we sailed from Penduffryn, a dozen miles away. And here at Langa Langa we had missed by

The Cambrian had come to punish the murderers of the Minota's captain, but what she had succeeded in

doing we did not learn until later in the day, when a Mr. Abbot, a missionary, came alongside in his

whaleboat. The villages had been burned and the pigs killed. But the natives had escaped personal harm.

The murderers had not been captured, though the Minota's flag and other of her gear had been recovered. The

drowning of the baby had come about through a misunderstanding. Chief Johnny, of Binu, had declined to

guide the landing party into the bush, nor could any of his men be induced to perform that office. Whereupon

Captain Lewes, righteously indignant, had told Chief Johnny that he deserved to have his village burned.

Johnny's beche de mer English did not include the word "deserve." So his understanding of it was that his

village was to be burned anyway. The immediate stampede of the inhabitants was so hurried that the baby

was dropped into the water. In the meantime Chief Johnny hastened to Mr. Abbot. Into his hand he put

fourteen sovereigns and requested him to go on board the Cambrian and buy Captain Lewes off. Johnny's

village was not burned. Nor did Captain Lewes get the fourteen sovereigns, for I saw them later in Johnny's

possession when he boarded the Minota. The excuse Johnny gave me for not guiding the landing party was a

big boil which he proudly revealed. His real reason, however, and a perfectly valid one, though he did not

state it, was fear of revenge on the part of the bushmen. Had he, or any of his men, guided the marines, he

As an illustration of conditions in the Solomons, Johnny's business on board was to turn over, for a tobacco

consideration, the sprit, mainsail, and jib of a whaleboat. Later in the day, a Chief Billy came on board and

turned over, for a tobacco consideration, the mast and boom. This gear belonged to a whaleboat which

Captain Jansen had recovered the previous trip of the Minota. The whaleboat belonged to Meringe

Plantation on the island of Ysabel. Eleven contract labourers, Malaita men and bushmen at that, had decided

to run away. Being bushmen, they knew nothing of salt water nor of the way of a boat in the sea. So they

persuaded two natives of San Cristoval, saltwater men, to run away with them. It served the San Cristoval

men right. They should have known better. When they had safely navigated the stolen boat to Malaita, they

had their heads hacked off for their pains. It was this boat and gear that Captain Jansen had recovered.

Not for nothing have I journeyed all the way to the Solomons. At last I have seen Charmian's proud spirit

humbled and her imperious queendom of femininity dragged in the dust. It happened at Langa Langa, ashore,

on the manufactured island which one cannot see for the houses. Here, surrounded by hundreds of unblushing

naked men, women, and children, we wandered about and saw the sights. We had our revolvers strapped on,

and the boat's crew, fully armed, lay at the oars, stern in; but the lesson of the manofwar was too recent for

us to apprehend trouble. We walked about everywhere and saw everything until at last we approached a large

tree trunk that served as a bridge across a shallow estuary. The blacks formed a wall in front of us and refused

to let us pass. We wanted to know why we were stopped. The blacks said we could go on. We misunderstood,

and started. Explanations became more definite. Captain Jansen and I, being men, could go on. But no Mary

was allowed to wade around that bridge, much less cross it. "Mary" is beche de mer for woman. Charmian

was a Mary. To her the bridge was tambo, which is the native for taboo. Ah, how my chest expanded! At last

my manhood was vindicated. In truth I belonged to the lordly sex. Charmian could trapse along at our heels,

but we were MEN, and we could go right over that bridge while she would have to go around by whaleboat.

Now I should not care to be misunderstood by what follows; but it is a matter of common knowledge in the

Solomons that attacks of fever are often brought on by shock. Inside half an hour after Charmian had been

refused the right of way, she was being rushed aboard the Minota, packed in blankets, and dosed with

quinine. I don't know what kind of shock had happened to Wada and Nakata, but at any rate they were down

Also, during the attack of fever, Charmian developed a Solomon sore. It was the last straw. Every one on the

Snark had been afflicted except her. I had thought that I was going to lose my foot at the ankle by one

exceptionally malignant boring ulcer. Henry and Tehei, the Tahitian sailors, had had numbers of them. Wada

had been able to count his by the score. Nakata had had single ones three inches in length. Martin had been

quite certain that necrosis of his shinbone had set in from the roots of the amazing colony he elected to

cultivate in that locality. But Charmian had escaped. Out of her long immunity had been bred contempt for

the rest of us. Her ego was flattered to such an extent that one day she shyly informed me that it was all a

matter of pureness of blood. Since all the rest of us cultivated the sores, and since she did notwell, anyway,

hers was the size of a silver dollar, and the pureness of her blood enabled her to cure it after several weeks of

strenuous nursing. She pins her faith to corrosive sublimate. Martin swears by iodoform. Henry uses

limejuice undiluted. And I believe that when corrosive sublimate is slow in taking hold, alternate dressings

of peroxide of hydrogen are just the thing. There are white men in the Solomons who stake all upon boracic

acid, and others who are prejudiced in favour of lysol. I also have the weakness of a panacea. It is California.

We ran down the lagoon from Langa Langa, between mangrove swamps, through passages scarcely wider

than the Minota, and past the reef villages of Kaloka and Auki. Like the founders of Venice, these saltwater

men were originally refugees from the mainland. Too weak to hold their own in the bush, survivors of village

massacres, they fled to the sandbanks of the lagoon. These sandbanks they built up into islands. They were

compelled to seek their provender from the sea, and in time they became saltwater men. They learned the

ways of the fish and the shellfish, and they invented hooks and lines, nets and fishtraps. They developed

canoebodies. Unable to walk about, spending all their time in the canoes, they became thickarmed and

broadshouldered, with narrow waists and frail spindly legs. Controlling the seacoast, they became wealthy,

trade with the interior passing largely through their hands. But perpetual enmity exists between them and the

bushmen. Practically their only truces are on marketdays, which occur at stated intervals, usually twice a

week. The bushwomen and the saltwater women do the bartering. Back in the bush, a hundred yards away,

fully armed, lurk the bushmen, while to seaward, in the canoes, are the saltwater men. There are very rare

instances of the marketday truces being broken. The bushmen like their fish too well, while the saltwater

men have an organic craving for the vegetables they cannot grow on their crowded islets.

Thirty miles from Langa Langa brought us to the passage between Bassakanna Island and the mainland.

Here, at nightfall, the wind left us, and all night, with the whaleboat towing ahead and the crew on board

sweating at the sweeps, we strove to win through. But the tide was against us. At midnight, midway in the

passage, we came up with the Eugenie, a big recruiting schooner, towing with two whaleboats. Her skipper,

Captain Keller, a sturdy young German of twentytwo, came on board for a "gam," and the latest news of

Malaita was swapped back and forth. He had been in luck, having gathered in twenty recruits at the village of

Fiu. While lying there, one of the customary courageous killings had taken place. The murdered boy was

what is called a saltwater bushmanthat is, a saltwater man who is half bushman and who lives by the sea

but does not live on an islet. Three bushmen came down to this man where he was working in his garden.

They behaved in friendly fashion, and after a time suggested kaikai. Kaikai means food. He built a fire and

started to boil some taro. While bending over the pot, one of the bushmen shot him through the head. He fell

into the flames, whereupon they thrust a spear through his stomach, turned it around, and broke it off.

"My word," said Captain Keller, "I don't want ever to be shot with a Snider. Spread! You could drive a horse

Another recent courageous killing I heard of on Malaita was that of an old man. A bush chief had died a

natural death. Now the bushmen don't believe in natural deaths. No one was ever known to die a natural

death. The only way to die is by bullet, tomahawk, or spear thrust. When a man dies in any other way, it is a

clear case of having been charmed to death. When the bush chief died naturally, his tribe placed the guilt on a

certain family. Since it did not matter which one of the family was killed, they selected this old man who

lived by himself. This would make it easy. Furthermore, he possessed no Snider. Also, he was blind. The old

fellow got an inkling of what was coming and laid in a large supply of arrows. Three brave warriors, each

with a Snider, came down upon him in the night time. All night they fought valiantly with him. Whenever

they moved in the bush and made a noise or a rustle, he discharged an arrow in that direction. In the morning,

when his last arrow was gone, the three heroes crept up to him and blew his brains out.

Morning found us still vainly toiling through the passage. At last, in despair, we turned tail, ran out to sea,

and sailed clear round Bassakanna to our objective, Malu. The anchorage at Malu was very good, but it lay

between the shore and an ugly reef, and while easy to enter, it was difficult to leave. The direction of the

southeast trade necessitated a beat to windward; the point of the reef was widespread and shallow; while a

Mr. Caulfeild, the missionary at Malu, arrived in his whaleboat from a trip down the coast. A slender,

delicate man he was, enthusiastic in his work, levelheaded and practical, a true twentiethcentury soldier of

the Lord. When he came down to this station on Malaita, as he said, he agreed to come for six months. He

further agreed that if he were alive at the end of that time, he would continue on. Six years had passed and he

was still continuing on. Nevertheless he was justified in his doubt as to living longer than six months. Three

missionaries had preceded him on Malaita, and in less than that time two had died of fever and the third had

"What murder are you talking about?" he asked suddenly, in the midst of a confused conversation with

"Oh, that's not the one I have reference to," quoth Mr. Caulfeild. "That's old already. It happened two weeks

It was here at Malu that I atoned for all the exulting and gloating I had been guilty of over the Solomon sore

Charmian had collected at Langa Langa. Mr. Caulfeild was indirectly responsible for my atonement. He

presented us with a chicken, which I pursued into the bush with a rifle. My intention was to clip off its head. I

succeeded, but in doing so fell over a log and barked my shin. Result: three Solomon sores. This made five

all together that were adorning my person. Also, Captain Jansen and Nakata had caught garigari. Literally

translated, garigari is scratchscratch. But translation was not necessary for the rest of us. The skipper's and

(No, the Solomon Islands are not as healthy as they might be. I am writing this article on the island of Ysabel,

where we have taken the Snark to careen and clean her cooper. I got over my last attack of fever this

morning, and I have had only one free day between attacks. Charmian's are two weeks apart. Wada is a wreck

from fever. Last night he showed all the symptoms of coming down with pneumonia. Henry, a strapping

giant of a Tahitian, just up from his last dose of fever, is dragging around the deck like a last year's

crabapple. Both he and Tehei have accumulated a praiseworthy display of Solomon sores. Also, they have

caught a new form of garigari, a sort of vegetable poisoning like poison oak or poison ivy. But they are not

unique in this. A number of days ago Charmian, Martin, and I went pigeonshooting on a small island, and

we have had a foretaste of eternal torment ever since. Also, on that small island, Martin cut the soles of his

feet to ribbons on the coral whilst chasing a sharkat least, so he says, but from the glimpse I caught of him

I thought it was the other way about. The coralcuts have all become Solomon sores. Before my last fever I

knocked the skin off my knuckles while heaving on a line, and I now have three fresh sores. And poor

Nakata! For three weeks he has been unable to sit down. He sat down yesterday for the first time, and

managed to stay down for fifteen minutes. He says cheerfully that he expects to be cured of his garigari in

another month. Furthermore, his garigari, from too enthusiastic scratch scratching, has furnished footholds

for countless Solomon sores. Still furthermore, he has just come down with his seventh attack of fever. If I

were king, the worst punishment I could inflict on my enemies would be to banish them to the Solomons. On

Recruiting plantation labourers on a small, narrow yacht, built for harbour sailing, is not any too nice. The

decks swarm with recruits and their families. The main cabin is packed with them. At night they sleep there.

The only entrance to our tiny cabin is through the main cabin, and we jam our way through them or walk over

them. Nor is this nice. One and all, they are afflicted with every form of malignant skin disease. Some have

ringworm, others have bukua. This latter is caused by a vegetable parasite that invades the skin and eats it

away. The itching is intolerable. The afflicted ones scratch until the air is filled with fine dry flakes. Then

there are yaws and many other skin ulcerations. Men come aboard with Solomon sores in their feet so large

that they can walk only on their toes, or with holes in their legs so terrible that a fist could be thrust in to the

bone. Bloodpoisoning is very frequent, and Captain Jansen, with sheathknife and sail needle, operates

lavishly on one and all. No matter how desperate the situation, after opening and cleansing, he claps on a

poultice of seabiscuit soaked in water. Whenever we see a particularly horrible case, we retire to a corner

and deluge our own sores with corrosive sublimate. And so we live and eat and sleep on the Minota, taking

At Suava, another artificial island, I had a second crow over Charmian. A big fella marster belong Suava

(which means the high chief of Suava) came on board. But first he sent an emissary to Captain Jansen for a

fathom of calico with which to cover his royal nakedness. Meanwhile he lingered in the canoe alongside. The

regal dirt on his chest I swear was half an inch thick, while it was a good wager that the underneath layers

were anywhere from ten to twenty years of age. He sent his emissary on board again, who explained that the

big fella marster belong Suava was condescendingly willing enough to shake hands with Captain Jansen and

me and cadge a stick or so of trade tobacco, but that nevertheless his highborn soul was still at so lofty an

altitude that it could not sink itself to such a depth of degradation as to shake hands with a mere female

woman. Poor Charmian! Since her Malaita experiences she has become a changed woman. Her meekness and

humbleness are appallingly becoming, and I should not be surprised, when we return to civilization and stroll

along a sidewalk, to see her take her station, with bowed head, a yard in the rear.

Nothing much happened at Suava. Bichu, the native cook, deserted. The Minota dragged anchor. It blew

heavy squalls of wind and rain. The mate, Mr. Jacobsen, and Wada were prostrated with fever. Our Solomon

sores increased and multiplied. And the cockroaches on board held a combined Fourth of July and Coronation

Parade. They selected midnight for the time, and our tiny cabin for the place. They were from two to three

inches long; there were hundreds of them, and they walked all over us. When we attempted to pursue them,

they left solid footing, rose up in the air, and fluttered about like hummingbirds. They were much larger

than ours on the Snark. But ours are young yet, and haven't had a chance to grow. Also, the Snark has

centipedes, big ones, six inches long. We kill them occasionally, usually in Charmian's bunk. I've been bitten

twice by them, both times foully, while I was asleep. But poor Martin had worse luck. After being sick in bed

for three weeks, the first day he sat up he sat down on one. Sometimes I think they are the wisest who never

Later on we returned to Malu, picked up seven recruits, hove up anchor, and started to beat out the

treacherous entrance. The wind was chopping about, the current upon the ugly point of reef setting strong.

Just as we were on the verge of clearing it and gaining open sea, the wind broke off four points. The Minota

attempted to go about, but missed stays. Two of her anchors had been lost at Tulagi. Her one remaining

anchor was let go. Chain was let out to give it a hold on the coral. Her fin keel struck bottom, and her main

topmast lurched and shivered as if about to come down upon our heads. She fetched up on the slack of the

anchors at the moment a big comber smashed her shoreward. The chain parted. It was our only anchor. The

Bedlam reigned. All the recruits below, bushmen and afraid of the sea, dashed panicstricken on deck and

got in everybody's way. At the same time the boat's crew made a rush for the rifles. They knew what going

ashore on Malaita meantone hand for the ship and the other hand to fight off the natives. What they held

on with I don't know, and they needed to hold on as the Minota lifted, rolled, and pounded on the coral. The

bushmen clung in the rigging, too witless to watch out for the topmast. The whaleboat was run out with a

towline endeavouring in a puny way to prevent the Minota from being flung farther in toward the reef,

while Captain Jansen and the mate, the latter pallid and weak with fever, were resurrecting a scrap anchor

from out the ballast and rigging up a stock for it. Mr. Caulfeild, with his mission boys, arrived in his

When the Minota first struck, there was not a canoe in sight; but like vultures circling down out of the blue,

canoes began to arrive from every quarter. The boat's crew, with rifles at the ready, kept them lined up a

hundred feet away with a promise of death if they ventured nearer. And there they clung, a hundred feet

away, black and ominous, crowded with men, holding their canoes with their paddles on the perilous edge of

the breaking surf. In the meantime the bushmen were flocking down from the hills armed with spears,

Sniders, arrows, and clubs, until the beach was massed with them. To complicate matters, at least ten of our

recruits had been enlisted from the very bushmen ashore who were waiting hungrily for the loot of the

The Minota was honestly built, which is the first essential for any boat that is pounding on a reef. Some idea

of what she endured may be gained from the fact that in the first twentyfour hours she parted two

anchorchains and eight hawsers. Our boat's crew was kept busy diving for the anchors and bending new

lines. There were times when she parted the chains reinforced with hawsers. And yet she held together. Tree

trunks were brought from ashore and worked under her to save her keel and bilges, but the trunks were

gnawed and splintered and the ropes that held them frayed to fragments, and still she pounded and held

together. But we were luckier than the Ivanhoe, a big recruiting schooner, which had gone ashore on Malaita

several months previously and been promptly rushed by the natives. The captain and crew succeeded in

getting away in the whaleboats, and the bushmen and saltwater men looted her clean of everything

Squall after squall, driving wind and blinding rain, smote the Minota, while a heavier sea was making. The

Eugenie lay at anchor five miles to windward, but she was behind a point of land and could not know of our

mishap. At Captain Jansen's suggestion, I wrote a note to Captain Keller, asking him to bring extra anchors

and gear to our aid. But not a canoe could be persuaded to carry the letter. I offered half a case of tobacco, but

the blacks grinned and held their canoes bowon to the breaking seas. A half a case of tobacco was worth

three pounds. In two hours, even against the strong wind and sea, a man could have carried the letter and

received in payment what he would have laboured half a year for on a plantation. I managed to get into a

canoe and paddle out to where Mr. Caulfeild was running an anchor with his whaleboat. My idea was that

he would have more influence over the natives. He called the canoes up to him, and a score of them clustered

"I know what you think," the missionary called out to them. "You think plenty tobacco on the schooner and

you're going to get it. I tell you plenty rifles on schooner. You no get tobacco, you get bullets."

At last, one man, alone in a small canoe, took the letter and started. Waiting for relief, work went on steadily

on the Minota. Her watertanks were emptied, and spars, sails, and ballast started shoreward. There were

lively times on board when the Minota rolled one bilge down and then the other, a score of men leaping for

life and legs as the tradeboxes, booms, and eightypound pigs of iron ballast rushed across from rail to rail

and back again. The poor pretty harbour yacht! Her decks and running rigging were a raffle. Down below

everything was disrupted. The cabin floor had been torn up to get at the ballast, and rusty bilgewater

swashed and splashed. A bushel of limes, in a mess of flour and water, charged about like so many sticky

dumplings escaped from a halfcooked stew. In the inner cabin, Nakata kept guard over our rifles and

Three hours from the time our messenger started, a whaleboat, pressing along under a huge spread of

canvas, broke through the thick of a shrieking squall to windward. It was Captain Keller, wet with rain and

spray, a revolver in belt, his boat's crew fully armed, anchors and hawsers heaped high amidships, coming as

fast as wind could drivethe white man, the inevitable white man, coming to a white man's rescue.

The vulture line of canoes that had waited so long broke and disappeared as quickly as it had formed. The

corpse was not dead after all. We now had three whaleboats, two plying steadily between the vessel and

shore, the other kept busy running out anchors, rebending parted hawsers, and recovering the lost anchors.

Later in the afternoon, after a consultation, in which we took into consideration that a number of our boat's

crew, as well as ten of the recruits, belonged to this place, we disarmed the boat's crew. This, incidently, gave

them both hands free to work for the vessel. The rifles were put in the charge of five of Mr. Caulfeild's

mission boys. And down below in the wreck of the cabin the missionary and his converts prayed to God to

save the Minota. It was an impressive scene! the unarmed man of God praying with cloudless faith, his

savage followers leaning on their rifles and mumbling amens. The cabin walls reeled about them. The vessel

lifted and smashed upon the coral with every sea. From on deck came the shouts of men heaving and toiling,

That night Mr. Caulfeild brought off a warning. One of our recruits had a price on his head of fifty fathoms of

shellmoney and forty pigs. Baffled in their desire to capture the vessel, the bushmen decided to get the head

of the man. When killing begins, there is no telling where it will end, so Captain Jansen armed a whaleboat

and rowed in to the edge of the beach. Ugi, one of his boat's crew, stood up and orated for him. Ugi was

excited. Captain Jansen's warning that any canoe sighted that night would be pumped full of lead, Ugi turned

into a bellicose declaration of war, which wound up with a peroration somewhat to the following effect: "You

The bushmen contented themselves with burning an unoccupied mission house, and sneaked back to the

bush. The next day the Eugenie sailed in and dropped anchor. Three days and two nights the Minota pounded

on the reef; but she held together, and the shell of her was pulled off at last and anchored in smooth water.

There we said goodbye to her and all on board, and sailed away on the Eugenie, bound for Florida Island.

Given a number of white traders, a wide area of land, and scores of savage languages and dialects, the result

will be that the traders will manufacture a totally new, unscientific, but perfectly adequate, language. This the

traders did when they invented the Chinook lingo for use over British Columbia, Alaska, and the Northwest

Territory. So with the lingo of the Krooboys of Africa, the pigeon English of the Far East, and the beche de

mer of the westerly portion of the South Seas. This latter is often called pigeon English, but pigeon English it

certainly is not. To show how totally different it is, mention need be made only of the fact that the classic

There was once a sea captain who needed a dusky potentate down in his cabin. The potentate was on deck.

The captain's command to the Chinese steward was "Hey, boy, you go topside catchee one piecee king."

Had the steward been a New Hibridean or a Solomon islander, the command would have been: "Hey, you

fella boy, go look 'm eye belong you along deck, bring 'm me fella one big fella marster belong black man."

It was the first white men who ventured through Melanesia after the early explorers, who developed beche de

mer Englishmen such as the beche de mer fishermen, the sandalwood traders, the pearl hunters, and the

labour recruiters. In the Solomons, for instance, scores of languages and dialects are spoken. Unhappy the

trader who tried to learn them all; for in the next group to which he might wander he would find scores of

additional tongues. A common language was necessarya language so simple that a child could learn it,

with a vocabulary as limited as the intelligence of the savages upon whom it was to be used. The traders did

not reason this out. Beche do mer English was the product of conditions and circumstances. Function

precedes organ; and the need for a universal Melanesian lingo preceded beche de mer English. Beche de mer

was purely fortuitous, but it was fortuitous in the deterministic way. Also, from the fact that out of the need

the lingo arose, beche de mer English is a splendid argument for the Esperanto enthusiasts.

A limited vocabulary means that each word shall be overworked. Thus, fella, in beche de mer, means all that

piecee does and quite a bit more, and is used continually in every possible connection. Another overworked

word is belong. Nothing stands alone. Everything is related. The thing desired is indicated by its relationship

with other things. A primitive vocabulary means primitive expression, thus, the continuance of rain is

expressed as rain he stop. SUN HE COME UP cannot possibly be misunderstood, while the phrasestructure

itself can be used without mental exertion in ten thousand different ways, as, for instance, a native who

desires to tell you that there are fish in the water and who says FISH HE STOP. It was while trading on

Ysabel island that I learned the excellence of this usage. I wanted two or three pairs of the large clamshells

(measuring three feet across), but I did not want the meat inside. Also, I wanted the meat of some of the

smaller clams to make a chowder. My instruction to the natives finally ripened into the following "You fella

bring me fella big fella clamkaikai he no stop, he walk about. You fella bring me fella small fella

Kaikai is the Polynesian for food, meat, eating, and to eat: but it would be hard to say whether it was

introduced into Melanesia by the sandalwood traders or by the Polynesian westward drift. Walk about is a

quaint phrase. Thus, if one orders a Solomon sailor to put a tackle on a boom, he will suggest, "That fella

boom he walk about too much." And if the said sailor asks for shore liberty, he will state that it is his desire to

walk about. Or if said sailor be seasick, he will explain his condition by stating, "Belly belong me walk about

Too much, by the way, does not indicate anything excessive. It is merely the simple superlative. Thus, if a

native is asked the distance to a certain village, his answer will be one of these four: "Closeup"; "long way

little bit"; "long way big bit"; or "long way too much." Long way too much does not mean that one cannot

walk to the village; it means that he will have to walk farther than if the village were a long way big bit.

Gammon is to lie, to exaggerate, to joke. Mary is a woman. Any woman is a Mary. All women are Marys.

Doubtlessly the first dim white adventurer whimsically called a native woman Mary, and of similar birth

must have been many other words in beche de mer. The white men were all seamen, and so capsize and sing

out were introduced into the lingo. One would not tell a Melanesian cook to empty the dishwater, but he

would tell him to capsize it. To sing out is to cry loudly, to call out, or merely to speak. Singsing is a song.

The native Christian does not think of God calling for Adam in the Garden of Eden; in the native's mind, God

Savvee or catchee are practically the only words which have been introduced straight from pigeon English.

Of course, pickaninny has happened along, but some of its uses are delicious. Having bought a fowl from a

native in a canoe, the native asked me if I wanted "Pickaninny stop along him fella." It was not until he

showed me a handful of hen's eggs that I understood his meaning. My word, as an exclamation with a

thousand significances, could have arrived from nowhere else than Old England. A paddle, a sweep, or an

Here is a letter, dictated by one Peter, a native trader at Santa Anna, and addressed to his employer. Harry, the

schooner captain, started to write the letter, but was stopped by Peter at the end of the second sentence.

Thereafter the letter runs in Peter's own words, for Peter was afraid that Harry gammoned too much, and he

"Trader Peter has worked 12 months for your firm and has not received any pay yet. He hereby wants 12

pounds." (At this point Peter began dictation). "Harry he gammon along him all the time too much. I like him

6 tin biscuit, 4 bag rice, 24 tin bullamacow. Me like him 2 rifle, me savvee look out along boat, some place

Bullamacow means tinned beef. This word was corrupted from the English language by the Samoans, and

from them learned by the traders, who carried it along with them into Melanesia. Captain Cook and the other

early navigators made a practice of introducing seeds, plants, and domestic animals amongst the natives. It

was at Samoa that one such navigator landed a bull and a cow. "This is a bull and cow," said he to the

Samoans. They thought he was giving the name of the breed, and from that day to this, beef on the hoof and

A Solomon islander cannot say FENCE, so, in beche de mer, it becomes fennis; store is sittore, and box is

bokkis. Just now the fashion in chests, which are known as boxes, is to have a bellarrangement on the lock

so that the box cannot be opened without sounding an alarm. A box so equipped is not spoken of as a mere

FRIGHT is the beche de mer for fear. If a native appears timid and one asks him the cause, he is liable to hear

in reply: "Me fright along you too much." Or the native may be fright along storm, or wild bush, or haunted

places. CROSS covers every form of anger. A man may be cross at one when he is feeling only petulant; or

he may be cross when he is seeking to chop off your head and make a stew out of you. A recruit, after having

toiled three years on a plantation, was returned to his own village on Malaita. He was clad in all kinds of gay

and sportive garments. On his head was a top hat. He possessed a tradebox full of calico, beads, porpoise

teeth, and tobacco. Hardly was the anchor down, when the villagers were on board. The recruit looked

anxiously for his own relatives, but none was to be seen. One of the natives took the pipe out of his mouth.

Another confiscated the strings of beads from around his neck. A third relieved him of his gaudy loincloth,

and a fourth tried on the tophat and omitted to return it. Finally, one of them took his tradebox, which

represented three years' toil, and dropped it into a canoe alongside. "That fella belong you?" the captain asked

the recruit, referring to the thief. "No belong me," was the answer. "Then why in Jericho do you let him take

the box?" the captain demanded indignantly. Quoth the recruit, "Me speak along him, say bokkis he stop, that

fella he cross along me"which was the recruit's way of saying that the other man would murder him. God's

What name? is the great interrogation of beche de mer. It all depends on how it is uttered. It may mean: What

is your business? What do you mean by this outrageous conduct? What do you want? What is the thing you

are after? You had best watch out; I demand an explanation; and a few hundred other things. Call a native out

of his house in the middle of the night, and he is likely to demand, "What name you sing out along me?"

Imagine the predicament of the Germans on the plantations of Bougainville Island, who are compelled to

learn beche de mer English in order to handle the native labourers. It is to them an unscientific polyglot, and

there are no textbooks by which to study it. It is a source of unholy delight to the other white planters and

traders to hear the German wrestling stolidly with the circumlocutions and shortcuts of a language that has

Some years ago large numbers of Solomon islanders were recruited to labour on the sugar plantations of

Queensland. A missionary urged one of the labourers, who was a convert, to get up and preach a sermon to a

shipload of Solomon islanders who had just arrived. He chose for his subject the Fall of Man, and the address

he gave became a classic in all Australasia. It proceeded somewhat in the following manner:

"Altogether you boy belong Solomons you no savvee white man. Me fella me savvee him. Me fella me

"Before long time altogether no place he stop. God big fella marster belong white man, him fella He make 'm

altogether. God big fella marster belong white man, He make 'm big fella garden. He good fella too much.

Along garden plenty yam he stop, plenty cocoanut, plenty taro, plenty kumara (sweet potatoes), altogether

"Bimeby God big fella marster belong white man He make 'm one fella man and put 'm along garden belong

Him. He call 'm this fella man Adam. He name belong him. He put him this fella man Adam along garden,

and He speak, 'This fella garden he belong you.' And He look 'm this fella Adam he walk about too much.

Him fella Adam all the same sick; he no savvee kaikai; he walk about all the time. And God He no savvee.

God big fella marster belong white man, He scratch 'm head belong Him. God say: 'What name? Me no

"Bimeby God He scratch 'm head belong Him too much, and speak: 'Me fella me savvee, him fella Adam him

want 'm Mary.' So He make Adam he go asleep, He take one fella bone belong him, and He make 'm one fella

Mary along bone. He call him this fella Mary, Eve. He give 'm this fella Eve along Adam, and He speak

along him fella Adam: 'Close up altogether along this fella garden belong you two fella. One fella tree he

"So Adam Eve two fella stop along garden, and they two fella have 'm good time too much. Bimeby, one day,

Eve she come along Adam, and she speak, 'More good you me two fella we eat 'm this fella apple.' Adam he

speak, 'No,' and Eve she speak, 'What name you no like 'm me?' And Adam he speak, 'Me like 'm you too

much, but me fright along God.' And Eve she speak, 'Gammon! What name? God He no savvee look along us

two fella all 'm time. God big fella marster, He gammon along you.' But Adam he speak, 'No.' But Eve she

talk, talk, talk, allee timeallee same Mary she talk along boy along Queensland and make 'm trouble along

boy. And bimeby Adam he tired too much, and he speak, 'All right.' So these two fella they go eat 'm. When

they finish eat 'm, my word, they fright like hell, and they go hide along scrub.

"And God He come walk about along garden, and He sing out, 'Adam!' Adam he no speak. He too much

fright. My word! And God He sing out, 'Adam!' And Adam he speak, 'You call 'm me?' God He speak, 'Me

call 'm you too much.' Adam he speak, 'Me sleep strong fella too much.' And God He speak, 'You been eat 'm

this fella apple.' Adam he speak, 'No, me no been eat 'm.' God He speak. 'What name you gammon along me?

"And God big fella marster He cross along Adam Eve two fella too much, and He speak, 'You two fella finish

along me altogether. You go catch 'm bokkis (box) belong you, and get to hell along scrub.'

"So Adam Eve these two fella go along scrub. And God He make 'm one big fennis (fence) all around garden

and He put 'm one fella marster belong God along fennis. And He give this fella marster belong God one big

fella musket, and He speak, 'S'pose you look 'm these two fella Adam Eve, you shoot 'm plenty too much.'"

When we sailed from San Francisco on the Snark I knew as much about sickness as the Admiral of the Swiss

Navy knows about salt water. And here, at the start, let me advise any one who meditates going to

outoftheway tropic places. Go to a firstclass druggistthe sort that have specialists on their salary list

who know everything. Talk the matter over with such an one. Note carefully all that he says. Have a list made

of all that he recommends. Write out a cheque for the total cost, and tear it up.

I wish I had done the same. I should have been far wiser, I know now, if I had bought one of those

readymade, selfacting, fool proof medicine chests such as are favoured by fourthrate ship masters. In

such a chest each bottle has a number. On the inside of the lid is placed a simple table of directions: No. 1,

toothache; No. 2, smallpox; No. 3, stomachache; No. 4, cholera; No. 5, rheumatism; and so on, through the

list of human ills. And I might have used it as did a certain venerable skipper, who, when No. 3 was empty,

mixed a dose from No. 1 and No. 2, or, when No. 7 was all gone, dosed his crew with 4 and 3 till 3 gave out,

So far, with the exception of corrosive sublimate (which was recommended as an antiseptic in surgical

operations, and which I have not yet used for that purpose), my medicinechest has been useless. It has been

worse than useless, for it has occupied much space which I could have used to advantage.

With my surgical instruments it is different. While I have not yet had serious use for them, I do not regret the

space they occupy. The thought of them makes me feel good. They are so much life insurance, only, fairer

than that last grim game, one is not supposed to die in order to win. Of course, I don't know how to use them,

and what I don't know about surgery would set up a dozen quacks in prosperous practice. But needs must

when the devil drives, and we of the Snark have no warning when the devil may take it into his head to drive,

I did not know anything about dentistry, but a friend fitted me out with forceps and similar weapons, and in

Honolulu I picked up a book upon teeth. Also, in that subtropical city I managed to get hold of a skull, from

which I extracted the teeth swiftly and painlessly. Thus equipped, I was ready, though not exactly eager, to

tackle any tooth that get in my way. It was in Nukuhiva, in the Marquesas, that my first case presented itself

in the shape of a little, old Chinese. The first thing I did was to got the buck fever, and I leave it to any

fairminded person if buck fever, with its attendant heartpalpitations and armtremblings, is the right

condition for a man to be in who is endeavouring to pose as an old hand at the business. I did not fool the

aged Chinaman. He was as frightened as I and a bit more shaky. I almost forgot to be frightened in the fear

that he would bolt. I swear, if he had tried to, that I would have tripped him up and sat on him until calmness

I wanted that tooth. Also, Martin wanted a snapshot of me getting it. Likewise Charmian got her camera.

Then the procession started. We were stopping at what had been the clubhouse when Stevenson was in the

Marquesas on the Casco. On the veranda, where he had passed so many pleasant hours, the light was not

goodfor snapshots, I mean. I led on into the garden, a chair in one hand, the other hand filled with forceps

of various sorts, my knees knocking together disgracefully. The poor old Chinaman came second, and he was

shaking, too. Charmian and Martin brought up the rear, armed with kodaks. We dived under the avocado

trees, threaded our way through the cocoanut palms, and came on a spot that satisfied Martin's photographic

I looked at the tooth, and then discovered that I could not remember anything about the teeth I had pulled

from the skull five months previously. Did it have one prong? two prongs? or three prongs? What was left of

the part that showed appeared very crumbly, and I knew that I should have take hold of the tooth deep down

in the gum. It was very necessary that I should know how many prongs that tooth had. Back to the house I

went for the book on teeth. The poor old victim looked like photographs I had seen of fellowcountrymen of

"I sure won't," he replied with enthusiasm, from behind his camera. "I want that photograph."

For the first time I felt sorry for the Chinaman. Though the book did not tell me anything about pulling teeth,

it was all right, for on one page I found drawings of all the teeth, including their prongs and how they were

set in the jaw. Then came the pursuit of the forceps. I had seven pairs, but was in doubt as to which pair I

should use. I did not want any mistake. As I turned the hardware over with rattle and clang, the poor victim

began to lose his grip and to turn a greenish yellow around the gills. He complained about the sun, but that

was necessary for the photograph, and he had to stand it. I fitted the forceps around the tooth, and the patient

I gave a pull. Ye gods! The tooth, was loose! Out it came on the instant. I was jubilant as I held it aloft in the

"Put it back, please, oh, put it back," Martin pleaded. "You were too quick for me."

And the poor old Chinaman sat there while I put the tooth back and pulled over. Martin snapped the camera.

The deed was done. Elation? Pride? No hunter was ever prouder of his first pronged buck than I was of that

treepronged tooth. I did it! I did it! With my of own hands and a pair of forceps I did it, to say nothing of the

My next case was a Tahitian sailor. He was a small man, in a state of collapse from long days and nights of

jumping toothache. I lanced the gums first. I didn't know how to lance them, but I lanced them just the same.

It was a long pull and a strong pull. The man was a hero. He groaned and moaned, and I thought he was

After that I was ready to meet all comersjust the proper state of mind for a Waterloo. And it came. Its

name was Tomi. He was a strapping giant of a heathen with a bad reputation. He was addicted to deeds of

violence. Among other things he had beaten two of his wives to death with his fists. His father and mother

had been naked cannibals. When he sat down and I put the forceps into his mouth, he was nearly as tall as I

was standing up. Big men, prone to violence, very often have a streak of fat in their makeup, so I was

doubtful of him. Charmian grabbed one arm and Warren grabbed the other. Then the tug of war began. The

instant the forceps closed down on the tooth, his jaws closed down on the forceps. Also, both his hands flew

up and gripped my pulling hand. I held on, and he held on. Charmian and Warren held on. We wrestled all

It was three against one, and my hold on an aching tooth was certainly a foul one; but in spite of the handicap

he got away with us. The forceps slipped off, banging and grinding along against his upper teeth with a

nervescraping sound. Out of his month flew the forceps, and he rose up in the air with a bloodcurdling

yell. The three of us fell back. We expected to be massacred. But that howling savage of sanguinary

reputation sank back in the chair. He held his head in both his hands, and groaned and groaned and groaned.

Nor would he listen to reason. I was a quack. My painless toothextraction was a delusion and a snare and a

low advertising dodge. I was so anxious to get that tooth that I was almost ready to bribe him. But that went

against my professional pride and I let him depart with the tooth still intact, the only case on record up to date

of failure on my part when once I had got a grip. Since then I have never let a tooth go by me. Only the other

day I volunteered to beat up three days to windward to pull a woman missionary's tooth. I expect, before the

voyage of the Snark is finished, to be doing bridge work and putting on gold crowns.

I don't know whether they are yaws or nota physician in Fiji told me they were, and a missionary in the

Solomons told me they were not; but at any rate I can vouch for the fact that they are most uncomfortable. It

was my luck to ship in Tahiti a Frenchsailor, who, when we got to sea, proved to be afflicted with a vile

skin disease. The Snark was too small and too much of a family party to permit retaining him on board; but

perforce, until we could reach land and discharge him, it was up to me to doctor him. I read up the books and

proceeded to treat him, taking care afterwards always to use a thorough antiseptic wash. When we reached

Tutuila, far from getting rid of him, the port doctor declared a quarantine against him and refused to allow

him ashore. But at Apia, Samoa, I managed to ship him off on a steamer to New Zealand. Here at Apia my

ankles were badly bitten by mosquitoes, and I confess to having scratched the bitesas I had a thousand

times before. By the time I reached the island of Savaii, a small sore had developed on the hollow of my

instep. I thought it was due to chafe and to acid fumes from the hot lava over which I tramped. An application

of salve would cure itso I thought. The salve did heal it over, whereupon an astonishing inflammation set

in, the new skin came off, and a larger sore was exposed. This was repeated many times. Each time new skin

formed, an inflammation followed, and the circumference of the sore increased. I was puzzled and frightened.

All my life my skin had been famous for its healing powers, yet here was something that would not heal.

Instead, it was daily eating up more skin, while it had eaten down clear through the skin and was eating up

By this time the Snark was at sea on her way to Fiji. I remembered the French sailor, and for the first time

became seriously alarmed. Four other similar sores had appearedor ulcers, rather, and the pain of them

kept me awake at night. All my plans were made to lay up the Snark in Fiji and get away on the first steamer

to Australia and professional M.D.'s. In the meantime, in my amateur M.D. way, I did my best. I read through

all the medical works on board. Not a line nor a word could I find descriptive of my affliction. I brought

common horsesense to bear on the problem. Here were malignant and excessively active ulcers that were

eating me up. There was an organic and corroding poison at work. Two things I concluded must be done.

First, some agent must be found to destroy the poison. Secondly, the ulcers could not possibly heal from the

outside in; they must heal from the inside out. I decided to fight the poison with corrosive sublimate. The

very name of it struck me as vicious. Talk of fighting fire with fire! I was being consumed by a corrosive

poison, and it appealed to my fancy to fight it with another corrosive poison. After several days I alternated

dressings of corrosive sublimate with dressings of peroxide of hydrogen. And behold, by the time we reached

Fiji four of the five ulcers were healed, while the remaining one was no bigger than a pea.

I now felt fully qualified to treat yaws. Likewise I had a wholesome respect for them. Not so the rest of the

crew of the Snark. In their case, seeing was not believing. One and all, they had seen my dreadful

predicament; and all of them, I am convinced, had a subconscious certitude that their own superb

constitutions and glorious personalities would never allow lodgment of so vile a poison in their carcasses as

my anaemic constitution and mediocre personality had allowed to lodge in mine. At Port Resolution, in the

New Hebrides, Martin elected to walk barefooted in the bush and returned on board with many cuts and

"You'd better be careful," I warned him. "I'll mix up some corrosive sublimate for you to wash those cuts

But Martin smiled a superior smile. Though he did not say so. I nevertheless was given to understand that he

was not as other men (I was the only man he could possibly have had reference to), and that in a couple of

days his cuts would be healed. He also read me a dissertation upon the peculiar purity of his blood and his

remarkable healing powers. I felt quite humble when he was done with me. Evidently I was different from

Nakata, the cabinboy, while ironing one day, mistook the calf of his leg for the ironingblock and

accumulated a burn three inches in length and half an inch wide. He, too, smiled the superior smile when I

offered him corrosive sublimate and reminded him of my own cruel experience. I was given to understand,

with all due suavity and courtesy, that no matter what was the matter with my blood, his numberone,

Wada, the cook, took part in a disastrous landing of the launch, when he had to leap overboard and fend the

launch off the beach in a smashing surf. By means of shells and coral he cut his legs and feet up beautifully. I

offered him the corrosive sublimate bottle. Once again I suffered the superior smile and was given to

understand that his blood was the same blood that had licked Russia and was going to lick the United States

some day, and that if his blood wasn't able to cure a few trifling cuts, he'd commit harikari in sheer disgrace.

From all of which I concluded that an amateur M.D. is without honour on his own vessel, even if he has

cured himself. The rest of the crew had begun to look upon me as a sort of mild monomaniac on the

question of sores and sublimate. Just because my blood was impure was no reason that I should think

everybody else's was. I made no more overtures. Time and microbes were with me, and all I had to do was

"I think there's some dirt in these cuts," Martin said tentatively, after several days. "I'll wash them out and

Two more days passed, but the cuts did not pass, and I caught Martin soaking his feet and legs in a pail of hot

"Nothing like hot water," he proclaimed enthusiastically. "It beats all the dope the doctors ever put up. These

But in the morning he wore a troubled look, and I knew that the hour of my triumph approached.

"I think I WILL try some of that medicine," he announced later on in the day. "Not that I think it'll do much

Next came the proud blood of Japan to beg medicine for its illustrious sores, while I heaped coals of fire on

all their houses by explaining in minute and sympathetic detail the treatment that should be given. Nakata

followed instructions implicitly, and day by day his sores grew smaller. Wada was apathetic, and cured less

readily. But Martin still doubted, and because he did not cure immediately, he developed the theory that

while doctor's dope was all right, it did not follow that the same kind of dope was efficacious with everybody.

As for himself, corrosive sublimate had no effect. Besides, how did I know that it was the right stuff? I had

had no experience. Just because I happened to get well while using it was not proof that it had played any part

in the cure. There were such things as coincidences. Without doubt there was a dope that would cure the

sores, and when he ran across a real doctor he would find what that dope was and get some of it.

About this time we arrived in the Solomon Islands. No physician would ever recommend the group for

invalids or sanitoriums. I spent but little time there ere I really and for the first time in my life comprehended

how frail and unstable is human tissue. Our first anchorage was Port Mary, on the island of Santa Anna. The

one lone white man, a trader, came alongside. Tom Butler was his name, and he was a beautiful example of

what the Solomons can do to a strong man. He lay in his whaleboat with the helplessness of a dying man.

No smile and little intelligence illumined his face. He was a sombre death'shead, too far gone to grin. He,

too, had yaws, big ones. We were compelled to drag him over the rail of the Snark. He said that his health

was good, that he had not had the fever for some time, and that with the exception of his arm he was all right

and trim. His arm appeared to be paralysed. Paralysis he rejected with scorn. He had had it before, and

recovered. It was a common native disease on Santa Anna, he said, as he was helped down the companion

ladder, his dead arm dropping, bumpbump, from step to step. He was certainly the ghastliest guest we ever

Martin inquired about yaws, for here was a man who ought to know. He certainly did know, if we could

judge by his scarred arms and legs and by the live ulcers that corroded in the midst of the scars. Oh, one got

used to yaws, quoth Tom Butler. They were never really serious until they had eaten deep into the flesh. Then

they attacked the walls of the arteries, the arteries burst, and there was a funeral. Several of the natives had

recently died that way ashore. But what did it matter? If it wasn't yaws, it was something else in the

I noticed that from this moment Martin displayed a swiftly increasing interest in his own yaws. Dosings with

corrosive sublimate were more frequent, while, in conversation, he began to revert with growing enthusiasm

to the clean climate of Kansas and all other things Kansan. Charmian and I thought that California was a little

bit of all right. Henry swore by Rapa, and Tehei staked all on Bora Bora for his own blood's sake; while

One evening, as the Snark worked around the southern end of the island of Ugi, looking for a reputed

anchorage, a Church of England missionary, a Mr. Drew, bound in his whaleboat for the coast of San

Cristoval, came alongside and stopped for dinner. Martin, his legs swathed in Red Cross bandages till they

looked like a mummy's, turned the conversation upon yaws. Yes, said Mr. Drew, they were quite common in

"And have you had them?" Martin demanded, in the soul of him quite shocked that a Church of England

Mr. Drew nodded his head and added that not only had he had them, but at that moment he was doctoring

My heart almost stood still waiting the answer. By that answer my professional medical prestige stood or fell.

Martin, I could see, was quite sure it was going to fall. And then the answerO blessed answer!

Martin gave in handsomely, I'll admit, and I am confident that at that moment, if I had asked permission to

All white men in the Solomons catch yaws, and every cut or abrasion practically means another yaw. Every

man I met had had them, and nine out of ten had active ones. There was but one exception, a young fellow

who had been in the islands five months, who had come down with fever ten days after he arrived, and who

had since then been down so often with fever that he had had neither time nor opportunity for yaws.

Every one on the Snark except Charmian came down with yaws. Hers was the same egotism that Japan and

Kansas had displayed. She ascribed her immunity to the pureness of her blood, and as the days went by she

ascribed it more often and more loudly to the pureness of her blood. Privately I ascribed her immunity to the

fact that, being a woman, she escaped most of the cuts and abrasions to which we hardworking men were

subject in the course of working the Snark around the world. I did not tell her so. You see, I did not wish to

bruise her ego with brutal facts. Being an M.D., if only an amateur one, I knew more about the disease than

she, and I knew that time was my ally. But alas, I abused my ally when it dealt a charming little yaw on the

shin. So quickly did I apply antiseptic treatment, that the yaw was cured before she was convinced that she

had one. Again, as an M.D., I was without honour on my own vessel; and, worse than that, I was charged

with having tried to mislead her into the belief that she had had a yaw. The pureness of her blood was more

rampant than ever, and I poked my nose into my navigation books and kept quiet. And then came the day. We

"All right," said I; "but put some corrosive sublimate on it just the same. And some two or three weeks from

now, when it is well and you have a scar that you will carry to your grave, just forget about the purity of your

It was as large as a silver dollar, that yaw, and it took all of three weeks to heal. There were times when

Charmian could not walk because of the hurt of it; and there were times upon times when she explained that

abaft the anklebone was the most painful place to have a yaw. I explained, in turn, that, never having

experienced a yaw in that locality, I was driven to conclude the hollow of the instep was the most painful

place for yawculture. We left it to Martin, who disagreed with both of us and proclaimed passionately that

the only truly painful place was the shin. No wonder horse racing is so popular.

But yaws lose their novelty after a time. At the present moment of writing I have five yaws on my hands and

three more on my shin. Charmian has one on each side of her right instep. Tehei is frantic with his. Martin's

latest shincultures have eclipsed his earlier ones. And Nakata has several score casually eating away at his

tissue. But the history of the Snark in the Solomons has been the history of every ship since the early

"The crews of vessels remaining any considerable time in the Solomons find wounds and sores liable to

Nor on the question of fever were the "Sailing Directions" any more encouraging, for in them I read:

"New arrivals are almost certain sooner or later to suffer from fever. The natives are also subject to it. The

number of deaths among the whites in the year 1897 amounted to 9 among a population of 50."

Nakata was the first to come down with fever. This occurred at Penduffryn. Wada and Henry followed him.

Charmian surrendered next. I managed to escape for a couple of months; but when I was bowled over, Martin

sympathetically joined me several days later. Out of the seven of us all told Tehei is the only one who has

escaped; but his sufferings from nostalgia are worse than fever. Nakata, as usual, followed instructions

faithfully, so that by the end of his third attack he could take a two hours' sweat, consume thirty or forty

Wada and Henry, however, were tougher patients with which to deal. In the first place, Wada got in a bad

funk. He was of the firm conviction that his star had set and that the Solomons would receive his bones. He

saw that life about him was cheap. At Penduffryn he saw the ravages of dysentery, and, unfortunately for

him, he saw one victim carried out on a strip of galvanized sheetiron and dumped without coffin or funeral

into a hole in the ground. Everybody had fever, everybody had dysentery, everybody had everything. Death

was common. Here today and gone tomorrowand Wada forgot all about today and made up his mind

He was careless of his ulcers, neglected to sublimate them, and by uncontrolled scratching spread them all

over his body. Nor would he follow instructions with fever, and, as a result, would be down five days at a

time, when a day would have been sufficient. Henry, who is a strapping giant of a man, was just as bad. He

refused point blank to take quinine, on the ground that years before he had had fever and that the pills the

doctor gave him were of different size and colour from the quinine tablets I offered him. So Henry joined

But I fooled the pair of them, and dosed them with their own medicine, which was faithcure. They had faith

in their funk that they were going to die. I slammed a lot of quinine down their throats and took their

temperature. It was the first time I had used my medicinechest thermometer, and I quickly discovered that it

was worthless, that it had been produced for profit and not for service. If I had let on to my two patients that

the thermometer did not work, there would have been two funerals in short order. Their temperature I swear

was 105 degrees. I solemnly made one and then the other smoke the thermometer, allowed an expression of

satisfaction to irradiate my countenance, and joyfully told them that their temperature was 94 degrees. Then I

slammed more quinine down their throats, told them that any sickness or weakness they might experience

would be due to the quinine, and left them to get well. And they did get well, Wada in spite of himself. If a

man can die through a misapprehension, is there any immorality in making him live through a

Commend me the white race when it comes to grit and surviving. One of our two Japanese and both our

Tahitians funked and had to be slapped on the back and cheered up and dragged along by main strength

toward life. Charmian and Martin took their afflictions cheerfully, made the least of them, and moved with

calm certitude along the way of life. When Wada and Henry were convinced that they were going to die, the

funeral atmosphere was too much for Tehei, who prayed dolorously and cried for hours at a time. Martin, on

the other hand, cursed and got well, and Charmian groaned and made plans for what she was going to do

Charmian had been raised a vegetarian and a sanitarian. Her Aunt Netta, who brought her up and who lived in

a healthful climate, did not believe in drugs. Neither did Charmian. Besides, drugs disagreed with her. Their

effects were worse than the ills they were supposed to alleviate. But she listened to the argument in favour of

quinine, accepted it as the lesser evil, and in consequence had shorter, less painful, and less frequent attacks

of fever. We encountered a Mr. Caulfeild, a missionary, whose two predecessors had died after less than six

months' residence in the Solomons. Like them he had been a firm believer in homeopathy, until after his first

fever, whereupon, unlike them, he made a grand slide back to allopathy and quinine, catching fever and

But poor Wada! The straw that broke the cook's back was when Charmian and I took him along on a cruise to

the cannibal island of Malaita, in a small yacht, on the deck of which the captain had been murdered half a

year before. Kaikai means to eat, and Wada was sure he was going to be kaikai'd. We went about heavily

armed, our vigilance was unremitting, and when we went for a bath in the mouth of a freshwater stream,

black boys, armed with rifles, did sentry duty about us. We encountered English war vessels burning and

shelling villages in punishment for murders. Natives with prices on their heads sought shelter on board of us.

Murder stalked abroad in the land. In outoftheyway places we received warnings from friendly savages

of impending attacks. Our vessel owed two heads to Malaita, which were liable to be collected any time.

Then to cap it all, we were wrecked on a reef, and with rifles in one hand warned the canoes of wreckers off

while with the other hand we toiled to save the ship. All of which was too much for Wada, who went daffy,

and who finally quitted the Snark on the island of Ysabel, going ashore for good in a driving rainstorm,

between two attacks of fever, while threatened with pneumonia. If he escapes being kai kai'd, and if he can

survive sores and fever which are riotous ashore, he can expect, if he is reasonably lucky, to get away from

that place to the adjacent island in anywhere from six to eight weeks. He never did think much of my

medicine, despite the fact that I successfully and at the first trail pulled two aching teeth for him.

The Snark has been a hospital for months, and I confess that we are getting used to it. At Meringe Lagoon,

where we careened and cleaned the Snark's copper, there were times when only one man of us was able to go

into the water, while the three white men on the plantation ashore were all down with fever. At the moment

of writing this we are lost at sea somewhere northeast of Ysabel and trying vainly to find Lord Howe Island,

which is an atoll that cannot be sighted unless one is on top of it. The chronometer has gone wrong. The sun

does not shine anyway, nor can I get a star observation at night, and we have had nothing but squalls and rain

for days and days. The cook is gone. Nakata, who has been trying to be both cook and cabin boy, is down on

his back with fever. Martin is just up from fever, and going down again. Charmian, whose fever has become

periodical, is looking up in her date book to find when the next attack will be. Henry has begun to eat quinine

in an expectant mood. And, since my attacks hit me with the suddenness of bludgeonblows I do not know

from moment to moment when I shall be brought down. By a mistake we gave our last flour away to some

white men who did not have any flour. We don't know when we'll make land. Our Solomon sores are worse

than ever, and more numerous. The corrosive sublimate was accidentally left ashore at Penduffryn; the

peroxide of hydrogen is exhausted; and I am experimenting with boracic acid, lysol, and antiphlogystine. At

any rate, if I fail in becoming a reputable M.D., it won't be from lack of practice.

P.S. It is now two weeks since the foregoing was written, and Tehei, the only immune on board has been

down ten days with far severer fever than any of us and is still down. His temperature has been repeatedly as

P.S. At sea, between Tasman atoll and Manning Straits. Tehei's attack developed into black water feverthe

severest form of malarial fever, which, the doctorbook assures me, is due to some outside infection as well.

Having pulled him through his fever, I am now at my wit's end, for he has lost his wits altogether. I am rather

recent in practice to take up the cure of insanity. This makes the second lunacy case on this short voyage.

P.S. Some day I shall write a book (for the profession), and entitle it, "Around the World on the Hospital Ship

Snark." Even our pets have not escaped. We sailed from Meringe Lagoon with two, an Irish terrier and a

white cockatoo. The terrier fell down the cabin companionway and lamed its nigh hind leg, then repeated the

manoeuvre and lamed its off fore leg. At the present moment it has but two legs to walk on. Fortunately, they

are on opposite sides and ends, so that she can still dot and carry two. The cockatoo was crushed under the

cabin skylight and had to be killed. This was our first funeralthough for that matter, the several chickens

we had, and which would have made welcome broth for the convalescents, flew overboard and were

drowned. Only the cockroaches flourish. Neither illness nor accident ever befalls them, and they grow larger

and more carnivorous day by day, gnawing our fingernails and toenails while we sleep.

P.S. Charmian is having another bout with fever. Martin, in despair, has taken to horsedoctoring his yaws

with bluestone and to blessing the Solomons. As for me, in addition to navigating, doctoring, and writing

short stories, I am far from well. With the exception of the insanity cases, I'm the worst off on board. I shall

catch the next steamer to Australia and go on the operating table. Among my minor afflictions, I may

mention a new and mysterious one. For the past week my hands have been swelling as with dropsy. It is only

by a painful effort that I can close them. A pull on a rope is excruciating. The sensations are like those that

accompany severe chilblains. Also, the skin is peeling off both hands at an alarming rate, besides which the

new skin underneath is growing hard and thick. The doctorbook fails to mention this disease. Nobody

P.S. Well, anyway, I've cured the chronometer. After knocking about the sea for eight squally, rainy days,

most of the time hove to, I succeeded in catching a partial observation of the sun at midday. From this I

worked up my latitude, then headed by log to the latitude of Lord Howe, and ran both that latitude and the

island down together. Here I tested the chronometer by longitude sights and found it something like three

minutes out. Since each minute is equivalent to fifteen miles, the total error can be appreciated. By repeated

observations at Lord Howe I rated the chronometer, finding it to have a daily losing error of seventenths of a

second. Now it happens that a year ago, when we sailed from Hawaii, that selfsame chronometer had that

selfsame losing error of seventenths of a second. Since that error was faithfully added every day, and since

that error, as proved by my observations at Lord Howe, has not changed, then what under the sun made that

chronometer all of a sudden accelerate and catch up with itself three minutes? Can such things be? Expert

watchmakers say no; but I say that they have never done any expert watchmaking and watchrating in the

Solomons. That it is the climate is my only diagnosis. At any rate, I have successfully doctored the

chronometer, even if I have failed with the lunacy cases and with Martin's yaws.

P.S. Martin has just tried burnt alum, and is blessing the Solomons more fervently than ever.

Henry has developed rheumatism in his back, ten skins have peeled off my hands and the eleventh is now

peeling, while Tehei is more lunatic than ever and day and night prays God not to kill him. Also, Nakata and

I are slashing away at fever again. And finally up to date, Nakata last evening had an attack of ptomaine

The Snark was fortythree feet on the waterline and fiftyfive over all, with fifteen feet beam

(tumblehome sides) and seven feet eight inches draught. She was ketchrigged, carrying flyingjib, jib,

forestaysail, mainsail, mizzen, and spinnaker. There were six feet of headroom below, and she was

crowndecked and flushdecked. There were four alleged WATERTIGHT compartments. A seventyhorse

power auxiliary gasengine sporadically furnished locomotion at an approximate cost of twenty dollars per

mile. A fivehorse power engine ran the pumps when it was in order, and on two occasions proved capable

of furnishing juice for the searchlight. The storage batteries worked four or five times in the course of two

years. The fourteenfoot launch was rumoured to work at times, but it invariably broke down whenever I

But the Snark sailed. It was the only way she could get anywhere. She sailed for two years, and never touched

rock, reef, nor shoal. She had no inside ballast, her iron keel weighed five tons, but her deep draught and high

freeboard made her very stiff. Caught under full sail in tropic squalls, she buried her rail and deck many

times, but stubbornly refused to turn turtle. She steered easily, and she could run day and night, without

steering, closeby, full andby, and with the wind abeam. With the wind on her quarter and the sails

properly trimmed, she steered herself within two points, and with the wind almost astern she required

The Snark was partly built in San Francisco. The morning her iron keel was to be cast was the morning of the

great earthquake. Then came anarchy. Six months overdue in the building, I sailed the shell of her to Hawaii

to be finished, the engine lashed to the bottom, building materials lashed on deck. Had I remained in San

Francisco for completion, I'd still be there. As it was, partly built, she cost four times what she ought to have

The Snark was born unfortunately. She was libelled in San Francisco, had her cheques protested as fraudulent

in Hawaii, and was fined for breach of quarantine in the Solomons. To save themselves, the newspapers

could not tell the truth about her. When I discharged an incompetent captain, they said I had beaten him to a

pulp. When one young man returned home to continue at college, it was reported that I was a regular Wolf

Larsen, and that my whole crew had deserted because I had beaten it to a pulp. In fact the only blow struck on

the Snark was when the cook was manhandled by a captain who had shipped with me under false pretences,

and whom I discharged in Fiji. Also, Charmian and I boxed for exercise; but neither of us was seriously

The voyage was our idea of a good time. I built the Snark and paid for it, and for all expenses. I contracted to

write thirtyfive thousand words descriptive of the trip for a magazine which was to pay me the same rate I

received for stories written at home. Promptly the magazine advertised that it was sending me especially

around the world for itself. It was a wealthy magazine. And every man who had business dealings with the

Snark charged three prices because forsooth the magazine could afford it. Down in the uttermost South Sea

isle this myth obtained, and I paid accordingly. To this day everybody believes that the magazine paid for

everything and that I made a fortune out of the voyage. It is hard, after such advertising, to hammer it into the

I went to Australia to go into hospital, where I spent five weeks. I spent five months miserably sick in hotels.

The mysterious malady that afflicted my hands was too much for the Australian specialists. It was unknown

in the literature of medicine. No case like it had ever been reported. It extended from my hands to my feet so

that at times I was as helpless as a child. On occasion my hands were twice their natural size, with seven dead

and dying skins peeling off at the same time. There were times when my toenails, in twentyfour hours,

grew as thick as they were long. After filing them off, inside another twentyfour hours they were as thick as

The Australian specialists agreed that the malady was nonparasitic, and that, therefore, it must be nervous. It

did not mend, and it was impossible for me to continue the voyage. The only way I could have continued it

would have been by being lashed in my bunk, for in my helpless condition, unable to clutch with my hands, I

could not have moved about on a small rolling boat. Also, I said to myself that while there were many boats

and many voyages, I had but one pair of hands and one set of toenails. Still further, I reasoned that in my

own climate of California I had always maintained a stable nervous equilibrium. So back I came.

Since my return I have completely recovered. And I have found out what was the matter with me. I

encountered a book by Lieutenant Colonel Charles E. Woodruff of the United States Army entitled "Effects

of Tropical Light on White Men." Then I knew. Later, I met Colonel Woodruff, and learned that he had been

similarly afflicted. Himself an Army surgeon, seventeen Army surgeons sat on his case in the Philippines,

and, like the Australian specialists, confessed themselves beaten. In brief, I had a strong predisposition

toward the tissuedestructiveness of tropical light. I was being torn to pieces by the ultraviolet rays just as

In passing, I may mention that among the other afflictions that jointly compelled the abandonment of the

voyage, was one that is variously called the healthy man's disease, European Leprosy, and Biblical Leprosy.

Unlike True Leprosy, nothing is known of this mysterious malady. No doctor has ever claimed a cure for a

case of it, though spontaneous cures are recorded. It comes, they know not how. It is, they know not what. It

goes, they know not why. Without the use of drugs, merely by living in the wholesome California climate,

my silvery skin vanished. The only hope the doctors had held out to me was a spontaneous cure, and such a

A last word: the test of the voyage. It is easy enough for me or any man to say that it was enjoyable. But there

is a better witness, the one woman who made it from beginning to end. In hospital when I broke the news to

Charmian that I must go back to California, the tears welled into her eyes. For two days she was wrecked and

{1} To point out that we of the Snark are not a crowd of weaklings, which might be concluded from our

divers afflictions, I quote the following, which I gleaned verbatim from the Eugenie's log and which may be

Boat went ashore in the morning. Got two loads ivory nut, 4000 copra. Skipper down with fever.

At noon hove up and proceeded with a very light E.N.E. wind for NgoraNgora. Anchored in 5

At daybreak found that the boy Bagua had died during the night, on dysentery. He was about 14 days sick. At

Set course for Sikiana at 4 P.M. Wind broke off. Heavy squalls during the night. Skipper down on dysentery,

Big sea. Leerail under water all the time. Ship under reefed mainsail, staysail, and inner jib. Skipper and 3

Too thick to see anything. Blowing a gale all the time. Pump plugged up and bailing with buckets. Skipper

During night squalls with hurricane force. Skipper and six men down on dysentery.

Turned back from Sikiana. Squalls all day with heavy rain and sea. Skipper and best part of crew on

And so, day by day, with the majority of all on board prostrated, the Eugenie's log goes on. The only variety

occurred on March 31, when the mate came down with dysentery and the skipper was floored by fever.