TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE.

Original spelling and grammar has been retained, with a few exceptions, which are detailed in the [Transcriber's Endnote].

THROUGH THE SOUTH SEAS WITH JACK LONDON

[larger]

Through the South Seas
With Jack London

BY
MARTIN JOHNSON

With an Introduction and a Postscript
BY
RALPH D. HARRISON

Numerous Illustrations

LONDON
T. WERNER LAURIE, Ltd.
CLIFFORD'S INN.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

[TOC]

Accounts of dare-devil exploits have always been read with deep interest. One of the salient features of human nature is curiosity, a desire to know what is being said and done outside the narrow limits of one's individual experience, or, in other words, to learn the modes of life of persons whose environment and problems are different from one's own environment and problems. To this natural curiosity, the book of travel is particularly gratifying.

But when we add to the fact that such a narrative treats of races and conditions almost unknown to the inhabitants of civilised countries the consideration that those voyageurs to whom the adventures fell are men and women already prominently before the public, and so deserving of that public's special confidence, the interest and value of such a work will be seen to be extraordinarily enhanced.

The cruise of Jack London's forty-five-foot ketch Snark was followed eagerly by the press of several continents. The Snark alone was enough to compel attention, but the Snark sailed by Jack London, a writer of world-wide celebrity, was irresistible. The venture caught the world's fancy. Periodicals devoted columns to a discussion of the Snark and her builder, and to the daring crew who sailed the tiny craft for two years through the South Seas.

When it became known that such a voyage was in contemplation, hundreds of persons wrote to Mr. London, begging that he allow them to accompany him. On the other extreme, they were legion who threw up their hands in horror at the mere suggestion. The belief was widespread, and was, indeed, almost universally expressed, that the famous writer and his fellows were setting out on a cruise from which there would be no return. As an instance of the capriciousness of things maritime and the fallibility of human judgment, it is interesting to reflect that the Snark, a ten-ton yacht, the stanchness of which was greatly doubted, travelled her watery miles without mishap, and is still afloat, while the Titanic, the most wonderful craft that ever put out to sea, the last word in shipbuilding, declared unsinkable, bore over a thousand of her passengers to death, and lies to-day, a twisted mass of wreckage, irrecoverably lost in the depths of the Atlantic.

Hardships there were a-plenty for the little yacht's crew, of which seasickness was not the least. The Snark was not a "painted ship upon a painted ocean." Even a seasoned sailor would find it difficult to accustom himself to the pitch and toss of so small a boat. The effect upon the Snark's complement, composed mainly of "landlubbers," may easily be imagined.

Mr. Martin Johnson, who started in as cook, soon became the close friend and chief companion of Mr. London. He was thus enabled to make studies of the South Sea natives, many of whom are unquestionably the strangest creatures in existence. His photographic records—over seven thousand different negatives—are the finest in the world: they are absolutely unique. We have read of some few of the little-known places visited by the voyageurs, in Mr. London's "Cruise of the Snark"; but the present work, being much more detailed and complete, gives the first real insight into life aboard the yacht and among the myriad islands of the South Pacific. The illustrations are from photographs made by Mr. Johnson, with a few from prints by Mr. J. W. Beattie, of Tasmania.

After reading such a narrative, we seem to lose our wonder at the voyages of vessels like the Half Moon, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Surely the playing of sea-pranks can go no further. The conclusion seems justifiable that if men are to outdo the exploits of the past, they will only succeed by forsaking the water and mastering the air.
Ralph D. Harrison.

Indianapolis, U. S. A., April 5, 1913.

THROUGH THE SOUTH SEAS
WITH JACK LONDON

CHAPTER I
ON THE TRAIL OF ADVENTURE

[TOC]

p001

Through all my twenty years of life I had been in pursuit of Adventure. But Adventure eluded me. Many and many a time, when I thought that at last the prize was mine, she turned, and by some trickery slipped from my grasp. The twenty years were passed, and still there she was—Adventure!—in the road ahead of me, and I, unwearied by our many skirmishes, still following. The lure was always golden. I could not give it up. Somewhere, sometime, I knew that the advantage would incline my way, and that I should close down my two hands firmly upon her, and hold her fast. Adventure would be mine!

I thought, when I made it across the Atlantic on a cattle-boat, and trod the soil of several alien countries of the Old World, that I had won. But it was not so. It was but the golden reflection of Adventure that I had caught up with, and not the glorious thing itself. She was still there, ahead of me, and I still must needs pursue.

In my native Independence, Kansas, I sat long hours in my father's jewellry store, and dreamed as I worked. I ranged in vision over all the broad spaces of a world-chart. In this dream-realm, there were no impediments to my journeying. Through long ice-reaches, p002 across frozen rivers, over snow-piled mountains, I forced my way to the Poles. I skimmed over boundless tracts of ocean. Giant continents beckoned me from coast to coast. Here was an island, rearing its grassy back out of the great Pacific. My fancy invaded it. Or here was a lofty mountain-chain, over whose snow-capped summits I roamed at pleasure, communing with the sky. Then there were the valley-deeps; dropping down the steep descents on my mount, I explored their sheltered wonders with unceasing delight. Nothing was inaccessible. I walked in lands where queer people, in costumes unfamiliar, lived out their lives in ways which puzzled me, yet fascinated; my way led often amid strange trees and grasses and shrubs—their names unguessable. To the farthest limits of East and West I sallied, and North and South, knew no barriers but the Poles. I breathed strange airs; I engaged in remarkable pursuits; by night, unfamiliar stars and constellations glittered in the sky. It is so easy, travelling—on the map. There are no rigid limitations. Probabilities do not bother. Latitude and longitude are things unnoticed.

But all these dreams were presaging a reality. How it came about I hardly know. I must have tired out that glorious thing, Adventure, with my long pursuit; or else she grew kind to me, and fluttered into my clasp. One evening, during the fall of 1906, while passing away an hour with my favourite magazine, my attention was attracted to an article describing a proposed p003 trip round the world on a little forty-five-foot boat, by Jack London and a party of five. Instantly, I was all aglow with enthusiasm, and before I had finished the article I had mapped out a plan of action. If that boat made a trip such as described, I was going to be on the boat. It is needless to say that the letter I immediately wrote to Mr. Jack London was as strong as I could make it.

I did my best to convince Mr. London that I was the man he needed. I told him all I could do, and some things I couldn't do, laying special stress on the fact that I had at one time made a trip from Chicago to Liverpool, London, and Brussels, returning by way of New York with twenty-five cents of the original five dollars and a half with which I had started. There were other things in that letter, though just what they were I cannot now remember, nor does it matter. My impatience was great as I awaited Mr. London's reply. Yet I dared not believe anything would come of it. That would be impossible. Why, I knew that my letter was one of a host of letters; I knew that among those who had applied must be many who could push far stronger claims than mine; and so, hoping against odds, I looked to the outcome with no particular optimism.

Then, four days later, when hope had about dwindled away, the impossible happened. I was standing in my father's jewellry store after supper on the evening of Monday, November 12, 1906, when a messenger boy p004 came in and handed me a telegram. The instant I saw the little yellow envelope, something told me that this was the turning-point in my life. With trembling hands I tore it open, my heart beating wildly with excitement. It was Jack London's reply, the fateful slip of paper that was to dictate my acts for several years to come.

The telegram was dated from Oakland, California, a few hours earlier in the day. "Can you cook?" it asked. And I had no sooner read it than I had framed the reply. A little later it was burning over the wires in the direction of California. Could I cook? "Sure. Try me," I replied, with the bold audacity of youth—and then settled myself down to another wait.

The interval was brief. I spent it in learning how to cook. One of my local friends gave me temporary employment in his restaurant; and when, on Friday, the 23rd, the first letter came from Jack London, I had already been through the cook-book from cover to cover, learning the secrets of the cuisine: bread-baking and cake-making, the preparing of sauces and puddings and omelets, fruit, game, and fowl—in short, the "chemistry of the kitchen"; and what of my practical experience in the restaurant, I had even served up two or three experimental messes that seemed to me fairly creditable for a beginner.

The letter was long and detailed. It spoke of the p005 ship, of the crew, of the plans—to use Mr. London's own words, it let me know just what I was in for.

There were to be six aboard, all-told. There were Jack and Mrs. London; Captain Roscoe Eames, who is Mrs. London's uncle; Paul H. Tochigi, a Jap cabin-boy; Herbert Stolz, an all-around athlete, fresh from Stanford University; and lastly, there was to be myself, the cook. We were to sail southern seas and northern seas, bays and inland rivers, lakes and creeks—anything navigable. And we were not to stop until we had circled the planet. We were to visit the principal countries of the world, spending from three to six months in every port. It was planned that we should not be home for at least seven years.

"It is the strongest boat ever built in San Francisco," ran the letter. "We could go through a typhoon that would wreck a 15,000-ton steamer. . . . Practically, for every week that we are on the ocean, we will be a month in port. For instance, we expect that it will take us three weeks to sail from here to Hawaii, where we expect to remain three months—of course, in various portions of the Islands.

"Now as to the crew: All of us will be the crew. There is my wife, and myself. We will stand our watches and do our trick at the wheel. . . . When it comes to doing the trick at the wheel, I want to explain that this will not be arduous as it may appear at first. It is our intention, by sail-trimming, to make p006 the boat largely sail herself, without steering. Next, in bad weather, there will be no steering, for then we will be hove-to. But watches, or rather lookouts, must be kept at night, when we are sailing. Suppose we divide day and night into twelve hours each. There are six of us all-told on the boat. Each will take a two-hour turn on deck.

"Of course, when it comes to moments of danger, or to doing something ticklish, or to making port, etc., the whole six of us will then become the crew. I will not be a writer, but a sailor. The same with my wife. The cabin-boy will be a sailor, and so also, the cook. In fact, when it's a case for all hands, all hands it will be.

"From the present outlook, we shall sail out of San Francisco Bay on December 15. So you see, if you accompany us, you will miss your Christmas at home. . . . Incidentally, if you like boxing, I may tell you that all of us box, and we'll have the gloves along. You'll have the advantage of us on reach. Also, I may say that we should all of us have lots of good times together, swimming, fishing, adventuring, doing a thousand-and-one things.

"Now, about clothes. Remember that the boat is small, also that we are going into hot weather and shall be in hot weather all the time. So bring a small outfit, and one for use in warm weather."

Thereafter, my days and nights were more golden than ever with dreams. The days flew by swiftly, but p007 their heels seemed heavy to the anxious wight who spent his hours grubbing in a restaurant. It appeared to me that the time for my departure would never come. I shudder as I think of what weird messes I may have served up to my friend's customers in the moments of my abstraction. Meanwhile, a letter from Mrs. London dropped in, telling me how to get my passport. At last the day came for my going. A letter was pressed into my hands by one of my local friends, who was an Elk, even as I. When I opened it, I found it to be an introduction for me wherever I might find myself. Surely here was good-will and loyalty of which to be proud; and doubly proud was I when I found that the letter was endorsed by the Grand Exalted Ruler of the Elks. As I was later to find, this little slip of paper would open many a door which otherwise had remained shut to me.

With only a small satchel of clothing and a camera, I boarded a Santa Fé train, said the last good-byes, and sped westward toward California. The dreams did not cease as I passed through the several states that intervened. Whether by day or by night, they persisted. That glorious will-o'-the-wisp, Adventure, was still before me, though now much nearer and more tantalising. But the advantage was mine. Mounted on that monster of steam and iron, the modern train, I felt that Adventure would be hard put for speed in a race with me. And yet, that train seemed to me the slowest thing that ever ran on two rails. p008

My thoughts kept constantly turning upon the man whom I was journeying to meet. What sort of being was he, that had compelled the attention of the world by the magic of his pen, and by the daring of his exploits? One thing I knew. The places I had roamed in fancy, his foot had trod in reality. And he had sailed over the seas. In '97, he was a gold-seeker in the far North. He had been a sailor and a tramp, an oyster-pirate, a Socialist agitator, and a member of the San Francisco Bay fish-patrol. His voyages up to this time had carried him far over the earth, and his experiences would overlap the experiences of an ordinary man a score of times and more. Above all, he was a student, and a writer of world-wide celebrity. Wherever civilised men congregated, wherever books were read, the name of Jack London was familiar.

Why he was making this trip in so tiny a craft? That question he answered shortly afterward, when he wrote: "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. That is why I am building the Snark. I am so made. The trip around the world means big moments of living. Bear with me a moment and look at it. Here am I, a little animal called a man—a bit of vitalised matter, one hundred and sixty-five pounds of meat and blood, p009 nerve, sinew, bones and brain—all of it soft and tender, susceptible to hurt, fallible and frail. I strike a light back-handed blow on the nose of an obstreperous horse, and a bone in my hand is broken. I put my head under the water for five minutes, and I am drowned. I fall twenty feet through the air, and I am smashed. I am a creature of temperature. A few degrees one way, and my fingers and ears and toes blacken and drop off. A few degrees the other way, and my skin blisters and shrivels away from the raw, quivering flesh. A few additional degrees either way, and the light and life in me go out. A drop of poison injected into my body from a snake, and I cease to move—forever I cease to move. A splinter of lead from a rifle enters my head, and I am wrapped around in the eternal blackness.

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"Fallible and frail, a bit of pulsating, jelly-like life—it is all I am. About me are the great natural forces—colossal menaces, Titans of destruction, unsentimental monsters that have less concern for me than I have for the grain of sand I crush under my foot. They have no concern for me at all. They do not know me. They are unconscious, unmerciful, and unmoral. They are the cyclones and tornadoes, lightning flashes and cloudbursts, tide-rips and tidal waves, undertows and waterspouts, great whirls and sucks and eddies, earthquakes and volcanoes, surfs that thunder on rock-ribbed coasts, and seas that leap aboard the largest crafts that float, crushing humans p010 to pulp or licking them off into the sea and to death—and these insensate monsters do not know that tiny sensitive creature, all nerves and weaknesses, whom men call Jack London, and who himself thinks he is all right and quite a superior being.

"In the maze and chaos of the conflict of these vast and draughty Titans, it is for me to thread my precarious way. The bit of life that is I will exult over them."

And again:

"Being alive, I want to see, and all the world is a bigger thing to see than one small town or valley. We have done little outlining of the voyage. Only one thing is definite, and that is that our first port of call will be Honolulu. Beyond a few general ideas, we have no thought of our next port after Hawaii. We shall make up our minds as we get nearer. In a general way, we know that we shall wander through the South Seas, take in Samoa, New Zealand, Tasmania, Australia, New Guinea, Borneo, and Sumatra, and go on up through the Philippines to Japan. Then will come Korea, China, India, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean. After that the voyage becomes too vague to describe, though we know a number of things we shall surely do, and we expect to spend from one to several months in every country in Europe."

The article in the magazine, which had first drawn my attention to the proposed trip, had given me little knowledge of the man with whom in all probability p011 I was to spend the next seven years of my life. The nearer I came to Oakland, the California city in which the Londons were then living, the more intense grew my curiosity. Worst of all, I was haunted by a fear that if I didn't hustle and get there, Jack London would have changed his mind, and I should be obliged to come back in humiliation to Independence.

It was about nine o'clock in the evening when I arrived in Oakland. As soon as I was off the train, I hunted a telephone and called up Jack London. It was London himself who came to the 'phone. When I told him who I was, I heard a pleasant voice say: "Hello, boy; come right along up," and then followed instructions as to how to find the house.

They lived in a splendid section of the town. I had no difficulty in finding them. When I rapped at the door, a neat little woman opened it, and grabbing my hand, almost wrung it off.

"Come right in," cried Mrs. London. "Jack's waiting for you."

At that moment a striking young man of thirty, with very broad shoulders, a mass of wavy auburn hair, and a general atmosphere of boyishness, appeared at the doorway, and shot a quick, inquisitive look at me from his wide grey eyes. Inside, I could see all manner of oars, odd assortments of clothing, books, papers, charts, guns, cameras, and folding canoes, piled in great stacks upon the floor.

"Hello, Martin," he said, stretching out his hand. p012

"Hello, Jack," I answered. We gripped.

And that is how I met Jack London, traveller, novelist, and social reformer; and that is how, for the first time, I really ran shoulder to shoulder with Adventure, which I had been pursuing all my days. p013

CHAPTER II
THE BUILDING OF THE "SNARK"

[TOC]

The morning after my arrival in Oakland, I met the other members of the Snark crew—the Snarkites, as Mrs. London called them. Stolz certainly lived up to his description. He was then about twenty-one years of age, and a stronger fellow for his years I have never seen anywhere, nor one so possessed of energy. Paul H. Tochigi, the Japanese cabin-boy, was a manly little fellow of twenty, who had only been in America one year. Captain Eames was a fine, kindly old man, the architect and superintendent of construction of the Snark, and was booked to be her navigator.

At the time of my coming to California, the Snark had already been several months in the building. And her growth promised to be a slow one. Everything went wrong. More than once, Jack shook his head and sighed: "She was born unfortunately."

Planned to cost seven thousand dollars, by the time she was finished she cost thirty thousand. To a ship-wise man, this will seem an impossible amount to spend on so small a craft. But everything was of the highest quality on the Snark; labour and materials the very best that money could buy. I really believe she was the strongest boat ever built.

The idea of the trip had first come to Jack and p014 Captain Eames up at Jack's ranch near Glen Ellen. While in the swimming pool one day, their conversation turned to boats. Jack cited the case of Captain Joshua Slocum, who left Boston one fair day in a little thirty-foot boat, Spray, went round the world, by himself, and came back on another fair day, three years later, and made fast to the identical post from which he had cast loose on the day of his start. This led to some speculation; and out of it all, the idea of a forty-foot yacht emerged. Later, of course, the idea took on tangible dimensions, and a few more feet, evolving at last into the Snark. At one time, Jack had thought of calling the yacht the Wolf—a nickname applied to him by his friends—but afterward found the name Snark in one of Lewis Carroll's nonsense books, and forthwith adopted it.

The start had originally been planned for October 1, 1906. But she did not sail on October 1, because she was not yet finished. She was promised on November 1; again she was delayed—because not finished. It was then deemed advisable to postpone sailing until November 15; but when that date rolled around and the Snark was still in the process of construction, December 1 was decided on as the auspicious time for a start. And still the Snark grew and grew, and was never ready. In his letter to me, Jack had set December 15 as the sailing-date; but on December 15 we did not sail.

During the next three months, I lived at the London p015 home, and my principal occupation was watching the building of the Snark at Anderson's Ways, in San Francisco, right across the bay from Oakland. Anderson's Ways was about one mile from the Union Iron Works, where the big battleships for the American navy are built. There were several reasons for the trouble experienced in getting the Snark ready for her long sea-bath. To begin with, San Francisco was just beginning to rise anew from wreck and ashes, and the demand for workmen was urgent. Wages soared skyward; it was almost impossible to hire carpenters, or workmen of any sort. And things that Jack ordinarily could have bought in San Francisco, he was obliged to order from New York. Then, too, so many freight-cars were heading for the ruined city that a terrible tangle resulted, and it was difficult to find the consignments of goods needed for the Snark. One freight-car, containing oak ribs for the boat, had arrived the day after the earthquake, but it had taken a full month to find it. Nothing went right. To cap matters, the big strike closed down the shipbuilding plants that furnished us with supplies. The Snark seemed indeed born into trouble!

All this time, Jack was toiling continually at his desk, earning money; and all this time Roscoe Eames was spending money freely to make the Snark come up to their idea of what a boat should be. Jack was obliged to borrow in the neighbourhood of ten thousand dollars, for the Snark's bills came pouring p016 in faster than he could earn money to pay them. He was determined to make of the Snark a thing of beauty and strength—something unique in the history of ocean-going vessels.

Some hundreds of persons wrote to Jack, begging him to let them go with him on the cruise. Every mail contained such letters. They continued to pour in almost up to the day we sailed out of the Golden Gate. Most of these letters Jack showed to me. Here was a chef in a big hotel in Philadelphia, a man getting over two hundred dollars a month, who offered his services free. A college professor volunteered to do any kind of work, and give one thousand dollars for the privilege. Another man, the son of a millionaire, offered five hundred dollars to go along. Still another declared that he would put up any amount of money if Jack would allow his son to be one of the crew. And there were offers and solicitations from schoolteachers, draftsmen, authors, photographers, secretaries, stenographers, physicians, surgeons, civil engineers, cooks, typists, dentists, compositors, reporters, adventurers, sailors, valets, "lady companions" for Mrs. London, stewards, machinists, engineers, high-school and university students, electricians—men and women of every imaginable trade, profession or inclination. I began to have misgivings when I thought of the fine chefs who had applied. I contrasted their skilled ability with the little that I had learned from the cook-book! It was just such things as these that p017 made me feel how lucky I was to be a member of the crew of the Snark.

There was much protest from the Londons' friends. Many freely expressed the sentiment that they could not see how sensible people would even think of such a trip. And they all knew, with profound certitude, that we were to be drowned. But we paid very little attention to their ominous head-shakings and pessimistic predictions. We who were setting out in search of Adventure were not to be balked by mere words. Also, a number of Jack's Socialist friends wrote letters, urging him to abandon what they evidently considered folly. On every side of us, the conviction was openly aired that we were on our way to the bottom of the sea.

Jack was still spending long hours at his desk. Just then, he was writing his story, "Goliah." One day he read me the first part of it, in which he destroyed the Japanese navy.

"And to-day I destroy the American navy," he told me, gleefully. "Oh, I haven't a bit of conscience when my imagination gets to working."

"Well, I guess you are rather destructive," I ventured, laughing.

"Now I may write a story with you and Bert for heroes," he went on, whimsically; and when I assured him that would be fine—

"But of course I'd have to kill you off at the end; and how would you like that?" p018

January 12 was Jack's thirty-first birthday. It was also one of our numerous sailing dates, but despite the best of intentions, we were obliged to celebrate it on land. During my long stay in Oakland, I had ample opportunity to get intimately acquainted with both Jack and Mrs. London; indeed, we were all like one big happy family. Fame and popularity have not spoiled them. Jack is just like a big schoolboy, good-natured, frank, generous, and Mrs. London is just a grown-up schoolgirl. They are good comrades, always helping each other in their work. Mrs. London I found to be as full of grit as any of us—as we were later to discover, there was hardly a thing on board that any of the men could do that she couldn't do; and she was a practised swimmer, and could ride on horseback with grace—a gift not vouchsafed all women. And they were both amiable Bohemians. Often, when Jack was not busy, he and I compared notes on England. We found that we had snooped around much the same places in the East End of London. Immediately, I took up his "People of the Abyss," which read almost like a passage out of my own life. For seven days, I had been one of those wretched people who are forever on the move in the slums of this great city, eternally searching for a scrap of food and for sufficient ground-space on which to lay down their weary frames in sleep. All was vividly described in the book. But while the men and women of the abyss spend their whole lives in this torment, I was there only until I p019 could get to Liverpool and take a cattle-boat back to the States.

Once, after reading "The Sea Wolf," I told Jack that I had always been under the impression that the Scandinavians were of a peaceable disposition. But he assured me that most of the events of "The Sea Wolf" were from his own experiences—Wolf Larsen drawn largely from life. He told me that while up North, he had run across some of the most bloodthirsty people he had ever seen, and they were Scandinavians.

Also, I got better acquainted with Tochigi and Bert and Captain Eames. The captain was a stately old man, grey of hair and grey of beard; and what he didn't know about yachts was really hardly worth knowing. In fact, the Snark was built according to his plans. Captain Eames' room was next to the galley, a place that would be almost unbearably hot in the tropics; but of course, we planned to sleep on deck, once we got into the real South Seas.

Tochigi taught me a smattering of Japanese during the wait. True, I never mastered the language, but I did become proficient enough to distinguish some of the words he used when in conversation with his Jap friends. Tochigi was a fine fellow, his manners were the most perfect I have ever seen, and he was clever and quick to learn. His English was limited, but every word he did use was the right one. And he always talked in such a low, well-modulated voice p020 that it was a pleasure to listen to him. We took a great liking to each other.

Stolz was away quite a bit. Jack explained to me that he was working his way through Stanford University. If sheer strength counts for anything, Stolz is a fellow who will never want for much. He was always the best swimmer at the swimming pools we went to; he could always dive from higher and turn more somersaults in the air than anyone; and Jack found, by experience, that Bert knew every trick in boxing. He was really more than I expected by Jack's description of him—an "all-around athlete."

Hardly a day went by without someone's rapping at the door and asking if the Snark's complement was secured, and if there was not room for just one more. Over at the boat, I was constantly beset by cranks, with all sorts of schemes and ideas and inventions; and there were other people who came simply out of curiosity, wanting to be shown over the boat. Some of their contrivances were very ingenious. There were "old schoolmates of Mr. London," and "girlhood chums of Mrs. London," and there were "distant relatives of the Londons"; some even claimed to be special correspondents of magazines or newspapers. But no one got aboard the Snark unless he had written permission from Jack. Interest was widespread; and shortly after, Jack increased it by delivering a lecture on Socialism to over fifteen thousand people in Berkeley.

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p021

Since the destruction of San Francisco, Chinatown had moved to Oakland. On several occasions we went to its theatres, and to the Chinese social gatherings. Early in January the Chinese celebrate their New Year. It was my good luck to see such a celebration. On every side of me, Chinks of every age, men, women and children, shot off fire-crackers, and flung up packs of multi-coloured papers, perforated quite thickly with various-shaped holes. It is their belief that the devil has to come through all these holes before he can get to sinners; and to stave off the enemy and render his progress tortuous, they make the holes small and numerous. Again, I visited secret opium dens, and saw pasty-coloured Chinks lie for hours under the influence of the drug. Much of the deviltry of Chinatown, however, had come to an end with the destruction of San Francisco, as many of the yellow rascals saw in that wholesale catastrophe the workings of an outraged deity.

As for Frisco itself, it looked hopeless. Hundreds of tons of the wreckage had been cleared away, but hundreds of tons still remained. Some few buildings had already been erected. Most of them were stores, little wooden affairs, knocked together until better could be built. The fire and quake had ruined the pavements, and the streets were nothing but great pools of water and mud. A man was actually drowned in one of these pools while walking down Market street. There were constant deaths by accidents; p022 walls, frail and fissured, had a trick of collapsing and letting down their bushels of brick and stone on the heads of such as were in the streets; the street-car service was badly muddled, and several persons were killed while riding the precarious conveyances. As I have said, wages were sky-high; yet workmen still complained and struck for more. At the time I was there, the bricklayers, who were getting ten dollars a day, struck for twelve dollars and a half. Each of the ten men working on the Snark received five dollars a day, and only worked until half-past four in the afternoon.

Having been practically raised in a jewellry store, I was pretty efficient at engraving, and I employed my talent in adding to the decorations of the Snark. Just over the companionway was a big piece of finest brass. On it I drew the word "SNARK" in Old English charactery, and the carpenters filled it in with brass-headed nails. Mrs. London was so pleased that she later had me engrave the capstan-head. After that, Captain Eames and I oversaw the painters while they spread a preliminary coat of white paint over the Snark's hull and picked out the name "SNARK" in gold.

On rainy days, I stayed at the London home, reading books and magazines. The manuscript of "The Iron Heel," Jack's Socialistic novel, had not yet been sent to the publishers, and I spent some exciting hours poring over it. Jack had evidently let his imagination p023 have full rein in this story, for he had gone far beyond the destruction of a mere navy, as in "Goliah," and had put an end to the entire city of Chicago, and allotted to her inhabitants the most gory deaths imaginable. But the story was one of the most impressive I have ever read; and like Jack's Socialistic speech before the students of a great Eastern university, it later created a sensation.

And still we planned to go, and yet did not go. We set sailing-dates and cancelled them. The time was not yet. Puzzled by the delay, editors and publishers with whom Jack had contracts began to write him for explanations, but Jack could only shake his head and wonder how he was to explain to them when he couldn't even explain to himself. When questioned, Captain Eames would do his best to cheer Jack up by solemnly engaging to have the Snark ready for sailing within two weeks from the date of promising, but always the time had to be extended.

The Snark was a trim little yacht, forty-five feet on the water-line, fifty-five over all, with a width of fourteen feet eight inches. Her draft was seven feet eight inches. She was of ketch-rig, which means that she was a two-master, with the largest sail on the forward mast—just the reverse of a schooner-rig. Jack had seen boats of a similar design extensively used in the Northern Seas and also on the Dogger Bank in England; as he explained, the ketch-rig was a compromise between the yawl and the schooner, which, p024 while retaining the cruising virtues of the one, embraced some of the sailing virtues of the other.

Never was there another such boat! Despite the delays and the other troubles, not one of the Snarkites had lost his enthusiasm. Even with all their vexations and the ruinous expense, Mrs. London and Jack were always smiling and happy. Often the crew would go over the Bay and gather on the Snark's deck to discuss possible improvements and to anticipate some of the delights of the voyage that lay ahead of us.

And still the Snark was in the building. Her lines were marvels of strength and beauty. As an indication of the way she was built, I need only enumerate a few particulars as to specifications of material. Her iron keel weighed five tons. Her greatest beam was fifteen feet, with tumble-home sides. Her planking was specially ordered Oregon Pine, without butts; men were actually sent to search the Oregon pines to select natural elbows—in other words, timbers grown by nature in the exact form required to fit the angles of the boat, and thus give the maximum strength of each fibre of the wood. The planking was two and one-half inches thick under the water-line, two inches thick above the water-line. The ribs were of specially ordered Indiana Oak, and were set ten inches apart. Angle irons, the full length of the boat, connected the ribs with the keel; these were of the best galvanised iron, each made according to pattern. The Snark's p025 copper was the finest man-o'-war copper; its cost was over five hundred dollars, to say nothing of the cost of having it put on. For that matter, the boat was copper-fastened throughout; not a nail or screw that was not copper. The only iron used in the Snark was the best galvanised iron; all other metal was brass and bronze. She was crown-decked and flush-decked, and had six feet of head-room below. Three water-tight bulkheads divided her length into four water-tight compartments.

"If we stove in one compartment," Jack explained to me, "we can still bear up with the other three compartments. I just think we'll fool some of the birds of ill omen, after all. The Snark is dependable. She's built to sail all seas, face all storms, and to go around the world."

The Snark was intended from the first to be a sailing vessel. But because it was felt that cases of sudden emergency might arise, where speed was an absolute necessity, a gasolene engine, seventy-horse-power, was installed. Had Jack adhered to his original idea of a forty-foot boat, there would have been no room for such an appurtenance; but forty-five feet gave plenty of space for both it and a small bath-room. This latter was carefully fitted up with levers and pumps and sea-valves, some of them of Jack's own invention. After the engine, a dynamo was put in; and then Jack decided to light the boat with electricity, and to have a searchlight which would give sharp detail p026 at a half-mile distance. But we did not trust entirely to electrical apparatus for illumination, for if it should break down, it might cost us our lives. For the binnacle light, the anchor light, and the sidelights, which were indispensable, we supplied kerosene lamps. Nor was the use of the engine yet exhausted. We finally planned a giant windlass to be placed on deck, by means of which the anchor could be hoisted without trouble.

The Snark had neither house nor hold. The deck was unbroken except for the hatchway forward, and two companionways. The cockpit, large and high-railed, so built as to be self-bailing, made a comfortable place in which to sit, whether in fair weather or foul. The rail, companionways, hatches, skylights, and other finishings were of finest teak; the deck-knees, deck-timbers, etc., of the best oak. There were two bronze propellers; a patent steering-gear; one hundred and five fathoms of extra heavy best galvanised chain; two patent galvanised anchors, and one galvanised kedge-anchor. The Snark carried flying-jib, jib, fore-staysail, mainsail, mizzen and spinnaker, also extra storm-jibs, and gaff-headed trysails. Her garboard strake was three inches thick. In the last compartment, in the stern of the boat, were tanks for over a thousand gallons of gasolene. Because of the tightness of the bulkhead which marked off this compartment, we felt reasonably certain that none of this very dangerous fluid could escape; and to reassure us p027 doubly, we were informed that the tanks themselves were non-leakable.

After a time, we added more accessories to the Snark. Jack ordered a five-horse-power engine, for running pumps and dynamo; accumulators, electric light globes, and electric fans. Then came the consideration of navigation instruments. These consisted of a Steering Compass, a best Standard Compass, a best Sextant, a best Octant, a best Pelorus, a best Barometer, a best ship's clock; and their cost was five hundred dollars. At the last, Jack added to our equipment what no prudent man would go to sea without—life-boats. These were a fourteen-foot very seaworthy launch, with gasolene engine, and an eighteen-foot life-boat, with air-tanks and other appliances.

During all my stay in Oakland, I enjoyed myself immensely. Jack was continually inviting me out to theatres, prize-fights, and social gatherings. One of the most amusing fights I ever saw took place in Oakland, when a Chinaman and a negro entered the ropes and began to bang and biff each other. The difference in make-up between the two types was considerable, and their methods of fighting were entirely dissimilar. All rules of the game seemed suspended. It was give and take, give and take; but the Chink was getting the worst of it. Both the combatants indulged in lip-fighting, the Chinaman execrating his dusky opponent in strange pigeon-English, and the negro responding with deep, throaty epithets well calculated to stir the p028 ire of even an equable celestial. The fight went some rounds, with the Chink getting the worst of it all the time. But in the end he amazed us. Venting a perfect torrent of abuse upon the negro, he managed to deliver almost simultaneously a blow that must have echoed inside the coon's thick head, and a sweeping punch in the abdomen. Both these little reminders did the work. The negro doubled up and fell senseless to the floor, and when the referee called ten he was still lying there; and the Chinaman, with chest thrown out and head erect, was strutting about the ropes exulting over the conquest. I never could understand it—it was such a big negro, and he went down like a stick of wood!

Often, on bright days, I would take one of my cameras—I now had four—and go over to San Francisco to photograph streets where new buildings were going up. Then there was the Bay—it furnished endless material for good photographic studies, as all manner of queer crafts were forever coming and going. And then, the Snarkites would take pictures of one another, and of the boat. Jack used to have fun telling me that when we got to the cannibal islands, I could take my camera and go ashore to get pictures, and that would be Exhibit A; then, if some of the omnivorous natives came and made a meal of me, he would take pictures of the feast—and that would be Exhibit B.

But not all my time was devoted to recreation. p029 That cooking proposition was lying heavy on my mind. I couldn't forget all those fine chefs who had applied. Going over to Frisco on the ferry, I buried my nose assiduously in the cook-book again, searching for details which might have escaped my previous study, and doing my best to memorise every recipe in the book. It was now the rainy season, and of evenings Jack and Mrs. London and I would play cards. Sometimes George Sterling, the poet, who lived at Carmel-by-the-Sea, and who was a frequent caller at the London home, would join us. Oftentimes, Jack and I would wrangle and argue as to which of us was the better player at hearts; but the truth of the matter was that he and I always won and lost about the same number of games. But though Jack and I had these disputes, there was never any doubt as to where poor Mrs. London stood. When it came to playing hearts, she had undisputed title to being the most unfortunate. A good deal of her time, however, was spent at the typewriter; she has typed all of Jack's manuscripts since their marriage; and just now, both were toiling double tides, that they might have a little work on hand. They knew that once on the ocean, they would have a spell of seasickness during which they could not even think of writing or typing.

The Oakland Elks also helped to make my stay in their city pleasant. Before I left, they gave me a letter to put with the one the Independence Elks had given me, so that now I felt doubly armed with credentials. p030 Old Mammy Jenny, Jack's negro nurse, gave me much valuable instruction in cooking, telling me things that no cook-book in the world could have told me. Jack had predicted a diet largely of fish, when once we should be on the ocean. Mammy Jenny told me all she knew about fish. I was considerably relieved, too, when I discovered that most of our provisions would be tinned, and would need little more than warming up to make them suitable for the table. I found great consolation in this thought. It thinned the clouds for me. I took new lease on life.

The weeks were passing, and still the Snark was in the building! Jack began to grow impatient. Roscoe Eames made promises. The old captain meant well, but alas! his good intentions were just like all the other good intentions. He tried his best to hurry things along, but nothing could be induced to turn out right. Besides, even good intentions won't build a boat. There were times when Jack vowed he'd sail the shell of her to Honolulu, and finish building her there. Soon Jack's friends began to make bets, some even wagering that the Snark would never sail at all. Every time he set a sailing-date, they would bet against it. Everybody was betting. And everybody had quit the head-shaking and the making of evil predictions. We were not going to the bottom of the sea now, because we would never be on the sea. Even the newspapers began a gentle ridicule, p031 giving wide publicity to a poem written by Kelly, the Sailor-Poet, in which the Snark was described as setting out on her long voyage—not yet, but soon—and meeting with all sorts of strange adventures on the deep—not yet, but soon; and it recounted somewhat of the things that befell the voyageurs in the various countries they landed at—not yet, but soon. And more letters came from editors and publishers, demanding explanations. A big New York magazine, for which Jack had contracted to write thirty-five thousand words descriptive of the trip, flamboyantly announced that it was sending Jack London, the well-known writer, round the world, especially for itself. This article was so worded that a reader would suppose the magazine was paying for everything, even for the building of the Snark. Immediately, everyone who had dealings with Jack began to charge him outrageously, explaining that the magazine had plenty of money and that it might as well pay for its fun. Naturally, after putting a small fortune into the boat, and being at almost incredible trouble to plan and outfit her, Jack was incensed. Such an article gave to the whole thing the colour of being a cheap advertising scheme. Even now, most people believe that the magazine paid for everything, and that Jack received liberal prices for the things he wrote. But such was not the case. Jack built the boat and paid for her; the plan was all his own, and the magazine mentioned had nothing to do with it. For that matter, Jack p032 saw to it that they got no more articles from him descriptive of the cruise of the Snark. He played the free-lance, sending his "copy" wherever he chose.

At the beginning of March, 1907, things looked more desperate than ever. Jack declared it was plain the boat could never be completed in San Francisco. "She's breaking down faster than she can be repaired," he said one day. "That's what comes of taking a year for building. I'll sail her as she is, and finish her up in Honolulu. If we don't go now, we'll never go."

But immediately the Snark sprang a leak, and had to be repaired before she could be moved from Anderson's Ways. This was finally accomplished, and Jack ordered the boat brought across the Bay to Oakland. On a bright Saturday morning in the middle of March, Captain Eames and Bert and I went over to Anderson's Ways, and got aboard. At nine o'clock Captain Eames yelled, "Let her go!" and the Snark slid off her ways as easily as could be desired, and took to the Bay with the grace of a wild water-fowl. There was not so much as a tremble. We created a great excitement as we were towing across the Bay to what is known as the Oakland estuary. All the larger vessels dipped their flags, and the smaller ones saluted by giving three toots of the whistle. We lay anchored in the estuary three weeks, while electricians did the wiring and a crew of riggers and a crew of ship's carpenters worked on the deck and the rigging. During p033 this time, Bert and I took turns living on board, he sleeping aboard one night and I the next. Meanwhile, Tochigi made himself useful at the London home, and Mr. and Mrs. London continued to turn out reading matter. Jack was writing his famous tramp-stories, the ones now republished in the volume called "The Road." Often, I sat on one side of the table at his house, writing a letter, and he sat on the other side, writing his stories. And as he finished them, he read them to us; and one and all voted him thanks for the entertainment.

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I shall never forget the day when the sails were unfurled for the first time. For remember, up to this time I had never seen a real, sea-going ship under sail, and the whole thing was mysterious to me. I did not even know one sail from another, but I was so proud of the little Snark that I got in the dingy and made photographs of her from every conceivable position, not caring if the canvas did hang loose and wrinkled enough to make a sailor's heart sore. A few days before the decks were finished, we drew up alongside the wharf, and filled the gasolene tanks. Next day, all hands were down early for the first trial trip. The Snark's crew was aboard, and also little Johnny London, Jack's nephew. On the trial trip we went twelve miles out, and met as heavy a sea as will be encountered on an ocean voyage, owing to a heavy ground-swell coming into the Golden Gate. And we were seasick—oh! we were seasick! Everyone p034 aboard was seasick except little Johnny London, and he was not supposed to be a sailor at all.

But Mr. and Mrs. London declared they were not seasick, not the least bit sick. They were just rolled up on the deck enjoying themselves! And poor little Tochigi said nothing, because he had nothing to say. He did his best to smile, but force as he would, the smile wouldn't come. I asked Jack for the honour of bringing the Snark into the Golden Gate, and he granted the request, but I noticed that he sat close by and kept watch on me to see that I didn't run into the Cliff House. As we came back to the starting-point, we saw, in the mouth of the Oakland River, a mass of freakish yellow, green and other coloured lights, something on the order of Japanese lanterns hung out on the lawn during a summer church-festival. We made port that night, satisfied that we had seen something, we knew not what. Next day, we found that the Chinese battleship, the Whang-Ho, had anchored in the harbour, and I went with Jack and Mrs. London on board this most interesting craft. The Whang-Ho was over two hundred years old, and carried wooden cannons and torture implements of various kinds, that had been used on captives of war in the centuries gone by—such as a bird-cage and a back tickler.

During the short time that elapsed between the trial trip and the real voyage, many interesting things occurred. When it was my turn to sleep aboard, I would sit for hours on the Snark's deck, looking out over the p035 Bay; when tired of that, I would go below, and lying in my bunk, with a good-sized light over my head, would write letters home, or read and smoke. It seemed strange to feel the Snark tumbling and rolling with the wash of the sea. Sometimes it seemed as if she were tugging at her moorings, longing to be off on the long, long cruise. Because of her smallness, she responded to the heave and lunge of the ocean much more freely than would the ordinary ship. Even a tug-boat, passing many feet away, would jostle the Snark with its wash. Lying in my bunk, I could look up through a skylight and see the masts, and, higher yet, the scintillating stars. At last, after all my hopes and fears, after all the vexatious troubles and delays, the dream was coming true! The time was near at hand, when we should really shake the dust of California from our feet, and ride the little Snark round and about the earth!

And then, crash! bump! bump! the dream was rudely shattered. The noise was on every side of me. Two large lumber-scows had dragged their anchors and laid up against the sides of the Snark, nearly making a sandwich of our little boat. Nothing could be done. They bumped away at the Snark all night long, and when morning came the rail was flattened two inches on one side and bulged out rather more than two inches on the other side; and wherever she is, the Snark is lop-sided to this day.

On another night, when I was alone on board, I p036 went to my bunk early and fell asleep. About three in the morning I was awakened by the sound of the anchor-chain paying out of the hawsepipes, and I rushed up on deck to see what was happening. A terrible storm was raging, and the boat was just like a cork, bobbing and rolling on the waves. I made fast the chains and went back to bed. At four-thirty I again started up from my bunk. Something told me that all was not well with the Snark. When I went on deck, I found the boat was within a hundred yards of a pile wharf, heading straight for it, and travelling fast. I knew the anchor had slipped, and if the boat got on the piles it would be good-bye to our cruise. It was blowing a gale, and the rain was coming down in sheets. I lowered the kedge-anchor and stopped the boat for the time being, but knew she would not hold long. I ran below to start the engine, but could not do so because one of the machinists had taken it apart in one place to clean it, and so put it out of commission. I worked for half an hour, with desperate haste, to put the engine into running order; then started her, and went on deck. The kedge-anchor was now slipping, and again we started for the piles. Running to the cockpit, I turned on the propeller, and away went the boat out into the Bay, with the anchors dragging. When I stopped her, she started drifting back; and so I had it, back and forth, toward the piles and then out into the Bay, all the rest of the night, until eight o'clock brought the workmen in a rowboat. p037 The fight for life had continued nearly four terrible hours, but it had been worth it. About twenty-five vessels, many of them larger than the Snark, had been wrecked in that storm. Mr. London's remarks to me that morning were quite gratifying, and I felt I had made up for my mistake in letting the lumber-scows bump the Snark lop-sided.

There were always so many water-thieves around the Bay that it was necessary to keep a sharp lookout. One night when I was in my bunk I heard a noise, and crept up in my stocking feet to the deck, armed with a big 38-calibre revolver. But I could find no cause for alarm. The night was dark. Far over the Bay was San Francisco, from which the busy ferry-boats were plying, back and forth; and every few minutes, a revolving light from a lighthouse stationed on a nearby rock flooded the deck, making everything bright as day. As a rule, there were a number of large vessels, from various ports, within a short distance of the Snark, and I could see their lights, and hear their sailors singing as they worked. During the day, I would go aboard these ships and engage the sailors in conversation, as I was always desirous of hearing something about the places which later I would see.

The galley was now very nearly finished, and many hours I spent in it practising cooking. I made bread and cakes and pies, and fed them to the workmen. These products were of varying degrees of excellence, p038 but the workmen seemed to be able to get away with them, and so I baked all they could eat. I don't believe the men's digestions were very seriously deranged, either. Jack bought a bread-mixing machine a few days later, and then I was able to do in about thirty minutes what before I could only do in several hours. Before the buying was finished, there were few luxuries or facilities we did not have aboard the Snark.

Once when I was in the galley, the boat was invaded by the Famous Fraternity. The Famous Fraternity was a group of celebrated authors and artists, all hailing from California and most of them resident there. Among those who came were George Sterling, the man whom the Londons had pronounced one of the greatest of living poets, Martinez, the artist, Dick Partington, another artist, Johannes Reimers, writer, and Jimmie Hopper, famous first as a football hero and then as a writer of short stories, and others, whose names I have now forgotten. I did my very best to prepare them a good dinner; and if their expressions of satisfaction were any indication, I succeeded. I served up a whole gunny-sack full of steamed mussels, and some of my bread, which one and all declared the finest they had ever tasted. They almost beat the workmen eating. I began to think more than ever of my prowess as a cook. In such a glow of pride as possessed me, my misgivings disappeared utterly.

Now let me skim lightly over the troubles that followed p039 up to the very day of our sailing. I don't want this narrative to shape itself as a mere record of mishaps and vexations, for such a record would not reflect things truly. Taken all in all, our troubles were as nothing at all to our delights. But truth compels me to say that in the month preceding our departure, things that before had gone casually and desultorily wrong seemed to take on fresh energy in ill-doing, and to go systematically and diabolically wrong. Had a malevolent intelligence been directing events, they could not have been more discomfiting to the impatient crew of the Snark. When the boat was nearly ready for our sailing, she was placed upon the ways for a final overhauling. The ways spread, and the Snark fell stern-first into the mud. In the crash, the bedplate of the big engine splintered, and the engine, in falling, smashed some of its connections. When the windlass was tried out, its gears ground each other flat, and the castings which connected it with the engine broke into fragments. It took two steam-tugs a week, pulling on the Snark every high tide night and day, to get her out of the mud and into the water alongside the Oakland City Wharf. We gave up all hope of both engine and windlass until we should have reached Honolulu; and we packed away the broken parts as best we could, and lashed the engine tight to its foundations.

April 18 was now set for the sailing. We began provisioning and buying all kinds of photographic supplies, p040 done up in tropical form—that is, with the film wrapped in tin-foil and sealed in tins, and the paper triple-wrapped and protected with foil. There were a thousand and one things bought toward the last, which it is needless to enumerate here. We bought clothing, and we bought fishing tackle, and harpoons, and guns, and pistols, and we bought paper, paper for Jack's writing, and paper for the typewriter, hundreds of reams of it. I spent a whole day packing this paper behind sliding panels in the two staterooms forward, which were set aside for Jack and Mrs. London. We spent money like water; it took dray after dray to bring down to the wharf the things we purchased. Then there were dray-loads of the things brought from the London home, wood and coal, provisions, vegetables, blankets, other things, and still other things, and above all, books—five hundred of them, on every conceivable topic, selected from Jack's library of ten thousand volumes. The Snark was fairly ballasted with books. Mrs. London busied herself in directing the work, and showed a knowledge of stevedoring that astonished us. At last, after hours of toil and sweat, everything was safely aboard. But so much still had to be done that we decided to put off leaving until Sunday, April 21.

And then came one of the worst blows of all. It was Saturday afternoon, and Jack and Bert and I were on the Snark, packing things away. All about us, on the wharf, were reporters and photographers and sightseers. p041 Jack had brought his checque-book and several thousand dollars in paper money and gold, and was wishing Roscoe would hurry and come with the accounts of the various firms to which he was indebted, that he might make payment. Without any warning whatever, a United States marshal stepped aboard and pasted a little five-by-seven slip of paper to one of the masts. It was an attachment, issued from the office of the Marshal of the United States, of the Northern District of California, and stated that any person who removed or attempted to move the schooner-yacht, Snark, without the written permission of the marshal, would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

We were all astounded. What could it mean? Jack hastened over to San Francisco to investigate. We had planned to sail at eleven o'clock on the morrow, so haste was imperative. After several hours Jack came back, accompanied by Mrs. London, and told us what had happened.

It seemed that a man named L. H. Sellers, of San Francisco, who was a ship-chandler, had placed the attachment on the Snark. Jack owed him something like two hundred and fifty dollars, and Sellers' account was one of those Jack had intended to close that very day.

"It is just a petty trick of a tradesman in a panic," Jack declared, as he gazed at the writ of attachment pasted on the mast of the Snark. "But it will not p042 delay me one minute in getting away on the trip I have planned. If the bill were one thousand dollars, I would pay it and feel the same way about it. I have done several thousands of dollars' worth of business with this L. H. Sellers, and with other firms, and this is the first time I have ever been attached. I do not dispute the bill of Sellers. I owe the claim, and intended to pay it. I never received a bill for the amount of the attachment, and suppose that when L. H. Sellers learned that I was about to sail, he became panic-stricken at the thought of not receiving what was due him. I have been endeavouring to communicate with some officer of the United States district court and settle the matter as soon as possible."

But the matter was not so easily to be settled. Someone had spread the word around that Jack London and his crew were preparing to sneak out of the Bay that night, leaving the statute of limitations to cancel all debts. Representatives of three other big firms, with claims aggregating nearly three thousand dollars, descended upon the Snark, and Jack promptly paid them. After that came a drove of smaller tradesmen—"All in a panic," Jack said—and each and every one received his money without delay.

Jack sent agents and lawyers all over San Francisco and Oakland, but the United States marshal could not be found. Then a search was made for the United States judge, but he, too, had disappeared; and after all hope was given up of discovering them, Jack set out p043 to find Mr. L. H. Sellers, but Mr. L. H. Sellers was nowhere to be found, nor Mr. Sellers' attorney. It was plain that the embargo could not be lifted that night.

A little old man, a deputy United States marshal, had been left in charge; and never did miser guard his treasure as that little old man guarded the Snark. He stayed on her constantly, to see that Jack London did not whisk her out of the Bay and start on the trip. Of course, we did not sail Sunday, April 21, as planned. The little old man would not allow it. The funny part of it was that Jack was obliged to pay this deputy marshal three dollars a day for his zealous custodianship of the Snark. But the old man earned it. He stuck to the boat like glue, even going without meals that the vigil might not be interrupted.

Saturday night all the Snarkites walked out on an opposite pier to take a look at the Snark and to make plans. Jack and Mrs. London were still smiling. It seemed impossible to dash their spirits.

From where we stood, the Snark showed up bravely. She was a little floating palace. Jack could not refrain from bragging to Mrs. London about her bow.

"Isn't it a beauty?" he asked again and again. "That bow was made to punch storms with! It laughs at the sea! Not a drop can come over her! We'll be as dry and comfortable as any craft afloat, with such a bow as that!" And Mrs. London would p044 laugh her assent, and find new virtues in the boat and in that bow.

"Well," I said at last. "We'll get away Tuesday, anyway."

"Yes, we'll get away Tuesday. Think of that!" Mrs. London cried in response. "It will be worth all the trouble, and all the expense. Once we're out on the ocean, we'll forget all our little worries, the accidents, and the Sellerses, and all the rest. Glorious? Glorious doesn't express it."

"And think of what we can do when we get the engine to running again," Jack went on. "Think of the inland work. With such an engine, there isn't a river in the world with current stiff enough to baffle us. We can see so much more by inland voyaging than we could by merely hanging around ports. Think of the people, and the natural scenery! The things we won't know about the various countries through which we pass won't be worth knowing."

"That reminds me," I broke in. "What do you think you'll write about?"

He smiled.

"Well, if we're boarded by pirates and fight it out until our deck becomes a shambles, I don't think I'll write about it. And if we're wrecked at sea, and are driven by starvation into eating one another I'll keep it quiet for the sake of our relatives. And if we're killed and eaten by cannibals, of course I shan't let the American public get an inkling of it."

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p045

"You won't starve," I assured him. "Think of all the food we have aboard—over three months' supply. And think of your cook! No, you will never starve aboard the Snark."

"The thing that's worrying me," Bert here broke in, "is how we're going to find room to get around on the boat. Since that windlass was set up, and the launch and life-boat lashed on deck, there is hardly room to turn around in." And Tochigi, who was always very quiet, said nothing at all.

For days, Jack and Captain Eames had been engaged in one of the most laughable arguments I have ever heard. Roscoe Eames stoutly maintained that the earth is concave of surface, and that we would all sail round on the inside of a hollow sphere; while Jack, who was willing to stick to orthodox cosmology, just as stoutly maintained that Roscoe was mistaken, and that we would sail round on the outside. Each had a number of proofs, which he adduced in the argument; and neither was to be shaken in his confidence. To this day, I think they hold divergent opinions on the subject. Captain Eames was also a vegetarian; and it was this fact that made me wonder how he was to get along satisfactorily on the Snark.

Though Jack had answered my question jestingly, I knew that he contemplated writing an extended series of articles on the home-life of the various peoples among whom we were to sojourn. He would treat of their domestic problems; social structures; problems p046 of living; cost of living as compared with the cost in the United States; education; opportunities for advancement; general tone of peoples; culture; morals; religion; how they amuse themselves; marriage and divorce problems; housekeeping, and a hundred other topics.

When we left the wharf that night, we felt more cheerful than ever. Mrs. London was right. That boat was well worth all the trouble and expense. "Barring wreck and worms," said Jack, "she'll be sailing the seas a hundred years from now."

All day Monday we worked on the Snark, besieged constantly by reporters and photographers. Jack paid Mr. L. H. Sellers his two hundred and fifty dollars, and lifted the embargo. In the afternoon we were towed out in the Bay, and an expert adjusted our compasses and other instruments for us. It was essential that these be in proper trim, the more so as not one of us knew anything about navigation except Captain Eames, and even his knowledge was of the experimental sort. Jack declared that the rest of us could learn after we were afloat. Thousands of people visited the wharf that day to take a look at us; and the photographers were busy taking snap-shots of the boat. Out in the Bay, we had with us a reporter for the Hearst papers. When he left, he took with him my last message ashore, a telegram to be sent to Independence announcing the imminence of our p047 departure. We worked all that night, stowing and packing, and getting things shipshape for our cruise to Hawaii. At high tide the next morning we were to up-anchor and away.

Daylight broke at last. That 23rd of April, 1907, I shall never forget. Thousands came down to the wharf to bid us good-bye and to wish us a pleasant and successful voyage. Photographers from a popular western magazine took what they announced would be the last views of the Snark and her crew. Among the dozens of telegrams I received was one from an Independence friend, which read: "Good-bye. Hope I may see you again." Surrounded by hundreds of people who were prophesying that we would never reach Honolulu, this telegram had a rather gruesome sound to me. Strangely enough, I never did see this friend again. I did not meet my death in the water, but he did. He drowned in one of the rivers near Independence.

Among those who came down to say the farewells were many members of the Bohemian Club of San Francisco, to which Jack belonged. There were writers and artists and newspaper men. George Sterling and James Hopper were on hand, as was also Martinez, the artist. Mrs. London's friends came in a body. Then there were Oakland Elks, and San Francisco Elks, and friends of Tochigi, and Bert's friends, and all the friends of the Eames', and others who came p048 merely out of curiosity to see the world-famous author and his crew sail off in one of the most unique little boats that ever rode the waves.

It was a beautiful, bright, sunshiny day when we passed out of the Golden Gate, with hundreds of whistles tooting us a farewell salute, passed the Seal Rocks, and turned her bow to the westward. My duties on the smallest boat, with only one or two exceptions, that ever crossed the Pacific Ocean, had begun; but instead of getting busy cooking meals, I sat in the stern looking gloomily toward the land, which was the last I would see of good old American soil for nearly three years. I was thinking of the friends and the home I was leaving, and wondering if we were really bound for the bottom of the sea as so many had foretold; and I could not altogether down a feeling that I would just a little rather be on the full-rigged ship that passed us on her way into the harbour. But on the Snark I was and on the Snark I must remain. Gloomy dreams soon ended, and we settled down to life on the high seas.

So it was that we put forth into the wide Pacific, in a mere cork of a boat, without a navigator, with no engineer, no sailors, and for that matter, no cook. This lack of a cook did not bother much just then, however, for soon we were all too seasick to care to eat.

When night came, land was out of sight, darkness wrapped us about on every side, and the Snark rose and fell rhythmically, the sport of every wave. p049

CHAPTER III
ON THE HIGH SEAS

[TOC]

After we passed out of the Golden Gate and headed seaward on our voyage, there followed twenty-seven days that are almost beyond description. One cannot describe them by comparing them with anything else, for probably since the world began there has never been anything quite like them. Suffice it to say that these twenty-seven days were the most wild and chaotic that human beings ever experienced.

We headed south, hoping to pick up with the northeast trades. The port for which we were making lay approximately twenty-one hundred miles away, in a straight line. But while we ignored the straight line, and were in no particular hurry, we nevertheless fairly raced over the water. We couldn't help ourselves. The Snark tore along before the wind despite all handicaps.

"I wish some of the crack sailors of the Bohemian Club could see us now!" Jack exclaimed, exultantly. "They said the Snark could not run—that her lines wouldn't permit it. Well, here's something to make them sit up and revise their criticism—but unfortunately they can't see!"

The water began to get rough. A queer sensation kept asserting itself right in the region of my stomach, p050 and I knew only too well what it portended. As the moments went by, this feeling recurred more frequently, each attack a little more aggravated than the one before it. The sea grew boisterous. It began to lash itself into crested waves.

The galley or kitchen of the Snark was tucked away to one side, and was not large enough for two small men to enter, close the door, and then turn around. As a matter of fact, if I was handling a dish of any size, I had to back out of the door to turn around, myself. For the first meal, I decided that I would try some fried onions, a nice roast with dressing, some vegetables, and some pudding; so I got out about a half-peck of onions, and by the time I had finished peeling those onions in that little galley, I decided that onions were all that was needed for that meal. Did you ever peel onions in a kitchen cupboard? That is practically what I was doing. My eyes were watering so that I couldn't see, and my nostrils and throat were burning so that I couldn't talk. The entire crew was kind enough to say that they liked onions, anyway.

Tochigi served the dinner, and we all ate. Then I made for my bunk, feeling, as Captain Eames put it, "rather white around the gills." As soon as Tochigi had served the dinner, he got out his flute, played the most mournful piece I have ever heard, and as the last note died away, rushed precipitately up on deck and relieved his deathly sickness at the rail. p051 Mrs. London speedily joined him. But Jack and Bert and Captain Eames were as yet unaffected.

The boat was leaking like a sieve. Yes, the Snark, the famous Snark, that had cost thirty thousand dollars, that had been built by expert shipbuilders, and that was declared to be the tightest craft afloat, leaked! The sides leaked, the bottom leaked; we were flooded. Even the self-bailing cockpit quickly filled with water that could find no outlet. Our gasolene, stored in non-leakable tanks and sealed behind an air-tight bulkhead, began to filter out, so that we hardly dared to strike a match. The air was full of the smell of it. I got up from my bunk, staggering sick. Bert started the five-horse-power engine, which controlled the pumps, and by this means managed to get some of the sea out of our quarters below.

At intervals, I was obliged to spend some necessary moments at the rail. The rail was only a foot high; one was obliged to crouch down on deck, clinging tightly, and lean far out, confronted ever by the stern face of the waves. The unutterable, blind sickness of such moments it is beyond the province of words to portray.

Never had I known anything like it! My head ached, my stomach ached, every muscle in my body ached. There were times when it seemed impossible that I should live. When the sickness was at its height, I was blind, deaf, and—need I say it?—dumb. All stabilities were shattered. The universe p052 itself was rocking and plunging through the cold depths of space. And then, for a brief instant, the sickness would subside, and sight and speech and hearing return, and I knew I was on the Snark, the plaything of the waves, and that I, the most desperate of living creatures, was gurgling and babbling my troubles to the uncaring sea. Later, it was laughable, but ye gods! at the time laughter was a stranger to my soul.

It did not ease matters much to discover that the water pouring into the boat had ruined the tools in the engine room, and spoiled a good part of our three months' provisions in the galley. Our box of oranges had been frozen; our box of apples was mostly spoiled; the carrots tasted of kerosene; the turnips and beets were worthless; and last, but not least, our crate of cabbages was so far gone in decay that it had to be thrown overboard. As for our coal, it had been delivered in rotten potato-sacks, and in the swinging and thrashing of the ship had escaped, and was washing through the scuppers into the ocean. We found that the engine in the launch was out of order, and that our cherished life-boat leaked as badly as did the Snark. In one respect, however, I was especially marked out for discomfort. I had the misfortune to be somewhat taller than any of the rest; and so low was the ceiling of the galley and the staterooms downstairs that I could never stand upright, but was obliged to stoop. The only place where I could be really comfortable was on p053 deck, and even here things were so tightly packed that there never was room for a promenade.

We didn't discover all our handicaps at once. It took about a week for us to see all there was to see, and to get acquainted with our little floating home. One of our greatest drawbacks was the fact that never for a moment could we let go of one hold unless we were assured of another. To have let go would have meant being jerked off our feet and thrown sprawling until we fetched up against something stout enough to check the fall. Circus gymnastics is as nothing compared with it. I have seen many acrobatic feats, but nothing resembling in mad abandon the double handspring Mrs. London turned one day when her hand missed its hold and she landed down the companionway in the middle of the table, on top of a dinner which I had just cooked, and which Tochigi was serving.

Toward evening of the first day, we passed a steamer, but could not make her out. The air grew chilly as night set in, and the flying spray in the air made it worse. Our dynamo would not work, so we had nothing but the kerosene lamps to depend on for light. After considerable difficulty, we got the mizzen mainstay and jibsails set, and such of us as were not on watch turned in. Mrs. London's watch was from eight till ten; then I relieved her from ten till twelve, and was in turn relieved by Tochigi.

Bert and Tochigi and I occupied one cabin. Mine p054 was an upper bunk; Tochigi's bunk was beneath mine, and Bert slept across the room. Captain Eames had a room of his own, but just now he was unable to sleep in it, for the water and gasolene drove him out. (Captain Eames waxed facetious, and always referred to his room as "the gasolene chamber.") Each bunk had upholstered springs and mattresses and was fitted with an electric light globe and a fan. Such of the crew as were sleeping had to be packed tight in their bunks with pillows to prevent their being tossed across the room.

On the morning of the second day, Jack awoke me at six-thirty, and I got breakfast. He was the only one who could eat. Not much wind was stirring, but a big swell was running. The Snark was still racing.

"I gave no thought to speed in building the Snark," Jack said that morning. "Only safety and comfort were considered. But if the Snark has fallen below our expectations in some things, she has certainly exceeded them in that."

I hazarded a guess. "At this rate, we will compress seven years' travelling into a few months."

"Oh, we'll find a means to stop her," he was confident, and went upstairs to the wheel.

And now occurred another remarkable thing. Jack started to heave-to, in other words, to place the Snark bow-on to the wind. The first gust of a gale had started, and the Snark, with flying-jib, jib and mizzen taken in, and reefs in the big mainsail and the fore-staysail, p055 was rolling in the trough, the most dangerous position in which a ship can be placed. As Jack put the wheel down to heave-to, the flying jib-boom poked its nose into the water, and broke clean off. Jack put the wheel hard down, and the Snark never responded, but remained in the trough. The ship alternately buried her rails in the stiff sea. The mainsail was flattened down, but without avail. Then Bert tried slacking it off, but that had no effect whatever. Hoping to bring her bow up to the wind, they took in all canvas but the storm trysail on the mizzen, but still the Snark rolled in the trough. Jack declared he had never heard of such a thing before.

"And we must even lose faith in the Snark's wonderful bow," he said, regretfully. "It won't heave-to."

Meanwhile, I had gone back to my bunk, sicker than ever. Tochigi lay prostrate, seeing and hearing nothing. He had not moved since yesterday. Mrs. London and Bert and Captain Eames were able to stay on deck, but even they had occasional tremors and sudden rushes of sickness. Once, in the afternoon, I tried to fool my stomach by eating a cracker, but it was no go. By this time, the floors of stateroom and galley were slushy with water, and all the time more was seeping in. Bert had pumped it out yesterday, but already it was up to our knees. My sickness increased whenever I heard it swashing around on the floor. p056

Night was coming on, a night of storm and wind. The Snark was creaking and groaning, and still in that most dangerous of all positions, the trough. Jack got out his patent sea-anchor, warranted not to dive, and trailed it out a few yards into the sea, then made fast. Almost the minute the line drew taut, the anchor dived. The Snark still raced. Then Jack drew the anchor in, and tied a big timber to it. This time it floated, but it had no deterrent effect at all. The Snark continued to race. Do what they would, the little boat went right ahead, and remained in the trough of the sea, all the while pitching like a cork.

On Thursday, I prepared only two meals. Bert and Captain Eames and Jack ate. Tochigi lay motionless in his bunk, looking like one dead, and I made for my bunk at the first opportunity. Mrs. London was taken desperately sick, and we saw little of her that day. We were still heading south. Before leaving the Golden Gate, Jack had told us of the flying fish that we were sure to pick up with as soon as we got out to sea, and of the dolphin and porpoises and bonita, to say nothing of sharks. But despite his prediction, we saw nothing at all. The Snark headed farther and farther south, the days grew warmer and warmer, but never a shark nor porpoise nor even a flying fish showed up. On Sunday, April 28, we made one hundred and ten miles. The galley floor burst from the pressure of water, and we had a hard time repairing it. For days I wore thigh-boots in cooking, p057 and we kept the five-horse-power engine busy with the pumps. On April 30, one week after leaving Frisco, things looked worse than ever, and we were still sick. There were times when only Jack or Captain Eames could eat anything.

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We all tried to keep one another cheered up as much as possible. Anyone who has been seasick can in some measure appreciate our predicament. There is something amusing about seasickness—when somebody else is afflicted. At first, you fear you will die; then, after it has a good hold on you, you fear you won't die; and you feel that you are all stomach, and that that stomach is emptying itself faster than it could possibly be filled. The person who is not actually in the throes of seasickness can have no sympathy with the person who is so afflicted. I used to go up to Mrs. London when she was at the wheel, and ask her if I should not prepare for her dinner a nice piece of fat pork with a string tied to it. The effect was magical. Immediately, she would clap her hands over her mouth and make for the rail. There is something infectious about seasickness. I would have to go join her myself, and sometimes Jack would come with us.

On one occasion, I almost gave up, and expressed to Jack the wish that I could see land. He replied: "Never mind, Martin, we are not over two miles from land now;" and when I asked him which way, he said: "Straight down, Martin, straight down."

One whole day I slept, or tried to sleep, in the life-boat. p058 But the life-boat was a joke. By this time we realised that if a really severe storm should strike us, the life-boat would be the first thing to go, and our only resource in case of foundering would be the launch, which is to say, that had the Snark gone down, we would have gone down with it. So our only hope was in fair weather and the pumps.

The bath-room had long since gone out of commission. The first day out, the big iron levers that controlled the sea-valves and the bath-pumps broke into splinters. Jack's heart was sore at this, for he had planned that bath-room carefully, and had been to much expense in fitting it up. Another thing that would have dashed most skippers' spirits was the fact that the specially ordered planking from Puget Sound, warranted to have no butts, was literally crowded with butts. But Jack did not let any of these things trouble him much; he merely commented on them, and then set himself to make the best of the voyage. Luckily, we were not becalmed. Had this misfortune been added to the rest, it might have taken us sixty days or more to reach Honolulu.

A little over a week out, a gale struck us, and carried away the jib and staysail. Everybody worked; the boat was creaking and groaning, water spouting in everywhere, and the cockpit filled with water. The engine wouldn't work, and nothing else worked. This gale was a wonderful experience for me. The little boat would go down in the trough of the wave, and p059 I would gaze up and see the water coming in a massive cone, a million tons of water, looking a hundred feet high. It seemed to overtop our mainmast several times and more. I felt absolutely certain that when that mass of water hit us, we would be gone; but each time our stout little craft would climb the side of the wave until we reached the top, and then would start down the opposite side so rapidly that it produced that peculiar feeling one experiences when going down a Shoot-the-Chutes or the steep incline of a Roller-Coaster. In fact, seasickness is nothing more than this sensation aggravated to a point where it is painful. We were pitched around with great violence—sometimes we would be away over on one side until the water came pouring in the scuppers; and again, the boat would rush downward at such a rate of speed that I just knew we were making for that bottom Mr. London had spoken of; then we would go up again, each time to my surprise, because I was satisfied that we were as good as dead at least twice to each wave we rode. During this storm, the thought came to me that just a year before, on May 1, I was on a big cattle-steamer, going east on the Atlantic; and here I was, a year later, on a fish-bobber, in the middle of the Pacific, going—where? But the sea was not in existence that could swamp us. When the storm broke away the next day, and the sun arose bright and clear, everyone seemed to feel better and to take renewed interest in life. p060

We had not been long out of port before we became convinced that we had no navigator aboard. Captain Eames was supposed to be the navigator, but the navigation of a small boat is difficult and Jack had to assist him in the work. On certain days we made splendid headway and seemed to have covered considerable distance but our observations and markings on the chart showed that we had not done nearly as well as we supposed. On the other hand, there were days when it had been practically calm, and our records would show that we had fairly whirled over the water. The principles of navigation are fairly simple—and misunderstood by most people. Before we had reached Honolulu, everyone in the boat was navigating, except Tochigi. Of course, most of our mistakes had their roots in the fact that the boat's tossing threw our observations out of line, and our eyes were rather too near to the water. Of course, too, our record of time on board was sadly perturbed, despite our turning the ship's clock back about ten minutes each day.

And still we saw no fish of any sort. Jack could not understand it. He had been in these latitudes before, and always had seen porpoises and dolphins and flying fish, as well as sharks and bonita. But the ocean was absolutely bare in every direction. We were in a watery desert. It was not until we got to latitude 19° that we saw the first flying fish, and he was all by himself.

On Thursday, May 2, we felt that we were certainly p061 in the trade winds. We went dead ahead of the breeze, with all the sails set except the mizzen, and doing what old sailors, men of forty years on the sea, declare cannot be done—racing along with no one at the wheel. We simply set the wheel over to suit the wind, without even lashing it; and then all went below to supper, and to play cribbage. By this time I had learned a number of new dishes. Tochigi showed me the Japanese way of preparing rice, and it beat anything I had yet cooked. All were feeling in high spirits. The sickness had left us, and the boat looked tidier than at any time since leaving Frisco, for we had spent the day in scrubbing the floors, and generally cleaning things up.

When it came to the actual test, we found that the provisions of the Snark were not exactly adapted to that kind of trip. The duty of provisioning the boat had been left to Mrs. London and myself, and I fear that in the buying we lost all sense of proportion. We had bought an enormous crate of cabbages (which, as I have said, speedily found its way into the sea), and a whole case of lemons; and I had made out the list of spices and seasonings, all of which were purchased, enough to run the Delmonico for a year. The amount of pepper we had aboard would last a good-sized family through several lifetimes. When we completed the voyage, we had pepper to throw overboard, and I'll bet the fish in that vicinity have been coughing and sneezing ever since. p062

But the cooking was a reasonably easy proposition, because most of the time over half the crew didn't care for anything to eat, and the others were kind enough to say that they particularly liked my method of preparing only one dish at a meal, and depending on the can-opener for the rest. And observe the security of my position—they could not fire me and hire a new cook, so they had to like it or do without eating.

The galley had a Primus kerosene stove, which burned without odour. On the galley shelves were all sorts of pots and pans, bottles, tins, and utensils. For each and every separate thing, a hole had been made in the shelves, of just the right size and shape, so that nothing could topple out. On the stove, there were racks to hold the skillets and pots and pans while I cooked; but the pots and pans had a trick of jumping out of their racks and banging down into the bilge-water on the floor. And what didn't leap off the stove slopped and splashed all over the galley and the cook. As for myself, I was flung back and forth from one side of the galley to the other, until my back was a mass of bruises from bumping against the bulkhead.

A few extracts from the diary I kept during this cruise to Hawaii will throw an interesting light on how we lived aboard the Snark. The entries in this diary reflect my feelings better than I could recollect them after the lapse of several years.

May 2, 1907.

Evening.—I feel fine. So do all. Even Tochigi is smiling again, and that's nuff said. It's the prettiest evening I've seen in a long time. Bert, who is engineer, finds the dynamo won't work, so he is filling the oil lamps again. Just think of it—we have 19 big electric lights on the boat, and a searchlight, and not one of them working! Jack and Mrs. London are playing cribbage in the cockpit. Tochigi washing clothes over the rail. Ocean calm, except for the swell that is always felt. We had a fine time at supper, telling stories, and joking with one another. Well, I'm going to turn in. My bunk is five feet five inches long, two feet wide, and one foot six inches from the ceiling, but I feel as good in it as on feathers.

Queer that we have seen no fish. Jack can't account for it. Mr. Eames has gone back to his room—he was run out a few days ago by gasolene leaking under his bunk. Water still spouting in. Pumps p064 needed. Many of Tochigi's books are ruined by being water-soaked. Mrs. London has bad headache, and so have I, but a little sleep will cure that. So here's for the bunk.

Friday, May 3, 1907.

Saturday, May 4, 1907.

Sunday, May 5, 1907.

Monday, May 6, 1907.

Tuesday, May 7, 1907.

Wednesday, May 8, 1907.

Thursday, May 9, 1907.

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Friday, May 10, 1907.

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The next day found us in a fierce sea. We were all soaked with water. Indeed, it was impossible to step on deck without getting wet. Great waves, many times higher than the Snark, kept sweeping down as if to swamp us, but always we slid along the top of them, seeing for miles around; then would come the dive p070 down into the slough, where everything was blotted from view but a wild swirl of waters. It was next to impossible to cook. Dishes defied all laws of gravitation, and skimmed like birds through the air; and the stove was a sight, what of the things that slopped over it. We were covered with bruises from being thrown up against the vessel. Mrs. London made another aerial descent of the companionway that night, but was only slightly bruised. Captain Eames scraped the skin off his head in the course of one tumble. I got my punishment in burns from the stove. Far above, in the tropic sky, the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled. Lightning had an awful significance to the crew of the Snark. We were far out at sea; the copper and other metals would tend to draw the current, and had a spark ever reached us, and ignited the eleven hundred gallons of gasolene on board, there wouldn't have been a splinter left to tell the tale.

Like all sailors, we did not love the sea. It was the eternal menace. Looking upon its placid surface in moments of calm, we could almost forget that it was forever yawning, and that into its maw had gone many a brave ship, of greater tonnage than ours. But in raging storms, with the lightning shooting in fiery lines across the sky, and the artillery of heaven rumbling and banging overhead and echoing on the storm-lashed waves, we came to appreciate the true meaning of things, and to assign to earth and sky and sea the proper values. At such moments, I repeat, p071 we did not love the sea; but we did love the Snark. Its ten tons of wood and metal stood between us and destruction. It made life possible to us. It was in such reflections as these, miles and miles from any land, that the words of Jack London rang again in my ears: "Life that lives is life successful. The achievement of a difficult feat is successful adjustment to a sternly exacting environment." Well, we strove to accomplish, and our environment was savage. Supreme courage and unwavering vigilance alone could enable us to adjust ourselves, and come alive out of the welter of foam and frothing waves that assailed the little Snark the greater part of her perilous voyage to Hawaii.

Even out in the ocean, several kinds of birds follow in the wake of ships to pick up the leavings. With a piece of meat tied on a string, we succeeded in catching a guny. These gunys are a species of albatross, and they live, sleep, and find their food entirely on the face of the great deep. When these birds are swimming on the surface of the water and wish to rise into the air, they cannot make the ascent as most birds do, simply by flapping their wings. They must start swimming rapidly, with wings extended, until their speed becomes sufficient to enable them gradually to rise into the air. Before they start to fly, they are literally walking on the water. The meat of the guny is not palatable, and looks something like the meat of an ordinary crow. p072

Every day, Jack wrote two hours. Just two hours, no more, no less. He would get up in the morning and take his trick at the wheel, have breakfast, and then shut himself in his stateroom for just two hours and write. He always laughed at what he called the tomfoolery of waiting for inspiration to come. He doesn't believe there is any such thing as inspiration—he himself can write just as well at one time as at another. It is plain work, he says, and the only way he can do it is to go ahead and do it. Incidentally, I may mention that Jack London never rewrites a story. He writes it just once, and never goes over it to change it. He writes with a fountain pen, and nobody can read his writing but Mrs. London. He turns his manuscript over to her, and she types it and gets it ready for the publishers.

In addition to their writing and typing, both the Londons did their trick at the wheel, and even helped Bert at the sailorising. When the weather was calm and we had gotten over our sickness, we would all gather on deck and talk, and tell each other of our experiences before chance grouped us together on the Snark. Of course, Jack had lived more of life than any of us. He spent hours recounting to us tales of the Klondike, and other faraway places he had visited. One of the most interesting things he told us was of how he came to write. Since his days in the grade schools of Oakland, he had nursed the secret wish to become a writer. He spent long hours poring over p073 books of history, travel, and fiction. But everything seemed against him. His father, a veteran of the Civil War, was slowly dying, and it became necessary for Jack to turn to and help support the family. He worked at everything and anything. Now he was a sailor, now a San Francisco Bay oyster-pirate, now a member of the Bay Fish Patrol. He mowed lawns and washed windows, and cleaned carpets, and worked in canneries and other factories. Through all this experience, his Socialistic tendencies were strengthened, and he ardently espoused the cause of revolution, and clings to it still. He wrote evenings after he came home from work, but all his manuscripts were returned to him. At last, however, came the day. He had been to the Klondike, and had returned penniless and stricken with scurvy. He could do little work. Between odd jobs, he wrote. One night, coming home, he conceived the idea of turning some of his Arctic experiences into stories. That evening he sat down and produced the great story that made him famous, and that has been read round the world, "The White Silence." It was written from things he knew. It was a bit of life, "cut from the raw, and woven round with words." A big western magazine promptly published it, paying him the scanty sum of five dollars. But his next story, published in an eastern short-story magazine, brought him better monetary return, so that he was enabled to go ahead and write. And we all know that he succeeded. p074

Another rather amusing thing Jack told us was of an experience in Manchuria, during the Russo-Japanese War. He had been sent as war correspondent by a big American newspaper syndicate, and besides his scratch-pad, he was provided with a camera. One day he started to take some pictures, and was promptly arrested and haled before the military authorities. A fat and rather deaf old Jap officer began to question him.

"Why do you take pictures?"

"Because I wish to."

"And why do you wish to?"

"Because I desire to."

And so it went for half an hour, question and answer, attack and rebuff. Other correspondents who had been rounded up with cameras in their possession followed the same plan. At last, the Jap officer gave up in disgust, and allowed them all to depart, though warning them of what might happen to them in time of war.

During this period, there was strict censorship of all letters and telegrams, both coming and going. The war correspondents were in a quandary. They desired to keep their papers posted on the latest developments, but were unable to get a line of information beyond the frontier. They tried cipher-codes and various freak methods of writing, but without avail. These messages were destroyed as being of a suspicious character. At last, however, one of the enterprising p075 correspondents hit upon a plan. He wrote plain English to his paper. Just at the time, an important military manœuvre was in progress. By building a bridge over a certain river, the Japs would be enabled to transport their supplies, and to gain control of an important position. So the war correspondent wrote to his paper a rather rambling personal letter, of no consequence whatever, but at the end casually mentioned that the Japanese troops were on the bank of the river, with timber and big wooden beams and posts. "I'm not allowed to tell you what they're doing, but you can bet they're not digging a well." Fortunately, the editor was a man of acumen; out of all the chaff he sifted the grain of wheat, and his paper had an enviable beat, that great delight of the editorial heart.

When we all got to navigating in good shape, we found that we were able to produce a widely different set of figures. Of course, each could prove the correctness of his points. I well remember the day that my figures showed we were in the Atlantic Ocean instead of the Pacific. As I think back, I wonder more and more that we ever got anywhere, what of our brilliant navigation. But luck was with us. We did eventually get to port, though not without stress and storm.

Monday, May 13, 1907.

Wednesday, May 15, 1907.

Thursday, May 16, 1907.

Friday, May 17, 1907.

Saturday, May 18, 1907.

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Sunday, May 19, 1907.

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The next morning, twenty-seven days out of Frisco, we were near to Honolulu. We were met by the customs tug, from the deck of which papers were thrown to us. One of the papers had pictures of the Snark, and a long story, telling that, considering the twenty-seven days out of San Francisco, all hope had been given up of the Snark's ever reaching port—that she had evidently gone down with all hands. When the customs tug volunteered to tow us into Pearl Harbor, eighteen miles from Honolulu, Jack jumped at the chance. The Kamehameha and the Kalaohkun, of p083 the Hawaiian Yacht Club, came out to meet us, and escorted us into Pearl Harbor. We passed several Japanese sampans, the first I had ever seen, queer little flat boats used by the Jap fishermen. Once a monstrous turtle, said to be the largest ever seen in these parts, swam near us, and lifted his ungainly head to gaze at us. We took his presence as an omen of good luck.

Pearl Harbor has a small mouth like a river, which is called Pearl Locks. Inside, the harbour is deep and large. It was then being fitted up as a base of supplies and repairs for the American navy, by Captain Curtis Otwell, who was in charge of the entire construction work. A little later, we dropped anchor in Pearl Harbor, and furled the sails. I cannot begin to tell how good it was to be on solid ground again, after twenty-seven days of pitching and rolling on the sea. It seemed too good to be true. We called the harbour "Dream Harbour." It seemed to suit better than any other name—for was this not all a dream? We were met by a throng of reporters, camera fiends, Kanakas, and a general mixture of nationalities, and one and all gave us a hearty welcome to their island. p084

CHAPTER IV
A PACIFIC PARADISE

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Land at last! It seemed like Paradise. When we saw the rich, soft grass, we felt like getting down and rolling on it, it looked so good. Commodore Hoborn, of the Hawaiian Yacht Club, had tendered the use of his bungalow to Jack and Mrs. London, an offer that was gratefully accepted. The bungalow was only a few yards from our anchorage, so that the Snark family remained within easy hailing distance. We unlashed our boats, covered the sails, and threw out the spinnaker-boom; and then the Londons went ashore with the commodore, while we remained for the time on the Snark, besieged by reporters and photographers.

When the customs inspector's tug offered to tow us into Pearl Harbor, Jack had been quick to accept the kindness; but I had kept looking toward Honolulu, where I knew there was fresh meat and fruit, to say nothing of the varied life of the city. But I soon thought differently. Along the coast for several hundred feet out the water was white with breakers. After we got nearer to the mouth of Pearl Harbor, we could see palms along the shore, and other tropical trees, while in the water plied busy Chinese junk-fishers p085 and Japanese sampans and native sloops, the occupants in a state closely approaching nudity. The air was warm and balmy. We all gaped with wonder—all except Jack, who had been here before.

It was two o'clock that afternoon when we got shoreleave. We could hardly walk. The land tilted and heaved, even as the Snark had tilted and heaved. I caught myself spreading my feet apart to prevent my falling, just as we did on the boat. A train ran every hour to Pearl City, so we made haste to catch it. It was one of the queerest trains imaginable, a little yellow car and a miniature engine, loaded down with Chinamen and Japs dressed in their native costumes, and the reporters who were returning to Pearl City after interviewing the crew of the Snark. Pearl City, which was only a mile away, consisted of a depot and a few Japanese and Chinese stores. We ate our lunch in a roadside hotel, where girls played guitars and danced and sang all through the meal.

All the next day we packed things back and forth from the boat to the bungalow, and put up hammocks and mosquito netting. It was a one-storey building, with low, protruding roof. There were four rooms, but even this seemed commodious after nearly a month on the Snark, where space in every direction was rigidly economised. One continuous window let in the sunshine on all four sides of the bungalow; and the yard was filled with little forests of cocoanut palms, and a profusion of bananas, p086 figs, papaias, guava palms, and other tropical trees. The grass was large and blue, and, fortunately, sheltered no chigoes—or, as they are often called, chiggers—to drive us mad with their biting. Along the shore was the sea-wall and a long boat-landing; here the water was so clear that one could see to the bottom in ten feet of it, to where the coral lies in wonderful patterns, and shells nestle down almost out of sight, and fish of every colour swim back and forth.

The weather was perfect. It is always perfect. The temperature never varies over ten degrees—from about 75° to 85°. There was always plenty of food, growing right to one's hand; no tropical diseases to be seen, at least not yet; no dirt, no smoke; everything so pleasing and satisfying as to be beyond description. The only thing that really kept us on the jump was the mosquitoes. Sitting in our main room, in pajamas, reading, talking or writing, we were obliged to burn mosquito powder all the time, and even that did little to rid us of the pests. Mark Twain had a bungalow near here a few years ago, and the story is told that he had netting put all around his bed, alow and aloft, that he might sleep without losing any of his blood; but the mosquitoes got in anyway, and nearly tormented the life out of him. At last, however, he made the discovery that when the mosquitoes once got inside the netting, they could not find their way out, so he used to lie there as a bait until all were safely ensnared, then crawl out and sleep upon the floor. p087

In the next few days, we were continually finding new things to do and to see. We swam in the crystal-clear water, despite the natives' warnings about sharks. For my part I had plenty of leisure. After an heroic silence of days, the crew finally broke out in protest against my cooking; they simply could stand no more of it. When on the sea, it had been eat it or starve; but now that they were ashore, there was greater latitude of choice. After that, we all boarded with different white families in the vicinity, and the poor harassed crew forgot its troubles in the delight of eating once more the things that humans eat, cooked as humans would cook them.

The people of Oahu were very accommodating, always bringing us fruit and looking after our wishes with a care unknown in the States. The conductor on the mile-long railroad-run to Pearl City brought us various fruits gathered along the way; and when we were riding and saw anything we wanted, he would stop the train to get it. Coming from Honolulu one night, the main train switched, and took me direct to our bungalow, carrying along four other coaches of Japs and Chinese. The conductor was an American. He said that he didn't care whether "the cattle"—referring to my fellow-passengers—got anywhere or not.

Much of our time, however, was spent on the Snark, where we were constantly receiving visitors. I met a great number of American and English people, and p088 many natives. As for the population of the islands, the Japanese greatly predominate. I think, in figures, it runs about as follows: sixty-one thousand Japanese, forty-five thousand Chinese, twenty-three thousand British, twenty-five thousand Americans, twelve thousand five hundred natives (Kanakas), four hundred and fifty South Sea Islanders, and six hundred and fifty Portuguese; and as nearly all these people dress in their native costumes, the whole has a decidedly cosmopolitan look. As for Honolulu, it consists mostly of stores run by Japs and Chinese—many call it Little Japan. There are many half-castes and quarter-castes on the islands. I knew one man who could trace through his ancestry connection with every one of the principal divisions of the human family.

On June 3 occurred the first split in the Snark crew. Captain Eames decided that he had had enough yachting, and departed on the steamship Sierra for California. Shortly after, word came from Bert's mother, asking him to return and continue his course at Stanford University. Bert considered a while over this, but in the end decided to do as she had asked. He formally resigned from the crew, and went to Honolulu to stay until he could work his way back to California. It seemed as if the newspapers could never get through inventing falsehoods about Jack and the rest of us. When Bert left, they reported that Jack was a big, bullyragging brute, and had beaten all of p089 us into a pulp. As a matter of fact, there was never so much as a quarrel among us.

Jack and Mrs. London had gone to Honolulu, and were staying at the Seaside Hotel. Every day, Jack would send me his exposed films and I would develop them and send prints by the next train. Never was there so obliging a person as Tony, conductor of the mile-long railroad I have mentioned, and which, because of its nature, we called the Unlimited. Tony was not only conductor, but he was also engineer, fireman, brakeman and porter. If he could help us at the house, he would bank the fire in the engine, and leave his train for half a day. Once, while watching me at my photographing, he found that he was five minutes late for the run to Pearl City, so he decided not to make the trip. As he explained, nothing but Japs and Kanakas (Hawaiians), and Chinamen rode on it, and he didn't care anything about them. As for us, when we rode he absolutely refused to collect any fare. When I had made Jack's prints, I would bundle them up and give them to Tony; then, when he reached Pearl City, he would give them to the conductor of the train for Honolulu, and eventually they would find their way to Jack.

About this time, we got our new captain. He was an old fellow who had been all through the South Seas, and knew them like a book, and whom we will call Captain X——. He was an ideal sea-captain of the p090 old school—the kind that is rough and headstrong. He and I had a little set-to at first, but later ignored each other as much as possible. About this time, too, Gene Fenelon, a young fellow of thirty, came from Oakland to take Bert's place as engineer. He and Jack had known each other for some years, and were good friends. We took a great liking to Gene, who was really a clever fellow, though, as will be seen, he did not last long at this particular job. He had been for eight years assistant manager of an European circus, and spoke several languages fluently. Bert and Gene and I would go of nights up to the Hawaiian Yacht Club, and coming back would frighten the very birds off their perches by our vigorous sea-songs. During the day we were busy around the boat, scraping the masts and painting the galley, and developing and printing Jack's negatives.

I myself spent a couple of days in Honolulu at this period, doing some special camera work, and trying my luck at surf-board riding. This is said to be one of the greatest sports in the world, but as it takes several months, at the least, really to learn it, I can hardly testify as to that. But I do know that I was nearly drowned, and managed to swallow a few quarts of salt water before the fun wore off. Jack stayed at it for some time, and got so sunburned that he was confined to his bed. Let me say here that it is my honest belief that only the native Hawaiians ever p091 really learn the trick in all its intricacies, despite the fact that, at several contests held, white men have come out victorious.

For my part, I found swimming and fishing at Pearl Harbor much better sport. The fish bit readily. I have caught as many as twenty in five minutes. In the water, nearby, were turtles as big as a wash-tub. One day a shark twenty-two feet long was killed, and the day after one eighteen feet long.

Once, toward evening, Tochigi, Gene, and I were out rowing in a little canvas boat. It sank about a quarter of a mile from shore. Not that we cared much, for we had on nothing but swimming trunks, but we went lively when we discovered that a little hammer-headed shark was close to us, circling around in the water. He was too small to do us any harm, but his little protruding eyes looked so fierce that we all made haste for shore. This place was full of these little hammer-headed sharks, as well as of turtles and devil-fish.

It may sound rather strange when I say that we were in the habit of wearing only swimming suits, but we lessoned from the people we saw about us, and many of them were more simply garbed even than that. Mr. and Mrs. London, however, usually wore Japanese kimonos. And our captain dressed like a tramp.

Captain X—— was a horrible example of what ill temper will do. His half-breed son declared that he was born angry. At any rate, he seemed aboard the p092 Snark to have the idea that he was working Kanaka sailors, and would have sworn at us continually had we allowed it. It may be that he had cause to be irritable, for he had once been beaten out of a great fortune. X—— had been plying around the South Seas for twenty years, and once had discovered a small island covered with guano—about twenty million dollars' worth of it. X—— beat back to Honolulu with all haste, that he might arrange to take the island in the name of the United States. He was given the proper authority, and with a small crew he hastened back to his wonderful find. Daylight was breaking dimly as he approached; there was sufficient light for him to see a small Japanese man-of-war slipping in the gloom toward the cherished island. When he and his men landed, they were met by soldiers, who told them that the island was now formally in the possession of the Japanese government. I really think that this would be enough to sour any man's temper. Another time, he drifted around for weeks in a small ship, nearly dead for water, and with half his crew lying corpses on the deck. He escaped when wrecked off the coast of the island of Maui. One of his occupations was "shanghai"-ing South Sea Islanders for work on the Hawaiian plantations; and a favourite trick was to cheat the natives when buying copra—he would put his knee under the sack while weighing it, thus making a two-hundred-pound sack lose half of its weight. He was a regular old skinflint; but whatever his merits p093 or demerits, one thing was certain: he had been everywhere in the South Seas, and had the records to prove it.

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Much work was being done on the Snark. Men came from Honolulu and put everything shipshape. They got the seventy-horse-power engine to running, also the dynamo of the small engine, painted the Snark again, cleaned the rigging, scraped the masts and spars, and stopped the leaks. Best of all, they put the engine of the gasolene launch into condition. We used to make little trips in the launch by night. All this time, Jack and Mrs. London were making visits to the neighbouring islands, so that we saw little of them.

Oftentimes, in the evening, I would spend an hour or more watching the beauties of the Hawaiian scenery when bathed in the soft beams of the moon. In the harbour lay the Snark, looking as if lighted by electricity where the moonbeams were mirrored on her freshly painted sides and her polished metal, and further away was the shadowy shore-line, fringed by groves of cocoanut palms, and still further back, fading away into the night, were the majestic mountains.

"The Snark will never be able to heave-to," we were told. "She catches too much wind aft, no matter how the sails are trimmed." But with the seventy-horse-power engine in running order, the danger was vastly minimised, for with its aid we could cut through a storm like a knife.

The boat was taken to Honolulu for a thorough p094 overhauling. Of course, the crew went too. My stay in Honolulu was one of the most enjoyable periods of my life, despite the growing enmity between Captain X—— and myself. None of us liked him; even Jack was wishing for an opportunity to let him go. He was an eccentric person, to say the least, and had all the latest variations in his vocabulary. Being particularly sore on me, he used to take his spite out by calling inanimate objects about the vessel the names he really intended to apply to the erstwhile cook of the Snark; and when our repairs were complete and the Snark was taken out for a trial trip, all the crew, except Captain X——, knew that Jack was dissatisfied with Captain X—— and would appoint a new captain at the first opportunity—presumably Mr. Y——, who was then on the boat as a common sailor. Hence his control of us was rather broken; during the trip the entire crew absolutely refused to be ordered about any; but, carried out the work that was necessary to take the Snark out in the bay and back again, while Captain X—— remained at the wheel, seemingly much disgruntled. Entering the harbour, as a result of this misunderstanding between the captain and crew, the Snark was so manœuvred that she bumped into a trading-steamer, and then into a bark, at both of which times the Snark was slightly injured—several holes were made in the stern. As soon as we touched the wharf, I telephoned to Jack to come down, as the opportunity was at hand p095 for him to discharge the profane captain; and this Jack did, with neatness and despatch, as soon as a cab could bring him from the hotel.

During President Cleveland's administration, there was considerable agitation about the annexation of Hawaii to the United States. The natives had become somewhat dissatisfied with Queen Lilioukalani, because she refused to allow them to frame a constitution. They felt that she wished to be the entire government. The natives dethroned the queen, and elected Mr. Frederick Doyle as their president, and they framed a constitution as similar to that of the United States as they could possibly get it. At this time a Mr. Thurston, a prominent land-owner and one of the most influential men on the island, took a hand in the administration of public affairs. It was his advice that led to President Doyle's trip to the United States, which resulted in the annexation of the islands to our country; and the Queen's palace became the United States Government building. Mr. Thurston's plan of annexation was a good one; it prevented the islands from falling into the hands of the Japanese, who were rapidly gaining control of them. Hawaii was civilised before the western line of the United States; the grass huts had disappeared before California was developed. This progress in the Hawaiian Islands was due to the conscientious efforts of the early missionaries; but there is now to be found upon this island a class of people p096 who are the descendants of a few of the earlier missionaries (who were of a distinctly mercenary turn of mind and secured for their private use some of the most valuable lands of the valley). The descendants, known as the "missionary class" now live in ease and comfort without putting forth the slightest effort to help develop the islands or assist in the betterment of anyone but themselves. Of course, they are not missionaries, nor have they ever been missionaries in the true sense, as they are not supported by any church organisation, but live off the natural richness of the land appropriated by their missionary forefathers.

During the development of the islands, it was necessary, in order to secure suitable grounds for the rapidly growing and beautiful city of Honolulu, to fill in and raise above its former marshy level the entire end of the Nuuanu Valley; and this large drainage canal still disposes of the water from the upper valley. The city of Honolulu now boasts of as fine hotels as will be found anywhere in the world in a town of that size, and the business section of the city is built upon as solid a basis as any town of possibly twice the size. In 1778, Captain Cook estimated the native population of Hawaii as four hundred thousand. The 1900 census showed only about twenty-nine thousand natives on the island. In their place have sprung up thousands and thousands of Japs, Chinese, and half-castes.

With all its development and advancement, there p097 are still interesting spots in the city of Honolulu. One will occasionally see a Japanese 'rickashaw, or see a Japanese mother carrying her naked baby in the streets. The Chinese section presents about the same weird style of Chinese architecture as will be found in many of the large cities in the States, where the Chinese population still holds to its original manners and customs. After the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to the United States, which took place in 1900, the business advancement of the islands was very rapid, in spite of certain peculiar laws enacted by the members of the first legislative body. This body was composed of natives who had no other idea in mind than to get their names on a statute-book as the makers of law. One of them even proposed an act to regulate the rise and fall of the tides. Of course, he had an idea that this legislative body, backed by all the authority of the United States government, could accomplish any act it saw fit to. Another member proposed a bill creating the office of State Entomologist, as he had read somewhere that an entomologist was a bug-man; he had himself appointed to the office, and a few days later came with another bill asking that the position of State Entomologist be declared vacant, because there were still bugs in his coffee. But these minor defects in the first legislative body were rapidly overcome, and now the people of Hawaii hold dear to their hearts two flags, one the stars and stripes of the United p098 States, and the other the red, white and purple of Hawaii. In their decorating, the two flags are always in evidence, equal prominence given to each.

We paid a visit to the crater of an extinct volcano, called The Punch Bowl. Out at Waikiki Beach the surf-board riding could always be undertaken by such as liked it; and there were other amusements. Once, at Thomas Square, I heard the Royal Hawaiian Band play, while a Sunday School gathering of Japanese children sang. After they had finished, a Kanaka class sang. All those three hundred children were dressed in their native costumes. It was very enjoyable, even if we couldn't understand a word of the songs.

We were in Honolulu over the Fourth of July, that is, all but Jack and Mrs. London. Several American transports, with fourteen thousand troops, lay in the harbour. The celebration of the Fourth of July was a moral event in Hawaiian history; and the parade was one of the most splendid I have ever witnessed. As a fitting climax to the day's festivities, a picked baseball team from among the American soldiers challenged, and were defeated by, a picked-up aggregation of Japanese boys.

The development of the city of Honolulu under the American flag is just as perfect and complete as in any city in America. In fact, the street-car system of the city of Honolulu is the most perfect in the world—all fine, big sixty-foot observation cars, especially fitted for the passengers to enjoy to the utmost the tropical p099 scenery along the delightful suburban routes. The fire departments are fully equipped with the most efficient and modern machinery, and their runs are just as awe-inspiring as those of the city departments of our land.

The equable climate of Honolulu has tempted many of the wealthiest people of the United States to select it as a spot for permanent residence. As I think I have mentioned before, the temperature varies only about ten degrees, so that Hawaii is a veritable Paradise of the Pacific. Beautiful homes are springing up along the shady streets, some of the more elegant ones costing many thousands of dollars. The Japanese seem fully to understand the use of the picturesque and beautiful trees found on the islands. The parks are as pretty as any in the world, little pagodas and brilliant-coloured trees and grasses usually so disposed in landscape gardening as to carry out quaint Japanese patterns. Some of the mammoth trees burst into a mass of bright flowers, and they, too, will be found to be set in varied designs. Here will be found the famous banyan tree. One peculiarity of this tree is its method of throwing down from the horizontal branches supports, which take root as soon as they touch ground and enlarge into trunks and extend branches of their own, until one tree will cover an acre or more of ground. A single tree has been known to cover seven acres. The pleasant drives naturally stimulate the breeding of fine horses. One may see here equipages as superb as are to be found in Paris or London. p100

As a natural result of the religious basis upon which the original civilisation of Hawaii was founded, there are many fine churches, mostly constructed of lava. Volcanic lava forms a very solid and permanent building stone, being much heavier even than granite, and susceptible of a very high polish.

Upon the island are several volcanoes. Scientists have figured out that one of these is the progenitor of the island of Oahu, and certainly, whatever the validity of their claims, Oahu is entirely of volcanic origin. Japanese now farm inside the crater of one extinct volcano, which is more than a mile across. The volcanic mountain called Diamond Head, the first point of land observed by sailors approaching the Hawaiian Islands, is as beautiful a bit of mountain scenery as will be found on any sea-coast. On the island of Hawaii are the two largest volcanoes in the world, Mauna Kea, thirteen thousand eight hundred feet high, and Mauna Loa, thirteen thousand six hundred feet high.

Thunderstorms are rare and hurricanes are unknown in the Hawaiian Islands, hence the deep large bays form very favourable shipping ports. Their position puts them in direct line of vessels trading between western North America on the one side, and eastern Asia and Australia on the other. This is responsible to a great extent for its commercial development. Regular steamers come to Honolulu from San Francisco, Vancouver, Yokohama, Hong-Kong and Sydney, and the various ports of minor significance. Honolulu p101 is also a station of the Pacific Commercial Cable, and has direct communication with the United States and the Orient. During our stay, the cable ship Relief came into the harbour. We saw ships of every sort, from the little fishing craft, Jap sampans, up to brigantines. One of the most interesting of all was the transport, Thomas, with several thousand American soldiers on board. Sailing-dates of one of the large steamers are always big days; thousands of people flock to the wharf.

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Before leaving Honolulu, Captain X—— did everything in his power to make me uncomfortable, for he considered it my fault that he had lost his position. He called me a mutineer and told Jack that I was not of much account, anyway. As the time drew closer for us to think of leaving Honolulu, we set several dates for our departure, but always at the last minute something went wrong with the engines, and we were compelled to postpone sailing. Tochigi told me several times that he thought he would quit—he could not help but dread the seasickness he knew would afflict him—but each time I persuaded him to remain, reminding him that it would be a sorry trick to leave me all alone to fight the sickness.

Whenever we set a date there would be a crowd of people at the wharf to see us off, but each time we were obliged to set out a sign, Sailing postponed, until the people in Honolulu had ceased taking us seriously; and one man asked Jack why he did not buy him a p102 house instead of living at a hotel—that it would be cheaper. The Honolulu press came out with several amusing articles on the Snark, and even reprinted the old refrain of "Not yet, but soon." This, with other articles, made us dislike to go upon the street, on account of the comments, as we were pretty well known by them. One day, while in King Street, one of the principal thoroughfares of the city, I heard even the newsboys crying: "When will the Snark sail?—Not yet, but soon."

But after spending several months in Honolulu and the suburb of Waikiki, we managed to leave the harbour on a day when few people expected us to be ready. The engines ran splendidly, until we were out of sight of Honolulu; then the suction pump on the big engine carried away.

Jack was angry, but said he would not go back to Honolulu if the boat were sinking, so we set sail and during the next three or four days sailed down past the islands of Molokai and Maui. At the island of Maui, the natives were catching mammoth turtles that are sold in the Honolulu fish-markets; as a matter of fact, these natives are regular fiends for turtle-flesh. They catch their prey in a peculiar manner, creeping upon them as they lie on the sandy beach warming themselves in the sun. Two or three Kanakas will steal down upon a turtle and flop him over on his back, in which position he is powerless.

After nearly a week of sailing, we came in sight of p103 one of the largest active volcanoes in the world, Mauna Loa, or, as the crater is called, Haleakala. This was Captain Y—— 's first landfall, and I must say the way he brought the Snark head-up into the wind and lowered anchor was a marvel to us landlubbers, who up to now had been sailing the vessel as a boy would float a tub. Captain Y—— sailed and anchored the Snark as a ship should be sailed and anchored. He gave his orders in a tone that left nothing for us to do but obey; not that his orders were delivered in the manner of Captain X——, but instead in the strong, clear tones of a man who was used to giving orders and having them obeyed.

Kailua is the fifth largest town on the island of Hawaii, and contains possibly one hundred persons. The main business street of the town often appears utterly deserted, as the natives say no one but fools and Americans will venture out in the heat of the day. The main business house is an American saloon run by a Chinaman; the bar fixtures consisting of a counter and a large refrigerator, which I am quite sure never had any ice in it. Gene bought a glass of beer, but it was so flat and warm that he could not drink it.

The volcano of Kilauea is situated on the leeward side of the island of Hawaii, which makes it very dangerous for sailing vessels. Captain Cook, whose monument stands a few miles below this volcano, discovered the Sandwich Islands, or Hawaii, while searching for the Northwest Passage. He determined to p104 build here his winter home, and study conditions among the islands while waiting for the snow and ice to melt, that he might get through to Bering Strait. As the natives had never seen the like of the saws and axes and hammers used by the ship's carpenter in building this house, they stole them. Not that the innocent people knew what stealing was—they had merely planted the tools in the ground in the hope that they might grow and produce more tools. Captain Cook, following his usual drastic methods, seized the old King, whom he intended to hold as a hostage for the return of his property. During the fight, several of the natives were killed, and Captain Cook was himself captured. When the sailors found that Captain Cook had fallen into the hands of the natives, they sent word that the King was to be held until Captain Cook was returned. Captain Cook was returned; at least, as much of him as could be found after the feast. The body was brought aboard the ship in pieces, was buried, and a monument erected. Beside the grave is the grave of a Kanaka who used to boast proudly that he had eaten the big toe of Captain Cook, for, as the natives afterward explained, the captain had really been eaten, and the body of a native substituted.

In the days gone by, the natives used to call the feast of human flesh the long-pig feast. They still have these feasts, only instead of human flesh they serve the flesh of the wild boar, which is plentiful on the island. Instead of roasting the pig from the outside, p105 as we do, the natives dig a hole in the ground, and, after making a fire, pile stones on top of the fire until they are red hot, then put the stones on the inside of the pig and bake him from the inside out, and serve the meat with poi.

Like Oahu, the island of Hawaii is entirely of volcanic origin. The two large volcanoes on this island, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, formerly had craters at the tops, which have soiled over, and new craters have opened up far down the mountainsides. In many places the surface of the ground is nothing more than lava, still in the exact condition the latest eruption has allowed it to cool in, and seamed with fissures that opened up as it cooled.

Kailua is one of the most lonesome, desolate spots in the Hawaiian Islands. I had a great deal of time in which I had nothing to do, for, as I have said, the crew absolutely refused to eat my cooking any longer. I used to sit on the lava coast and try to see across the several thousand miles to America, where there were people to whom I could speak; I did not understand these people here. As Tochigi had finally settled that he could not fight down his seasickness, he had decided to remain in Kailua until the steamer could take him back to Honolulu. I was very sorry to see Tochigi go, but I appreciated his reason, and so offered no more resistance. Gene I did not get very well acquainted with; and Captain Y—— seemed too much like a boss for me to be friendly with him, but afterward p106 he thawed out and we became the best of friends. During the week that we lay in Kailua anchorage, Tochigi and I made long trips into the interior and along the coast, where we saw some of the large rice and coffee plantations. The Chinese are the only ones in the islands who have any success with rice; we saw the young sprouts in the artificial marshes they have made. The natives never make any attempt at farming, except to farm fish. They have large artificial fish-ponds that they stock with mullet and crimps, and there is trouble if any person tries to catch fish out of another man's pond. Fruit here, as on all the islands, is very plentiful. There are no seasons for it; it grows the year round.

The famous Kona coffee is raised on this side of the island of Hawaii—in fact, this is the only place in the islands where coffee can be raised, as elsewhere the wind would disturb the coffee-tree and cause the bean to shatter. The coffee is hulled by the old and primitive method of allowing a large log to beat the coffee until it is hulled.

A pleasant way of killing time was to do a little amateur sailing with our life-boat. Gene and I knew practically nothing about sailing such a small boat, and when we got on the bay all the natives hunted shelter, terrified by our manœuvres; and when we clumsily ran on the beach, there was much amusement among the natives who were loafing on shore. Mr. and Mrs. London decided to go across the island to Hilo, on p107 the Puna coast, on horseback. So only Captain Y——, Gene, and myself, and a white man we had picked up in Honolulu, were left to take the Snark around the island through the main strait to Hilo.

Little Tochigi, who had been but a bundle of Japanese misery every minute at sea since leaving San Francisco, now said good-bye to us. As we heaved anchor and sailed out of the bay, the last thing we saw of poor Tochigi was his diminishing form sitting alone on the seashore, watching the Snark disappear from his view.

The day before we left Kailua, a small trading sloop came into the harbour and was still anchored when we left; in fact, we later found that we had a whole day's start on this boat; but during the time that the small crew of the Snark was fighting head-winds and tide-rips in the main channel, this vessel drew up and passed us and was in Hilo Bay a day before us. After we got to the Puna coast of Hawaii, we could see the prettiest shore-line, rich with tropical fruit trees and luxuriant vegetation. Scores of waterfalls, some of them hundreds of feet above us, were scattered all along this coast, clear into Hilo Harbor.

We dropped anchor in Hilo five days from Kailua. The harbour here is too shallow for the largest steamships to draw up close to the wharf, but the Snark, being so small, was able to anchor just at the mouth of the Waikaiea River. In the heart of Hilo's little fishing suburbs, the town of Waikaiea is about one p108 mile along the seashore from Hilo proper, and is inhabited almost wholly by Japs, Chinese and Kanakas. Before going further, I had perhaps better explain this word "Kanaka." In the Hawaiian language, Kanaka means man, and Wahine means woman, but all Hawaiians, both men and women, are called Kanakas by the white people, so the word is generally understood to mean native Hawaiian.

The people of Waikaiea are nearly all fishing people, everyone taking a hand in the fishing. The men go out in their boats just before sundown, and fish all night long. At five o'clock in the morning the womenfolk are waiting along the little river-docks to unload the fish. The fish are carried into one of the fish-markets, where the children sort out the different kinds into piles. There are large tanks for the turtles and octopuses; and big hooks are suspended from the ceilings by pulleys for the larger fish that are too heavy for handling. Then the auctioneer sells the fish to the highest bidder. The big sharks weighing two and three hundred pounds often bring less than a ten-pound fish, as the fins are all that is used of certain kinds of sharks. I have seen devil-fish, or octopuses, that were thirty feet from the end of one tentacle to the end of the opposite one. The fish are usually bought by Japanese or Chinese fish-runners. Immediately after they have secured all they can carry, they start off at a dog-trot, which never ceases until p109 each has reached his district for selling, sometimes ten or fifteen miles up the country.

To get to Hilo from the Snark, the best way was to walk along the sandy beach clear into Hilo, for the damp sand was always cool and refreshing, and the sea breeze blowing made one want to take off his shoes and roll up his trousers, and splash along in the water, a thing I did many a time. Truth is, people, after a few weeks in the Sandwich Islands, start doing things they would never think of doing in the staid old United States. The climate seems to make one younger, for it is always spring in Hawaii.

On a quiet morning some strangely wonderful sights may be seen. In the clear water one can easily make out many-hued fish, and coral, sponges, coral-crabs; and, under the sponges, small octupuses or devil-fish from the size of one's hand down to the size of a silver dollar.

Hilo has about five thousand, mixed population. Here, as among all the islands of the group, the Japanese predominate, with Chinese a close second. The white people on this side of the island live mostly outside of Hilo on plantations; and as the brown population sleeps through the heat of the day, the business streets are deserted until late in the afternoon. Then the streets spring suddenly into life, and for several hours are thronged with people of all nationalities. The clubs and saloons are crowded, the band plays p110 nearly every evening, and everyone settles down to enjoy himself.

Off the business streets, the residence district seems like a park. The roads are well paved, electric lights are strung at every crossing, hedges and fences are of trees that usually bear flowers throughout the year. Homes are mostly of the bungalow style, with large porches running clear around the house. These porches are used as dining and sleeping rooms the year round. In fact, the people often give more thought to the lanai, as they call the porch, than to any other part of the house.

The lawns around the bungalows are studded with fruit trees that are usually laden with ripe fruit at all times. The small boys never care to steal fruit here, as there is so much of it that anyone may help himself to fruit wherever he finds it.

The fine public libraries, churches, and a good opera house at Hilo are as truly modern buildings as any I have seen in the United States. A large pineapple factory is located here, and one steamer makes regular trips from San Francisco to get the bananas that grow wild along this coast.

Hilo supplies the United States with more cane-sugar than any city in the world. Large sugar-mills are located along the water-front, in order that ships may load by gravity right from the mill. The sugar-cane is raised back of Hilo, and as far back as twenty miles into the mountains. The sugar-cane is sent to p111 the mill in long flumes that are filled with water, and the cane laid in the flumes goes down to the mill at the rate of twenty miles an hour.

The manager of the Waipalia sugar-mill invited Jack, Mrs. London, Captain Y——, and me to go for a flume-ride one Sunday, when there was no cane in the flume. Cabs were secured, and we were driven away back in the mountains to a good place to start from. Before leaving Hilo we had donned our bathing suits. Making a good seat of cane for ourselves, to guard against possible nails, we all got in the flume and started off. There is no more exciting sport in the world than flume-riding. Often, we could look down inclines, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet below. We rushed so fast that had a nail ever gotten in the way, it would certainly have ripped off a lot of skin, but we could not stop, for to have done so would have thrown us from the flume.

The rice fields looked like ordinary wheat fields. The rice is threshed by the primitive method of cutting the heads off the stalk, laying them on a large piece of volcanic rock, and letting in Chinese with bare feet to stamp upon it until the grain is hulled. Rice is an important factor in the Hawaiian farming, as the Japs and Chinese live upon it almost wholly. No rice is exported; the orientals consume the entire output.

As the rice must be planted in the water, the rice fields tend to breed mosquitoes, which become so annoying that it is often necessary to burn a powder p112 called buhack all night long, in addition to having the regular mosquito netting over the bed.