Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin] - "Vindication of the Rights of Women"

John Greenleaf Whittier - "Songs of Labor and Reform"

E. M. Hull - "The Sheik"

Thomas Adolphus Trollope - "A Siren"

Sailing Alone Around The World

J >> Joshua Slocum >> Sailing Alone Around The World




Manuel had a large crop of potatoes on hand, and as a hint to
whalemen, who are always eager to buy vegetables, he wished me to
report whales off the island of Juan Fernandez, which I have already
done, and big ones at that, but they were a long way off.

Taking things by and large, as sailors say, I got on fairly well in
the matter of provisions even on the long voyage across the Pacific. I
found always some small stores to help the fare of luxuries; what I
lacked of fresh meat was made up in fresh fish, at least while in the
trade-winds, where flying-fish crossing on the wing at night would hit
the sails and fall on deck, sometimes two or three of them, sometimes
a dozen. Every morning except when the moon was large I got a
bountiful supply by merely picking them up from the lee scuppers. All
tinned meats went begging.

On the 16th of July, after considerable care and some skill and hard
work, the _Spray_ cast anchor at Apia, in the kingdom of Samoa, about
noon. My vessel being moored, I spread an awning, and instead of going
at once on shore I sat under it till late in the evening, listening
with delight to the musical voices of the Samoan men and women.

A canoe coming down the harbor, with three young women in it, rested
her paddles abreast the sloop. One of the fair crew, hailing with the
naive salutation, "Talofa lee" ("Love to you, chief"), asked:

"Schoon come Melike?"

"Love to you," I answered, and said, "Yes."

"You man come 'lone?"

Again I answered, "Yes."

"I don't believe that. You had other mans, and you eat 'em."

At this sally the others laughed. "What for you come long way?" they
asked.

"To hear you ladies sing," I replied.

[Illustration: First exchange of courtesies in Samoa.]

"Oh, talofa lee!" they all cried, and sang on. Their voices filled the
air with music that rolled across to the grove of tall palms on the
other side of the harbor and back. Soon after this six young men came
down in the United States consul-general's boat, singing in parts and
beating time with their oars. In my interview with them I came off
better than with the damsels in the canoe. They bore an invitation
from General Churchill for me to come and dine at the consulate. There
was a lady's hand in things about the consulate at Samoa. Mrs.
Churchill picked the crew for the general's boat, and saw to it that
they wore a smart uniform and that they could sing the Samoan
boatsong, which in the first week Mrs. Churchill herself could sing
like a native girl.

Next morning bright and early Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson came to the
_Spray_ and invited me to Vailima the following day. I was of course
thrilled when I found myself, after so many days of adventure, face to
face with this bright woman, so lately the companion of the author who
had delighted me on the voyage. The kindly eyes, that looked me
through and through, sparkled when we compared notes of adventure. I
marveled at some of her experiences and escapes. She told me that,
along with her husband, she had voyaged in all manner of rickety craft
among the islands of the Pacific, reflectively adding, "Our tastes
were similar."

Following the subject of voyages, she gave me the four beautiful
volumes of sailing directories for the Mediterranean, writing on the
fly-leaf of the first:

To CAPTAIN SLOCUM. These volumes have been read and re-read many times
by my husband, and I am very sure that he would be pleased that they
should be passed on to the sort of seafaring man that he liked above
all others. FANNY V. DE G. STEVENSON.

Mrs. Stevenson also gave me a great directory of the Indian Ocean. It
was not without a feeling of reverential awe that I received the books
so nearly direct from the hand of Tusitala, "who sleeps in the
forest." Aolele, the _Spray_ will cherish your gift.

[Illustration: Vailima, the home of Robert Louis Stevenson.]

The novelist's stepson, Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, walked through the Vailima
mansion with me and bade me write my letters at the old desk. I
thought it would be presumptuous to do that; it was sufficient for me
to enter the hall on the floor of which the "Writer of Tales,"
according to the Samoan custom, was wont to sit.

Coming through the main street of Apia one day, with my hosts, all
bound for the _Spray_, Mrs. Stevenson on horseback, I walking by her
side, and Mr. and Mrs. Osbourne close in our wake on bicycles, at a
sudden turn in the road we found ourselves mixed with a remarkable
native procession, with a somewhat primitive band of music, in front
of us, while behind was a festival or a funeral, we could not tell
which. Several of the stoutest men carried bales and bundles on poles.
Some were evidently bales of tapa-cloth. The burden of one set of
poles, heavier than the rest, however, was not so easily made out. My
curiosity was whetted to know whether it was a roast pig or something
of a gruesome nature, and I inquired about it. "I don't know," said
Mrs. Stevenson, "whether this is a wedding or a funeral. Whatever it
is, though, captain, our place seems to be at the head of it."

The _Spray_ being in the stream, we boarded her from the beach
abreast, in the little razeed Gloucester dory, which had been painted
a smart green. Our combined weight loaded it gunwale to the water, and
I was obliged to steer with great care to avoid swamping. The
adventure pleased Mrs. Stevenson greatly, and as we paddled along she
sang, "They went to sea in a pea-green boat." I could understand her
saying of her husband and herself, "Our tastes were similar."

As I sailed farther from the center of civilization I heard less and
less of what would and what would not pay. Mrs. Stevenson, in speaking
of my voyage, did not once ask me what I would make out of it. When I
came to a Samoan village, the chief did not ask the price of gin, or
say, "How much will you pay for roast pig?" but, "Dollar, dollar,"
said he; "white man know only dollar."

"Never mind dollar. The _tapo_ has prepared ava; let us drink and
rejoice." The tapo is the virgin hostess of the village; in this
instance it was Taloa, daughter of the chief. "Our taro is good; let
us eat. On the tree there is fruit. Let the day go by; why should we
mourn over that? There are millions of days coming. The breadfruit is
yellow in the sun, and from the cloth-tree is Taloa's gown. Our house,
which is good, cost but the labor of building it, and there is no lock
on the door."

While the days go thus in these Southern islands we at the North are
struggling for the bare necessities of life.

For food the islanders have only to put out their hand and take what
nature has provided for them; if they plant a banana-tree, their only
care afterward is to see that too many trees do not grow. They have
great reason to love their country and to fear the white man's yoke,
for once harnessed to the plow, their life would no longer be a poem.

The chief of the village of Caini, who was a tall and dignified Tonga
man, could be approached only through an interpreter and talking man.
It was perfectly natural for him to inquire the object of my visit,
and I was sincere when I told him that my reason for casting anchor in
Samoa was to see their fine men, and fine women, too. After a
considerable pause the chief said: "The captain has come a long way to
see so little; but," he added, "the tapo must sit nearer the captain."
"Yack," said Taloa, who had so nearly learned to say yes in English,
and suiting the action to the word, she hitched a peg nearer, all
hands sitting in a circle upon mats. I was no less taken with the
chiefs eloquence than delighted with the simplicity of all he said.
About him there was nothing pompous; he might have been taken for a
great scholar or statesman, the least assuming of the men I met on the
voyage. As for Taloa, a sort of Queen of the May, and the other tapo
girls, well, it is wise to learn as soon as possible the manners and
customs of these hospitable people, and meanwhile not to mistake for
over-familiarity that which is intended as honor to a guest. I was
fortunate in my travels in the islands, and saw nothing to shake one's
faith in native virtue.

To the unconventional mind the punctilious etiquette of Samoa is
perhaps a little painful. For instance, I found that in partaking of
ava, the social bowl, I was supposed to toss a little of the beverage
over my shoulder, or pretend to do so, and say, "Let the gods drink,"
and then drink it all myself; and the dish, invariably a
cocoanut-shell, being empty, I might not pass it politely as we would
do, but politely throw it twirling across the mats at the tapo.

My most grievous mistake while at the islands was made on a nag,
which, inspired by a bit of good road, must needs break into a smart
trot through a village. I was instantly hailed by the chief's deputy,
who in an angry voice brought me to a halt. Perceiving that I was in
trouble, I made signs for pardon, the safest thing to do, though I did
not know what offense I had committed. My interpreter coming up,
however, put me right, but not until a long palaver had ensued. The
deputy's hail, liberally translated, was: "Ahoy, there, on the frantic
steed! Know you not that it is against the law to ride thus through
the village of our fathers?" I made what apologies I could, and
offered to dismount and, like my servant, lead my nag by the bridle.
This, the interpreter told me, would also be a grievous wrong, and so
I again begged for pardon. I was summoned to appear before a chief;
but my interpreter, being a wit as well as a bit of a rogue, explained
that I was myself something of a chief, and should not be detained,
being on a most important mission. In my own behalf I could only say
that I was a stranger, but, pleading all this, I knew I still deserved
to be roasted, at which the chief showed a fine row of teeth and
seemed pleased, but allowed me to pass on.

[Illustration: The _Spray's_ course from the Strait of Magellan to
Torres Strait.]

[Illustration: The _Spray's_ course from Australia to South Africa.]

The chief of the Tongas and his family at Caini, returning my visit,
brought presents of tapa-cloth and fruits. Taloa, the princess,
brought a bottle of cocoanut-oil for my hair, which another man might
have regarded as coming late.

It was impossible to entertain on the _Spray_ after the royal manner
in which I had been received by the chief. His fare had included all
that the land could afford, fruits, fowl, fishes, and flesh, a hog
having been roasted whole. I set before them boiled salt pork and salt
beef, with which I was well supplied, and in the evening took them all
to a new amusement in the town, a rocking-horse merry-go-round, which
they called a "kee-kee," meaning theater; and in a spirit of justice
they pulled off the horses' tails, for the proprietors of the show,
two hard-fisted countrymen of mine, I grieve to say, unceremoniously
hustled them off for a new set, almost at the first spin. I was not a
little proud of my Tonga friends; the chief, finest of them all,
carried a portentous club. As for the theater, through the greed of
the proprietors it was becoming unpopular, and the representatives of
the three great powers, in want of laws which they could enforce,
adopted a vigorous foreign policy, taxing it twenty-five per cent, on
the gate-money. This was considered a great stroke of legislative
reform!

It was the fashion of the native visitors to the _Spray_ to come over
the bows, where they could reach the head-gear and climb aboard with
ease, and on going ashore to jump off the stern and swim away; nothing
could have been more delightfully simple. The modest natives wore
_lava-lava_ bathing-dresses, a native cloth from the bark of the
mulberry-tree, and they did no harm to the _Spray_. In summer-land
Samoa their coming and going was only a merry every-day scene. One
day the head teachers of Papauta College, Miss Schultze and Miss
Moore, came on board with their ninety-seven young women students.
They were all dressed in white, and each wore a red rose, and of
course came in boats or canoes in the cold-climate style. A merrier
bevy of girls it would be difficult to find. As soon as they got on
deck, by request of one of the teachers, they sang "The Watch on the
Rhine," which I had never heard before. "And now," said they all,
"let's up anchor and away." But I had no inclination to sail from
Samoa so soon. On leaving the _Spray_ these accomplished young women
each seized a palm-branch or paddle, or whatever else would serve the
purpose, and literally paddled her own canoe. Each could have swum as
readily, and would have done so, I dare say, had it not been for the
holiday muslin.

It was not uncommon at Apia to see a young woman swimming alongside a
small canoe with a passenger for the _Spray_. Mr. Trood, an old Eton
boy, came in this manner to see me, and he exclaimed, "Was ever king
ferried in such state?" Then, suiting his action to the sentiment, he
gave the damsel pieces of silver till the natives watching on shore
yelled with envy. My own canoe, a small dugout, one day when it had
rolled over with me, was seized by a party of fair bathers, and before
I could get my breath, almost, was towed around and around the
_Spray_, while I sat in the bottom of it, wondering what they would do
next. But in this case there were six of them, three on a side, and I
could not help myself. One of the sprites, I remember, was a young
English lady, who made more sport of it than any of the others.




CHAPTER XIII


Samoan royalty--King Malietoa--Good-by to friends at Vailima--Leaving
Fiji to the south--Arrival at Newcastle, Australia--The yachts of
Sydney--A ducking on the _Spray_--Commodore Foy presents the sloop
with a new suit of sails--On to Melbourne--A shark that proved to be
valuable--A change of course--The "Rain of Blood"--In Tasmania.

At Apia I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. A. Young, the father of the
late Queen Margaret, who was Queen of Manua from 1891 to 1895. Her
grandfather was an English sailor who married a princess. Mr. Young is
now the only survivor of the family, two of his children, the last of
them all, having been lost in an island trader which a few months
before had sailed, never to return. Mr. Young was a Christian
gentleman, and his daughter Margaret was accomplished in graces that
would become any lady. It was with pain that I saw in the newspapers a
sensational account of her life and death, taken evidently from a
paper in the supposed interest of a benevolent society, but without
foundation in fact. And the startling head-lines saying, "Queen
Margaret of Manua is dead," could hardly be called news in 1898, the
queen having then been dead three years.

While hobnobbing, as it were, with royalty, I called on the king
himself, the late Malietoa. King Malietoa was a great ruler; he never
got less than forty-five dollars a month for the job, as he told me
himself, and this amount had lately been raised, so that he could live
on the fat of the land and not any longer be called "Tin-of-salmon
Malietoa" by graceless beach-combers.

As my interpreter and I entered the front door of the palace, the
king's brother, who was viceroy, sneaked in through a taro-patch by
the back way, and sat cowering by the door while I told my story to
the king. Mr. W---of New York, a gentleman interested in missionary
work, had charged me, when I sailed, to give his remembrance to the
king of the Cannibal Islands, other islands of course being meant; but
the good King Malietoa, notwithstanding that his people have not eaten
a missionary in a hundred years, received the message himself, and
seemed greatly pleased to hear so directly from the publishers of the
"Missionary Review," and wished me to make his compliments in return.
His Majesty then excused himself, while I talked with his daughter,
the beautiful Faamu-Sami (a name signifying "To make the sea burn"),
and soon reappeared in the full-dress uniform of the German
commander-in-chief, Emperor William himself; for, stupidly enough, I
had not sent my credentials ahead that the king might be in full
regalia to receive me. Calling a few days later to say good-by to
Faamu-Sami, I saw King Malietoa for the last time.

Of the landmarks in the pleasant town of Apia, my memory rests first
on the little school just back of the London Missionary Society
coffee-house and reading-rooms, where Mrs. Bell taught English to
about a hundred native children, boys and girls. Brighter children you
will not find anywhere.

"Now, children," said Mrs. Bell, when I called one day, "let us show
the captain that we know something about the Cape Horn he passed in
the _Spray_" at which a lad of nine or ten years stepped nimbly
forward and read Basil Hall's fine description of the great cape, and
read it well. He afterward copied the essay for me in a clear hand.

Calling to say good-by to my friends at Vailima, I met Mrs. Stevenson
in her Panama hat, and went over the estate with her. Men were at work
clearing the land, and to one of them she gave an order to cut a
couple of bamboo-trees for the _Spray_ from a clump she had planted
four years before, and which had grown to the height of sixty feet. I
used them for spare spars, and the butt of one made a serviceable
jib-boom on the homeward voyage. I had then only to take ava with the
family and be ready for sea. This ceremony, important among Samoans,
was conducted after the native fashion. A Triton horn was sounded to
let us know when the beverage was ready, and in response we all
clapped hands. The bout being in honor of the _Spray_, it was my turn
first, after the custom of the country, to spill a little over my
shoulder; but having forgotten the Samoan for "Let the gods drink," I
repeated the equivalent in Russian and Chinook, as I remembered a word
in each, whereupon Mr. Osbourne pronounced me a confirmed Samoan. Then
I said "Tofah!" to my good friends of Samoa, and all wishing the
_Spray_ _bon voyage_, she stood out of the harbor August 20, 1896, and
continued on her course. A sense of loneliness seized upon me as the
islands faded astern, and as a remedy for it I crowded on sail for
lovely Australia, which was not a strange land to me; but for long
days in my dreams Vailima stood before the prow.

The _Spray_ had barely cleared the islands when a sudden burst of the
trades brought her down to close reefs, and she reeled off one hundred
and eighty-four miles the first day, of which I counted forty miles of
current in her favor. Finding a rough sea, I swung her off free and
sailed north of the Horn Islands, also north of Fiji instead of south,
as I had intended, and coasted down the west side of the archipelago.
Thence I sailed direct for New South Wales, passing south of New
Caledonia, and arrived at Newcastle after a passage of forty-two days,
mostly of storms and gales.

One particularly severe gale encountered near New Caledonia foundered
the American clipper-ship _Patrician_ farther south. Again, nearer the
coast of Australia, when, however, I was not aware that the gale was
extraordinary, a French mail-steamer from New Caledonia for Sydney,
blown considerably out of her course, on her arrival reported it an
awful storm, and to inquiring friends said: "Oh, my! we don't know
what has become of the little sloop _Spray_. We saw her in the thick
of the storm." The _Spray_ was all right, lying to like a duck. She
was under a goose's wing mainsail, and had had a dry deck while the
passengers on the steamer, I heard later, were up to their knees in
water in the saloon. When their ship arrived at Sydney they gave the
captain a purse of gold for his skill and seamanship in bringing them
safe into port. The captain of the _Spray_ got nothing of this sort.
In this gale I made the land about Seal Rocks, where the steamship
_Catherton_, with many lives, was lost a short time before. I was many
hours off the rocks, beating back and forth, but weathered them at
last.

I arrived at Newcastle in the teeth of a gale of wind. It was a stormy
season. The government pilot, Captain Cumming, met me at the harbor
bar, and with the assistance of a steamer carried my vessel to a safe
berth. Many visitors came on board, the first being the United States
consul, Mr. Brown. Nothing was too good for the _Spray_ here. All
government dues were remitted, and after I had rested a few days a
port pilot with a tug carried her to sea again, and she made along the
coast toward the harbor of Sydney, where she arrived on the following
day, October 10, 1896.

I came to in a snug cove near Manly for the night, the Sydney harbor
police-boat giving me a pluck into anchorage while they gathered data
from an old scrap-book of mine, which seemed to interest them. Nothing
escapes the vigilance of the New South Wales police; their reputation
is known the world over. They made a shrewd guess that I could give
them some useful information, and they were the first to meet me. Some
one said they came to arrest me, and--well, let it go at that.

[Illustration: The accident at Sydney.]

Summer was approaching, and the harbor of Sydney was blooming with
yachts. Some of them came down to the weather-beaten _Spray_ and
sailed round her at Shelcote, where she took a berth for a few days.
At Sydney I was at once among friends. The _Spray_ remained at the
various watering-places in the great port for several weeks, and was
visited by many agreeable people, frequently by officers of H.M.S.
_Orlando_ and their friends. Captain Fisher, the commander, with a
party of young ladies from the city and gentlemen belonging to his
ship, came one day to pay me a visit in the midst of a deluge of rain.
I never saw it rain harder even in Australia. But they were out for
fun, and rain could not dampen their feelings, however hard it
poured. But, as ill luck would have it, a young gentleman of another
party on board, in the full uniform of a very great yacht club, with
brass buttons enough to sink him, stepping quickly to get out of the
wet, tumbled holus-bolus, head and heels, into a barrel of water I had
been coopering, and being a short man, was soon out of sight, and
nearly drowned before he was rescued. It was the nearest to a casualty
on the _Spray_ in her whole course, so far as I know. The young man
having come on board with compliments made the mishap most
embarrassing. It had been decided by his club that the _Spray_ could
not be officially recognized, for the reason that she brought no
letters from yacht-clubs in America, and so I say it seemed all the
more embarrassing and strange that I should have caught at least one
of the members, in a barrel, and, too, when I was not fishing for
yachtsmen.

The typical Sydney boat is a handy sloop of great beam and enormous
sail-carrying power; but a capsize is not uncommon, for they carry
sail like vikings. In Sydney I saw all manner of craft, from the smart
steam-launch and sailing-cutter to the smaller sloop and canoe
pleasuring on the bay. Everybody owned a boat. If a boy in Australia
has not the means to buy him a boat he builds one, and it is usually
one not to be ashamed of. The _Spray_ shed her Joseph's coat, the
Fuego mainsail, in Sydney, and wearing a new suit, the handsome
present of Commodore Foy, she was flagship of the Johnstone's Bay
Flying Squadron when the circumnavigators of Sydney harbor sailed in
their annual regatta. They "recognized" the _Spray_ as belonging to "a
club of her own," and with more Australian sentiment than
fastidiousness gave her credit for her record.

Time flew fast those days in Australia, and it was December 6,1896,
when the _Spray_ sailed from Sydney. My intention was now to sail
around Cape Leeuwin direct for Mauritius on my way home, and so I
coasted along toward Bass Strait in that direction.

There was little to report on this part of the voyage, except
changeable winds, "busters," and rough seas. The 12th of December,
however, was an exceptional day, with a fine coast wind, northeast.
The _Spray_ early in the morning passed Twofold Bay and later Cape
Bundooro in a smooth sea with land close aboard. The lighthouse on the
cape dipped a flag to the _Spray's_ flag, and children on the
balconies of a cottage near the shore waved handkerchiefs as she
passed by. There were only a few people all told on the shore, but the
scene was a happy one. I saw festoons of evergreen in token of
Christmas, near at hand. I saluted the merrymakers, wishing them a
"Merry Christmas." and could hear them say, "I wish you the same."

From Cape Bundooro I passed by Cliff Island in Bass Strait, and
exchanged signals with the light-keepers while the _Spray_ worked up
under the island. The wind howled that day while the sea broke over
their rocky home.

A few days later, December 17, the _Spray_ came in close under
Wilson's Promontory, again seeking shelter. The keeper of the light at
that station, Mr. J. Clark, came on board and gave me directions for
Waterloo Bay, about three miles to leeward, for which I bore up at
once, finding good anchorage there in a sandy cove protected from all
westerly and northerly winds.

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