Produced by D Garcia, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD
[Illustration: The "Spray" from a photograph taken in Australian
waters.]
SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD
By Captain Joshua Slocum
Illustrated by THOMAS FOGARTY AND GEORGE VARIAN
[Illustration]
TO THE ONE WHO SAID: "THE 'SPRAY' WILL COME BACK."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
A blue-nose ancestry with Yankee proclivities--Youthful fondness for
the sea--Master of the ship _Northern Light_--Loss of the
_Aquidneck_--Return home from Brazil in the canoe _Liberdade_--The
gift of a "ship"--The rebuilding of the _Spray_--Conundrums in regard
to finance and calking--The launching of the _Spray_.
CHAPTER II
Failure as a fisherman--A voyage around the world projected--From
Boston to Gloucester--Fitting out for the ocean voyage--Half of a dory
for a ship's boat--The run from Gloucester to Nova Scotia--A shaking
up in home waters--Among old friends.
CHAPTER III
Good-by to the American coast--Off Sable Island in a fog--In the open
sea--The man in the moon takes an interest in the voyage--The first
fit of loneliness--The _Spray_ encounters _La Vaguisa_--A bottle of
wine from the Spaniard--A bout of words with the captain of the
_Java_--The steamship _Olympia_ spoken--Arrival at the Azores.
CHAPTER IV
Squally weather in the Azores--High living--Delirious from cheese and
plums--The pilot of the _Pinta_--At Gibraltar--Compliments exchanged
with the British navy--A picnic on the Morocco shore.
CHAPTER V
Sailing from Gibraltar with the assistance of her Majesty's tug--The
_Spray's_ course changed from the Suez Canal to Cape Horn--Chased by a
Moorish pirate--A comparison with Columbus--The Canary Islands--The
Cape Verde Islands--Sea life--Arrival at Pernambuco--A bill against
the Brazilian government--Preparing for the stormy weather of the cape.
CHAPTER VI
Departure from Rio de Janeiro--The _Spray_ ashore on the sands of
Uruguay--A narrow escape from shipwreck--The boy who found a
sloop--The _Spray_ floated but somewhat damaged--Courtesies from the
British consul at Maldonado--A warm greeting at Montevideo--An
excursion to Buenos Aires--Shortening the mast and bowsprit.
CHAPTER VII
Weighing anchor at Buenos Aires--An outburst of emotion at the mouth
of the Plate--Submerged by a great wave--A stormy entrance to the
strait--Captain Samblich's happy gift of a bag of carpet-tacks--Off
Cape Froward--Chased by Indians from Fortescue Bay--A miss-shot for
"Black Pedro"--Taking in supplies of wood and water at Three Island
Cove--Animal life.
CHAPTER VIII
From Cape Pillar into the Pacific--Driven by a tempest toward Cape
Horn--Captain Slocum's greatest sea adventure--Reaching the strait
again by way of Cockburn Channel--Some savages find the
carpet-tacks--Danger from firebrands--A series of fierce
williwaws--Again sailing westward.
CHAPTER IX
Repairing the _Spray's_ sails--Savages and an obstreperous anchor--A
spider-fight--An encounter with Black Pedro--A visit to the steamship
_Colombia_--On the defensive against a fleet of canoes--A record of
voyages through the strait--A chance cargo of tallow.
CHAPTER X
Running to Port Angosto in a snow-storm--A defective sheet-rope places
the _Spray_ in peril--The _Spray_ as a target for a Fuegian arrow--The
island of Alan Erric--Again in the open Pacific--The run to the island
of Juan Fernandez--An absentee king--At Robinson Crusoe's anchorage.
CHAPTER XI
The islanders of Juan Fernandez entertained with Yankee doughnuts--The
beauties of Robinson Crusoe's realm--The mountain monument to
Alexander Selkirk--Robinson Crusoe's cave--A stroll with the children
of the island--Westward ho! with a friendly gale--A month's free
sailing with the Southern Cross and the sun for guides--Sighting the
Marquesas--Experience in reckoning.
CHAPTER XII
Seventy-two days without a port--Whales and birds--A peep into the
_Spray's_ galley--Flying-fish for breakfast--A welcome at Apia--A
visit from Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson--At Vailima--Samoan
hospitality--Arrested for fast riding--An amusing
merry-go-round--Teachers and pupils of Papauta College--At the mercy
of sea-nymphs.
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.
CHAPTER XIV
A testimonial from a lady--Cruising round Tasmania--The skipper
delivers his first lecture on the voyage--Abundant provisions--An
inspection of the _Spray_ for safety at Devonport--Again at
Sydney--Northward bound for Torres Strait--An amateur
shipwreck--Friends on the Australian coast--Perils of a coral sea.
CHAPTER XV
Arrival at Port Denison, Queensland--A lecture--Reminiscences of
Captain Cook--Lecturing for charity at Cooktown--A happy escape from a
coral reef--Home Island, Sunday Island, Bird Island--An American
pearl-fisherman--Jubilee at Thursday Island--A new ensign for the
_Spray_--Booby Island--Across the Indian Ocean--Christmas Island.
CHAPTER XVI
A call for careful navigation--Three hours' steering in twenty-three
days--Arrival at the Keeling Cocos Islands--A curious chapter of
social history--A welcome from the children of the islands--Cleaning
and painting the _Spray_ on the beach--A Mohammedan blessing for a pot
of jam--Keeling as a paradise--A risky adventure in a small boat--Away
to Rodriguez--Taken for Antichrist--The governor calms the fears of
the people--A lecture--A convent in the hills.
CHAPTER XVII
A clean bill of health at Mauritius--Sailing the voyage over again in
the opera-house--A newly discovered plant named in honor of the
_Spray's_ skipper--A party of young ladies out for a sail--A bivouac
on deck--A warm reception at Durban--A friendly cross-examination by
Henry M. Stanley--Three wise Boers seek proof of the flatness of the
earth--Leaving South Africa.
CHAPTER XVIII
Bounding the "Cape of Storms" in olden time--A rough Christmas--The
_Spray_ ties up for a three months' rest at Cape Town--A railway trip
to the Transvaal--President Krüger's odd definition of the _Spray's_
voyage--His terse sayings--Distinguished guests on the
_Spray_--Cocoanut fiber as a padlock--Courtesies from the admiral of
the Queen's navy--Off for St. Helena--Land in sight.
CHAPTER XIX
In the isle of Napoleon's exile--Two lectures--A guest in the
ghost-room at Plantation House--An excursion to historic
Longwood--Coffee in the husk, and a goat to shell it--The _Spray's_
ill luck with animals--A prejudice against small dogs--A rat, the
Boston spider, and the cannibal cricket--Ascension Island.
CHAPTER XX
In the favoring current off Cape St. Roque, Brazil--All at sea
regarding the Spanish-American war--An exchange of signals with the
battle-ship _Oregon_--Off Dreyfus's prison on Devil's
Island--Reappearance to the _Spray_ of the north star--The light on
Trinidad--A charming introduction to Grenada--Talks to friendly
auditors.
CHAPTER XXI
Clearing for home--In the calm belt--A sea covered with sargasso--The
jibstay parts in a gale--Welcomed by a tornado off Fire Island--A
change of plan--Arrival at Newport--End of a cruise of over forty-six
thousand miles--The _Spray_ again at Fairhaven.
APPENDIX
LINES AND SAIL-PLAN OF THE "SPRAY"
Her pedigree so far as known--The lines of the _Spray_--Her
self-steering qualities--Sail-plan and steering-gear--An unprecedented
feat--A final word of cheer to would-be navigators.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE "Spray" Frontispiece FROM a photograph taken in Australian waters.
THE "Northern Light," CAPTAIN JOSHUA SLOCUM, BOUND FOR LIVERPOOL, 1885
CROSS-SECTION OF THE "SPRAY"
"IT'LL CRAWL"
"NO DORG NOR NO CAT"
THE DEACON'S DREAM
CAPTAIN SLOCUM'S CHRONOMETER
"GOOD EVENING, SIR"
HE ALSO SENT HIS CARD
CHART OF THE "SPRAY'S" COURSE AROUND THE WORLD--APRIL 24, 1895, TO
JULY 3, 1898
THE ISLAND OF PICO
CHART OF THE "SPRAY'S" ATLANTIC VOYAGES FROM BOSTON TO GIBRALTAR,
THENCE TO THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN, IN 1895, AND FINALLY HOMEWARD BOUND
FROM THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE IN 1898
THE APPARITION AT THE WHEEL
COMING TO ANCHOR AT GIBRALTAR
THE "SPRAY" AT ANCHOR OFF GIBRALTAR
CHASED BY PIRATES
I SUDDENLY REMEMBERED THAT I COULD NOT SWIM
A DOUBLE SURPRISE
AT THE SIGN OF THE COMET
A GREAT WAVE OFF THE PATAGONIAN COAST
ENTRANCE TO THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN
THE COURSE OF THE "SPRAY" THROUGH THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN
THE MAN WHO WOULDN'T SHIP WITHOUT ANOTHER "MON AND A DOOG"
A FUEGIAN GIRL
LOOKING WEST FROM FORTESCUE BAY, WHERE THE "SPRAY" WAS CHASED BY
INDIANS
A BRUSH WITH FUEGIANS
A BIT OF FRIENDLY ASSISTANCE
CAPE PILLAR
THEY HOWLED LIKE A PACK OF HOUNDS
A GLIMPSE OF SANDY POINT (PUNTA ARENAS) IN THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN
"YAMMERSCHOONER!"
A CONTRAST IN LIGHTING--THE ELECTRIC LIGHTS OF THE "COLOMBIA" AND THE
CANOE FIRES OF THE FORTESCUE INDIANS
RECORDS OF PASSAGES THROUGH THE STRAIT AT THE HEAD OF BORGIA BAY
SALVING WRECKAGE
THE FIRST SHOT UNCOVERED THREE FUEGIANS
THE "SPRAY" APPROACHING JUAN FERNANDEZ, ROBINSON CRUSOE'S ISLAND
THE HOUSE OF THE KING
ROBINSON CRUSOE'S CAVE
THE MAN WHO CALLED A CABRA A GOAT
MEETING WITH THE WHALE
FIRST EXCHANGE OF COURTESIES IN SAMOA
VAILIMA, THE HOME OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
THE "SPRAY'S" COURSE FROM AUSTRALIA TO SOUTH AFRICA
THE ACCIDENT AT SYDNEY
CAPTAIN SLOCUM WORKING THE "SPRAY" OUT OF THE YARROW RIVER, A PART OF
MELBOURNE HARBOR
THE SHARK ON THE DECK OF THE "SPRAY"
ON BOARD AT ST. KILDA. RETRACING ON THE CHART THE COURSE OF THE
"SPRAY" FROM BOSTON
THE "SPRAY" IN HER PORT DUSTER AT DEVONPORT, TASMANIA, FEBRUARY 22,
1897
"IS IT A-GOIN' TO BLOW?"
THE "SPRAY" LEAVING SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, IN THE NEW SUIT OF SAILS GIVEN
BY COMMODORE FOY OF AUSTRALIA
THE "SPRAY" ASHORE FOR "BOOT-TOPPING" AT THE KEELING ISLANDS
CAPTAIN SLOCUM DRIFTING OUT TO SEA
THE "SPRAY" AT MAURITIUS
CAPTAIN JOSHUA SLOCUM
CARTOON PRINTED IN THE CAPE TOWN "OWL" OF MARCH 5, 1898, IN CONNECTION
WITH AN ITEM ABOUT CAPTAIN SLOCUM'S TRIP TO PRETORIA
CAPTAIN SLOCUM, SIR ALFRED MILNER (WITH THE TALL HAT), AND COLONEL
SAUNDERSON, M. P., ON THE BOW OF THE "SPRAY" AT CAPE TOWN
THE SPRAY IN THE STORM OF NEW YORK.
READING DAY AND NIGHT THE "SPRAY"
PASSED BY THE "OREGON"
AGAIN TIED TO THE OLD STAKE AT FAIRHAVEN
PLAN OF THE AFTER CABIN OF THE "SPRAY"
DECK-PLAN OF THE "SPRAY"
SAIL-PLAN OF THE "SPRAY"
STEERING-GEAR OF THE "SPRAY"
BODY-PLAN OF THE "SPRAY"
LINES OF THE "SPRAY"
[Illustration:]
SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD
CHAPTER I
A blue-nose ancestry with Yankee proclivities--Youthful fondness for
the sea--Master of the ship _Northern Light_--Loss of the
_Aquidneck_--Return home from Brazil in the canoe _Liberdade_--The
gift of a "ship"--The rebuilding of the _Spray_-Conundrums in regard
to finance and calking--The launching of the _Spray_.
In the fair land of Nova Scotia, a maritime province, there is a ridge
called North Mountain, overlooking the Bay of Fundy on one side and
the fertile Annapolis valley on the other. On the northern slope of
the range grows the hardy spruce-tree, well adapted for ship-timbers,
of which many vessels of all classes have been built. The people of
this coast, hardy, robust, and strong, are disposed to compete in the
world's commerce, and it is nothing against the master mariner if the
birthplace mentioned on his certificate be Nova Scotia. I was born in
a cold spot, on coldest North Mountain, on a cold February 20, though
I am a citizen of the United States--a naturalized Yankee, if it may
be said that Nova Scotians are not Yankees in the truest sense of the
word. On both sides my family were sailors; and if any Slocum should
be found not seafaring, he will show at least an inclination to
whittle models of boats and contemplate voyages. My father was the
sort of man who, if wrecked on a desolate island, would find his way
home, if he had a jack-knife and could find a tree. He was a good
judge of a boat, but the old clay farm which some calamity made his
was an anchor to him. He was not afraid of a capful of wind, and he
never took a back seat at a camp-meeting or a good, old-fashioned
revival.
As for myself, the wonderful sea charmed me from the first. At the age
of eight I had already been afloat along with other boys on the bay,
with chances greatly in favor of being drowned. When a lad I filled
the important post of cook on a fishing-schooner; but I was not long in
the galley, for the crew mutinied at the appearance of my first duff,
and "chucked me out" before I had a chance to shine as a culinary
artist. The next step toward the goal of happiness found me before the
mast in a full-rigged ship bound on a foreign voyage. Thus I came
"over the bows," and not in through the cabin windows, to the command
of a ship.
My best command was that of the magnificent ship _Northern Light_, of
which I was part-owner. I had a right to be proud of her, for at that
time--in the eighties--she was the finest American sailing-vessel
afloat. Afterward I owned and sailed the _Aquidneck_, a little bark
which of all man's handiwork seemed to me the nearest to perfection of
beauty, and which in speed, when the wind blew, asked no favors of
steamers, I had been nearly twenty years a shipmaster when I quit her
deck on the coast of Brazil, where she was wrecked. My home voyage to
New York with my family was made in the canoe _Liberdade_, without
accident.
[Illustration: Drawn by W. Taber. The _Northern Light_, Captain Joshua
Slocum, bound for Liverpool, 1885.]
My voyages were all foreign. I sailed as freighter and trader
principally to China, Australia, and Japan, and among the Spice
Islands. Mine was not the sort of life to make one long to coil up
one's ropes on land, the customs and ways of which I had finally
almost forgotten. And so when times for freighters got bad, as at last
they did, and I tried to quit the sea, what was there for an old
sailor to do? I was born in the breezes, and I had studied the sea as
perhaps few men have studied it, neglecting all else. Next in
attractiveness, after seafaring, came ship-building. I longed to be
master in both professions, and in a small way, in time, I
accomplished my desire. From the decks of stout ships in the worst
gales I had made calculations as to the size and sort of ship safest
for all weather and all seas. Thus the voyage which I am now to
narrate was a natural outcome not only of my love of adventure, but of
my lifelong experience.
One midwinter day of 1892, in Boston, where I had been cast up from
old ocean, so to speak, a year or two before, I was cogitating whether
I should apply for a command, and again eat my bread and butter on the
sea, or go to work at the shipyard, when I met an old acquaintance, a
whaling-captain, who said: "Come to Fairhaven and I'll give you a
ship. But," he added, "she wants some repairs." The captain's terms,
when fully explained, were more than satisfactory to me. They included
all the assistance I would require to fit the craft for sea. I was
only too glad to accept, for I had already found that I could not
obtain work in the shipyard without first paying fifty dollars to a
society, and as for a ship to command--there were not enough ships to
go round. Nearly all our tall vessels had been cut down for
coal-barges, and were being ignominiously towed by the nose from port
to port, while many worthy captains addressed themselves to Sailors'
Snug Harbor.
The next day I landed at Fairhaven, opposite New Bedford, and found
that my friend had something of a joke on me. For seven years the joke
had been on him. The "ship" proved to be a very antiquated sloop
called the _Spray,_ which the neighbors declared had been built in the
year 1. She was affectionately propped up in a field, some distance
from salt water, and was covered with canvas. The people of Fairhaven,
I hardly need say, are thrifty and observant. For seven years they had
asked, "I wonder what Captain Eben Pierce is going to do with the old
_Spray?"_ The day I appeared there was a buzz at the gossip exchange:
at last some one had come and was actually at work on the old _Spray._
"Breaking her up, I s'pose?" "No; going to rebuild her." Great was the
amazement. "Will it pay?" was the question which for a year or more I
answered by declaring that I would make it pay.
My ax felled a stout oak-tree near by for a keel, and Farmer Howard,
for a small sum of money, hauled in this and enough timbers for the
frame of the new vessel. I rigged a steam-box and a pot for a boiler.
The timbers for ribs, being straight saplings, were dressed and
steamed till supple, and then bent over a log, where they were secured
till set. Something tangible appeared every day to show for my labor,
and the neighbors made the work sociable. It was a great day in the
_Spray_ shipyard when her new stem was set up and fastened to the new
keel. Whaling-captains came from far to survey it. With one voice they
pronounced it "A 1," and in their opinion "fit to smash ice." The
oldest captain shook my hand warmly when the breast-hooks were put in,
declaring that he could see no reason why the _Spray_ should not "cut
in bow-head" yet off the coast of Greenland. The much-esteemed
stem-piece was from the butt of the smartest kind of a pasture oak. It
afterward split a coral patch in two at the Keeling Islands, and did
not receive a blemish. Better timber for a ship than pasture white oak
never grew. The breast-hooks, as well as all the ribs, were of this
wood, and were steamed and bent into shape as required. It was hard
upon March when I began work in earnest; the weather was cold; still,
there were plenty of inspectors to back me with advice. When a
whaling-captain hove in sight I just rested on my adz awhile and
"gammed" with him.
New Bedford, the home of whaling-captains, is connected with Fairhaven
by a bridge, and the walking is good. They never "worked along up" to
the shipyard too often for me. It was the charming tales about arctic
whaling that inspired me to put a double set of breast-hooks in the
_Spray_, that she might shunt ice.
The seasons came quickly while I worked. Hardly were the ribs of the
sloop up before apple-trees were in bloom. Then the daisies and the
cherries came soon after. Close by the place where the old _Spray_ had
now dissolved rested the ashes of John Cook, a revered Pilgrim father.
So the new _Spray_ rose from hallowed ground. From the deck of the new
craft I could put out my hand and pick cherries that grew over the
little grave. The planks for the new vessel, which I soon came to put
on, were of Georgia pine an inch and a half thick. The operation of
putting them on was tedious, but, when on, the calking was easy. The
outward edges stood slightly open to receive the calking, but the
inner edges were so close that I could not see daylight between them.
All the butts were fastened by through bolts, with screw-nuts
tightening them to the timbers, so that there would be no complaint
from them. Many bolts with screw-nuts were used in other parts of the
construction, in all about a thousand. It was my purpose to make my
vessel stout and strong.
[Illustration: Cross-section of the _Spray_.]
Now, it is a law in Lloyd's that the _Jane_ repaired all out of the
old until she is entirely new is still the _Jane_. The _Spray_ changed
her being so gradually that it was hard to say at what point the old
died or the new took birth, and it was no matter. The bulwarks I built
up of white-oak stanchions fourteen inches high, and covered with
seven-eighth-inch white pine. These stanchions, mortised through a
two-inch covering-board, I calked with thin cedar wedges. They have
remained perfectly tight ever since. The deck I made of
one-and-a-half-inch by three-inch white pine spiked to beams, six by
six inches, of yellow or Georgia pine, placed three feet apart. The
deck-inclosures were one over the aperture of the main hatch, six feet
by six, for a cooking-galley, and a trunk farther aft, about ten feet
by twelve, for a cabin. Both of these rose about three feet above the
deck, and were sunk sufficiently into the hold to afford head-room. In
the spaces along the sides of the cabin, under the deck, I arranged a
berth to sleep in, and shelves for small storage, not forgetting a
place for the medicine-chest. In the midship hold, that is, the space
between cabin and galley, under the deck, was room for provision of
water, salt beef, etc., ample for many months.
The hull of my vessel being now put together as strongly as wood and
iron could make her, and the various rooms partitioned off, I set
about "calking ship." Grave fears were entertained by some that at
this point I should fail. I myself gave some thought to the
advisability of a "professional calker." The very first blow I struck
on the cotton with the calking-iron, which I thought was right, many
others thought wrong. "It'll crawl!" cried a man from Marion, passing
with a basket of clams on his back. "It'll crawl!" cried another from
West Island, when he saw me driving cotton into the seams. Bruno
simply wagged his tail. Even Mr. Ben J----, a noted authority on
whaling-ships, whose mind, however, was said to totter, asked rather
confidently if I did not think "it would crawl." "How fast will it
crawl?" cried my old captain friend, who had been towed by many a
lively sperm-whale. "Tell us how fast," cried he, "that we may get
into port in time."
[Illustration: "'It'll crawl'"]
However, I drove a thread of oakum on top of the cotton, as from the
first I had intended to do. And Bruno again wagged his tail. The
cotton never "crawled." When the calking was finished, two coats of
copper paint were slapped on the bottom, two of white lead on the
topsides and bulwarks. The rudder was then shipped and painted, and on
the following day the _Spray_ was launched. As she rode at her
ancient, rust-eaten anchor, she sat on the water like a swan.
The _Spray's_ dimensions were, when finished, thirty-six feet nine
inches long, over all, fourteen feet two inches wide, and four feet
two inches deep in the hold, her tonnage being nine tons net and
twelve and seventy-one hundredths tons gross.
Then the mast, a smart New Hampshire spruce, was fitted, and likewise
all the small appurtenances necessary for a short cruise. Sails were
bent, and away she flew with my friend Captain Pierce and me, across
Buzzard's Bay on a trial-trip--all right. The only thing that now
worried my friends along the beach was, "Will she pay?" The cost of my
new vessel was $553.62 for materials, and thirteen months of my own
labor. I was several months more than that at Fairhaven, for I got
work now and then on an occasional whale-ship fitting farther down the
harbor, and that kept me the overtime.