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.
Anchored here was the ketch _Secret_, a fisherman, and the _Mary_ of
Sydney, a steam ferry-boat fitted for whaling. The captain of the
_Mary_ was a genius, and an Australian genius at that, and smart. His
crew, from a sawmill up the coast, had not one of them seen a live
whale when they shipped; but they were boatmen after an Australian's
own heart, and the captain had told them that to kill a whale was no
more than to kill a rabbit. They believed him, and that settled it. As
luck would have it, the very first one they saw on their cruise,
although an ugly humpback, was a dead whale in no time, Captain Young,
the master of the _Mary_, killing the monster at a single thrust of a
harpoon. It was taken in tow for Sydney, where they put it on
exhibition. Nothing but whales interested the crew of the gallant
_Mary_, and they spent most of their time here gathering fuel along
shore for a cruise on the grounds off Tasmania. Whenever the word
"whale" was mentioned in the hearing of these men their eyes glistened
with excitement.
[Illustration: Captain Slocum working the _Spray_ out of the Yarrow
River, a part of Melbourne harbor.]
We spent three days in the quiet cove, listening to the wind outside.
Meanwhile Captain Young and I explored the shores, visited abandoned
miners' pits, and prospected for gold ourselves.
Our vessels, parting company the morning they sailed, stood away like
sea-birds each on its own course. The wind for a few days was
moderate, and, with unusual luck of fine weather, the _Spray_ made
Melbourne Heads on the 22d of December, and, taken in tow by the
steam-tug Racer, was brought into port.
Christmas day was spent at a berth in the river Yarrow, but I lost
little time in shifting to St. Kilda, where I spent nearly a month.
The _Spray_ paid no port charges in Australia or anywhere else on the
voyage, except at Pernambuco, till she poked her nose into the
custom-house at Melbourne, where she was charged tonnage dues; in this
instance, sixpence a ton on the gross. The collector exacted six
shillings and sixpence, taking off nothing for the fraction under
thirteen tons, her exact gross being 12.70 tons. I squared the matter
by charging people sixpence each for coming on board, and when this
business got dull I caught a shark and charged them sixpence each to
look at that. The shark was twelve feet six inches in length, and
carried a progeny of twenty-six, not one of them less than two feet in
length. A slit of a knife let them out in a canoe full of water,
which, changed constantly, kept them alive one whole day. In less than
an hour from the time I heard of the ugly brute it was on deck and on
exhibition, with rather more than the amount of the _Spray's_ tonnage
dues already collected. Then I hired a good Irishman, Tom Howard by
name,--who knew all about sharks, both on the land and in the sea, and
could talk about them,--to answer questions and lecture. When I found
that I could not keep abreast of the questions I turned the
responsibility over to him.
[Illustration: The shark on the deck of the _Spray_.]
Returning from the bank, where I had been to deposit money early in
the day, I found Howard in the midst of a very excited crowd, telling
imaginary habits of the fish. It was a good show; the people wished to
see it, and it was my wish that they should; but owing to his
over-stimulated enthusiasm, I was obliged to let Howard resign. The
income from the show and the proceeds of the tallow I had gathered in
the Strait of Magellan, the last of which I had disposed of to a
German soap-boiler at Samoa, put me in ample funds.
January 24, 1897, found the _Spray_ again in tow of the tug _Racer_,
leaving Hobson's Bay after a pleasant time in Melbourne and St. Kilda,
which had been protracted by a succession of southwest winds that
seemed never-ending.
In the summer months, that is, December, January, February, and
sometimes March, east winds are prevalent through Bass Strait and
round Cape Leeuwin; but owing to a vast amount of ice drifting up from
the Antarctic, this was all changed now and emphasized with much bad
weather, so much so that I considered it impracticable to pursue the
course farther. Therefore, instead of thrashing round cold and stormy
Cape Leeuwin, I decided to spend a pleasanter and more profitable time
in Tasmania, waiting for the season for favorable winds through Torres
Strait, by way of the Great Barrier Reef, the route I finally decided
on. To sail this course would be taking advantage of anticyclones,
which never fail, and besides it would give me the chance to put foot
on the shores of Tasmania, round which I had sailed years before.
I should mention that while I was at Melbourne there occurred one of
those extraordinary storms sometimes called "rain of blood," the first
of the kind in many years about Australia. The "blood" came from a
fine brick-dust matter afloat in the air from the deserts. A
rain-storm setting in brought down this dust simply as mud; it fell in
such quantities that a bucketful was collected from the sloop's
awnings, which were spread at the time. When the wind blew hard and I
was obliged to furl awnings, her sails, unprotected on the booms, got
mud-stained from clue to earing.
The phenomena of dust-storms, well understood by scientists, are not
uncommon on the coast of Africa. Reaching some distance out over the
sea, they frequently cover the track of ships, as in the case of the
one through which the _Spray_ passed in the earlier part of her
voyage. Sailors no longer regard them with superstitious fear, but our
credulous brothers on the land cry out "Rain of blood!" at the first
splash of the awful mud.
The rip off Port Phillip Heads, a wild place, was rough when the
_Spray_ entered Hobson's Bay from the sea, and was rougher when she
stood out. But, with sea-room and under sail, she made good weather
immediately after passing it. It was only a few hours' sail to
Tasmania across the strait, the wind being fair and blowing hard. I
carried the St. Kilda shark along, stuffed with hay, and disposed of
it to Professor Porter, the curator of the Victoria Museum of
Launceston, which is at the head of the Tamar. For many a long day to
come may be seen there the shark of St. Kilda. Alas! the good but
mistaken people of St. Kilda, when the illustrated journals with
pictures of my shark reached their news-stands, flew into a passion,
and swept all papers containing mention of fish into the fire; for St.
Kilda was a watering-place--and the idea of a shark _there_! But my
show went on.
[Illustration: On board at St. Kilda. Retracing on the chart the
course of the _Spray_ from Boston.]
The _Spray_ was berthed on the beach at a small jetty at Launceston
while the tide driven in by the gale that brought her up the river was
unusually high; and she lay there hard and fast, with not enough water
around her at any time after to wet one's feet till she was ready to
sail; then, to float her, the ground was dug from under her keel.
In this snug place I left her in charge of three children, while I
made journeys among the hills and rested my bones, for the coming
voyage, on the moss-covered rocks at the gorge hard by, and among the
ferns I found wherever I went. My vessel was well taken care of. I
never returned without finding that the decks had been washed and that
one of the children, my nearest neighbor's little girl from across the
road, was at the gangway attending to visitors, while the others, a
brother and sister, sold marine curios such as were in the cargo, on
"ship's account." They were a bright, cheerful crew, and people came a
long way to hear them tell the story of the voyage, and of the
monsters of the deep "the captain had slain." I had only to keep
myself away to be a hero of the first water; and it suited me very
well to do so and to rusticate in the forests and among the streams.