LOST IN THE FIJI ISLANDS
From the Samoan Islands to the Fijis, the distance is nine hundred
miles. After we had cleared the Samoan Islands, we ran along under
power for several hours; then the sails were set, and by sun-down we
were speeding along under an eight-knot wind, which grew stronger
and stronger, until by midnight all hands were on deck taking in the
headsails and reefing the mainsails. By morning we were in the grip
of a summer gale, but luckily for us it was in the right direction,
and with only a double-reefed staysail and a triple-reefed mizzen,
we plunged along at about twelve knots an hour. Big waves, looking
as large as a courthouse, would come roaring up to us, and the
little _Snark_ would rise on the side and hover over the dizzy
depths of watery valleys--then down we would go with that queer
sensation that one experiences in riding on a swift elevator,
feeling as if we were falling out from under ourselves; and
sometimes two waves would come so close together that the second one
would break against the side of the _Snark_ with such force as to
throw everyone off his feet, and whoever was steering could only
save himself by hugging the wheel. At such times as this, it was
difficult to steer. For it is not just a matter of pointing a ship
the way you want to go and then keeping the wheel geared that way,
but it is a matter of watching a big wave and then easing up into it
to keep from being broken into splinters; and the sails must be
watched every second, for should the wind ever get behind them, they
would swing across deck with such force as to drag the masts out of
the ship, and everything on deck would be carried away. It looks
easy enough to steer a ship, but it takes a person six months to get
experience enough in it to be trusted alone at the wheel.
For three days we ran along in the teeth of the gale. Everything on
deck that had not been made fast was carried away. The small boats
had been taken in from the davits and lashed upside down on the
deck. No fire could be made in the galley, so we lived mostly on
hardtack. Everything above and below was saturated with salt water.
In the afternoon of the third day, the squall broke as quickly as it
had formed, leaving us rolling on a glassy-smooth sea. The wind
dropped nearly calm and the mists cleared away, so that we could see
the horizon. It is well known how clear the air gets after a storm.
Well, we were so tired that we were for turning into our bunks,
until Henry cried, "Reef ahead!" and on going into the rigging, I
saw reef on all sides of us. Immediately, the sails were backed, and
we hove-to. I started the engines; then, for the rest of the day, we
went round and round the inside of the lagoon, trying to find the
place we had gotten in at. It looked as if we were lost. Each
effort puzzled us only the more. All night we kept up the attempt to
find the passage, but it was not until morning that we found it, a
gap in the reef about two hundred feet wide. And there were
twenty-five miles of reef we might easily have struck on! How we
ever got into the place is a mystery, and remains a mystery to this
day.
There was not an island in sight. It was nearly sun-down when we did
sight several small islands, and after threading in and out of
countless reefs, we managed to get penned up in another lagoon,
where we lay-to for the night. Next day was a repetition of the one
before. So also was the next. For several days we dodged in and out
of reefs and around small islands, charted as the Ringgold Islands.
At times we were in despair. To find the concealed openings in the
reef was like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. On
the eighth day we sighted clear water ahead, and slipping out
between two of the largest islands, Vanua Levu and Taviuni, we slid
into the Koro Sea, which is the name of the two hundred miles of
water that is made into a lagoon by hundreds of small islands
circling around it. Only one small island is inside this sea, and
Jack had decided to go up along the shores of this island and have a
look at the villages. We were perhaps five miles off the land when a
small cutter put out, and heading toward us, would have passed our
bow, but the helmsman swerved around and passed close enough to
speak. He was a woolly-headed Fiji-Islander. His shouting awoke a
white man who was asleep below. On coming on deck, the white man
rubbed his eyes and sleepily asked: "What ship is that?" We replied:
"_Snark_, San Francisco." Then he yelled: "Is that Jack London's
boat?" We told him it was. "Heave-to, I'm coming aboard," he cried;
and as we were in no hurry to get anywhere, we hove-to, and he came
about and also hove-to. Then, in a little dingy, he was rowed to the
_Snark_, and he just fell all over himself with joy. "And to think
that I should ever see Jack London, and on his own boat, too! Why, I
have every one of your books aboard my ship, and all your magazine
articles. But, pshaw! the boys won't believe I ever saw Jack
London." And he nearly cried, he was so happy.
Frank Whitcomb had been trading nearly all his life in the Fiji
Islands, and Jack London's books had been about all he had read. I
believe that in his eyes Jack was the greatest man that ever lived.
He loaded us down with fresh fruits and onions and potatoes. In
return, we gave him several bottles of wine. And the last thing that
long, lanky Frank Whitcomb said as he was rowed away from the
_Snark_ was: "And to think that I should live to shake hands with
Jack London, and on his own boat, too!" Whitcomb was the only man
who ever boarded the _Snark_ at sea.
As we sailed past the solitary island in the Koro Sea, several boats
tried to put off to us, but we were in a hurry, and so did not wait
for them to get over the reef, but sailed on until by night we were
again among small islands and were forced to heave-to until morning.
From the time we had left Samoan waters, it was Jack who always
located our true position on the chart. Jack told me that if he must
do the navigating, he could and would do it and would not be
bothered with anyone else. So everyone on board suspected that
Captain Y---- was to be discharged at Suva, Fiji. The captain had
gotten angry at Wada and had broken his nose, and had it not been
for Mrs. London, I think he would have laid Nakata out, so no one
was sorry that we were to be rid of him.
The next morning after our meeting with Frank Whitcomb, we set sail,
after being hove-to all night, and passed all sorts of queer crafts,
most of them of bamboo, and soon were threading in and out of
countless little green islands, going so close sometimes that we
could plainly make out villages. Now and then canoes would put off
to us. At one place, we went close enough to shore to see people
plainly; they ran down to the beach, shouting at us. We passed many
strange raft-like crafts, made of split bamboo. On some of the
crafts we could see whole families, who stared at us in wonder as we
slid past. These vessels were in some cases loaded with fruits and
sandalwood and copra. I saw several of the same crafts come into
Suva Harbor again after a week's journey at sea. The natives have
no fear, and will sometimes live for months on their queer floats
without stepping ashore.
[Illustration: THE LANDING PLACE AT NAMU, SANTA CRUZ GROUP]
Henry was not slow in taking advantage of the smooth water, and
supplied our table with different kinds of fish every day; in fact,
we always fished in preference to everything else. While calmed or
anchored, he caught many a shark without hook or line, by the old
Kanaka method of spearing them while they lie asleep on the bottom
in shallow water.
It was nearly ten days after we had been tangled up in the Fiji
Islands when we sighted the large island of Viti Levu, and turned
the _Snark's_ bow into another of the South Seas' famous ports.
Suva, Fiji, looms up from the sea, quite like a modern city, and is
really the most modern in this part of the world. Nearly half of its
eight thousand persons are of white blood; and Suva is also chief
station of the Pacific commercial cables. Several modern hotels and
large headquarters for the trading concerns are to be found here.
Fiji is also the headquarters for the British commissioners of the
whole of the South Sea possessions, and here is located the British
penal settlement. Prisoners are sent here from all the English
possessions in the South Seas.
We dropped anchor under supervision of Captain Wooley, the harbour
inspector, and by nightfall Jack and Mrs. London were installed at
Mrs. McDonald's hotel, the most famous hotel in Oceania.
Directly we had dropped anchor, Captain Y---- went ashore, and
walking up and down the streets of Suva, he _would_ have everyone
know that Captain Y---- of the _Snark_ was in town. His boasting led
him from saloon to saloon; and soon he was so drunk that he could
hardly walk. I left him telling of his sea-experiences to a bunch of
bar-flies, and went to the hotel and had late dinner with the
Londons. Captain Y---- did not come aboard that night. Next morning,
when Jack arrived, he asked me to pack all of Y---- 's possessions
and take them ashore; also, he instructed us not to allow the
captain to come aboard again. I had taken Captain Y---- 's clothing
ashore and was making the rounds of stores, buying clothes that I
had had no chance to get since leaving Honolulu. In my absence,
Captain Y---- had gone aboard the _Snark_, and was showing the yacht
to the captain of a big six-masted schooner. He ordered Nakata to
bring drinks on deck, but Nakata refused, telling him that Mr.
London had said he was discharged. Poor Captain Y---- must have felt
very cheap in company with his old captain-friend, but he left the
_Snark_ without making a fuss, and a few days later sailed away on
the six-master as an ordinary seaman--quite a come-down, from
skipper of a smart yacht to the lowest position on a windjammer.
While Suva was very modern for a South Sea city, one had only to go
a few miles into the interior of the island to find primitive life.
I was lucky enough to get in with a party on an excursion trip
across the bay and up several small streams, and spent several days
among the mango swamps, seeing strange people. We had a party of
Fiji prisoners to row our boat, and we went miles and miles through
a dense forest of tropical trees. Every now and then, some native in
his little canoe would stop to look at us in wonder.
Once a native reporter on the _Fiji Times_--his English name was
George Dyer--took me over to his island to attend church. The
natives all gathered in a little wooden building and squatted on a
bare floor in front of the preacher, a big, bushy-haired man, who
preached after the style of some of our old-fashioned exhorters. The
parishioners wore nothing but loin-cloths and their wonderful mops
of hair.
There was an intermission, which I misconstrued into dismissal of
services and went outside to sit on a big hollow log that came
handy. Pretty soon the pastor came out and tapped me on the
shoulder. I could not make out what he wanted, so asked George. "He
wants you," replied the boy, "to get off the log so that he can ring
the bell." It developed that the preacher hammered on the log to
call the congregation together, and I was unwittingly muffling the
call of the Gospel.
Arriving back in Suva, I was kept busy getting the _Snark_ in shape
for another long voyage, doing the work that Captain Y---- had done
as well as my own.