A few facts are perhaps needed in this place. The autumn of 1921 found me
in bad health, which seemed to me to be gaining ground. The Editors for
whom it is my privilege to work were of that mind too, and suggested a sea
voyage. I am one of that large class who can afford little more than
voyages in ships which are hauled over on chains; but this was allowed
for in every possible way by my Editors, in consequence of whose active
generosity and that of the owners to whom my case was made known, I
suddenly found myself bound for the River Plate. I can but say that when
my friends expressed their envy I was well able to understand their
feelings and my good luck.
For the rest, this little book is not intended for anything beyond
the statement on the title page. I am sorry myself that there are no
adventures of the blood-curdling sort in it; but I could not go out of
my way, nor do tramps find time, it seems, for propitiating cannibals.
Of unrehearsed effects on voyages, indeed, my belief is that it is
possible sometimes to have too much. Eastward of Madagascar, we read, lies
Tromelin Island--a sandbank a mile long. In 1761 the _Utile_ was wrecked
there, and eighty blacks were left behind; all died except seven of the
women, who clung to life for fifteen years, nourished on shell fish
and brackish water, until Captain Tromelin landed and saved them. Now I
cannot feel sorry that I was not one of that party.
There is, naturally, some slender disguise of names and so forth through
my journal. There may be, it occurs, a S.S. _Bonadventure_ at the present
day; if it is so, this is not the ship. My grateful recollections of
Captain Hosea, his officers and crew apply to those gentlemen indeed,
but they do not sign on by the names which I have for this occasion
invented. Thus their own example leads me; how much oftener was I
hailed as "Skylark" and "Jonah" than as