 CHAPTER XIV. The Amateur Navigator. There are captains and captains, and some mighty fine captains, I know, but the run of the captains of the snark has been remarkably otherwise. My experience with them has been that it is harder to take care of one captain on a small boat than of two small babies. Of course this is no more than as to be expected. The good men have positions, and are not likely to forsake their one thousand to fifteen thousand ton billets for the snark with her ten tons net. The snark has had to call her navigators from the beach, and the navigator on the beach is usually a congenital inefficient, the sort of man who beats about for a fortnight trying vainly to find an ocean isle, and who returns with his schooner to report the island sunk with all on board, the sort of man whose temper or thirst for strong waters works him out of billets faster than he can work into them. The snark has had three captains, and by the grace of God she shall have no more. The first captain was so senile as to be unable to give a measurement for a boom-jaw to a carpenter. So utterly agedly helpless was he that he was unable to order a sailor to throw a few buckets of salt water on the snark's deck. For twelve days at anchor under an overhead tropic sun the deck lay dry. It was a new deck. It cost me one hundred and thirty-five dollars to recall it. The second captain was angry. He was born angry. Papa is always angry, was the description given him by his half-breed son. The third captain was so crooked that he couldn't hide behind a corkscrew. The truth was not in him. Common honesty was not in him. And he was as far away from fair play and square dealing as he was from his proper course when he nearly wrecked the snark and the ring gold aisles. It was at Suva in the Fiji's that I discharged my third and last captain and took up gain the role of amateur navigator. I had essayed it once before under my first captain, who, out of San Francisco, jumped the snark so amazingly over the chart that I really had to find out what was doing. It was fairly easy to find out, for we had a run of twenty-one hundred miles before us. I knew nothing of navigation, but after several hours of reading up and half an hour's practice with the sextant I was able to find the snark's latitude by meridian observation and her longitude by the simple method known as equal altitudes. This is not a correct method. It is not even a safe method, but my captain was attempting to navigate by it, and he was the only one on board who should have been able to tell me that it was a method to be eschewed. I brought the snark to Hawaii, but the conditions favored me. The sun was in northern declination and nearly overhead. The legitimate chronometer sight method of ascertaining the longitude I had not heard of. Yes, I had heard of it. My first captain mentioned it vaguely, but after one or two attempts at practice of it he mentioned it no more. I had time in the Fiji's to compare my chronometer with two other chronometers. Two weeks previous, at Pego Pego in Samoa, I had asked my captain to compare our chronometer with the chronometers of the American cruiser, the Annapolis. This he told me he had done, of course he had done nothing of the sort, and he told me that the difference he had ascertained was only a small fraction of a second. He told it to me with finely simulated joy and with words of praise for my splendid timekeeper. I repeat it now with words of praise for his splendid and unblushing unveracity. For behold, fourteen days later, in Suva, I compared the chronometer with the one on the Atua, an Australian steamer, and found that mine was thirty-one seconds fast. Now thirty-one seconds of time, converted into arc, equals seven and one-quarter miles. That is to say, if I were sailing west in the nighttime, and my position, according to my dead reckoning from my afternoon chronometer sight, was shown to be seven miles off the land, why at that very moment I would be crashing on the wreath. Next I compared my chronometer with Captain Woolley's. Captain Woolley, the harbormaster, gives the time to Suva, firing a gun signal at twelve noon, three times a week. According to his chronometer, mine was fifty-nine seconds fast, which is to say that sailing west I should be crashing on the wreath when I thought I was fifteen miles off from it. I compromised by subtracting thirty-one seconds from the total of my chronometer's losing error, and sailed away for Tanna in the New Hebrides, resolved, when nosing around the land on dark nights, to bear in mind the other seven miles I might be out, according to Captain Woolley's instrument. Tanna lay some six hundred miles west-southwest from the Fiji's, and it was my belief that while covering that distance I could quite easily knock into my head sufficient navigation to get me there. Well, I got there, but listen first to my troubles. Navigation is easy. I shall always contend that. But when a man is taking three gasoline engines and a wife around the world, and is riding hard every day to keep the engines supplied with gasoline and the wife with pearls and volcanoes, he hasn't much time left in which to study navigation. Also it is bound to be easier to study said science ashore, where latitude and longitude are unchanging, in a house whose position never alters, than it is to study navigation on a boat that is rushing along day and night toward land that one is trying to find, and which he is liable to find disastrously at a moment when he least expects it. To begin with there are the compasses and the setting of the courses. We sailed from Suva on Saturday afternoon, June 6, 1908, and it took us till after dark to run the narrow, reef-ridden passage between the islands of Viti Livu and Mbenga, the open ocean lay before me. There was nothing in the way, with the exception of Vatu Lili, a miserable little island that persisted in poking up through the sea, some twenty miles to the west-south-west, just where I wanted to go. Of course it seemed quite simple to avoid it by steering a course that would pass it eight or ten miles to the north. It was a black night and we were running before the wind. The man at the wheel must be told what direction to steer in order to miss Vatu Lili. But what direction? I turned me to the navigation-books. True course, I lighted upon the very thing. What I wanted was the true course. I read eagerly on. The true course is the angle made with the meridian by a straight line on the chart drawn to connect the ship's position with the place bound to. Just what I wanted. The snark's position was at the western entrance of the passage between Viti Livu and Mbenga. The immediate place she was bound to was a place on the chart ten miles north of Vatu Lili. I tricked that place off on the chart with my dividers and with my parallel rulers found that west by south was the true course. I had but to give it to the man at the wheel and the snark would win her way to the safety of the open sea. But alas and alack and lucky for me I read on. I discovered that the compass, that trusty, everlasting friend of the mariner, was not given to pointing north. It varied. Sometimes it pointed east of north, sometimes west of north, and on occasion it even turned tail on north and pointed south. The variation at the particular spot on the globe occupied by the snark was nine degrees forty minutes easterly. Well, that had to be taken into account before I gave the steering course to the man at the wheel. I read, the correct magnetic course is derived from the true course by applying to it the variation. Therefore I reasoned, if the compass points nine degrees forty minutes eastward of north, and I wanted to sail due north, I should have to steer nine degrees forty minutes westward of the north indicated by the compass and which was not north at all. So I added nine degrees forty minutes to the left of my west by south course, thus getting my correct magnetic course, and was ready once more to run to open sea. Again alas and alack. The correct magnetic course was not the compass course. There was another sly little devil lying in wait to trip me up and land me smashing on the roofs of Vatu Lili. This little devil went by the name of Deviation. I read, the compass course is the course to steer, and is derived from the correct magnetic course by applying to it the Deviation. Now Deviation is the variation in the needle caused by the distribution of iron on board of ship. This purely local variation I derived from the Deviation card of my standard compass, and then applied to the correct magnetic course. The result was the compass course. And yet, not yet. My standard compass was amidships on the companion way. My steering compass was aft in the cockpit, near the wheel. When the steering compass pointed west by south, three-quarters south, the steering course, the standard compass pointed west one-half north, which was certainly not the steering course. I kept the snark up till she was heading west by south three-quarters south on the standard compass, which gave on the steering compass south-west by west. The foregoing operations constitute the simple little matter of setting a course. And the worst of it is that one must perform every step correctly, or else he will hear, breakers ahead, some pleasant night, a nice sea bath, and be given the delightful diversion of fighting his way to the shore through a horde of man-eating sharks. Just as the compass is tricky and strives to fool the mariner by pointing in all directions except north, so does that guidepost of the sky, the sun, persist in not being where it ought to be at a given time. This carelessness of the sun is the cause of more trouble, at least it caused trouble for me. To find out where one is on the earth's surface, he must know at precisely the same time where the sun is in the heavens. That is to say the sun, which is the timekeeper for men, doesn't run on time. When I discovered this, I fell into deep gloom and all the cosmos was filled with doubt. Immutable laws, such as gravitation and the conservation of energy, became wobbly, and I was prepared to witness their violation at any moment and to remain unastonished. For, see, if the compass lied and the sun did not keep its engagement, why should not objects lose their mutual attraction, and why should not a few bushel-baskets of force be annihilated? Even perpetual motion became possible, and I was in a frame of mind prone to purchase Keely Motorstock from the first enterprising agent that landed on the snark's deck. And when I discovered that the earth really rotated on its axis 366 times a year, while there were only 365 sunrises and sunsets, I was ready to doubt my own identity. This is the way of the sun. It is so irregular that it's impossible for man to devise a clock that will keep the sun's time. The sun accelerates and retards as no clock could be made to accelerate and retard. The sun is sometimes ahead of its schedule. At other times it is lagging behind. And at still other times it is breaking the speed limit in order to overtake itself, or rather to catch up with where it ought to be in the sky. In this last case, it does not slow down quick enough, and as a result goes dashing ahead of where it ought to be. In fact, only four days in a year do the sun and the place where the sun ought to be happen to coincide. The remaining 361 days, the sun is bothering as bothering around all over the shop. Man, being more perfect than the sun, makes a clock that keeps regular time. Also, he calculates how far the sun is ahead of its schedule or behind. The difference between the sun's position and the position where the sun ought to be, if it were a decent, self-respecting sun, man calls the equation of time. Thus the navigator, endeavoring to find his ship's position on the sea, looks in his chronometer to see where precisely the sun ought to be according to the Greenwich custodian of the sun. Then to that location he applies the equation of time and finds out where the sun ought to be and isn't. This latter location, along with several other locations, enables him to find out what the man from Kansas demanded to know some years ago. The snark sailed from Fiji on Saturday, June 6, and the next day, Sunday, on the wide ocean, out of sight and land, I proceeded to endeavor to find out my position by a chronometer site for longitude and by a meridian observation for latitude. The chronometer site was taken in the morning when the sun was some twenty-one degrees above the horizon. I looked in the nautical almanac and found that on that very day, June 7, the sun was behind time one minute and twenty-six seconds, and that it was catching up at a rate of fourteen point sixty-seven seconds per hour. The chronometer said that at the precise moment of taking the sun's altitude it was twenty-five minutes after eight o'clock at Greenwich. From this date it would seem a schoolboy's task to correct the equation of time. Unfortunately, I was not a schoolboy. Obviously, at the middle of the day, at Greenwich, the sun was one minute and twenty-six seconds behind time. Equally obviously, if it were eleven o'clock in the morning, the sun would be one minute and twenty-six seconds behind time, plus fourteen point sixty-seven seconds. If it were ten o'clock in the morning, twice fourteen point sixty-seven seconds would have to be added. And if it were eight twenty-five in the morning, then three point five times fourteen point six seven seconds would have to be added. Quite clearly then, if instead of being eight twenty-five a.m., it were eight twenty-five p.m., then eight point five times fourteen point six seven seconds would have to be not added, but subtracted. For if at noon the sun were one minute and twenty-six seconds behind time, and if it were catching up with where it ought to be at the rate of fourteen point six seven seconds per hour, then at eight twenty-five p.m. it would be much nearer where it ought to be than it had been at noon. So far so good. But was that eight twenty-five of the chronometer a.m. or p.m.? I looked at the snark's clock. It marked eight nine, and it was certainly a.m. for I had just finished breakfast. Therefore, if it was eight in the morning on board the snark, the eight o'clock of the chronometer, which was the time of the day at Greenwich, must be a different eight o'clock from the snark's eight o'clock. But what eight o'clock was it? It can't be the eight o'clock of this morning, I reasoned. Therefore it must be either eight o'clock this evening or eight o'clock last night. It was at this juncture that I fell into the bottomless pit of intellectual chaos. We are in east longitude, I reasoned. Therefore we are ahead of Greenwich. If we are behind Greenwich, then today is yesterday. If we are ahead of Greenwich, then yesterday is today. But if yesterday is today, what under the sun is today? Tomorrow? Absurd. Yet it must be correct. When I took the sun this morning at eight twenty-five, the sun's custodians at Greenwich were just arising from dinner last night. Then correct the equation of time for yesterday, says my logical mind. But today is today, my literal mind insists. I must correct the sun for today and not for yesterday. Yet today is yesterday, urges my logical mind. That's all very well, my literal mind continues. If I were in Greenwich I might be in yesterday. Strange things happen in Greenwich. But I know as sure as I am living that I am here, now, in today, June 7th, and that I took the sun here, now, today, June 7th. Therefore I must correct the sun here, now, today, June 7th. Bosh snaps my logical mind. Lecky says, Never mind what Lecky says, interrupts my literal mind. Let me tell you what the Nautical Almanac says. The Nautical Almanac says that today, June 7th, the sun was one minute and twenty-six seconds behind time and catching up at the rate of fourteen point six seven seconds per hour. It says that yesterday, June 6th, the sun was one minute and thirty-six seconds behind time and catching up at the rate of fifteen point six six seconds per hour. You see, it is preposterous to think of correcting today's sun by yesterday's timetable. Fool! Idiot! Back and forth they wrangle until my head is whirling around and I'm ready to believe that I am in the day after the last week before next. I remembered a parting caution of the Suva Harbour Master. In East Longitude take from the Nautical Almanac the elements for the preceding day. Then a new thought came to me. I corrected the equation of time for Sunday and for Saturday, making two separate operations of it, and lo, when the results were compared, there was a difference only a four-tenths of a second. I was a changed man. I had found my way out of the crypt. The snark was scarcely enough to hold me in my experience. Four-tenths of a second would make a difference of only one-tenth of a mile, a cable length. All went merrily for ten minutes when I chanced upon the following rhyme for navigators. Greenwich time least, Longitude East. Greenwich best, Longitude West. Heavens! The snark's time was not as good as Greenwich time. When it was 8.25 at Greenwich on board the snark it was only 8.9. Greenwich time best, Longitude West. There I was, in West Longitude beyond a doubt. Silly, cries my literal mind, you are 8.9 a.m. and Greenwich is 8.25 p.m. Very well, answers my logical mind. To be correct, 8.25 p.m. is really twenty hours and twenty-five minutes, and that is certainly better than eight hours and nine minutes. No, there is no discussion. You are in West Longitude. Then my literal mind triumphs. We sailed from Suva in the Fiji's, didn't we? It demands, and the logical mind agrees. And Suva is in East Longitude? Again, logical mind agrees. And we sailed West, which would take us deeper into East Longitude, didn't we? Therefore, and you can't escape it, we are in East Longitude. Greenwich time best, Longitude West, chants my logical mind, and you must grant that twenty hours and twenty-five minutes is better than eight hours and nine minutes. All right, I break in upon the squabble. We'll work up the sight and then we'll see. And work it up I did, only to find that my Longitude was 184 degrees West. I told you so, snorts my logical mind. I am dumbfounded, so is my literal mind, for several minutes. Then it announces, but there is no 184 degrees West Longitude, nor East Longitude, nor any other Longitude. The largest meridian is a hundred and eighty degrees, as you ought to know very well. Having got this far, literal mind collapses from the brain strain, logical mind is dumb flabbergasted, and as for me, I get a bleak and wintry look in my eyes, and go around wondering whether I am sailing toward the China coast or the Gulf of Darien. Then a thin, small voice, which I do not recognize, coming from nowhere in particular in my consciousness, says, the total number of degrees is three hundred and sixty. Subtract the 184 degrees West Longitude from three hundred and sixty degrees, and you will get a hundred and seventy-six degrees East Longitude. That is sheer speculation, objects literal mind and logical mind remonstrates. There is no rule for it. Darn the rules, I exclaim, and I hear. The thing is self-evident, I continue. 184 degrees West Longitude means lapping over an East Longitude of four degrees. Besides, I have been in East Longitude all the time. I sailed from Fiji, and Fiji is in East Longitude. Now I shall chart my position and prove it by dead reckoning. But other troubles and doubts awaited me. Here is a sample of one. In South latitude, when the sun is in northern declination, chronometer sites may be taken early in the morning. I took mine at eight o'clock. Now one of the necessary elements in working up such a site is latitude. But one gets latitude at twelve o'clock noon by a meridian observation. It is clear that in order to work up my eight o'clock chronometer site, I must have my eight o'clock latitude. Of course if the snark were sailing due West at six knots per hour, for the intervening four hours her latitude would not change. But if she were sailing due North, her latitude would change to the tune of twenty-four miles. In which case a simple addition or subtraction would convert the twelve o'clock latitude into eight o'clock latitude. But suppose the snark were sailing Southwest. Then the traverse tables must be consulted. This is the illustration. At eight a.m. I took my chronometer site. At the same moment the distance recorded in the log was noted. At twelve a.m. when the site for latitude was taken I again noted the log, which showed me that since eight o'clock the snark had run twenty-four miles. Her true course had been West, point seventy-five south. I entered table one in the distance column on the page for point seventy-five point courses and stopped at twenty-four the number of miles run. Opposite in the next two columns I found that the snark had made three point five miles of southing or latitude and that she had made twenty-three point seven miles of Westing. To find my eight o'clock latitude was easy. I had but to subtract three point five miles from my noon latitude. All the elements being present I worked up my longitude. But this was my eight o'clock longitude. Since then and up till noon I had made twenty-three point seven miles of Westing. What was my noon longitude? I followed the rule turning to traverse table number two. Entering the table according to rule and going through every detail according to rule I found the difference of longitude for the four hours to be twenty-five miles. I was aghast. I entered the table again according to rule. I entered the table half a dozen times according to rule and every time found that my difference of longitude was twenty-five miles. I leave it to you, gentle reader. Suppose you had sailed twenty-four miles and that you had covered three point five miles of latitude then how could you have covered twenty-five miles of longitude? Even if you had sailed due West twenty-four miles and not changed your latitude how could you have changed your longitude twenty-five miles? In the name of human reason how could you cover one mile more of longitude than the total number of miles you had sailed? It was a reputable traverse table being none other than bowditches. The rule was simple as navigator's rules go. I had made no error. I spent an hour over it and at the end still faced the glaring impossibility of having sailed twenty-four miles in the course of which I changed my latitude three point five miles and my longitude twenty-five miles. The worst of it was that there was nobody to help me out. Neither Charmian nor Martin knew as much as I knew about navigation and all the time the snark was rushing madly along toward Tana in the New Hebrides. Something had to be done. How it came to me I know not. Call it an inspiration, if you will, but the thought arose in me. As southing as latitude why isn't Westing longitude? Why should I have to change Westing into longitude? And then the whole beautiful situation dawned upon me. The meridians of longitude are sixty miles nautical apart at the equator. At the poles they run together. Thus if I should travel up the one hundred and eighty degrees meridian of longitude until I reach the north pole and if the astronomer at Greenwich traveled up the zero meridian of longitude to the north pole, then at the north pole we could shake hands with each other, though before we started for the north pole we had been some thousands of miles apart. Again if a degree of longitude was sixty miles wide at the equator and if the same degree at the point of the pole had no width then somewhere between the pole and the equator that degree would be half a mile wide and at other places a mile wide, two miles wide, ten miles wide, thirty miles wide, I and sixty miles wide. All was plain again. The snark was in nineteen degrees south latitude. The world wasn't as big around there as at the equator. Therefore every mile of westing at nineteen degrees south was more than a minute of longitude. For sixty miles were sixty miles, but sixty minutes are sixty miles only at the equator. George Francis Train broke Jules Verne's record around the world. But any man that wants can break George Francis Train's record. Such a man would need only to go, in a fast steamer, to the latitude of Cape Horn and sail due east all the way around. The world is very small in that latitude and there is no land in the way to turn him out of his course. If his steamer maintained sixteen knots he would circumnavigate the globe in just about forty days. But there are compensations. On Wednesday evening, June 10th, I brought up my noon position by dead reckoning to eight p.m. Then I projected the snark's course and saw that she would strike Futuna, one of the eastern most of the new Hebrides, a volcanic cone two thousand feet high that rose out of the deep ocean. I altered the course so that the snark would pass ten miles to the northward. Then I spoke to Wada, the cook, who had the wheel every morning from four to six. Wada, son, tomorrow morning your watch, you look sharp on weather, bow, you see land. And then I went to bed. The dye was cast. I had staked my reputation as a navigator. Suppose, just suppose that at daybreak there was no land. Then where would my navigation be? And where would we be? And how would we ever find ourselves, or find any land? I cut ghastly visions of the snark sailing for months through ocean solitudes and seeking vainly for land while we consumed our provisions and sat down with haggard faces to stare cannibalism in the face. I confess my sleep was not like a summer sky that held the music of the snark. Rather did I waken to the voiceless dark and listen to the creaking of the bulkheads and the rippling of the sea alongside as the snark logged steadily her six knots an hour. I went over my calculations again and again, striving to find some mistake until my brain was in such fever that it discovered dozens of mistakes. Suppose, instead of being sixty miles off Futuna, that my navigation was all wrong and that I was only six miles off. In which case my course could be wrong, too, and for all I knew the snark might be running straight at Futuna. For all I knew the snark might strike Futuna the next moment. I almost sprang from the bunk at that thought, and though I restrained myself, I knew that I lay for a moment nervous and tense waiting for the shock. My sleep was broken by miserable nightmares. Earthquake seemed the favorite affliction, though there was one man with a bill who persisted in dunning me throughout the night. Also he wanted a fight, and Charmian continually persuaded me to let him alone. Only, however, the man with the everlasting dunn ventured into a dream from which Charmian was absent. It was my opportunity, and we went at it, gloriously, all over the sidewalk and street until he cried enough. Then I said, Now how about that bill? Having conquered, I was willing to pay. But the man looked at me and groaned. It was all a mistake, he said. The bill is for the house next door. That settled him, for he worried my dreams no more. And it settled me, too, for I woke up chuckling at the episode. It was three in the morning. I went up on deck. Henry, the Rapa Islander, was steering. I looked at the log. It recorded forty-two miles. The snark had not abated her six-knot gate, and she had not struck Futuna yet. At half-past five I was again on deck. Wada, at the wheel, had seen no land. I sat on the cockpit rail, afraid a morbid doubt for a quarter of an hour. Then I saw land, a small, high piece of land, just where it ought to be, rising from the water and the weather-bowl. At six o'clock I could clearly make it out to be the beautiful volcanic cone of Futuna. At eight o'clock, when it was abreast, I took its distance by the sextant and found it to be nine-point-three miles away, and I had elected to pass it ten miles away. Then, to the south, a nightcham rose out of the sea, to the north, Aniwa, and dead ahead, Tana. There was no mistaking Tana, for the smoke of its volcano was towering high in the sky. It was forty miles away, and by afternoon, as we drew close, never ceasing to log our six knots, we saw that it was a mountain as hazy land, with no apparent openings in its coastline. I was looking for port resolution, though I was quite prepared to find that as an anchorage it had been destroyed. Volcanic earthquakes had lifted its bottom during the last forty years, so that where once the largest ships rode at anchor there was now, by last reports, scarcely space and depth sufficient for the snark. And why should not another convulsion, since the last report, have closed the harbor completely? I ran in close to the unbroken coast, fringed with rocks a wash upon which the crashing trade wind sea burst white and high. I searched with my glasses for miles, but could see no entrance. I took a compass bearing of Fortuna, another of Anewa, and laid them off on the chart, where the two bearings crossed was bound to be the position of the snark. Then with my parallel rulers I laid down a course from the snark's position to port resolution. Having corrected this course for variation and deviation, I went on deck, and lo, the course directed me towards that unbroken coastline of bursting seas. To my Rapa Islander's great concern I held on till the rocks a wash were an eighth of a mile away. No harbor this place, he announced, shaking his head ominously. But I altered the course and ran along parallel with the coast. Charmian was at the wheel. Martin was at the engine, ready to throw on the propeller. A narrow slit of an opening showed up suddenly. Through the glasses I could see the seas breaking clear across. Henry, the Rapa man, looked with troubled eyes. So did to he the Taha man. No passenger, said Henry, we go there, we finish quick, sure. I confess I thought so too, but I ran on abreast, watching to see if the line of breakers from one side of the entrance did not overlap the line from the other side. Sure enough it did. A narrow place where the sea ran smooth appeared. Charmian put down the wheel and steadied for the entrance. Martin threw on the engine, while all hands and the cook sprang to take in sail. A trader's house showed up in the bite of the bay. Our geyser on the shore, a hundred yards away, spouted a column of steam. To port as we rounded a tiny point the mission station appeared. Three fathoms cried water at the lead line. Three fathoms, two fathoms came in quick succession. Charmian put the wheel down, Martin stopped the engine, and the snark rounded too, and the anchor rumbled down in three fathoms. Before we could catch our breaths a swarm of black tannies was alongside and aboard grinning ape-like creatures, with kinky hair and troubled eyes, wearing safety pins and clay pipes in their slitted ears, and as for the rest wearing nothing behind and less than that before. And I don't mind telling that that night, when everybody was asleep, I sneaked up on deck, looked out over the quiet scene and gloated, yes, gloated, over my navigation. CHARMIAN and I looked at each other and debated silently for half a minute. Then we nodded our heads simultaneously. It was a way we have of making up our minds to do things, and a very good way it is when one has no temperamental tears to shed over the last ten minutes. We are living on ten to goods these days, and since mind is rumored to be an emanation of matter, our similes are naturally of the packing-house variety. You'd better bring your revolvers along, and a couple of rifles, said Captain Jensen. I've got five rifles aboard, though the one Mauser is without ammunition. Have you ever seen a man with a gun? I've got a gun. I've got a gun. I've got a gun. I've got a gun. I've got a gun. One Mauser is without ammunition. Have you a few rounds to spare? We brought our rifles on board, several handfuls of Mauser cartridges, and Wada and Nechata, the Snarks Cook and Cabin Boy, respectively. Wada and Nechata were in a bit of a funk. To say the least, they were not enthusiastic, though never did Nechata show the white feather in the face of danger. The Solomon Islands had not dealt kindly with them. In the first place, both had suffered from Solomon's sores. So had the rest of us, at the time, I was nursing two fresh ones on a diet of corrosive sublimate, but the two Japanese had had more than their share, and the sores are not nice. They may be described as excessively active ulcers, a mosquito bite, a cut, or the slightest abrasion, serves for lodgement of the poison with which the air seems to be filled. Immediately the ulcer commences to eat, it eats in every direction consuming skin and muscle with astounding rapidity. The pinpoint ulcer of the first day is the size of a dime by the second day, and by the end of the week its silver dollar will not cover it. Worse than the sores, the two Japanese had been afflicted with Solomon Island fever. Each had been down repeatedly with it, and in their weak, convalescent moments they were wont to huddle together on the portion of the snark that happened to be nearest to far away Japan, and to gaze yearningly in that direction. But worst of all, they were now brought on board the Minota for a recruiting cruise along the savage coast of Malata. Guada, who had the worst funk, was sure that he would never see Japan again, and with bleak, lackluster eyes he watched our rifles and ammunition going on board the Minota. He knew about the Minota and her Malata cruises. He knew that she had been captured six months before on the Malata coast, that her captive had been chopped to pieces with tomahawks, and that, according to the barbarian sense of equity on that sweet isle, she owed two more heads. Also a laborer on pindufferin plantation, a Malata boy, had just died of dysentery, and Guada knew that pindufferin had been put in the debt of Malata by one more head. Furthermore, in stowing our luggage away in the skipper's tiny cabin, he saw the ax gashes on the door where the triumphant bushman had cut their way in. Then finally the galley-stow was without a pipe, said pipe having been part of the loot. The Minota was a teak-built australianyat, catch-rigged, long and lean, with a deep thin keel and designed for harbour racing rather than for recruiting blacks. When Charmian and I came on board we found her crowded. Her double boat's crew, including substitutes, was fifteen, and she had a score and more of return boys whose time on the plantations was served and who were bound back to their bush-villages. To look at, they were certainly true head-hunting cannibals. Their perforated nostrils were thrust through with bone and wooden buttkins the size of lead pencils. Numbers of them had punctured the extreme meaty point of the nose, from which protruded, straight out, spikes of turtle shell or a bead strung on stiff wire. A few had further punctured their noses with rows of holes following the curve of the nostril from lip to point. Each ear of every man had, from two to a dozen holes in it, holes large enough to carry wooden plugs, three inches in diameter, down to tiny holes in which were carried clay pipes and similar trifles. In fact, so many holes did they possess that they lacked ornaments to fill them, and when, the following day, as we neared Malaita, we tried our-dark rifles to see that they were in working order. There was a general scramble for the empty cartridges, which were thrust forthwith into the many aching voids in our passengers ears. At the time we tried out our rifles, we put up our barbed wire railings. The Minota, crown decked, without any house, and with a rail six inches high, was too accessible to borders. So brass stanchions were screwed into the rail, and a double row of barbed wires stretched around her from stem to stern and back again, which was all very well as protection from savages, but it was mighty uncomfortable to those on board where the Minota took to jumping and plunging in a sea-way. When one dislikes sliding down upon the lee-rail barbed wire, and when he dares not catch hold of the weather-rail barbed wire to save himself from sliding, and when, with these various disinclinations, he finds himself on a smooth flush deck that is healed over at an angle of forty-five degrees, some of the lights of Solomon Island cruising may be comprehended. Also it must be remembered, the penalty will fall into the barbed wire is more than the mere scratches, for each scratch is practically certain to become a venomous ulcer. That caution will not save one from the wire was evidenced one fine morning when we were running along the melancholic coast with the breeze on our quarter. The wind was fresh, and a tidy sea was making. A black boy was at the wheel. Captain Jansen, Mr. Jacobson the mate, Chairman, and I had just sat down on deck to breakfast. Three unusually large seas caught us. The boy at the wheel lost his head. Three times the minota was swept. The breakfast was rushed over the lee-rail. The knives and forks went through the scuppers. A boy aft then went clean overboard and was dragged back, and our dowdy skipper lay half inward and half out, jammed in the barbed wire. After that, for the rest of the crews, our joint use of the several remaining eating utensils was a splendid example of primitive communism. On the euceni, however, it was even worse, for he had but one teaspoon among four of us. But the euceni is another story. Our first port was Sioux on the west coast of Maleta. The Solomon Islands are on the fringe of things. It is difficult enough sailing on dark nights through reef-spiked channels and across erratic currents when there are no lights to guide. From northwest to southeast, the Solomon's extend across a thousand miles of sea, and on all the thousands of miles of coast there is not one lighthouse. But the difficulty is seriously enhanced by the fact that the land itself is not correctly charted. Sioux is an example. On the Admiralty Chart of Maleta the coast at this point runs a straight, unbroken line, yet across this straight, unbroken line the Minauta sailed in twenty fathoms of water, where the land was alleged to be was a deep indentation. Into this we sailed, the mangroves closing about us, till we dropped anchor in a mirrored pond. Captain Jensen did not like the anchorage. It was the first time he had been there, and Sioux had a bad reputation. There was no wind with which to get away in case of attack, while the crew could be bush-whacked to a man if they attempted to tow out in the whale-boat. It was a pretty trap, if trouble blew up. "'Suppose the Minauta went ashore, what would you do?' I asked. "'She's not going ashore,' was Captain Jensen's answer. "'But just in case she did,' I insisted. He considered for a moment and shifted his glance from the mate buckling on a revolver to the boat's crew climbing into the whale-boat, each man with a rifle. "'We'd get into the whale-boat and get out of here as fast as God had bled us,' came the skipper's delayed reply. He explained at length that no white man was sure of his Maleta crew in a tight place, that the bushmen looked upon all wrecks as their personal property, that the bushmen possessed plenty of Snyder rifles, and that he had on board a dozen return-boys for Sioux who were certain to join in with their friends and relatives ashore when it came to looting the Minauta. The first work of the whale-boat was to take the return-boys in their trade-box as ashore. Thus one danger was removed. While this was being done, a canoe came alongside manned by three naked savages, and when I say naked, I mean naked. Not one vestige of clothing did they have on, unless nose rings, earplugs, and shell armlets be accounted clothing. The headman in the canoe was an old chief, one-eyed, reputed to be friendly, and so dirty that a boat scraper would have lost its edge on him. His mission was to warn the skipper against allowing any of his people to go ashore. The old fellow repeated the warning again that night. In vain did the whale-boat ply about the shores of the bay in quest of recruits. The bush was full of armed natives, all willing enough to talk with a recruiter, but not one would engage to sign on for three years' plantation labor at six pounds per year. Yet they were anxious enough to get our people ashore. On the second day they raised a smoke on the beach at the head of the bay. This being the customary signal of men desiring to recruit, the boat was sent. But nothing resulted. No one recruited, nor were any of our men lured ashore. A little later we caught glimpses of a number of armed natives moving about on the beach. Outside of these rare glimpses there was no telling how many might be lurking in the bush. There was no penetrating that primeval jungle with the eye. In the afternoon, Captain Jansen, Charmian, and I went dynamiting fish. Each one of the boat's crew carried a lee infield. Johnny, the native recruiter, had a winchester beside him at the steering sweep. We rode in close to a portion of the shore that looked deserted. Here the boat was turned around and backed in. In case of attack the boat would be ready to dash away. And all the time I was on Maleta I never saw a boat land bow on. In fact the recruiting vessels used two boats, one to go in on the beach, armed of course, and the other to lie off several hundred feet and cover the first boat. The Minota, however, being a small vessel, did not carry a covering boat. We were close into the shore and working in closer, stern first, when a school of fish was sited. The fuse was ignited in the stick of dynamite thrown. With the explosion the surface of the water was broken by the flash of leaping fish. At the same instant the woods broke into life, a score of naked savages, armed with bows and arrows, spears, and snipers, burst out upon the shore. At the same moment our bows' crew lifted their rifles, and thus the opposing parties faced each other, while our extra boys dived over after the stunned fish. Three fruitless days were spent at Su'u. The Minota got no recruits from the bush, and the bushmen got no heads from the Minota. In fact, the only one who got anything was Wade, and his was a nice dose of fever. We towed out with the whale boat, and ran along the coast to Longa Longa, a large village of salt-water people, built with prodigious labour on a lagoon sand bank, literally built up, an artificial island reared as a refuge from the blood-thirsty bushmen. Here also, on the shore side of the lagoon, was Benu, the place where the Minota was captured half a year previously and her captain killed by the bushmen. As we sailed in through the narrow entrance, a canoe came alongside with the news that the man of war had just left that morning after having burned three villages, killed some thirty pigs, and drowned a baby. This was the Cambrian, Captain Lou's commanding. He and I had first met in Korea during the Japanese-Russian war, and we had been crossing each other's trail ever since without ever a meeting. The day the snark sailed into Suva, in the Fijis, we made out the Cambrian going out. At Villa, in the New Hebrides, we missed each other by one day. We passed each other in the night-time off the island of Santo, and to-day the Cambrian arrived at Tolago, we sailed from Pindufferin, a dozen miles away, and here at Longa Longa we had missed by several hours. The Cambrian had come to punish the murderers of the Minotas captain, but what she had succeeded in doing we did not learn until later in the day, when a Mr. Abbot, a missionary, came alongside in his whale-boat. The villages had been burned and the pigs killed, but the natives had escaped personal harm. The murderers had not been captured, though the Minotas flag and other of her gear had been recovered. The drowning of the baby had come about through a misunderstanding. Chief Johnny, of Benu, had declined to guide the landing party into the bush, nor could any of his men be induced to perform that office, whereupon Captain Lou's, consciously indignant, had told Chief Johnny that he deserved to have his village burned. Johnny's Bechidamere English did not include the word deserve, so his understanding of it was that his village was to be burned anyway. The immediate stampede of the inhabitants was so hurried that the baby was dropped into the water. In the meantime Chief Johnny hastened to Mr. Abbot. Into his hand he put fourteen sovereigns and requested him to go on board the Cambrian and buy Captain Lou's off. His village was not burned, nor did Captain Lou's get the fourteen sovereigns, for I saw them later in Johnny's possession when he boarded the Minota. The excuse Johnny gave me for not guiding the landing party was a big boil which he proudly revealed. His real reason, however, and a perfectly valid one, though he did not state it, was fear of revenge on the part of the bushmen. Had he, or any of his men, guided the marines he could have looked for bloody reprisals as soon as the Cambrian weighed anchor. As an illustration of conditions in the Solomons Johnny's business on board was to turn over, for a tobacco consideration, the sprit, mainsail, and jib of a whale boat. Later in the day a Chief Billy came on board and turned over, for a tobacco consideration, the mast and boom. This gear belonged to a whale boat which Captain Jensen had recovered the previous trip of the Minota. The whale boat belonged to Moringa Plantation on the island of Isabel. Then contract laborers, Maleta men and bushmen at that, had decided to run away. Being bushmen they knew nothing of salt water nor of the way of a boat in the sea. So they persuaded two natives of San Cristofal, saltwater men, to run away with them. It served the San Cristofal men right, they should have known better. When they had safely navigated the stolen boats to Maleta they had their heads hacked off for their pains. It was this boat and gear that Captain Jensen had recovered. Not for nothing have I journeyed all the way to the Solomon's. At last I have seen Charmian's proud spirit humble and her imperious queendom of femininity dragged in the dust. It happened at longa-longa, ashore, on the manufactured island which one cannot see for the houses. Here, surrounded by hundreds of unblushing naked men, women, and children, we wandered about and saw the sights. We had our revolvers strapped on, and the boat's crew, fully armed, lay at oars, stern in. But the lesson of the manna-war was too recent for us to apprehend trouble. We walked about everywhere and saw everything, until at last we approached a large tree-trunk that served as a bridge across a shallow estuary. The blacks formed a wall in front of us and refused to let us pass. We wanted to know why we were stopped. The blacks said we could go on. We misunderstood and started. This became more definite. Captain Janssen and I, being men, could go on. But no Mary was allowed to wade around that bridge, much less cross it. Mary is betcha to marry for woman. Charmian was a Mary. The hearth of the bridge was Tambo, which is the native for taboo. Ah, how my chest expanded! At last my manhood was vindicated. In truth I belonged to the lordly sex. Charmian could traipse along at our heels, but we were men, and we could go right over that bridge where she would have to go around by whale-boat. Now I should not care to be misunderstood by what follows, but it is a matter of common knowledge in the Solomon's that attacks of fever are often brought on by shock. Inside half an hour after Charmian had been refused the right of way, she was being rushed aboard the Minota, packed in blankets, and dosed with quinine. I don't know what kind of shock it happened to Wada and Nakata, but at any rate they were down with fever as well. The Solomon's might be healthfuler. Also during the attack of fever Charmian developed a Solomon's sore. It was the last straw. Every one on the snark had been afflicted except her. I had thought that I was going to lose my foot at the ankle by one exceptionally malignant, boring ulcer. Henry and Tehei, the Tahitian sailors, had had numbers of them. Wada had been able to count his by the score. Nakata had had single ones three inches in length. Charmian had been quite certain that the crosses of his shin bone had set in from the roots of the amazing colony he elected to cultivate in that locality. But Charmian had escaped. Out of her long immunity had been bred contempt for the rest of us. Her ego was flattered to such an extent that one day she shyly informed me that it was all a matter of pureness of blood. Since all the rest of us cultivated the sores, and since she did not. Well, anyway, hers was the size of a silver dollar, and the pureness of her blood enabled her to cure it after several weeks of strenuous nursing. She pins her faith on corrosive sublimate. Martin swears by iota form. Henry uses lime juice, undiluted. And I believe that when corrosive sublimate is slow and taking hold, alternate dressings of peroxide of hydrogen are just the thing. There are white men in the salamence who stake all up on boracic acid, and others who are prejudiced in favor of Lysol. I also have a weakness of a panacea. It is California. I defy any man to get a Solomon Island sore in California. We ran down the lagoon from Langa-Langa, between mangrove swamps, through passages scarcely wider than the Minota, and past the reef villages of Caloca and Auki. Like the founders of Venice, these saltwater men were originally refugees from the mainland. Too weak to hold their own in the bush, survivors of village massacres, they fled to the sandbanks of the lagoon. These sandbanks they built up into islands. They were compelled to seek their preventer from the sea, and in time they became saltwater men. They learned the ways of the fish and the shellfish, and they invented hooks and lines, nets, and fish traps. They developed canoe bodies. Unable to walk about, spending all their time in the canoes, they became thick-armed and broad-shouldered, with narrow waist and frail spindly legs. During the seacoast they became wealthy, trade with the interior passing largely through their hands. But perpetual enmity exists between them and the bushmen. Practically their only truces are on market days, which occur at stated intervals, usually twice a week. The bush women and the saltwater women do the bartering. Back in the bush, a hundred yards away, fully armed, like the bushmen, all to seaward in the canoes, are the saltwater men. There are very rare instances in the market day truces being broken. The bushmen like their fish too well, while the saltwater men have an organic craving for the vegetables they cannot grow on their crowded islets. Thirty miles from Langa-Langa brought us up to the passage between Vasakana Island and the mainland. Here, at nightfall, the wind left us, and all night, with the whale boat towing ahead and the crew on board sweating at the steeps, we strove to wind through. But the tide was against us. At midnight, midway in the passage, we came up with a Eugene, a big recruiting schooner, towing with two whale boats. Her skipper, Captain Keller, a sturdy young German of twenty-two, came on board for a gam, and the latest news of Melinda was swapped back and forth. He had been in luck, having gathered in twenty recruits at the village a few. While lying there, one of the customary courageous killings had taken place. The murdered boy was what is called a salt-water bushman. That is, a salt-water man who is half-bushman, who lives by the sea but does not live on an islet. Three bushmen came down to this man where he was working in his garden. They behaved in friendly fashion, and after a time suggested kai-kai. Kai-kai means food. He built a fire and started to boil some taro. While bending over the pot, one of the bushmen shot him through the head. He fell into the flames, whereupon they thrust a spear through his stomach, turned it around, and broke it off. "'My words,' said Captain Keller, "'I don't ever want to be shot with a snider. Spread! You could drive a horse in carriage through that hole in his head.' Another recent courageous killing I heard of on Malita was that of an old man. A bush chief had died in natural death. Now the bushmen don't believe in natural deaths. No one was ever known to die in natural death. The only way to die is by bullet, tomahawk, or spear thrust. When a man dies any other way, it is a clear case of having been charmed to death. When the bush chief died naturally, his tribe placed the guilt on a certain family. Since it did not matter which one of the family was killed, they selected this old man who lived by himself. This would make it easy. Furthermore he possessed no snider. Also he was blind. The old fellow got an inkling of what was coming and laid in a large supply of arrows. Three brave warriors, each with a snider, came down upon him in the night time. All night they fought valiantly with him. Whenever they moved in the bush and made a noise or a rustle, he discharged an arrow in that direction. In the morning, when his last arrow was gone, the three heroes crept up on him and blew his brains out. Morning found us still valiantly toiling through the passage. At last, in despair, we turned tail, ran out to sea, and sailed clear round Basacana to our objective, Malou. The anchorage at Malou was very good, but it lay between the shore and an ugly reef, and while easy to enter, it was difficult to leave. The direction of the southeast trade necessitated a beat to windward. The point of the reef was widespread and shallow, while a current bore down at all times upon the point. Mr. Caulfield, the missionary at Malou, arrived in his whaleboat from a trip down the coast. A slender, delicate man he was, enthusiastic in his work, level-headed and practical, a true twentieth-century soldier of the Lord. When he came down to this station on Malayte, as he said, he agreed to come for six months. He further agreed that if he were alive at the end of that time he would continue on. Six years had passed and he was still continuing on. Nevertheless he was justified in his doubt as to living longer than six months. Three missionaries had preceded him on Malayte, and in less than that time two had died of fever and the third had gone home or wreck. What murder are you talking about, he asked suddenly, in the midst of a confused conversation with Captain Janssen. Captain Janssen explained. Oh, that's not the one I have referenced to, quote, Mr. Caulfield. That's old already. It happened two weeks ago. It was here at Malou that I atoned for all the exulting and gloating I had been guilty of over the Solomon-Saw war Charmian had collected at Langa Langa. Mr. Caulfield was indirectly responsible for my atonement. He presented us with a chicken, which I pursued into the bush with a rifle. My intention was to clip off its head. I succeeded, but in doing so fell over a log and barked my shin. Result. Three Solomon-Sawers. This made five altogether that were adorning my person. Also Captain Janssen and Nakata had caught Garigari. They translated, Garigari is scratch, scratch. But translation was not necessary for the rest of us. The skippers in Nakata's gymnastics served as a translation without words. No, the Solomon Islands are not as healthy as they might be. I am writing this article on the island of Isabel, where we have taken the snark to Kareen and clean her cooper. I got over my last attack of fever this morning, and have had only one free day between attacks. Charmians are two weeks apart. Nakata is a wreck from fever. Last night he showed all the symptoms of coming down with pneumonia. Henry, a strapping giant of a Tahitian, just up from his last dose of fever, is dragging around the deck like a last year's crab-apple. Both he and Tehei have accumulated a praiseworthy display of Solomon Sores. Also they have caught a new form of Garigari, a sort of vegetable poisoning like poison oak or poison ivy. But they are not unique in this. A number of days ago Charmian, Martin, and I went pigeon-shooting on a small island, and we have had a foretaste of eternal torment ever since. Also on that small island, Martin cut the soles of his feet to ribbons on the coral whilst chasing a shark. At least so he says, but from the glimpse I caught of him I thought it was the other way about. The coral cuts have all become Solomon Sores. Before my last fever I knocked the skin off my knuckles while heaving on a line, and I now have three fresh sores. And poor Nakata, for three weeks he has been unable to sit down. He sat down yesterday for the first time, and managed to stay down for fifteen minutes. He says cheerfully that he expects to be cured of his Garigari in another month. Furthermore, his Garigari, from two enthusiastic scratching, has furnished footholds for countless Solomon Sores. Still furthermore, he has just come down with his seventh attack of fever. If I were king, the worst punishment I could inflict on my enemies would be to banish them to the Solomon's. On second thought, king or no king, I don't think I'd have the heart to do it. Recruiting plantation laborers on a small, narrow yacht built for harbor-shaling is not any too nice. The decks swarm with recruits and their families. The main cabin is packed with them. At night they sleep there. The only entrance to our tiny cabin is through the main cabin, and we jam our way through them or walk over them. Nor is this nice. One in all, they are afflicted with every form of malignant skin disease. Some have ringworm, others have bukua. This latter is caused by a vegetable parasite that invades the skin and eats it away. The itching is intolerable. The afflicted ones scratch until the air is filled with fine dry flakes. Then there are yaws and many other skin ulcerations. Men come aboard with Solomon's soars and their feet so large they can walk only on their toes, worth holes in their legs so terrible that a fist could be thrust into the bone. Blood poisoning is very frequent, and Captain Janssen, with sheath-knife and sail-needle, operates lavishly on one and all. No matter how desperate the situation, after opening and cleansing, he claps on a poultice of sea-biscuit soaked in water. Whenever we see a particularly horrible case, we retire to a corner and deluge our own soars with corrosive sublimate. And so we live and eat and sleep on the Minota, taking our chances and pretending it is good. At Suava, another artificial island, I had a second crow over Charmian. A big fella, Marster Belong Suava, which means the High Chief of Suava, came on board. But first he sent an emissary to Captain Janssen for a fathom of calico with which to cover his royal nakedness. While he lingered in the canoe alongside. The regal dirt on his chest, I swear, was half an inch thick, while it was a good wager that the underneath layers were anywhere from ten to twenty years of age. He sent his emissary on board again, who explained that the big fella, Marster Belong Suava, was condescendingly willing to enough to shake hands with Captain Janssen and me and catch a stick or two of trade tobacco. But that nevertheless his high-born soul was still at so lofty an altitude that it could not sink itself to such a depth of degradation as to shake hands with a mere female woman. Poor Charmian, since her maligned experiences she has become a changed woman, her meekness and humbleness are appallingly becoming, and I should not be surprised when we return to civilization and stroll along a sidewalk to see her take her station with bowed head, a yard in the rear. Nothing much happened at Suava. Beechew, the native cook, deserted. The Minota dragged anchor. It blew heavy squalls of wind and rain. The mate, Mr. Jacobson, and water were prostrated with fever. Our Solomon's sores increased and multiplied. And the cockroaches on board held a combined Fourth of July and Coronation Parade. They selected midnight for the time and our tiny cabin for the place. They were from two to three inches long, there were hundreds of them, and they walked all over us. When we attempted to pursue them, they left solid footing, rose up in the air, and fluttered about like hummingbirds. They were much larger than ours on the snark. But ours are young yet, and haven't had a chance to grow. Also the snark has centipedes, big ones, six inches long. We kill them occasionally, usually in Charmian's bunk. I've been bitten twice by them. Both times foully, while I was asleep. But poor Martin had worse luck. After being sick in bed for three weeks, the first day he sat up he sat down on one. Sometimes I think they are the wisest who never go to Carcassonne. Later on we returned to Malou, picked up seven recruits, hove up anchor, and started to beat out the treacherous entrance. The wind was chopping about, the current upon the ugly point of reef setting strong. Just as we were on the verge of clearing it and gaining the open sea, the wind broke off four points. The Minota attempted to go about, but missed stays. Two of her anchors had been lost at Toulagi. Her one remaining anchor was let go. Chain was let out to give it a hold on the coral. Her fin keel struck bottom, and her main top mass lurched and shivered as if about to come down upon our heads. She fetched up on the slack of the anchors at the moment a big comish smashed her shoreward. The chain parted. It was our only anchor. The Minota swung around on her heel and drove headlong into the breakers. Bedlam reigned. All the recruits below, bushmen and afraid of the sea, dashed panic-stricken on deck and gotten everybody's way. At the same time the boat's crew made a rush for the rifles. They knew what going ashore on Malai to meant, one hand for the ship and the other hand to fight off the natives. But they held on with, I don't know, and they needed to hold on as the Minota lifted, rolled, and pounded on the coral. The bushmen clugged on the rigging, too witless to watch out for the top mast. The whale-boat was run out with a tow-line, endeavouring in a puny way to prevent the Minota from being flung farther in toward the reef, while Captain Jansen and the mate, the latter powered and weak with fever, were resurrecting a scrap anchor from the out-the-ballast and rigging up a stock for it. Mr. Caulfield, with his mission-boys, arrived in his whale-boat to help. When the Minota first struck, there was not a canoe in sight, but like vultures circling down out of the blue, canoes began to arrive from every quarter. The boat's crew, with rifles at the ready, kept them lined up a hundred yards away with a promise of death if they ventured nearer. And there they clung, a hundred feet away, black and ominous, crowded with men, holding their canoes with their paddles on the perilous edge of the breaking surf. In the meantime the bushmen were flocking down from the hills armed with spears, snipers, arrows, and clubs, until the beach was masked with them. To complicate matters, at least ten of our recruits had been enlisted from the very bushmen ashore who were waiting hungrily for the loot of the tobacco and trade goods and all that we had on board. The Minota was honestly built, which is the first essential for any boat that is pounding on a reef. Some idea of what she endured may be gained from the fact that in the first twenty-four hours she parted two anchor chains and eight housers. Our boat-screw was kept busy diving for the anchors and bending new lines. There were times when she parted the chains reinforced with housers, and yet she held together. Tree-trunks were brought from ashore and worked under her to save her keel and bilges, but the trunks were gnawed and splintered in the ropes that held them frayed to fragments, and still she pounded and held together. But we were luckier than the Ivanhoe, a big recruiting schooner, which had gone ashore on Malite as several months previously and been promptly rushed by the natives. The captain and crew succeeded in getting away in the whale boats, and the bushmen and salt-water men looted her clean of everything portable. Squall after squall, driving wind and blinding rain, smote the Minota, while a heavier sea was making. The Eugenie lay at anchor five miles to windward, but she was behind a point of land and could not know of our mishap. At Captain Jensen's suggestion I wrote a note to Captain Keller, asking him to bring extra anchors and gear to our aid. But not a canoe could be persuaded to carry the letter. I offered half a case of tobacco, but the blacks grinned and held their canoes bow on to the breaking seas. A half a case of tobacco was worth three pounds. In two hours, even against the strong wind and sea, a man could have carried the letter and received in payment what he would have labored half a year for on a plantation. I managed to get into a canoe and paddle out to where Mr. Caulfield was running an anchor with his whale boat. My idea was that he would have more influence over the natives. He called the canoes up to him, and a score of them clustered around and heard the offer of half a case of tobacco. No one spoke. I know what you think, the missionary called out to them. You think plenty tobacco on the schooner and you're going to get it. I tell you plenty rifles on schooner. You get no tobacco, you get bullets. At last, one man, alone in a small canoe, took the letter and started. Waiting for relief, work went on steadily on the Minota. Her water tanks were emptied, and spars, sails, and ballasts started shoreward. There were lively times on board when the Minota rolled one bilge down and then the other, a score of men leaping for life and legs as the trade boxes, booms, and eighty-pound pigs of iron ballast rushed across from rail to rail and back again. The poor, pretty harbor yacht. Her decks and running rigging were a raffle. Down below everything was disrupted. The cabin floor had been torn up to get at the ballast, and rusty billed water swashed and splashed. A bushel of limes, in a mess of flour and water, charged about like so many sticking dumplings escaped from a half-cooked stew. In the inner cabin, Nikata kept guard over our rifles and ammunition. Three hours from the time our messenger started, a whale boat, pressing along under a huge spread of canvas, broke through the thickest, shrieking squall to windward. It was Captain Keller. Wet with rain and spray, a revolver in belt, his boat screw fully armed, anchors and haulsers heaped high amidst ships, coming as fast as wind could drive, the white man, the inevitable white man, coming to a white man's rescue. The vulture line of canoes that had waited so long broke and disappeared as quickly as it had formed. The corpse was not dead after all. We now had three whale boats, two plying steadily between the vessel and shore, the other kept busy running out anchors, rebending parted haulsers, and recovering the lost anchors. Later in the afternoon, after consultation, in which we took into consideration that a number of our boat's crew, as well as ten of the recruits, belonged to this place, we disarmed the boat's crew. This, incidentally, gave them both hands free to work for the vessel. The rifles were put in the charge of five of Mr. Caulfield's mission boys, and down below in the wreck of the cabin the missionary and his converts prayed to God to save the Minota. It was an impressive scene. The unarmed man of God, praying with cloudless faith, his savage followers leaning on their rifles and mumbling amans. The cabin walls reeled about them. The vessel lifted and smashed upon the coil with every sea. From on deck came the shouts of men heaving and toiling, praying, in another fashion, with purposeful will and strength of arm. That night Mr. Caulfield brought off a warning. One of our recruits had a price on his head of fifty fathoms of shell-mining and forty pigs. Baffled in their desire to capture the vessel, the Bushman decided to get the head of the man. When killing begins, there is no telling where it will end. So Captain Jensen armed a whaleboat and rode in to the edge of the beach. Oogie, one of the boat's crew, stood up and orated for him. Oogie was excited. Captain Jensen's warning that any canoe sighted that night would be pumped full of lead. Oogie turned into a bellicose declaration of war, which round up with a paroration somewhat to the following effect. You kill my captain, I drink his blood, and die with him. The Bushman contented themselves with burning an unoccupied mission-house and sneaked back to the bush. The next day the eugenie sailed in and dropped anchor. Three days and two nights the manulta pounded on the reef, but she held together, and the shell of her was pulled off at last and anchored in smooth water. There we said good-bye to her and all on board, and sailed away on the eugenie, bound for Florida Island. CHAPTER XVI BESH-DUMARE, INGLESH Given a number of white traders, a wide area of land, and scores of savage languages and dialects, the result will be that the traders will manufacture a totally new, unscientific, but perfectly adequate language. This the traders did when they invented the Chinook lingo for use over British Columbia, Alaska, and the Northwest Territory. So with the lingo of the crewboys of Africa, the pigeon English of the Far East, and the bestumair of the westernly portion of the South Seas, this latter is often called pigeon English. But pigeon English it certainly is not. To show how totally different it is, mention need be made only of the fact that the classic PC of China has no place in it. There was once a sea captain who needed a dusky potentate down in his cabin. The potentate was on deck. The captain's command to the Chinese steward was, hey, boy, you go topside, catch you one PC King. Had the steward been a new Hibridian or a Solomon Islander, the command would have been, hey, you fellow boy, go look them eye, belong you along deck, bring them me, fella, one big fella, master, belong black man. It was the first white men who ventured through Melanesia after the early explorers who developed bestumair English, men such as bestumair fishermen, the sandalwood traders, the pearl hunters, and the labor recruiters. In the Solomon's, for instance, scores of languages and dialects are spoken. Unhappy the trader who tried to learn them all, for in the next group to which he might wander, he would find scores of additional tongues. A common language was necessary, a language so simple that a child could learn it, with a vocabulary as limited as the intelligence of the savages upon whom it was to be used. The traders did not reason this out. Bestumair English was a product of conditions and circumstances. Function precedes organ, and the need for a universal Melanesian lingo preceded bestumair English. Bestumair was purely fortuitous, but it was fortuitous in the deterministic way. Also from the fact that out of the need the lingo arose, bestumair English is a splendid argument for the Esperanto enthusiasts. A limited vocabulary means each word shall be overworked. Thus, fella, in bestumair, means all that PCS does and quite a bit more, and is used continually in every possible connection. Another overworked word is belong. Nothing stands alone. Everything is related. The thing desired is indicated by its relationship with other things. A primitive vocabulary means primitive expression. Thus the continuance of rain is expressed as rain he stop. Sun he come up cannot possibly be misunderstood. While the phrase structure itself can be used without mental exertion in 10,000 different ways. As, for instance, a native who desires to tell you that there are fish in the water and who says, fish, he stop. It was while trading in Isabel Island that I learned the excellence of this usage. I wanted two or three pairs of the large clam shells, measuring three feet across. But I did not want the meat inside. Also, I wanted the meat of some smaller clams to make a chowder. My instruction to the natives finally ripened into the following. You fella, bring me fella, big fella, clam, kaikai, he no stop, he walk about. You fella, bring me fella, small fella, clam, kaikai, he stop. Kaikai is a Polynesian for food, meat, eating, and to eat. But it would be hard to say whether it was introduced into Melanesia by the Sandalwood traders or by the Polynesian westward drift. Walk about is a quaint phrase. Thus, if one orders a Solomon sailor to put a tackle on a boom, he will suggest that fella boom he walk about too much. And if the said sailor asks for shore liberty, he will state that it is his desire to walk about. Or if said sailor be seasick, he will explain this condition by stating, belly belong me walk about too much. Too much, by the way, does not indicate anything excessive. It's merely the simple superlative. Thus, if a native is asked the distance to a certain village, his answer will be one of these four. Close up, long way little bit, long way big bit, or long way too much. Long way too much does not mean that one cannot walk to the village. It means that he will have to walk farther than if the village were a long way big bit. Gamon is to lie, to exaggerate, to joke. Mary is a woman. Any woman is a Mary. All women are Mary's. Doubtlessly, the first dim white adventure whimsically called a native woman Mary. And of similar birth, it must have been many other words in bestia mare. The white men were all semen, and so cap size and sing out were introduced into the lingo. One would not tell a Melanesian cook to empty the dishwater, but he would tell him to capsize it. To sing out is to cry loudly, to call out, or merely to speak. Sing-Sing is a song. A native Christian does not think of God calling for Adam in the Garden of Eden. In the native's mind, God sings out for Adam. Savvy, or catchy, are practically the only words which have been introduced straight from Pigeon English. Of course, Piccanini has happened along, but some of its uses are delicious. Having bought a fowl from a native in a canoe, the native asked me if I wanted Piccanini stop along him fella. It was not until he showed me a handful of hen's eggs that I understood his meaning. My word is an exclamation with a thousand significances, could have arrived from nowhere else than Old England. A paddle, a sweep, or an oar is called washi, and washi is also the verb. Here is a letter dictated by one Peter, a native trader at Santa Anna, and addressed to his employer. Harry, the schooner captain, started to write the letter, but was stopped by Peter at the end of the second sentence. Thereafter, the letter runs into Peter's own words, for Peter was afraid that Harry gammoned too much, and he wanted the straight story of his knees to go to the headquarters. Santa Anna, trader Peter, has worked 12 months for your firm, and has not received any pay yet. He hereby wants 12 pounds. At this point, Peter began dictation. Harry, he gammoned along him all the time too much. I like him six tin biscuits, four bag rice, 24 tin bulimakau, me like two rifle, me savvy look out along boat, some place me go, man he no good, he kai-kai along me, signed Peter. Bulimakau means tinned beef. This word was corrupted from the English language by the Samoans, and from them learned by the traders who carried it along with them into Melanesia. Captain Cook and the other early navigators made a practice of introducing seeds, plants, and domestic animals amongst the natives. It was at Samoa that once such navigator landed a bull and a cow. This is a bull and a cow, he told the Samoans. They thought he was giving the name of the breed, and from that day to this, beef on the hoof, and beef in the tin is called bulimakau. A Solomon Islander cannot say fence, so in bestiamere it becomes fennis. Store is sator, and box is buccas. Just now the fashion in chess, which are known as boxes, is to have a bell arrangement on the lock so that the box cannot be opened without sounding an alarm. A box so equipped is not spoken of as a mere box, but as a buccas belong bell. Fright is the bestiamere for fear. If a native appears timid and one asks him the cause, he is liable to reply, me fright along you too much, or the native may be fright along storm, or wild bush, or haunted places. Cross covers every form of anger. A man may be cross at one when he is feeling only petulant, or he may be cross when he is seeking to chop off your head and make a stew out of you. A recruit, having toiled three years on a plantation, was returned to his own village in Malaita. He was clad in all kinds of gay and sportive garments. On his head was a top hat. He possessed a trade box full of calico, beads, porpoise teeth, and tobacco. Hardly was the anchor down when the villagers were on board. The recruit looked anxiously for his own relatives, but none was to be seen. One of the natives took a pipe out of his mouth. Another confiscated the string of beads from around his neck. A third relieved him of his gaudy loincloth, and a fourth tried on the top hat and omitted to return it. Finally one of them took his trade box, which represented three years toil and dropped it into a canoe alongside. That fellow belong you? The captain asked the recruit, referring to the thief. No belong me was the answer. Then why in Jericho do you let him take the box? The captain demanded indignantly. Quote the recruit, me speak along him, say Bacchus he stop, that fellow he cross along me. Which was the recruits way of saying that the other man would murder him. God's wrath, when he sent the flood, was merely a case of being cross along mankind. What name is the great interrogation of Bestimer? It all depends on how it is uttered. It may mean what is your business? What do you mean by this outrageous conduct? What do you want? What is the thing you are after? You had best watch out, I demand an explanation and a few hundred other things. Call a native out of his house in the middle of the night and he is likely to demand. What name you sing out along me? Imagine the predicament of the Germans at the plantations of Bougainville Island, who were compelled to learn Bestimer English in order to handle the native laborers. It is to them an unscientific polyglot and there are no textbooks by which to study it. It is the source of unholy delight to the other white planters and traders to hear the Germans wrestling stolidly with circumlocutions and shortcuts of a language that has no grammar and no dictionary. Some years ago, large numbers of Solomon Islanders were recruited to labor on the sugar plantation of Queensland. A missionary urged one of the laborers, who was a convert, to get up and preach a sermon to a shipload of Solomon Islanders who had just arrived. He chose for his subject the fall of man and the address he gave became a classic in all of Australasia. It proceeded somewhat in the following manner. All together, you boy belong Solomon's, you know savvy white men, me fella, me savvy him. Me fella, me savvy, talk along white man. Before a long time altogether, no place he stopped. God big fella, master belong white man. Him fella, he make them all together. God big fella, master belong white man. He make them big fella garden. He good fella too much. Along garden, plenty yam, he stop. Plenty coconut, plenty taro, plenty kumara, sweet potatoes. All together good fella, kai kai too much. Been me by God, big fella, master, belong him white man. He make them one fella man and put him along garden, belong him. He call him this fella man Adam. He name belong him. He put him this fella man Adam along garden and he speak. This fella garden he belong you. And he look him this fella Adam, he walk about too much. Him fella Adam all the same sick. He know savvy kai kai. He walk about all the time. And God he know savvy. God big fella, master belong white man. He scratch him head belong him. God say, what name? Me know savvy, what name this fella Adam he want. Been me by God, he scratch him head belong him too much and speak. Me fella me savvy. Him fella Adam, him want him marry. So he make Adam, he go asleep. He take one fella bone belong him and he make him one fella marry along bone. He call him this fella marry Eve. He give him this fella Eve long Adam and he speak along him fella Adam. Close up all together. Along this fella garden belong you too fella. One fella tree, he tambo taboo. Along you all together. This fella tree belong apple. So Adam Eve two fella stop along garden and they two fella have him good time too much. Been me by one day Eve she come along Adam and she speak more good you me two fella we eat him this fella apple. Adam speak no and Eve she speak. What name you know like a me and Adam speak. Me like a me too much but me fright along God. And Eve she speak come on what name. God he know savvy look along us two fella all him time. God big fella master he come on along you. But Adam he speak no. But Eve she talk talk ollie talk ollie same marry. She talk along boy along Queensland and make him trouble along boy. And been me by Adam he tired too much and he speak all right. So these two fella they go eat him. When they finish eat him my word. They fright like hell and they go hide along scrub. And God he come walk about along garden and he sing out Adam Adam he know speak. He too much fright my word. And God he sing out Adam and Adam he speak. You call him me God he speak. Me call him you too much Adam he speak. Me sleep strong fella too much and God he speak. You been eat him this fella Apple Adam he speak. No me know been eat him. God he speak what name you come on along. You been eat him and Adam he speak. Yes me been eat him. And God big fella master he cross along Adam Eve to fella too much and he speak. You too fella finish along me all together. You go catch him boxes belong you and get to hella long scrub. So Adam Eve these two fella go along scrub and God he make him one big fennace fence all around garden and he put him one fella master belong God along fennace. And he give this fella master belong God one big fella musket and he speak. Suppose you look him these two fella Adam Eve you shoot him plenty too much. End of chapter 16.