 Chapter 6 of Sailing Alone Around the World This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Alan Chant Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum Chapter 6 Consisting of Departure from Rio de Janeiro The spray ashore on the sands of Uruguay A narrow escape from shipwreck The boy who found a sloop The spray floated but somewhat damaged Curtises from the British consul at Maldonado A warm greeting at Montevideo An excursion to Buenos Aires Shortening the mast and bowsprit On November the 28th the spray sailed from Rio de Janeiro And first of all ran into a gale of wind Which tore up things generally along the coast Doing considerable damage to shipping It was well for her perhaps that she was clear of the land Coasting along on this part of the voyage I observed that while some of the small vessels I fell in with Were able to out sail the spray by day They fell a stern of her by night To the spray day and night were the same To the others clearly there was a difference On one of the very fine days experienced after leaving Rio The steamship south Wales spoke the spray And unsolicited gave the longitude by chronometer 48 degrees west as near as I can make it The captain said The spray with her tin clock had exactly the same reckoning I was feeling at ease in my primitive method of navigation But it startled me not a little to find my position by account Verified by the ship's chronometer On December 5 a barkentine-hove in sight And for several days the two vessels sailed along the coast together Right here a current was experienced setting north Making it necessary to hug the shore Which with the spray became rather familiar Here I confess a weakness I hugged the shore too close In a word at daybreak on the morning of December 11 The spray ran hard and fast on the beach This was annoying But I soon found that the sloop was in no great danger The false appearance of the sand-hills under a bright moon Had deceived me And I lamented now that I had trusted to appearances at all The sea, though moderately smooth, still carried a swell Which broke with some force on the shore I managed to launch my small dory from the deck And ran out a kej anchor and wore But it was too late to kej the sloop off For the tide was falling and she had already slewed a foot Then I went about laying out the larger anchor Which was no easy matter for my only lifeboat, the frail dory When the anchor and cable were in it Was swamped at once in the surf The load being too great for her Then I cut the cable and made two loads of it instead of one The anchor with forty fathoms bent and already buoyed I now took and succeeded in getting through the surf But my dory was leaking fast And by the time I had rode far enough to drop the anchor She was full to the gunnel and sinking There was not a moment to spare And I saw clearly that if I failed now all might be lost I sprang from the oars to my feet And lifting the anchor above my head Through it cleared just as she was turning over I grasped her gunnel and held on as she turned bottom up For I suddenly remembered that I could not swim Then I tried to write her But with too much eagerness for she rolled clean over And left me as before clinging to her gunnel While my body was still in the water Giving a moment to cool reflection I found that although the wind was blowing moderately towards the land The current was carrying me to sea And that something would have to be done Three times I had been under water In trying to write the dory And I was just saying, now I lay me When I was seized by a determination to try yet once more So that none of the prophets of evil I had left behind me could say I told you so Whatever the danger may have been Much or little I can truly say that the moment was the most serene in my life After writing the dory for the fourth time I finally succeeded by the utmost care in keeping her upright While I hauled myself into her with one of the oars which I had recovered Paddled to the shore somewhat the worst for wear And pretty full of salt water The position of my vessel now high and dry gave me anxiety To get her afloat again was all I thought of or cared for I had little difficulty in carrying the second part of my cable out And securing to the first which I had taken the preparation to boy Before I put it into the boat To bring the end back to the sloop was a smaller matter still And I believe I chuckled above my sorrows When I found that in all the haphazard my judgment Or my good genius had faithfully stood by me The cable reached from the anchor in deep water to the sloop's windlass By just enough to secure a turn and no more The anchor had been dropped at the right distance from the vessel To heave all taught now and wait for the coming tide was all I could do I had already done enough work to tire a stouter man And was only too glad to throw myself on the sand above the tide and rest For the sun was already up and pouring a generous warmth over the land While my state could have been worse I was on the wild coast of a foreign country And not entirely secure in my property as I soon found out I had not been long on the shore when I heard the patter patter Of a horse's feet approaching along the hard beach Which ceased as it came abreast of the sand ridge Where I lay sheltered from the wind Looking up cautiously I saw mounted on a nag Probably the most astonished boy on the whole coast He had found a sloop It must be mine, he thought For am I not the first to see it on the beach? Sure enough there it was all high and dry and painted white He trotted his horse around it And finding no owner hitched the nag to the sloop's bob-stay And hauled as though he would take her home But of course she was too heavy for one horse to move With my skiff however it was different And this he hauled some distance And concealed behind a dune in a bunch of tall grass He had made up his mind, I dare say, to bring more horses And drag his bigger prize away anyhow And was starting off for the settlement a mile or so away For the reinforcement when I discovered myself to him At which he seemed displeased and disappointed Buenas dias, muchacho, I said He grunted a reply and eyed me keenly from head to foot Then bursting into a volley of questions More than six Yankees could ask He wanted to know first where my ship was from And how many days she had been coming Then he asked what I was doing here ashore so early in the morning Your questions are easily answered, I replied My ship is from the moon It has taken her a month to come And she is here for a cargo of boys But the intimation of this enterprise Had I not been on the alert might have cost me dearly For while I spoke this child of the campo Coiled his lariat ready to throw And instead of being himself carried to the moon He was apparently thinking of towing me home by the neck A stern of his wild kayus over the fields of Uruguay The exact spot where I was stranded Was at the Castilo Chicos About seven miles south of the dividing line Of Uruguay and Brazil And of course the natives there speak Spanish To reconcile my earlier visitor I told him that I had on my ship biscuits And that I wished to trade them for butter and milk On hearing this a broad grin lighted up his face And showed that he was greatly interested And that even in Uruguay a ship's biscuit Will cheer the heart of a boy and make him your bosom friend The lad almost flew home And returned quickly with butter, milk and eggs I was after all in a land of plenty With the boy came others old and young From neighbouring ranches Among them a German settler Who was of great assistance to me in many ways A coast guard from Fort Tereza A few miles away also came To protect your property from the natives of the plains He said I took occasion to tell him however That if he would look after the people of his own village I would take care of those from the plains Pointing as I spoke to the nondescript merchant Who had already stolen my revolver And several small articles from my cabin Which by a bold front I had recovered The chap was not a native Uruguayan Here as in many other places that I visited The natives themselves were not the ones Discreditable to the country Early in the day a dispatch came from The port captain of Montevideo Commanding the coast guards to render The spray every assistance This however was not necessary For a guard was already on the alert And making all the adieu that would become The wreck of a steamer with a thousand Immigrants aboard The same messenger brought word from the port captain That he would dispatch a steam tug To tow the spray to Montevideo The officer was as good as his word A powerful tug arrived on the following day But to make a long story short With the help of the German and one soldier And one Italian called Angel of Milan I had already floated the sloop And was sailing for port with the boom Off before a fair wind The adventure cost the spray No small amount of pounding on the hard sand She lost her shoe and part of her false keel And received other damage Which however was readily mended Afterward in dock On the following day I anchored at Maldonado The British consul His daughter and another young lady Came on board bringing with them A basket of fresh eggs, strawberries, bottles of milk And a great loaf of sweet bread This was a good landfall And better cheer than I had found At Maldonado once upon a time When I entered the port with a stricken crew In my bark the aqued neck In the waters of Maldonado Bay A variety of fishes abound And fur seals in their season All out on the island abreast the bay to breed Currents on this coast are greatly affected By the prevailing winds And a tidal wave higher than that Ordinarily produced by the moon Is sent up the whole shore of Uruguay Before a south-west gale Or lowered by a north-easter as may happen One of these waves having just receded Before the north-east wind Which brought the spray in Left the tide now at Loeb With oyster rocks laid bare For some distance along the shore Other shellfish of good flavour Were also plentiful, though small in size I gathered a mess of oysters and mussels here While a native with hook and line And with mussels for bait Fished from a point of detached rock for bream Landing several good-sized ones The fisherman's nephew, a lad about seven years old Deserves mention as the tallest blasphemer For a short boy that I met on the voyage He called his old uncle all the vile names under the sun For not helping him across the gully While he swore roundly in all the moods And tenses of the Spanish language His uncle fished on, now and then congratulating His hopeful nephew on his accomplishment At the end of his rich vocabulary The urchin sauntered off into the fields And shortly returned with a bunch of flowers And with all smiles handed them to me With the innocence of an angel I remembered having seen the same flower On the banks of the river further up Some years before I asked the young pirate Why he had brought them to me Said he, I don't know I only wish to do so Whatever the influence was That put so amiable a wish In this wild pamper-boy It must be far-reaching, thought I And potent seas over Shortly after the spray sailed for Montevideo Where she arrived on the following day And was greeted by steam whistles Till I felt embarrassed and wished That I had arrived and observed The voyage so far alone May have seemed to the Uruguayans A feat worthy of some recognition But there was so much of it yet ahead And of such an arduous nature That any demonstration at this point Seemed somehow like boasting prematurely The spray had hardly come to anchor at Montevideo When the agents of the Royal Mail Steamship Company Messes Humphrey and Co. Sent word that they would dock And repair her free expense And give me twenty pounds sterling Which they did to the letter And more besides The caulkers of Montevideo Paid very careful attention to the work Of making the sloop tight Carpenters mended the keel And also the lifeboat, the dory Painting it till I hardly knew it From a butterfly Christmas of 1895 Found the spray refitted Even to a wonderful makeshift stove Which was contrived from a large Oil-drum of some sort Punched full of holes to give it a draft The pipe reached straight up Through the top of the focusle Even for Greenwood In cold, wet days off the coast Of Tierra del Fuego It stood me in good stead Its one-door swung on copper hinges Which one of the yard apprentices With laudable pride polished Till the whole thing blushed Like the brass binocle of a P&O steamer The spray was now ready for sea Instead of proceeding at once On her voyage, however, she made An excursion up the river Sailing December 29 An old friend of mine, Captain Howard Of Cape Cod and of River Plate fame Took the trip in her to Buenos Aires Where she arrived early on the following day With a gale of wind and a current So much in her favour that she outdid herself I was glad to have a sailor Of Howard's experience on board To witness her performance of sailing With no living being at the helm Howard sat near the binocle And watched the compass, while the sloop Held her core so steadily One would have declared that the card Was nailed fast Not a quarter of a point did she deviate From her course My old friend had owned and sailed A pilot sloop on the river for many years But this feat took the wind out Of his sails at last And he cried, I'll be stranded On Chico Bank if ever I saw the like of it Perhaps he had never given his sloop A chance to show what she could do The point I make for the spray Here, above all other points Is that she sailed in shoal waters And in a strong current With other difficult and unusual conditions Captain Howard took all this into account In all the years away from his native home Howard had not forgotten the art Of making fish chowders And to prove this he brought along Some fine rockfish and prepared A mess fit for kings When the savoury chowder was done Chocking the pot securely Between two boxes on the cabin floor So that it could not roll over We helped ourselves and swapped Yarns over it while the spray Made her own way through the darkness On the river. Howard told me stories About the Phoegetian cannibals As she reeled along, and I told him About the pilot of the pinter Steering my vessel through the storm Off the coast of the Azores And that I looked for him At the helm in a gale such as this I do not charge Howard with superstition We are none of us superstitious But when I spoke about his return Into Montevideo on the spray He shook his head and took A steam packet instead I had not been to Buenos Aires For a number of years The place where I had once landed From packets in a cart Was now built up with magnificent docks Vast fortunes have been spent In remodeling the harbour London bankers could tell you that The port captain, after assigning the spray A saved berth with his compliments Sent me word to call on him For anything I might want while in port And I felt quite sure that his friendship was sincere The sloop was well cared for at Buenos Aires Her dockage and tonnage dues were all free And the yachting fraternity of the city Welcomed her with a good will In town I found things not so greatly Changed as about the docks I soon felt myself more at home From Montevideo I had forwarded a letter From Sir Edward Hairby to the owner of the standard Mr. Mulhall, and in reply to it Was assured of a warm welcome to the warmest heart I think outside of Ireland Mr. Mulhall, with a prancing team Came down to the docks as soon as the spray was berthed And would have me go to his house at once Where a room was waiting And it was New Year's Day, 1896 The course of the spray had been followed In the columns of the standard Mr. Mulhall kindly drove me to see Many improvements about the city And we went in search of some of the old landmarks The man who sold lemonade on the plaza When I first visited this wonderful city I found selling lemonade still at two cents a glass He had made a fortune by it His stock in trade was a wash tub And a neighbouring hydrant A moderate supply of brown sugar And about six lemons that floated on the sweetened water The water from time to time Was renewed from a friendly pump But the lemon went on forever And all at two cents a glass But we looked in vain for the man Who once sold whiskey and coffins in Buenos Aires The march of civilisation had crushed him Memory only clung to his name Enterprising man that he was I feign would have looked him up I remember the tears of whiskey barrels Ranged on end, on one side of the store While on the other side And divided by a thin partition With the coffins in the same order Of all sizes and in great numbers The unique arrangement seemed in order For as a casque was emptied A coffin might be filled Besides cheap whiskey and many other liquours He sold cider, which he manufactured From damaged malaga raisins Within the scope of his enterprise Was also the sale of mineral waters Not entirely blameless of the germs of disease This man surely catered to all the tastes Wants and conditions of his customers Father along in the city, however Survived the good man who wrote On the side of his store The men might read and learn This wicked world will be destroyed By a comet The owner of this store is therefore bound To sell out at any price And avoid the catastrophe My friend Mr. Mulhall Drove me round to view the fearful comet With streaming tail pictured large On the trembling merchant's walls I unshipped the sloop's mast at Buenos Aires I shortened it by seven feet I reduced the length of the bowsprit By about five feet And even then I found it reaching far Enough from home, and more than once When on the end of it reefing the jib I regretted that I had not Shortened it another foot Chapter 7 Of Sailing Alone Around the World This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Alan Chant Sailing Alone Around the World By Joshua Slocum Chapter 7 Consisting of Weighing Anchor at Buenos Aires An outburst of emotion at the mouth of the plate Submerged by a great wave A stormy entrance to the strait Captain Samblik's happy gift Of a bag of carpet tacks Off Cape Froward Chased by Indians from Fortescue Bay A miss shot for Black Pedro Taking in supplies of wood and water At Three Island Cove Animal Life On January 26, 1896 The spray being refitted and well provisioned In every way sailed from Buenos Aires There was little wind at the start The surface of the Great River was like a silver disk And I was glad for a tow from a harbour tug To clear the port entrance But a gale came up soon after And caused an ugly sea And instead of being all silver as before The river was now all mud The plate is a treacherous place for storms One sailing there should always be on the alert for schools I cast anchor before dark in the best lee I could find near the land But was tossed miserably all night Hearts sore of choppy seas On the following morning I got the sloop underway The reefed sails worked her down the river Against a headwind Standing in that night to the place where Pilot Howard joined me for the Upper River Sail I took a departure shaping my course To clear Point Indio on the one hand And the English Bank on the other I had not for many years been south of these regions I will not say that I expected all fine sailing On the course for Cape Horn Direct But while I worked at the sails and rigging I thought only of onward and forward It was when I anchored in the lonely places That a feeling of awe crept over me At the last anchorage on the monotonous and muddy river Weak as it may seem I gave way to my feelings I resolved then that I would anchor No more north of the Strait of Magellan On the 28th of January The spray was clear of Point Indio, English Bank And all the other dangers of the river plate With a fair wind she then bore away For the Strait of Magellan under all sail Pressing farther and farther towards The wonderland of the south Till I forgot the blessings of our milder north My ship passed in safety Bahá'í Blanca Also the Gulf of St. Mattias And the mighty Gulf of St. George Hoping that she might go clear Of the destructive tide races The dread of big craft or little along this coast I gave all the capes a berth of about 50 miles For these dangers extend many miles from the land But where the sloop avoided one danger She encountered another For one day well off the Patagonian coast While the sloop was reaching under short sail A tremendous wave, the culmination it seemed Of many waves, rolled down upon her In a storm, roaring as it came I had only a moment to get all sail down And myself up on the peak halyards out of danger When I saw the mighty crest towering Masked head high above me The mountain of water submerged my vessel She shook in every timber and reeled Under the weight of the sea But rose quickly out of it And rode grandly over the rollers that followed It may have been a minute That from my hold in the rigging I could see no part of the spray's hull Perhaps it was even less time than that But it seemed a long while For under great excitement One lives fast And in a few seconds one may think A great deal of one's past life Not only did the past With electric speed flashed before me But I had time while in my hazardous position For resolutions for the future That would take a long time to fulfil The first one was I remember That if the spray came through this danger I would dedicate my best energies To building a larger ship on her lines Which I hope yet to do Other promises less easily kept I should have made under protest However, the incident which filled me with fear Was only one more test of the spray's worthiness It reassured me against rude Cape Horn From the time the Great Wave Swept over the spray Until she reaped Cape Virgin's Nothing occurred to move a pulse And set blood in motion On the contrary, the weather became fine And the sea smooth and life tranquil The phenomenon of mirage frequently occurred An albatross sitting on the water one day Loomed up like a large ship Two fur seals asleep on the surface of the sea Appeared like great whales And a bank of haze I could have sworn was high land The kaleidoscope then changed And on the following day I sailed in a world peopled by dwarfs On February 11 the spray rounded Cape Virgin's And entered the Strait of Magellan The scene was again real and gloomy The wind northeast and blowing a gale Sent feather-white spoon along the coast Such a sea ran as would swamp an ill-appointed ship As the sloop near the entrance to the Strait I observed the two great tide races made ahead One very close to the point of the land And one further offshore Between the two in a sort of channel Through comas went the spray with close reefed sails But a rolling sea followed her a long way in And a fierce current swept around the Cape against her But this she stemmed And was soon chirping under the lee of Cape Virgin's And running every minute into smoother water However long trailing kelp from sunken rocks Waved forebodingly under her keel And the wreck of a great steamship smashed on the beach abreast Gave a gloomy aspect to the scene I was not to be let off easy The Virgin's would collect tribute Even from the spray passing their promontory Fitful rain-scores from the northwest Followed the northeast gale I reefed the sloop's sails And sitting in the cabin to rest my eyes I was so strongly impressed With what in all nature I might expect That as I dozed the very air I breathed Seemed to warn me of danger My senses heard, Spray ahoy! Shouted in warning I sprang to the deck wondering who could be there That knew the spray so well as to call out her name Passing in the dark For it was now the blackest of nights all around Except away in the southwest Where rose the old familiar white arch The terror of Cape Horn Rapidly pushed up by a southwest gale I had only a moment to douse sail And lash all solid when it struck Like a shot from a cannon And for the first half hour It was something to be remembered by way of a gale For thirty hours it kept on blowing hard The sloop could carry no more Than a three-reefed mainsail and fossil And with these she held on stoutly And was not blown out of the strait In the height of the schools In this gale she doused all sail And this occurred often enough After this gale followed only a smart breeze And the spray passing through the narrows without mishap Cast anchor at Sandy Point On February 14, 1896 Sandy Point, Punta Arenas Is a Chilean coaling station And boasts about two thousand inhabitants Of mixed nationality but mostly Chileans What with sheep farming, gold mining and hunting The settlers in this dreary land Seem not the worst off in the world But the natives, Patagonian and Phoegetian On the other hand were as squalid As contact with unscrupulous traders Could make them A large percentage of the business there Was traffic in fire water If there was a law against selling The poisonous stuff to the natives It was not enforced Fine specimens of the Patagonian race Looking smart in the morning When they came into town Had repented before night Of ever having seen a white man So beastly drunk were they To say nothing about the peltry Of which they had been robbed The port at that time was free But a custom house was in course of construction And when it is finished Port and tariff dues are to be collected A soldier police guarded the place And a sort of vigilante force besides Took down its guns now and then But as a general thing to my mind Whenever an execution was made They killed the wrong man Just previous to my arrival The governor himself of a jovial turn of mind Had sent a party of young bloods To foray a Phoegetian settlement And wipe out what they could of it On account of the recent massacre Of a schooner's crew somewhere else Although the place was quite newsy And supported two papers, dailies I think The port captain, a Chilean naval officer Advised me to ship hands to fight Indians In the straight further west And spoke of my stopping until a gunboat Should be going through which would give me a tow After canvassing the place however I found only one man willing to embark And he on condition that I should Ship another moon and a dog But as no one else was willing to come along And as I drew the line at dogs I said no more about the matter But simply loaded my guns At this point in my dilemma Captain Pedro Samblik A good Austrian of large experience Coming along gave me a bag of carpet tax Worth more than all the fighting men And dogs of Tierra del Fuego I protested that I had no use For carpet tax on board Samblik smiled at my want of experience And maintained stoutly that I would have use for them You must use them with discretion he said That is to say, don't step on them yourself With this remote hint about the use of the tax I got on all right And saw the way to maintaining clear decks at night Without the care of watching Samblik was greatly interested in my journey And after giving me the tax I bought on board bags of biscuits And a large quantity of smoked venison He declared that my bread Which was ordinary sea biscuits And easily broken Was not nutritious as his Which was so hard that I could break it only With a stout blow from a maul Then he gave me from his own sloop A compass which was certainly better than mine And offered to unbend her mainsail for me If I would accept it Last of all This large-hearted man brought out a bottle of Fuigian's gold dust From a place where it had been cashed And begged me to help myself from it For use further along on the voyage But I felt sure of success Without this draft on a friend And I was right Samblik's tax as it turned out Were of more value than gold The port captain finding that I was resolved To go on even alone Since there was no help for it Set up no further objection But advised me in case the savages Tried to surround me with their canoes To shoot straight And begin to do it in time But to avoid killing them if possible Which I heartily agreed to do With these simple injunctions The officer gave me my port clearance Free of charge And I sailed on the same day February 19, 1896 It was not without thoughts Of strange and stirring adventure Beyond all I had yet encountered That I now sailed into the country And very core of the savage Fuigians A fair wind from Sandy Point Bought me on the first day to St Nicholas Bay Where so I was told I might expect to meet savages But seeing no signs of life I came to anchor in eight fathoms of water Where I lay all night under a high mountain Here I had my first experience With the terrific schools Called Willy Wars Which extended from this point on Through the straight to the Pacific They were compressed gales of wind That Boreas handed down over the hills in chunks A full-blown Willy War Will throw a ship even without Salon Over on her beam ends But like other gales They cease now and then If only for a short time February 20 was my birthday And I found myself alone With hardly so much as a bird in sight Off Cape Froward The southernmost point of the continent of America By daylight in the morning I was getting my ship underway For the bout ahead The sloop held the wind fair While she ran 30 miles further on her course Which brought her to Fortescue Bay And at once among the native signal fires Which blazed up now on all sides Clouds flew over the mountain From the west all day At night my good east wind failed And in its stead a gale from the west Soon came on I gained anchorage at twelve o'clock That night under the lee of a little island And then prepared myself a cup of coffee Of which I was sorely in need For to tell the truth Hard beating in the heavy schools And against the current had told on my strength Finding that the anchor held I drank my beverage and named the place Coffee Island It lies to the south of Charles Island With only a narrow channel between By daylight the next morning The spray was again underway Beating hard But she came into a cove in Charles Island Two and a half miles along on her course Here she remained undisturbed two days With both anchors down in a bed of kelp Indeed she might have remained undisturbed indefinitely Not the wind moderated For during these two days it blew so hard That no boat could venture out on the straight And the natives being away to other hunting grounds The island anchorage was safe But at the end of the fierce windstorm Fair weather came, then I got my anchors And again sailed out upon the straight Canoes manned by savages from Fortescue Now came in pursuit With the light falling light they gained on me rapidly Till coming within hail when they ceased paddling And a bow-legged savage stood up and called to me YAMASKUNA! YAMASKUNA! Which is their begging term I said, No! Now I was not for letting on that I was alone And so I stepped into the cabin And passing through the hold came out at the fore-scuttle Changing my clothes as I went along That made two men Then the piece of bowsprit Which I had soared off at Buenos Aires And which I had still on board I arranged forward on the lookout Dressed as a seamen Attaching a line by which I could pull it into motion That made three of us And we didn't want to YAMASKUNA But for all that the savages came on faster than before I saw that besides four at the paddles In the canoe nearest to me There were others in the bottom And that they were shifting hands often At eighty yards I fired a shot Across the bowels of the nearest canoe At which they all stopped But only for a moment Seeing that they persisted in coming nearer I fired the second shot so close to the chap Who wanted to YAMASKUNA That he changed his mind quickly enough And bellowed with fear And sitting down in his canoe He rubbed his starboard cat-head for some time I was thinking of the good port captain's advice When I pulled the trigger And must have aimed pretty straight However, a miss was as good as a mile For Mr. Black Pedro As he it was, and no other A leader in several bloody massacres He made for the island now And the others followed him I knew by his Spanish lingo And by his full beard That he was the villain I had named A renegade mongrel The authorities have been in search of him For two years The Phuigians are not bearded So much for the first day Among the savages I came to anchor at midnight In Three Island Cove About twenty miles along from Fortescue Bay I saw on the opposite side Of the straight signal fires And heard the barking of dogs But where I lay It was quite deserted by natives I have always taken it as a sign That where I found birds sitting about Or seals on the rocks I should not find savage Indians Seals are never plentiful in these waters But in Three Island Cove I saw one on the rocks And other signs of the absence of savage men On the next day The wind was again blowing agale And although she was in the lee of the land The sloop dragged her anchors So that I had to get her under way And beat further into the Cove Where I came to in a landlocked pool At another time or place This would have been a rash thing to do And it was safe now Only from the fact that the gale Which drove me to Shelter Would keep the Indians from crossing the straight Seeing that this was the case I went ashore with gun and axe on an island Where I could not in any event be surprised And there felled trees And split about a cord of firewood Which loaded my boat several times While I carried the wood Though I was morally sure there were no savages near I never once went to or from the skiff without my gun While I had that in a clear field Of over eighty yards about me I felt safe The trees on the island very scattering Were a sort of beach and a stunted cedar Both of which made good fuel Even the green limbs of the beach Which seemed to possess a resinous quality Burnt readily in my great drum-stove I have described my method of wooding up in detail That the reader who has kindly borne with me so far May see that in this, as in all other particulars of my voyage I took great care against all kinds of surprises Whether by animals or by the elements In the Strait of Magellan The greatest vigilance was necessary In this instance I reasoned that I had all about me The greatest danger of the whole voyage The treachery of cunning savages For which I must be particularly on the alert The spray sailed from Three Island Cove In the morning after the gale went down But was glad to return for shelter From another sudden gale Sailing again on the following day She fetched Bourgeois Bay A few miles on her course The vessels had anchored from time to time And had nailed boards on the trees ashore With name and date of harbouring carved or painted Nothing else could I see to indicate The civilised man had ever been before I had taken a survey of the gloomy place With my spy-glass and was getting my boat out To land and take notes when the Chilean gunboat Humel came in and officers coming on board Advised me to leave the place at once A thing that required little eloquence To persuade me to do I accepted the captain's kind offer Of a tow to the next anchorage At the place called Notch Cove Eight miles further along Where I should be clear of the worst Of the Fuegians We made anchorage at the Cove About dark that night While the wind came down in fierce Willy Wars from the mountains An instance of Magellan weather was afforded When the Humel, a well-appointed gunboat of great power After attempting on the following day To proceed on her voyage Was obliged by sheer force of the wind To return and take up anchorage again And remain till the gale abated And lucky she was to get back Meeting this vessel was a little godsend She was commanded and officered By high-class sailors and educated gentlemen An entertainment that was gotten up on her Imprompt you at the Notch Would be hard to beat anywhere One of her midshipmen sang popular songs In French, German and Spanish And one, so he said, in Russian If the audience did not know the lingo Of one song from another It was no drawback to the merriment I was left alone the next day For then the Humel put out on her voyage The gale having abated I spent a day taking in wood and water By the end of that time the weather was fine Then I sailed from the desolate place There is little more to be said Concerning the spray's first passage Through the strait that would differ From what I have already recorded She anchored and weighed many times And beat many days against the current With now and then a slant for a few miles Till finally she gained anchorage And shelter for the night at Port Tamar With Cape Pillar in sight to the west Here I felt the throb of the great ocean That lay before me I knew now that I had put a world behind me And that I was opening out another world ahead I had passed the haunts of savages Great piles of granite mountains Of bleak and lifeless aspect Were now a stern On some of them not even a speck Of moss had ever grown There was an unfinished newness About the land On the hill back of Port Tamar A small beacon had been thrown up Showing that some man had been there But how could one tell about That he had died of loneliness and grief In a bleak land is not the place To enjoy solitude Throughout the whole of the strait West of Cape Froad I saw no animals except dogs Owned by savages These I saw often enough With them yelping night and day Birds were not plentiful The scream of a wild fowl Which I took for a loon Sometimes startled me with its piercing cry The steamboat duck so called Because it propels itself over The sea with its wings And resembles a miniature Sidewheel steamer in its motion Was sometimes seen scurrying on Out of danger It never flies, but hitting the water Instead of the air with its wings Faster than a rowboat or a canoe The few fur seals I saw Were very shy And of fishes I saw next To none at all I did not catch one, indeed I seldom or never put a hook over During the whole voyage Here in the strait I found great abundance Of muscles of an excellent quality I fared sumptuously on them There was a sort of swan Smaller than a Muscovy duck Which might have been brought down But in the loneliness of life About a dreary country I found myself in no mood To make one life less Except in self-defense End of Chapter 7 Recording by Alan Chant In Tumbridge, Kent, England www.7oaksprep.kent.sh.uk Chapter 8 of Sailing Alone Around the World This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings Are in the public domain For more information Or to volunteer Please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Alan Chant Sailing Alone Around the World By Joshua Slocum Chapter 8 Consisting of From Cape Pillar Into the Pacific Driven by a tempest Towards Cape Horn Captain Slocum's greatest sea adventure Reaching the strait again By way of Coburn Channel Some savages find the carpet tax Danger from firebrands A series of fierce willy-wars Again sailing westward It was the 3rd of March When the spray sailed from Port Tamar Direct for Cape Pillar With the wind from the northeast Which I fervently hoped might hold till she cleared the land But there was no such good luck in store It soon began to rain and thicken In the northwest, boating no good The spray neared Cape Pillar rapidly And nothing loath plunged into the Pacific Ocean at once Taking her first bath of it in the gathering storm There was no turning back Even had I wished to do so For the land was now shut out By the darkness of night The wind freshened And I took in a third reef The sea was confused and treacherous In such a time as this The old fisherman prayed Remember, Lord, my ship is so small And thy sea is so wide I saw now only the gleaming crests of waves They showed white teeth While the sloop balanced over them Everything for an offing, I cried And to this end I carried on All the sail she would bear She ran all night with a free sheet But on the morning of March the 4th The wind shifted to southwest Then back suddenly to northwest And blew with terrific force The spray stripped of her sails Then bore off under bare poles No ship in the world could have stood up Against so violent a gale Knowing that this storm might continue For many days and that it would be impossible To work back to the westward along the coast Outside of Tierra del Fuego There seemed nothing to do but to keep on And go east about after all Anyhow for my present safety The only course lay in keeping her Before the wind And so she drove southwest As though about to round the horn While the waves rose and fell And bellowed their never-ending story of the sea But the hand that held these Held also the spray She was running now with a reefed forestasal The sheet's flat amidships I paid out two long ropes to steady her course And to break coming seas astern And I lashed the helm amidship In this trim she ran before it Shipping never a sea Even while the storm raged at its worst My ship was wholesome and noble My mind as to her seaworthiness Was put to ease for a When all had been done that I could do For the safety of the vessel I got into the four scuttle between seas And prepared a pot of coffee over a wood fire And made a good Irish stew Then as before and afterwards on the spray I insisted on warm meals In the tide-race of Cape Pillar, however Where the sea was marvelously high, uneven and crooked My appetite was slim And for a time I postponed cooking Confidentially I was seasick The first day of the storm Gave the spray her actual test In the worst sea that Cape Horn Or its wild regions could afford And in no part of the world Could a rougher sea be found Than at this particular point Namely, off Cape Pillar The grim sentinel of the horn Further offshore while the sea was majestic There was less apprehension of danger There the spray rode Now like a bird on the crest of a wave And now like a wave deep down In the hollow between seas And so she drove on Whole days passed Counted as other days But with always a thrill Yes of delight On the fourth day of the gale Rapidly nearing the pitch of Cape Horn I inspected my chart And pricked off the course and distance To Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands Where I might find my way and refit When I saw through a rift in the clouds A high mountain about seven leagues away On the Port Beam The fierce edge of the gale by this time Had blown off and I had already bent a Squaresal on the boom in place of the mainsail Which was torn to rags I hauled in the trailing ropes Hoisted this awkward sail reefed The four stasel being already set And under this sail brought her at once On the wind heading for the land She appeared as an island in the sea So it turned out to be Though not the one I had supposed I was exultant over the prospect of once more Entering the Strait of Magellan And beating through again into the Pacific For it was more than rough On the outside coast of Tierra del Fuego It was indeed a mountainous sea When the sloop was in the fiercest squalls With only the reefed four stasel set Even that small sail shook her from Kilsom to Truck when it shivered by the leech Had I harboured the shadow of a doubt For her safety it would have been That she might spring a leak in the Garboard at the heel of the mast But she never called me once to the pump Under pressure of the smallest sail I could set she made for the land Like a racehorse And steering her over the crests Of the waves so that she might not Trip was nice work I stood at the helm now And made the most of it Night closed in before the sloop reached the land Leaving her feeling the way in pitchy darkness I saw breakers ahead before long At this I worshipped and stood offshore But was immediately startled by the tremendous Roaring of breakers again ahead And on the lee-bow This puzzled me for there should have been No broken water where I supposed Myself to be I kept off a good bit Then wore round but finding broken water There also threw her head again offshore In this way among dangers I spent The rest of the night Hail and sleet in the fierce squalls Cut my flesh till the blood trickled Over my face But what of that? Daylight and the sloop was in the midst Of the milky way of the sea Which is north-west of Cape Horn And it was the white breakers of a huge sea Over sunken rocks which had threatened To engulf her through the night It was fury island I had sighted and steered for And what a panorama was before me now And all around it was not the time To complain of a broken skin What could I do but fill away among the breakers And find a channel between them Now that it was day Since she had escaped the rocks through the night Surely she would find her way by daylight This was the greatest sea adventure of my life God knows how my vessel escaped The sloop at last reached inside of small islands That sheltered her in smooth water Then I climbed the mast to survey The wild sea in a stern The great naturalist Darwin looked over this seascape From the deck of the beagle and wrote in his journal Any landsman seeing the milky way Would have nightmare for a week He might have added or seaman as well The spray's good luck followed fast I discovered as she sailed among a labyrinth of islands That she was in the Coburn Channel Which leads into the Strait of Magellan At a point opposite Cape Froward And that she was already passing Thieves Bay Suggestively named And at night March 8 Behold she was at anchor in a snug cove at the turn Every heart beat on the spray Now counted thanks Here I pondered on the events of the last few days And strangely enough Instead of feeling rested from sitting or lying down I now began to feel jaded and worn But a hot meal of Venice and stew Soon put me right so that I could sleep As drowsiness came on I sprinkled the deck with tacks And then I turned in Bearing in mind the advice of my old friend Samblik That I was not to step on them myself I saw to it That not a few of them stood business end up For when the spray passed Thieves Bay Two canoes had put out and followed in her wake And there was no disguising the fact any longer That I was alone Now it is well known That one cannot step on a tack Without saying something about it A pretty good Christian can whistle When he steps on the commercial end of a carpet tack A savage will howl and claw the air And that was just what happened that night About twelve o'clock while I was asleep in the cabin Where the savages thought they had me Sloop and all But changed their minds when they stepped on deck For then they thought that I or somebody else had them I had no need of a dog They howled like a pack of hounds I had hardly use for a gun They jumped pel-mel some into their canoes Some into the sea to cool off, I suppose And there was a deal of free language over it As they went I fired several guns when I came on deck To let the rascals know that I was at home And then I turned in again Feeling sure I should not be disturbed any more By people who left in so great a hurry The Phuegians being cruel are naturally cowards They regard a rifle with superstitious fear The only real danger one could see That might come from their quarter Would be from allowing them to surround one within bow-shot Or to anchor within range where they might lie in ambush As for their coming on deck at night Even if I had not put tacks about I could have cleared them off by shots from the cabin and hold I always keep a quantity of ammunition within reach in the hold And in the cabin and in the fore-peak So that retreating to any of these places I could hold the fort simply by shooting up through the deck Perhaps the greatest danger to be apprehended Was from the use of fire Every canoe carries fire Nothing is thought of that For it is their custom to communicate by smoke signals The harmless brand that lies smouldering In the bottom of one of their canoes Might be ablaze in one's cabin if he were not on the alert The port captain of Sandy Point Warned me particularly of this danger Only a short time before they had fired a Chilean gunboat By throwing brands in through the stern windows of the cabin The spray had no openings in the cabin or deck Except two scuttles And these were guarded by fastenings Which could not be undone without waking me if I were asleep On the morning of the ninth After a refreshing rest and a warm breakfast And after I had swept the deck of tax I got out what spare canvas there was on board And began to sew the pieces together in the shape of a peak For my square mainsail, the Tarpaulin The day to all appearances promised fine weather and light winds But appearances in Tierra del Fuego do not always count While I was wondering why no trees Grew on the slope abreast of the anchorage Half-minded to lay by the sailmaking And land with my gun for some game And to inspect a white boulder on the beach near the brook A willow-war came down with such terrific force As to carry the spray with two anchors down Like a feather out of the cove And away into deep water No wonder trees did not grow on the side of that hill Great Boreus! a tree would need all its roots To hold on against such a furious wind From the cove to the nearest land to Llewod Was a long drift, however And I had ample time to weigh both anchors Before the sloop came near any danger And so no harm came of it I saw no more savages that day or the next They probably had some sign by which they knew Of the coming willow-wars At least they were wise in not being afloat Even on the second day For I had no sooner gotten to work at sailmaking Again after the anchor was down Than the wind, as on the day before, Picked the sloop up and flung her sea-wood With a vengeance, anchor and all as before This fierce wind, usual to the Magellan country Continued on through the day And swept the sloop by several miles Of steep bluffs and precipices Overhanging a bold shore of wild And uninviting appearance I was not sorry to get away from it Though in doing so it was no Elysian shore To which I shaped my course I kept on sailing in hope Since I had no choice but to go on Heading across for St. Nicholas Bay Where I had cast anchor February 19 It was now the 10th of March Upon reaching the bay the second time I had circumnavigated the wildest part Of desolate Tierra del Fuego But the spray had not yet arrived at St. Nicholas And by the merest accident Her bones were saved from resting there When she did arrive The parting of a stasal sheet in a willow-wars When the sea was turbulent And she was plunging into the storm Brought me forward to see instantly The dark cliff ahead And breakers so close under the boughs That I felt surely lost And in my thoughts cried Is the hand of fate against me after all Leading me in the end to this dark spot I sprang after gain Unheeding the flapping sail And threw the wheel over Expecting as the sloop came down Into the hollow of a wave I remember smash under me on the rocks But at the touch of her helm She swung clear of the danger And in the next moment She was in the lee of the land It was a small island in the middle of the bay For which the sloop had been steering And which she made with such unerring aim As nearly to run it down Further along the bay was the anchorage Which I managed to reach But before I could get the anchor down Another school carried the sloop And hurled her round like a top And carried her away all together To Lourdes of the bay Still farther to Lourdes was a great headland And I bore off for that This was retracing my course towards Sandy Point For the gale was from the south-west I had the sloop soon under good control, however And in a short time rounded to Under the lee of a mountain Where the sea was as smooth as a mill-pond The sails flapped and hung limp While she carried her way close in Here I thought I would anchor and rest till morning The depth being eight fathoms very close to the shore But it was interesting to see As I let go the anchor That it did not reach the bottom Before another willow-wore struck down from the mountain And carried the sloop off faster Than I could pay out cable Therefore instead of resting I had to man the windlass And heave up the anchor with fifty fathoms Of cable hanging up and down in deep water This was in that part of the strait Called Famine Reach Dismal Famine Reach On the sloop's crab windlass I worked the rest of the night Thinking how much easier it was for me When I could say Do that thing or the other And now doing it all myself But I hover away and sang the old chance That I sang when I was a sailor Within the last few days I had passed through much And was now thankful That my state was no worse It was daybreak When the anchor was at the whores By this time the wind had gone down And cat's paws took the place of willy-wars While the sloop drifted slowly Towards Sandy Point She came within sight of ships At anchor in the roads And I was more than half-minded To put in for new sails But the wind coming out From the north-east Which was fair for the other direction I turned the prow of the spray Westwards once more for the Pacific To traverse a second time The second half of my course Through the strait End of Chapter 8 Recording by Alan Chand In Tumbridge Kent, England www.sevenoaksprep.kent.sh.uk Chapter 9 of Sailing Alone Around the World This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Alan Chand Sailing Alone Around the World By Joshua Slokan Chapter 9 Consisting of Repairing the spray's sails Savages and an obstreperous anchor A spider-fight An encounter with Black Pedro A visit to the steamship Columbia On the defensive against a fleet of canoes A record of voyages through the strait A chance cargo of tallow I was determined to rely on my own small resources To repair the damages of the Great Gale Which drove me southward towards the Horn After I had passed from the Strait of Magellan Out into the Pacific So when I had got back into the strait By way of Coburn Channel I did not proceed eastward for help At the Sandy Point Settlement But turning again into the north-westwards reach Of the strait, set to work with my palm and needle At every opportunity, when at anchor and when sailing It was slow work, but little by little The square sole on the boom expanded To the dimensions of a serviceable mainsail With a peak to it and a leech besides If it were not the best-setting sailor float Was at least very strongly made And would stand a hard blow A ship meeting the spray long afterwards Reported her as wearing a mainsail Of some improved design and patent reefer But that was not the case The spray for a few days after the storm Enjoyed fine weather and made fair time Through the strait for the distance of twenty miles Which in these days of many adversities I called a good run The weather I say was fine for a few days But it brought little rest Care for the safety of my vessel And even for my own life Was in no wise lessened by the absence of heavy weather Indeed the peril was even greater In as much as the savages on comparatively fine days Ventured forth on their marauding excursions And in boisterous weather disappeared from sight Their wretched canoes being frail And undeserving the name of craft at all This being so I now enjoyed gales of wind as never before And the spray was never long without them During her struggles about Cape Horn I became in a measure enured to the life And began to think that one more trip through the strait If perchance the sloop should be blown off again Would make me the aggressor And put the fuigians entirely on the defensive This feeling was forcibly borne in on me at Snug Bay Where I anchored at grey morning After passing Cape Fro would to find When broad day appeared that two canoes Which I had eluded by sailing all night Were now entering the same bay stealthily Under the shadow of the High Headland They were well manned And the savages were well armed With spears and bows At a shot from my rifle across the bowels Both turned aside into a small creek out of range In danger now of being flanked by the savages In the bush closer board I was obliged to hoist the sails Which I had barely lowered And make across to the opposite side of the strait A distance of six miles But now I was put to my wit's end As to how I should weigh anchor For through an accident to the windless right here I could not budge it However I had set all sail and filled away First hauling short by hand The sloop carried her anchor away As though it was meant to be always towed In this way under foot And with it she towed a ton or more of kelp From a reef in the bay The wind blowing a wholesome breeze Meanwhile I worked till blood started from my fingers And with one eye over my shoulder for savages I watched at the same time And sent a bullet whistling Whenever I saw a limb or a twig move For I kept a gun always at hand And an Indian appearing then within range Would have been taken as a declaration of war As it was however My own blood was all that was spilt And from the trifling accident Of sometimes breaking the flesh Against a cleat or a pin Came in the way when I was in haste Sea-cuts in my hands From pulling on hard wet ropes Were sometimes painful And often bled freely But these healed when I finally got away From the straight into fine weather After clearing snug bay I hauled the sloop to the wind Repaired the windless And hoved the anchor to the whores Catted it and then stretched Across to a port of refuge under a high mountain About six miles away And came two in nine fathoms Close under the face of a perpendicular cliff Here my own voice answered back And I named the place Echo Mountain Seeing dead trees further along Where the shore was broken I made a landing for fuel Taking besides my axe A rifle which on these days I never left far from hand But I saw no living thing here Except a small spider Which had nested in a dry log That I boated to the sloop The conduct of this insect Interested me now More than anything else around the wild place In my cabin it met oddly enough A spider of its own size and species That had come all the way from Boston A very civil little chap too But mighty spry Well the Fooegium threw up its antennae For a fight But my little Bostonian Downed it at once Then broke its legs And pulled them off One by one so dexterously That in less than three minutes From the time the battle began The Fooegium spider Didn't know itself from a fly I made haste the following morning To be under way After a night of wakefulness On the weird shore Before weighing anchor however I prepared a cup of warm coffee Over a smart wood fire In my great Montevideo stove In the same fire Was cremated the Fooegium spider Slain the day before By the little warrior from Boston Which a Scots lady at Cape Town Long after named Bruce Upon hearing of its prowess At Echo Mountain The spray now reached away For Coffee Island Which I cited on my birthday February 20, 1896 There she encountered another gale That brought her in the lee Of Great Charles Island for shelter On a bluff point on Charles Were signal fires And a tribe of savages Mustered here since my first trip Through the strait Manned their canoes To put off for the sloop It was not prudent to come to The anchorage being within Bowshot of the shore Which was thickly wooded But I made signs that one Canoe might come alongside While the sloop ranged about Under sail in the lee of the land The others I motioned to keep off And incidentally laid a smart Martini-Henry rifle in sight Close at hand on the top of the cabin In the canoe that came alongside Crying their never-ending Begging word, yamascoona Were two squaws and one Indian The hardest specimens of humanity I have ever seen in any of my travels Yamascoona was their plaint When they pushed off from the shore And yamascoona it was When they got alongside The squaws beckoned for food While the Indian, a black visaged Savage stood sulkily As if he took no interest at all In the matter. But on my turning my back For some biscuits and jerked beef For the squaws, the buck sprang On deck and confronted me In Spanish jargon that we had met before I thought I recognised the tone Of his yamascoona and his full beard Identified him as the black Pedro Whom it was true I had met before Where are the rest of the crew? He asked as he looked uneasily Around expecting hands maybe To come out of the forescuttle And deal him his just desserts For many murders. About three weeks ago he said When you passed up here I saw three men on board Where are the other two? I answered him briefly That the same crew were still on board But said he I see you are doing all the work And with a leer he added As he glanced at the mainsail Hombre valiente I explained that I did all the work in the day While the rest of the crew slept So that they would be fresh To watch for Indians at night I was interested in the subtle cunning of this savage Knowing him as I did Perhaps better than he was aware Even had I not been advised Before I sailed from Sandy Point I should have measured him for an arch-villain now Moreover one of the squaws With that spark of kindness Which is somehow found in the breast Of even the lowest savage Warned me by a sign to be on my guard Or Black Pedro would do me harm There was no need of the warning however For I was on my guard from the first And at that moment held a smart revolver In my hand ready for instant service When you sailed through here before He said you fired a shot at me Adding with some warmth That it was muy mullo I affected not to understand and said You have lived at Sandy Point have you not? He answered frankly yes And appeared delighted to meet one Who had come from the dear old place At the mission I queried Why yes he replied Stepping forward as if to embrace an old friend I motioned him back For I did not share his flattering humour And you know Captain Pedro Samblik Continued I? Yes said the villain who had killed A kinsman of Samblik Yes indeed he is a great friend of mine I know it said I Samblik had told me to shoot him on sight Pointing to my rifle on the cabin He wanted to know how many times it fired Toss said he When I explained to him that the gun Kept right on shooting his jaw fell And he spoke of getting away I did not hinder him from going I gave the scores biscuits and beef And one of them gave me several lumps Of tallow in exchange And I think it worth mentioning That she did not offer me the smallest pieces But with some extra trouble handed me The largest of all the pieces in the canoe The question could have done more Before pushing off from the sloop The cunning savage asked for matches And made as if to reach with the end of his spear The box I was about to give him But I held it towards him on the muzzle of the rifle The one that kept on shooting The chap picked the box off the gun Gingely enough to be sure But he jumped when I said Quadeo look out At which the scores laughed And seemed not to be at all displeased Perhaps the wretch had clubbed them that morning For not gathering muscles enough for his breakfast There was a good understanding among us all From Charles Island The spray crossed over to Fortescue Bay Where she anchored and spent a comfortable night Under the lee of Highland While the wind howled outside The bay was deserted now They were Fortescue Indians Who had been at the island And I felt quite sure they could not follow the spray In the present hard blow Not to neglect a precaution however I sprinkled tax on deck before I turned in On the following day The loneliness of the place was broken By the appearance of a great steamship Making for the anchorage with a lofty bearing She was no Diego craft I knew the sheer, the model and the poise But my flag and directly saw the stars and stripes Flung to the breeze from the great ship The wind had then abated And towards night the savages made their appearance From the island, going direct to the steamer To Yamaskuna Then they came to the spray to beg more Or to steal all, declaring that they had got Nothing from the steamer Black Pedro had come alongside again My own brother could not have been more delighted to see me And he begged me to lend him my rifle To shoot a guanaco for me in the morning I assured the fellow that if I remained there another day I would lend him the gun, but I had no mind to remain I gave him a Cooper's drawer knife And some other small implements Which would be of service in canoe-making And bade him be off Under the cover of darkness that night I went to the steamer, which I found to be the Columbia Captain Henderson from New York bound for San Francisco I carried all my guns along with me In case it should be necessary to fight my way back In the chief mate of the Columbia, Mr. Hannibal I found an old friend And he referred affectionately to days in Manila When we were there together He and the Southern Cross and I in the Northern Light Both ships as beautiful as their names The Columbia had an abundance of fresh stores on board The Captain gave his steward some orders And I remember that the guileish young man asked me If I could manage, besides other things A few cans of milk and a cheese When I offered my Montevideo gold for the supplies The Captain roared like a lion And told me to put my money up It was a glorious outfit of provisions of all kinds That I got Returning to the spray where I found all secure I prepared for an early start in the morning It was agreed that the steamer should blow her whistle For me if first on the move I watched the steamer off and on through the night For the pleasure alone of seeing her electric lights A pleasing sight in contrast to the ordinary Fuidian canoe with a brand of fire in it The sloop was the first underway But the Columbia soon following passed And saluted as she went by Had the Captain given me his steamer His company would have been no worse off Than they were two or three months later I read afterwards in a late California paper The Columbia will be a total loss On her second trip to Panama She was wrecked on the rocks off the California coast The spray was then beating against wind and current As usual in the strait At this point the tides from the Atlantic And the Pacific meet And in the strait as on the outside coast Their meeting makes a commotion of whirlpools And comas that in a gale of wind Is dangerous to canoes and other frail craft A few miles further along Was a large steamer ashore bottom up Passing this place The sloop ran into a streak of light wind And then a most remarkable condition for straight weather It fell entirely calm Signal fires sprang up at once on all sides And there more than twenty canoes Hove in sight all heading for the spray As they came with inhale Their savage crews cried Amigo y amascuna Anclas aqui Bueno puerto aqui And like scraps of Spanish mixed with their own jargon I had no thought of anchoring in their good port I hoisted the sloop's flag and fired a gun All of which they might construe as a friendly salute Or an invitation to come on They drew up in a semi-circle But kept outside of eighty yards Which in self-defense would have been the death-line In their mosquito-fleet Was a ship's boat stolen probably from a murdered crew Six savages paddled this rather awkwardly With the blades of oars which had been broken off Two of the savages standing erect Wore sea-boots and this sustained the suspicion That they had fallen upon some luckless ship's crew And also added a hint That they had already visited the spray's deck And would now if they could try her again Their sea-boots, I have no doubt, would have protected their feet And rendered carpet-tacks harmless Paddling clumsily they passed down the strait At a distance of a hundred yards from the sloop In an offhand manner as if bound to Fortescue Bay This I judged to be a piece of strategy And so kept a sharp lookout over a small island Which soon came in range between them and the sloop Completely hiding them from view And towards which the spray was now drifting Helplessly with the tide And with every prospect of going on the rocks For there was no anchorage At least none that my cables would reach And sure enough I soon saw a movement in the grass Just on top of the island Which is called Bonnet Island And is 136 feet high I fired several shots over the place But saw no other sign of the savages It was they that had moved the grass For as the sloop swept past the island The rebound of the tide carrying her clear There on the other side was the boat Surely enough exposing their cunning and treachery A stiff breeze coming up suddenly now Scattered the canoes While it extricated the sloop from a dangerous position Albeit the wind, though friendly, was still ahead The spray flogging against current and wind Made Borgia Bay on the following morning And cast anchor there for the second time I would now, if I could, describe the moonlit scene On the strait at midnight After I had cleared the savages and Bonnet Island A heavy cloud-bank that had swept across the sky Then cleared away, and the night became Suddenly as light as day or nearly so A high mountain was mirrored in the channel ahead And the spray sailing along with her shadow Was as two sloops on the sea The sloop being moored I threw out my skiff and with axe and gun Landed at the head of the cove And filled a barrel of water from a stream Then as before there was no sign of Indians at the place Finding it quite deserted I rambled about near the beach for an hour or more The fine weather seemed somehow To add loneliness to the place And when I came upon a spot where a grave was marked I went no further Returning to the head of the cove I came to a sort of calvary It appeared to me where navigators carrying their cross Had each set one up as a beacon to others coming after They had anchored here and gone on All except the one under the little mound One of the simple marks curiously enough Had been left there by the steamship Columbia Sister ship to the Columbia My neighbour of that morning I read the names of many other vessels Some of them I copied in my journal Others were illegible Many of the crosses had decayed and fallen And many a hand that put them there I had known Many a hand now still The air of depression was about the place And I hurried back to the sloop To forget myself again in the voyage Early the next morning I stood out from Borgia Bay And off Cape Quad where the wind fell light I moored the sloop by kelp in twenty fathoms of water And held her there a few hours against a three knot current That night I anchored in Langara Cove A few miles further along Where on the following day I discovered wreckage and goods washed up from the sea I worked all day now Salving and boating off a cargo to the sloop The bulk of the goods was tallow in casks And in lumps from which the casks had broken away And embedded in the seaweed was a barrel of wine Which I also towed alongside I hoisted them all in with the throat halyards Which I took to the windless The weight of some of the casks Was a little over eight hundred pounds There were no Indians about Langara Evidently there had not been any Since the great gale which had washed the wreckage on shore Probably it was the same gale That drove the spray off Cape Horn From March three to eight Hundreds of tons of kelp had been torn From beds in deep water And rolled up into ridges on the beach A specimen stork which I found in tyre Roots, leaves and all Measured one hundred and thirty-one feet in length At this place I filled a barrel of water at night And on the following day Sailed with a fair wind at last I had not sailed far however When I came abreast of moor tallow In a small cove where I anchored And boated off as before It rained and snowed hard all that day And it was no light work Carrying tallow in my arms Over the boulders on the beach But I worked on till the spray Was loaded with a full cargo I was happy then in the prospect Of doing a good business further along the coast For the habits of an old trader Would come to the surface I sailed from the cove about noon Greased from top to toe While my vessel was tallowed From keelsen to truck My cabin as well as the hold and deck Was stowed full of tallow And all were thoroughly smeared End of Chapter 9 Recording by Alan Chant In Tumbridge Kent, England www.7oaksprep.kent.sh.uk Chapter 10 of Sailing Alone Around the World This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Alan Chant Sailing Alone Around the World By Joshua Slocum Chapter 10, Consisting of Running to Port Angosto in a snowstorm A defective sheet-rope Places the spray in peril The spray as a target for a Phoeesian arrow The island of Alan Eric Again in the open Pacific The run to the island of Juan Fernandez An absentee king At Robinson Crusoe's anchorage Another gale had then sprang up But the wind was still fair And I had only 26 miles to run for Port Angosto A dreary enough place Where, however, I would find a safe harbour In which to refit and stow cargo I carried on sail to make the harbour before dark And she fairly flew along All covered with snow which fell thick and fast Till she looked like a white winter bird Between the storm bursts I saw the headland of my port And was steering for it When a floor of wind caught the mainsail by the lee I nibbed it over and dear how nearly was this The cause of disaster For the sheet parted and the boom unshipped And it was then close upon night I worked till the perspiration poured from my body To get things adjusted and in working order before dark And above all to get it done before the sloop Drove to Lourdes of the port of refuge Even then I did not get the boom shipped in its saddle I was at the entrance of the harbour Before I could get this done And it was time to haul her too or lose the port Like a bird with a broken wing She made the haven The accident which so jeopardised my vessel and cargo Came from a defective sheet-rope One made from sisal, a treacherous fibre Which has caused a deal of strong language among sailors I did not run the spray into the inner harbour Of Port Angosto, but came to inside a bed of kelp Under a steep bluff on the port-hand going in It was an exceedingly snug nook And to make doubly sure of holding on here Against all willy-wars I moored her with two anchors And secured her besides by cables to trees However no wind ever reached there Except back-floors from the mountains On the opposite side of the harbour There, as elsewhere in that region The country was made up of mountains This was the place where I was to refit And whence I was to sail direct once more For Cape Pillar and the Pacific I remained at Port Angosto some days Bizzily employed about the sloop I stowed the tallow from the deck to the hold Arranged my cabin in better order And took in a good supply of wood and water I also mended the sloop's sails and rigging And fitted a jigger which changed the rig to a yaw Though I called the boat a sloop just the same The jigger being merely a temporary affair I never forgot even at the busiest time of my work there To have my rifle by me ready for instant use For I was of necessity within range of savages And I had seen Fuegian canoes at this place When I anchored in the port further down the reach On the first trip through the strait I think it was on the second day While I was busily employed about decks That I heard the swish of something through the air Close by my ear and heard a zip-like sound In the water but saw nothing Presently, however, I suspected that it was An arrow of some sort for just then One passing not far from me struck the main mast Where it struck fast vibrating from the shock A Fuegian autograph A savage was somewhere near There could be no doubt about that I did not know but he might be shooting at me With a view to getting my sloop and her cargo And so I threw up my old Martini Henry The rifle that kept on shooting And the first shot uncovered three Fuegians Who scampered from a clump of bushes Where they had been concealed And made over the hills I fired away a good many cartridges Aiming under their feet to encourage their climbing My dear old gun woke up the hills And at every report all three of the savages Jumped as if shot But they kept on and put Fueg A real estate between themselves And the spray as fast as their legs Could carry them I took care then more than ever That all my firearms should be in order And that a supply of ammunition Should always be at hand But the savages did not return And although I put tax on deck every night I never discovered that any more visitors came And I had only to sweep the deck of tax Carefully every morning after As the days went by The season became more favourable To clear the strait with a fair wind And so I made up my mind after six attempts Being driven back each time To be in no further haste to sail The bad weather on my last return To Port Angosto for Shelter Brought the Chilean gumboat Condor And the Argentine cruiser Asorpado into port As soon as the latter came to anchor Captain Mascarella The commander sent a boat to the spray With the message that he would take me in tow For Sandy Point if I would give up the voyage And return The thing farthest from my mind The officers of the Asopado told me That coming up the strait after the spray On her first passage through They saw Black Pedro and learned That he had visited me The Asopado, being a foreign man of war Has no right to arrest the Phuegian outlaw But her captain blamed me For not shooting the rascal When he came to my sloop I procured some cordage And other small supplies from these vessels And the officers of each of them Mustered a supply of warm flannels Of which I was most in need With these additions to my outfit And with the vessel in good trim Though somewhat deeply laden I was well prepared for another bout With the southern, misnamed Pacific Ocean In the first week of April Southeast winds, such as appear About Cape Horn in the fall and winter seasons Bringing better weather than that experienced In the summer, began to disturb The upper clouds, a little more patience And the time would come for sailing With a fair wind. At Port Angosto I met Professor Dueson Of the Swedish Scientific Expedition To South America and the Pacific Islands The Professor was camped by the side of a brook At the head of the harbour Where there were many varieties of moss In which he was interested And where the water was As his Argentine cook said Muiriko The Professor had three well armed Argentines Along in his camp to fight savages They seemed disgusted when I filled water At a small stream near the vessel Slighting their advice to go further up Into the greater brook Where it was Muiriko But they were all fine fellows Though it was a wonder that they did not all die Of rheumatic pains from living on wet ground Of all the little haps and mishaps To the spray at Port Angosto Of the many attempts to put to sea And of each return for shelter It is not my purpose to speak Of hindrances there were many to keep her back But on the thirteenth day of April And for the seventh and last time She weighed anchor from that port Difficulties, however, multiplied all about In so strange a manner That had I been given to superstitious fears I should not have persisted in sailing On a thirteenth day Notwithstanding that a fair wind blew In the offing Many of the incidents were ludicrous When I found myself, for instance, Disentangling the sloop's mast From the branches of a tree After she had drifted three times Round a small island against my will It seemed more than one's nerves could bear And I had to speak about it So I thought, or die of lock-jaw And I apostrophised the spray As an impatient farmer might his horse or his ox Didn't you know, cried I, Didn't you know that you couldn't climb a tree But the poor old spray had essayed And successfully too nearly everything else In the Strait of Magellan And my heart softened towards her When I thought of what she had gone through Moreover she had discovered an island On the charts this one that she had sailed around Was traced as a point of land I named it Alan Eric Island After a worthy literary friend Whom I had met in strange by-places And put up a sign Keep off the grass Which, as discoverer, was within my rights Now at last the spray carried me free Of Tierra del Fuego If by a close shave only Still she carried me clear Though her boom actually hit the beacon Rocks delured as she lugged on sail To clear the point The thing was done on the 13th of April, 1896 But a close shave and a narrow escape Were nothing new to the spray The waves doffed their white caps beautifully To her in the Strait that day Before the southeast wind The first true winter breeze of the season From that quarter And here she was out on the first of it With every prospect of clearing Cape Pillar Before it should shift So it turned out The wind blew hard As it always blows about Cape Horn But she had cleared the great tide-race Off Cape Pillar and the Evangelistas The outermost rocks of all Before the change came I remained at the helm Humoring my vessel in the cross seas For it was rough And I did not care to let her take a straight course It was necessary to change her course In the coming seas To meet them with what skill I could When they rolled up ahead And to keep off when they came up a beam Following morning, April 14 Only the tops of the highest mountains Were in sight And the spray making good headway On a north-west course Soon sank these out of sight A ray for the spray I shouted to seals, seagulls and penguins For there were no other living creatures about And she had weathered all the dangers Of Cape Horn Moreover she had on her voyage Around the Horn salved a cargo Which she had not jettisoned a pound And why should not one rejoice also In the main chance coming so of itself I shook out a reef And set the whole jib for having sea-room I could square away two points This brought the sea more on her quarter And she was the wholesome under a press of sail Occasionally an old south-west sea Rolling up combed a thwart of her But did no harm The wind freshened as the sun rose half-mast or more And the air a bit chilly in the morning Softened later in the day But I gave little thought to such things as these One wave in the evening Larger than others that had threatened all day One such as sailors call fine weather seas Broke over the sloop for and aft It washed over me at the helm The last that swept over the spray of Cape Horn It seemed to wash away old regrets All my troubles were now a stern Summer was ahead all the world was again before me My wind was even literally fair My trek at the wheel was now up And it was five p.m. I had stood at the helm Since eleven o'clock the morning before Or thirty hours Then was the time to uncover my head For I sailed alone with God The vast ocean was again around me And the horizon was unbroken by land A few days later the spray was under sail And I saw her for the first time with a jigger spread This was indeed a small incident But it was the incident following a triumph The wind was still south-west But it had moderated and roaring seas Had turned to gossiping waves That rippled and pattered against her sides As she rolled among them Delighted with their story Rapid changes went on those days In things all about while she headed for the tropics New species of birds came around Albatrosses fell back And became scarcer and scarcer Lighter gulls came in their stead And pecked for crumbs in the sloop's wake On the tenth day from Cape Pillar A shark came along, the first of its kind On this part of the voyage to get into trouble I harpooned him and took out his ugly jaws I had not till then felt inclined To take the life of any animal But when John Shark hove in sight My sympathy flew to the winds It is a fact that in Magellan I let pass many ducks that would have made a good stew For I had no mind in the lonesome straight To take the life of any living thing From Cape Pillar I steered for Juan Fernandez And on the 26th of April, fifteen days out Made that historic island right ahead The blue hills of Juan Fernandez High among the clouds could be seen About thirty miles off A thousand emotions thrilled me When I saw the island And I bowed my head to the deck We may mock the oriental salam But for my part I could find no other way Of expressing myself The wind being light through the day The spray did not reach the island till night With what wind there was to fill her sails She stood close into shore on the north-east side Where it fell calm and remained so all night I saw the twinkling of a small light Farther along in a cove And fired a gun, but got no answer And soon the light disappeared altogether I heard the sea booming against the cliffs all night And realised that the ocean swell was still great Although from the deck of my little ship It was apparently small From the cry of animals in the hills Which sounded fainter and fainter through the night I judged that a light current Was drifting the sloop from the land Though she seemed all night dangerously near the shore For the land being very high Appearances were deceptive Soon after daylight I saw a boat putting out towards me As it pulled near it so happened That I picked up my gun which was on the deck Meaning only to put it below But the people in the boat seeing the piece in my hands Quickly turned and pulled back for shore Which was about four miles distant There were six rowers in her And I observed that they pulled with oars in oar locks After the manner of trained seamen And so I knew they belonged to a civilised race But their opinion of me must have been anything but flattering When they mistook my purpose with the gun And pulled away with all their might I made them understand by signs But not without difficulty That I did not intend to shoot That I was simply putting the piece in the cabin And that I wished them to return When they understood my meaning they came back And were soon on board One of the party whom the rest called King Spoke English, the others spoke Spanish They had all heard of the voyage of the spray Through the papers of Valparaiso And were hungry for news concerning it They told me of a war between Chile and the Argentine Which I had not heard of when I was there I had just visited both countries And I told them that, according to the latest reports While I was in Chile, their own island was sunk This same report that Juan Fernández had sunk Was current in Australia when I arrived there Three months later I had already prepared a pot of coffee And a plate of donuts Which after some words of civility The islander stood up to and discussed with a will After which they took the spray in tow of their boat And made towards the island with her At the rate of a good three knots The man they called King took the helm And with whirling it up and down He so rattled the spray that I thought She would never carry herself straight again The others pulled away lustily with their oars The King I soon learned was King only by courtesy Having lived longer on the island Than any other man in the world Thirty years he was so dubbed Juan Fernández was then under the administration Of a governor of Swedish nobility, so I was told I was also told that his daughter could ride The wildest goat on the island The governor at the time of my visit Was away at Valparaiso with his family To place his children at school The King had been away once for a year or two And in Rio de Janeiro had married a Brazilian woman Who followed his fortunes to the far off island He was himself a Portuguese and a native of the Azores He had sailed in New Bedford Whaleships And had steered a boat All this I learned, and more too Before we reached the anchorage The sea breeze coming in before long Filled the spray's sails And the experienced Portuguese mariner Piloted her to a safe berth in the bay Where she was moored to a boy End of Chapter 10 Recording by Alan Chant in Tumbridge, Kent, England