July 25, 2025 • 40 mins
Immerse yourself in the captivating tales of Jack and Charmian Londons adventurous journey across the Pacific between 1907 and 1909, detailed in The Cruise of the Snark. This memoir not only introduces and popularizes the royal sport of surf-riding but also vividly depicts the thrill and beauty of the Pacific. Experience the exhilarating rush of riding the crest of a breaker, the sensation of being flung landward by the powerful sea, and the challenge of trying to match the skill of a Kanaka on a surf-board. This striking narrative captures the essence of living life to the fullest, promising a reading experience as invigorating as the pounding surf.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Chapter fourteen of the Crews of the Snark. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by Roger Moline. The Crews of the Snark by
Jack London, Chapter fourteen, The Amateur Navigator. There are captains
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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 is to be expected. The good
men have positions and are not likely to forsake their
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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 ale, and who returns with his schooner
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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 seenile as to be unable to
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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
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and thirty five dollars to recall gate. 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
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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 Isles. It was at Suva in
the fijis that I discharged my third and last captain
and took up gain the role of amateur navigator. I
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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
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reading up and half an hour hours 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
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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 site method of ascertaining the longitude I had not
heard of. Yes, I had heard of it. My first
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captain mentioned it vaguely, but after one or two attempts
at practice of it, he mentioned it no more. I
had time in the Fijis to compare my chronometer with
two other chronometers. Two weeks previous, at Pago Pago in Samoa,
I had asked my captain to compare our chronometer with
themeters of the American cruiser the Annapolis. This he told
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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
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unblushing unveracity. For behold. Fourteen days later, in Suva, I
compared the chronometer with the one on the Attua, an
Australian steamer, and found that mine was thirty one seconds fast.
Now thirty one seconds of time converted into arc equals
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seven and one quarter miles. That is to say, if
I were sailing west in the night time, and my
position according to my dead reckoning from my afternoon chronometer,
site was shown to be seven miles off the land.
Why at that very moment I would be crashing on
the reef. Next, I compared my chronometer with Captain Woolly's.
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Captain Woolly, the harbor Master, 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 reef when I thought I was fifteen
miles off from it. I compromised by subtracting thirty one
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seconds from the total of my chronometer's losing error, and
sailed away for Tana. 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 Woolly's instrument, Tana lay some six hundred miles
west southwest from the Fijis, and it was my belief
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that while covering that distance I could quite easily knock
into my head. Had 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
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the world, and is writing hard every day to keep
the engine 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
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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 sixth, nineteen o eight,
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and it took us till after dark to run the
narrow reef ridden passage between the islands of Vitilivu and
me Benga. The open ocean lay before me. There was
nothing in the way, with the exception of Vatulaili, a
miserable little island that persisted in poking up through the
sea some twenty miles to the west southwest, just where
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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 Vatulili. But what direction?
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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
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position was at the western entrance of the passage between
Vitileevu and m Benga. The immediate place she was bound
to was a place in the chart ten miles north
of Vatu LAILI. I pricked 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
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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 a lack 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,
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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
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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,
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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 a las, the correct magnetic course was not
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the compass course. There was another sly little devil lying
in wait to trip me up and land me smashing
on the roofs of Vatulili. 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
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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
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compass was amidships on the companionway. My steering compass was
aft in the cockpit near the wheel. When the steer
hearing 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
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snark up till she was heading west by south three
quarters south on the standard compass, which gave on the
steering compass southwest 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,
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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,
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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
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to say, the Sun, which is the time keeper 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
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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
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frame of mind prone to purchase Keeley motor stock from
the first enterprising agent that landed on the Snark's deck.
And when I discovered that the Earth really rotated on
its axis three hundred and sixty six times a year,
while there were only three hundred and sixty five sunrises
and sunsets, I was ready to doubt my own identity.
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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
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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 to the sun and
the place where the Sun ought to be happened to coincide.
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The remaining three hundred and sixty one days, the sun
is pothering 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
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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
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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 sixth, and
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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
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and found that on that very day, June seventh, 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.
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From this date it would see a schoolboy's test 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
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would be one minute and twenty six seconds behind time
plus fourteen point six 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
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fourteen point six seven seconds would have to be added.
Quite clearly, then, if instead of being eight twenty five
AM it were eight twenty five pm, then eight point
five times fourteen point six seven seconds would have to
be not added, but subtracted. For if at noon the
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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 PM it
would be much nearer where it ought to be than
it had been at noon. So far, so good. But
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was that eight twenty five of the chronometer AM or PM?
I looked at the Snark's clock. It marked eight nine,
and it was certainly AM, 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
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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.
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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.
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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
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not for yesterday. Yet today is yesterday, urges my logical mind.
That's all very well, my literal mind continued. 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 seventh,
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and that I took the Sun here now today, June seventh.
Therefore I must correct the Sun here now today June seventh.
Bosh snaps my logical mind. Lecky says, never mind. What
Lecky says interrupts my literal mind. Let me tell you
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what the Nautical Almanac says. The Nautical Almanac says that today,
June seventh, 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 sixth, the sun was one minute and thirty six
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seconds behind time and catching up at the rate of
fifteen zeno point sixty six seconds per hour. You see,
it is preposterous to think of correcting today's son by
yesterday's timetable. Fool, idiot. Back and forth they wrangle until
my head is whirling around, and I'm ready to believe
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that I am in the day after the last week.
Before next, I remembered a parting caution of the Suva
harbormaster 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
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and for Saturday, making two separate operations of it, and lo,
when the results were compared, there was a difference only
of four tenths of a second. I was a changed man.
I had found my way out of the crypt. The
snark was scarcely big enough to hold me. In my experience,
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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
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good as Greenwich time. When it was eight twenty five
at Greenwich. On board the Snark, it was only eight
nine Greenwich time, best longitude west. There I was in
west longitude beyond a doubt. Silly cries my literal mind,
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you are eight nine a m and Greenwich is eight
twenty five p m. Very well, answers my logical mind
to be correct. Eight twenty five 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
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mind triumphs. We sailed from Suva in the Fijis, didn't we?
It demands, and a logical mind agrees, and Suva is
in east longitude. Again, logical mind degrees, and we sailed west,
which would take us deeper into east longitude. Didn't we therefore,
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and you can't escape it. We are in east longitude,
Greenwich time, best longitude west, chance 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,
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and then we'll see and work it up. I did
only to find that my longitude was a hundred eighty
four 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 one hundred and
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eighty four degrees west longitude, nor east longitude, nor any
other longitude. The largest meridian is one 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
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a bleak and wintry look in my eyes and go
around wondering whether I'm sailing toward the China coast or
the Gulf of Darienne. 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 one hundred and eighty four
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degrees west longitude from three hundred and sixty degrees, and
you will get one hundred and seventy six degrees east longitude. That,
as sheer speculation objects, literal mind and logical mind remonstrates,
there is no rule for it. Darn the rules, I exclaim,
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ain't I hear? The thing is self evident. I continue,
one hundred and eighty four degrees west longitude means a
lapping over in 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
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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
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of the necessary elements in working up such a site
as 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
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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
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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 m when the site
for latitude was taken, I again noted the log, which
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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.
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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
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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.
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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,
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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
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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 Boudage's. The
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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
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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,
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if you will, but the thought arose in me. If
southing is 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
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they run together. Thus, if I should travel up the
one hundred and eighty degrees meridian of longitude until I
reached 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
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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
the hole had no width than 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,
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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
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degrees south was more than a minute of longitude for
sixty miles were sixty miles, but sixty minutes or sixty
miles only at the equator. George Francis Train broke Jules
Verne's record of around the world. But any man that
wants can break George Francis Train's record. Such a man
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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,
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But there are compensations. On Wednesday evening, June tenth, 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 easternmost of
the New Hebrides, a volcanic cone two thousand feet high
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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 wata
sun tomorrow morning. Your watch, you look sharp on weather bow,
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you see land. And then I went to bed. The
die 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?
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I caught 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
a lark. Rather, did I waken to the voiceless dark
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and listened 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,
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instead of being sixty miles off Fetuna, 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 Fetuna. For all, I knew the snark might strike
Fetuna the next moment. I almost sprang from the bunk
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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,
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he wanted to fight, and charming In continually persuaded me
to let him alone. Finally, however, the man with the
everlasting dun 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.
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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.
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It was three in the morning. I went up on
deck Henry, the Rappa islander was steering. I looked at
the log It recorded forty two miles. The snark had
not abated her six knot gait, and she had not
struck for Tuna yet. At half past five, I was
(35:03):
again on deck Wada at the wheel had seen no land.
I sat on the cockpit rail a paryed 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 bow.
(35:23):
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 nicham rose out of the sea.
(35:45):
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 mountainous,
hazy land, with no apparent openings in its coast line.
(36:09):
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
(36:34):
since the last report have closed the harbor completely? I
ran in close to the unbroken coast, fringed with rocks awash,
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
(36:56):
of Aniua, 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
(37:17):
on deck and lo the course directed me towards that
unbroken coast line of bursting seas. To my Rappa Islander's
great concern. I held on till the rocks awash were
an eighth of a mile away. No harbor this place,
he announced, shaking his head ominously. But I altered the
(37:39):
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 Rappa man looked with
(38:00):
troubled eyes. So did ta he, the Taha man. No
passage here, said Henry. We go there. We finished quick, sure,
I confess I thought so too. But I ran on
a breast, watching to see if the line of breakers
from one side the entrance did not overlap the line
(38:21):
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
(38:41):
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 wada at the lead line three fathoms.
Two fathoms came in quick succession. Charmian put the wheel down,
(39:07):
Martin stopped the engine, and the snark rounded two and
the anchor rumbled down in three fathoms. Before we could
catch our breaths, a swarm of black tiniese was alongside,
and a board grinning ape like creatures with kinky hair
and troubled eyes, wearing safety pins and clay pipes in
(39:27):
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. End of chapter fourteen. Recording by
(39:53):
Roger Moline. Want any
Chapter fourteen of the Crews of the Snark. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by Roger Moline. The Crews of the Snark by
Jack London, Chapter fourteen, The Amateur Navigator. There are captains
(00:29):
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 is to be expected. The good
men have positions and are not likely to forsake their
(00:52):
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 ale, and who returns with his schooner
(01:13):
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 seenile as to be unable to
(01:33):
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
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and thirty five dollars to recall gate. 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
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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 Isles. It was at Suva in
the fijis that I discharged my third and last captain
and took up gain the role of amateur navigator. I
(02:37):
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
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reading up and half an hour hours 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
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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 site method of ascertaining the longitude I had not
heard of. Yes, I had heard of it. My first
(03:41):
captain mentioned it vaguely, but after one or two attempts
at practice of it, he mentioned it no more. I
had time in the Fijis to compare my chronometer with
two other chronometers. Two weeks previous, at Pago Pago in Samoa,
I had asked my captain to compare our chronometer with
themeters of the American cruiser the Annapolis. This he told
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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
(04:24):
unblushing unveracity. For behold. Fourteen days later, in Suva, I
compared the chronometer with the one on the Attua, an
Australian steamer, and found that mine was thirty one seconds fast.
Now thirty one seconds of time converted into arc equals
(04:44):
seven and one quarter miles. That is to say, if
I were sailing west in the night time, and my
position according to my dead reckoning from my afternoon chronometer,
site was shown to be seven miles off the land.
Why at that very moment I would be crashing on
the reef. Next, I compared my chronometer with Captain Woolly's.
(05:08):
Captain Woolly, the harbor Master, 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 reef when I thought I was fifteen
miles off from it. I compromised by subtracting thirty one
(05:32):
seconds from the total of my chronometer's losing error, and
sailed away for Tana. 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 Woolly's instrument, Tana lay some six hundred miles
west southwest from the Fijis, and it was my belief
(05:55):
that while covering that distance I could quite easily knock
into my head. Had 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
(06:16):
the world, and is writing hard every day to keep
the engine 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
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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 sixth, nineteen o eight,
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and it took us till after dark to run the
narrow reef ridden passage between the islands of Vitilivu and
me Benga. The open ocean lay before me. There was
nothing in the way, with the exception of Vatulaili, a
miserable little island that persisted in poking up through the
sea some twenty miles to the west southwest, just where
(07:25):
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 Vatulili. But what direction?
(07:48):
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
(08:12):
position was at the western entrance of the passage between
Vitileevu and m Benga. The immediate place she was bound
to was a place in the chart ten miles north
of Vatu LAILI. I pricked 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
(08:35):
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 a lack 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,
(08:58):
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
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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,
(09:41):
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 a las, the correct magnetic course was not
(10:03):
the compass course. There was another sly little devil lying
in wait to trip me up and land me smashing
on the roofs of Vatulili. 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
(10:28):
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
(10:51):
compass was amidships on the companionway. My steering compass was
aft in the cockpit near the wheel. When the steer
hearing 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
(11:13):
snark up till she was heading west by south three
quarters south on the standard compass, which gave on the
steering compass southwest 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,
(11:34):
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,
(11:55):
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
(12:16):
to say, the Sun, which is the time keeper 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
(12:38):
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
(12:59):
frame of mind prone to purchase Keeley motor stock from
the first enterprising agent that landed on the Snark's deck.
And when I discovered that the Earth really rotated on
its axis three hundred and sixty six times a year,
while there were only three hundred and sixty five sunrises
and sunsets, I was ready to doubt my own identity.
(13:21):
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
(13:44):
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 to the sun and
the place where the Sun ought to be happened to coincide.
(14:07):
The remaining three hundred and sixty one days, the sun
is pothering 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
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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
(14:52):
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 sixth, and
(15:13):
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
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and found that on that very day, June seventh, 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.
(15:58):
From this date it would see a schoolboy's test 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
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would be one minute and twenty six seconds behind time
plus fourteen point six 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
(16:39):
fourteen point six seven seconds would have to be added.
Quite clearly, then, if instead of being eight twenty five
AM it were eight twenty five pm, then eight point
five times fourteen point six seven seconds would have to
be not added, but subtracted. For if at noon the
(17:01):
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 PM it
would be much nearer where it ought to be than
it had been at noon. So far, so good. But
(17:21):
was that eight twenty five of the chronometer AM or PM?
I looked at the Snark's clock. It marked eight nine,
and it was certainly AM, 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
(17:44):
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.
(18:04):
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.
(18:27):
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
(18:49):
not for yesterday. Yet today is yesterday, urges my logical mind.
That's all very well, my literal mind continued. 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 seventh,
(19:13):
and that I took the Sun here now today, June seventh.
Therefore I must correct the Sun here now today June seventh.
Bosh snaps my logical mind. Lecky says, never mind. What
Lecky says interrupts my literal mind. Let me tell you
(19:35):
what the Nautical Almanac says. The Nautical Almanac says that today,
June seventh, 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 sixth, the sun was one minute and thirty six
(19:56):
seconds behind time and catching up at the rate of
fifteen zeno point sixty six seconds per hour. You see,
it is preposterous to think of correcting today's son by
yesterday's timetable. Fool, idiot. Back and forth they wrangle until
my head is whirling around, and I'm ready to believe
(20:18):
that I am in the day after the last week.
Before next, I remembered a parting caution of the Suva
harbormaster 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
(20:40):
and for Saturday, making two separate operations of it, and lo,
when the results were compared, there was a difference only
of four tenths of a second. I was a changed man.
I had found my way out of the crypt. The
snark was scarcely big enough to hold me. In my experience,
(21:00):
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
(21:25):
good as Greenwich time. When it was eight twenty five
at Greenwich. On board the Snark, it was only eight
nine Greenwich time, best longitude west. There I was in
west longitude beyond a doubt. Silly cries my literal mind,
(21:45):
you are eight nine a m and Greenwich is eight
twenty five p m. Very well, answers my logical mind
to be correct. Eight twenty five 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
(22:09):
mind triumphs. We sailed from Suva in the Fijis, didn't we?
It demands, and a logical mind agrees, and Suva is
in east longitude. Again, logical mind degrees, and we sailed west,
which would take us deeper into east longitude. Didn't we therefore,
(22:31):
and you can't escape it. We are in east longitude,
Greenwich time, best longitude west, chance 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,
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and then we'll see and work it up. I did
only to find that my longitude was a hundred eighty
four 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 one hundred and
(23:15):
eighty four degrees west longitude, nor east longitude, nor any
other longitude. The largest meridian is one 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
(23:37):
a bleak and wintry look in my eyes and go
around wondering whether I'm sailing toward the China coast or
the Gulf of Darienne. 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 one hundred and eighty four
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degrees west longitude from three hundred and sixty degrees, and
you will get one hundred and seventy six degrees east longitude. That,
as sheer speculation objects, literal mind and logical mind remonstrates,
there is no rule for it. Darn the rules, I exclaim,
(24:23):
ain't I hear? The thing is self evident. I continue,
one hundred and eighty four degrees west longitude means a
lapping over in 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
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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
(25:05):
of the necessary elements in working up such a site
as 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
(25:27):
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
(25:48):
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 m when the site
for latitude was taken, I again noted the log, which
(26:11):
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.
(26:32):
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
(26:55):
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.
(27:15):
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,
(27:35):
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
(27:58):
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 Boudage's. The
(28:19):
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
(28:43):
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,
(29:04):
if you will, but the thought arose in me. If
southing is 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
(29:27):
they run together. Thus, if I should travel up the
one hundred and eighty degrees meridian of longitude until I
reached 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
(29:48):
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
the hole had no width than 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,
(30:12):
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
(30:34):
degrees south was more than a minute of longitude for
sixty miles were sixty miles, but sixty minutes or sixty
miles only at the equator. George Francis Train broke Jules
Verne's record of around the world. But any man that
wants can break George Francis Train's record. Such a man
(30:56):
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,
(31:20):
But there are compensations. On Wednesday evening, June tenth, 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 easternmost of
the New Hebrides, a volcanic cone two thousand feet high
(31:41):
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 wata
sun tomorrow morning. Your watch, you look sharp on weather bow,
(32:02):
you see land. And then I went to bed. The
die 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?
(32:27):
I caught 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
a lark. Rather, did I waken to the voiceless dark
(32:51):
and listened 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,
(33:12):
instead of being sixty miles off Fetuna, 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 Fetuna. For all, I knew the snark might strike
Fetuna the next moment. I almost sprang from the bunk
(33:35):
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,
(33:57):
he wanted to fight, and charming In continually persuaded me
to let him alone. Finally, however, the man with the
everlasting dun 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.
(34:18):
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.
(34:41):
It was three in the morning. I went up on
deck Henry, the Rappa islander was steering. I looked at
the log It recorded forty two miles. The snark had
not abated her six knot gait, and she had not
struck for Tuna yet. At half past five, I was
(35:03):
again on deck Wada at the wheel had seen no land.
I sat on the cockpit rail a paryed 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 bow.
(35:23):
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 nicham rose out of the sea.
(35:45):
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 mountainous,
hazy land, with no apparent openings in its coast line.
(36:09):
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
(36:34):
since the last report have closed the harbor completely? I
ran in close to the unbroken coast, fringed with rocks awash,
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
(36:56):
of Aniua, 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
(37:17):
on deck and lo the course directed me towards that
unbroken coast line of bursting seas. To my Rappa Islander's
great concern. I held on till the rocks awash were
an eighth of a mile away. No harbor this place,
he announced, shaking his head ominously. But I altered the
(37:39):
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 Rappa man looked with
(38:00):
troubled eyes. So did ta he, the Taha man. No
passage here, said Henry. We go there. We finished quick, sure,
I confess I thought so too. But I ran on
a breast, watching to see if the line of breakers
from one side the entrance did not overlap the line
(38:21):
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
(38:41):
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 wada at the lead line three fathoms.
Two fathoms came in quick succession. Charmian put the wheel down,
(39:07):
Martin stopped the engine, and the snark rounded two and
the anchor rumbled down in three fathoms. Before we could
catch our breaths, a swarm of black tiniese was alongside,
and a board grinning ape like creatures with kinky hair
and troubled eyes, wearing safety pins and clay pipes in
(39:27):
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. End of chapter fourteen. Recording by
(39:53):
Roger Moline. Want any
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