July 25, 2025 • 38 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 (00:00):
Chapter fifteen of the Cruise of the Snark. This is
the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by Jim Allman. The Crews of the Snark by
Jack London, Chapter fifteen, Cruising in the Solomons. Why not
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come along now, said Captain Jensen to us at Penduffren
on the island of Guadalcanar. Charmian and I looked at
each other and debated silently for half a minute. Then
we nodded our heads simultaneously. It was a way we
have of making up our minds to do things, and
a very good way it is when one has no
temperamental tears to shed over the last ten of condensed
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milk when it has capsized. We are living on ten
goods these days, and since mind is rumored to be
an emanation of matter, our similaris are naturally of the
packing house variety. You'd better bring your revolvers along, and
a couple of rifles, said Captain Jensen. I've got five
rifles aboard, though the one mauser is without ammunition. Have
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you a few rounds to spare. We brought our rifles
on board, several handfuls of Mauser cartridges, and Wada and Nakata,
the Snark's cook and cabin boy, respectively. Wada and Nakada
were in a bit of a funk, to say the least.
They were not enthusiastic, though never did Nakada show the
white feather in the face of danger. The Solomon Islands
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had not dealt kindly with them in the first place.
Both had suffered from Solomon's sores, so had the rest
of us. At the time, I was nursing two fresh
ones on a diet of corrosive sublimate, but the two
Japanese had had more than their share, and the sores
are not nice. They may be described as excessively active ulcers.
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A mosquito bite, a cut, or the slightest abrasion serves
for lodgment of the poison with which the air seems
to be filled. Immediately the ulcer commences to eat. It
eats in every direction, consuming skin and muscle with astounding rapidity.
The pinpoint ulcer of the first day is the size
of a dime, by the second day, and by the
end of the week, as silver dollar will not cover
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it worse than the sores. The two Japanese had been
afflicted with Solomon Island fever. Each had been down repeatedly
with it, and in their weak convalescent moments, they were
wont to huddle together on the portion of the snark
that happened to be nearest to far away Japan, and
to gaze yearningly in that direction. But worst of all,
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they were now brought on board the Minota for a
recruiting cruise along the savage coast of Malata. Wada, who
had the worst funk, was sure that he would never
see Japan again, and with bleak, lackluster eyes, he watched
our rifles and ammunition going on board the Minota. He
knew about the Minoda and her Melita cruises. He knew
that she had been captured six months before on the
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Malita coast. Their captain had been chopped to pieces with tomahawks,
and that, according to the barbarian sense of equity, on
that sweet isle, she owed two more heads, also a
laborer on Penduffrey plantation. A Melita boy had just died
of dysentery, and Wada knew that Penduffrin had been put
in the debt of Malaita by one more head. Furthermore,
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in stowing our luggage away in the skipper's tiny cabin,
he saw the axe gashes on the door where the
triumphant bushmen had cut their way in. And finally the
galley stove was without a pipe, said pipe having been
part of the lute. The Minota was a teak built
Australian yacht, catch rigged long and lean, with a deep,
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thin keel, and designed for harbor racing rather than for
recruiting blacks. When Charmian and I came on board, we
found her crowded. Her double boat's crew, including substitutes, was fifteen,
and she had a score and more of return boys
whose time on the plantations was served, and who were
bound back to their bush villages to look at. They
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were certainly true head hunting cannibals. Their perforated nostrils were
thrust through with bone and wooden bodkins the size of
lead pencils. Numbers of them had punctured the extreme meaty
point of the nose, from which protruded straight out spikes
of turtle shell or of beads drung on stiff wire.
A few had further punctured their noses with rows of
holes following the curve of the nostril from lip to point.
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Each ear of every man had from two to a
dozen holes in it, holes large enough to carry wooden
plugs three inches in diameter, down to tiny holes in
which were carried clay pipes in similar trifles. In fact,
so many holes did they possess that they lacked ornaments
to fill them. And when the following day, as we
neared Melita, we tried out our rifles to see that
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they were in working order, there was a general scramble
for the empty cartridges, which were thrust forthwith into the
many aching voids in our passengers ears. At the time
we tried out our rifles, we put up our barbed
wire railings. The Minota, crown decked without any house, and
with a rail six inches high, was too accessible to borders.
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Some brass stanchions were screwed into the the rail, and
a double row of barbed wires stretched around her from
stem to stern and back again, which was bold very
well as protection from savages, but it was mighty uncomfortable
to those on board. When the Minota took to jumping
and plunging in a seaway, when one dislikes sliding down
upon the lee rail barbed wire, and when he dares
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not catch hold of the weather rail barbed wire to
save himself from sliding, And when with these various disinclinations
he finds himself on a smooth, flush deck that is
healed over at an angle of forty five degrees, some
of the delights of Solomon Island cruising may be comprehended. Also,
it must be remembered the penalty will fall into the
barbed wire is more than the mere scratches, for each
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scratch is practically certain to become a venomous ulcer. That
caution will not save one from the wire. Was evidenced
one fine morning when we were running along them a
lighted coast, with the breeze on our quarter. The wind
was fresh and a tidy sea was making. A black
boy was at the wheel. Captain Jansen, mister Jacobson, the
mad Chermian and I had just sat down on deck
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to breakfast. Three unusually large seas caught us. The boy
at the wheel lost his head three times, the minoda
was swept, the breakfast was rushed over the lee rail.
The knives and forks went through the scuppers. A boy
aft then went clean overboard and was dragged back, and
our dowdy skipper lay half inward and half out, jammed
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in the barbed wire. After that, for the rest of
the cruise, our joint use of the several remaining eating
utensils was a splendid example of primitive communism. On the Eugenie, however,
it was even worse, for he had but one teaspoon
among four of us. But the Eugenie is another story.
Our first port was Siou, on the west coast of Malta.
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The Solomon Islands are on the fringe of things. It
is difficult enough sailing on dark nights through reef spiked
channels and across erratic currents when there are no lights
to guide from northwest to southeast. The Solomons extend across
a thousand miles of sea, and on all the thousand
of miles the coast there is not one lighthouse. But
the difficulty is seriously enhanced by the fact that the
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land itself is not correctly charted. Siou is an example
on the Admiralty chart of Malay. To the coast at
this point runs a straight, unbroken line. Yet across this straight,
unbroken line, the Minauta sailed in twenty fathoms of water,
where the land was alleged to be was a deep indentation.
Into this we sailed the mangroves closing about us till
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we dropped anchor in a mirrored pond. Captain Jensen did
not like the anchorage. It was the first time he
had been there, and sue U had a bad reputation.
There was no wind with which to get away in
case of attack. While the crew could be bushwhacked to
a man if they attempted to tow out in the whale boat.
It was a pretty trap if trouble blew up. Suppose
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the Minauta went ashore, What would you do, I asked.
She's not going ashore, was Captain Jensen's answer. But just
in case she did, I insisted. He considered for a
moment and shifted his glance from the mate buckling on
a revolver to the boat's crew climbing into the whale boat,
each man with a rifle. We'd get into the whale
boat and get out of here as fast as God
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had led us. Came the skipper's delayed reply. He explained
at length that no white man was sure of his
Malaya crew in a tight place, that the bushmen looked
upon all wrecks as their personal property, that the bushmen
possessed plenty of Snyder rifles, and that he had on
board a dozen return boys for Soo Ou, who were
certain to join in with their friends and relatives ashore
when it came to looting the minoda. The first work
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of the whale boat was to take the return boys
in their trade boxes ashore. Thus one danger was removed.
While this was being done, a canoe came alongside, manned
by three naked savages. And when I say naked, I
mean naked. Not one vestige of clothing did they have on,
unless nose rings, earplugs, and shell armlets be accounted clothing.
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The headman in the canoe was an old chief, one eyed,
reputed to be friendly and so dirty that a boat
scraper would have lost its edge on him. His mission
was to warn the skipper against allowing any of his
people to go ashore. The old fellow repeated the warning
again that night. In vain did the whale boat ply
about the shores of the bay in quest of recruits.
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The bush was full of armed natives, all willing enough
to talk with the recruiter, but not one would engage
to sign on for three years plantation labor at six
pounds per year. Yet they were anxious enough to get
our people ashore. On the second day, they raised a
smoke on the beach at the head of the bay,
this being the customary signal of men desiring to recruit.
The boat was sent, but nothing resulted. No one recruited,
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nor were any of our men lured ashore. A little
later we caught glimpses of a number of armed natives
moving about on the beach. Outside of these rare glimpses,
there was no telling how many might be lurking in
the bush. There was no penetrating that primeval jungle with
the eye. In the afternoon, Captain Jansen, Charmian and I
went dynamiting fish. Each one of the boat's crew carried
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a lee enfield. Johnny, the native recruiter, had a Winchester
beside him at the steering sweep. We rowed in close
to a portion of the shore that looked deserted. Here
the boat was turned round and backed in in case
of attack. The boat would be ready to dash away.
In all the time I was on Malta, I never
saw a boat land bow on. In fact, the recruiting
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vessels used two boats, one to go in on the beach, armed,
of course, and the other to lie off several hundred
feet and cover the first boat. The Minota, however, being
a small vessel, did not carry a covering boat. We
were close into the shore and working in closer stern. First,
when a school of fish was sighted, the fuse was
ignited in the stick of dynamite throne. With the explosion,
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the surface of the water was broken by the flash
of leaping fish. At the same instant the woods broke
into life. A score of naked savages armed with bows
and arrows, spears and snyders, burst out upon the shore.
At the sea same moment, our bow's crew lifted their rifles,
and thus the opposing parties faced each other, while our
extra boys dived over after the stunned fish. Three fruitless
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days were spent at Suu. The minoda got no recruits
from the bush and the bushmen got no heads from
the minoda. In fact, the only one who got anything
was weighed, and his was a nice dose of fever.
We towed out with the whale boat and ran along
the coast alonga langa, a large village of salt water
people built with prodigious labor on a lagoon, sand bank
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litterally built up and artificial island reared as a refuge
from the bloodthirsty bushmen. Here. Also on the shore side
of the lagoon was Binu, the place where the Minoda
was captured half a year previously and her captain killed
by the bushmen. As we sailed in through the narrow entrance,
a canoe came alongside with the news that the man
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of war had just left that morning after having burned
three villages, killed some thirty pigs, and drowned a baby.
This was the Cambrian Captain Lew's commanding He and I
had first met in Korea during the Japanese Russian War,
and we had been crossing each other's trail ever since
without ever a meeting. The day the Snark sailed into
Suva in the Fijis, we made out the Cambrian going
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out at Villa in the New Hebrides. We missed each
other by one day. We passed each other in the
night time off the island of Santo, and to day
the Cambrian arrived at Tulagu. We sailed from Penduffren, a
dozen miles away, and here at Langilango we had missed
by several hours. The Cambrian had come to punish the
murderers of the minota's captain, but what she had succeeded
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in doing we did not learn until later in the day,
when a mister Abbot, a missionary, came alongside in his
whale boat. The villages had been burned and the pigskilled,
but the natives had escaped personal harm. The murderers had
not been captured, though the minota's flag and other of
her gear had been recovered. The drowning of the baby
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had come about through a misunderstanding. Chief Johnny of Binu
had declined to guide the landing party into the bush,
nor could any of his men be induced to perform
that office. Whereupon Captain Lew's righteously indignant had told Chief
Johnny that he deserved to have his village burned. Johnny's
beche de mer English did not include the word deserve,
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so his understanding of it was that his village was
to be burned. Anyway, the immediate stampede of the inhabitants
was so hurried that the baby was dropped into the water.
In the meantime, Chief Johnny hastened to mister Abbot into
his hand. He put fourteen sovereigns and requested him to
go on board the Cambrian and buy Captain Lew's off.
Johnny's village was not burned, nor did Captain Lewes get
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the fourteen sovereigns, for I saw them later in Johnny's
possession when he boarded the Minota. The excuse Johnny gave
me for not guiding the landing party was a big boil,
which he proudly revealed. His real reason, however, and a
perfectly valid one, though he did not state it was
fear of revenge on the part of the bushmen. Had
he or any of his men guided the Marines, he
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could have looked for bloody reprisals as soon as the
Cambrian weighed Anchor. As an illustration of conditions in the Solomons,
Johnny's business on board was to turn over for a
tobacco consideration, the sprit, mainsail and jib of a whale boat.
Later in the day, a chief Billy came on board
and turned over for a tobacco consideration. The mast and boom.
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This gear belonged to a whale boat, which Captain Jensen
had recovered the previous trip of the Minota. The whale
boat belonged to Maringa plantation on the island of Isabel.
Eleven contract laborers, malata men and bushmen at that had
decided to run away. Being bushmen, they knew nothing of
salt water nor of the way of a boat in
the sea, so they persuaded two natives of San Christophal
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salt water men to run away with them. It served
the San Christophale men right. They should have known better.
When they had safely never vigated the stolen boats to Malta.
They had their heads hacked off for their pains. It
was this boat and gear that Captain Jansen had recovered.
Not for nothing have I journeyed all the way to
the Solomons. At last I have seen Charmian's proud spirit
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humbled and her imperious queendom of femininity dragged in the dust.
It happened at Langa Langa Ashore, on the manufactured island,
which one cannot see for the houses here. Surrounded by
hundreds of unblushing naked men, women and children, we wandered
about and saw the sights. We had our revolvers strapped on,
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and the boat's crew fully armed lay at oars stern in.
But the lesson of the man O War was too
recent for us to apprehend trouble. We walked about everywhere
and saw everything, until at last we approached a large
tree trunk that served as a bridge across a shallow estuary.
The Blacks formed a wall in front of us and
refused to let us pass. We wanted to know why
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we were stopped. The Blacks said we could go on.
We misunderstood and started explanations became more definite. Captain Jensen
and I, being men, could go on. But no Mary
was allowed to wade around that bridge, much less cross it.
Mary is betcha de maire for woman. Charmian was a
merry to her. The bridge was tambeau, which is the
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native for taboo. Ah, how my chest expanded. At last
my manhood was vindicated. In truth, I belonged to the
lordly sex. Charmian could trapes along at our heels, But
we were men and we could go right over that bridge,
where she would have to go round by whale boat.
Now I should not care to be misunderstood by what follows,
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but it is a matter of common knowledge in the
Solomons that attacks of fever are often brought on by shock.
Inside half an hour after Charmian had been refused the
right of way, she was being rushed aboard the Minota,
packed in blankets and dosed with quinine. I don't know
what kind of shock had happened to Wada and Nakata,
but at any rate they were down with as well.
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The Solomons might be healthfuler. Also, during the attack of fever,
Charmian developed a Solomon sore. It was the last straw.
Every one on the Snark had been afflicted except her.
I had thought that I was going to lose my
foot at the ankle by one exceptionally malignant boring ulcer.
Henry and Tahi, the Tahitian sailors had had numbers of them.
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Wada had been able to count his by the score.
Nakada had had single ones three inches in length. Martin
had been quite certain that decrosis of his shin bone
had set in from the roots. The amazing colony. He
elected to cultivate in that locality, But Charmian had escaped
out of her long immunity had been bred contempt for
the rest of us. Her eagle was flattered to such
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an extent that one day she shyly informed me that
it was all a matter of pureness of blood, since
all the rest of us cultivated the sores, and since
she did not well anyway. Hers was the size of
a silver dollar, and the pureness of her blood enabled
her to cure it after several weeks of strenuous nursing.
She pins her faith on corrosive sublimate. Martin swears by iodaform.
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Henry uses lime juice undiluted, and I believe that when
corrosive sublimate is slow in taking hold, alternate dressings of peroxide,
of hydrogen, or just the thing. There are white men
in the Solomons who stake all upon boracic acid, and
others who are prejudiced in favor of lysol. I also
have a weakness of a panacea. It is California. I
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defy any man to get a Solomon Island sore. In California.
We ran down the lagoon from Langelanga, between mangrove swamps,
through passages scarcely wider than the Minota, and past the
reef villages of Colocca and Auki. Like the founders of Venice,
these salt water men were originally refugees from the mainland.
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Too weak to hold their own in the bush, survivors
of village massacres, they fled to the sand banks of
the lagoon. These they built up into islands. They were
compelled to seek their prevender from the sea, and in
time they became salt water men. They learned the ways
that the fish and the shellfish, and they invented hooks
and lines, nets and fish traps. They developed canoe bodies,
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unable to walk about, spending all their time in the canoes,
they became thick, armed and broad shouldered, with narrow waist
and trail spindly legs. Controlling the sea coast, they became wealthy,
trade with the interior passing largely through their hands, but
perpetual enmity exists between them and the bushmen. Practically their
only truces are on market days, which occur at stated intervals,
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usually twice a week. The bush women and the salt
water women do the bartering back in the bush one
hundred yards away, fully armed like the bushmen, while to
seaward in the canoes are the salt water men. There
are very rare instances of the market day truces being broken.
The bushmen like their fish too well, while the salt
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water men have an organic craving for the vegetas they
cannot grow on their crowded islets. Thirty miles from lange
Langa brought us up to the passage between Basakhana Island
and the mainland. Here at nightfall, the wind left us,
and all night, with the whale boat towing ahead and
the crew on board sweating at the steeps, we strove
to wind through, but the tide was against us. At midnight,
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midway in the passage, we came up with the Eugene,
a big recruiting schooner towing with two whale boats. Her skipper,
Captain Keller, a sturdy young German of twenty two, came
on board for a gam and the latest news of
Malaita was swapped back and forth. He had been in luck,
having gathered in twenty recruits at the village of Few.
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While lying there, one of the customary courageous killings had
taken place. The murdered boy was what is called a
salt water bushman, that is, a salt waterman who is
half bushman, who lives by the sea, but does not
live on an islet. Three bushmen came down to this
man where he was working in his garden. They behaved
in friendly fashion, and after a time suggested kai kai
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Kai Kai means food. He built a fire and started
to boil some taro. While bending over the pot, one
of the bushmen shot him through the head. He fell
into the flames, whereupon they thrust a spear through his stomach,
turned it around, and broke it off. My word, said
Captain Keller, I don't ever want to be shot with
a snyder spread. You could drive a horse and carriage
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through that hole in his head. Another recent courageous killing
I heard of on Malita was that of an old man,
a bush chief had died in natural death. Now the
bushmen don't believe in natural deaths. No one was ever
known to die in natural death. The only way to
die is by bullet, tomahawk, or spear thrust. When a
man dies any other way, it is a clear case
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of having been charmed to death. When the bush chief died, naturally,
his tribe placed the guilt on a certain family. Since
it didn't matter which one of the family was killed,
they selected this old man, who lived by himself. This
would make it easy. Furthermore, he possessed no snyder. Also,
he was blind. The old fellow got an inkling of
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what was coming and laid in a large supply of arrows.
Three brave warriors, each with a snyder, came down upon
him in the night time. All night they fought valiantly
with him. Whenever they moved in the bush and made
a noise or rustle, he discharged arrow in that direction.
In the morning, when his last arrow was gone, the
three heroes crept up on him and blew his brains out.
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Morning found a still valiantly toiling through the passage. At last,
in despair, we turned tail, ran out to sea, and
sailed clear round Basikana to our objective, Malu. The anchorage
at Malu was very good, but it lay between the
shore and an ugly reef, and while easy to enter,
it was difficult to leave. The direction of the southeast
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trade necessitated a beat to windward. The point of the
reef was widespread and shallow, while a current bore down
at all times. Upon the point, mister Caulfield, the missionary
at Mallew, arrived in his whale boat from a trip
down the coast. A slender, delicate man, he was enthusiastic
in his work, level headed and practical, a true twentieth
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century soldier of the Lord. When he came down to
this station on Melite, as he said, he agreed to
come for six months. He further agreed that if he
were alive at the end of that time, he would
continue on. Six years had passed and he was still
continuing on. Nevertheless, he was justified in his doubt as
to living longer than six months. Three missionaries had preceded
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him on Malta, and in less than that time two
had died of fever, and the third had gone home
a wreck. What murder are you talking about, he asked
suddenly in the midst of a confused conversation with Captain Jansen.
Captain Jansen explained, Oh, that's not the one I have
reference to quote mister Caulfield. That's old already. It happened
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two weeks ago. It was here at Malu that I
atoned for all the exulting and gloating I had been
guilty of over the Solomon sore Charmian had collected at
Lange Langa. Mister Caulfield was indirectly responsible for my atonement.
He presented us with a chicken, which I pursued into
the bush with a rifle. My intention was to clip
off its head. I succeeded, but in doing so fell
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over a log and barked my shin result three Solomon sores.
This made five altogether that were adorning my person. Also,
Captain Jansen and Nakata had caught Ghary Ghari. Literally translated,
Ghary Ghary is scratch scratch, but translation was not necessary
for the rest of us. The skippers in Nakada's gymnastics
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served as a translation without words. No, the Solomon Islands
are not as healthy as they might be. I am
writing this article on the island of Isabel, where we
have taken the snark to Kreen and clean her Cooper.
I got over my last attack of fever this morning
and have had only one free day between attacks. Charmians
are two weeks apart. Wada is a wreck from fever.
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Last night he showed all the symptoms of coming down
with pneumonia. Henry, a strapping giant of a Tahitian, just
up from his last dose of fever, is dragging around
the deck like a last year's crab apple. Both he
and t Hay have accumulated a praiseworthy display of solomon sores. Also,
they have caught a new form of gary ghari, a
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sort of vegetable poisoning like poison oak or poison ivy.
But they are not unique in this. A number of
days ago, Charmian Martin and I went pigeon shooting on
a small island, and we have had a foretaste of
eternal torment ever since. Also on that small island, Martin
cut the soles of his feet to ribbons on the
coral whilst chasing a shark. At least so he says,
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but from the glimpse I caught of him, I thought
it was the other way about. The coral cuts have
all become solomon sores. Before my last fever, I knocked
the skin off my knuckles while heaving on a line,
and I now have three fresh sores. And poor Nikata,
for three weeks he has been unable to sit down
he sat down yesterday for the first time and managed
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to stay down for fifteen minutes. He says cheerfully that
he expects to be cured of his gary ghary in
another month. Furthermore, his ghary Gary from two enthusiastic scratch
scratching has furnished footholds for countless Solomon's sores. Still Furthermore,
he has just come down with his seventh attack of fever.
If I were king, the worst punishment I could inflict
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on my enemies would be to banish them to the Solomons.
On second thought, King or no King, I don't think
I'd have the heart to do it. Recruiting plantation laborers
on a small, narrow yacht built for harbor sailing is
not any too nice. The decks swarm with recruits in
their families. The main cabin is packed with them. At
night they sleep there. The only entrance to our tiny
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cabin is through the main cabin, and we jam our
way through them or walk over them. Nor is this nice?
One and all? They are afflicted with every form of
malignant skin disease. Some have ringworm, others have bukua. This
latter is caused by a vegetable parasite that invades the
skin and eats it away. The itching is intolerable. The
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afflicted ones scratch until the air is filled with fine
dry flakes. Then there are yaws and many other skin ulcerations.
Men come aboard with solomon sores in their feet so
large they can walk only on their toes, or with
holes in their legs so terrible that a fist could
be thrust in to the bone. Blood poisoning is very frequent,
and Captain Jansen, with sheath knife and sale needle, operates
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lavishly on one and all, no matter how desperate the situation.
After opening and cleansing, he claps on a poultice of
sea biscuits soaked in water. Whenever we see a particularly
horrible case, we retire to a corner and delose our
own sores with corrosive sublimate. And so we live and
eat and sleep on the minota, taking our chances and
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pre tending it is good. At Suava, another artificial island,
I had a second crow over Charmian. A big fellow
marster belonged Suava, which means the high Chief of Suava
came on board. But first he sent an emissary to
Captain Jensen for a fathom of calico with which to
cover his royal nakedness. Meanwhile, he lingered in the canoe
(28:21):
alongside the regal dirt on his chest, I swear was
half an inch thick, while it was a good wager
that the underneath layers were anywhere from ten to twenty
years of age. He sent his emissary on board again,
who explained that the big fellow Marster Belongsava was condescendingly
willing enough to shake hands with Captain Jensen and me
and cadjis stick or two of trade tobacco, but that
(28:43):
nevertheless his high born soul was still at so lofty
an altitude that it could not sink itself to such
a depth of degradation as to shake hands with a
mere female woman, poor Charmian. Since her milight experiences, she
has become a changed woman. Her meekness and humbleness are
appallingly becoming, and I should not be surprised when we
(29:06):
returned to civilization and stroll along a sidewalk to see
her take her station with bowed head a yard in
the rear. Nothing much happened at Suaba Beechu. The native
cook deserted. The minota dragged anchor. It blew heavy squalls
of wind and rain. The mate, mister Jacobson and water
(29:27):
were prostrated with fever. Our solomon sores increased and multiplied,
and the cockroaches on board held a combined Fourth of
July and coronation parade. They selected midnight for the time
and our tiny cabin for the place. They were from
two to three inches long. There were hundreds of them,
and they walked all over us. When we attempted to
(29:48):
pursue them, they left solid footing, rose up in the air,
and fluttered about like humming birds. They were much larger
than ours on the snark, but ours are young yet
and haven't had a chance to grow. Also, the Snark
has centipedes, big ones six inches long. We killed them occasionally,
usually in Charmian's bunk. I've been bitten twice by them,
(30:12):
both times foully while I was asleep. But poor Martin
had worse luck. After being sick in bed for three weeks.
The first day he sat up, he sat down on one.
Sometimes I think they are the wisest who never go
to Carcassom. Later on we returned to Malu picked up
seven recruits, hove up anchor, and started to beat out
(30:34):
the treacherous entrance. The wind was chopping about the current
upon the ugly point of reef, setting strong. Just as
we were on the verge of clearing it and gaining
the open sea, the wind broke off four points. The
minota attempted to go about, missed stays. Two of her
anchors had been lost it to loggi. Her one remaining
anchor was let go. Chain was led out to give
(30:56):
it a hold on the coral. Her fin keel struck bottom,
and her main topmast lurched and shivered as if about
to come down upon our heads. She fetched up on
the slack of the anchors. At the moment of big
combers smashed her shoreward. The chain parted. It was our
only anchor. The Minoda swung around on her heel and
drove headlong into the breakers. Bedlam reigned. All the recruits below,
(31:20):
bushmen and afraid of the sea, dashed, panic stricken on
deck and got in everybody's way. At the same time,
the boat's crew made a rush for the rifles. They
knew what going ashore on my light amant one hand
for the ship in the other hand to fight off
the natives. What they held on with I don't know,
and they needed to hold on. As the manola lifted, rolled,
and pounded on the coral. The bushmen clug in the rigging,
(31:43):
too witless to watch out for the topmast. The whale
boat was run out with a tow line, endeavoring in
a puny way to prevent the minota from being flung
farther in toward the reef, while Captain Jensen and the mate,
the latter pallid and weak with fever, were resurrecting a
scrap anchor from out the ballast and rigging up a
stock for it. Mister Caulfield with his mission boys arrived
(32:04):
in his whale boat to help. When the minota first
struck there was not a canoe in sight, but like
vultures circling down out of the blue, canoes began to
arrive from every quarter. The boat's crew, with rifles of
the ready, kept them lined up one hundred yards away,
with the promise of death if they ventured nearer. And
there they clung, one hundred feet away, black and ominous,
(32:26):
crowded with men holding their canoes with their paddles on
the perilous edge of the breaking surf. In the meantime,
the bushmen were flocking down from the hills, armed with spears, snyders,
arrows and clubs, until the beach was masked with them
to complicate matters. At least ten of our recruits had
been enlisted from the very bushmen ashore who were waiting
(32:46):
hungrily for the loot of the tobacco and trade goods
and all that we had on board. The minoda was
honestly built, which is the first essential for any boat
that is pounding on a reef. Some idea of what
she endured may be gained from the fact that in
the first twenty four hours she parted two anchor chains
and eight howsers. Our boat's crew was kept busy diving
(33:06):
for the anchors and bending new lines. There were times
when she parted the chains re enforced with hawsers, and
yet she held together. Tree trunks were brought from ashore
and worked under her to save her keel and bilges.
But the trunks were gnawed and splintered, and the ropes
that held them frayed to fragments, and still she pounded
and held together but we were luckier than the Ivanhoe,
(33:27):
a big recruiting schooner, which had gone ashore on my
light as several months previously and been promptly rushed by
the natives. The captain and crew succeeded in getting away
in the whale boats, and the bushmen and salt watermen
looted her clean of everything portable. Squall after squall, driving
wind and blinding rain smote the Minoda while a heavier
(33:49):
sea was making the Eugenie laid anchor five miles to windward,
but she was behind a point of land and could
not know of our mishap. At Captain Jensen's suggestion, I
wrote a note Captain Keller, asking him to bring extra
anchors and gear to our aid, but not a canoe
could be persuaded to carry the letter. I offered half
a case of tobacco, but the Blacks grinned and held
(34:11):
their canoes bow on to the breaking seas. A half
a case of tobacco was worth three pounds in two hours.
Even against the strong wind and sea, a man could
have carried the letter and received in payment what he
would have labored half a year for on a plantation.
I managed to get into a canoe and paddle out
to where mister Caulfield was running an anchor with his
whale boat. My idea was that he would have more
(34:33):
influence over the natives. He called the canoes up to him,
and a score of them clustered around and heard the
offer of half a case of tobacco. No one spoke.
I know what you think, the missionary called out to them.
You think plenty tobacco on the schooner, and you're going
to get it. I tell you, plenty rifles on schooner.
You get no tobacco, You get bullets. At last, one man,
(34:56):
a loan in a small canoe took the letter and
started waiting for relief. Work went on steadily on the Minota.
Her water tanks were emptied, and spars, sails and ballasts
started shoreward. There were lively times on board when the
Minota rolled one bilge down and then the other, a
score of men leaping for life and legs as the
trade boxes, booms and eighty pound pigs of iron ballast
(35:20):
rushed across from rail to rail and back again. The
poor pretty harbor yacht, her decks and running rigging were
a raffle down below. Everything was disrupted. The cabin floor
had been torn up to get at the ballast and
rusty build. Water swashed and splashed a bushel of limes
in a mess of flour and water charged about like
(35:40):
so many sticking dumplings escaped from a half cooked stew
in the inner cabin. Nikota kept guard over our rifles
and ammunition. Three hours from the time our messenger started,
a whale boat, pressing along under a huge spread of canvas,
broke through the thick of a shrieking squall to windward.
It was Captain Keller, wet with rain and spray, a
(36:01):
revolver and belt. His boats grew fully armed, anchors and
hawsers heaped high amidships, coming as fast as wind could drive.
The white man, the inevitable white man coming to a
white man's rescue. The vulture line of canoes that had
waited so long broke and disappeared as quickly as it
had formed. The corpse was not dead, after all. We
(36:22):
now had three whale boats, two plying steadily between the
vessel and shore. The other kept busy running out anchors,
re bending parted hawsers, and recovering the lost anchors. Later
in the afternoon, after a consultation in which we took
into consideration that a number of our boat's crew, as
well as ten of the recruits belonged to this place,
(36:42):
we disarmed the boat's crew. This incidentally gave them both
hands free to work for the vessel. The rifles were
put in the charge of five of mister Caulfield's mission boys,
and down below in the wreck of the cabin, the
missionary and his converts prayed to God to save the minota.
It was an impressive scene, the un armed man of
God praying with cloudless faith, his savage followers leaning on
(37:04):
their rifles and mumbling amens. The cabin walls reeled about them.
The vessel lifted and smashed upon the coral with every sea.
From on deck came the shouts of men, heaving and toiling,
praying in another fashion with purposeful will and strength of arm.
That night, mister Caulfield brought off a warning. One of
(37:24):
our recruits had a price on his head of fifty
fathoms of shell money and forty pigs. Baffled in their
desire to capture the vessel, the bushmen decided to get
the head of the man. When killing begins, there is
no telling where it will end. So Captain Jensen armed
a whale boat and rowed in to the edge of
the beach. Oogi, one of the boat's crew, stood up
(37:45):
and orated for him. Oogi was excited Captain Jensen's warning
that any canoe sighted that night would be pumped full
of lead. Oogi turned into a bellicose declaration of war,
which round up with a pear oration somewhat to the
following effect. You kill my captain, I drink his blood
and die with him. The bushmen contented themselves with burning
(38:06):
an unoccupied mission house and sneaked back to the bush.
The next day, the Eugenie sailed in and dropped anchor.
Three days and two nights the Manaulta pounded on the reef,
but she held together, and the shell of her was
pulled off at last and anchored in smooth water. There
we said good bye to her and all on board,
and sailed away on the Eugenie, bound for Florida Island.
(38:27):
End of chapter fifteen. Cruising in the Solomon Islands. Recording
by Jim Alman, Houston, Texas.
Chapter fifteen of the Cruise of the Snark. This is
the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by Jim Allman. The Crews of the Snark by
Jack London, Chapter fifteen, Cruising in the Solomons. Why not
(00:22):
come along now, said Captain Jensen to us at Penduffren
on the island of Guadalcanar. Charmian and I looked at
each other and debated silently for half a minute. Then
we nodded our heads simultaneously. It was a way we
have of making up our minds to do things, and
a very good way it is when one has no
temperamental tears to shed over the last ten of condensed
(00:42):
milk when it has capsized. We are living on ten
goods these days, and since mind is rumored to be
an emanation of matter, our similaris are naturally of the
packing house variety. You'd better bring your revolvers along, and
a couple of rifles, said Captain Jensen. I've got five
rifles aboard, though the one mauser is without ammunition. Have
(01:02):
you a few rounds to spare. We brought our rifles
on board, several handfuls of Mauser cartridges, and Wada and Nakata,
the Snark's cook and cabin boy, respectively. Wada and Nakada
were in a bit of a funk, to say the least.
They were not enthusiastic, though never did Nakada show the
white feather in the face of danger. The Solomon Islands
(01:24):
had not dealt kindly with them in the first place.
Both had suffered from Solomon's sores, so had the rest
of us. At the time, I was nursing two fresh
ones on a diet of corrosive sublimate, but the two
Japanese had had more than their share, and the sores
are not nice. They may be described as excessively active ulcers.
(01:44):
A mosquito bite, a cut, or the slightest abrasion serves
for lodgment of the poison with which the air seems
to be filled. Immediately the ulcer commences to eat. It
eats in every direction, consuming skin and muscle with astounding rapidity.
The pinpoint ulcer of the first day is the size
of a dime, by the second day, and by the
end of the week, as silver dollar will not cover
(02:06):
it worse than the sores. The two Japanese had been
afflicted with Solomon Island fever. Each had been down repeatedly
with it, and in their weak convalescent moments, they were
wont to huddle together on the portion of the snark
that happened to be nearest to far away Japan, and
to gaze yearningly in that direction. But worst of all,
(02:26):
they were now brought on board the Minota for a
recruiting cruise along the savage coast of Malata. Wada, who
had the worst funk, was sure that he would never
see Japan again, and with bleak, lackluster eyes, he watched
our rifles and ammunition going on board the Minota. He
knew about the Minoda and her Melita cruises. He knew
that she had been captured six months before on the
(02:47):
Malita coast. Their captain had been chopped to pieces with tomahawks,
and that, according to the barbarian sense of equity, on
that sweet isle, she owed two more heads, also a
laborer on Penduffrey plantation. A Melita boy had just died
of dysentery, and Wada knew that Penduffrin had been put
in the debt of Malaita by one more head. Furthermore,
(03:10):
in stowing our luggage away in the skipper's tiny cabin,
he saw the axe gashes on the door where the
triumphant bushmen had cut their way in. And finally the
galley stove was without a pipe, said pipe having been
part of the lute. The Minota was a teak built
Australian yacht, catch rigged long and lean, with a deep,
(03:32):
thin keel, and designed for harbor racing rather than for
recruiting blacks. When Charmian and I came on board, we
found her crowded. Her double boat's crew, including substitutes, was fifteen,
and she had a score and more of return boys
whose time on the plantations was served, and who were
bound back to their bush villages to look at. They
(03:52):
were certainly true head hunting cannibals. Their perforated nostrils were
thrust through with bone and wooden bodkins the size of
lead pencils. Numbers of them had punctured the extreme meaty
point of the nose, from which protruded straight out spikes
of turtle shell or of beads drung on stiff wire.
A few had further punctured their noses with rows of
holes following the curve of the nostril from lip to point.
(04:16):
Each ear of every man had from two to a
dozen holes in it, holes large enough to carry wooden
plugs three inches in diameter, down to tiny holes in
which were carried clay pipes in similar trifles. In fact,
so many holes did they possess that they lacked ornaments
to fill them. And when the following day, as we
neared Melita, we tried out our rifles to see that
(04:36):
they were in working order, there was a general scramble
for the empty cartridges, which were thrust forthwith into the
many aching voids in our passengers ears. At the time
we tried out our rifles, we put up our barbed
wire railings. The Minota, crown decked without any house, and
with a rail six inches high, was too accessible to borders.
(04:58):
Some brass stanchions were screwed into the the rail, and
a double row of barbed wires stretched around her from
stem to stern and back again, which was bold very
well as protection from savages, but it was mighty uncomfortable
to those on board. When the Minota took to jumping
and plunging in a seaway, when one dislikes sliding down
upon the lee rail barbed wire, and when he dares
(05:18):
not catch hold of the weather rail barbed wire to
save himself from sliding, And when with these various disinclinations
he finds himself on a smooth, flush deck that is
healed over at an angle of forty five degrees, some
of the delights of Solomon Island cruising may be comprehended. Also,
it must be remembered the penalty will fall into the
barbed wire is more than the mere scratches, for each
(05:40):
scratch is practically certain to become a venomous ulcer. That
caution will not save one from the wire. Was evidenced
one fine morning when we were running along them a
lighted coast, with the breeze on our quarter. The wind
was fresh and a tidy sea was making. A black
boy was at the wheel. Captain Jansen, mister Jacobson, the
mad Chermian and I had just sat down on deck
(06:02):
to breakfast. Three unusually large seas caught us. The boy
at the wheel lost his head three times, the minoda
was swept, the breakfast was rushed over the lee rail.
The knives and forks went through the scuppers. A boy
aft then went clean overboard and was dragged back, and
our dowdy skipper lay half inward and half out, jammed
(06:23):
in the barbed wire. After that, for the rest of
the cruise, our joint use of the several remaining eating
utensils was a splendid example of primitive communism. On the Eugenie, however,
it was even worse, for he had but one teaspoon
among four of us. But the Eugenie is another story.
Our first port was Siou, on the west coast of Malta.
(06:44):
The Solomon Islands are on the fringe of things. It
is difficult enough sailing on dark nights through reef spiked
channels and across erratic currents when there are no lights
to guide from northwest to southeast. The Solomons extend across
a thousand miles of sea, and on all the thousand
of miles the coast there is not one lighthouse. But
the difficulty is seriously enhanced by the fact that the
(07:05):
land itself is not correctly charted. Siou is an example
on the Admiralty chart of Malay. To the coast at
this point runs a straight, unbroken line. Yet across this straight,
unbroken line, the Minauta sailed in twenty fathoms of water,
where the land was alleged to be was a deep indentation.
Into this we sailed the mangroves closing about us till
(07:28):
we dropped anchor in a mirrored pond. Captain Jensen did
not like the anchorage. It was the first time he
had been there, and sue U had a bad reputation.
There was no wind with which to get away in
case of attack. While the crew could be bushwhacked to
a man if they attempted to tow out in the whale boat.
It was a pretty trap if trouble blew up. Suppose
(07:49):
the Minauta went ashore, What would you do, I asked.
She's not going ashore, was Captain Jensen's answer. But just
in case she did, I insisted. He considered for a
moment and shifted his glance from the mate buckling on
a revolver to the boat's crew climbing into the whale boat,
each man with a rifle. We'd get into the whale
boat and get out of here as fast as God
(08:10):
had led us. Came the skipper's delayed reply. He explained
at length that no white man was sure of his
Malaya crew in a tight place, that the bushmen looked
upon all wrecks as their personal property, that the bushmen
possessed plenty of Snyder rifles, and that he had on
board a dozen return boys for Soo Ou, who were
certain to join in with their friends and relatives ashore
when it came to looting the minoda. The first work
(08:32):
of the whale boat was to take the return boys
in their trade boxes ashore. Thus one danger was removed.
While this was being done, a canoe came alongside, manned
by three naked savages. And when I say naked, I
mean naked. Not one vestige of clothing did they have on,
unless nose rings, earplugs, and shell armlets be accounted clothing.
(08:54):
The headman in the canoe was an old chief, one eyed,
reputed to be friendly and so dirty that a boat
scraper would have lost its edge on him. His mission
was to warn the skipper against allowing any of his
people to go ashore. The old fellow repeated the warning
again that night. In vain did the whale boat ply
about the shores of the bay in quest of recruits.
(09:15):
The bush was full of armed natives, all willing enough
to talk with the recruiter, but not one would engage
to sign on for three years plantation labor at six
pounds per year. Yet they were anxious enough to get
our people ashore. On the second day, they raised a
smoke on the beach at the head of the bay,
this being the customary signal of men desiring to recruit.
The boat was sent, but nothing resulted. No one recruited,
(09:39):
nor were any of our men lured ashore. A little
later we caught glimpses of a number of armed natives
moving about on the beach. Outside of these rare glimpses,
there was no telling how many might be lurking in
the bush. There was no penetrating that primeval jungle with
the eye. In the afternoon, Captain Jansen, Charmian and I
went dynamiting fish. Each one of the boat's crew carried
(10:02):
a lee enfield. Johnny, the native recruiter, had a Winchester
beside him at the steering sweep. We rowed in close
to a portion of the shore that looked deserted. Here
the boat was turned round and backed in in case
of attack. The boat would be ready to dash away.
In all the time I was on Malta, I never
saw a boat land bow on. In fact, the recruiting
(10:23):
vessels used two boats, one to go in on the beach, armed,
of course, and the other to lie off several hundred
feet and cover the first boat. The Minota, however, being
a small vessel, did not carry a covering boat. We
were close into the shore and working in closer stern. First,
when a school of fish was sighted, the fuse was
ignited in the stick of dynamite throne. With the explosion,
(10:46):
the surface of the water was broken by the flash
of leaping fish. At the same instant the woods broke
into life. A score of naked savages armed with bows
and arrows, spears and snyders, burst out upon the shore.
At the sea same moment, our bow's crew lifted their rifles,
and thus the opposing parties faced each other, while our
extra boys dived over after the stunned fish. Three fruitless
(11:10):
days were spent at Suu. The minoda got no recruits
from the bush and the bushmen got no heads from
the minoda. In fact, the only one who got anything
was weighed, and his was a nice dose of fever.
We towed out with the whale boat and ran along
the coast alonga langa, a large village of salt water
people built with prodigious labor on a lagoon, sand bank
(11:33):
litterally built up and artificial island reared as a refuge
from the bloodthirsty bushmen. Here. Also on the shore side
of the lagoon was Binu, the place where the Minoda
was captured half a year previously and her captain killed
by the bushmen. As we sailed in through the narrow entrance,
a canoe came alongside with the news that the man
(11:53):
of war had just left that morning after having burned
three villages, killed some thirty pigs, and drowned a baby.
This was the Cambrian Captain Lew's commanding He and I
had first met in Korea during the Japanese Russian War,
and we had been crossing each other's trail ever since
without ever a meeting. The day the Snark sailed into
Suva in the Fijis, we made out the Cambrian going
(12:17):
out at Villa in the New Hebrides. We missed each
other by one day. We passed each other in the
night time off the island of Santo, and to day
the Cambrian arrived at Tulagu. We sailed from Penduffren, a
dozen miles away, and here at Langilango we had missed
by several hours. The Cambrian had come to punish the
murderers of the minota's captain, but what she had succeeded
(12:40):
in doing we did not learn until later in the day,
when a mister Abbot, a missionary, came alongside in his
whale boat. The villages had been burned and the pigskilled,
but the natives had escaped personal harm. The murderers had
not been captured, though the minota's flag and other of
her gear had been recovered. The drowning of the baby
(13:00):
had come about through a misunderstanding. Chief Johnny of Binu
had declined to guide the landing party into the bush,
nor could any of his men be induced to perform
that office. Whereupon Captain Lew's righteously indignant had told Chief
Johnny that he deserved to have his village burned. Johnny's
beche de mer English did not include the word deserve,
(13:21):
so his understanding of it was that his village was
to be burned. Anyway, the immediate stampede of the inhabitants
was so hurried that the baby was dropped into the water.
In the meantime, Chief Johnny hastened to mister Abbot into
his hand. He put fourteen sovereigns and requested him to
go on board the Cambrian and buy Captain Lew's off.
Johnny's village was not burned, nor did Captain Lewes get
(13:44):
the fourteen sovereigns, for I saw them later in Johnny's
possession when he boarded the Minota. The excuse Johnny gave
me for not guiding the landing party was a big boil,
which he proudly revealed. His real reason, however, and a
perfectly valid one, though he did not state it was
fear of revenge on the part of the bushmen. Had
he or any of his men guided the Marines, he
(14:06):
could have looked for bloody reprisals as soon as the
Cambrian weighed Anchor. As an illustration of conditions in the Solomons,
Johnny's business on board was to turn over for a
tobacco consideration, the sprit, mainsail and jib of a whale boat.
Later in the day, a chief Billy came on board
and turned over for a tobacco consideration. The mast and boom.
(14:29):
This gear belonged to a whale boat, which Captain Jensen
had recovered the previous trip of the Minota. The whale
boat belonged to Maringa plantation on the island of Isabel.
Eleven contract laborers, malata men and bushmen at that had
decided to run away. Being bushmen, they knew nothing of
salt water nor of the way of a boat in
the sea, so they persuaded two natives of San Christophal
(14:52):
salt water men to run away with them. It served
the San Christophale men right. They should have known better.
When they had safely never vigated the stolen boats to Malta.
They had their heads hacked off for their pains. It
was this boat and gear that Captain Jansen had recovered.
Not for nothing have I journeyed all the way to
the Solomons. At last I have seen Charmian's proud spirit
(15:14):
humbled and her imperious queendom of femininity dragged in the dust.
It happened at Langa Langa Ashore, on the manufactured island,
which one cannot see for the houses here. Surrounded by
hundreds of unblushing naked men, women and children, we wandered
about and saw the sights. We had our revolvers strapped on,
(15:35):
and the boat's crew fully armed lay at oars stern in.
But the lesson of the man O War was too
recent for us to apprehend trouble. We walked about everywhere
and saw everything, until at last we approached a large
tree trunk that served as a bridge across a shallow estuary.
The Blacks formed a wall in front of us and
refused to let us pass. We wanted to know why
(15:56):
we were stopped. The Blacks said we could go on.
We misunderstood and started explanations became more definite. Captain Jensen
and I, being men, could go on. But no Mary
was allowed to wade around that bridge, much less cross it.
Mary is betcha de maire for woman. Charmian was a
merry to her. The bridge was tambeau, which is the
(16:19):
native for taboo. Ah, how my chest expanded. At last
my manhood was vindicated. In truth, I belonged to the
lordly sex. Charmian could trapes along at our heels, But
we were men and we could go right over that bridge,
where she would have to go round by whale boat.
Now I should not care to be misunderstood by what follows,
(16:40):
but it is a matter of common knowledge in the
Solomons that attacks of fever are often brought on by shock.
Inside half an hour after Charmian had been refused the
right of way, she was being rushed aboard the Minota,
packed in blankets and dosed with quinine. I don't know
what kind of shock had happened to Wada and Nakata,
but at any rate they were down with as well.
(17:01):
The Solomons might be healthfuler. Also, during the attack of fever,
Charmian developed a Solomon sore. It was the last straw.
Every one on the Snark had been afflicted except her.
I had thought that I was going to lose my
foot at the ankle by one exceptionally malignant boring ulcer.
Henry and Tahi, the Tahitian sailors had had numbers of them.
(17:24):
Wada had been able to count his by the score.
Nakada had had single ones three inches in length. Martin
had been quite certain that decrosis of his shin bone
had set in from the roots. The amazing colony. He
elected to cultivate in that locality, But Charmian had escaped
out of her long immunity had been bred contempt for
the rest of us. Her eagle was flattered to such
(17:46):
an extent that one day she shyly informed me that
it was all a matter of pureness of blood, since
all the rest of us cultivated the sores, and since
she did not well anyway. Hers was the size of
a silver dollar, and the pureness of her blood enabled
her to cure it after several weeks of strenuous nursing.
She pins her faith on corrosive sublimate. Martin swears by iodaform.
(18:10):
Henry uses lime juice undiluted, and I believe that when
corrosive sublimate is slow in taking hold, alternate dressings of peroxide,
of hydrogen, or just the thing. There are white men
in the Solomons who stake all upon boracic acid, and
others who are prejudiced in favor of lysol. I also
have a weakness of a panacea. It is California. I
(18:32):
defy any man to get a Solomon Island sore. In California.
We ran down the lagoon from Langelanga, between mangrove swamps,
through passages scarcely wider than the Minota, and past the
reef villages of Colocca and Auki. Like the founders of Venice,
these salt water men were originally refugees from the mainland.
(18:52):
Too weak to hold their own in the bush, survivors
of village massacres, they fled to the sand banks of
the lagoon. These they built up into islands. They were
compelled to seek their prevender from the sea, and in
time they became salt water men. They learned the ways
that the fish and the shellfish, and they invented hooks
and lines, nets and fish traps. They developed canoe bodies,
(19:15):
unable to walk about, spending all their time in the canoes,
they became thick, armed and broad shouldered, with narrow waist
and trail spindly legs. Controlling the sea coast, they became wealthy,
trade with the interior passing largely through their hands, but
perpetual enmity exists between them and the bushmen. Practically their
only truces are on market days, which occur at stated intervals,
(19:37):
usually twice a week. The bush women and the salt
water women do the bartering back in the bush one
hundred yards away, fully armed like the bushmen, while to
seaward in the canoes are the salt water men. There
are very rare instances of the market day truces being broken.
The bushmen like their fish too well, while the salt
(19:57):
water men have an organic craving for the vegetas they
cannot grow on their crowded islets. Thirty miles from lange
Langa brought us up to the passage between Basakhana Island
and the mainland. Here at nightfall, the wind left us,
and all night, with the whale boat towing ahead and
the crew on board sweating at the steeps, we strove
to wind through, but the tide was against us. At midnight,
(20:21):
midway in the passage, we came up with the Eugene,
a big recruiting schooner towing with two whale boats. Her skipper,
Captain Keller, a sturdy young German of twenty two, came
on board for a gam and the latest news of
Malaita was swapped back and forth. He had been in luck,
having gathered in twenty recruits at the village of Few.
(20:44):
While lying there, one of the customary courageous killings had
taken place. The murdered boy was what is called a
salt water bushman, that is, a salt waterman who is
half bushman, who lives by the sea, but does not
live on an islet. Three bushmen came down to this
man where he was working in his garden. They behaved
in friendly fashion, and after a time suggested kai kai
(21:06):
Kai Kai means food. He built a fire and started
to boil some taro. While bending over the pot, one
of the bushmen shot him through the head. He fell
into the flames, whereupon they thrust a spear through his stomach,
turned it around, and broke it off. My word, said
Captain Keller, I don't ever want to be shot with
a snyder spread. You could drive a horse and carriage
(21:29):
through that hole in his head. Another recent courageous killing
I heard of on Malita was that of an old man,
a bush chief had died in natural death. Now the
bushmen don't believe in natural deaths. No one was ever
known to die in natural death. The only way to
die is by bullet, tomahawk, or spear thrust. When a
man dies any other way, it is a clear case
(21:52):
of having been charmed to death. When the bush chief died, naturally,
his tribe placed the guilt on a certain family. Since
it didn't matter which one of the family was killed,
they selected this old man, who lived by himself. This
would make it easy. Furthermore, he possessed no snyder. Also,
he was blind. The old fellow got an inkling of
(22:13):
what was coming and laid in a large supply of arrows.
Three brave warriors, each with a snyder, came down upon
him in the night time. All night they fought valiantly
with him. Whenever they moved in the bush and made
a noise or rustle, he discharged arrow in that direction.
In the morning, when his last arrow was gone, the
three heroes crept up on him and blew his brains out.
(22:35):
Morning found a still valiantly toiling through the passage. At last,
in despair, we turned tail, ran out to sea, and
sailed clear round Basikana to our objective, Malu. The anchorage
at Malu was very good, but it lay between the
shore and an ugly reef, and while easy to enter,
it was difficult to leave. The direction of the southeast
(22:56):
trade necessitated a beat to windward. The point of the
reef was widespread and shallow, while a current bore down
at all times. Upon the point, mister Caulfield, the missionary
at Mallew, arrived in his whale boat from a trip
down the coast. A slender, delicate man, he was enthusiastic
in his work, level headed and practical, a true twentieth
(23:17):
century soldier of the Lord. When he came down to
this station on Melite, as he said, he agreed to
come for six months. He further agreed that if he
were alive at the end of that time, he would
continue on. Six years had passed and he was still
continuing on. Nevertheless, he was justified in his doubt as
to living longer than six months. Three missionaries had preceded
(23:38):
him on Malta, and in less than that time two
had died of fever, and the third had gone home
a wreck. What murder are you talking about, he asked
suddenly in the midst of a confused conversation with Captain Jansen.
Captain Jansen explained, Oh, that's not the one I have
reference to quote mister Caulfield. That's old already. It happened
(23:59):
two weeks ago. It was here at Malu that I
atoned for all the exulting and gloating I had been
guilty of over the Solomon sore Charmian had collected at
Lange Langa. Mister Caulfield was indirectly responsible for my atonement.
He presented us with a chicken, which I pursued into
the bush with a rifle. My intention was to clip
off its head. I succeeded, but in doing so fell
(24:21):
over a log and barked my shin result three Solomon sores.
This made five altogether that were adorning my person. Also,
Captain Jansen and Nakata had caught Ghary Ghari. Literally translated,
Ghary Ghary is scratch scratch, but translation was not necessary
for the rest of us. The skippers in Nakada's gymnastics
(24:43):
served as a translation without words. No, the Solomon Islands
are not as healthy as they might be. I am
writing this article on the island of Isabel, where we
have taken the snark to Kreen and clean her Cooper.
I got over my last attack of fever this morning
and have had only one free day between attacks. Charmians
are two weeks apart. Wada is a wreck from fever.
(25:06):
Last night he showed all the symptoms of coming down
with pneumonia. Henry, a strapping giant of a Tahitian, just
up from his last dose of fever, is dragging around
the deck like a last year's crab apple. Both he
and t Hay have accumulated a praiseworthy display of solomon sores. Also,
they have caught a new form of gary ghari, a
(25:27):
sort of vegetable poisoning like poison oak or poison ivy.
But they are not unique in this. A number of
days ago, Charmian Martin and I went pigeon shooting on
a small island, and we have had a foretaste of
eternal torment ever since. Also on that small island, Martin
cut the soles of his feet to ribbons on the
coral whilst chasing a shark. At least so he says,
(25:50):
but from the glimpse I caught of him, I thought
it was the other way about. The coral cuts have
all become solomon sores. Before my last fever, I knocked
the skin off my knuckles while heaving on a line,
and I now have three fresh sores. And poor Nikata,
for three weeks he has been unable to sit down
he sat down yesterday for the first time and managed
(26:11):
to stay down for fifteen minutes. He says cheerfully that
he expects to be cured of his gary ghary in
another month. Furthermore, his ghary Gary from two enthusiastic scratch
scratching has furnished footholds for countless Solomon's sores. Still Furthermore,
he has just come down with his seventh attack of fever.
If I were king, the worst punishment I could inflict
(26:33):
on my enemies would be to banish them to the Solomons.
On second thought, King or no King, I don't think
I'd have the heart to do it. Recruiting plantation laborers
on a small, narrow yacht built for harbor sailing is
not any too nice. The decks swarm with recruits in
their families. The main cabin is packed with them. At
night they sleep there. The only entrance to our tiny
(26:56):
cabin is through the main cabin, and we jam our
way through them or walk over them. Nor is this nice?
One and all? They are afflicted with every form of
malignant skin disease. Some have ringworm, others have bukua. This
latter is caused by a vegetable parasite that invades the
skin and eats it away. The itching is intolerable. The
(27:17):
afflicted ones scratch until the air is filled with fine
dry flakes. Then there are yaws and many other skin ulcerations.
Men come aboard with solomon sores in their feet so
large they can walk only on their toes, or with
holes in their legs so terrible that a fist could
be thrust in to the bone. Blood poisoning is very frequent,
and Captain Jansen, with sheath knife and sale needle, operates
(27:39):
lavishly on one and all, no matter how desperate the situation.
After opening and cleansing, he claps on a poultice of
sea biscuits soaked in water. Whenever we see a particularly
horrible case, we retire to a corner and delose our
own sores with corrosive sublimate. And so we live and
eat and sleep on the minota, taking our chances and
(27:59):
pre tending it is good. At Suava, another artificial island,
I had a second crow over Charmian. A big fellow
marster belonged Suava, which means the high Chief of Suava
came on board. But first he sent an emissary to
Captain Jensen for a fathom of calico with which to
cover his royal nakedness. Meanwhile, he lingered in the canoe
(28:21):
alongside the regal dirt on his chest, I swear was
half an inch thick, while it was a good wager
that the underneath layers were anywhere from ten to twenty
years of age. He sent his emissary on board again,
who explained that the big fellow Marster Belongsava was condescendingly
willing enough to shake hands with Captain Jensen and me
and cadjis stick or two of trade tobacco, but that
(28:43):
nevertheless his high born soul was still at so lofty
an altitude that it could not sink itself to such
a depth of degradation as to shake hands with a
mere female woman, poor Charmian. Since her milight experiences, she
has become a changed woman. Her meekness and humbleness are
appallingly becoming, and I should not be surprised when we
(29:06):
returned to civilization and stroll along a sidewalk to see
her take her station with bowed head a yard in
the rear. Nothing much happened at Suaba Beechu. The native
cook deserted. The minota dragged anchor. It blew heavy squalls
of wind and rain. The mate, mister Jacobson and water
(29:27):
were prostrated with fever. Our solomon sores increased and multiplied,
and the cockroaches on board held a combined Fourth of
July and coronation parade. They selected midnight for the time
and our tiny cabin for the place. They were from
two to three inches long. There were hundreds of them,
and they walked all over us. When we attempted to
(29:48):
pursue them, they left solid footing, rose up in the air,
and fluttered about like humming birds. They were much larger
than ours on the snark, but ours are young yet
and haven't had a chance to grow. Also, the Snark
has centipedes, big ones six inches long. We killed them occasionally,
usually in Charmian's bunk. I've been bitten twice by them,
(30:12):
both times foully while I was asleep. But poor Martin
had worse luck. After being sick in bed for three weeks.
The first day he sat up, he sat down on one.
Sometimes I think they are the wisest who never go
to Carcassom. Later on we returned to Malu picked up
seven recruits, hove up anchor, and started to beat out
(30:34):
the treacherous entrance. The wind was chopping about the current
upon the ugly point of reef, setting strong. Just as
we were on the verge of clearing it and gaining
the open sea, the wind broke off four points. The
minota attempted to go about, missed stays. Two of her
anchors had been lost it to loggi. Her one remaining
anchor was let go. Chain was led out to give
(30:56):
it a hold on the coral. Her fin keel struck bottom,
and her main topmast lurched and shivered as if about
to come down upon our heads. She fetched up on
the slack of the anchors. At the moment of big
combers smashed her shoreward. The chain parted. It was our
only anchor. The Minoda swung around on her heel and
drove headlong into the breakers. Bedlam reigned. All the recruits below,
(31:20):
bushmen and afraid of the sea, dashed, panic stricken on
deck and got in everybody's way. At the same time,
the boat's crew made a rush for the rifles. They
knew what going ashore on my light amant one hand
for the ship in the other hand to fight off
the natives. What they held on with I don't know,
and they needed to hold on. As the manola lifted, rolled,
and pounded on the coral. The bushmen clug in the rigging,
(31:43):
too witless to watch out for the topmast. The whale
boat was run out with a tow line, endeavoring in
a puny way to prevent the minota from being flung
farther in toward the reef, while Captain Jensen and the mate,
the latter pallid and weak with fever, were resurrecting a
scrap anchor from out the ballast and rigging up a
stock for it. Mister Caulfield with his mission boys arrived
(32:04):
in his whale boat to help. When the minota first
struck there was not a canoe in sight, but like
vultures circling down out of the blue, canoes began to
arrive from every quarter. The boat's crew, with rifles of
the ready, kept them lined up one hundred yards away,
with the promise of death if they ventured nearer. And
there they clung, one hundred feet away, black and ominous,
(32:26):
crowded with men holding their canoes with their paddles on
the perilous edge of the breaking surf. In the meantime,
the bushmen were flocking down from the hills, armed with spears, snyders,
arrows and clubs, until the beach was masked with them
to complicate matters. At least ten of our recruits had
been enlisted from the very bushmen ashore who were waiting
(32:46):
hungrily for the loot of the tobacco and trade goods
and all that we had on board. The minoda was
honestly built, which is the first essential for any boat
that is pounding on a reef. Some idea of what
she endured may be gained from the fact that in
the first twenty four hours she parted two anchor chains
and eight howsers. Our boat's crew was kept busy diving
(33:06):
for the anchors and bending new lines. There were times
when she parted the chains re enforced with hawsers, and
yet she held together. Tree trunks were brought from ashore
and worked under her to save her keel and bilges.
But the trunks were gnawed and splintered, and the ropes
that held them frayed to fragments, and still she pounded
and held together but we were luckier than the Ivanhoe,
(33:27):
a big recruiting schooner, which had gone ashore on my
light as several months previously and been promptly rushed by
the natives. The captain and crew succeeded in getting away
in the whale boats, and the bushmen and salt watermen
looted her clean of everything portable. Squall after squall, driving
wind and blinding rain smote the Minoda while a heavier
(33:49):
sea was making the Eugenie laid anchor five miles to windward,
but she was behind a point of land and could
not know of our mishap. At Captain Jensen's suggestion, I
wrote a note Captain Keller, asking him to bring extra
anchors and gear to our aid, but not a canoe
could be persuaded to carry the letter. I offered half
a case of tobacco, but the Blacks grinned and held
(34:11):
their canoes bow on to the breaking seas. A half
a case of tobacco was worth three pounds in two hours.
Even against the strong wind and sea, a man could
have carried the letter and received in payment what he
would have labored half a year for on a plantation.
I managed to get into a canoe and paddle out
to where mister Caulfield was running an anchor with his
whale boat. My idea was that he would have more
(34:33):
influence over the natives. He called the canoes up to him,
and a score of them clustered around and heard the
offer of half a case of tobacco. No one spoke.
I know what you think, the missionary called out to them.
You think plenty tobacco on the schooner, and you're going
to get it. I tell you, plenty rifles on schooner.
You get no tobacco, You get bullets. At last, one man,
(34:56):
a loan in a small canoe took the letter and
started waiting for relief. Work went on steadily on the Minota.
Her water tanks were emptied, and spars, sails and ballasts
started shoreward. There were lively times on board when the
Minota rolled one bilge down and then the other, a
score of men leaping for life and legs as the
trade boxes, booms and eighty pound pigs of iron ballast
(35:20):
rushed across from rail to rail and back again. The
poor pretty harbor yacht, her decks and running rigging were
a raffle down below. Everything was disrupted. The cabin floor
had been torn up to get at the ballast and
rusty build. Water swashed and splashed a bushel of limes
in a mess of flour and water charged about like
(35:40):
so many sticking dumplings escaped from a half cooked stew
in the inner cabin. Nikota kept guard over our rifles
and ammunition. Three hours from the time our messenger started,
a whale boat, pressing along under a huge spread of canvas,
broke through the thick of a shrieking squall to windward.
It was Captain Keller, wet with rain and spray, a
(36:01):
revolver and belt. His boats grew fully armed, anchors and
hawsers heaped high amidships, coming as fast as wind could drive.
The white man, the inevitable white man coming to a
white man's rescue. The vulture line of canoes that had
waited so long broke and disappeared as quickly as it
had formed. The corpse was not dead, after all. We
(36:22):
now had three whale boats, two plying steadily between the
vessel and shore. The other kept busy running out anchors,
re bending parted hawsers, and recovering the lost anchors. Later
in the afternoon, after a consultation in which we took
into consideration that a number of our boat's crew, as
well as ten of the recruits belonged to this place,
(36:42):
we disarmed the boat's crew. This incidentally gave them both
hands free to work for the vessel. The rifles were
put in the charge of five of mister Caulfield's mission boys,
and down below in the wreck of the cabin, the
missionary and his converts prayed to God to save the minota.
It was an impressive scene, the un armed man of
God praying with cloudless faith, his savage followers leaning on
(37:04):
their rifles and mumbling amens. The cabin walls reeled about them.
The vessel lifted and smashed upon the coral with every sea.
From on deck came the shouts of men, heaving and toiling,
praying in another fashion with purposeful will and strength of arm.
That night, mister Caulfield brought off a warning. One of
(37:24):
our recruits had a price on his head of fifty
fathoms of shell money and forty pigs. Baffled in their
desire to capture the vessel, the bushmen decided to get
the head of the man. When killing begins, there is
no telling where it will end. So Captain Jensen armed
a whale boat and rowed in to the edge of
the beach. Oogi, one of the boat's crew, stood up
(37:45):
and orated for him. Oogi was excited Captain Jensen's warning
that any canoe sighted that night would be pumped full
of lead. Oogi turned into a bellicose declaration of war,
which round up with a pear oration somewhat to the
following effect. You kill my captain, I drink his blood
and die with him. The bushmen contented themselves with burning
(38:06):
an unoccupied mission house and sneaked back to the bush.
The next day, the Eugenie sailed in and dropped anchor.
Three days and two nights the Manaulta pounded on the reef,
but she held together, and the shell of her was
pulled off at last and anchored in smooth water. There
we said good bye to her and all on board,
and sailed away on the Eugenie, bound for Florida Island.
(38:27):
End of chapter fifteen. Cruising in the Solomon Islands. Recording
by Jim Alman, Houston, Texas.
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