There are captains and captains,
and some mighty fine captains, I know; but the run of the
captains on 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
one-thousand-to-fifteen-thousand-ton billets for the Snark
with her ten tons net. The Snark has had to cull her
navigators from the beach, and the navigator on the beach is
usually a congenital inefficient—the sort of man who beats
about for a fortnight trying vainly to find an ocean isle and who
returns with his schooner to report the island sunk with all on
board, the sort of man whose temper or thirst for strong waters
works him out of billets faster than he can work into them.
The Snark has had three captains, and by the grace of
God she shall have no more. The first captain was so senile
as to be unable to give a measurement for a boom-jaw to a
carpenter. So utterly agedly helpless was he, that he was
unable to order a sailor to throw a few buckets of salt water on
the Snark’s deck. For twelve days, at anchor,
under an overhead tropic sun, the deck lay dry. It was a
new deck. It cost me one hundred and thirty-five dollars to
recaulk it. The second captain was angry. He was born
angry. “Papa is always angry,” was the
description given him by his half-breed son. The third
captain was so crooked that he couldn’t hide behind a
corkscrew. The truth was not in him, common honesty was not
in him, and he was as far away from fair play and square-dealing
as he was from his proper course when he nearly wrecked the
Snark on the Ring-gold Isles.
It was at Suva, in the Fijis, that I discharged my third and
last captain and took up gain the rôle of amateur
navigator. I had essayed it once before, under my first
captain, who, out of San Francisco, jumped the Snark so
amazingly over the chart that I really had to find out what was
doing. It was fairly easy to find out, for we had a run of
twenty-one hundred miles before us. I knew nothing of
navigation; but, after several hours of reading up and half an
hour’s practice with the sextant, I was able to find the
Snark’s latitude by meridian observation and her
longitude by the simple method known as “equal
altitudes.” This is not a correct method. It is
not even a safe method, but my captain was attempting to navigate
by it, and he was the only one on board who should have been able
to tell me that it was a method to be eschewed. I brought
the Snark to Hawaii, but the conditions favoured me.
The sun was in northern declination and nearly overhead.
The legitimate “chronometer-sight” method of
ascertaining the longitude I had not heard of—yes, I had
heard of it. My first captain mentioned it vaguely, but
after one or two attempts at practice of it he mentioned it no
more.
I had time in the 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 the
chronometers on the American cruiser, the Annapolis.
This he told me he had done—of course he had done nothing
of the sort; and he told me that the difference he had
ascertained was only a small fraction of a second. He told
it to me with finely simulated joy and with words of praise for
my splendid time-keeper. I repeat it now, with words of
praise for his splendid and unblushing unveracity. For
behold, fourteen days later, in Suva, I compared the chronometer
with the one on the Atua, an Australian steamer, and found that
mine was thirty-one seconds fast. Now thirty-one seconds of
time, converted into arc, equals seven and one-quarter
miles. That is to say, if I were sailing west, in the
night-time, and my position, according to my dead reckoning from
my afternoon chronometer sight, was shown to be seven miles off
the land, why, at that very moment I would be crashing on the
reef. Next I compared my chronometer with Captain
Wooley’s. Captain Wooley, the harbourmaster, 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 seconds from the total
of my chronometer’s losing error, and sailed away for
Tanna, in the New Hebrides, resolved, when nosing around the land
on dark nights, to bear in mind the other seven miles I might be
out according to Captain Wooley’s instrument. Tanna
lay some six hundred miles west-southwest from the Fijis, and it
was my belief that while covering that distance I could quite
easily knock into my head sufficient navigation to get me
there. Well, I got there, but listen first to my
troubles. Navigation is easy, I shall always contend
that; but when a man is taking three gasolene engines and a wife
around the world and is writing hard every day to keep the
engines supplied with gasolene and the wife with pearls and
volcanoes, he hasn’t much time left in which to study
navigation. Also, it is bound to be easier to study said
science ashore, where latitude and longitude are unchanging, in a
house whose position never alters, than it is to study navigation
on a boat that is rushing along day and night toward land that
one is trying to find and which he is liable to find disastrously
at a moment when he least expects it.
To begin with, there are the compasses and the setting of the
courses. We sailed from Suva on Saturday afternoon, June 6,
1908, and it took us till after dark to run the narrow,
reef-ridden passage between the islands of Viti Levu and
Mbengha. The open ocean lay before me. There was
nothing in the way with the exception of Vatu Leile, a miserable
little island that persisted in poking up through the sea some
twenty miles to the west-southwest—just where I wanted to
go. Of course, it seemed quite simple to avoid it by
steering a course that would pass it eight or ten miles to the
north. It was a black night, and we were running before the
wind. The man at the wheel must be told what direction to
steer in order to miss Vatu Leile. But what
direction? I turned me to the navigation books.
“True Course” I lighted upon. The very
thing! What I wanted was the true course. I read
eagerly on:
“The True Course is the angle made with the meridian by
a straight line on the chart drawn to connect the ship’s
position with the place bound to.”
Just what I wanted. The Snark’s position
was at the western entrance of the passage between Viti Levu and
Mbengha. The immediate place she was bound to was a place
on the chart ten miles north of Vatu Leile. 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
but to give it to the man at the wheel and the Snark would
win her way to the safety of the open sea.
But alas and alack and lucky for me, I read on. I
discovered that the compass, that trusty, everlasting friend of
the mariner, was not given to pointing north. It
varied. Sometimes it pointed east of north, sometimes west
of north, and on occasion it even turned tail on north and
pointed south. The variation at the particular spot on the
globe occupied by the Snark was 9° 40′
easterly. Well, that had to be taken into account before I
gave the steering course to the man at the wheel. I
read:
“The Correct Magnetic Course is derived from the True
Course by applying to it the variation.”
Therefore, I reasoned, if the compass points 9° 40′
eastward of north, and I wanted to sail due north, I should have
to steer 9° 40′ westward of the north indicated by the
compass and which was not north at all. So I added 9°
40′ to the left of my west-by-south course, thus getting my
correct Magnetic Course, and was ready once more to run to open
sea.
Again alas and alack! The Correct Magnetic Course was
not the Compass Course. There was another sly little devil
lying in wait to trip me up and land me smashing on the reefs of
Vatu Leile. This little devil went by the name of
Deviation. I read:
“The Compass Course is the course to steer, and is
derived from the Correct Magnetic Course by applying to it the
Deviation.”
Now Deviation is the variation in the needle caused by the
distribution of iron on board of ship. This purely local
variation I derived from the deviation card of my standard
compass and then applied to the Correct Magnetic Course.
The result was the Compass Course. And yet, not yet.
My standard compass was amidships on the companionway. My
steering compass was aft, in the cockpit, near the wheel.
When the steering compass pointed west-by-south
three-quarters-south (the steering course), the standard compass
pointed west-one-half-north, which was certainly not the steering
course. I kept the Snark up till she was heading
west-by-south-three-quarters-south on the standard compass, which
gave, on the steering compass, south-west-by-west.
The foregoing operations constitute the simple little matter
of setting a course. And the worst of it is that one must
perform every step correctly or else he will hear “Breakers
ahead!” some pleasant night, a nice sea-bath, and be given
the delightful diversion of fighting his way to the shore through
a horde of man-eating sharks.
Just as the compass is tricky and strives to fool the mariner
by pointing in all directions except north, so does that guide
post of the sky, the sun, persist in not being where it ought to
be at a given time. This carelessness of the sun is the
cause of more trouble—at least it caused trouble for
me. To find out where one is on the earth’s surface,
he must know, at precisely the same time, where the sun is in the
heavens. That is to say, the sun, which is the timekeeper
for men, doesn’t run on time. When I discovered this,
I fell into deep gloom and all the Cosmos was filled with
doubt. Immutable laws, such as gravitation and the
conservation of energy, became wobbly, and I was prepared to
witness their violation at any moment and to remain
unastonished. For see, if the compass lied and the sun did
not keep its engagements, why should not objects lose their
mutual attraction and why should not a few bushel baskets of
force be annihilated? Even perpetual motion became
possible, and I was in a frame of mind prone to purchase
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 366 times a year, while
there were only 365 sunrises and sunsets, I was ready to doubt my
own identity.
This is the way of the sun. It is so irregular that it
is impossible for man to devise a clock that will keep the
sun’s time. The sun accelerates and retards as no
clock could be made to accelerate and retard. The sun is
sometimes ahead of its schedule; at other times it is lagging
behind; and at still other times it is breaking the speed limit
in order to overtake itself, or, rather, to catch up with where
it ought to be in the sky. In this last case it does not
slow down quick enough, and, as a result, goes dashing ahead of
where it ought to be. In fact, only four days in a year do
the sun and the place where the sun ought to be happen to
coincide. The remaining 361 days the sun is 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
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 endeavouring to find his ship’s position on
the sea, looks in his chronometer to see where precisely the sun
ought to be according to the Greenwich custodian of the
sun. Then to that location he applies the Equation of Time
and finds out where the sun ought to be and isn’t.
This latter location, along with several other locations, enables
him to find out what the man from Kansas demanded to know some
years ago.
The Snark sailed from Fiji on Saturday, June 6, and the
next day, Sunday, on the wide ocean, out of sight of land, I
proceeded to endeavour to find out my position by a chronometer
sight for longitude and by a meridian observation for
latitude. The chronometer sight was taken in the morning
when the sun was some 21° above the horizon. I looked
in the Nautical Almanac and found that on that very day, June 7,
the sun was behind time 1 minute and 26 seconds, and that it was
catching up at a rate of 14.67 seconds per hour. The
chronometer said that at the precise moment of taking the
sun’s altitude it was twenty-five minutes after eight
o’clock at Greenwich. From this date it would seem a
schoolboy’s task to correct the Equation of Time.
Unfortunately, I was not a schoolboy. Obviously, at the
middle of the day, at Greenwich, the sun was 1 minute and 26
seconds behind time. Equally obviously, if it were eleven
o’clock in the morning, the sun would be 1 minute and 26
seconds behind time plus 14.67 seconds. If it were ten
o’clock in the morning, twice 14.67 seconds would have to
be added. And if it were 8: 25 in the morning, then
3½ times 14.67 seconds would have to be added. Quite
clearly, then, if, instead of being 8:25 A.M., it were 8:25 P.M., then 8½ times 14.67 seconds
would have to be, not added, but subtracted; for, if, at
noon, the sun were 1 minute and 26 seconds behind time, and if it
were catching up with where it ought to be at the rate of 14.67
seconds per hour, then at 8.25 P.M.
it would be much nearer where it ought to be than it had been at
noon.
So far, so good. But was that 8:25 of the chronometer
A.M., or P.M.? I looked at the
Snark’s clock. It marked 8:9, and it was
certainly A.M. for I had just
finished breakfast. Therefore, if it was eight in the
morning on board the Snark, the eight o’clock of the
chronometer (which was the time of the day at Greenwich) must be
a different eight o’clock from the Snark’s
eight o’clock. But what eight o’clock was
it? It can’t be the eight o’clock of this
morning, I reasoned; therefore, it must be either eight
o’clock this evening or eight o’clock last night.
It was at this juncture that I fell into the bottomless pit of
intellectual chaos. We are in east longitude, I reasoned,
therefore we are ahead of Greenwich. If we are behind
Greenwich, then to-day is yesterday; if we are ahead of
Greenwich, then yesterday is to-day, but if yesterday is to-day,
what under the sun is to-day!—to-morrow?
Absurd! Yet it must be correct. When I took the sun
this morning at 8:25, 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 to-day is to-day,” my literal mind
insists. “I must correct the sun for to-day and not
for yesterday.”
“Yet to-day is yesterday,” urges my logical
mind.
“That’s all very well,” my literal mind
continues, “If I were in Greenwich I might be in
yesterday. Strange things happen in Greenwich. But I
know as sure as I am living that I am here, now, in to-day, June
7, and that I took the sun here, now, to-day, June 7.
Therefore, I must correct the sun here, now, to-day, June
7.”
“Bosh!” snaps my logical mind. “Lecky
says—”
“Never mind what Lecky says,” interrupts my
literal mind. “Let me tell you what the Nautical
Almanac says. The Nautical Almanac says that to-day, June
7, the sun was 1 minute and 26 seconds behind time and catching
up at the rate of 14.67 seconds per hour. It says that
yesterday, June 6, the sun was 1 minute and 36 seconds behind
time and catching up at the rate of 15.66 seconds per hour.
You see, it is preposterous to think of correcting to-day’s
sun by yesterday’s time-table.”
“Fool!”
“Idiot!”
Back and forth they wrangle until my head is whirling around
and I am ready to believe that I am in the day after the last
week before next.
I remembered a parting caution of the Suva harbour-master:
“In east longitude take from the Nautical Almanac the
elements for the preceding day.”
Then a new thought came to me. I corrected the Equation
of Time for Sunday and for Saturday, making two separate
operations of it, and lo, when the results were compared, there
was a difference only 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 and my
experience. Four-tenths of a second would make a difference
of only one-tenth of a mile—a cable-length!
All went merrily for ten minutes, when I chanced upon the
following rhyme for navigators:
“Greenwich time least
Longitude east;
Greenwich best,
Longitude west.”
Heavens! The Snark’s time was not as good
as Greenwich time. When it was 8:25 at Greenwich, on board
the Snark it was only 8:9. “Greenwich time
best, longitude west.” There I was. In west
longitude beyond a doubt.
“Silly!” cries my literal mind. “You
are 8:9 A.M. and Greenwich is 8:25
P.M.”
“Very well,” answers my logical mind.
“To be correct, 8.25 P.M. is
really twenty hours and twenty-five minutes, and that is
certainly better than eight hours and nine minutes. No,
there is no discussion; you are in west longitude.”
Then my literal mind triumphs.
“We sailed from Suva, in the Fijis, didn’t
we?” it demands, and logical mind agrees. “And
Suva is in east longitude?” Again logical mind
agrees. “And we sailed west (which would take us
deeper into east longitude), didn’t we? Therefore,
and you can’t escape it, we are in east
longitude.”
“Greenwich time best, longitude west,” chants my
logical mind; “and you must grant that twenty hours and
twenty-five minutes is better than eight hours and nine
minutes.”
“All right,” I break in upon the squabble;
“we’ll work up the sight and then we’ll
see.”
And work it up I did, only to find that my longitude was
184° west.
“I told you so,” snorts my logical mind.
I am dumbfounded. So is my literal mind, for several
minutes. Then it enounces:
“But there is no 184° west longitude, nor east
longitude, nor any other longitude. The largest meridian is
180° as you ought to know very well.”
Having got this far, literal mind collapses from the brain
strain, logical mind is dumb flabbergasted; and as for me, I get
a bleak and wintry look in my eyes and go around wondering
whether I am sailing toward the China coast or the Gulf of
Darien.
Then a thin small voice, which I do not recognize, coming from
nowhere in particular in my consciousness, says:
“The total number of degrees is 360. Subtract the
184° west longitude from 360°, and you will get 176°
east longitude.”
“That is sheer speculation,” objects literal mind;
and logical mind remonstrates. “There is no rule for
it.”
“Darn the rules!” I exclaim.
“Ain’t I here?”
“The thing is self-evident,” I continue.
“184° 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 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 sights may be taken early in
the morning. I took mine at eight o’clock. Now,
one of the necessary elements in working up such a sight is
latitude. But one gets latitude at twelve o’clock,
noon, by a meridian observation. It is clear that in order
to work up my eight o’clock chronometer sight I must have
my eight o’clock latitude. Of course, if the
Snark were sailing due west at six knots per hour, for the
intervening four hours her latitude would not change. But
if she were sailing due south, her latitude would change to the
tune of twenty-four miles. In which case a simple addition
or subtraction would convert the twelve o’clock latitude
into eight o’clock latitude. But suppose the
Snark were sailing southwest. Then the traverse
tables must be consulted.
This is the illustration. At eight A.M. I took my chronometer sight.
At the same moment the distance recorded on the log was
noted. At twelve M., when the
sight for latitude was taken, I again noted the log, which
showed me that since eight o’clock the Snark had run
24 miles. Her true course had been west ¾
south. I entered Table I, in the distance column, on the
page for ¾ point courses, and stopped at 24, the number of
miles run. Opposite, in the next two columns, I found that
the Snark had made 3.5 miles of southing or latitude, and
that she had made 23.7 miles of westing. To find my eight
o’clock’ latitude was easy. I had but to
subtract 3.5 miles from my noon latitude. All the elements
being present, I worked up my longitude.
But this was my eight o’clock longitude. Since
then, and up till noon, I had made 23.7 miles of westing.
What was my noon longitude? I followed the rule, turning to
Traverse Table No. II. 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 25
miles. I was aghast. I entered the table again,
according to rule; I entered the table half a dozen times,
according to rule, and every time found that my difference of
longitude was 25 miles. I leave it to you, gentle
reader. Suppose you had sailed 24 miles and that you had
covered 3.5 miles of latitude, then how could you have covered 25
miles of longitude? Even if you had sailed due west 24
miles, and not changed your latitude, how could you have changed
your longitude 25 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
Bowditch’s. The rule was simple (as navigators’
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 24 miles, in the course of which I changed my latitude 3.5
miles and my longitude 25 miles. The worst of it was that
there was nobody to help me out. Neither Charmian nor
Martin knew as much as I knew about navigation. And all the
time the Snark was rushing madly along toward Tanna, in
the New Hebrides. Something had to be done.
How it came to me I know not—call it an inspiration if
you will; but the thought arose in me: 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 60
miles (nautical) apart at the equator. At the poles they
run together. Thus, if I should travel up the 180°
meridian of longitude until I reached the North Pole, and if the
astronomer at Greenwich travelled up the 0 meridian of longitude
to the North Pole, then, at the North Pole, we could shake hands
with each other, though before we started for the North Pole we
had been some thousands of miles apart. Again: if a degree
of longitude was 60 miles wide at the equator, and if the same
degree, at the point of the Pole, had no width, then somewhere
between the Pole and the equator that degree would be half a mile
wide, and at other places a mile wide, two miles wide, ten miles
wide, thirty miles wide, ay, and sixty miles wide.
All was plain again. The Snark was in 19°
south latitude. The world wasn’t as big around there
as at the equator. Therefore, every mile of westing at
19° south was more than a minute of longitude; for sixty
miles were sixty miles, but sixty minutes are sixty miles only at
the equator. George Francis Train broke Jules Verne’s
record of around the world. But any man that wants can
break George Francis Train’s record. Such a man would
need only to go, in a fast steamer, to the latitude of Cape Horn,
and sail due east all the way around. The world is very
small in that latitude, and there is no land in the way to turn
him out of his course. If his steamer maintained sixteen
knots, he would circumnavigate the globe in just about forty
days.
But there are compensations. On Wednesday evening, June
10, 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 that rose out of the deep ocean. I
altered the course so that the Snark would pass ten miles
to the northward. Then I spoke to Wada, the cook, who had
the wheel every morning from four to six.
“Wada San, to-morrow morning, your watch, you look sharp
on weather-bow 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? 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,” and
listen to the creaking of the bulkheads and the rippling of the
sea alongside as the Snark logged steadily her six knots
an hour. I went over my calculations again and again,
striving to find some mistake, until my brain was in such fever
that it discovered dozens of mistakes. Suppose, instead of
being sixty miles off Futuna, that my navigation was all wrong
and that I was only six miles off? In which case my course
would be wrong, too, and for all I knew the Snark might be
running straight at Futuna. For all I knew the Snark
might strike Futuna the next moment. I almost sprang from
the bunk at that thought; and, though I restrained myself, I know
that I lay for a moment, nervous and tense, waiting for the
shock.
My sleep was broken by miserable nightmares. Earthquake
seemed the favourite affliction, though there was one man, with a
bill, who persisted in dunning me throughout the night.
Also, he wanted to fight; and Charmian 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. Then I said, “Now how about that
bill?” Having conquered, I was willing to pay.
But the man looked at me and groaned. “It was all a
mistake,” he said; “the bill is for the house next
door.”
That settled him, for he worried my dreams no more; and it
settled me, too, for I woke up chuckling at the episode. It
was three in the morning. I went up on deck. Henry,
the Rapa islander, was steering. I looked at the log.
It recorded forty-two miles. The Snark had not
abated her six-knot gait, and she had not struck Futuna
yet. At half-past five I was again on deck. Wada, at
the wheel, had seen no land. I sat on the cockpit rail, a
prey to 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 on the weather-bow. 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 9.3 miles away. And I had elected to pass it 10 miles
away!
Then, to the south, Aneiteum rose out of the sea, to the
north, Aniwa, and, dead ahead, Tanna. There was no
mistaking Tanna, 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. I was looking for Port Resolution, though I was
quite prepared to find that as an anchorage, it had been
destroyed. Volcanic earthquakes had lifted its bottom
during the last forty years, so that where once the largest ships
rode at anchor there was now, by last reports, scarcely space and
depth sufficient for the Snark. And why should not
another convulsion, since the last report, have closed the
harbour 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 Futuna, another of
Aniwa, and laid them off on the chart. Where the two
bearings crossed was bound to be the position of the
Snark. Then, with my parallel rulers, I laid down a
course from the Snark’s position to Port
Resolution. Having corrected this course for variation and
deviation, I went on deck, and lo, the course directed me towards
that unbroken coast-line of bursting seas. To my Rapa
islander’s great concern, I held on till the rocks awash
were an eighth of a mile away.
“No harbour this place,” he announced, shaking his
head ominously.
But I altered the course and ran along parallel with the
coast. Charmian was at the wheel. Martin was at the
engine, ready to throw on the propeller. A narrow slit of
an opening showed up suddenly. Through the glasses I could
see the seas breaking clear across. Henry, the Rapa man,
looked with troubled eyes; so did Tehei, the Tahaa man.
“No passage, there,” said Henry. “We
go there, we finish quick, sure.”
I confess I thought so, too; but I ran on abreast, watching to
see if the line of breakers from one side the entrance did not
overlap the line from the other side. Sure enough, it
did. A narrow place where the sea ran smooth
appeared. Charmian put down the wheel and steadied
for the entrance. Martin threw on the engine, while all
hands and the cook sprang to take in sail.
A trader’s house showed up in the bight of the
bay. A 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, Martin stopped the engine, and
the Snark rounded to and the anchor rumbled down in three
fathoms. Before we could catch our breaths a swarm of black
Tannese was alongside and aboard—grinning, apelike
creatures, with kinky hair and troubled eyes, wearing safety-pins
and clay-pipes in their slitted ears: and as for the rest,
wearing nothing behind and less than that before. And I
don’t mind telling that that night, when everybody was
asleep, I sneaked up on deck, looked out over the quiet scene,
and gloated—yes, gloated—over my navigation.