Two Years Before the Mast (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Read online

  Table of Contents

  From the Pages of Two Years Before the Mast

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Richard Henry Dana Jr.

  The World of Richard Henry Dana Jr. and Two Years Before the Mast

  Introduction

  A Log of Dana’s Two Years

  TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST

  Preface

  CHAPTER I - Departure

  CHAPTER II - First Impressions—“Sail Ho!”

  CHAPTER III - Ship’s Duties—Tropics

  CHAPTER IV - A Rogue—Trouble on Board—“Land Ho!”—Pompero—Cape Horn

  CHAPTER V - Cape Horn—A Visit

  CHAPTER VI - Loss of a Man—Superstition

  CHAPTER VII - Juan Fernandez—The Pacific

  CHAPTER VIII - “Tarring Down”—Daily Life—“Going Aft”—California

  CHAPTER IX - California-A South-easter

  CHAPTER X - A South-easter—Passage up the Coast

  CHAPTER XI - Passage up the Coast—Monterey

  CHAPTER XII - Life at Monterey

  CHAPTER XIII - Trading—A British Sailor

  CHAPTER XIV - Santa Barbara—Hide-Droghing—Harbor Duties—Discontent—San Pedro

  CHAPTER XV - A Flogging—A Night on Shore—The State of Things on Board—San Diego

  CHAPTER XVI - Liberty-day on Shore

  CHAPTER XVII - San Diego—A Desertion—San Pedro Again—Beating up Coast

  CHAPTER XVIII - Easter Sunday—“Sail Ho!”—Whales—San Juan—Romance of ...

  CHAPTER XIX - The Sandwich Islanders—Hide-curing—Wood-cutting—Rattlesnakes—New-comers

  CHAPTER XX - Leisure—News from Home—“Burning the Water”

  CHAPTER XXI - California and Its Inhabitants

  CHAPTER XXII - Life on Shore—The Alert

  CHAPTER XXIII - New Ship and Shipmates—My Watchmate

  CHAPTER XXIV - San Diego Again—A Descent—Hurried Departure-A New Shipmate

  CHAPTER XXV - Rumors of War—A Spouter-Slipping for a South-easter-A Gale

  CHAPTER XXVI - San Francisco—Monterey

  CHAPTER XXVII - The Sunday Wash-up—On Shore—A Set-to—A Grandee—“Sail Ho!”—A Fandango

  CHAPTER XXVIII - An Old Friend - A Victim—California Rangers—News from ...

  CHAPTER XXIX - Loading for Home—A Surprise—Last of an Old Friend—The Last ...

  CHAPTER XXX - Beginning the Long Return Voyage—A Scare

  CHAPTER XXXI - Bad Prospects—First Touch of Cape Horn—Icebergs—Temperance ...

  CHAPTER XXXII - Ice Again—A Beautiful Afternoon—Cape Horn—“Land Ho!”—Heading ...

  CHAPTER XXXIII - Cracking on—Progress Homeward—A Pleasant Sunday—A Fine Sight—By-Play

  CHAPTER XXXIV - Narrow Escapes—The Equator—Tropical Squalls—A Thunder Storm

  CHAPTER XXXV - A Double-reef-top-sail Breeze - Scurvy-A Friend in ...

  CHAPTER XXXVI - Soundings—Sights from Home—Boston Harbor—Leaving the Ship

  Concluding Chapter

  AFTERWORD - Twenty-four Years After

  Afterword

  Twenty-four Years After

  Endnotes

  APPENDIX

  Dictionary of Sea Terms

  Inspired by Richard Henry Dana Jr. and Two Years Before the Mast

  Comments & Questions

  For Further Reading

  From the Pages of Two Years Before the Mast

  In the following pages I design to give an accurate and authentic narrative of a little more than two years spent as a common sailor, before the mast, in the American merchant service.

  (page 4)

  There is not so helpless and pitiable an object in the world as a landsman beginning a sailor’s life.

  (page 9)

  However much I was affected by the beauty of the sea, the bright stars, and the clouds driven swiftly over them, I could not but remember that I was separating myself from all the social and intellectual enjoyments of life. Yet, strange as it may seem, I did then and afterwards take pleasure in these reflections, hoping by them to prevent my becoming insensible to the value of what I was leaving.

  (page 11)

  The second-mate’s is proverbially a dog’s berth. He is neither officer nor man.

  (page 16)

  “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able,

  And on the seventh—holystone the decks and scrape the cable.”

  (page 20)

  A sailor’s life is at best but a mixture of a little good with much evil, and a little pleasure with much pain. The beautiful is linked with the revolting, the sublime with the commonplace, and the solemn with the ludicrous.

  (page 41)

  The Californians are an idle, thriftless people, and can make nothing for themselves.

  (page 78)

  What is there for sailors to do? If they resist, it is mutiny; and if they succeed, and take the vessel, it is piracy. If they ever yield again, their punishment must come; and if they do not yield, they are pirates for life.

  (page 103)

  RICHARD H. DANA JR., IN 1842

  Published by Barnes & Noble Books

  122 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10011

  www.barnesandnoble.com/classics

  Two Years Before the Mast was first published in 1840. Dana’s afterword, “Twenty-four Years After,” originally appeared in the revised 1869 “author’s edition.” Except for the afterword, the current edition follows the text of the 1840 edition.

  This edition’s Appendix is from The Seaman’s Friend: Containing a Treatise on Practical

  Seamanship, with Plates; A Dictionary of Sea Terms; Customs and Usages of the

  Merchant Service; Laws Relating to the Practical Duties of Master and Mariners,

  by Richard H. Dana Jr. (first published in 1841).

  Published in 2007 by Bames & Noble Classics with new Introduction, Travel Log Notes, Biography, Chronology, Appendix, Inspired By, Comments & Questions, and For Further Reading.

  Introduction, A Log of Dana’s Two Years, Notes, and For Further Reading

  Copyright @ 2007 by Anne Spencer.

  Note on Richard Henry Dana Jr., The World of Richard Henry Dana Jr. and

  Two Years Before the Mast, Inspired by Richard Henry Dana Jr. and

  Two Years Before the Mast, and Comments & Questions

  Copyright @ 2007 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in

  any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording,

  or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written

  permission of the publisher.

  Barnes & Noble Classics and the Barnes & Noble Classics colophon

  are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

  Two Years Before the Mast

  ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-270-3

  ISBN-10: 1-59308-270-3

  eISBN : 978-1-411-43337-3

  LC Control Number 2005929217

  Produced and published in conjunction with:

  Fine Creative Media, Inc.

  322 Eighth Avenue

  New York, NY 10001

  Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher

  Printed in the United States of America

  QM

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  FIRST PRINTING

  Richard Henry Dana Jr.

  Richard Henry Dana Jr. was born on August 1, 1815, into a prominent, affluent family in Cambridge, Massachusetts; his father was
an editor and critic, and his grandfather had served as the state’s chief justice. The young man enrolled in Harvard College in 1831. At the beginning of his junior year, a severe case of measles damaged his eyesight, making study impossible. He returned home to recuperate but soon became bored with the tedium of bed rest; told that sea air could help restore his eyesight, Dana set off on an adventure.

  A young man of his station would typically travel as a passenger on a well-appointed ship, perhaps dining with the officers; instead, in August 1834 Dana joined the crew of the brig Pilgrim as an ordinary seaman. Throughout his tenure as a merchant sailor, Dana kept a journal to which he applied his significant powers of observation and gift for descriptive storytelling. Aboard the 85-foot Pilgrim, he rounded treacherous Cape Horn at South America’s southern tip and sailed to the sparsely settled Mexican territory of California. As the Pilgrim put into various ports, including Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Diego, Dana chronicled in detail the daily lives of his fellow sailors. In 1836 he returned to Cambridge, this time aboard the merchant ship the Alert.

  His eyesight fully recovered, Dana completed his undergraduate degree and entered Harvard Law School; meanwhile, he organized his notes into a full-length travel narrative, Two Years Before the Mast (1840). In addition to being a colorful account of a lively adventure, the widely read book offers a unique perspective on the working life of the era’s common sailor, including the everyday hardships he endured.

  Dana devoted the rest of his life to the practice of law, especially maritime law and advocacy of the rights of sailors. In 1841 he published The Sailor’s Friend, a guide to the duties and legal rights of seamen. He helped found the Free-Soil Party and, following the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, offered legal counsel to runaway slaves at no charge.

  In 1859 Dana’s health began to decline, and he once again took to the sea, this time as a passenger on an around-the-world voyage. In the essay “Twenty-four Years After,” written during his second visit to California, he recounted the changes that had taken place there since his first visit. Starting in 1869, the essay was added as an afterword to editions of Two Years Before the Mast.

  After Abraham Lincoln was elected U.S. president, Dana was appointed as Massachusetts district attorney, and he successfully argued an important case before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1867 he served in the Massachusetts legislature and participated in the trial of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Dana soon returned to private practice and in the ensuing decade concentrated on international law, in which he had become an expert. His commentary in an edition of Henry Wheaton’s seminal Elements of International Law (1866) sparked allegations of plagiarism, and the ensuing lawsuit helped obstruct Dana’s 1876 nomination as ambassador to Britain.

  In 1878 Dana left his private practice in order to travel, study, and write. He journeyed to Europe and, soon after arriving in Rome, caught a deadly case of pneumonia. On January 6, 1882, Richard Henry Dana Jr. died in Rome.

  The World of Richard Henry Dana Jr. and Two Years Before the Mast

  1815 Richard Henry Dana Jr. is born on August 1 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, into a family with distinguished roots in Massachusetts; his grandfather, Francis Dana, was chief justice of the Supreme Court there for fourteen years.

  1817 American writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau is born.

  1820 The U.S. Congress passes the Missouri Compromise, temporarily maintaining the balance between free and slave states; the act allowed Maine to enter the Union as a free state and Missouri as a slave state.

  1830 American poet Emily Dickinson is born.

  1831 Dana begins his first year at Harvard College. Edgar Allan Poe publishes Poems. Nat Turner leads a slave revolt in Virginia.

  1833 Suffering from weak eyesight brought on by measles, Dana leaves Harvard to convalesce.

  1834 Impatient with bed rest and told that a sea voyage would help restore his eyesight, Dana joins the crew of a merchant ship, the Pilgrim, bound for California by way of Cape Horn; he ships out of Boston on August 14.

  1835 In January the Pilgrim arrives at Santa Barbara, California; for more than seven months the crew works at ports up and down the coast, collecting and loading cattle hides and tallow onto the ship.

  1836 His eyesight restored, Dana returns from his two-year voyage, making the trip from California to Boston aboard the Alert; he reenters Harvard College. American philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes the philosophical treatise Nature.

  1837 Dana graduates from Harvard College and enters Harvard Law School. American novelist, editor, and critic William Dean Howells is born.

  1840 Two Years Before the Mast, Dana’s chronicle of his journey aboard the Pilgrim and the Alert, is published. Dana graduates from Harvard Law School and opens an office in Boston.

  1841 Having experienced firsthand how commercial seamen live and seen how they are exploited, Dana specializes in maritime law. He publishes The Seaman’s Friend (also known as The Seaman’s Manual), a guide to sailors’ rights; he intends the book to be an advertisement for his law practice. Dana and Sarah Watson are married. The Deerslayer, the first of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, and Emerson’s Essays are published.

  1844 Captain Joshua Slocum, who will write Sailing Alone Around the World (1891), is born. Emerson’s Essays: Second Series is published.

  1846 American author Herman Melville publishes Typee, an account of adventure in the South Seas.

  1847 Melville publishes another sea adventure, Omoo.

  1848 An outspoken opponent of slavery, Dana helps found the Free-Soil Party, which opposes slavery in the new American territories. American author James Russell Lowell publishes The Biglow Papers. Popular uprisings occur in France, Germany, Austria, and Italy.

  1849 When Melville’s Mardi, a dark, allegorical novel written in a medley of styles, is a commercial failure, he tries to regain his earlier success with another straightforward sea story, Redburn.

  1850 The U.S. population includes more than 3 million African slaves. Congress passes the Compromise of 1850, which is a series of measures that attempt to settle slavery issues and prevent the Union from dissolving, and the Fugitive Slave Law, providing for the return of escaped slaves. During the next several years Dana will oppose that law and offer free legal services to runaway slaves. Emerson publishes Representative Men. California becomes a state. Melville publishes White-Jacket, about life aboard a warship.

  1851 Melville’s Moby-Dick and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables are published.

  1852 The Free-Soil Party nominates abolitionist John Parker Hale for U.S. president but is unable to gain much support for his candidacy.

  1854 Congress passes the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which reignites the slavery issue in the western territories. The Republican Party is created; it opposes the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the extension of slavery into the territories. Thoreau publishes Walden; or, Life in the Woods.

  1857 The U.S. Supreme Court issues the Dred Scott decision, making slavery legal in all American territories.

  1859 When Dana’s health deteriorates, he once again turns to the sea for recovery. He travels widely and returns to California as a ship’s passenger; his essay “Twenty-four Years After,” which will appear in the 1869 edition of Two Years Before the Mast, will be based on this trip. John Stuart Mill publishes his influential essay On Liberty, and Karl Marx publishes Critique of Political Economy. English naturalist Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.

  1860 Abraham Lincoln is elected president of the United States.

  1861 Lincoln appoints Dana U.S. district attorney. The American Civil War begins. John Stuart Mill publishes Considerations on Representative Govemment. American physician and author Oliver Wendell Holmes publishes Elsie Venner.

  1863 Dana argues and wins the Amy Warwick case before the U.S. Supreme Court; the decision supports the Union blockade of Confederate ships. Lincoln issues the Em
ancipation Proclamation.

  1865 The Civil War ends.

  1866 Dana publishes an edition of Henry Wheaton’s Elements of International Law, along with commentary by Dana; he is sued for copyright infringement by the book’s previous publisher, and a long legal battle begins.

  1867 Dana serves in the Massachusetts legislature and as a member of the legal team in the U.S. prosecution of Confederate president Jefferson Davis for treason. Nebraska becomes a state. Mark Twain publishes “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” Karl Marx publishes the first volume of Das Kapital.

  1869 Two Years Before the Mast is reissued with an afterword titled “Twenty-four Years After.” Mark Twain publishes The Innocents Abroad.

  1876 President Ulysses S. Grant nominates Dana as U.S. ambassador to Great Britain; the Senate refuses to confirm him, in part because of the lawsuit over his edition of Elements of International Law.

  1878 Dana leaves Massachusetts and his private practice, devoting his time to travel and the study of international law.

  1881 He moves with his family to Rome, where he contracts pneumonia. Henry James publishes The Portrait of a Lady. In September U.S. President James Garfield is assassinated. The British Navy abolishes the practice of flogging.

  1882 On January 6 Richard Henry Dana Jr. dies in Rome.

  Introduction

  Portrait of a Brahmin

  In 1840 prominent Bostonians were eager to pose for a new type of portraiture. The daguerreotype camera, invented the previous year in France, was causing a sensation in America with its realistic images captured in startling detail. One of the New Englanders who sat for the city’s first daguerreotypists was Richard Henry Dana Jr. The Harvard University graduate did not dress formally for the occasion. Rather, the broad-shouldered twenty-five-year-old sported an open-collared, white shirt with a large, bowed, sailor-style tie. His curly hair hung at a length much longer than was customary for men of the time. This unconventional image captured a significant and pivotal moment in Dana’s life. In 1840 he was not only embarking on a career as a lawyer—Richard Henry Dana Jr. was also on the verge of literary success for the book he had just written. He called his true sea-faring adventure Two Years Before the Mast.