The Cruise of the Snark (34 page)

The Australian specialists agreed that the malady was non-parasitic, and that, therefore, it must be nervous. It did not mend, and it was impossible for me to continue the voyage. The only way I could have continued it would have been by being lashed in my bunk, for in my helpless condition, unable to clutch with my hands, I could not have moved about on a small rolling boat. Also, I said to myself that while there were many boats and many voyages, I had but one pair of hands and one set of toe-nails. Still further, I reasoned that in my own climate of California I had always maintained a stable nervous equilibrium. So back I came.

Since my return I have completely recovered. And I have found out what was the matter with me. I encountered a book by Lieutenant Colonel Charles E. Woodruff of the United States Army entitled “Effects of Tropical Light on White Men.” Then I knew. Later, I met Colonel Woodruff, and learned that he had been similarly afflicted. Himself an Army surgeon, seventeen Army surgeons sat on his case in the Philippines, and, like the Australian specialists, confessed themselves beaten. In brief, I had a strong predisposition toward the tissue-destructiveness of tropical light. I was being torn to pieces by the ultra-violet rays just as many experimenters with the X-ray have been torn to pieces.

In passing, I may mention that among the other afflictions that jointly compelled the abandonment of the voyage, was one that is variously called
the healthy man's disease, European Leprosy
, and
Biblical Leprosy
. Unlike,
True Leprosy
, nothing is known of this mysterious malady. No doctor has ever claimed a cure for a case of it, though spontaneous cures are recorded. It comes, they know not how. It is, they know not what. It goes, they know not why. Without the use of drugs, merely by living in the wholesome California climate, my silvery skin vanished. The only hope that doctors held out to me was a spontaneous cure, and such a cure was mine.

A last word: the test of the voyage. It is easy enough for me or any man to say that it was enjoyable. But there is a better witness, the one woman who made it from beginning to end. In hospital when I broke the news to Charmian that I must go back to California, the tears welled into her eyes. For two days she was wrecked and broken by the knowledge that the happy, happy voyage was abandoned.

Notes on
The Cruise of the
Snark

These notes attempt to gloss allusions that were probably familiar to London's readers. In general, however, I have not attempted to complete London's business as travel writer in explicating local history or tracking down individuals named in the text.

7
Captain Slocum:
Although merchant-seaman-turned-yachtsman Slocum (1844-1924) is nominally the primary influence on JL's
Snark
adventure, he probably is most important in three specific ways: building his own yacht, sailing it on a voyage of circumnavigation, and writing to finance the trip. The last may be the most important, although JL surely admired—though he would not emulate—Slocum's independence.

7
Snark:
The name, of course, comes from Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem “The Hunting of the Snark” (1867).

8
With my own hands I did it:
A refrain with JL, which he had put into the mouth of Humphrey Van Weyden in Chapter 39 of
The Sea-Wolf
(1904). This phrase would also inspire Irving Johnson (1905-1991), one of the most notable of JL's disciples, to pursue a life at sea and several circumnavigations in a series of yachts named
Yankee.

9
three-masted schooner:
The
Sophie
[or
Sophia
]
Sutherland.
Cf. JL's “That Dead Men Rise Up Never” for the account of another incident of this voyage.

11
Titans:
The precursors to the Greek gods must have been especially attractive to social Darwinists, as evidenced by the name of the famous mail steamer
Titanic
(her sister ship was the
Olympic
) and Theodore Dreiser's 1914 novel
The Titan
.

13
Nile . . . Danube:
Irving Johnson was perhaps inspired by this passage when he extended his own voyaging to include Egypt and Europe—an otherwise odd choice for a sailor-author who had made a livelihood of ocean passages.

15
Cyrus R. Teed:
Cyrus Read Teed was a New York doctor turned Florida visionary. He believed the earth was a hollow sphere, on the inner surface of which lived mankind. Such beliefs must have complicated navigation. Slocum met a similar mindset in the person of the South African president Johannes Kruger (1825-1904), a famous proponent of the Flat Earth theory. The relation of the encounter in
Sailing Alone around the World
may have triggered JL's mention.

23
April 23, 1907:
It took three days after their departure for Charmian to begin her journal entries. And although JL makes it sound as if he were well, Martin wrote “we were all too seasick to care to eat.”

29
steam engine:
Rudyard Kipling's poem “McAndrew's Hymn” (1894), which praises the steam engine and disparages those who suggest steam has taken the romance out of the sea, probably suggested JL's quip.

29
Thomas Cook & Son:
Thomas Cook (1808-1892) initially devised railroad tours in Great Britain and eventually organized around-the-world tourist trips. He could, perhaps, be called the father of the travel agency.

29
man-stifled towns:
The phrase is Kipling's, from “The Song of the Dead”: “We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town;/We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down.” Many of JL's contemporaries, including American outdoor writers Horace Kephart and Theodore Roosevelt, felt that a too exclusively urban life weakened a man in the struggle for existence.

29
Ulysses:
Despite the difficulties placed in his way by the gods, Homer's hero was actually fairly single minded in his attempt to return to Ithaca. But certainly after Alfred, Lord Tennyson's “Ulysses” (1833, published in 1842), the name had become the archetypal label of wanderlust.

33
Stanford University:
Kipling has the young protagonist of
Captains Courageous
attend Stanford after his initiation at sea. Like the comment in the preceding paragraph, which provided language for the discussion of a sailor's “unclean” life in
Martin Eden,
it is hard to tell in this book what has come from fiction and what will become fiction.

35
at the moment of writing this:
The crew at this point consisted of JL, Charmian, Martin, Tochigi, Roscoe, Bert. Personnel on the
Snark
is always confusing, but the changing status of the crew is probably not serious departure from the norm. Slocum, of course, knew something about living conditions at sea when he chose to sail alone.

35
build a big ship:
A dream to a certain extent fulfilled by Irving and Electa Johnson and certainly a vision of the development of sail training in the twentieth century.

39
still small thought:
An allusion to the “still small voice” through which God appears to Elijah in 1 Kings 19:12.

39
Go you and do likewise:
Another Biblical allusion, this time Jesus' advice to his disciples after the parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:37.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

) was divided into two watches of two hours each.

45
Golden Gate:
Of course refers to the three-mile passage into San Francisco Bay, not the as-yet-unbuilt bridge (begun in 1933).

49
lotus-eaters:
Homer has Odysseus visit the Lotus-Eaters in Book Nine of
The Odyssey,
although by JL's time the phrase referred generically to anyone living a tropically idyllic, narcotic existence. JL's reference may have more to do with Tennyson's version in “The Lotus-Eaters” (1833).

52
Tristram:
Apparently a reference to Algernon Charles Swinburne's “Tristram of Lyonesse” (1882):

64
y
ellow
writer:
Yellow journalists; i.e., sensationalists

70
antiseptic surgery:
Developed in the second half of the nineteenth century by Joseph Lister (1827-1912).

71
Father Damien:
Belgian missionary Joseph Van Veuster (1840- 1889) went to minister to the leper colony on Molokai in 1873 and contracted leprosy himself four years before his death.

76
Simm's Hole:
John Cleves Symmes (1780-1829) theorized that the earth was a hollow globe, and access to the interior was to be attained at the poles. It is possible that Symmes himself was the author of
Symzonia
(1820), a novel of discovery based on the theory. Edgar Allan Poe also seems to have toyed with the theory in
Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
(1838), as may Verne (see note below).

76
Jules Verne:
In Verne's
Voyage au centre de la terre
(1864), the explorers enter the earth through the cone of Iceland's Mount Sneffel and resurface in an eruption of Stromboli.

77
It was a scene:
JL may have been recalling Henry David Thoreau's sketch “Ktaadn” in
The Maine Woods
(1864):

 

77
Joshua:
In Joshua 10:11-14, the Biblical prophet and soldier ordered the sun and moon to stand still in order to defeat the Amorites.

84
sailing directions:
Compiled by Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806- 1873) and others to offer advice concerning winds and currents to sailing masters.

84
the Line:
i.e., the equator

94
guny:
Usually albatross, but perhaps any large seabird to JL.

94
bent:
Tied or lashed

95
granes:
Barbed, multi-pointed spear

98
Herman Melville's “Typee”:
Although
Typee
(1846) remained popular and in print during his youth, JL must have been one of Melville's more appreciative readers.

99
able seaman:
A sailor who not only can handle sails and steer, but also can work on rigging and contribute in a more sophisticated way to the upkeep of a vessel. JL's supervision and management of the
Snark
would somewhat belie this description of himself.

101
Captain Cook:
In three separate voyages of discovery, James Cook (1728-1779) filled in most of the empty spaces on the chart of the Pacific Ocean. During his last voyage he was killed (and possibly eaten) by Hawaiian natives.

105
Captain Porter:
David Porter (1780-1843) published different editions of his
Journal of a Cruise
in 1815 and 1822. But JL may be getting Porter's story secondhand from Melville.

106
Mendaña . . . Figueroa:
Though citing these authorities as if they reflected independent reading, JL almost certainly cribbed these testimonials from Melville's
Typee.
For a rarity, Melville himself cites his own source,
Circumnavigation of the Globe,
an 1840 volume in the Harpers' Family Library series.

106
the fit:
Ironic in light of the subsequent disease that would force JL to abandon his voyage.

107
Omar Khayyam:
Probably known to JL through one of the translations of Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883), although he may only be referring to the generally famous passage of contentment (in its 1879 version):

110
gamins:
Street urchins; unsupervised children

120
Drop anchor:
It sounds like Darling is expanding on Emerson or Whitman.