sight.


CHAPTER XIX

In the isle of Napoleon's exile--Two lectures--A guest in the
ghost-room at Plantation House--An excursion to historic
Longwood--Coffee in the husk, and a goat to shell it--The _Spray's_
ill luck with animals--A prejudice against small dogs--A rat, the
Boston spider, and the cannibal cricket--Ascension Island.


CHAPTER XX

In the favoring current off Cape St. Roque, Brazil--All at sea
regarding the Spanish-American war--An exchange of signals with the
battle-ship _Oregon_--Off Dreyfus's prison on Devil's
Island--Reappearance to the _Spray_ of the north star--The light on
Trinidad--A charming introduction to Grenada--Talks to friendly
auditors.


CHAPTER XXI

Clearing for home--In the calm belt--A sea covered with sargasso--The
jibstay parts in a gale--Welcomed by a tornado off Fire Island--A
change of plan--Arrival at Newport--End of a cruise of over forty-six
thousand miles--The _Spray_ again at Fairhaven.


APPENDIX

LINES AND SAIL-PLAN OF THE "SPRAY"

Her pedigree so far as known--The lines of the _Spray_--Her
self-steering qualities--Sail-plan and steering-gear--An unprecedented
feat--A final word of cheer to would-be navigators.





LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE "Spray" Frontispiece FROM a photograph taken in Australian waters.

THE "Northern Light," CAPTAIN JOSHUA SLOCUM, BOUND FOR LIVERPOOL, 1885

CROSS-SECTION OF THE "SPRAY"

"IT'LL CRAWL"

"NO DORG NOR NO CAT"

THE DEACON'S DREAM

CAPTAIN SLOCUM'S CHRONOMETER

"GOOD EVENING, SIR"

HE ALSO SENT HIS CARD

CHART OF THE "SPRAY'S" COURSE AROUND THE WORLD--APRIL 24, 1895, TO
JULY 3, 1898

THE ISLAND OF PICO

CHART OF THE "SPRAY'S" ATLANTIC VOYAGES FROM BOSTON TO GIBRALTAR,
THENCE TO THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN, IN 1895, AND FINALLY HOMEWARD BOUND
FROM THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE IN 1898

THE APPARITION AT THE WHEEL

COMING TO ANCHOR AT GIBRALTAR

THE "SPRAY" AT ANCHOR OFF GIBRALTAR

CHASED BY PIRATES

I SUDDENLY REMEMBERED THAT I COULD NOT SWIM

A DOUBLE SURPRISE

AT THE SIGN OF THE COMET

A GREAT WAVE OFF THE PATAGONIAN COAST

ENTRANCE TO THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN

THE COURSE OF THE "SPRAY" THROUGH THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN

THE MAN WHO WOULDN'T SHIP WITHOUT ANOTHER "MON AND A DOOG"

A FUEGIAN GIRL

LOOKING WEST FROM FORTESCUE BAY, WHERE THE "SPRAY" WAS CHASED BY
INDIANS

A BRUSH WITH FUEGIANS

A BIT OF FRIENDLY ASSISTANCE

CAPE PILLAR

THEY HOWLED LIKE A PACK OF HOUNDS

A GLIMPSE OF SANDY POINT (PUNTA ARENAS) IN THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN

"YAMMERSCHOONER!"

A CONTRAST IN LIGHTING--THE ELECTRIC LIGHTS OF THE "COLOMBIA" AND THE
CANOE FIRES OF THE FORTESCUE INDIANS

RECORDS OF PASSAGES THROUGH THE STRAIT AT THE HEAD OF BORGIA BAY

SALVING WRECKAGE

THE FIRST SHOT UNCOVERED THREE FUEGIANS

THE "SPRAY" APPROACHING JUAN FERNANDEZ, ROBINSON CRUSOE'S ISLAND

THE HOUSE OF THE KING

ROBINSON CRUSOE'S CAVE

THE MAN WHO CALLED A CABRA A GOAT

MEETING WITH THE WHALE

FIRST EXCHANGE OF COURTESIES IN SAMOA

VAILIMA, THE HOME OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

THE "SPRAY'S" COURSE FROM AUSTRALIA TO SOUTH AFRICA

THE ACCIDENT AT SYDNEY

CAPTAIN SLOCUM WORKING THE "SPRAY" OUT OF THE YARROW RIVER, A PART OF
MELBOURNE HARBOR

THE SHARK ON THE DECK OF THE "SPRAY"

ON BOARD AT ST. KILDA. RETRACING ON THE CHART THE COURSE OF THE
"SPRAY" FROM BOSTON

THE "SPRAY" IN HER PORT DUSTER AT DEVONPORT, TASMANIA, FEBRUARY 22,
1897

"IS IT A-GOIN' TO BLOW?"

THE "SPRAY" LEAVING SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, IN THE NEW SUIT OF SAILS GIVEN
BY COMMODORE FOY OF AUSTRALIA

THE "SPRAY" ASHORE FOR "BOOT-TOPPING" AT THE KEELING ISLANDS

CAPTAIN SLOCUM DRIFTING OUT TO SEA

THE "SPRAY" AT MAURITIUS

CAPTAIN JOSHUA SLOCUM

CARTOON PRINTED IN THE CAPE TOWN "OWL" OF MARCH 5, 1898, IN CONNECTION
WITH AN ITEM ABOUT CAPTAIN SLOCUM'S TRIP TO PRETORIA

CAPTAIN SLOCUM, SIR ALFRED MILNER (WITH THE TALL HAT), AND COLONEL
SAUNDERSON, M. P., ON THE BOW OF THE "SPRAY" AT CAPE TOWN

READING DAY AND NIGHT THE "SPRAY" PASSED BY THE "OREGON" AGAIN TIED TO
THE OLD STAKE AT FAIRHAVEN

PLAN OF THE AFTER CABIN OF THE "SPRAY"

DECK-PLAN OF THE "SPRAY"

SAIL-PLAN OF THE "SPRAY"

STEERING-GEAR OF THE "SPRAY"

BODY-PLAN OF THE "SPRAY"

LINES OF THE "SPRAY"




[Illustration:]

SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

CHAPTER I


A blue-nose ancestry with Yankee proclivities--Youthful fondness for
the sea--Master of the ship _Northern Light_--Loss of the
_Aquidneck_--Return home from Brazil in the canoe _Liberdade_--The
gift of a "ship"--The rebuilding of the _Spray_-Conundrums in regard
to finance and calking--The launching of the _Spray_.

In the fair land of Nova Scotia, a maritime province, there is a ridge
called North Mountain, overlooking the Bay of Fundy on one side and
the fertile Annapolis valley on the other. On the northern slope of
the range grows the hardy spruce-tree, well adapted for ship-timbers,
of which many vessels of all classes have been built. The people of
this coast, hardy, robust, and strong, are disposed to compete in the
world's commerce, and it is nothing against the master mariner if the
birthplace mentioned on his certificate be Nova Scotia. I was born in
a cold spot, on coldest North Mountain, on a cold February 20, though
I am a citizen of the United States--a naturalized Yankee, if it may
be said that Nova Scotians are not Yankees in the truest sense of the
word. On both sides my family were sailors; and if any Slocum should
be found not seafaring, he will show at least an inclination to
whittle models of boats and contemplate voyages. My father was the
sort of man who, if wrecked on a desolate island, would find his way
home, if he had a jack-knife and could find a tree. He was a good
judge of a boat, but the old clay farm which some calamity made his
was an anchor to him. He was not afraid of a capful of wind, and he
never took a back seat at a camp-meeting or a good, old-fashioned
revival.

As for myself, the wonderful sea charmed me from the first. At the age
of eight I had already been afloat along with other boys on the bay,
with chances greatly in favor of being drowned. When a lad I filled
the important post of cook on a fishing-schooner; but I was not long in
the galley, for the crew mutinied at the appearance of my first duff,
and "chucked me out" before I had a chance to shine as a culinary
artist. The next step toward the goal of happiness found me before the
mast in a full-rigged ship bound on a foreign voyage. Thus I came
"over the bows," and not in through the cabin windows, to the command
of a ship.

My best command was that of the magnificent ship _Northern Light_, of
which I was part-owner. I had a right to be proud of her, for at that
time--in the eighties--she was the finest American sailing-vessel
afloat. Afterward I owned and sailed the _Aquidneck_, a little bark
which of all man's handiwork seemed to me the nearest to perfection of
beauty, and which in speed, when the wind blew, asked no favors of
steamers, I had been nearly twenty years a shipmaster when I quit her
deck on the coast of Brazil, where she was wrecked. My home voyage to
New York with my family was made in the canoe _Liberdade_, without
accident.

[Illustration: Drawn by W. Taber. The _Northern Light_, Captain Joshua
Slocum, bound for Liverpool, 1885.]

My voyages were all foreign. I sailed as freighter and trader
principally to China, Australia, and Japan, and among the Spice
Islands. Mine was not the sort of life to make one long to coil up
one's ropes on land, the customs and ways of which I had finally
almost forgotten. And so when times for freighters got bad, as at last
they did, and I tried to quit the sea, what was there for an old
sailor to do? I was born in the breezes, and I had studied the sea as
perhaps few men have studied it, neglecting all else. Next in
attractiveness, after seafaring, came ship-building. I longed to

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