A LETTER TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
HONOLULU, HAWAIIAN ISLANDS, February 1889
MY DEAR BOB, -- My extremely foolhardy venture
is practically over. How foolhardy it was I
don't think I realised. We had a very small
schooner, and, like most yachts, over-rigged
and over-sparred, and like many American yachts
on a very dangerous sail plan. The waters we
sailed in are, of course, entirely unlighted,
and very badly charted; in the Dangerous
Archipelago, through which we were fools enough
to go, we were perfectly in ignorance of where
we were for a whole night and half the next day,
and this in the midst of invisible islands and
rapid and variable currents; and we were lucky
when we found our whereabouts at last. We have
twice had all we wanted in the way of squalls:
once, as I came on deck, I found the green sea
over the cockpit coamings and running down the
companion like a brook to meet me; at that same
moment the foresail sheet jammed and the captain
had no knife; this was the only occasion on the
cruise that ever I set a hand to a rope, but I
worked like a Trojan, judging the possibility
of haemorrhage better than the certainty of
drowning. Another time I saw a rather singular
thing: our whole ship's company as pale as
paper from the captain to the cook; we had a
black squall astern on the port side and a
white squall ahead to starboard; the complication
passed off innocuous, the black squall only
fetching us with its tail, and the white one
slewing off somewhere else. Twice we were a
long while (days) in the close vicinity of
hurricane weather, but again luck prevailed,
and we saw none of it. These are dangers
incident to these seas and small craft. What
was an amazement, and at the same time a
powerful stroke of luck, both our masts were
rotten, and we found it out -- I was going to
say in time, but it was stranger and luckier
than that. The head of the mainmast hung over
so that hands were afraid to go to the helm;
and less than three weeks before -- I am not
sure it was more than a fortnight -- we had
been nearly twelve hours beating off the lee
shore of Eimeo (or Moorea, next island to
Tahiti) in half a gale of wind with a violent
head sea: she would neither tack nor wear
once, and had to be boxed off with the mainsail
-- you can imagine what an ungodly show of
kites we carried -- and yet the mast stood.
The very day after that, in the southern bight
of Tahiti, we had a near squeak, the wind
suddenly coming calm; the reefs were close in
with, my eye! what a surf! The pilot thought
we were gone, and the captain had a boat
cleared, when a lucky squall came to our rescue.
My wife, hearing the order given about the
boats, remarked to my mother, "Isn't that nice?
We shall soon be ashore!" Thus does the female
mind unconsciously skirt along the verge of
eternity. Our voyage up here was most disastrous
-- calms, squalls, head sea, waterspouts of
rain, hurricane weather all about, and we in
the midst of the hurricane season, when even
the hopeful builder and owner of the yacht had
pronounced these seas unfit for her. We ran
out of food, and were quite given up for lost
in Honolulu: people had ceased to speak to
Belle* about the Casco, as a deadly subject.
But the perils of the deep were part of the
programme; and though I am very glad to be
done with them for a while and comfortably
ashore, where a squall does not matter a snuff
to any one, I feel pretty sure I shall want
to get to sea again ere long. The dreadful
risk I took was financial, and double-headed.
First, I had to sink a lot of money in the
cruise, and if I didn't get health, how was
I to get it back? I have got health to a
wonderful extent; and as I have the most
interesting matter for my book, bar accidents,
I ought to get all I have laid out and a profit.
But, second (what I own I never considered till
too late), there was the danger of collisions,
of damages and heavy repairs, of disablement,
towing, and salvage; indeed, the cruise might
have turned round and cost me double. Nor
will this danger be quite over till I hear the
yacht is in San Francisco; for though I have
shaken the dust of her deck from my feet, I
fear (as a point of law) she is still mine
till she gets there.
From my point of view, up to now the cruise
has been a wonderful success. I never knew
the world was so amusing. On the last voyage
we had grown so used to sea-life that no one
wearied, though it lasted a full month, except
Fanny, who is always ill. All the time our
visits to the islands have been more like
dreams than realities: the people, the life,
the beach-combers, the old stories and songs
I have picked up, so interesting; the climate,
the scenery, and (in some places) the women,
so beautiful. The women are handsomest in
Tahiti, the men in the Marquesas; both as fine
types as can be imagined. Lloyd reminds me,
I have not told you one characteristic incident
of the cruise from a semi-naval point of view.
One night we were going ashore in Anaho Bay;
the most awful noise on deck; the breakers
distinctly audible in the cabin; and there I
had to sit below, entertaining in my best
style a negroid native chieftain, much the
worse for rum! You can imagine the evening's
pleasure.
This naval report on cruising in the South Seas
would be incomplete without one other trait.
On our voyage up here I came one day into the
dining-room, the hatch in the floor was open,
the ship's boy was below with a baler, and
two of the hands were carrying buckets as for
a fire; this meant that the pumps had ceased
working.
One stirring day was that in which we sighted
Hawaii. It blew fair, but very strong; we
carried jib, foresail, and mainsail, all
single-reefed, and she carried her lee rail
under water and flew. The swell, the heaviest
I have ever been out in -- I tried in vain to
estimate the height, at least fifteen feet --
came tearing after us about a point and a half
off the wind. We had the best hand -- old Louis
-- at the wheel; and, really, he did nobly, and
had noble luck, for it never caught us once. At
times it seemed we must have it; Louis would look
over his shoulder with the queerest look and dive
down his neck into his shoulders; and then it
missed us somehow, and only sprays came over
our quarter, turning the little outside lane
of deck into a mill race as deep as to the
cockpit coamings. I never remember anything
more delightful and exciting. Pretty soon after
we were lying absolutely becalmed under the lee
of Hawaii, of which we had been warned; and the
captain never confessed he had done it on purpose,
but when accused, he smiled. Really, I suppose
he did quite right, for we stood committed to a
dangerous race, and to bring her to the wind
would have been rather a heart-sickening manoeuvre.
R. L. S.
* Stevenson's stepdaughter, Mrs. Strong, who
was at this time living at Honolulu, and joined
his party and family for good when they continued
their voyage from thence in the following June.
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