Douglas Frazar

“ With a thorough knowledge of the sheet and rudder, and how to reef a sail, there ought to be no accidents, even in very small boats; but the trouble is, that too many tyros are allowed to invite unsuspecting ladies and young girls into their boats, they not understanding the first rudiments of a real nautical knowledge, of how to manage a craft in times of danger.
A boat is like a good horse,—it will always do the best it can. It will not capsize if it can help it; but, if mismanaged in time of emergency, it is a dangerous plaything. ”

“ A walk of a mile brought me again to the seaside, and I trudged on, I should judge, about three miles, till I saw a ledge of rocks jutting into the sea and confining my vision as to the extent of the island in that direction. As I drew nearer I saw forms upon the rocks that looked like human figures,—like soldiers in full uniform,—but singularly small in size. For just one moment I was deceived,—nay, even frightened,—but the next my sailor's eyes told me they were penguins, and sure enough, as I approached, my soldiers gravely plunged into the ocean and swam out seaward. ”

“ If I feared to trust my submarine boat, I could make a catamaran on a large scale, almost exactly on the same plan as the car I was now seated upon, which could not capsize or sink; a life raft, or, better yet, I could construct a boat wholly of iron, with water-tight compartments; but who was to steer whilst I slept,—my goat?—and who was to take care of my island during my absence and keep it safe from all inquisitive eyes? ”

“ It is for this very reason of being prepared, that fear is driven out; whilst, with the careless one, in times of emergency the ropes foul, the gaskets are missing, the anchor is not bent on, the lamp wants oil, the lead-line can't be found, and the jib-halliards, not being properly belayed and coiled down, unreve from the masthead block, and every thing is "at sixes and at sevens." ”

“ By this time the moon had risen, and by its light we saw the shadowy shapes of monstrous cliffs and miniature headlands covered with tangled forests of a species of pine, mirrored in the little bay in which we [11] hung at anchor; but not one sound of life, no lights on shore, no cry of bird or beast, but the depressing, awful solitude of an unknown land; no noise except the graceful rise of the "Good Luck" to the miniature waves of the bay as she lay at anchor with twenty fathoms of chain out. ”

“ I named the beautiful stream Rapid River, and drew out my birch-bark chart and sketched and located it. I felt that this would be my home; and could anything be more beautiful. As I sat upon a large stone near the river this is what I saw round about me. To the westward, I knew that just around the bend, but concealed from my eyes as I sat, was the long, beautiful beach of Stillwater Cove, with its inland glades that I had just passed over; to the northward and eastward, a gradually ascending grade of land, covered with lovely groves of trees in full foliage ”

“ Some one has truly said "that the boat is always under the perfect control, and subject to the will, of its master; whilst in driving, for instance, one is dependent for life and limb upon the forbearance, good-temper, and training of a brute whose strength is greater than one's own, and whose over-vaunted intelligence is often exceeded by his obstinacy."
It is simply wonderful what stress of wind and sea a small boat will sustain with perfect safety when properly managed. ”

“ When on top of a sea, and all the sails full, the yacht will go fast: when she attempts to bury her head, and kick up her heels, and becalms the jib and lower part of the mainsail, she will go slower. There is one thing to be guarded against in running before the wind, and that is the "jibing" of the main-boom; that is to say, the wind getting on the forward part of the sail, from any cause,—whether by change of wind, or on account of bad steering,—and carrying it violently over to the other side, endangering the yacht, and with a liability, in heavy weather, of carrying away the mast. ”

“ My nerves were unstrung now all the time, and the slightest noise caused my heart to palpitate with fear, as it had never before done in the severest gale at sea or in face of the greatest practical dangers. I was fast becoming a coward, and felt that I should continue to be one till my problem was solved; then, if successful in ascertaining the extent of the island and its freedom from savages, I felt that I could resign myself with fortitude to the designs that Providence had in my behalf. ”

“ Of course, in yachts over thirty to forty feet in length, with crews, every thing can be made fast: but we are now writing of smaller craft, and it is repeated, in squally and dirty weather never make fast the main-sheet; it is the key to the whole science of boat-sailing, and should never be out of one's hand in time of emergency. It can, after taking one turn, be wound around the tiller, and brought to the same hand as the one that is moving the helm, and yet be instantly cast off, if necessary. ”

“ I never wholly got over the sensation of being at the bottom of the ocean; it always seemed as if I had entered another world, where all was changed, and in which every living thing was compelled to keep an eternal silence.
Many parts of the bottom, especially that near the pearl-oyster reef and the approaches to Stillwater Cove, became, shortly after using my glass windows, as familiar to me as similar places would have been on land; there being fully as many distinguishing marks, peculiar in themselves, as upon the rocks and protuberances of the island itself. ”

“ As a rule, sailing-boats and small yachts are "trimmed by the stern;" that is, the bow is slightly elevated from the water, the boat being pressed, by the position of its ballast, deeper into the water at the stern than at the bow. But every yacht is a law to itself; and no rule will do for all. The position of the ballast has also much to do with the steering qualities, as well as affecting speed: if it be placed too far forward, the yacht will "yaw," and at times, before the wind, be almost unmanageable. ”

“ Upon my exploration depended all my security for the future. Should I find the island inhabited, a long farewell to all content. If uninhabited, I could, I felt certain, take care of myself till it pleased God to remove me from the solitude to which I was tied. I envied the old Robinson Crusoe, to whom I likened myself, and thought, why could not I have been as fortunate as he; if the "Good Luck" must be destroyed why could she not have come ashore on this island where I could have saved something from her, and, more precious yet, some of the lives of my shipmates? ”

“ That is to say, instead of throwing a lead with a marked line to the bottom of the ocean, I threw a buoy to the surface. Nature seemed to be capsized, and everything upside down, as used to appear in using the inverted telescope in my first attempts to take the altitude of the sun with a sextant. If I had not lived so solitary a life I could have laughed at many of the things that befel me in this submarine boat. ”

“ But what could I—an old sailor, but not an old man, who had banged around the world—ask for more than I could obtain on my island except companionship? Nothing.
Having secured the boat, and put the goats and spare traps into the canoe, I at the close of the day paddled myself back to the Hermitage, determined on the morrow to make an excursion out of Stillwater Cove into the ocean, and see what I could discover. ”

“ It was a strange formation, rising abruptly from the bottom of the sea, five or six fathoms, like the walls of a citadel. I saw plainly that a vessel could at one moment, by a cast of the lead, get nine fathoms, and in the very next find herself hard and fast upon the reef, if she drew over eighteen feet of water. Holding myself in equilibrio at about half distance from the surface and the bottom, I moved cautiously along the face of this wall to the eastward, looking for my prize. ”

“ I had started upon one of my trips to the pearl oyster reef in the submarine boat, to obtain some of those bivalves, to convey to the shore for examination. The day was beautiful, and the sky clear and almost without a cloud, with a light air moving from the northwest. I was standing out toward the reef from Perseverance Bay with the manhole open, and all goat power on, when all at once, as I was gazing about the horizon, I saw to leeward of me and off the eastern end of the island, a strange commotion in the regular waves of the ocean. ”

“ Upon the rocks I found small portions of the boat, broken to atoms not larger than my hand, but no friend, no comrade, no living soul to cheer my despair. I saw in a very few minutes that if they had not been swept over the reef at the very first sea, as I had been, they had inevitably been washed back again into the ocean, dashed amongst the rocks, and sucked in by the undertow, never more to be seen by man. ”

“ I could in time build some kind of a boat, and reach the Society Islands to the northward of me, or the South American coast to the eastward, or even New Zealand to the westward. I was not without hope, and, although far from cheerful in my dreadful solitude, I could not but think that I should be comparatively happy and contented if I felt sure of my island being uninhabited; but I dreaded, in my exploration about to be undertaken, to come suddenly upon some savage village, that would destroy all my desire to still live, and almost put me in a mood to take my own life with my [84] own hands. ”

“ You must have lived in an age when God had not granted to mortals the permission to discover and utilize many of the arts and sciences of my day; you did not live when steam was the motive power, when the lightnings of the heavens were made obedient to man to convey his demands and requests, when the paddle-wheels of floating steamers beat the waters of all the oceans of the earth. ”

“ I felt that nature could not be sustained much longer, and that in a few hours I must succumb. My comrades pottered round at my feet, their efforts to bail becoming more and more feeble. I was in this reckless, half-dazed state when, without one moment's warning, I was thrown with a crash into the forward end of the boat, and in another instant surrounded by pieces of the boat and floating débris. ”

“ The darkness was the darkness of the ocean in a storm, and torrents of rain and spray flew over us. I was unable to see an atom of even the sail ahead of me in the boat. [35] And thus we plunged on, into the inky darkness, followed by the angry roar of the disappointed waves that we left astern. ”

“ I may as well say here, that I often afterwards enjoyed myself in the air, floating over my own island, and that I never met with the slightest accident, of any kind; but I could not utilize my discovery enough to dare to attempt an ocean voyage with it. It was a pretty plaything, and would make my fortune if amongst civilized people; but I have no objection to both my submarine boat and balloon becoming public property, as far as I am concerned, I having enough actual wealth, in solid metal, to enable me to enjoy everything in this life worth enjoying. ”