The Snark

“ Every one on the Snark except Charmian came down with yaws. Hers was the same egotism that Japan and Kansas had displayed. She ascribed her immunity to the pureness of her blood, and as the days went by she ascribed it more often and more loudly to the pureness of her blood. Privately I ascribed her immunity to the fact that, being a woman, she escaped most of the cuts and abrasions to which we hard-working men were subject in the course of working the Snark around the world. ”

“ She simply cannot be made to run, that is all.” Well, I wish I’d only had those crack sailors of the Bohemian Club on board the Snark the other night for them to see for themselves their one, vital, unanimous judgment absolutely reversed. Run? It is the one thing the Snark does to perfection. Run? She ran with a sea-anchor fast for’ard and a full mizzen flattened down aft. ”

“ Some were rather vague in their own minds concerning the work to be done on the Snark; as, for instance, the one who wrote: "I am taking the liberty of writing you this note to find out if there would be any possibility of my going with you as one of the crew of your boat to make sketches and illustrations." Several, unaware of the needful work on a small craft like the Snark, offered to serve, as one of them phrased it, "as assistant in filing materials collected for books and novels." That's what one gets for being prolific. ”

“ In his zeal to discover the Snark.
But while he was seeking with thimbles and care,
A Bandersnatch swiftly drew nigh
And grabbed at the Banker, who shrieked in despair,
For he knew it was useless to fly. ”

“ Snark,” I cried, “for a good man and a true.”
I pressed him to accept a purse of fifty guineas over and above the sum agreed upon.
“No, not a blessed head,” he replied. “Snark’s not a dirty screw, but a man o’ fambly and a proper hartiss at his work. Takes a fair pride in it, he does, which is the reason why his reppitation seizes all Bow Street by the belly.”
Upon this the worthy creature conducted me up the gloomy stairs to the window that commanded the execution ground. The sight that then confronted me I have often met again in dreams. ”

“ In an antediluvian tone.
"My father and mother were honest, though poor—"
"Skip all that!" cried the Bellman in haste.
"If it once becomes dark, there's no chance of a Snark—
We have hardly a minute to waste!" ”

“ Snark, “Snark’s blue death on tantalisers—a plain job’s not a bit o’ good to Snark. There’s lots o’ the perfession can undertake a plain job just as well as Snark, and charges lesser. But in the higher branches, as they says at Bow Street, there’s none like good old Snark. Why, that man fair takes a pride in the higher branches. Just look at the case o’ William Milligan. Talk about hartistic! Why, Miss, the case of William Milligan was the wonder o’ the age.” ”

“ Penny inquired. “Will the Star print them tomorrow?”
“On the front page of our first edition,” Mr. Parker chuckled. “Salt didn’t turn over the plate to the police, so we’re all set. By morning, the story should be bigger and better than ever. By then, the guilt will be well pinned on Cordell, and some of the Snark gang may have been rounded up.”
[210]
Curious to learn the very latest details, Salt called the police station. He was told that Ben Bartell had identified several of the Snark’s crew from police pictures, and it was expected all would be arrested within twenty-four hours. ”

“ He likes your solid hearty buxom face, which is the reason for his kindness. For it’s Snark’s opinion that this young rebel man o’ yours is on’y a beginner, and that his picter won’t be put into the Calendar. But let me see now. The execution is fixed up for the twenty-sixth at ten o’clock in the morning. Well, that’ll suit Snark handsomely. An’ I [Pg 311] daresay it’ll be a pretty fashionable thing. Shall you be present, Miss? ”

“ Tochigi, Nipponese and poet-browed cabin boy of the Snark, is to live ashore with us and resume his erstwhile household service, while the rest of the yacht’s complement will retain their accommodations aboard. In these protected waters, the boat lies at least as steady as a house on wheels, as she swings to ebb and flow.
Strangely content are we in the unwonted tranquillity of motion and sound, lacking wish to venture afield, even to Honolulu, about twelve miles distant by the railroad. Enough just to rest and rest, and gaze around upon the beautiful, long-desired world of island. ”

“ And, oh, there is one other excellence of the Snark, upon which I must brag, namely, her bow. No sea could ever come over it. It laughs at the sea, that bow does; it challenges the sea; it snorts defiance at the sea. And withal it is a beautiful bow; the lines of it are dreamlike; I doubt if ever a boat was blessed with a more beautiful and at the same time a more capable bow. It was made to punch storms. To touch that bow is to rest one's hand on the cosmic nose of things. ”

“ And it always looks grave at a pun.
“The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,
Which is constantly carries about,
And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes—
A sentiment open to doubt.
“The fifth is ambition. It next will be right
To describe each particular batch:
Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite,
And those that have whiskers, and scratch.
“For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm,
Yet, I feel it my duty to say,
Some are Boojums—” The Bellman broke off in alarm,
For the Baker had fainted away. ”

“ Our last memories of men were of United States marshals and of panicky little merchants with rusty dollars for souls, who, in a reeking atmosphere of soot and coal-dust, laid grimy hands upon the Snark and held her back from her world adventure. But these men who came to meet us were clean men. ”

“ Man had betrayed us and sent us to sea in a sieve, but the Lord must have loved us, for we had calm weather in which to learn that we must pump every day in order to keep afloat, and that more trust could be placed in a wooden toothpick than in the most massive piece of iron to be found aboard. As the staunchness and the strength of the Snark went glimmering, Charmian and I pinned our faith more and more to the Snark’s wonderful bow. ”

“ The Beaver, who happened to hear the remark,
Protested, with tears in its eyes,
That not even the rapture of hunting the Snark
Could atone for that dismal surprise!
It strongly advised that the Butcher should be
Conveyed in a separate ship:
But the Bellman declared that would never agree
With the plans he had made for the trip:
Navigation was always a difficult art,
Though with only one ship and one bell:
And he feared he must really decline, for his part,
Undertaking another as well. ”

“ Our captain of the roseate name is painting the Snark, and she floats, a boat of white enamel, in the still blue and silver of the morning flood; while for frame to the fair picture a painted double-rainbow overarches, flinging the misty fringes of its ends in our enraptured faces. From the shell-pink dawn, through the green and golden day, to sunset and purple twilight and starshine, we move in beauty. “What a lot of people must have been shanghaied here by their own desire!” Jack ruminates. And truly, Hawaii is sufficient excuse for never going home. ”

“ Again, when we were preparing to return to the Snark, the sky to windward turned black and another squall swooped down. But this time it was little rain and all wind. It blew hour after hour, moaning and screeching through the palms, tearing and wrenching and shaking the frail bamboo dwelling, while the outer reef set no a mighty thundering as it broke the force of the swinging seas. Inside the reef, the lagoon, sheltered though it was, was white with fury, and not even Tehei's seamanship could have enabled his slender canoe to live in such a welter. ”

“ Once more at Hilo Harbor, the Matsonia, out in the stream, her siren sounding the warning hour, was reached by launch from the pretty oriental waterside at the mouth of the Waiakea. Our eyes were more than a little wistful as in memory we sailed out with the Snark. But we did it! “With our own hands we did it,” thus Jack; and the glamorous voyage was now an accomplished verity, from which we had come back very much alive and unjaded. ”

“ The one lone white man, a trader, came alongside. Tom Butler was his name, and he was a beautiful example of what the Solomons can do to a strong man. He lay in his whale-boat with the helplessness of a dying man. No smile and little intelligence illumined his face. He was a sombre death’s-head, too far gone to grin. He, too, had yaws, big ones. We were compelled to drag him over the rail of the Snark. He said that his health was good, that he had not had the fever for some time, and that with the exception of his arm he was all right and trim. ”

“ We had naught but a compass bearing with which to orientate ourselves, and if we missed Sentinel Rock, we missed Taiohae Bay, and we would have to throw the Snark up to the wind and lie off and on the whole night—no pleasant prospect for voyagers weary from a sixty days’ traverse of the vast Pacific solitude, and land-hungry, and fruit-hungry, and hungry with an appetite of years for the sweet vale of Typee.
Abruptly, with a roar of sound, Sentinel Rock loomed through the rain dead ahead. We altered our course, and, with mainsail and spinnaker bellying to the squall, drove past. ”

“ Now if you take my advice, Miss, you’ll have the best horse in London waiting there at ten o’clock in Piper’s Alley. You can leave the rest to Snark, Miss.”
“Will you engage the Dover boat?” I asked.
“Yes,” says he, “that’s all in the three hundred, and the blessed crew that’s a-going for to sail it. An’ there’s no need to look so white about it either. Your rebel’s just as good as saved. It’s mere nut-cracking to old Snark. He’s effected twenty-nine deliverances in all parts o’ the world.”
“But pray don’t forget, sir,” says I, anxiously, “that he is sure to be guarded dreadful strong. ”

“ Since they were continually pursuing astern the flying-fish that survived for several flights, they were always overtaking the Snark, and at any time one could glance astern and on the front of a breaking wave see scores of their silvery forms coasting down just under the surface. When they had eaten their fill, it was their delight to get in the shadow of the boat, or of her sails, and a hundred or so were always to be seen lazily sliding along and keeping cool. ”

“ My system was first deliberately to train my eyes on the receding downward lines to the tumbling gulch-stream, and at intervals, as I walked, to touch hand momentarily to the flume. Martin, of the Snark, debonair stranger to system of any sort under any circumstances, paced undaunted halfway across, and suddenly fell exceeding sick, grasping the waterway with both hands until the color flowed back into his ashen face.
The wooden ditch is just wide enough in which to sit with elbows close, and the water flows rapidly on the gentle incline. ”

“ It is I LIKE that makes the drunkard drink and the martyr wear a hair shirt; that makes one man a reveller and another man an anchorite; that makes one man pursue fame, another gold, another love, and another God. Philosophy is very often a man's way of explaining his own I LIKE.
But to return to the Snark, and why I, for one, want to journey in her around the world. The things I like constitute my set of values. The thing I like most of all is personal achievement - not achievement for the world's applause, but achievement for my own delight. ”

“ All about us lay the jagged back-bones of ranges, as far as the eye could see, thrusting their pinnacles into the trade-wind clouds. Under us, from the way we had come, the Snark lay like a tiny toy on the calm water of Taiohae Bay. Ahead we could see the inshore indentation of Comptroller Bay. We dropped down a thousand feet, and Typee lay beneath us. "Had a glimpse of the gardens of paradise been revealed to me I could scarcely have been more ravished with the sight" - so said Melville on the moment of his first view of the valley. ”