Chapter I: Introduction: Biographical Note

Two years before the mast were but an episode in the life of Richard Henry Dana, Jr.; yet the narrative in which he details the experiences of that period is, perhaps, his chief claim to a wide remembrance. His services in other than literary fields occupied the greater part of his life, but they brought him comparatively small recognition and many disappointments. His happiest associations were literary, his pleasantest acquaintanceships those which arose through his fame as the author of one book. The story of his life is one of honest and competent effort, of sincere purpose, of many thwarted hopes. The traditions of his family forced him into a profession for which he was intellectually but not temperamentally fitted: he should have been a scholar, teacher, and author; instead he became a lawyer.

Born in Cambridge, Mass., August 1, 1815, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., came of a line of Colonial ancestors whose legal understanding and patriotic zeal had won them distinction. His father, if possessed of less vigor than his predecessors, was yet a man of culture and ability. He was widely known as poet, critic, and lecturer; and endowed his son with native qualities of intelligence, good breeding, and honesty.

After somewhat varied and troublous school days, young Dana entered Harvard University, where he took high rank in his classes and bid fair to make a reputation as a scholar. But at the beginning of his third year of college a severe attack of measles interrupted his course, and so affected his eyes as to preclude, for a time at least, all idea of study. The state of the family finances was not such as to permit of foreign travel in search of health. Accordingly, prompted by necessity and by a youthful love of adventure, he shipped as a common sailor in the brig, Pilgrim, bound for the California coast. His term of service lasted a trifle over two years--from August, 1834, to September, 1836. The undertaking was one calculated to kill or cure. Fortunately it had the latter effect; and, upon returning to his native place, physically vigorous but intellectually starved, he reentered Harvard and worked with such enthusiasm as to graduate in six months with honor.

Then came the question of his life work. Though intensely religious, he did not feel called to the ministry; business made no appeal; his ancestors had been lawyers; it seemed best that he should follow where they had led. Had conditions been those of to-day, he would naturally have drifted into some field of scholarly research,--political science or history. As it was, he entered law school, which, in 1840, he left to take up the practice of his profession. But Dana had not the tact, the personal magnetism, or the business sagacity to make a brilliant success before the bar. Despite the fact that he had become a master of legal theory, an authority upon international questions, and a counsellor of unimpeachable integrity, his progress was painfully slow and toilsome. Involved with his lack of tact and magnetism there was, too, an admirable quality of sturdy obstinacy that often worked him injury. Though far from sharing the radical ideas of the Abolitionists, he was ardent in his anti-slavery ideas and did not hesitate to espouse the unpopular doctrines of the Free-Soil party of 1848, or to labor for the freedom of those Boston negroes, who, under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, were in danger of deportation to the South.

His activity in the latter direction resulted in pecuniary loss, social ostracism and worse; for upon one occasion he was set upon and nearly killed by a pair of thugs. But Dana was not a man to be swerved from his purpose by considerations of policy or of personal safety. He met his problems as they came to him, took the course which he believed to be right and then stuck to it with indomitable tenacity. Yet, curiously enough, with none of the characteristics of the politician, he longed for political preferment. At the hands of the people this came to him in smallest measure only. Though at one time a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, he was defeated as candidate for the lower house of Congress, and in 1876 suffered the bitterest disappointment of his life, when the libellous attacks of enemies prevented the ratification of his nomination as Minister to England.

Previous to this he had served his country as United States District Attorney during the Civil War, a time when the office demanded the highest type of ability and uprightness. That the government appreciated this was shown in 1867 by its choice of Dana as one of its counsel in the prosecution of Jefferson Davis for treason. The position of legal representative before the Halifax tribunal of 1877, which met to discuss fishery questions at issue between the United States and Canada, was given him no doubt in part because of his eminent fitness, in part as balm for the wound of the preceding year.

But whatever satisfaction he may have found in such honors as time and ripening years brought to him, his chief joy and relaxation lay in travel. When worry and overwork began to tell upon him, he would betake himself to shore or mountains. Upon several occasions he visited Europe, and in 1859 made a tour of the world. At length, in 1876, he gave up active life and took residence abroad, with the idea of finding leisure for the preparation of a treatise on international law. He was still engaged in collecting his material when, on January 6, 1882, death overtook him. He was buried in Rome in the Protestant Cemetery, whose cypresses cast their long shadows over the graves of many distinguished foreigners who have sought a last refuge of health and peace under the skies of Italy.

Such a career as his would seem far enough from being a failure. Yet, in retirement, Dana looked back upon it not without regret. As a lawyer, he had felt a justifiable desire to see his labors crowned by his elevation to the bench; as an active participant in public affairs, he had felt that his services and talents rendered him deserving of a seat in Congress. Lacking these things, he might have hoped that the practice of his profession would yield him a fortune. Here again he was disappointed. In seeking the fulfillment of his ambitions, he was always on the high road to success; he never quite arrived.

It is remarkable that, having written one successful book, Dana did not seek further reward as a man of letters. Two Years before the Mast appeared in 1840, while its author was still a law student. Though at the time it created no great stir in the United States, it was most favorably received in England, where it paved the way for many pleasant and valuable acquaintanceships. The following year, Dana produced a small volume on seamanship, entitled The Seaman's Friend. This, and a short account of a trip to Cuba in 1859, constitute the sole additions to his early venture. He was a copious letter-writer and kept full journals of his various travels; but he never elaborated them for publication. Yet, long before his death, he had seen the narrative of his sailor days recognized as an American classic. Time has not diminished its reputation. We read it to-day not merely for its simple, unpretentious style; but for its clear picture of sea life previous to the era of steam navigation, and for its graphic description of conditions in California before visions of gold sent the long lines of "prairie schooners" drifting across the plains to unfold the hidden destiny of the West.

California and her Missions

It is not easy to realize that, during the stirring days when the eastern coast-line of North America was experiencing the ferment of revolution, the Pacific seaboard was almost totally unexplored, its population largely a savage one. But Spain, long established in Mexico, was slowly pushing northward along the California coast. Her emissaries were the Franciscan friars; her method the founding of Indian missions round which, in due course, should arise towns intended to afford harbor for Spanish ships and to serve as outposts against the steady encroachments of Russia, who, from Alaska, was reaching out toward San Francisco Bay.

Thus began the white settlement of California. San Diego Mission was founded in 1769; San Carlos, at Monterey, in 1770; San Francisco, in 1776; Santa Barbara, in 1786. For the general guardianship of these missions a garrison, or presidio, was in each case provided. It was responsible not only for the protection of the town thus created, but for all the missions in the district. The presidio of San Diego, for example, was in charge of the missions of San Diego, San Gabriel, San Juan Capistrano, and San Luis Rey. So, likewise, there were garrisons with extensive jurisdiction at Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Francisco.

The Indians in the immediate vicinity of a mission were attached thereto by a sort of gentle enslavement. They were provided special quarters, were carefully looked after by the priests, their religious education fostered, and their innate laziness conquered by specific requirements of labor in agriculture, cattle raising, and simple handicrafts. It was an arrangement which worked well for both parties concerned. The slavery of the Indians was not unlike the obligation of children to their parents; they were comfortable, well behaved, and for the most part contented with the rule of the friars, who, on their side, began to accumulate considerable wealth from the well-directed efforts of their charges.

The supposition was that in the course of years the Indians might become so habituated to thrift and industry as to be released from supervision and safely left to their own devices. But that happy consummation had not occurred when, in 1826, Mexico succeeded in separating herself from the mother country and began her career as an independent republic, of which California was a part. Nevertheless, the greed of politicians suddenly wrought the change which was to have come as the slow development of years. By governmental decree, the Indians were declared free of obligation to the friars; the latter were stripped of their temporal powers, their funds seized under the guise of a loan, and their establishments often subjected to what was little short of pillage. This state of affairs had scarcely begun at the time of the author's visit to California; still, as he points out in Chapter XXI, the decline of the missions had already set in.

The final blow to their power and usefulness came, however, with the upheaval accompanying the Mexican war and the acquisition of California by the United States. Although this country returned all mission buildings to the control of the Church, their reason for being had vanished; they were sold, or destroyed, or feebly maintained on funds insufficient to forestall dilapidation. Fortunately the Franciscan friars had built for beauty as well as for use; the architecture which they devised in skillful adaptation of their native Spanish type displayed originality and picturesque charm. Hence, of late years, Californians have come to feel a worthy pride in the monuments of the early history of their state, and have taken steps to preserve such of them as survive. No less than twenty-one are today the goal of the traveller.

The reader who is interested in pursuing the subject thus outlined will find its satisfactory treatment in George Wharton James's _In and out of the old Missions of California,_ a book that combines agreeable reading with excellent illustrations.

References

The author's life is fully and sympathetically treated in Charles Francis Adams's Richard Henry Dana. Boston, 1890.

The most exhaustive history of California and the Pacific coast in general is H. H. Bancroft's History of the Pacific States of North America. San Francisco, 1882-1888. A briefer work is Josiah Royce's California. Boston, 1886. Though this book considers mainly the transition period, 1846-1856, its introduction gives an excellent survey of earlier years. F. J. Turner's Rise of the New West, which is volume XIV of the American Nation, New York, 1907, tells the story of the development of the whole territory west of the Mississippi.

Those who are curious to search out all the items of ship construction will find them adequately illustrated, under the caption, "ship," in both Standard and Century dictionaries.

Explanation of Diagram

The following diagram, from which many details have been omitted, presents sufficient data for an understanding of the more important nautical terms which occur in the text. A number of other such terms have been explained in the notes. In omitting reference to many more, the editor has felt that ovarannotation would turn a straightforward and interesting narrative into a mere excuse for a nautical dictionary, and quite defeat the purpose of the book. The author's technical vocabulary, even when most bewildering, serves to give force and the vividness of local color to his descriptions. To pause in the midst of a storm at sea for comment and definition would result merely in checking the movement of the story and putting a damper upon the imagination.

Two Years before the Mast affords the teacher a somewhat unusual opportunity. Few literary works are better calculated to stimulate inquiry into the remarkable changes which three-quarters of a century have wrought in the United States. Much profitable class employment in the drawing of maps and the writing of brief themes dealing with various phases of the romantic history of California will suggest itself. The numerous geographical allusions should be traced with the aid of an atlas.

| --+--
--+-- | |j|
/| | --+--
/ |f| | |i|
/ +-- ---+---
/ /|e| | | |
/ / +--- | | h|
/ / | | ----+----
/a / |d | | | |
/__/ b +---- | | g |
/ /_____|c | \__|____\
/__/ |___| |
\------+----------+-------
\_______________________/

a. Flying jib.
b. Jib.
c. Foresail.
d. Foretopsail.
e. Foretopgallantsail.
f. Foreroyal.
g. Mainsail.
h. Maintopsail.
i. Maintopgallantsail.
j. Mainroyal.

|
|B2
| | |C2
|A2 6--+-- |
3--+-- | 9--+--
| || |
|| | ||
| 5--+-- |
2---+--- |B1 |C1
E --__ |A1 || 8---+---
--__ || | |
--| 4----+---- ||
1----+---- | 7----+---- G __--
| | | __-- /
|A |B |C F __-- \ /
D | | | __-- H\/
------______|________|________|________---------
\_______________________________/

A. Mizzenmast.
A1. Mizzentopmast.
A2. Mizzentopgallant and royalmast.
B. Mainmast.
B1. Maintopmast.
B2. Maintopgallant and royalmast.
C. Foremast.
C1. Foretopmast.
C2. Foretopgallant and royalmast.
D. Spanker boom.
E. Spanker gaff.
F. Bowsprit.
G. Jib boom and flying jib boom.
H. Martingale boom.

1. Crossjack yard.
2. Mizzentopsail yard.
3. Mizzentopgallant yard.
4. Main yard.
5. Maintopsail yard.
6. Maintopgallant yard.
7. Fore yard.
8. Foretopsail yard.
9. Foretopgallant yard.

[Editor: Many more numbered lifts, stays, and braces were left out of these simplified diagrams. They are intended to be viewed using a fixed-width font.]

Each mast section is joined to the lower one in two places:

| |
| |
___|_|_
\_____/ Mast cap.
| | |
| | |
| | |
_|_|_|_
\_____/ Trestletree.
| |
| |

Each mast also sports net-like rigging from the lowest trestletree to the deck. These are called "shrouds".

TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST

CONTENTS

I DEPARTURE
II FIRST IMPRESSIONS--"SAIL HO!"
III SHIP'S DUTIES--TROPICS
IV A ROGUE--TROUBLE ON BOARD--"LAND HO!"--POMPERO--CAPE HORN
V CAPE HORN--A VISIT
VI LOSS OF A MAN--SUPERSTITION
VII JUAN FERNANDEZ--THE PACIFIC
VIII "TARRING DOWN"--DAILY LIFE--"GOING AFT"--CALIFORNIA
IX CALIFORNIA--A SOUTH-EASTER
X A SOUTH-EASTER--PASSAGE UP THE COAST
XI PASSAGE UP THE COAST--MONTEREY
XII LIFE AT MONTEREY
XIII TRADING--A BRITISH SAILOR
XIV SANTA BARBARA--HIDE-DROGHING--HARBOR DUTIES--DISCONTENT--SAN
PEDRO
XV A FLOGGING--A NIGHT ON SHORE--THE STATE OF THINGS ON
BOARD--SAN DIEGO
XVI LIBERTY-DAY ON SHORE
XVII SAN DIEGO--A DESERTION--SAN PEDRO AGAIN--BEATING THE COAST
XVIII EASTER SUNDAY--"SAIL HO!"--WHALES--SAN JUAN--ROMANCE OF
HIDE-DROGHING--SAN DIEGO AGAIN
XIX THE SANDWICH ISLANDERS--HIDE-CURING--WOOD-CUTTING--RATTLE-
SNAKES--NEW-COMERS
XX LEISURE--NEWS FROM HOME--"BURNING THE WATER"
XXI CALIFORNIA AND ITS INHABITANTS
XXII LIFE ON SHORE--THE ALERT
XXIII NEW SHIP AND SHIPMATES--MY WATCHMATE
XXIV SAN DIEGO AGAIN--A DESCENT--HURRIED DEPARTURE--A NEW SHIPMATE
XXV RUMORS OF WAR--A SPOUTER--SLIPPING FOR A SOUTH-EASTER--A GALE
XXVI SAN FRANCISCO--MONTEREY
XXVII THE SUNDAY WASH-UP--ON SHORE--A SET-TO--A GRANDEE--"SAIL
HO!"--A FANDANGO
XXVIII AN OLD FRIEND--A VICTIM--CALIFORNIA RANGERS--NEWS FROM
XXIX LOADING FOR HOME--A SURPRISE--LAST OF AN OLD FRIEND--THE LAST
HIDE--A HARD CASE--UP ANCHOR, FOR HOME!--HOMEWARD BOUND
XXX BEGINNING THE LONG RETURN VOYAGE--A SCARE
XXXI BAD PROSPECTS--FIRST TOUCH OF CAPE HORN--ICEBERGS--TEMPERANCE
SHIPS--LYING-UP--ICE--DIFFICULTY ON BOARD--CHANGE OF
COURSE--STRAITS OF MAGELLAN
XXXII ICE AGAIN--A BEAUTIFUL AFTERNOON--CAPE HORN--"LAND
HO!"--HEADING FOR HOME
XXXIII CRACKING ON--PROGRESS HOMEWARD--A PLEASANT SUNDAY--A FINE
SIGHT--BY-PLAY
XXXIV NARROW ESCAPES--THE EQUATOR--TROPICAL SQUALLS--A THUNDER STORM
XXXV A DOUBLE-REEF-TOP-SAIL BREEZE--SCURVY--A FRIEND IN
NEED--PREPARING FOR PORT--THE GULF STREAM
XXXVI SOUNDINGS--SIGHTS FROM HOME--BOSTON HARBOR--LEAVING THE SHIP
CONCLUDING CHAPTER