The Cruise of the Snark (The Kegan Paul Travellers Series #4)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Newspaper readers in the United States were horrified when Jack London, inspired by Joshua Slocum's Sailing Alone Around the World (available from The Narrative Press), announced that he would be sailing across the Pacific and teaching himself navigation on the way. His often hilarious account of the adventure, The Cruise of the Snark, is saturated with the writer's personality and his eye for poetic and ironic details.

During his trip across the Pacific, London waited in vain for the flying fish that had filled Slocum's decks; London was forced to stick to his stored provisions. He navigated by feel more than by skill, and swimming, surfing, and island-hopping filled the trip. "Martin", one of his crew, turns out to be Martin Johnson, who went on to gain fame in his own right as a nature photographer (see Camera Trails in Africa, also from The Narrative Press.)

Yet sometimes sailing the South Seas was quite dangerous. London gives a vivid account of a visit to the Solomon Islands: many of the inhabitants were still head-hunters, and came armed with spears, rifles, arrows, and clubs, ready to obliterate all aboard.