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This volume collects three sea-going travel narratives by Richard Henry Dana, Jr., that span twenty-five years of maritime history, from the age of sail to the age of steam. Suffering from persistent weakness in his eyes, Dana left Harvard at age nineteen and sailed from Boston in 1834 as a common seaman. Two Years Before the Mast (1840) is the classic account of his voyages around Cape Horn and time ashore in California in the decade before the Gold Rush. Written with an unprecedented realism that challenged the romanticism of previous maritime literature, Dana's narrative vividly portrays the daily routines and hardships of life at sea, the capriciousness and brutality of merchant ship captains and officers, and the beauty and danger of the southern oceans in winter. Included in an appendix is "Twenty-Four Years After" (1869), in which Dana describes his return to California in 1859-1860 and the immense changes brought about by American annexation, the frenzy of the Gold Rush, and the growing commerce of "a new world, the awakened Pacific." Dana first visited Cuba in the winter of 1859 while the possible annexation of the island was being debated in the U.S. Senate. To Cuba and Back (1859) is his entertaining and enthusiastic account of his trip, during which he toured Havana and a sugar plantation; attended a bullfight; visited churches, hospitals, schools, and prisons; and investigated the impact on Cuban society of slavery and autocratic Spanish rule. Journal of a Voyage Round the World, 1859-1860 records the fourteen-month circumnavigation that took Dana to California, Hawaii, China, Japan, Malaya, Ceylon, India, Egypt, and Europe. Written with unflagging energy and curiosity, the journal provides fascinating vignettes of frontier life in California, missionary influence in Hawaii, the impact of the Taiping Rebellion and the Second Opium War on China, and the opening of Japan to the West, while capturing the transition from the age of sail to the faster, smaller world created by the steamship and the telegraph. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.… (more)
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The author was a student in Boston who
The life of a sailor was hard labor day and night. The moments of adventure and drama were interspersed between long periods of the boring, confined life of a sailor aboard ship. Many of his diary entries read "The same." The author's ship, The Pilgrim, was engaged in the hide trade. A long trip around Cape Horn brought them to California. Once there they traveled up and down the coast from San Diego to San Francisco swapping trade goods for cattle hides. The reader is given a trip to a foreign country as he reads about the author's travels. In Mexican California status was based on the color of your skin. At the bottom were the Indians who provided the labor for the white skinned descendants of the Spanish conquerors. The Castilian dialect was cultivated as another sign of status. The coastline and the desert were the landscape of the author's travels. The author rode everywhere he went in California. They had very many horses and they would ride them at a gallop and when they were tired stop and pick up fresh horses. The rush of the wind atop a running horse with the smell of the sea in the air was one of many invigorating images contained in the book.
The author quickly learned the Spanish language and had many stories to tell of the people of California. As a sailor he mingled with the laboring class and became particularly attached to the kanakas. These were people from the Sandwich Islands/Hawaii. The kanakans were susceptible to illnesses common in the white population. The author helped to save the life of a kanakan friend by making sure he got medicines from the ship that another kanakan would not have been given.
Between the boring times were some vivid memories. The power of a Captain of the ship was made clear to the author in a brutal scene. One of the common sailors shot off his mouth to the Captain just at the wrong time. The Captain shouts his orders and the sailor is seized up. His shirt is ripped off and he is tied with his arms out face down on the bulkhead. The Captain takes a piece of thick rope and whips the sailor screaming at him that he will be his slave. Finally the sailor screams for the Captain to stop. The author thinks to himself that this is the way it is on ship. If you oppose the Captain, first it is mutiny then it is piracy and you swing for either one. The author later became involved in the anti-slavery movement.
Another moment was one of great beauty. When they went back around the horn it was winter in Antarctica and they got into the ice. In the pack was an iceberg of enormous size. It towered over them and the shape and color were a miracle of nature. The center of the iceberg was a deep indigo and as it got to the edges it was blue and then white. It moved slowly and great cracking sounds broke the quiet that hung in the air. A once in a lifetime experience for everyone there.
I could go on. I enjoyed the book very much. The author kept a diary of his trip and used that to write the book. There are dates scattered throughout the book. The writing was understated and moved with a good pace. The language has some interesting differences that reminded me of the difference in time. I recommend it as an interesting journey to another time and place.