Friday, March 5, 1909.
Wednesday evening, at five o'clock, I started the engines just outside the heads, and we steamed up the p365 harbour faster than the harbour regulations allow, for we wanted to catch the doctor before six o'clock and be allowed to land; and we were lucky enough to catch him as he was leaving a steamer just in from China. He passed us all. Then we proceeded up the harbour and anchored in Rose Bay. The customs officers soon came aboard; then a boat-load of reporters. I did not care for reporters, for I was hungry; so Tehei, the captain, and I pulled ashore. The captain took a tram for Sydney, while I hunted up a grocery store, and loaded myself down with provisions—all I could carry. Tehei was supposed to stand by the boat, but I found him, wild-eyed, watching the trains.
Thursday morning we got a tug to take us up the harbour, for my gasolene tanks were so near empty that I was afraid of the engine's stopping before we got up, all of which would have caused us no end of trouble. We anchored at Johnson's Bay, only fifteen minutes from Sydney by ferry. Jack and Mrs. London and Nakata came out in the afternoon and were glad to see everything all right—except Peggy. Mrs. London felt very bad over her dying. I went to Sydney with them, to the Australian Hotel. I took Tehei, who had the time of his life on the ferries and trams and elevators. Nakata took him out for supper, and I ate with Mr. and Mrs. London. I was a strange spectacle, with two months' growth of hair, nearly over my ears. But Jack made me come with p366 them; and if he could stand it, I knew I could. Everyone else was in evening dress, for the Australian is the aristocratic hotel of Australia! And the way I did eat! and Jack piled more and more in front of me. He said he knew how good fresh food tasted after a long sea-trip. Then we took Tehei to the Tivoli Theatre (vaudeville), where he amused the audience by his open appreciation of each turn. But the moving pictures were his greatest delight. On the way home, we got an immense watermelon; and after we got to the Snark, he woke Wada and Henry, and the last thing I heard was Tehei telling them about it—and the first thing in the morning.
Now people are coming aboard to look at the Snark, and she will soon be sold. I shall remain until another engineer takes hold; then I shall go to Europe and home.
· · · · · · · · ·
From the time of our arrival in Sydney with the Snark, things moved swiftly to their conclusion. When a couple of weeks had gone by, and a new engineer had been secured to take charge of the boat, the day came for me to say good-bye to the genial people with whom I had journeyed for so long. It was hard, but it had to be done. One consolation, however, I had. Some day we should see each other again. The Londons and I were residents of the same country; and the Tahitians would probably be found as long as they lived somewhere in the confines of p367 Polynesia. And of course, Wada and Nakata I should meet at some future date in Honolulu.
Poor Jack and Mrs. London! They were quite broken-hearted at giving up the cruise. They could speak of nothing else. At the last, after having said good-bye to the Snark and to those aboard, I went up to take dinner with the Londons at the Australian Hotel.
We said little in parting. There was nothing to say. Our grief at the break-up of the little Snark family was too deep for words. For two years, through savage seas, we had fared together; comforts and discomforts, good luck and bad luck, all had been borne together. And now it was at an end. The cruise of the Snark was a thing of the past.
The time came for me to go. We shook hands, promising that we should meet again in America. Then I turned and walked very slowly from the room. p368
POSTSCRIPT
So ended the cruise of the Snark. Henry, the Polynesian sailor, left Sydney on March 30, 1909, for Pago-Pago, Samoa. A week before, Tehei, the Society Islander, had gone with a sailor's bag full of gaudy calico, bound for Bora Bora. Wada San, the Japanese cook, sailed on April 11th for Honolulu.
Martin Johnson left Sydney on March 31st, on the steamer Asturias, after an unsuccessful attempt to join the South African expedition of Theodore Roosevelt. His letter did not reach Mr. Roosevelt until after all preparations for the trip had been made, when it was of course too late to consider his application.
The Asturias stopped for several days in Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth, as well as in Hobart, Tasmania. Then it proceeded up through the Indian Ocean to Ceylon; thence through the Arabian Sea to Aden; and from there up the Red Sea and through the Suez Canal to Port Said. At Port Said, Mr. Johnson made another effort to get in communication with the Roosevelt party, but found that they had left three days before. Passing through the Mediterranean to Naples, Mr. Johnson left the Asturias, and spent some days viewing Rome, Pompeii, and other interesting historical spots. His next objective was Paris, where he arrived in June. Here he secured a position as an p369 electrician at Luna Park, but not long after, feeling a desire to see his home again, he crossed the channel to England. At Liverpool, early in September, he stowed away on a cattle-boat, and after a trying thirteen days arrived in Boston, the only member of the Snark crew to make the complete circuit of the world.
Mr. and Mrs. Jack London took Nakata, the Japanese cabin-boy, and sailed on a tramp steamer for Ecuador, South America. They arrived at their Glen Ellen, California, ranch in June. Mr. London found his native climate most healthful, and though all three were frequently brought down by attacks of fever during the ensuing six months, his mysterious ailment soon disappeared, and his hands regained their normal appearance. Ralph D. Harrison.
Most of the illustrations were located on un-numbered pages, and were listed as "facing page xxx", and followed by a blank page. The blank pages were eliminated. Illustrations that split paragraphs were moved to nearby spots between paragraphs. In the html version only, most of the images link to larger versions by clicking on the word "larger" just above the image. The original printed page numbers are shown like this: "p131".
The cover image included with some versions of this book was made by the transcriber, partly by combining images from http://archive.org/details/throughsouthseas00johnrich, and has been placed in the public domain.
The words "graphophone" and "graphaphone" occur each several times.
Page viii: changed "Santa Cruz Croup" to "[Santa Cruz Group]".
Page xi: "photograhic" changed to "[photographic]".
Page [13]: "have never see" to "have never seen".
Page [28]: "un-understand" to "understand".
Page [68]: "Long. 139°—22′ 15″." to "Long. 139°—22′—15″."
Page [73]: The figure originally facing page 73 "Leper Band at Molokai . . . " is in the List of Illustrations said to be facing page 132, and that does indeed fit the context better. Therefore the illustration has been moved to page 132.
Page [146]: In "Another remarkable think about"; "think" to "thing".
Page [214]: In "paddled past as and bombarded"; "as" to "us".
Page [331]: "Pendufffryn" to "Penduffryn".