Since the destruction of San Francisco, Chinatown had moved to Oakland. On several occasions we went to its theatres, and to the Chinese social gatherings. Early in January the Chinese celebrate their New Year. It was my good luck to see such a celebration. On every side of me, Chinks of every age, men, women and children, shot off fire-crackers, and flung up packs of multi-coloured papers, perforated quite thickly with various-shaped holes. It is their belief that the devil has to come through all these holes before he can get to sinners; and to stave off the enemy and render his progress tortuous, they make the holes small and numerous. Again, I visited secret opium dens, and saw pasty-coloured Chinks lie for hours under the influence of the drug. Much of the deviltry of Chinatown, however, had come to an end with the destruction of San Francisco, as many of the yellow rascals saw in that wholesale catastrophe the workings of an outraged deity.
As for Frisco itself, it looked hopeless. Hundreds of tons of the wreckage had been cleared away, but hundreds of tons still remained. Some few buildings had already been erected. Most of them were stores, little wooden affairs, knocked together until better could be built. The fire and quake had ruined the pavements, and the streets were nothing but great pools of water and mud. A man was actually drowned in one of these pools while walking down Market street. There were constant deaths by accidents; p022 walls, frail and fissured, had a trick of collapsing and letting down their bushels of brick and stone on the heads of such as were in the streets; the street-car service was badly muddled, and several persons were killed while riding the precarious conveyances. As I have said, wages were sky-high; yet workmen still complained and struck for more. At the time I was there, the bricklayers, who were getting ten dollars a day, struck for twelve dollars and a half. Each of the ten men working on the Snark received five dollars a day, and only worked until half-past four in the afternoon.
Having been practically raised in a jewellry store, I was pretty efficient at engraving, and I employed my talent in adding to the decorations of the Snark. Just over the companionway was a big piece of finest brass. On it I drew the word "SNARK" in Old English charactery, and the carpenters filled it in with brass-headed nails. Mrs. London was so pleased that she later had me engrave the capstan-head. After that, Captain Eames and I oversaw the painters while they spread a preliminary coat of white paint over the Snark's hull and picked out the name "SNARK" in gold.
On rainy days, I stayed at the London home, reading books and magazines. The manuscript of "The Iron Heel," Jack's Socialistic novel, had not yet been sent to the publishers, and I spent some exciting hours poring over it. Jack had evidently let his imagination p023 have full rein in this story, for he had gone far beyond the destruction of a mere navy, as in "Goliah," and had put an end to the entire city of Chicago, and allotted to her inhabitants the most gory deaths imaginable. But the story was one of the most impressive I have ever read; and like Jack's Socialistic speech before the students of a great Eastern university, it later created a sensation.
And still we planned to go, and yet did not go. We set sailing-dates and cancelled them. The time was not yet. Puzzled by the delay, editors and publishers with whom Jack had contracts began to write him for explanations, but Jack could only shake his head and wonder how he was to explain to them when he couldn't even explain to himself. When questioned, Captain Eames would do his best to cheer Jack up by solemnly engaging to have the Snark ready for sailing within two weeks from the date of promising, but always the time had to be extended.
The Snark was a trim little yacht, forty-five feet on the water-line, fifty-five over all, with a width of fourteen feet eight inches. Her draft was seven feet eight inches. She was of ketch-rig, which means that she was a two-master, with the largest sail on the forward mast—just the reverse of a schooner-rig. Jack had seen boats of a similar design extensively used in the Northern Seas and also on the Dogger Bank in England; as he explained, the ketch-rig was a compromise between the yawl and the schooner, which, p024 while retaining the cruising virtues of the one, embraced some of the sailing virtues of the other.
Never was there another such boat! Despite the delays and the other troubles, not one of the Snarkites had lost his enthusiasm. Even with all their vexations and the ruinous expense, Mrs. London and Jack were always smiling and happy. Often the crew would go over the Bay and gather on the Snark's deck to discuss possible improvements and to anticipate some of the delights of the voyage that lay ahead of us.
And still the Snark was in the building. Her lines were marvels of strength and beauty. As an indication of the way she was built, I need only enumerate a few particulars as to specifications of material. Her iron keel weighed five tons. Her greatest beam was fifteen feet, with tumble-home sides. Her planking was specially ordered Oregon Pine, without butts; men were actually sent to search the Oregon pines to select natural elbows—in other words, timbers grown by nature in the exact form required to fit the angles of the boat, and thus give the maximum strength of each fibre of the wood. The planking was two and one-half inches thick under the water-line, two inches thick above the water-line. The ribs were of specially ordered Indiana Oak, and were set ten inches apart. Angle irons, the full length of the boat, connected the ribs with the keel; these were of the best galvanised iron, each made according to pattern. The Snark's p025 copper was the finest man-o'-war copper; its cost was over five hundred dollars, to say nothing of the cost of having it put on. For that matter, the boat was copper-fastened throughout; not a nail or screw that was not copper. The only iron used in the Snark was the best galvanised iron; all other metal was brass and bronze. She was crown-decked and flush-decked, and had six feet of head-room below. Three water-tight bulkheads divided her length into four water-tight compartments.
"If we stove in one compartment," Jack explained to me, "we can still bear up with the other three compartments. I just think we'll fool some of the birds of ill omen, after all. The Snark is dependable. She's built to sail all seas, face all storms, and to go around the world."