CHAPTER XI

LOST IN THE FIJI ISLANDS

From the Samoan Islands to the Fijis, the distance is nine hundred miles. After we had cleared the Samoan Islands, we ran along under power for several hours; then the sails were set, and by sun-down we were speeding along under an eight-knot wind, which grew stronger and stronger, until by midnight all hands were on deck taking in the headsails and reefing the mainsails. By morning we were in the grip of a summer gale, but luckily for us it was in the right direction, and with only a double-reefed staysail and a triple-reefed mizzen, we plunged along at about twelve knots an hour. Big waves, looking as large as a courthouse, would come roaring up to us, and the little _Snark_ would rise on the side and hover over the dizzy depths of watery valleys--then down we would go with that queer sensation that one experiences in riding on a swift elevator, feeling as if we were falling out from under ourselves; and sometimes two waves would come so close together that the second one would break against the side of the _Snark_ with such force as to throw everyone off his feet, and whoever was steering could only save himself by hugging the wheel. At such times as this, it was difficult to steer. For it is not just a matter of pointing a ship the way you want to go and then keeping the wheel geared that way, but it is a matter of watching a big wave and then easing up into it to keep from being broken into splinters; and the sails must be watched every second, for should the wind ever get behind them, they would swing across deck with such force as to drag the masts out of the ship, and everything on deck would be carried away. It looks easy enough to steer a ship, but it takes a person six months to get experience enough in it to be trusted alone at the wheel.

For three days we ran along in the teeth of the gale. Everything on deck that had not been made fast was carried away. The small boats had been taken in from the davits and lashed upside down on the deck. No fire could be made in the galley, so we lived mostly on hardtack. Everything above and below was saturated with salt water. In the afternoon of the third day, the squall broke as quickly as it had formed, leaving us rolling on a glassy-smooth sea. The wind dropped nearly calm and the mists cleared away, so that we could see the horizon. It is well known how clear the air gets after a storm. Well, we were so tired that we were for turning into our bunks, until Henry cried, "Reef ahead!" and on going into the rigging, I saw reef on all sides of us. Immediately, the sails were backed, and we hove-to. I started the engines; then, for the rest of the day, we went round and round the inside of the lagoon, trying to find the place we had gotten in at. It looked as if we were lost. Each effort puzzled us only the more. All night we kept up the attempt to find the passage, but it was not until morning that we found it, a gap in the reef about two hundred feet wide. And there were twenty-five miles of reef we might easily have struck on! How we ever got into the place is a mystery, and remains a mystery to this day.

There was not an island in sight. It was nearly sun-down when we did sight several small islands, and after threading in and out of countless reefs, we managed to get penned up in another lagoon, where we lay-to for the night. Next day was a repetition of the one before. So also was the next. For several days we dodged in and out of reefs and around small islands, charted as the Ringgold Islands. At times we were in despair. To find the concealed openings in the reef was like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. On the eighth day we sighted clear water ahead, and slipping out between two of the largest islands, Vanua Levu and Taviuni, we slid into the Koro Sea, which is the name of the two hundred miles of water that is made into a lagoon by hundreds of small islands circling around it. Only one small island is inside this sea, and Jack had decided to go up along the shores of this island and have a look at the villages. We were perhaps five miles off the land when a small cutter put out, and heading toward us, would have passed our bow, but the helmsman swerved around and passed close enough to speak. He was a woolly-headed Fiji-Islander. His shouting awoke a white man who was asleep below. On coming on deck, the white man rubbed his eyes and sleepily asked: "What ship is that?" We replied: "_Snark_, San Francisco." Then he yelled: "Is that Jack London's boat?" We told him it was. "Heave-to, I'm coming aboard," he cried; and as we were in no hurry to get anywhere, we hove-to, and he came about and also hove-to. Then, in a little dingy, he was rowed to the _Snark_, and he just fell all over himself with joy. "And to think that I should ever see Jack London, and on his own boat, too! Why, I have every one of your books aboard my ship, and all your magazine articles. But, pshaw! the boys won't believe I ever saw Jack London." And he nearly cried, he was so happy.

Frank Whitcomb had been trading nearly all his life in the Fiji Islands, and Jack London's books had been about all he had read. I believe that in his eyes Jack was the greatest man that ever lived.

He loaded us down with fresh fruits and onions and potatoes. In return, we gave him several bottles of wine. And the last thing that long, lanky Frank Whitcomb said as he was rowed away from the _Snark_ was: "And to think that I should live to shake hands with Jack London, and on his own boat, too!" Whitcomb was the only man who ever boarded the _Snark_ at sea.

As we sailed past the solitary island in the Koro Sea, several boats tried to put off to us, but we were in a hurry, and so did not wait for them to get over the reef, but sailed on until by night we were again among small islands and were forced to heave-to until morning.

From the time we had left Samoan waters, it was Jack who always located our true position on the chart. Jack told me that if he must do the navigating, he could and would do it and would not be bothered with anyone else. So everyone on board suspected that Captain Y---- was to be discharged at Suva, Fiji. The captain had gotten angry at Wada and had broken his nose, and had it not been for Mrs. London, I think he would have laid Nakata out, so no one was sorry that we were to be rid of him.

The next morning after our meeting with Frank Whitcomb, we set sail, after being hove-to all night, and passed all sorts of queer crafts, most of them of bamboo, and soon were threading in and out of countless little green islands, going so close sometimes that we could plainly make out villages. Now and then canoes would put off to us. At one place, we went close enough to shore to see people plainly; they ran down to the beach, shouting at us. We passed many strange raft-like crafts, made of split bamboo. On some of the crafts we could see whole families, who stared at us in wonder as we slid past. These vessels were in some cases loaded with fruits and sandalwood and copra. I saw several of the same crafts come into Suva Harbor again after a week's journey at sea. The natives have no fear, and will sometimes live for months on their queer floats without stepping ashore.

Henry was not slow in taking advantage of the smooth water, and supplied our table with different kinds of fish every day; in fact, we always fished in preference to everything else. While calmed or anchored, he caught many a shark without hook or line, by the old Kanaka method of spearing them while they lie asleep on the bottom in shallow water.

It was nearly ten days after we had been tangled up in the Fiji Islands when we sighted the large island of Viti Levu, and turned the _Snark's_ bow into another of the South Seas' famous ports. Suva, Fiji, looms up from the sea, quite like a modern city, and is really the most modern in this part of the world. Nearly half of its eight thousand persons are of white blood; and Suva is also chief station of the Pacific commercial cables. Several modern hotels and large headquarters for the trading concerns are to be found here.

Fiji is also the headquarters for the British commissioners of the whole of the South Sea possessions, and here is located the British penal settlement. Prisoners are sent here from all the English possessions in the South Seas.

We dropped anchor under supervision of Captain Wooley, the harbour inspector, and by nightfall Jack and Mrs. London were installed at Mrs. McDonald's hotel, the most famous hotel in Oceania.

Directly we had dropped anchor, Captain Y---- went ashore, and walking up and down the streets of Suva, he _would_ have everyone know that Captain Y---- of the _Snark_ was in town. His boasting led him from saloon to saloon; and soon he was so drunk that he could hardly walk. I left him telling of his sea-experiences to a bunch of bar-flies, and went to the hotel and had late dinner with the Londons. Captain Y---- did not come aboard that night. Next morning, when Jack arrived, he asked me to pack all of Y---- 's possessions and take them ashore; also, he instructed us not to allow the captain to come aboard again. I had taken Captain Y---- 's clothing ashore and was making the rounds of stores, buying clothes that I had had no chance to get since leaving Honolulu. In my absence, Captain Y---- had gone aboard the _Snark_, and was showing the yacht to the captain of a big six-masted schooner. He ordered Nakata to bring drinks on deck, but Nakata refused, telling him that Mr. London had said he was discharged. Poor Captain Y---- must have felt very cheap in company with his old captain-friend, but he left the _Snark_ without making a fuss, and a few days later sailed away on the six-master as an ordinary seaman--quite a come-down, from skipper of a smart yacht to the lowest position on a windjammer.

While Suva was very modern for a South Sea city, one had only to go a few miles into the interior of the island to find primitive life. I was lucky enough to get in with a party on an excursion trip across the bay and up several small streams, and spent several days among the mango swamps, seeing strange people. We had a party of Fiji prisoners to row our boat, and we went miles and miles through a dense forest of tropical trees. Every now and then, some native in his little canoe would stop to look at us in wonder.

Once a native reporter on the _Fiji Times_--his English name was George Dyer--took me over to his island to attend church. The natives all gathered in a little wooden building and squatted on a bare floor in front of the preacher, a big, bushy-haired man, who preached after the style of some of our old-fashioned exhorters. The parishioners wore nothing but loin-cloths and their wonderful mops of hair.

There was an intermission, which I misconstrued into dismissal of services and went outside to sit on a big hollow log that came handy. Pretty soon the pastor came out and tapped me on the shoulder. I could not make out what he wanted, so asked George. "He wants you," replied the boy, "to get off the log so that he can ring the bell." It developed that the preacher hammered on the log to call the congregation together, and I was unwittingly muffling the call of the Gospel.

Arriving back in Suva, I was kept busy getting the _Snark_ in shape for another long voyage, doing the work that Captain Y---- had done as well as my own.