Neil Rennie. Penguin Classics, 1998.
A Note on the Texts
The text for this edition of The Cruise of the Snark is that of the first American edition published by Macmillan in 1911. The collateral Snark texts printed in the appendix are from Martin Johnson, Through the South Seas With Jack London (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1913) and Charmian Kittredge London, The Log of the Snark (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1915). The text of “That Dead Men Rise Up Never” is based on that in The Human Drift (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1917); the text of “The Joy of Small Boat Sailing” is based on that in Country Life in America (August 1, 1912).
THE CRUISE OF THE SNARK
BY
JACK LONDONAUTHOR OF “BURNING DAYLIGHT,” “MARTIN EDEN,” “THE CALL OF THE WILD,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATE
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1911
All rights reserved
TO
CHARMIAN
THE MATE OF THE SNARK
WHO TOOK THE WHEEL, NIGHT OR DAY, WHEN ENTERING
OR LEAVING PORT OR RUNNING A PASSAGE, WHO
TOOK THE WHEEL IN EVERY EMERGENCY, AND WHO WEPT
AFTER TWO YEARS OF SAILING, WHEN THE
VOYAGE WAS DISCONTINUED
“You have heard the beat of the offshore wind, And the thresh of the deep-sea rain; You have heard the song—how long! how long! Pull out on the trail again!”
[Rudyard Kipling, “The Long Trail”]
CHAPTER I
FOREWORD
It began in the swimming pool at Glen Ellen. Between swims it was our wont to come out and lie in the sand and let our skins breathe the warm air and soak in the sunshine. Roscoe was a yachtsman. I had followed the sea a bit. It was inevitable that we should talk about boats. We talked about small boats, and the seaworthiness of small boats. We instanced Captain Slocum and his three years’ voyage around the world in the Spray.
We asserted that we were not afraid to go around the world in a small boat, say forty feet long. We asserted furthermore that we would like to do it. We asserted finally that there was nothing in this world we’d like better than a chance to do it.
“Let us do it,” we said . . . in fun.
Then I asked Charmian privily if she’d really care to do it, and she said that it was too good to be true.
The next time we breathed our skins in the sand by the swimming pool I said to Roscoe, “Let us do it.”
I was in earnest, and so was he, for he said:
“When shall we start?”
I had a house to build on the ranch, also an orchard, a vineyard, and several hedges to plant, and a number of other things to do. We thought we would start in four or five years. Then the lure of the adventure began to grip us. Why not start at once? We’d never be younger, any of us. Let the orchard, vineyard, and hedges be growing up while we were away. When we came back, they would be ready for us, and we could live in the barn while we built the house.
So the trip was decided upon, and the building of the Snark began. We named her the Snark because we could not think of any other name—this information is given for the benefit of those who otherwise might think there is something occult in the name.
Our friends cannot understand why we make this voyage. They shudder, and moan, and raise their hands. No amount of explanation can make them comprehend that we are moving along the line of least resistance; that it is easier for us to go down to the sea in a small ship than to remain on dry land, just as it is easier for them to remain on dry land than to go down to the sea in the small ship. This state of mind comes of an undue prominence of the ego. They cannot get away from themselves. They cannot come out of themselves long enough to see that their line of least resistance is not necessarily everybody else’s line of least resistance. They make of their own bundle of desires, likes, and dislikes a yardstick wherewith to measure the desires, likes, and dislikes of all creatures. This is unfair. I tell them so. But they cannot get away from their own miserable egos long enough to hear me.
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