Gutenberg submission by: David P. Steelman (dsteelma@eastern.edu).
Two Years Before the Mast
Richard H. Dana, Jr.
In 1869, my father, the late Richard Henry Dana, Jr., prepared anew edition of his ``Two Years Before the Mast'' with thispreface:
``After twenty-eight years, the copyright of this book hasreverted to me. In presenting the first `author's edition' to thepublic, I have been encouraged to add an account of a visit to theold scenes, made twenty-four years after, together with notices ofthe subsequent story and fate of the vessels, and of some of thepersons with whom the reader is made acquainted.''
The popularity of this book has been so great and continued thatit is now proposed to make an illustrated edition with newmaterial. I have prepared a concluding chapter to continue myfather's ``Twenty-four Years After.'' This will give all that wehave since learned of the fate of crew and vessels, and a briefaccount of Mr. Dana himself and his important lifework, whichappears more fully in his published biography[1] and printedspeeches and letters.[2] This concluding chapter will take the placeof the biographic sketch prefixed to the last authorized edition.There is also added an appendix with a list of the crews of thetwo vessels in which Mr. Dana sailed, extracts from a log, andalso plates of spars, rigging and sails, with names, to aid thereader.
In the winter of 1879-80 I sailed round Cape Horn in a full-riggedship from New York to California. At the latter place I visitedthe scenes of ``Two Years Before the Mast.'' At the old town ofSan Diego I met Jack Stewart, my father's old shipmate, and as wewere looking at the dreary landscape and the forlorn adobe housesand talking of California of the thirties, he burst out into anencomium of the accuracy and fidelity to details of my father'sbook. He said, ``I have read it again and again. It all comes backto me, everything just as it happened. The seamanship isperfect.'' And then as if to emphasize it all, with the exceptionthat proves the rule, he detailed one slight case where he thoughtmy father was at fault,—-a detail so slight that I now forgetwhat it is. In reading the Log kept by the discharged mate,Amerzeen, on the return trip in the Alert, I find that everyincident there recorded, from running aground at the start at SanDiego Harbor, through the perilous icebergs round the Horn, theSt. Elmo's fire, the scurvy of the crew and the small matters likethe painting of the vessel, to the final sail up Boston Harbor,confirms my father's record. His former shipmate, the late B. G.Stimson, a distinguished citizen of Detroit, said the account ofthe flogging was far from an exaggeration, and Captain Faucon ofthe Alert also during his lifetime frequently confirmed all thatcame under his observation. Such truth in the author demands truthin illustration, and I have cooperated with the publishers insecuring a painting of the Alert under full sail and otherillustrations, both colored and in pen and ink, faithful to thetext in every detail.
Accuracy, however, is not the secret of the success of this book.Its flowing style, the use of short Anglo-Saxon words,[3] itspicturesqueness, the power of description, the philosophicarrangement all contribute to it, but chiefly, I believe, theenthusiasm of the young Dana, his sympathy for his fellows andinterest in new scenes and strange peoples, and with it all, thereal poetry that runs through the whole. As to its poetry, I willquote from Mrs. Bancroft's ``Letters from England,'' giving theopinion of the poet Samuel Rogers:
``London, June 20, 1847.
``The 19th, Sat. we b