The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1899-11-16
Cast Away on the Pacific.
Mark Twain Retells the Story of an Amaz-
ing Adventure.

Mdrk Twain Retells the story VI III AHiaZ-
ing Adventure.
The title of Mark Twain's story in the
November Century, "My Debut as Lit
erary Person." gives no idea of the terri
BILE tragedy of which it tells. In May,
1866, merchantmen was destroyed by
tire at sea, and the crew and two passen-
gers put Off in three boats, with rations
for ten days. Two of the boats were lost,
but the captains, with fifteen frightfully
emaciated men aboard, reached the Ha-
waiian Islands forty-three days later,
after voyage of four thousand miles or
so. One of the two passengers still sur
wives, and has long been a professor in
Trinity College, Hartford. Mark Twain
got the story from the survivors, whom
he accompanied from Honolulu to San
Francisco.
1t is an amazing adventure. There is
nothing of it's sort in history that sur
passes it in impossi bilities made possible.
In one extraordinary detail-the survival
of every person in the boat-it probably
stands alone in the history of adventures
Of its kind. Usually merely part of
boats company survive-otficers mainly,
and other educated and tenderly reared
men, unused to hardship and heavy labor;
the unframed, roughly reared hard work
ers succumb. But in this case even the
rudest and toughest stood the privations
and miseries of the voyage almost as well
as did the college bred young brothers
and the captain. | mean, physically.
The minds of most Of the sailors broke
down in the fourth week and went to tenn
porary ruin, but physically the endurance
exhibited was astonishing. Those men
did not survive by any merit of their own,
of course, but by the merit of the charac-
ter and intelligence Of the captain; they
lived by the mastery of his spirit. With
out him they would have been children
without a nurse. They would have ex-
hausted their provisions in a week, and
their pluck would not have lasted even as
long as the provisions.
The boat came near to being wrecked
at the last. As it approached the shore
the sail was let go. and came down with
a run; then the captain saw that he was
drifting swiftly toward an ugly reef, and
an effort was made to hoist the sail again !;
but it could not be done, the men S
strength was wholly exhausted; they
could not even pull an oar. They were
helpless, and death imminent. 1t was
then that they were discovered by the
kanakas who achieved the rescue. They
swan out and manned the boat and pilot
ed her through narrow and hardly no.
ticeable break in the reef-the only break
in il in a stretch of thirty-fve miles! The
spot where the landing was made was the
only one in that stretch where footing
could have been found on the shore ;
everywhere else precipices came sheer
down into forty fathoms of water. Also,
in all that stretch this was the only spot
where anybody lived. ....
Within ten days after the landing all
the men but one were up and creeping
about. Properly, they ought to have
killed themselves with the food of the
last few days-some of them, at any rate
men who had freighted their stomachs
with strips of leather from old boots and
with chips from the butter cask a freight
age which they did not get rid OF by diges
ton, but by other means. The captain
and the two passengers did not eat strips
and chips, as the sailors did, but scraped
the boot leather and the wood, and made
pulp of the scrapings by moistening
them with water. The third mate told
me that the boots were old and full of
holes; then added thoughtfully, "but the
holes digested the BEST Speaking of
digestion, here is remarkable thing,
and worth noting: during this strange
voyage, and for while afterward on
SuOle, the DoWelS OF some OF the men
virtually ceased from their functions; in
some cases there was no action for twenty
and thirty days, and in one case tor forty
four! Sleeping also came to be rare. Yet
the men did very well without it. During
many days the captain did not sleep at all
twenty one, | think on the stretch.
When the landing was made, all the
men were successfully protected from
overeating except the "Portyghee;" he
escaped the watch and ate au incredible
number of bananas; a hundred and fifty
two, the third mate said, but this was
undoubtedly an exaggeration; l think it
was a hundred and fifty one. He was
already nearly full of leather; it was
hanging out of his ears. Il do not state
this on the third mates authority, for we
have seen what sort Of person he was;
l state it on my OWN The ''Porty-
ghee'' ought to have died, of course, and
even now it seems a pity that he didn't;
but lie got well, and as early as any of
them; and all full of leather, too the way
he was and butter timber and handker-
chiefs and bananas. Some of the men
did eat handkerchiefs in these last days,
also socks; and he was one of them.