MTU Library Catalogue

Syndetics cover image
Image from Syndetics

Sailing alone around the world / by Joshua Slocum with original illustrations by Thomas Fogarty and George Varian.

By: Slocum, Joshua, 1844-1909.
Material type: materialTypeLabelBookPublisher: Cologne : Konnemann, 1997Description: 231 p. : ill., maps ; 17cm.ISBN: 3895084557.Subject(s): Slocum, Joshua, -- Journeys. 1844-1909 | Spray (Ship) | Voyages around the world | Single-handed sailing | TravelDDC classification: 910.41 SLO
Fiction notes: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Status Barcode
General lending MTU Kerry North Campus Library First Floor Main 910.41 SLO (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available 38888000899157
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The most detailed and celebrated autobiographical account of a solo circumnavigation of the globe in the age of sail. Slocum, a naturalized American, designed, built, provisioned, and skippered his small sloop, the Spray, around the world in 1895-1898. The book chronicles every facet of the voyage from technical specifics of the ship and supplies to lively accounts of the people and places Slocum visited along his 46,000-mile journey. Sailing Alone was, in its own time, a very popular book, and it remains so today, having been reprinted many times throughout the 20th century. However, this is the first high-quality facsimile reproduction to date, faithfully reproducing the original text, art, and striking cover of the rare first edition.

Originally published: London: Sampson, Low, 1900.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

  • Chapter I A blue-nose ancestry with Yankee proclivities
  • Youthful fondness for the sea
  • Master of the ship Nothern Light
  • Loss of the Aquidneck
  • Return home from Brazil in the canoe Liberdade
  • "The gift of a "Ship"
  • The rebuilding of the Spray
  • Conundrums in regard to finance and calking
  • The launching of the Spray
  • Chapter II Failure as a fisherman
  • A voyage around the world projected
  • from Boston to Gloucester
  • Fitting out for the Ocean voyage
  • Half of a dory for a ship's boat
  • The run from Gloucester to Nova Scotia
  • A shaking up in home waters
  • Amoung old friends
  • Chapter III Good-by to the American coast
  • Off Sable Island in a fog
  • In the open sea
  • The man in the moon takes an interest in the voyage
  • The first fit of loneliness
  • The Spray encounters La Vaguisa
  • A bottle of wine from the Spaniard
  • A bout of words with the captain of the Java
  • The steamship Olympia spoken
  • Arrival at the Azores
  • Chapter IV Squally weather in the Azores
  • High living
  • Delirious from cheese and plums
  • The pilot of the Pinta
  • At Gibraltar
  • Compliments exchanged with the British navy
  • A picnic on the Morocco shore
  • Chapter V Sailing from Gibraltar with the assistance of her Majesty's tug
  • The Spray's course changed from the Suez Canal to Cape Horn
  • Chased by a Moorish pirate
  • A Comparison with Columbus
  • The Canary Islands
  • The Cape Verde Islands
  • Sea life
  • Arrival at Pernambuco
  • A bill against the Brazilian Government
  • Preparing for the stormy weather of the cape
  • Chapter VI Departure from Rio de Janeiro
  • The Spray ashore on the sands of Uruguay
  • A narrow escape from shipwreck
  • The boy who found a sloop
  • The Spray floated but somewhat damaged
  • Courtesies from the British consul at Maldonado
  • A warm greeting at Montevideo
  • An excursion to Buenos Aires
  • Shortening the Mast and bowsprit
  • Chapter VII Weighing anchor at Buenos Aires
  • An outburst of emotion at the mouth of the Plate
  • Submerged by a great wave
  • A stormy entrance to the strait
  • Captain Samblich's happy gift of a bag of carpet-tacks
  • Off Cape Froward
  • Chased by Indians from Fortescue Bay
  • "A miss-shot for "Black Pedro"
  • Taking in supplies of wood and water at Three Island Cove
  • Animal life
  • Chapter VIII from Cape Pillar to the Pacific
  • Driven by a tempest toward Cape Horn
  • Captain Slocum's greatest sea adventure
  • Reaching the strait again by way of Cockburn Channel
  • Some savages find the carpet-tacks
  • Danger from firebrands
  • A series of fierce williwaws
  • Again sailing westward
  • Chapter IX Repairing the Spray's sails
  • Savages and an obstreperous anchor
  • A spider flight
  • An encounter with Black Pedro
  • A visit to the steamship Colombia
  • On the defensive against a fleet of canoes
  • A record of voyages through the strait
  • A chance cargo of tallow
  • Chapter X
  • Running to Port Angosto in a snow-storm
  • A defective sheet-rope places the Spray in peril
  • The Spray as a target for a Fuegian arrow
  • The island of Alan Erric
  • Again in the open Pacific
  • The run to the island of Juan Fernandez
  • An absentee king
  • At Robinson Crusoe's achorage
  • Chapter XI The islanders of Juan Fernandez entertained with Yankee doughnuts
  • The beauties of Robinson Crusoe's realm
  • The mountain monument to Alexander Selkirk
  • Robinson Crusoe's cave
  • A stroll with the children of the island
  • Westward ho! with a friendly gale
  • A month's free sailing with the Southern Cross and the sun for guides
  • Sighting the Marquesas
  • Experience in reckoning
  • Chapter XII Seventy-two days without a port
  • Whales and birds
  • A peep into the Spray's galley
  • Flying-fish for breakfast
  • A welcome at Apia
  • A visit from Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson
  • At Vailma
  • Samoan hospitality
  • Arrested for fast riding
  • An amusing merry-go-round
  • Teachers and pupils of Papauta College
  • At the mercy of sea-nymphs
  • Chapter XIII Samoan royalty
  • King Malietoa
  • Good-by to friends at Vailima
  • Leaving Fiji to the south
  • "Arrival at Newcastle, Australia"
  • The yachts of Sydney
  • A ducking on the Spray
  • Commodore Foy presents the sloop with a new suit of sails
  • On to Melbourne
  • A shark that proved to be valuable
  • A change of course
  • "The "Rain of Blood"
  • In Tasmania
  • Chapter XIV A testimonial from a lady
  • Cruising round Tasmania
  • The skipper delivers his first lecture on the voyage
  • Abundant provisions
  • An inspection of the Spray for safety at Devonport
  • Again at sydney
  • Northward bound for Torres Strait
  • An amateur shipwreck
  • Friends on the Australian coast
  • Perils of a coral sea
  • Chapter XV "Arrival at Port Denison, Queensland"
  • A lecture
  • Reminiscences of Captain Cook
  • Lecturing for charity at Cooktown
  • A happy escape from a coral reef
  • "Home Island, Sunday Island, Bird Island"
  • An American pearl-fisherman
  • Jubilee at Thursday Island
  • A new ensign for the Spray
  • Booby Island
  • Across the Indian Ocean
  • Christmas Island
  • Chapter XVI A call for careful navigation
  • Three hours' steering in twenty-three days
  • Arrival at the Kelling Cocos Islands
  • A curious chapter of social history
  • A welcome from the children of the islands
  • Cleaning and painting the Spray on the beach
  • A Mohammedan blessing for a pot of jam
  • Keeling as a paradise
  • A risky adventure in a small boat
  • Away to Rodiguez
  • Taken for Antichrist
  • The govener calms the fears of the people
  • A lecture
  • A convent in the hills
  • Chapter XVII A clean bill of health at Mauritus
  • Sailing the voyage over again in the opera-house
  • A newly discovered plant named in honor of the Spray's skipper
  • A party of young ladies out for a sail
  • A bivouac on deck
  • A warm reception at Durban
  • A friendly cross-examination by Henry M. Stanley
  • Three wise Boers seek proof of the flatness of the earth
  • Leaving South Africa
  • Chapter XVIII "Rounding the "Cape of Storms" in olden time"
  • A rough Christmas
  • The Spray ties up for three months' rest at Cape Town
  • A railway trip to the Transvaal
  • President Kruger's odd definition of the Spray's voyage
  • His terse sayings
  • Distinguished guests on the Spray
  • Cocoanut fiber as a padlock
  • Courtesies from the admiral of the Queen's navy
  • Off for St. Helena
  • Land in sight
  • Chapter XIX In the isle of Napoleon's exile
  • Two lectures
  • A guest in the ghost-room at Plantation House
  • An excursion to historic Longwood
  • "Coffee in the husk, and a goat to shell it"
  • The Spray's ill luck with animals
  • A prejudice against small dogs
  • "A rat, the Boston spider, and the cannibal cricket"
  • Ascension Island
  • Chapter XX "In the favoring current off Cape St. Roque,Brazil"
  • All at sea regarding the Spanish-American war
  • The light on Trinidad
  • A charming introduction to Grenada
  • Talks to friendly auditors
  • Chapter XXI Clearing for home
  • In the calm belt
  • A sea covered with sargasso
  • The jibstay parts in a gale
  • Welcomed by a tornado off Fire Island
  • A change of plan
  • Arrival at Newport
  • End of a cruise of over forty-six thousand miles
  • The Spray again at Fairhaven
  • Appendix
  • "Lines And Sail-Plan Of The "Spray"
  • Her pedigree so far as known
  • The lines of the Spray
  • Her self-steering qualities
  • Sail-plan and steering-gear
  • An unprecedented feat
  • A final word of cheer to would-be navigators

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

List of Illustrations Introduction by Thomas Philbrick Suggestions for Further Reading A Note on the Text and Illustrations Sailing Alone around the World CHAPTER I A blue-nose ancestry with Yankee proclivities -- Youthful fondness for the sea -- Master of the ship Northern Light -- Loss of the Aquidneck -- Return home from Brazil in the canoe Liberdade -- The gift of a "ship" -- The rebuilding of the Spray -- Conundrums in regard to finance and calking -- The launching of the Spray CHAPTER II Failure as a fisherman -- A voyage around the world projected -- From Boston to Gloucester -- Fitting out for the ocean voyage -- Half of a dory for a ship's boat -- The run from Gloucester to Nova Scotia -- A shaking up in home waters -- Among old friends CHAPTER III Good-by to the American coast -- Off Sable Island in a fog -- In the open sea -- The man in the moon takes an interest in the voyage -- The first fit of loneliness -- The Spray encounters La Vaguisa -- A bottle of wine from the Spaniard -- About of words with the captain of the Java -- The steamship Olympia spoken -- Arrival at the Azores CHAPTER IV Squally weather in the Azores -- High living -- Delirious from cheese and plums -- The pilot of the Pinta -- At Gibraltar -- Compliments exchanged with the British navy -- A picnic on the Morocco shore CHAPTER V Sailing from Gibraltar with the assistance of her Majesty's tug -- The Spray's course changed from the Suez Canal to Cape Horn -- Chased by a Moorish pirate -- A comparison with Columbus -- The Canary Islands -- The Cape Verde Islands -- Sea life -- Arrival at Pernambuco -- A bill against the Brazilian government -- Preparing for the stormy weather of the cape CHAPTER VI Departure from Rio de Janeiro -- The Spray ashore on the sands of Uruguay -- A narrow escape from shipwreck -- The boy who found a sloop -- The Spray floated but somewhat damaged -- Courtesies from the British consul at Maldonado -- A warm greeting at Montevideo -- An excursion to Buenos Aires -- Shortening the mast and bowsprit CHAPTER VII Weighing anchor at Buenos Aires -- An outburst of emotion at the mouth of the Plate -- Submerged by a great wave -- A stormy entrance to the strait -- Captain Samblich's happy gift of a bag of carpet-tacks -- Off Cape Froward -- Chased by Indians from Fortescue Bay -- A miss-shot for "Black Pedro," -- Taking in supplies of wood and water at Three Island Cove -- Animal life CHAPTER VIII From Cape Pillar into the Pacific -- Driven by a tempest toward Cape Horn -- Captain Slocum's greatest sea adventure -- Reaching the strait again by way of Cockburn Channel -- Some savages find the carpet-tacks -- Danger from firebrands -- A series of fierce williwaws -- Again sailing westward CHAPTER IX Repairing the Spray's sails -- Savages and an obstreperous anchor -- A spider-fight -- An encounter with Black Pedro -- A visit to the steamship Colombia -- On the defensive against a fleet of canoes -- A record of voyages through the strait -- A chance cargo of tallow CHAPTER X Running to Port Angosto in a snow-storm -- A defective sheet-rope places the Spray in peril -- The Spray as a target for a Fuegian arrow -- The island of Alan Erric -- Again in the open Pacific -- The run to the island of Juan Fernandez -- An absentee king -- At Robinson Crusoe's anchorage. CHAPTER XI The islanders of Juan Fernandez entertained with Yankee doughnuts -- The beauties of Robinson Crusoe's realm -- The mountain monument to Alexander Selkirk -- Robinson Crusoe's cave -- A stroll with the children of the island -- Westward ho! with a friendly gale -- A month's free sailing with the Southern Cross and the sun for guides -- Sighting the Marquesas -- Experience in reckoning CHAPTER XII Seventy-two days without a port -- Whales and birds -- A peep into the Spray's galley -- Flying-fish for breakfast -- A welcome at Apia -- A visit from Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson -- At Vailima -- Samoan hospitality -- Arrested for fast riding -- An amusing merry-go-round -- Teachers and pupils of Papauta College -- At the mercy of sea-nymphs CHAPTER XIII Samoan royalty -- King Malietoa -- Good-by to friends at Vailima -- Leaving Fiji to the south -- Arrival at Newcastle, Australia -- The yachts of Sydney -- A ducking on the Spray -- Commodore Foy presents the sloop with a new suit of sails -- On to Melbourne -- A shark that proved to be valuable -- A change of course -- The "Rain of Blood" -- In Tasmania CHAPTER XIV A testimonial from a lady -- Cruising round Tasmania -- The skipper delivers his first lecture on the voyage -- Abundant provisions -- An inspection of the Spray for safety at Devonport -- Again at Sydney -- Northward bound for Torres Strait -- An amateur shipwreck -- Friends on the Australian coast -- Perils of a coral sea CHAPTER XV Arrival at Port Denison, Queensland -- A lecture -- Reminiscences of Captain Cook -- Lecturing for charity at Cook-town -- A happy escape from a coral reef -- Home Island, Sunday Island, Bird Island -- An American pearl-fisherman -- Jubilee at Thursday Island -- A new ensign for the Spray -- Booby Island -- Across the Indian Ocean -- Christmas Island CHAPTER XVI A call for careful navigation -- Three hours' steering in twenty-three days -- Arrival at the Keeling Cocos Islands -- A curious chapter of social history -- A welcome from the children of the islands -- Cleaning and painting the Spray on the beach -- A Mohammedan blessing for a pot of jam -- Keeling as a paradise -- A risky adventure in a small boat -- Away to Rodriguez -- Taken for Antichrist -- The governor calms the fears of the people -- A lecture -- A convent in the hills CHAPTER XVII A clean bill of health at Mauritius -- Sailing the voyage over again in the opera-house -- A newly discovered plant named in honor of the Spray's skipper -- A party of young ladies out for a sail -- A bivouac on deck -- A warm reception at Durban -- A friendly cross-examination by Henry M. Stanley -- Three wise Boers seek proof of the flatness of the earth -- Leaving South Africa CHAPTER XVIII Rounding the "Cape of Storms" in olden time -- A rough Christmas -- The Spray ties up for a three months' rest at Cape Town -- A railway trip to the Transvaal -- President Kruger's odd definition of the Spray's voyage -- His terse sayings -- Distinguished guests on the Spray -- Cocoanut fiber as a padlock -- Courtesies from the admiral of the Queen's navy -- Off for St. Helena -- Land in sight CHAPTER XIX In the isle of Napoleon's exile -- Two lectures -- A guest in the ghost-room at Plantation House -- An excursion to historic Longwood -- Coffee in the husk, and a goat to shell it -- The Spray's ill luck with animals -- A prejudice against small dogs -- A rat, the Boston spider, and the cannibal cricket -- Ascension Island CHAPTER XX In the favoring current off Cape St. Roque, Brazil -- All at sea regarding the Spanish-American war -- An exchange of signals with the battle-ship Oregon -- Off Dreyfus's prison on Devil's Island -- Reappearance to the Spray of the north star -- The light on Trinidad -- A charming introduction to Grenada -- Talks to friendly auditors CHAPTER XXI Clearing for home -- In the calm belt -- A sea covered with sargasso -- The jibstay parts in a gale -- Welcomed by a tornado off Fire Island -- A change of plan -- Arrival at Newport -- End of a cruise of over forty-six thousand miles -- The Spray again at Fairhaven APPENDIX LINES AND SAIL-PLAN OF THE "SPRAY" Her pedigree so far as known -- The lines of the Spray -- Her self-steering qualities -- Sail-plan and steering-gear -- An unprecedented feat -- A final word of cheer to would-be navigators Notes PENGUIN      CLASSICS SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD Joshua Slocum was born in Nova Scotia in 1844. After three years of schooling, he was put to work in the family bootmaking shop. At fourteen he escaped from his father's tyrannical rule, first to the local fishing fleet, and then to the British merchant marine as an ordinary seaman. In the mid-1860s he was promoted to mate and became a United States citizen. In 1871, by then a shipmaster, he married Virginia Walker, a brave and resourceful Australian woman who was to accompany him on voyages throughout the world, bearing his four children and relishing the hardships and adventure of life at sea. After Virginia died in 1884, Slocum's career began a sharp descent. His last command was wrecked on the coast of Brazil in 1887. Financially ruined, he and his young cousin Hettie Elliott, whom he had married a few months before, together with two of his sons, returned to the United States in a boat that they fashioned from materials salvaged from the wreck. Unable to find an officer's berth, Slocum accepted a friend's offer of the rotting hull of a hundred-year-old oyster sloop, the Spray. After rebuilding the boat and testing her in New England waters, in 1895 he set out upon a single-handed circumnavigation of the globe, the first such voyage ever attempted. Surviving loneliness, storm, and piratical attacks, he returned home in 1898 and wrote his extraordinary narrative, Sailing Alone around the World. Although his voyage and his book made Slocum something of a celebrity, he soon went back to his old ways, making repeated trading trips alone in the Spray along the American coast and to the Caribbean. In 1909 the sea-worn sloop and her aging master headed south from Martha's Vineyard, never to be seen again. Thomas Philbrick is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Pittsburgh and a lifelong small boat sailor. He is the author of James Fenimore Cooper and the Development of American Sea Fiction and a study of St. John de Crèvecoeur. He has edited five of Cooper's novels and travel books for the Cooper Edition, as well as Dana's Two Years Before the Mast for Penguin Classics. Sailing Alone Around The World CAPTAIN JOSHUA SLOCUM Illustrated by THOMAS FOGARTY AND GEORGE VARIAN Edited with an Introduction and Notes by THOMAS PHILBRICK PENGUIN BOOKS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The "Northern Light" Captain Joshua Slocum, Bound for Liverpool, 1885 Cross-section of the "Spray" "It'll Crawl" "No Dorg nor no Cat" The Deacon's Dream Captain Slocum's Chronometer "Good Evening, Sir" He also Sent his Card Chart of the "Spray's" Course around the World--April 24, 1895, to July 3, 1898 The Island of Pico Chart of the "Spray's" Atlantic Voyages from Boston to Gibraltar, thence to the Strait of Magellan, in 1895, and finally Homeward Bound from the Cape of Good Hope in 1898 The Apparition at the Wheel Coming to Anchor at Gibraltar The "Spray" at Anchor off Gibraltar Chased by Pirates I Suddenly Remembered that I could not Swim A Double Surprise At the Sign of the Comet A Great Wave off the Patagonian Coast Entrance to the Strait of Magellan The Course of the "Spray" through the Strait of Magellan The Man who wouldn't Ship without another "Mon and a Doog" A Fuegian Girl Looking West from Fortescue Bay, where the "Spray" was Chased by Indians A Brush with Fuegians A Bit of Friendly Assistance Cape Pillar They Howled like a Pack of Hounds A Glimpse of Sandy Point (Punta Arenas) in the Strait of Magellan "Yammerschooner!" A Contrast in Lighting--the Electric Lights of the "Columbia" and the Canoe Fires of the Fortescue Indians Records of Passages through the Strait at the Head of Borgia Bay Salving Wreckage The First Shot Uncovered Three Fuegians The "Spray" Approaching Juan Fernandez, Robinson Crusoe's Island The House of the King Robinson Crusoe's Cave The Man who Called a Cabra a Goat Meeting with the Whale First Exchange of Courtesies in Samoa Vailima, the Home of Robert Louis Stevenson The "Spray's" Course from Australia to South Africa The Accident at Sydney Captain Slocum Working the "Spray" out of the Yarrow River, a Part of Melbourne Harbor The Shark on the Deck of the "Spray" On Board at St. Kilda. Retracing on the Chart the Course of the "Spray" from Boston The "Spray" in her Port Duster at Devonport, Tasmania, February 22, 1897 "Is it A-goin' to Blow?" The "Spray" Leaving Sydney, Australia, in the New Suit of Sails Given by Commodore Foy of Australia The "Spray" Ashore for "Boot-topping" at the Keeling Islands Captain Slocum Drifting out to Sea The "Spray" at Mauritius Captain Joshua Slocum Cartoon Printed in the Cape Town "Owl" of March 5, 1898, in Connection with an Item about Captain Slocum's Trip to Pretoria Captain Slocum, Sir Alfred Milner (with the Tall Hat), and Colonel Saunderson, M. P., on the Bow of the "Spray" at Cape Town Reading Day and Night The "Spray" Passed by the "Oregon" The "Spray" in the Storm off New York Again Tied to the Old Stake at Fairhaven Plan of the After Cabin of the "Spray" Deck-plan of the "Spray" Sail-plan of the "Spray" Steering-gear of the "Spray" Body-plan of the "Spray" Lines of the "Spray" INTRODUCTION "The greatest sailor since our world began"; that is the praise that Herman Melville, quoting Tennyson, accorded Lord Nelson in Billy Budd. Had he lived a decade longer, Melville might have had second thoughts, for by then Joshua Slocum had accomplished a voyage unmatched in maritime history for skill, courage, and determination. In April 1895 he set out alone from Boston in a thirty-six-foot sloop to travel around the world, sailed across the Atlantic to Gibraltar, changed his mind about the direction of his circumnavigation and recrossed the Atlantic to Brazil, fought his way through the Strait of Magellan, sailed west across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and, crossing the Atlantic for a third time, reached Newport, Rhode Island, in June 1898. And, to crown the achievement, Slocum wrote an account of his exploit that might well be called, if not the greatest, the most engaging of all voyage narratives. Both the voyage and the book were the work of a failed and impoverished shipmaster in late middle age. Deprived of his occupation by the disastrous outcome of his last voyage and the approaching extinction of the sailing ship as a vehicle of commerce, Slocum accepted a friend's offer of an antique sloop named the Spray , beached and derelict like himself, as the only means left to him of salvaging his life. As he slowly rebuilt the Spray , timber by timber and plank by plank, he envisioned earning a modest and conventional living by her in the coastal fishery. Once launched, however, the sloop came to be the repository of a preposterous idea. To be sure, Slocum tried fishing in the Spray , but less as a serious enterprise than as a trial run, a means of ascertaining her capabilities and limitations. Remarkably, the sloop showed that she could steer herself--if the wind were aft or abeam, she could hold a steady course with the helm lashed and unattended. The discovery of that extraordinary trait was, beyond any doubt, the germ of Slocum's scheme of sailing alone around the world, for without the self-steering ability of the Spray, no solitary sailor would have the endurance to make the passages of thousands of miles of open ocean that the voyage entailed. Thus, like the aged Quixote and his Rocinante, Slocum and his Spray set forth on a mad attempt to participate in a world that was past, for him not the golden age of chivalry but the golden age of sail. He would join the company of the great circumnavigators--Magellan, Drake, and Cook--and outdo them all by circling the globe without crew or consorts. And he would do it not in the pursuit of any economic, political, or scientific purpose; he would do it, so he said, for "the love of adventure." Or, perhaps, he also said, he would do it because he had "nothing else to do." I No life could have offered better preparation for the demands of a single-handed voyage around the world than Slocum's. The descendant of a Tory refugee from revolutionary Massachusetts, he was born on 20 February 1844 in Annapolis County, Nova Scotia, the eldest son among the ten children who survived childhood. When the boy was eight, his father gave up the attempt to scratch a living from the hill farm that he had inherited and moved the family to his wife's native village of Westport on Brier Island. With the Bay of Fundy on one side and Saint Mary's Bay on the other, Brier Island afforded the young Joshua a thoroughly maritime environment, a remote region of fog and forty-foot tides. But to him the sea at first beckoned in vain. His father, a muscular deacon of the Methodist church, took the boy out of school at the age of ten and put him to work in the boot-making shop that now supported the family. Sick to death of ten-hour days spent pegging the soles of cowhide fisherman's boots and of his father's joyless rule, Slocum escaped to a schooner, fishing in the local waters, when he was fourteen. Lasting liberation only came in 1860, after his gentle mother died and little remained to hold him to his home. In that year, at the age of sixteen, he and a young friend shipped before the mast in a clumsy lumber carrier bound for Dublin. After working a passage to England, Slocum joined the British ship Tanjore as an ordinary seaman on a voyage to China and the East Indies. There, ill and weakened by overwork and brutal treatment, he was left at the fever hospital in Batavia, notorious as a graveyard of seamen. By good luck, the captain of a steamship rescued him, brought him back to health, and employed him on trading trips around the Far East. Before long, Slocum was again in England and embarked on another voyage to the Dutch East Indies. Throughout these first two years at sea, Slocum, unlike most of his shipmates, had stayed sober, saved his money, and applied himself to the study of navigation. His reward came on this voyage when, at the age of eighteen, he was promoted to second mate. Filled out to 180 pounds and hardened by experience, he worked his way up to chief mate on British vessels in the coal and grain trade between the British Isles and San Francisco, narrowly surviving a fall from the upper topsail yard in the mid-Atlantic. In 1865, he decided to make San Francisco his home port and applied for United States citizenship. After a few years of boat building, salmon fishing, and sea-otter hunting on the Northwest coast, in 1869 he was given command of a schooner plying between San Francisco and Seattle. In 1870, he was made master of the bark Washington , bound for Sydney, Australia, with a general cargo, and then for Cook Inlet, Alaska, to fish for salmon. All in all, it was a highly respectable start to a career in the late days of merchant sail, when the regular routes and the valuable freights were being monopolized by steamships. In Sydney and now marriageable, Slocum met the love of his life, the twenty-year-old Virginia Walker, the American-born daughter of an immigrant stationer. Immediately after their wedding in January 1871, Virginia moved aboard the Washington and left her home forever. Golden-eyed and boasting a Leni-Lenape ancestor, she was a dead shot with either rifle or pistol. For the remainder of her life she followed Slocum in his wanderings from ship to ship, bearing and educating his children, enduring storm and mutiny. Although the Washington was wrecked on the Alaskan coast, Slocum was given command of two other vessels, in which he and his growing family traveled on trading voyages throughout the Pacific and China Sea. After a stint of ship-building under primitive and dangerous conditions on the shores of Subic Bay in the Philippines, he had enough capital to become an owner, first of the little schooner Pato and then of the fifty-six-year-old ship Amethyst , picking up whatever business he could find in the ports of the Far East. By then there were three children, the two boys, Victor and Benjamin Aymar, and their young sister, Jessie. In 1881, soon after Virginia had given birth to a third son (named Garfield after the incoming president), Slocum sold the Amethyst in Hong Kong and purchased partial ownership and command of the splendid ship Northern Light , only ten years old and five times the size of his largest previous vessel. The three years during which Slocum was master of the Northern Light on long voyages throughout the world marked the high point of his professional career. But the position was not without its trials. In Liverpool, after a quarrel with a delinquent rigger, he was summoned before a magistrate, who dismissed the case even though the rigger showed up bandaged and attended by a doctor and a nurse. His hard-case crew mutinied on Long Island Sound, one of them fatally stabbing the first mate before the captain and his wife could subdue them at gunpoint. After the murderer was put ashore in irons, Slocum persuaded the rest of the crew to return to duty, but the Northern Light was anything but a happy ship. Having fended off a knife attack by a young Russian crewman at Yokohama, Slocum ran into still more trouble off the Cape of Good Hope, where a tremendous storm ruined much of his cargo and nearly wrecked his ship. While the Northern Light was under repair at Port Elizabeth, he took on a new third mate who turned out to be an ex-convict and who, siding with the disaffected element of the crew, was reported to have threatened the lives of the captain and his family. Slocum put him in irons and close confinement for the remainder of the voyage to New York, but once there, he was found guilty of false and cruel imprisonment on the testimony of the ex-mate and fined $500. Although the underwriters paid the fine, this last sour note confirmed Slocum's decision to sell his shares in the Northern Light and try his hand at some other venture. Still clinging to sail in the age of steamships, Slocum purchased a beautiful little bark called the Aquidneck , in March 1884. After repairing and fitting her out, he loaded her with flour, installed his family, and sailed for Brazil. From there he set out for Buenos Aires, seeking a cargo for Sydney, so that Virginia might see her family again. But it was too late for that. During the passage from Pernambuco, Virginia fell ill, and when the Aquidneck reached the River Plate, she died, worn out at the age of thirty-four by the rough-and-tumble of thirteen years at sea and the bearing of four children who lived and three who did not. Shattered by a loss from which, his sons later said, he never recovered, Slocum made his way to Boston, where he deposited the three younger children with his sisters, and once more went to sea. A year later, while visiting his children, he met a first cousin newly arrived from Nova Scotia, twenty-four-year-old Hettie Elliott. Though nearly twice her age, Slocum, lonely and looking for someone to mother his youngest child, courted his cousin and married her in early 1886, nineteen months after Virginia's death. Six days after the wedding, Hettie, with five-year-old Garfield in tow, boarded the Aquidneck in New York on a voyage to Montevideo with a cargo of kerosene. It was very much a family affair, for Victor, Slocum's eldest son, served as first mate. But if ever there was a wedding journey from hell, this was it. Immediately upon leaving New York harbor, the Aquidneck ran into a gale that opened up her seams and required the crew to pump for their lives, not reaching Montevideo until 5 May 1886 after a passage of more than two months. But worse was to come. After discharging his cargo, Slocum decided to take up coastal trading in South America. With a cargo of baled hay he had loaded in Argentina, he sailed for Rio de Janeiro only to find that the Brazilian authorities had closed their ports to vessels coming from Argentina. Threatened with the destruction of the Aquidneck by Captain Custodio de Mello, commander of an armored cruiser, Slocum was forced to return to Argentina and await the reopening of the Brazilian ports. By the time that occurred, some three months later, Slocum had lost his crew and was forced to recruit a new one from the local brothels and prisons. One night, after the hay had at last been delivered to Rio and while the bark was at anchor in a Brazilian harbor, the sleepless Hettie heard a noise on deck and awoke her husband. On reaching the deck, carbine in hand, Slocum was attacked with knives by four of the sailors. With the lives of his wife and children at stake, Slocum fired, killing one of the attackers and wounding another. Although he succeeded in restoring order on board the Aquidneck , he was arrested and tried for murder. A Brazilian court acquitted him on his plea of self-defense, but during the delay caused by his detention, his crew had gone ashore, where, it soon turned out, they contracted smallpox. The Aquidneck , now a plague ship, was forced to return to port. By the time the dead and dying were removed and the vessel disinfected and readied for sea, Slocum had run up costs of $1,000. Undaunted by these trials, Slocum undertook a trade in Brazilian hardwood, but again disaster struck. In late December 1887, the fully loaded and uninsured Aquidneck stranded on a sandbar in Paranaguá Bay and, battered by a strong swell, was reduced to a wreck in three days' time. Slocum sold what was left of his bark, paid off the crew, and saw them on their way home in a ship bound for Montevideo. He and his family would return to their own home by different means. With his characteristic resourcefulness and his no less characteristic appetite for adventure, Slocum determined to build a vessel that would carry him, Hettie, Victor, and Garfield to the United States. The basis of the new craft would be the framework of a boat that had been in the process of construction on the deck of the Aquidneck as a tender. With planking supplied by local sawyers and fastenings and hardware manufactured from melted copper and brass, Slocum and Victor pieced together a double-ended boat thirty-five feet long and seven and a half feet wide. They fitted her with three masts, each of which carried a single sail modeled on those carried by Chinese junks; Hettie, who had been trained as a seamstress, made the sails. The boat, or "canoe" as Slocum called her, was christened the Liberdade , having been launched on the day that Brazil emancipated her slaves. In this unlikely craft, the Slocums made the 5,500-mile passage north along the coast of Brazil, across the Equator, and through the Caribbean to the coast of the United States, reaching Washington, D.C., on 27 December 1888. Financially ruined though he was, Slocum enjoyed his first taste of celebrity, both in Washington (where he was photographed by Mathew Brady) and in New York. The New York World reported that Hettie "spoke with some reluctance" of her experience and said that she would go on to her relatives in Boston by rail; "I have had enough sailing to last me for a long time," she said. For her husband, however, sailing was his livelihood and his life. Although Victor quickly was hired as a mate and headed back to Brazil, and despite a diligent and surely humiliating canvassing of his old friends and associates, Slocum could not find a berth. In desperation he took to his pen, writing an account of the voyage of the Liberdade , which he published at his own expense in 1890. The little book, Voyage of the Liberdade , sold very poorly, but it attracted the attention of Joseph Benson Gilder, who reviewed it favorably in his magazine, The Critic. Although Gilder's notice did nothing to further Slocum's immediate fortunes, it provided him with an invaluable future contact. In the meantime, Slocum, living with his sister Naomi in East Boston, picked up odd jobs along the waterfront as a rigger and carpenter. Then, in late 1891 or early 1892, something interesting turned up. The retired whaling master Ebenezer Pierce, recognizing Slocum's desperation, gave him the rotting hull of the Spray to rebuild and use as he wished. Pierce kindly invited Slocum to stay with him at his house in Fairhaven while the work went on. In March 1892, the sloop and her new master began an association that was to end only with their common loss fourteen and a half years later. II Excerpted from Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.