Blue Water Vagabond

By Dennis Puleston

In 1931, Dennis Puleston quit his banking job in London and set to sea in a 31 foot sailboat. Blue Water Vagabond is his gripping account of the next six years, spent sailing around the world. He was wrecked off Cape Hatteras, hunted for treasure on the silver shoals, was tattooed with sharks teeth in Samoa, contracted malaria, and was taken captive by cannibals in the New Hebrides. Arriving finally in China, he found himself grounded in Peking by the Sino-Japanese war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 1, 1939
• ISBN: 9781682229798

Book preview

1993

CHAPTER I

The Desire To Go

AT THE MOUTH of the Thames River in England, facing out on to the cold green waters of the North Sea, a little fishing town named Leigh has stood for many hundreds of years. As far back as 1565 a customs report describes it as a very proper town, well furnished with good mariners, where commonly tall ships do ride…

Although it has always been a seagoing place, it has not always been so very proper. Once a gang of pirates nested there, and within the memory of the blue-jerseyed old fishermen who sit along the water front and spin their yarns it was a notorious repository for the fine silks and tobacco smuggled in from across the sea. But now it is a fishing port of good repute, and its fleet of sturdy, black-hulled bawleys come in with their holds filled with shrimps, whitebait and sprats that are famous throughout the land.

Leigh has grown mightily during the past twenty years. It has sprawled out into the surrounding countryside, in row upon row of neat villas, to accommodate a great host of newcomers. The majority of these invaders form an army of respectable, bowler-hatted citizens who each day catch their morning trains, unfold their newspapers and travel in stuffy comfort to the yet staler air of London, barely thirty miles away.

A great number of these city-minded folk have never noticed the old Leigh that still clings tenaciously to the water’s edge in a line of wharves and boat sheds. Their nostrils have not caught the fresh, tangy smell of the tide-forsaken saltings, or the rich and indescribable scent, a combination of fish, tar, boiled shrimps and oilskins, that emanates from the hold of a bawley. They do not know, or even bother to wonder, why the fleets of great, tan-sailed barges that ply the Estuary waters sometimes work back and forth across the flats and sometimes stand out boldly across the channels. The run of the tides, upon which depends the commerce of millions, is beyond their reckoning. They cannot pick out, from the constant stream of sea traffic passing up and down the river, which one is a Scandinavian freighter, loaded with softwoods from one of the Baltic ports; which a P.& O. liner, home from the East; and which a fruiter, bound out for the Indies, to fill her holds once more with green bananas.

But these matters, and many more, are an open book to a boy who has spent his life along the Leigh water front, and who has, ever since he can remember, consorted with the wise old fishermen and barge skippers. But it was actually my father who started me off on the sea, in a small but stout sailing dinghy. When it was calm, or we were exploring the maze of creeks that wind through the sea-lavender marshes, my brother and I were allowed to sit side by side on the ‘midships thwart and tug with all our puny might at the oars. I will never forget the day that I was first considered big enough to handle both oars myself. I stood up, then dug the blades deep and, putting all my weight on the handles, sagged slowly and gaspingly back onto my seat. At the end of five minutes this laborious system of rowing had exhausted me, but I was proud as any ship’s officer with his first command.

Then came the day when I wore my first pair of sea boots, and later, the memorable occasion when I was first asked to crew in one of the yacht club races. Then there was the day when I first ventured five miles across the Estuary to the other side, and set foot, a young Pizarro, on the Kentish shore.

Conrad says that journeying in search of romance is much like trying to catch the horizon. We who seek it are constantly deluding ourselves that we will find it if we sail but a little farther. But it is never so, for as we pursue it, still it recedes from us; and we continue on, sustained by the thought that we will catch it, but never quite succeeding.

So it was with me. As a little boy I felt that I could ask nothing more of life than to be able to row with both oars. But when my desire was attained, I found I was not to be satisfied until I could sail. And when I had mastered the mysteries of sheet and centerboard, I yearned only for the time when I had sailed all the way across the river. But was I content when that day came? Of course not. The foreign ports across the sea, Calais and Dunkirk, Ostend and Flushing, awaited me; other older fellows, whom I regarded with the deepest awe and envy, had been there, and so, someday, must I.

And thus, still chasing horizons, I grew up. I left school and obtained a position in the foreign office of a London bank. Each weekday I had to board the dusty train and, ensconced between the rustling newspapers, make my reluctant way to the City. But it was quite a good job, and I should have been content. I had my week ends and two weeks every summer in which to cruise. I earned enough money to become part owner of a small cabin cutter, in which, one glorious vacation day, my shipmate and I sailed out until, for the first time in my life, the coast of England sank below the horizon astern of us. Next morning another shore could be seen faintly through the haze ahead, and I had made my first foreign landfall.

Had it not been for the books I read on those daily train journeys, my appetite might have been satiated after a few such venturesome cruises to the Continent. But the writings of Slocum and Voss, Mulhauser and Gerbault set me longing again, this time for something far more unattainable. These men, I learned, had not been content with a few passages across a hundred-odd miles of Channel water. Such a voyage to them was but one of many days’ runs. They had sailed out in their small ships, across thousands of miles of ocean, their view bounded for months at a time by nothing but a ring of heaving blue, their only companions the flying fish and tropic birds. They had sighted beneath the curve of their weathered sails the far-off loom of lands that lie forever in the warm breath of the trade winds; they had sailed into coral-bound harbors, where dark-skinned island folk came out in their canoes to greet them.

I cannot say just when the desire to emulate these men was born. But the seed was planted, and it grew. I, too, would sail across the Atlantic, and down to the South Seas. Then on to the myriad islands of the East, and perhaps, eventually, around the world.

Foolish. Of course! To give up a steady job in order to gratify a few vague daydreams. To leave a life of comfort for one of constant danger, discomfort and insolvency. Surely that is the height of foolishness. I reasoned with myself. How, in the first place, could I ever find the money to do it? But I was young, argued that other restless self, and a lad of twenty-one can always find a way to realize his desire.

And the desire grew and grew, until it rang in my ears like a trumpet call.

We sat side by side on the top of the grassy sea wall and studied the ships as they passed downstream with the ebb tide. Upriver, through the far-distant haze of smoky air that was London, the sun was setting in a crimson blaze of June splendor.

I turned my attention from a seagoing barge, whose sails hung limp in the still air, to watch a large black freighter, heading out past her with a purposeful curl of foam at her bow. I knew well by the marks on her smokestack where she was bound: down Channel, across the Bay and into the trade wind seas. In a few days the flying fish would be shooting out from under that bow like frightened quail. Each day the sun would be climbing higher above her decks, the sea growing bluer about her salt-dusted sides, and at last the green mountains of the West Indian Islands would rise over the horizon to greet her. She would steam on and drop that anchor in strange, sun-soaked ports; she would creep up rivers where the alligators basked, and the barelegged Negroes would load her holds with sugar and mahogany logs.

Gosh, I said with a sigh, I’d like to be going where she is bound.

My companion turned to me in surprise.

Well I’ll be darned, said he quietly. I had just made up my mind to get out of this, and was going to ask you if you felt the way I do.

His name was Geoff Owen. He was six feet tall, blond, blue-eyed, and handsome as a Viking. We had known each other for many years. I had often cruised with Geoff, and knew him as a grand shipmate. He was a quiet, slow-spoken, easygoing fellow, with the strength of a bull and the temperament of an angel. As I, he had spent most of his time around the shipyards and yacht clubs of Leigh; as I, he spent more of his day thinking about sea anchors and square sails, chafing gear and reefing tackles than he did about his business. So we should not have been so surprised to find that our desires were so similar.

And that same evening, while the afterglow yet hung in the western sky, our minds were made up. We told each other of our dreams, and the cruise was born. From now on we would work only toward that end—that day when we could set out in our own small ship, to the islands in the West. We would save every possible penny from our earnings until we felt we had enough. Then together would we leave, and together face the uncertainties of the future.

When I broke the news to my parents, they were at first dismayed. They tried, naturally enough, to dissuade me, to convince me of the folly of such a venture. But when they realized that my heart was really set, and that if I did not go I would be forever restless, haunted by the ghosts of the life I might have led, they bravely encouraged me to go. It was hard for me to think of leaving them; but it was harder yet for them to see their son off on so dubious a voyage. There was no telling, in their minds, what danger and sickness lay ahead of me; there was no telling when I would come back, or even if I ever would come back. Yet when the time came for me to sail, they saw me off with cheerful smiles.

Best of luck, said they, and come back soon! Then they turned away, so that I would not see the anxiety in their eyes.

It was not until a year after Geoff and I had come to our decision, that we were ready to go. The ship was equipped and provisioned, and we had saved besides approximately two hundred dollars between us. It was not a great sum, we were ready to admit, but it would see us as far as the West Indies. After that we would have to find some other means of financing the voyage. Perhaps we would have to charter the ship and find jobs ashore, or perhaps (but we never dared mention that thought aloud) she would have to be sold. In the meantime there were other matters, of far more pressing importance, that demanded our attention. We had yet to get the ship to sea, navigate her down Channel and start her on the four-thousand-mile trail across the Atlantic.

She was the best little ship ever launched, of that we were sure. Built as far back as 1905, Uldra (which is the name of a fairy folk of the Baltic) was of a design which naval architects have not improved upon since. Moreover, she was constructed of lumber well-nigh impossible to obtain in these days: teak of the finest, without a flaw; New Zealand kauri pine for her topside planking; and for her frames, seasoned white oak, hard as iron and growing harder every year. She had an over-all length of 31 feet, a beam of 9 feet and a draft of 5 feet 10 inches—a small enough thing, not much longer than the average dining room, but Geoff and I had already learned that seaworthiness does not depend on size. We had seen Uldra out in the worst of weather; we had driven her through the short, steep chops of a North Sea gale and had once run all the way up the English Channel before an equinoctial sou’wester, with the wind, as we afterwards learned from meteorological observations from on shore, reaching up to blasts of sixty-three miles an hour.

She was a pretty little creature, too, in her sturdy way, with a graceful sheer in her deck line and a subtle curve in her stem. Formerly cutter rigged, we had changed her to a yawl, with a small mizzen right on her stern, to cut down the size of the mainsail, for a main-boom which overhangs the stern is difficult and often dangerous to handle at sea. To protect her from the ravages of the tropical wood borers, her bottom below the waterline had been sheathed with copper. She had new wire standing rigging, new tanned sails and new halyards. She had a water-tank capacity of 120 gallons, two primus stoves set in gimbals for cooking, and a food supply sufficient for several months. Uldra had no engine.

Our last week, filled with a hundred details, passed in a haze, and suddenly we found ourselves on the eve of the day appointed for our departure. Everything was ready, and our farewells had been said.

This is awful, I complained to Geoff. I wish we were on our way. I’ve a feeling in the pit of my stomach like I used to have in school when I had to stand out in front of everybody and recite poetry.

So have I, he returned emphatically, only mine is somewhere down in my knees.

There was a pitiful anticlimax, to give the final stab to our sufferings. A crowd had collected on the water front to see us off-there was even a press photographer or two. But an easterly gale had set in, and we could not hope to get out of the narrow confines of Leigh creek until it was over. So we had to falter that there would be no departure that day, after all. Most of our friends were very nice about it, but a few of the skeptics grinned and winked knowingly to each other. So these were the two young fools, their glances said as plain as words, who thought they were going to sail across the ocean? Well, they seem to have thought better of it as soon as a bit of a storm comes along.

The next two days we slunk shamefacedly about the streets, trying to avoid the eyes of those to whom we had already said our good-byes, shuddering each time we saw a group in conversation, for fear that we were their topic. Then on the third day came a blessed westerly breeze, and out we went. This time there were only a few of those who were closest to us to see us off. A small launch took our towline until we reached open water; then we hoisted sail, and as we headed down Sea Reach, some well-wisher on the Essex Yacht Club fired the signal gun.

We were off.

We sailed in easy stages down Channel to Falmouth, and finally left England at the beginning of September. It had been blowing a gale from the southwest for three days, when the wind swung round to the northwest. It was dirty weather, but a fair wind for us, across the Bay of Biscay. So out we went, under mizzen, double-reefed storm trysail and storm jib. Later, in Spain, we received a letter from a friend who saw us go.

You certainly had a wild send-off, he wrote. That night it blew great guns on shore, and we all worried about you. A five-thousand-ton steamer went ashore down by Lizard Head, and to say I was glad when I heard you had arrived safely in Spain is putting it mildly.

We made our farewell to England in the middle of a rain squall.

Better take a last look, said Geoff as he hunched his shoulders to a volley of spray. Lord knows when you’ll see it again.

I caught a glimpse behind the mizzen of some gray, stern cliffs, then the squall struck and they were blotted out. We turned our faces to the southward and saw them no more. As we drew away from the land, the seas reared higher and higher. Occasionally the top of a crest slopped over into the cockpit; soon we could hear the swish-swish of water in the bilge. After an hour it was beginning to show over the floor boards in the cabin-high time to pump her out. So Geoff went to the semirotary pump, just inside the main hatch, and energetically worked the handle. He pumped for a few moments, then stopped.

Seems to be choked up, he grunted.

So he raised one of the floor boards, lay full length on the floor and groped about in the bilges for the suction end of the pump. At last he found it and cleared it of some shreds of paper that had stopped up the holes.

How the devil did they get there? he grumbled.

A few more strokes of the pump, and it was clogged again. Geoff, muttering a few mild oaths when anyone else would have been raving, had to go through the ordeal again. A third time he started to pump, and a third time it stuck. On this occasion my long-suffering shipmate’s remarks were quite forcible. He was just calling down perdition on the head of the careless so-and-so who had dropped a newspaper in the bilges when he looked a little closer at the scraps of sodden paper he had just picked off the end of the hose. They were brightly colored, unlike any newspaper. It was when he read the fateful word beans on one of them that we saw the truth.

It was the labels off the canned food. When provisioning the ship we had been at a loss for a while for a good place to stow the imposing number of cans. Then, with what I had thought at the time was a flash of brilliance, I suggested putting them under the two berths in the main cabin. There would be plenty of room for them, and it seemed a dry enough place at all times. But I had never counted on the violent rolling we were undergoing now. That, and the unusual amount of water in the bilges, was our undoing. Every label had been washed off and was now disintegrating into a pulpy mess. It would be many weeks before the bilges would be clear of the last of them. And that was not all, for from now on we could not tell if we were opening a can of pineapple or soup, salmon or peaches.

It was hopeless to try the pump any more, so, since we must get the water out somehow, we had to resort to a bucket. And that was how we celebrated our departure from England for the glorious tropics: one of us straddled across the gap in the floor, scooped out a bucket full of bilge water (and labels) and, if it did not spill in the wild lurching of the ship, handed it up to the helmsman, who would seize his opportunity when he could spare a second of his attention from the tiller to tip it overside. This kept up at intervals for many hours.

The only bright spot in the stormy sky was the encouraging thought that at last we were heading south. Each time we slid down one of those hissing graybacks we were drawing a little nearer to the trade winds; every one of those sickening rolls was a roll toward the palm trees and the tropic birds and the warm sunshine.

Next day the storm was over, and I came on deck to find that Geoff had set full sail to a gentle breeze. We began to congratulate ourselves on having done with gales for a while, when, two days later, another one set in. Again we were soaking wet, again we had to straddle a full bilge and empty it out with the bucket, until our backs ached and our arms grew tired. But we were still on our course, bound for better weather, and we did not complain.

Five days of gales alternating with mild breezes, and one night we sighted the blink of the lighthouse on Cabo Vilano.

Next morning a land breeze brought us the scent of heather, and there, abeam of us, stood the mountains of Spain, misty purple ramparts to the land of romance and laughter and tragedy.

In the late afternoon we crept into the little harbor of Corcubion, tucked in behind the mountains of Finisterre. Tiny boats with sails like sharks’ fins were coming out for the night’s fishing, and cheery hands waved to us as they passed. It is a lovely place; perhaps I have since seen lovelier, but the fact that it was our first port of call on that venture-some voyage will always keep it fresh in my memory. The great hills, clad in heather and pines, tower above; at their feet, half hidden in a grove of olive-green foliage, cluster the little gray and yellow houses.

We anchored and, eager to get ashore, launched our small dinghy. We waited impatiently for the harbormaster to come out, look at our ship’s papers and give us permission to land. An old fisherman with one eye came alongside and in broken English tried to sell us some fresh-caught sardines. We asked him if he thought we could go ashore. He nodded emphatically. And where could we find the harbormaster? The old man hesitated; his scanty vocabulary of English words had petered out. He gestured with his hands, then tapped his head significantly. Geoff and I exchanged incredulous glances. Did he mean the harbormaster was weak in the head, a halfwit? We had visions of his seizing hold of our precious papers, tearing them into shreds and dancing on them. But we must take the risk, so we stepped into the old man’s boat, and he sculled us ashore.

A knot of friendly dock loafers, seeing us bearing our papers and guessing we were in search of the port official, also tapped their heads in that same significant manner and pointed down the street. Our old man beckoned us to follow him.

He’s taking us to the lunatic asylum, I suppose, muttered Geoff. Let’s keep a tight hold on the papers, and if he seems dangerous, we’ll make a run for it.

Down many little side streets we went apprehensively.

Suddenly our guide stopped and gestured toward an open door. He went in, and we followed, gazing uncomprehendingly at what we saw. In a chair sat a very fat and swarthy man with a towel around his neck. Behind him stood a small, pale man, waving a large pair of scissors.

Harbormaster! said our guide, indicating the fat man. Then the truth dawned on us, and our faces broke into broad grins. He was not a half-wit after all. He was only having a haircut.

When he had learned from the old man who we were, he bowed politely and smiled in friendly fashion. We proffered him the papers, but he waved them aside. Everything was all right, his gestures said as plainly as words, and in the name of the Republic of Spain he bade us welcome to his country. He became so overcome with emotion that he rose in his chair, still draped in his towel, which he bore with all the dignity of a senatorial toga. He then delivered an impassioned speech of greeting, to which the little barber and the one-eyed fisherman, to say nothing of the crowd of idlers who had gathered outside, listened with awestruck silence.

Two days later we left this pleasant little port and went tearing down the coast to Vigo in a fresh nor’easter. Before nightfall we were in, and anchored off the smart yacht club. Vigo has a magnificent harbor, so broad that there are many other smaller harbors within it. Around its shores are dozens of villages, fish canneries and shipyards. Perched on the tops of the sheerest mountain peaks, which overlook the bay, are tiny red-roofed hermitages, as remote from contact with the teeming life below them as though they had been in Tibet. To seaward of the bay, as if guarding its entrance, crouches the dragon-shaped form of Cies Island.

Immediately on our arrival in Vigo a particularly sinisterlooking bumboatman named Arthur attached himself to us, making frequent offers of his services as guide and purchasing agent. Since he was the only one of the water-front vultures who could talk English, we at length gave in to him. So he helped us with all our shopping, no doubt collecting a private commission from the storekeepers after we were gone.

Then, one fateful day, we asked his advice about our chronometer. During that wild start from England this delicate instrument had taken a bad tumble from what we had been sure was a safe berth for it. Knowing that its rate must be upset, we wanted to have it re-regulated by an expert. Of course Arthur knew where a simple thing like that could be done. He would take it up at once, and it would be finished tomorrow. We patiently explained that it would have to stay there for at least three days, so that its daily rate of gain or loss could be definitely established. Very well, Arthur promised, he would see that it stayed there three days. With a few misgivings we handed over our precious chronometer to the tender mercies of the worst-looking villain in Vigo.

Three days later we asked Arthur to take us up to recover it. He told us he was not sure if it was finished yet—perhaps the man was still working on it. We were puzzled. We could not see how winding it once a day, and comparing its time with one of his own accurate timepieces, would keep a man very busy for three days. When we entered the shop we knew the worst. Surrounded by small heaps of cogs and springs sat an old, old man, working busily. Neither Arthur’s explanation nor his proud gesture was necessary. We recognized that walnut-wood case and that poor face, with the London maker’s name across it, separated from its anatomy. Our chronometer had been dissected into five thousand parts.

I t’ink he go more better if he clean, said Arthur importantly. I tella dis man maka good job. Forty pesetas only.

Forty pesetas to have the chronometer ruined. We started to tell both Arthur and the old watchmaker what we thought of them, but suddenly we stopped. What was the use? The damage was done, so we relieved our feelings a little by pointing out to them the slimness of their chances of ever getting that forty pesetas out of us, and went out of the shop, mourning.

But next day Arthur came to us with a beaming face.

Finish! he said dramatically, and from out of his market basket, where it had been coyly nestling beside a large fish and a dozen oranges, he produced our chronometer. We could hardly believe our eyes, or our ears, when we heard its healthy ticking. We examined it carefully. It was apparently all there.

Man say allaright, announced Arthur, he taka twenty pesetas. Ver’ cheap.

We handed over that sum without a murmur and finally had the chronometer rated by some friends in the cable company. It had the large but perfectly steady rate of fifteen seconds gain a day. This rate it kept without fail for many months.

CHAPTER II

The First Islands

FROM VIGO we sailed for the island of Madeira, eight hundred miles away. It was a very slow passage, as for many days Uldra lay listless in a spell of calms. Rolling in a heavy swell one morning off the Portuguese coast, the main-boom snapped its metal gooseneck fitting close to the mast. It was fortunate that the sail was not torn in this accident. We found the fracture had occurred at a point where there was a fault in the casting. The mainsail was a loose-footed one, so we could still use it without the boom, which we unshipped and lashed on deck. We then shackled the main-sheet block to the clew of the sail, Thames Estuary barge fashion. With the addition of a vang from the gaff head, this made quite a satisfactory rig; at times, when rolling heavily in light airs, it was a distinct advantage over a boomed mainsail, as there was no weighty spar to jerk at the sail.

One afternoon a light breeze had petered out, and we were wallowing on an oily sea. Tired of holding onto a tiller that kicked futilely in the rolls, we lashed it amidships and went below to catch up on our sleep. We were dreaming peacefully when the ship suddenly trembled to an awful blast of sound. As we shot out of the hatch thoughts of sea monsters and submarine upheavals flashed through our minds. But it was only a rusty old British freighter, circling slowly around us and blowing her siren. Her rail was lined with curious faces. They probably had hopes of a nice little salvage job on a derelict yacht, until two foolish-looking figures in mauve pajamas bobbed up on her deck.

You all right? bawled her skipper through his megaphone.

Yes, thanks, we replied, except for some wind! They turned a disappointed stern on us and plodded off back on their course.

But two hundred miles from Madeira the breeze came, fresh and steady from the northeast. It was a great occasion, for this was our first taste of trade wind sailing. Across the blue sky came the little round clouds, like balls of cotton wool, in a steady procession. The regular seas were a deep cobalt; they reared up their snow-white tops behind us and fell harmlessly back. We passed a school of whales, moving at leisurely pace toward the Azores. Then, final thrill of all, I caught a glimpse of a tiny azure nymph, skittering over the wave tops before it vanished with a plop.

Flying fish! I yelled, excited as a schoolboy on his first visit to the zoo.

We picked up Porto Santo Island early one morning and tore past it toward the pile of clouds beneath which hid Madeira. Late in the evening we rounded the eastern point, and the mountains stole the trade wind from us. It took us nearly all night to drift with light airs in toward the town of Funchal, but we did not mind very much, for the scene was one of breathtaking loveliness. Just like fairyland is a somewhat overworked simile, but it is the best one I can use to describe the view of Funchal Harbor at night. Behind the brilliantly illuminated water front, with its casinos and hotels, the mountains rise abruptly into the clouds. Up their steep slopes cling dozens of little winding streets, each one a twisted chain of lights set in a velvety blackness.

Scenically, Madeira must be one of the loveliest islands in the world. It is also one of the most fruitful, and one of the most prosperous. It has a wonderful climate and splendid weather. All these qualities, and many more, will be pointed out to you in flowery language by the guidebooks. But there is one feature of Madeira which they fail to mention, a feature which will always render its memory distasteful to me. It is the curse of the touts and the vendors. From the moment you step ashore you will be pursued and pestered by a gang of noisy ruffians. They have many novel ways in which they are determined to relieve you of your money. They will offer their services as guides, chauffeurs and body servants. They will try to sell you everything from Parisian post cards to canary birds, from imitation jewelry to casks of port wine.

For the first few days after our arrival Uldra was always surrounded by at least half-a-dozen bumboats. One man thought we would like a selection of his potted palms; another whispered confidentially that he could lead us to a very nice German lady in a hotel; another optimist brought us out some enormous wicker chairs. How he ever thought we could get one of them down into our diminutive cabin is a mystery to me to this day.

Senhor Coelho, of the shipping firm of Blandy Brothers, was kind enough to give us sanctuary from these pests, and also a refuge from the heavy swells which roll into the bay. He had Uldra towed into the Pontinha, a tiny private harbor enclosed by the stone breakwater, at the end of which stands the Loo Rock.

This genial Portuguese helped us in many ways. When we sailed he ordered one of his motor launches to tow us out to sea, beyond the line of calms which hang under the mountains. It was on his advice that we decided to stop at Salvage Island on our way to the Canaries. He had given us a chart of the place, and full instructions on where to anchor and make a landing. After hearing some of his tales about it we were eager for the thrill of this, our first desert island; an island, moreover, which even had its tale of hidden treasure, often sought but never found.

We sighted it early one morning. For some time it was a hazy, formless shadow, when all at once the mists cleared, and it took on a definite shape—a small island of steep cliffs, with a single conical peak. We skirted the western shore and anchored off the little cove which affords the easiest landing. We looked down, and there, although we lay in twenty fathoms of water, we could see our anchor resting forlornly on the bottom. It was being closely examined by a swarm of little fish, of strange shapes and brilliant colors.

We rowed in and with some difficulty landed on a flat rock at the head of the cove. We scrambled up the crumbling cliffs of soft lava. The air smelt strongly of stale fish and guano. In every niche sat a stupid-looking bird, covered with dirty gray down. When approached, they waved their heads at us in a foolish and irritating manner. They were young shearwaters, left in their nests by the parent birds, who had gone off to sea for the day’s fishing.

Atop the cliffs were tufts of scorched grass and windblown bushes. I had brought my shotgun, for in Madeira we had been told of the wild rabbits that were so plentiful on Salvage. Occasionally we sighted a bobbing white tail in the distance, but it was a long time before I could come within range of one, for they were remarkably cautious for animals living on a desert island.

In the center of the island a rain-water tank for the benefit of castaways has been built into the ground. But, on having seen the contents of the tank, I felt I would rather perish of thirst than drink from it. For in the middle of a scum of green slime floated the body of a rabbit. I am not sure how many months he had been dead; it is enough to say that he was—very dead.

Just before dusk the air was filled with the gliding forms of a great host of shearwaters, and the cliffs rang with the hungry cries of the impatient youngsters. We left them to an uninterrupted evening meal and sailed for the Canary Islands, having thoroughly explored this desolate spot. That night we cooked a fine rabbit stew, the last I was to taste for a long time.

We were rather disappointed in Las Palmas, on Gran Canaria Island, which was our next port. The compilers of the West Africa Pilot Book must have been in mellow mood indeed when they visited the town. They informed us, with a poetic touch worthy of a better cause, that "Las Palmas is situated in a green and fertile valley of