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Lot 168
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Jack London, "The Cruise of the Snark" Annotated Manuscript and Signed Check
Jack London, "The Cruise of the Snark" Annotated Manuscript and Signed Check
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Description:

London Jack


Jack London, The Cruise of the Snark Annotated Manuscript and Signed Check

 

Lot consists of 4pp 1st revision typed manuscript of The Cruise of the Snark with 15+ handwritten edits/words in Jack London's hand; along with a signed check dating from the era of the Snark's construction.

 

In the spring of 1907, Jack London (1876-1916), along with his wife Charmian (1871-1955) and a small crew, set out for a modern maritime adventure aboard the Snark, their 45' long custom built sailboat. Over the next 2 years, the Londons would sail west and south across the Pacific Ocean, exploring Hawaii, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Tahiti, Australia, and other tropical locales. London later recounted his travel experiences in a non-fiction illustrated account called The Cruise of the Snark, published by The Macmillan Company in New York in 1911.

 

These typed manuscript galleys correspond to pages 197-204 of London's final 1st edition of The Cruise of the Snark. This excerpt, which extends from the very end of Chapter XI: "The Nature Man" through the beginning of Chapter XII: "The High Seat of Abundance," describes the Londons' arrival in the Society Islands. Of especial interest is London's account of a canoe ride captained by a fearless Polynesian named Tehei.

 

The galley proofs are oversized, measuring 9.25" x 12" on average overall, and have generously sized margins to accommodate handwritten author's edits. They are in mostly very good condition, with expected folds, a few closed tears, and minor scattered loss. Some sheets have moderate water stains. The manuscript dates circa spring 1911.

 

London's edits throughout the manuscript are in pencil and blue pen. On the first and second pages, London has drawn an arrow into the text block where he wished illustrations to appear. Included are two black and white photographs that would become Illustration 63, "The sail was impossible" and Illustration 64, "Tehei," both with handwritten captions in London's hand. (London's second caption is faded and only partially visible.)

 

On the first page, London has pointed out a spacing issue in the left margin, added the second "t" to the word "latter," and deleted the word "Captain" in front of "Warren." On page two, London has replaced the word "hypotheses" with "conjectures." On the third page, London has inscribed "Dakin" at top, replaced "I" with "we," again removed "Captain" from in front of "Warren," and noted an extra space. The last page identifies two other spacing issues. Other possibly publisher's edits in red are found throughout. Neither London nor his book editors caught the typo found at the top of the first page, where it reads: "when the Snark poked her noise once more..." This error was corrected at some later point as it does not appear in the final printed version.

 

The manuscript pages correspond to the following published text found in The Cruise of the Snark. Areas affected by London's edits are in bold.

 

"--when the Snark poked her nose once more through the passage in the smoking reef, outward bound, and I waved good-bye to those on shore.  Not least in goodwill and affection was the wave I gave to the golden sun-god in the scarlet loin-cloth, standing upright in his tiny outrigger canoe.

 

THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE

 

On the arrival of strangers, every man endeavored to obtain one as a friend and carry him off to his own habitation, where he is treated with the greatest kindness by the inhabitants of the district; they place him on a high seat and feed him with abundance of the finest food.—Polynesian Researches.

 

The Snark was lying at anchor at Raiatea, just off the village of Uturoa.  She had arrived the night before, after dark, and we were preparing to pay our first visit ashore.  Early in the morning I had noticed a tiny outrigger canoe, with an impossible spritsail, skimming the surface of the lagoon.  The canoe itself was coffin-shaped, a mere dugout, fourteen feet long, a scant twelve inches wide, and maybe twenty-four inches deep.  It had no lines, except in so far that it was sharp at both ends.  Its sides were perpendicular.  Shorn of the outrigger, it would have capsized of itself inside a tenth of a second.  It was the outrigger that kept it right side up.

 

I have said that the sail was impossible.  It was.  It was one of those things, not that you have to see to believe, but that you cannot believe after you have seen it.  The hoist of it and the length of its boom were sufficiently appalling; but, not content with that, its artificer had given it a tremendous head.  So large was the head that no common sprit could carry the strain of it in an ordinary breeze.  So a spar had been lashed to the canoe, projecting aft over the water.  To this had been made fast a sprit guy: thus, the foot of the sail was held by the main-sheet, and the peak by the guy to the sprit.

 

It was not a mere boat, not a mere canoe, but a sailing machine.  And the man in it sailed it by his weight and his nerve—principally by the latter.  I watched the canoe beat up from leeward and run in toward the village, its sole occupant far out on the outrigger and luffing up and spilling the wind in the puffs.

 

“Well, I know one thing,” I announced; “I don’t leave Raiatea till I have a ride in that canoe.”

 

A few minutes later Warren called down the companionway, “Here’s that canoe you were talking about.”

 

Promptly I dashed on deck and gave greeting to its owner, a tall, slender Polynesian, ingenuous of face, and with clear, sparkling, intelligent eyes.  He was clad in a scarlet loin-cloth and a straw hat.  In his hands were presents—a fish, a bunch of greens, and several enormous yams.  All of which acknowledged by smiles (which are coinage still in isolated spots of Polynesia) and by frequent repetitions of mauruuru (which is the Tahitian “thank you”), I proceeded to make signs that I desired to go for a sail in his canoe.

 

His face lighted with pleasure and he uttered the single word, “Tahaa,” turning at the same time and pointing to the lofty, cloud-draped peaks of an island three miles away—the island of Tahaa.  It was fair wind over, but a head-beat back.  Now I did not want to go to Tahaa.  I had letters to deliver in Raiatea, and officials to see, and there was Charmian down below getting ready to go ashore.  By insistent signs I indicated that I desired no more than a short sail on the lagoon.  Quick was the disappointment in his face, yet smiling was the acquiescence.

 

“Come on for a sail,” I called below to Charmian.  “But put on your swimming suit.  It’s going to be wet.”

 

It wasn’t real.  It was a dream.  That canoe slid over the water like a streak of silver.  I climbed out on the outrigger and supplied the weight to hold her down, while Tehei (pronounced Tayhayee) supplied the nerve.  He, too, in the puffs, climbed part way out on the outrigger, at the same time steering with both hands on a large paddle and holding the mainsheet with his foot.

 

“Ready about!” he called.

 

I carefully shifted my weight inboard in order to maintain the equilibrium as the sail emptied.

 

“Hard a-lee!” he called, shooting her into the wind.

 

I slid out on the opposite side over the water on a spar lashed across the canoe, and we were full and away on the other tack.

 

“All right,” said Tehei.

 

Those three phrases, “Ready about,” “Hard a-lee,” and “All right,” comprised Tehei’s English vocabulary and led me to suspect that at some time he had been one of a Kanaka crew under an American captain.  Between the puffs I made signs to him and repeatedly and interrogatively uttered the word sailor.  Then I tried it in atrocious French.  Marin conveyed no meaning to him; nor did matelot.  Either my French was bad, or else he was not up in it.  I have since concluded that both conjectures were correct.  Finally, I began naming over the adjacent islands.  He nodded that he had been to them.  By the time my quest reached Tahiti, he caught my drift.  His thought-processes were almost visible, and it was a joy to watch him think.  He nodded his head vigorously.  Yes, he had been to Tahiti, and he added himself names of islands such as Tikihau, Rangiroa, and Fakarava, thus proving that he had sailed as far as the Paumotus—undoubtedly one of the crew of a trading schooner.

 

After our short sail, when he had returned on board, he by signs inquired the destination of the Snark, and when I had mentioned Samoa, Fiji, New Guinea, France, England, and California in their geographical sequence, he said “Samoa,” and by gestures intimated that he wanted to go along.  Whereupon I was hard put to explain that there was no room for him.  “Petit bateau” finally solved it, and again the disappointment in his face was accompanied by smiling acquiescence, and promptly came the renewed invitation to accompany him to Tahaa.

 

Charmian and I looked at each other.  The exhilaration of the ride we had taken was still upon us.  Forgotten were the letters to Raiatea, the officials we had to visit.  Shoes, a shirt, a pair of trousers, cigarettes matches, and a book to read were hastily crammed into a biscuit tin and wrapped in a rubber blanket, and we were over the side and into the canoe.

 

“When shall we look for you?” Warren called, as the wind filled the sail and sent Tehei and me scurrying out on the outrigger.

 

“I don’t know,” I answered.  “When we get back, as near as I can figure it.”

 

And away we went.  The wind had increased, and with slacked sheets we ran off before it.  The freeboard of the canoe was no more than two and a half inches, and the little waves continually lapped over the side.  This required bailing.  Now bailing is one of the principal functions of the vahine.  Vahine is the Tahitian for woman, and Charmian being the only vahine aboard, the bailing fell appropriately to her.  Tehei and I could not very well do it, the both of us being perched part way out on the outrigger and busied with keeping the canoe bottom-side down.  So Charmian bailed, with a wooden scoop of primitive design, and so well did she do it that there were occasions when she could rest off almost half the time.

 

Raiatea and Tahaa are unique in that they lie inside the same encircling reef.  Both are volcanic islands, ragged of sky-line, with heaven-aspiring peaks and minarets.  Since Raiatea is thirty miles in circumference, and Tahaa fifteen miles, some idea may be gained of the magnitude of the reef that encloses them.  Between them and the reef stretches from one to two miles of water, forming a beautiful lagoon.  The huge Pacific seas, extending in unbroken lines sometimes a mile or half as much again in length, hurl themselves upon the reef, overtowering and falling upon it with tremendous crashes, and yet the fragile coral structure withstands the shock and protects the land.  Outside lies destruction to the mightiest ship afloat.  Inside reigns the calm of untroubled water, whereon a canoe like ours can sail with no more than a couple of inches of free-board.

 

We flew over the water.  And such water!—clear as the clearest spring-water, and crystalline in its clearness, all intershot with a maddening pageant of colors and rainbow ribbons more magnificently gorgeous than any rainbow.  Jade green alternated with turquoise, peacock blue with emerald, while now the canoe skimmed over reddish purple pools, and again over pools of dazzling, shimmering white where pounded coral sand lay beneath and upon which oozed monstrous sea-slugs.  One moment we were above wonder-gardens of coral, wherein colored fishes disported, fluttering like marine butterflies; the next moment we were dashing across the dark surface of deep channels, out of which schools of flying fish lifted their silvery flight; and a third moment we were above other gardens of living coral, each more wonderful than the last.  And above all was the tropic, trade-wind sky with its fluffy clouds racing across the zenith and heaping the horizon with their soft masses.

 

Before we were aware, we were close in to Tahaa (pronounced Tah-hah-ah, with equal accents), and Tehei was grinning approval of the vahine’s proficiency at bailing.  The canoe grounded on a shallow shore, twenty feet from land, and we waded out on a soft bottom where big slugs curled and writhed under our feet and where small octopuses advertised their existence by their superlative softness when stepped upon.  Close to the beach, amid cocoanut palms and banana trees, erected on stilts, built of bamboo, with a grass-thatched roof, was Tehei’s house.  And out of the house came Tehei’s vahine, a slender mite of a woman, kindly eyed and Mongolian of feature—when she was not North American Indian.  “Bihaura,” Tehei called her, but he did not pronounce it according to English notions of spelling.  Spelled “Bihaura,” it sounded like Bee-ah-oo-rah, with every syllable sharply emphasized.

 

She took Charmian by the hand and led her into the house, leaving Tehei and me to follow.  Here, by sign-language unmistakable, we were informed that all they possessed was ours.  No hidalgo was ever more generous in the expression of giving, while I am sure that few hidalgos were ever as generous in the actual practice.  We quickly discovered that we dare not admire their possessions, for when--".

 

In addition to the hand-corrected manuscript is an unnumbered check inscribed overall and signed “Jack London” on the payee line. Issued from the Central Bank of Oakland, California on May 31, 1905 in the amount of $2.95 payable to “H. Channon Co.” The plain cream check is stamped in purple, red, and blue recto and verso, and bears a y-shaped cancellation mark at center. In very good to near fine condition, with minor loss to the lower left corner where check was torn out of check book. Check measures 6.5" x 2.875".

 

H. Channon Company, based in Chicago, Illinois, was a wholesale tool, hardware, and machinery supplier. In 1905, London purchased his first ranch on Mount Sonoma in Glen Ellen, California called Beauty Ranch, or the Ranch of Good Intentions. (Today, the ranch, along with London's 1911 Wolf House ruins, are part of Jack London State Historic Park.) Could this check have been for ranch related expenses?

 

Jack London grew up in Oakland, California. He attended elementary school through high school there, and studied at a local waterfront bar named Heinold's First and Last Saloon; the proprietor later lent him tuition money to Berkeley.

 

Jack London wrote dozens of poems, short stories, essays, and novels over a prolific career curtailed by chronic ill-health. With income generated from adventure classics like Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906), London was able to purchase a ranch and outfit the Snark.

 


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