The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, and Other Stories

by Mark Twain

  MY DEBUT AS A LITERARY PERSON

  In those early days I had already published one little thing ('TheJumping Frog') in an Eastern paper, but I did not consider that thatcounted. In my view, a person who published things in a mere newspapercould not properly claim recognition as a Literary Person: he mustrise away above that; he must appear in a magazine. He would then bea Literary Person; also, he would be famous--right away. Thesetwo ambitions were strong upon me. This was in 1866. I prepared mycontribution, and then looked around for the best magazine to go upto glory in. I selected the most important one in New York. Thecontribution was accepted. I signed it 'MARK TWAIN;' for that name hadsome currency on the Pacific coast, and it was my idea to spread itall over the world, now, at this one jump. The article appeared in theDecember number, and I sat up a month waiting for the January number;for that one would contain the year's list of contributors, my namewould be in it, and I should be famous and could give the banquet I wasmeditating.

  I did not give the banquet. I had not written the 'MARK TWAIN'distinctly; it was a fresh name to Eastern printers, and they put it'Mike Swain' or 'MacSwain,' I do not remember which. At any rate, I wasnot celebrated and I did not give the banquet. I was a Literary Person,but that was all--a buried one; buried alive.

  My article was about the burning of the clipper-ship 'Hornet' on theline, May 3, 1866. There were thirty-one men on board at the time, andI was in Honolulu when the fifteen lean and ghostly survivors arrivedthere after a voyage of forty-three days in an open boat, through theblazing tropics, on ten days' rations of food. A very remarkable trip;but it was conducted by a captain who was a remarkable man, otherwisethere would have been no survivors. He was a New Englander of the bestsea-going stock of the old capable times--Captain Josiah Mitchell.

  I was in the islands to write letters for the weekly edition of theSacramento 'Union,' a rich and influential daily journal which hadn'tany use for them, but could afford to spend twenty dollars a week fornothing. The proprietors were lovable and well-beloved men: long agodead, no doubt, but in me there is at least one person who still holdsthem in grateful remembrance; for I dearly wanted to see the islands,and they listened to me and gave me the opportunity when there was butslender likelihood that it could profit them in any way.

  I had been in the islands several months when the survivors arrived. Iwas laid up in my room at the time, and unable to walk. Here was a greatoccasion to serve my journal, and I not able to take advantage of it.Necessarily I was in deep trouble. But by good luck his Excellency AnsonBurlingame was there at the time, on his way to take up his post inChina, where he did such good work for the United States. He came andput me on a stretcher and had me carried to the hospital where theshipwrecked men were, and I never needed to ask a question. He attendedto all of that himself, and I had nothing to do but make the notes.It was like him to take that trouble. He was a great man and a greatAmerican, and it was in his fine nature to come down from his highoffice and do a friendly turn whenever he could.

  We got through with this work at six in the evening. I took no dinner,for there was no time to spare if I would beat the other correspondents.I spent four hours arranging the notes in their proper order, then wroteall night and beyond it; with this result: that I had a very long anddetailed account of the 'Hornet' episode ready at nine in the morning,while the other correspondents of the San Francisco journals had nothingbut a brief outline report--for they didn't sit up. The now-and-thenschooner was to sail for San Francisco about nine; when I reached thedock she was free forward and was just casting off her stern-line. Myfat envelope was thrown by a strong hand, and fell on board all right,and my victory was a safe thing. All in due time the ship reached SanFrancisco, but it was my complete report which made the stir and wastelegraphed to the New York papers, by Mr. Cash; he was in charge of thePacific bureau of the 'New York Herald' at the time.

  When I returned to California by-and-by, I went up to Sacramento andpresented a bill for general correspondence at twenty dollars a week. Itwas paid. Then I presented a bill for 'special' service on the 'Hornet'matter of three columns of solid nonpareil at a hundred dollars acolumn. The cashier didn't faint, but he came rather near it. He sentfor the proprietors, and they came and never uttered a protest. Theyonly laughed in their jolly fashion, and said it was robbery, but nomatter; it was a grand 'scoop' (the bill or my 'Hornet' report, I didn'tknow which): 'Pay it. It's all right.' The best men that ever owned anewspaper.

  The 'Hornet' survivors reached the Sandwich Islands the 15th of June.They were mere skinny skeletons; their clothes hung limp about them andfitted them no better than a flag fits the flag-staff in a calm. Butthey were well nursed in the hospital; the people of Honolulu kept themsupplied with all the dainties they could need; they gathered strengthfast, and were presently nearly as good as new. Within a fortnight themost of them took ship for San Francisco; that is, if my dates have notgone astray in my memory. I went in the same ship, a sailing-vessel.Captain Mitchell of the 'Hornet' was along; also the only passengersthe 'Hornet' had carried. These were two young men from Stamford,Connecticut--brothers: Samuel and Henry Ferguson. The 'Hornet' was aclipper of the first class and a fast sailer; the young men's quarterswere roomy and comfortable, and were well stocked with books, and alsowith canned meats and fruits to help out the ship-fare with; and whenthe ship cleared from New York harbour in the first week of Januarythere was promise that she would make quick and pleasant work of thefourteen or fifteen thousand miles in front of her. As soon as the coldlatitudes were left behind and the vessel entered summer weather, thevoyage became a holiday picnic. The ship flew southward under a cloud ofsail which needed no attention, no modifying or change of any kind, fordays together. The young men read, strolled the ample deck, rested anddrowsed in the shade of the canvas, took their meals with the captain;and when the day was done they played dummy whist with him tillbed-time. After the snow and ice and tempests of the Horn, the shipbowled northward into summer weather again, and the trip was a picniconce more.

  Until the early morning of the 3rd of May. Computed position of the ship112 degrees 10 minutes longitude, latitude 2 degrees above the equator;no wind, no sea--dead calm; temperature of the atmosphere, tropical,blistering, unimaginable by one who has not been roasted in it. Therewas a cry of fire. An unfaithful sailor had disobeyed the rules andgone into the booby-hatch with an open light to draw some varnish from acask. The proper result followed, and the vessel's hours were numbered.

  There was not much time to spare, but the captain made the most of it.The three boats were launched--long-boat and two quarter-boats. Thatthe time was very short and the hurry and excitement considerable isindicated by the fact that in launching the boats a hole was stove inthe side of one of them by some sort of collision, and an oar driventhrough the side of another. The captain's first care was to have foursick sailors brought up and placed on deck out of harm's way--among thema 'Portyghee.' This man had not done a day's work on the voyage, but hadlain in his hammock four months nursing an abscess. When we were takingnotes in the Honolulu hospital and a sailor told this to Mr. Burlingame,the third mate, who was lying near, raised his head with an effort, andin a weak voice made this correction--with solemnity and feeling:

  'Raising abscesses! He had a family of them. He done it to keep fromstanding his watch.'

  Any provisions that lay handy were gathered up by the men and twopassengers and brought and dumped on the deck where the 'Portyghee'lay; then they ran for more. The sailor who was telling this to Mr.Burlingame added:

  'We pulled together thirty-two days' rations for the thirty-one men thatway.'

  The third mate lifted his head again and made another correction--withbitterness:

  'The "Portyghee" et twenty-two of them while he was soldiering there andnobody noticing. A damned hound.'

  The fire spread with great rapidity. The smoke and flame drove the menback, and they had to stop their incomplete work of fetching provisions,and take to the boats with only ten
days' rations secured.

  Each boat had a compass, a quadrant, a copy of Bowditch's 'Navigator,'and a Nautical Almanac, and the captain's and chief mate's boats hadchronometers. There were thirty-one men all told. The captain took anaccount of stock, with the following result: four hams, nearly thirtypounds of salt pork, half-box of raisins, one hundred pounds of bread,twelve two-pound cans of oysters, clams, and assorted meats, akeg containing four pounds of butter, twelve gallons of water in aforty-gallon 'scuttle-butt', four one-gallon demijohns full of water,three bottles of brandy (the property of passengers), some pipes,matches, and a hundred pounds of tobacco. No medicines. Of course thewhole party had to go on short rations at once.

  The captain and the two passengers kept diaries. On our voyage to SanFrancisco we ran into a calm in the middle of the Pacific, and didnot move a rod during fourteen days; this gave me a chance to copy thediaries. Samuel Ferguson's is the fullest; I will draw upon it now.When the following paragraph was written the doomed ship was about onehundred and twenty days out from port, and all hands were putting in thelazy time about as usual, as no one was forecasting disaster.

  (Diary entry) May 2. Latitude 1 degree 28 minutes N., longitude 111 degrees 38 minutes W. Another hot and sluggish day; at one time, however, the clouds promised wind, and there came a slight breeze --just enough to keep us going. The only thing to chronicle to-day is the quantities of fish about; nine bonitos were caught this forenoon, and some large albacores seen. After dinner the first mate hooked a fellow which he could not hold, so he let the line go to the captain, who was on the bow. He, holding on, brought the fish to with a jerk, and snap went the line, hook and all. We also saw astern, swimming lazily after us, an enormous shark, which must have been nine or ten feet long. We tried him with all sorts of lines and a piece of pork, but he declined to take hold. I suppose he had appeased his appetite on the heads and other remains of the bonitos we had thrown overboard.

  Next day's entry records the disaster. The three boats got away, retiredto a short distance, and stopped. The two injured ones were leakingbadly; some of the men were kept busy baling, others patched the holesas well as they could. The captain, the two passengers, and eleven menwere in the long-boat, with a share of the provisions and water, andwith no room to spare, for the boat was only twenty-one feet long, sixwide, and three deep. The chief mate and eight men were in one of thesmall boats, the second mate and seven men in the other. The passengershad saved no clothing but what they had on, excepting their overcoats.The ship, clothed in flame and sending up a vast column of black smokeinto the sky, made a grand picture in the solitudes of the sea, andhour after hour the outcasts sat and watched it. Meantime the captainciphered on the immensity of the distance that stretched between him andthe nearest available land, and then scaled the rations down to meet theemergency; half a biscuit for dinner; one biscuit and some canned meatfor dinner; half a biscuit for tea; a few swallows of water for eachmeal. And so hunger began to gnaw while the ship was still burning.

  (Diary entry) May 4. The ship burned all night very brightly, and hopes are that some ship has seen the light and is bearing down upon us. None seen, however, this forenoon, so we have determined to go together north and a little west to some islands in 18 degrees or 19 degrees north latitude and 114 degrees to 115 degrees west longitude, hoping in the meantime to be picked up by some ship. The ship sank suddenly at about 5 A.M. We find the sun very hot and scorching, but all try to keep out of it as much as we can.

  They did a quite natural thing now: waited several hours for thatpossible ship that might have seen the light to work her slow way tothem through the nearly dead calm. Then they gave it up and set abouttheir plans. If you will look at the map you will say that theircourse could be easily decided. Albemarle Island (Galapagos group) liesstraight eastward nearly a thousand miles; the islands referred to inthe diary as 'some islands' (Revillagigedo Islands) lie, as they think,in some widely uncertain region northward about one thousand miles andwestward one hundred or one hundred and fifty miles. Acapulco, on theMexican coast, lies about north-east something short of one thousandmiles. You will say random rocks in the ocean are not what is wanted;let them strike for Acapulco and the solid continent. That does looklike the rational course, but one presently guesses from the diariesthat the thing would have been wholly irrational--indeed, suicidal. Ifthe boats struck for Albemarle they would be in the doldrums all theway; and that means a watery perdition, with winds which are whollycrazy, and blow from all points of the compass at once and alsoperpendicularly. If the boats tried for Acapulco they would get out ofthe doldrums when half-way there--in case they ever got half-way--andthen they would be in lamentable case, for there they would meet thenorth-east trades coming down in their teeth, and these boats were sorigged that they could not sail within eight points of the wind. So theywisely started northward, with a slight slant to the west. They had butten days' short allowance of food; the long-boat was towing the others;they could not depend on making any sort of definite progress in thedoldrums, and they had four or five hundred miles of doldrums in frontof them yet. They are the real equator, a tossing, roaring, rainy belt,ten or twelve hundred miles broad, which girdles the globe.

  It rained hard the first night and all got drenched, but they filled uptheir water-butt. The brothers were in the stern with the captain, whosteered. The quarters were cramped; no one got much sleep. 'Kept on ourcourse till squalls headed us off.'

  Stormy and squally the next morning, with drenching rains. A heavy anddangerous 'cobbling' sea. One marvels how such boats could live in it.Is it called a feat of desperate daring when one man and a dog cross theAtlantic in a boat the size of a long-boat, and indeed it is; but thislong-boat was overloaded with men and other plunder, and was only threefeet deep. 'We naturally thought often of all at home, and were glad toremember that it was Sacrament Sunday, and that prayers would go up fromour friends for us, although they know not our peril.'

  The captain got not even a cat-nap during the first three days andnights, but he got a few winks of sleep the fourth night. 'The worstsea yet.' About ten at night the captain changed his course and headedeast-north-east, hoping to make Clipperton Rock. If he failed, nomatter; he would be in a better position to make those other islands. Iwill mention here that he did not find that rock.

  On May 8 no wind all day; sun blistering hot; they take to the oars.Plenty of dolphins, but they couldn't catch any. 'I think we are allbeginning to realise more and more the awful situation we are in.' 'Itoften takes a ship a week to get through the doldrums; how much longer,then, such a craft as ours?' 'We are so crowded that we cannot stretchourselves out for a good sleep, but have to take it any way we can getit.'

  Of course this feature will grow more and more trying, but it will behuman nature to cease to set it down; there will be five weeks of ityet--we must try to remember that for the diarist; it will make our bedsthe softer.

  May 9 the sun gives him a warning: 'Looking with both eyes, the horizoncrossed thus +.' 'Henry keeps well, but broods over our troubles morethan I wish he did.' They caught two dolphins; they tasted well. 'Thecaptain believed the compass out of the way, but the long-invisiblenorth star came out--a welcome sight--and endorsed the compass.'

  May 10, 'latitude 7 degrees 0 minutes 3 seconds N., longitude 111degrees 32 minutes W.' So they have made about three hundred miles ofnorthing in the six days since they left the region of the lost ship.'Drifting in calms all day.' And baking hot, of course; I have beendown there, and I remember that detail. 'Even as the captain says,all romance has long since vanished, and I think the most of us arebeginning to look the fact of our awful situation full in the face.' 'Weare making but little headway on our course.' Bad news from the rearmostboat: the men are improvident; 'they have eaten up all of the cannedmeats brought from the ship, and are now growing discontented.' Not sowith the chief mate's people--they are evidently under t
he eye of a man.

  Under date of May 11: 'Standing still! or worse; we lost more last nightthan we made yesterday.' In fact, they have lost three miles of thethree hundred of northing they had so laboriously made. 'The cock thatwas rescued and pitched into the boat while the ship was on fire stilllives, and crows with the breaking of dawn, cheering us a good deal.'What has he been living on for a week? Did the starving men feed himfrom their dire poverty? 'The second mate's boat out of water again,showing that they over-drink their allowance. The captain spoke prettysharply to them.' It is true: I have the remark in my old note-book; Igot it of the third mate in the hospital at Honolulu. But there is notroom for it here, and it is too combustible, anyway. Besides, the thirdmate admired it, and what he admired he was likely to enhance.

  They were still watching hopefully for ships. The captain was athoughtful man, and probably did not disclose on them that that wassubstantially a waste of time. 'In this latitude the horizon is filledwith little upright clouds that look very much like ships.' Mr. Fergusonsaved three bottles of brandy from his private stores when he left theship, and the liquor came good in these days. 'The captain serves outtwo tablespoonfuls of brandy and water--half and half--to our crew.' Hemeans the watch that is on duty; they stood regular watches--fourhours on and four off. The chief mate was an excellent officer--aself-possessed, resolute, fine, all-round man. The diarist makes thefollowing note--there is character in it: 'I offered one bottle ofbrandy to the chief mate, but he declined, saying he could keep theafter-boat quiet, and we had not enough for all.'