Two Years Before the Mast; A Personal Narrative

by Richard Henry Dana

Overview

Two Years Before the Mast is a memoir by the American author Richard Henry Dana Jr., published in 1840, having been written after a two-year sea voyage from Boston to California on a merchant ship starting in 1834.

In the book, which takes place between 1834 and 1836, Dana gives a vivid account of "the life of a common sailor at sea as it really is". He sails from Boston to South America and around Cape Horn to California. Dana's ship was on a voyage to trade goods from the United States for the Mexican colonial Californian California missions' and ranchos' cow hides. They traded at the ports in San Diego Bay, San Pedro Bay, Santa Barbara Channel, Monterey Bay, and San Francisco Bay.

A film adaptation under the same name was released in 1946.

Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815-1882) was an American lawyer and politician who gained renown as the author of the American classic Two Years Before the Mast, a memoir of his time spent at sea as a merchant seaman.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788826017044
Publisher:	Arcadia Press
Publication date:	02/06/2017
Sold by:	StreetLib SRL
Format:	eBook
File size:	483 KB

About the Author

Gary Kinder is the author of Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea. He lives in Seattle.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Read an Excerpt

top hailed, and said he believed it was land, after all. " Land in your eye!" said the mate, who was looking through the telescope; " they are ice islands, if I can see a hole through a ladder"; and a few moments showed the mate to be right; and all our expectations fled; and instead of what we most wished to see we had what we most dreaded, and what we hoped we had seen the last of. We soon, however, left these astern, having passed within about two miles of them, and at sundown the horizon was clear in all directions. Having a fine wind, we were soon up with and passed the latitude of the Cape, and, having stood far enough to the southward to give it a wide berth, we began to stand to the eastward, with a good prospect of being round and steering to the northward, on the other side, in a very few days. But ill luck seemed to have lighted upon us. Not four hours had we been standing on in this course before it fell dead calm, and in half an hour it clouded up, a few straggling blasts, with spits of snow and sleet, came from the eastward, and in an hour more we lay hove-to under a close-reefed main topsail, drifting bodily off to leeward before the fiercest storm that we had yet felt, blowing dead ahead, from the eastward. It seemed as though the genius of the place had been roused at finding that we had nearly slipped through his fingers, and had come down upon us with tenfold fury. The sailors said that every blast, as it shook the shrouds, and whistled through the rigging, said to the old ship, " No, you don't! " " No) you don't! " For eight days we lay drifting about in this manner. Sometimes generally towards noon it fell calm; once or twice a round copper ball showed itselffor a few moments in the place where the sun ought to have been, a puff or two came from t...

Table of Contents

Chapter I.
	Departure
	First Impressions
	Ship's Duties
Chapter II.
	First Impressions
	Ship's Duties
Chapter III.
	Ship's Duties
Chapter IV.
	Sundays At Sea
	Trouble on Board
	Land Ho
	A Pampero
	Cape Horn
Chapter V.
	Cape Horn
	A Visit
Chapter VI.
	Loss Of a Man
Chapter VII.
	Superstitions
	Juan Fernandez
	Putting the Vessel In Order
Chapter VIII.
	Painting
	Daily Life
	Point Conception
Chapter IX.
	Santa Barbara
	Beach-Combing
	A Southeaster
Chapter X.
	A Southeaster
	Passage Up the Coast
Chapter XI.
	Passage Up the Coast
	Monterey
Chapter XII.
	Monterey
Chapter XIII.
	Monterey
	A British Sailor
	Santa Barbara
Chapter XIV.
	Hide Droghing
	Discontent
	San Pedro
	Flogging
Chapter XV.
	Flogging
	Night On Shore
	State of Things On Board
	San Diego
Chapter XVI.
	Liberty-Day On Shore
Chapter XVII.
	San Diego
	Desertion
	San Pedro Again
	Easter Sunday
Chapter XVIII.
	Easter Sunday
	Italian Sailors
	San Juan
	San Diego Again
	Life on Shore
Chapter XIX.
	Sandwich-Islanders
	Hide-Curing
	Wood-Cutting
	Coyotes
	Rattlesnakes
Chapter XX.
	New Comers
	People at the Hide-Houses
	Leisure
	Pilgrim News from Home
	Pilgrim Occupations on the Beach
	California and its Inhabitants
Chapter XXI.
	California and its Inhabitants
Chapter XXII.
	Life on the Beach
	The Alert
Chapter XXIII.
	New Ship and Shipmates
	A Race
	My Watchmate, Tom Harris
	San Diego Again
Chapter XXIV.
	A Descent
	A Hurried Departure
	A New Shipmate
Chapter XXV.
	Rumors of War
	A Spouter
	Sudden Slipping for a Southeaster
	To Windward
	A Dry Gale
Chapter XXVI.
	San Francisco
	Monterey Revisited
Chapter XVII.
	Monterey Revisited
	A Set-to
	A Decayed Gentleman
	A Contrabandista
	A Fandango
Chapter XVIII.
	A Victim
	California Rangers-Beach-Combers
	News From Home
	Last Looks
Chapter XXIX.
	Loading for Home
	A Surprise
	Last of an Old Friend
	The Last Hide
	A Hard Case
	An Anchor, for Home!
	The Alert and California
	Homeward Bound
Chapter XXX.
	Homeward Bound
	Our Passenger, Professor Nuttall
	Homeward Bound
Chapter XXXI.
	Bad Prospects
	First Touch of Cape Horn
	Iceburgs
	Temperance Ships
	Lying-Up
	Ice
	Difficulty on Board
	Change of Course
	Straits of Magellan
Chapter XXXII.
	Ice Again
	Disappointment
	Cape Horn
	Land Ho!
Chapter XXXIII.
	Cracking On
	Progress Homeward
	A Fine Sight
	Fitting Ship
	By-Plane
Chapter XXXIV.
	An Escape
	Equator
	Tropical Squalls
	Tropical Thunder-Storm
Chapter XXXV.
	A Reef-Topsail Breeze
	Scurvy
	A Friend in Need
	Preparing for Port
	Gulf Stream
Chapter XXXVI.
	Soundings
	Sights About Home
	Boston Harbo
	Leaving the Ship
	Twenty Four Years After	432

Reading Group Guide

1. Discuss Dana's motives for the voyage. What do you feel was the predominating factor in his decision to undertake such a journey? What were the risks involved, and how serious do you feel they were? What is your view of Dana's momentous choice?

2. What do you make of Dana's attitude toward religion, and religious instruction? Do you agree or not? Why? Is his a perspective that is anachronistic, or not?

3. How does social class play a role in the book? Discuss the implications of Dana's background. How did it affect his experience on the ship? Did you find it important, or inconsequential?

4. What is your opinion of the book's stark realism? Does Dana have an agenda in writing the book? If so, what is it? Do you think the experience was a positive one for Dana, or not?

5. What is the role of nature and the outdoors for Dana? How does he view the American West? How does his voyage attest to his view of the outdoors? Does this view change throughout his experience on the ship? If so, how?

6. Discuss the contrasts between Captain Thompson and Captain Faucon. How do their leadership skills differ? Who is more effective, and why? Discuss Dana's book on a political level. What do his portrayals of each captain reveal?

7. Discuss the considerable shift in Dana's perspective as evidenced in 'Twenty-Four Years After.' How do you account for this change? Do you agree or disagree with the author's decision to replace the original final chapter with this later account? Why or why not?