NOTEBOOK

Friday, 27. "Caught 2 goneys.—They are all the same
size—they measure 7 ft. I in. from tip to tip of wings—
They made a wooden clog fast to one and let him go—
a pitiful advantage for 'Godlike' man to take of a helpless
bird. The bird looked reproachfully upon them with his
great human eyes while they did him this wrong."

Across the years one's heart aches for that
tortured bird.

King of S. I. is a heathen—an old sorceress has him
under her thumb—picks out the fish he may eat—tells
him in what house he may sleep, etc., accompanies him
in all his excursions. He was educated in a Christian
school but has never submitted himself to Christianity—
discovered his predilection for heathenism in youth.

The next entry refers to the great marine dis-'
aster, the burning of the ship Hornet "on the
line" early in May of that year. Fifteen sur-
vivors in an open boat had managed to reach
Hawaii, and Mark Twain, ill at the moment,
with the assistance of Anson Burlingame and
party, had interviewed them, written his report
carrying the first news of the disaster to the out-
side world—there being in that day no cable. It
was a great news-beat. Later he turned it into an
article "Forty-three Days in an Open Boat"
for Harper's Magazine. Rewritten, it appears to-
day in his collected works under the title of
"My Debut as a Literary Person."

In a single voyage they grew old—in a mariner's stormy
experience. In this little voyage of 7 months of these 2
fresh young college students, were crowded the sorrows,
the bitter hardships and the thrilling adventures of a
whole long lifetime before the mast.

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