Two Years Before the Mast: A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. book review

Visits: 29

This book review may be secretly paid for by Yankee Corporations out of Boston Massachusetts.

The Lizards send their people on ships stocked full of provisions, sailors, sail makers, carpenters, captain, and officers.

Yes, this is the invasion story.

There was no battle for California.

The land described by this man, Richard Henry Dana, is very insulting to California.

No mention of gold for payment. The system DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.

Moving a boat full of cow hides (40,0000 cow hides per ship) around the horn to the Yankees in exchange for fake money. WTF?

I digress, Henry Dana, went sailing as a merchantman on a mighty sailing ship. Full topgallants, jibs flying everywhere, like a pyramid of cloth making time through indigo waves.

It sounds delightful, except when you have to fly the jib, unfurl the sail, reef the main, scrub the deck, tie the yarns, and paint the scuppers. Much of the work done at perilous heights on the rigging.

They went ashore in San Diego, San Pedro, Monterrey, San Francisco, collecting hides. Very few people on the beaches, less than one hundred in all of these places according to Henry Dana, California, 1832. They visited the presidios, the old “Spanish” missions already ancient and decayed in this “time”.

“Processed hides” from around the horn, selling for several percentage points of profit.

The story doesn’t make sense, we can say it’s fake if we want. These damn books are all we got. You’ll have to deal with it, or write your own.

This book is apparently totally fake. Richard Henry Dana.

Your ECONOMIES OF SCALE are FALSE.

Selling cow hides for “dollars”. LIZARDS ONLY.

They packed the ship so full of cow hides the timbers creaked.

Dana goes ashore to “process the hides”, removing meat bits, soaking them in brine, and drying them on the San Diego beach. <— Apocalypse Wizard Science Reference.

The hides dried to the stiffness of a board. The sailors carried them on their heads. Loading the hides, putting to sea through the San Diego breakers, and rowing to the ship anchored a mile (sometimes three miles!) from shore- sounds damn near impossible, and probably is largely a fake story.

The trick to this book: Dana makes the voyage seem like so much labor in hell, that you can’t wait for him to get back around the horn. The end is very satisfying, as he reenters the old Boston Harbor, New World Lizard District, USA 1835. Yankee Corp. Boston Mass.

For the morons: How could cow hides become so “scarce” in Boston Mass, that provisioning a ship for a three year voyage “around the horn” makes “financial” sense?

Somebody do the math.

Your “markets” are FAKE.

We love you, Richard Henry Dana. I’ve been to your Point and Tide Pools. It’s beautiful.

The author includes an update to the original book written 24 years after his journey around the horn to California. In it, he describes a fully populated coast replete with churches from all styles of “Christian”, and lovingly portrayed coastal scenes that he did not include in original.

No, the time line doesn’t make sense, gold replacing “valuable” cow hide “market” in 1849, we all must pray for the truth to be revealed.

THIS BOOK IS A LIE. “FREE” MARKETS FOR LIZARDS ONLY.

Some of my highlights:

Two Years Before the Mast: A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

Book last read: 2023-02-10 07:26:26
Percentage read: 100%

Chapter 9: CHAPTER I – Departure
Highlight
Chapter progress: 10.44%
Highlight: There is not so helpless and pitiable an object in the world as a landsman beginning a sailor’s life.

Chapter 10: CHAPTER II – First Impressions—“Sail Ho!”
Annotation
Chapter progress: 11.01%
Highlight: inexpressible sickening smell, caused by the shaking up of the bilge-water in the hold, made the steerage but an indifferent refuge from the cold, wet decks.
Notes: Eeww

Chapter 10: CHAPTER II – First Impressions—“Sail Ho!”
Highlight
Chapter progress: 11.39%
Highlight: This was the first time that I had seen a sail at sea. I thought then, and have always since, that it exceeds every other sight in interest and beauty.

Chapter 11: CHAPTER III – Ship’s Duties—Tropics
Highlight
Chapter progress: 12.33%
Highlight: As has often been said, a ship is like a lady’s watch, always out of repair.

Chapter 13: CHAPTER V – Cape Horn—A Visit
Annotation
Chapter progress: 14.42%
Highlight: These are first seen, just above the horizon, soon after crossing the southern tropic. When off Cape Horn, they are nearly over head. The cross is composed of four stars in that form, and is said to be the brightest constellation in the heavens.
Notes: moving under the dome. Stars move over head.

Chapter 14: CHAPTER VI – Loss of a Man—Superstition
Highlight
Chapter progress: 16.32%
Highlight: Yet a sailor’s life is at best but a mixture of a little good with much evil, and a little pleasure with much pain.

Chapter 14: CHAPTER VI – Loss of a Man—Superstition
Highlight
Chapter progress: 16.89%
Highlight: he was fully possessed with the notion that Fins are wizards, and especially have power over winds and storms.

Chapter 14: CHAPTER VI – Loss of a Man—Superstition
Highlight
Chapter progress: 17.08%
Highlight: John, to be sure, was the oldest, and at the same time the most ignorant, man in the ship;

Chapter 15: CHAPTER VII – Juan Fernandez—The Pacific
Highlight
Chapter progress: 18.41%
Highlight: there are no people to whom the newly invented Yankee word of “loafer” is more applicable than to the Spanish Americans.

Chapter 16: CHAPTER VIII – “Tarring Down”—Daily Life—“Going Aft”—California
Highlight
Chapter progress: 18.98%
Highlight: Here you have to hang on with your eye-lids and tar with your hands.

Chapter 16: CHAPTER VIII – “Tarring Down”—Daily Life—“Going Aft”—California
Annotation
Chapter progress: 19.54%
Highlight: down-east johnny-cake” became a by-word
Notes: Cool byword.

Chapter 16: CHAPTER VIII – “Tarring Down”—Daily Life—“Going Aft”—California
Annotation
Chapter progress: 19.73%
Highlight: heat which comes down with perpendicular fierceness in the Atlantic and Indian tropics.
Notes: Acute angles of dome.

Chapter 17: CHAPTER IX – California-A South-easter
Annotation
Chapter progress: 20.3%
Highlight: The air of the whole valley was so heated that the people were obliged to leave the town and take up their quarters for several days upon the beach.

Notes: California fires.

Chapter 20: CHAPTER XII – Life at Monterey
Highlight
Chapter progress: 23.91%
Highlight: The officers were dressed in the costume which we found prevailed through the country.

Chapter 20: CHAPTER XII – Life at Monterey
Annotation
Chapter progress: 24.1%
Highlight: have often seen a man with a fine figure, and courteous manners, dressed in broadcloth and velvet, with a noble horse completely covered with trappings; without a real
Notes: Californians.

Chapter 21: CHAPTER XIII – Trading—A British Sailor
Highlight
Chapter progress: 24.29%
Highlight: The Californians are an idle, thriftless people, and can make nothing for themselves.

Chapter 21: CHAPTER XIII – Trading—A British Sailor
Highlight
Chapter progress: 24.29%
Highlight: Things sell, on an average, at an advance of nearly three hundred per cent upon the Boston prices.

Chapter 21: CHAPTER XIII – Trading—A British Sailor
Highlight
Chapter progress: 24.67%
Highlight: Yet the least drop of Spanish blood, if it be only of quadroon or octoroon, is sufficient to raise them from the rank of slaves, and entitle them to a suit of clothes—boots, hat, cloak, spurs, long knife, and all complete, though coarse and dirty as may be,—and to call themselves Españolos, and to hold property, if they

Chapter 21: CHAPTER XIII – Trading—A British Sailor
Annotation
Chapter progress: 24.86%
Highlight: In fact, they sometimes appeared to me to be a people on whom a curse had fallen, and stripped them of everything but their pride, their
Notes: The Span.ish

Chapter 21: CHAPTER XIII – Trading—A British Sailor
Highlight
Chapter progress: 24.86%
Highlight: They have no circulating medium but silver and hides—which the sailors call “California bank notes.

Chapter 21: CHAPTER XIII – Trading—A British Sailor
Highlight
Chapter progress: 25.24%
Highlight: No Protestant has any civil rights, nor can he hold any property, or, indeed, remain more than a few weeks on shore, unless he belong to some vessel. Consequently, the Americans and English who intend to remain here become Catholics, to a man; the current phrase among them being,—“A man must leave his

Chapter 23: CHAPTER XV – A Flogging—A Night on Shore—The State of Things on Board—San Diego
Highlight
Chapter progress: 28.84%
Highlight: If a sailor resist his commander, he resists the law, and piracy or submission are his only alternatives.

Chapter 23: CHAPTER XV – A Flogging—A Night on Shore—The State of Things on Board—San Diego
Annotation
Chapter progress: 30.36%
Highlight: We sailed leisurely down the coast before a light fair wind, keeping the land well aboard, and saw two other missions, looking like blocks of white plaster, shining in the distance; one of which, situated on the top of a high hill, was San Juan Capistrano, under which vessels sometimes come to anchor, in the summer season, and take off hides.
Notes: San Clemente. Dana Point.

Chapter 24: CHAPTER XVI – Liberty-day on Shore
Highlight
Chapter progress: 31.5%
Highlight: Mounted on our horses, which were spirited beasts, and which, by the way, in this country, are always steered by pressing the contrary rein against the neck, and not by pulling on the bit,—we started off on a fine run over the country. The first place we went to was the old ruinous presidio, which stands on a rising ground near the village, which it overlooks.

Chapter 24: CHAPTER XVI – Liberty-day on Shore
Highlight
Chapter progress: 32.07%
Highlight: The fine air of the afternoon; the rapid rate of the animals, who seemed almost to fly over the ground; and the excitement and novelty of the motion to us, who had been so long confined on shipboard, were exhilarating beyond expression,

Chapter 26: CHAPTER XVIII – Easter Sunday—“Sail Ho!”—Whales—San Juan—Romance of …
Annotation
Chapter progress: 34.54%
Highlight: decayed grandeur.
Notes: California “span-ish” missions 1835.

Chapter 26: CHAPTER XVIII – Easter Sunday—“Sail Ho!”—Whales—San Juan—Romance of …
Annotation
Chapter progress: 35.1%
Highlight: So much for being Protestants. There’s no danger of Catholicism’s spreading in New England; Yankees can’t afford the time to be Catholics.
Notes: Three days off for “Easter”.

Chapter 26: CHAPTER XVIII – Easter Sunday—“Sail Ho!”—Whales—San Juan—Romance of …
Annotation
Chapter progress: 36.05%
Highlight: the only habitation in sight was the small white mission of San Juan Capistrano, with a few Indian huts about it, standing in a small hollow, about a mile from where we were.
Notes: Dana Point

Chapter 26: CHAPTER XVIII – Easter Sunday—“Sail Ho!”—Whales—San Juan—Romance of …
Highlight
Chapter progress: 36.43%
Highlight: So long as they had money, they would not work for fifty dollars a month, and when their money was gone,

Chapter 28: CHAPTER XX – Leisure—News from Home—“Burning the Water”
Highlight
Chapter progress: 39.47%
Highlight: We had now, out of forty or fifty, representatives from almost every nation under the sun: two Englishmen, three Yankees, two Scotchmen, two Welshmen, one Irishman, three Frenchmen (two of whom were Normans, and the third from Gascony,) one Dutchman, one Austrian, two or three Spaniards, (from old Spain,) half a dozen Spanish-Americans and half-breeds, two native Indians from Chili and the Island of Chiloe, one Negro, one Mulatto, about twenty Italians, from all parts of Italy, as many more Sandwich Islanders, one Otaheitan, and one Kanaka from the Marquesas Islands.

Chapter 28: CHAPTER XX – Leisure—News from Home—“Burning the Water”
Annotation
Chapter progress: 40.42%
Highlight: Nothing carries you so entirely to a place, and makes you feel so perfectly at home, as a newspaper.
Notes: no more.

Chapter 29: CHAPTER XXI – California and Its Inhabitants
Highlight
Chapter progress: 40.99%
Highlight: California was first discovered in 1536, by Cortes and was subsequently visited by numerous other adventurers as well as commissioned voyagers of the Spanish crown. It was found to be inhabited by numerous tribes of Indians, and to be in many parts extremely fertile; to which, of course, was added rumors of gold mines, pearl fishery, etc. No sooner was the importance of the country known, than the Jesuits obtained leave to establish themselves in it, to Christianize and enlighten the Indians.

Chapter 29: CHAPTER XXI – California and Its Inhabitants
Highlight
Chapter progress: 40.99%
Highlight: Nearly all the cattle in the country belonged to the missions, and they employed their Indians,

Chapter 31: CHAPTER XXIII – New Ship and Shipmates—My Watchmate
Highlight
Chapter progress: 43.83%
Highlight: Bulwer’s Paul Clifford.

Chapter 31: CHAPTER XXIII – New Ship and Shipmates—My Watchmate
Highlight
Chapter progress: 45.54%
Highlight: but the American has no national religion, and likes to show his independence of priestcraft by doing as he chooses on the Lord’s day.

Chapter 31: CHAPTER XXIII – New Ship and Shipmates—My Watchmate
Highlight
Chapter progress: 45.73%
Highlight: Falconer’s Shipwreck,

Chapter 32: CHAPTER XXIV – San Diego Again—A Descent—Hurried Departure-A New Shipmate
Highlight
Chapter progress: 47.25%
Highlight: The starboard watch hauled aft the sheet, and the ship tore through the water like a mad horse, quivering and shaking at every joint, and dashing from its head the foam, which flew off at every blow, yards and yards to leeward.

Chapter 33: CHAPTER XXV – Rumors of War—A Spouter-Slipping for a South-easter-A Gale
Highlight
Chapter progress: 48.2%
Highlight: got the account of the matter, which was, that the governments had had difficulty about the payment of a debt; that war had been threatened and prepared for,

Chapter 34: CHAPTER XXVI – San Francisco—Monterey
Annotation
Chapter progress: 51.04%
Highlight: Here, at anchor, and the only vessel, was a brig under Russian colors, from Asitka, in Russian America, which had come down to winter, and to take in a supply of tallow and grain, great quantities of which latter article are raised in the missions at the head of the bay.
Notes: Somebody call the DOD.

Chapter 34: CHAPTER XXVI – San Francisco—Monterey
Highlight
Chapter progress: 51.04%
Highlight: To a Russian, grease is the greatest luxury.

Chapter 35: CHAPTER XXVII – The Sunday Wash-up—On Shore—A Set-to—A Grandee—“Sail Ho!”—A Fandango
Annotation
Chapter progress: 53.89%
Highlight: Her armament was from her being an illegal trader.
Notes: Otter hunting.

Chapter 35: CHAPTER XXVII – The Sunday Wash-up—On Shore—A Set-to—A Grandee—“Sail Ho!”—A Fandango
Annotation
Chapter progress: 54.27%
Highlight: I found the Californian fandango, on the part of the women at least, a lifeless affair.
Notes: California dancing.

Chapter 36: CHAPTER XXVIII – An Old Friend – A Victim—California Rangers—News from …
Highlight
Chapter progress: 55.03%
Highlight: It has been said, that the greatest curse to each of the South Sea islands, was the first man who discovered it; and every one who knows anything of the history of our commerce in those parts, knows how much truth there is in this; and that the white men, with their vices, have brought in diseases before unknown to the islanders, and which are now sweeping off the native population of the Sandwich Islands, at the rate of one fortieth of the entire population annually. They seem to be a doomed people. The curse of a people calling themselves Christian, seems to follow them everywhere; and even here, in this obscure place, lay two young islanders, whom I had left strong, active young men, in the vigor of health, wasting away under a disease,

Chapter 37: CHAPTER XXIX – Loading for Home—A Surprise—Last of an Old Friend—The Last …
Highlight
Chapter progress: 58.25%
Highlight: A song is as necessary to sailors as the drum and fife to a soldier. They can’t pull in time, or pull with a will, without it. Many a time, when a thing goes heavy, with one fellow yo-ho-ing, a lively song, like “Heave, to the girls!” “Nancy oh!” “Jack Crosstree,” etc., has put life and strength into every arm.

Chapter 37: CHAPTER XXIX – Loading for Home—A Surprise—Last of an Old Friend—The Last …
Highlight
Chapter progress: 58.44%
Highlight: Indeed, during all the time we were upon the coast, our principal food was fresh beef, and every man had perfect health; but this was a time of especial devouring; and what we should have done without meat, I cannot tell.

Chapter 38: CHAPTER XXX – Beginning the Long Return Voyage—A Scare
Annotation
Chapter progress: 62.24%
Highlight: We killed one of the bullocks every four days,
Notes: Apocalypse science

Chapter 39: CHAPTER XXXI – Bad Prospects—First Touch of Cape Horn—Icebergs—Temperance …
Highlight
Chapter progress: 66.6%
Highlight: No one ships for nurse on board a vessel. Our merchant ships are always under-manned, and if one man is lost by sickness, they cannot spare another to take care of him.

Chapter 40: CHAPTER XXXII – Ice Again—A Beautiful Afternoon—Cape Horn—“Land Ho!”—Heading …
Highlight
Chapter progress: 67.74%
Highlight: round copper ball showed itself for a few moments in the place where the sun ought to have been;

Chapter 41: CHAPTER XXXIII – Cracking on—Progress Homeward—A Pleasant Sunday—A Fine Sight—By-Play
Highlight
Chapter progress: 70.4%
Highlight: there are very few who have ever seen a ship, literally, under all her sail.

Chapter 42: CHAPTER XXXIV – Narrow Escapes—The Equator—Tropical Squalls—A Thunder Storm
Annotation
Chapter progress: 71.35%
Highlight: The Magellan Clouds, the last sign of South latitude, were sunk in the horizon, and the north star, the Great Bear, and the familiar signs of northern latitudes, were rising in the heavens.
Notes: Different lights on dome.

Chapter 42: CHAPTER XXXIV – Narrow Escapes—The Equator—Tropical Squalls—A Thunder Storm
Highlight
Chapter progress: 72.11%
Highlight: Not a word was spoken, but every one stood as though waiting for something to happen.

Chapter 42: CHAPTER XXXIV – Narrow Escapes—The Equator—Tropical Squalls—A Thunder Storm
Highlight
Chapter progress: 72.3%
Highlight: When we got down we found all hands looking aloft, and there, directly over where we had been standing, upon the main top-gallant-mast-head, was a ball of light, which the sailors name a corposant.

Chapter 42: CHAPTER XXXIV – Narrow Escapes—The Equator—Tropical Squalls—A Thunder Storm
Highlight
Chapter progress: 72.49%
Highlight: The electric fluid ran over our anchors, topsail sheets and ties; yet no harm was done to us.

Chapter 43: CHAPTER XXXV – A Double-reef-top-sail Breeze – Scurvy-A Friend in …
Highlight
Chapter progress: 73.81%
Highlight: The decks were then scraped and varnished, and everything useless thrown overboard; among which the empty tar barrels were set on fire and thrown overboard, on a dark night, and left blazing astern, lighting up the ocean for miles.

Chapter 45: Concluding Chapter
Annotation
Chapter progress: 76.47%
Highlight: It is on long and distant voyages, where there is no restraint upon the captain, and none but the crew to testify against him, that sailors need most the protection of the law.
Notes: Space crew flogging by Elon Musk.

Chapter 45: Concluding Chapter
Highlight
Chapter progress: 77.04%
Highlight: They are from all parts of the world. A great many from the north of Europe, beside Frenchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, men from all parts of the Mediterranean, together with Lascars, Negroes, and, perhaps worst of all, the off-casts of British men-of-war, and men from our own country who have gone to sea because they could not be permitted to live on land.

Chapter 45: Concluding Chapter
Annotation
Chapter progress: 77.42%
Highlight: The owners of the vessel, and other merchants, and perhaps the president of the insurance company, are then introduced; and they testify to his correct deportment, express their confidence in his honesty, and say that they have never seen anything in his conduct to justify a suspicion of his being capable of cruelty or tyranny.
Notes: Lol

Chapter 48: Twenty-four Years After
Highlight
Chapter progress: 79.89%
Highlight: in short, he had put off the New England deacon and become a human being.

Chapter 48: Twenty-four Years After
Annotation
Chapter progress: 80.08%
Highlight: and on the Sabbath (Saturday) a Jewish synagogue.
Notes: Sabbath is saturday.

Chapter 48: Twenty-four Years After
Annotation
Chapter progress: 80.83%
Highlight: But Captain Wilson tells me that the climate has altered; that the southeasters are no longer the bane of the coast they once were, and that vessels now anchor inside the kelp at Santa Barbara and San Pedro all the year round.
Notes: Climate change bank scam.

Chapter 48: Twenty-four Years After
Annotation
Chapter progress: 83.49%
Highlight: First, Captain Thompson got into difficulties with another American vessel on the coast, which charged him with having taken some advantage of her in getting pepper; and then with the natives, who accused him of having obtained too much pepper for his weights.
Notes: Pepper.works

Chapter 48: Twenty-four Years After
Annotation
Chapter progress: 84.44%
Highlight: She sailed last from this port, August 30, 1862, for Hurd’s Island (the newly discovered land south of Kerguelen’s
Notes: New land discovered 1862.

Chapter 54: For Further Reading
Highlight
Chapter progress: 97.72%
Highlight: James Fenimore Cooper’s novels The Pilot (1823) and The Red Rover (1828).

Chapter 54: For Further Reading
Highlight
Chapter progress: 98.1%
Highlight: One nautical fathom is 6 feet, so 40 fathoms is 240 feet.

Leave a comment