Two Years Before the Mast A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea lizx

Royal octavo, [25cm/10inches], full gilt-embossed aquamarine blue calf sans dust jacket, -as issued-, pp. xx, 346. Please feel free to inquire as to particulars and/or additional photographs. . The term "before the mast" refers to the quarters of the common sailors, in the forecastle, in the bow of the ship. His writing evidences his later sympathy with the lower classes. He later became a prominent anti-slavery activist and helped found the Free Soil Party. Dana gives vivid descriptions of the different groups he encountered on the journey. He described Californios as lazy and remarked that the local Indians were effectively enslaved by them, yet he also described the Indians as lazy. He wrote disdainfully of the uncleanliness and sloppiness of whaling ships — and even more so of the Russian vessel he encountered, claiming that the Russian crew actually "lived upon grease; eat it, drank it, slept in the midst of it, and their clothes were covered with it." The one group he seemed to view quite favorably were the native Hawaiians in the area, or Kanakas as they were called, saying they were honest, generous, hard-working folk.