Project Gutenberg's Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana

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Title: Two Years Before the Mast

Author: Richard Henry Dana

Posting Date: November 19, 2008 [EBook #2055]
Release Date: February, 2000

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST ***

Produced by Robert E. Brewer. HTML version by Al Haines.

TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST

A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea

By

Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

With an introduction and notes by

Homer Eaton Keyes, B.L.

Assistant Professor of Art in Dartmouth College

----Crowded in the rank and narrow ship,--
Housed on the wild sea with wild usages,--
Whate'er in the inland dales the land conceals
Of fair and exquisite, O! nothing, nothing,
Do we behold of that in our rude voyage.
Coleridge's Wallenstein.

CONTENTS

Introduction
Biographical Note
California and her Missions
Bibliographical References
Diagram of Ships
Explanation of Diagram

Two Years Before the Mast
Twenty-Four Years After

INTRODUCTION

Biographical Note

Two years before the mast were but an episode in the life of Richard
Henry Dana, Jr.; yet the narrative in which he details the experiences
of that period is, perhaps, his chief claim to a wide remembrance. His
services in other than literary fields occupied the greater part of his
life, but they brought him comparatively small recognition and many
disappointments. His happiest associations were literary, his
pleasantest acquaintanceships those which arose through his fame as the
author of one book. The story of his life is one of honest and
competent effort, of sincere purpose, of many thwarted hopes. The
traditions of his family forced him into a profession for which he was
intellectually but not temperamentally fitted: he should have been a
scholar, teacher, and author; instead he became a lawyer.

Born in Cambridge, Mass., August 1, 1815, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., came
of a line of Colonial ancestors whose legal understanding and patriotic
zeal had won them distinction. His father, if possessed o