ain-sheet now, and the _Spray_ swung off for the
beacon-lights of the inner harbor. At last she reached port in safety,
and there at 1 a.m. on June 27, 1898, cast anchor, after the cruise of
more than forty-six thousand miles round the world, during an absence
of three years and two months, with two days over for coming up.

Was the crew well? Was I not? I had profited in many ways by the
voyage. I had even gained flesh, and actually weighed a pound more
than when I sailed from Boston. As for aging, why, the dial of my life
was turned back till my friends all said, "Slocum is young again." And
so I was, at least ten years younger than the day I felled the first
tree for the construction of the _Spray_.

My ship was also in better condition than when she sailed from Boston
on her long voyage. She was still as sound as a nut, and as tight as
the best ship afloat. She did not leak a drop--not one drop! The pump,
which had been little used before reaching Australia, had not been
rigged since that at all.

The first name on the _Spray's_ visitors' book in the home port was
written by the one who always said, "The _Spray_ will come back." The
_Spray_ was not quite satisfied till I sailed her around to her
birthplace, Fairhaven, Massachusetts, farther along. I had myself a
desire to return to the place of the very beginning whence I had, as I
have said, renewed my age. So on July 3, with a fair wind, she waltzed
beautifully round the coast and up the Acushnet River to Fairhaven,
where I secured her to the cedar spile driven in the bank to hold her
when she was launched. I could bring her no nearer home.

If the _Spray_ discovered no continents on her voyage, it may be that
there were no more continents to be discovered; she did not seek new
worlds, or sail to powwow about the dangers of the seas. The sea has
been much maligned. To find one's way to lands already discovered is a
good thing, and the _Spray_ made the discovery that even the worst sea
is not so terrible to a well-appointed ship. No king, no country, no
treasury at all, was taxed for the voyage of the _Spray_, and she
accomplished all that she undertook to do.

[Illustration: The <i>Spray</i> in the storm of New York.]

To succeed, however, in anything at all, one should go understandingly
about his work and be prepared for every emergency. I see, as I look
back over my own small achievement, a kit of not too elaborate
carpenters' tools, a tin clock, and some