Charles W. Eliot: Two Years Before the Mast

Dana: Two Years Before the Mast
Edited by Charles W. Eliot
Originally written by R. H. Dana, Jr.

New York, NY: P.F. Collier & Son Corporation copyrighted 1909.
The Harvard Classics VOLUME # 23.Leather Bound 62nd printing 1969 hardcover Edition with dark green cover and 24K gilt design - in very good condition - with the embossed Harvard Seal on front board and spine black & white frontispiece , slight edge wear on the boards, pages are evenly tanned, but no marks, writing or tears found. Boards and pages are clean, unmarked, bright, tightly bound and sharp cornered.
In the book, which takes place between 1834 and 1836, Dana gives a vivid account of "the life of a common sailor at sea as it really is". He sails from Boston, around Cape Horn, arriving in California when it was a remote Mexican land, and San Diego San Pedro, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco were not much more than a few sheds. He gives descriptions of landing at each of the ports up and down the California coast as they existed then. In the book, he makes a tellingly accurate prediction of San Francisco's future. He also gives a nice description of a society wedding amongst the "Californians."
His ship was on a voyage to trade goods from the east for cow hides. Interestingly, the bluffs near Mission San Juan Capistrano presented an obstacle to taking the cow hides to the beach for subsequent loading onto the ship. So, Dana, along with others of the Pilgrim's crew, tossed the hides from the bluffs, while spinning them like a Frisbee. Some hides got stuck part way down the cliff and Dana was lowered with ropes to retrieve them. Since that day, that point where the bluffs were located, took on Dana's name, and is today the city of Dana Point. Being an educated person on his ship, he learned Spanish and became an interpreter. He befriended a Kanaka (a native of modern-day Hawaii), later saving his life when his racist captain would as soon see him die. He spent a season in San Diego preparing hides for the journey home.
On the return trip around Cape Horn in the middle of the Antarctic winter he describes terrifying storms and incredible beauty, giving vivid descriptions of icebergs, and the scurvy that afflicts members of the crew.