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Two Years Before the Mast

First published: 1840
Pages: 389

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17 h 41 min · 49 parts

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Preface
5:10
Departure
5:48
First Impressions
16:21
Ship's Duties
14:14
Sundays At Sea
18:40
Cape Horn
23:41
Loss of a Man
12:19
Juan Fernandez
16:55
Daily Life
14:00
Santa Barbra
20:21
A South Easter
11:37
Passage Up the Coast
13:12
Monterey
7:33
Trading At Monterey
27:01
Discontent
32:00
Flogging, Part 1
19:57
Flogging, Part 2
18:28
Liberty Day on Shore
21:03
San Diego
19:37
Easter Sunday, Part 1
19:27
Easter Sunday, Part 2
17:27
Sandwich-Islanders, Part 1
20:05
Sandwich-Islanders, Part 2
19:58
New Comers
23:07
California and its Inhabitants
15:40
The Alert
16:22
New Ship and Shipmates, Part 1
25:53
New Ship and Shipmates, Part 2
23:50
San Diego Again
19:20
Rumours of War, Part 1
23:10
Rumours of War, Part 2
21:56
San Francisco
22:25
A Fandango
28:11
News From Home
35:07
Loading for Home, Part 1
24:48
Loading for Home, Part 2
34:34
Homeward Bound
32:29
Bad Prospects, Part 1
29:18
Bad Prospects, Part 2
30:58
Doubling Cape Horn
29:05
Northward Ho!
28:15
Nearing Home
20:55
More Stirring Incidents
24:43
Hurrah for Yankee Land!
24:29
Original Concluding Chapter, Part 1
23:46
Original Concluding Chapter, Part 2
25:20
Epilogue, Part 1
30:47
Epilogue, Part 2
27:48
Epilogue Part 3
24:22

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About this book

Richard Henry Dana Jr. left Harvard and shipped out as an ordinary seaman in 1834, sailing from Boston around Cape Horn to the hide-trading coast of Mexican California. Drawn from the journal he kept, his account records the daily grind of life before the mast: the cold night watches, the brutal flogging of shipmates, the endless labor of curing cattle hides on the beaches near San Diego and Santa Barbara. Beyond the adventure, Dana wrote with a reformer's intent, exposing the harsh treatment of common sailors, and his pages also preserve a rare, vivid glimpse of California a decade before the Gold Rush changed it forever. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.

About the author

Richard Henry Dana Jr.

Richard Henry Dana Jr. (1815-1882) was an American author and maritime lawyer from Cambridge, Massachusetts. He interrupted his Harvard studies for the sea voyage that produced his famous memoir, then built a legal career defending sailors and became a committed antislavery advocate in the Free Soil movement.