Two Years Before the Mast
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. (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…
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Listen to Two Years Before the Mast Audiobook Free
Listen to Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr. free online. The full audiobook (17 hr 42 min, 49 chapters, read by volunteer narrators) streams free on this page.
Two Years Before the Mast (1840) is a public domain work.
| # | Chapter | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Preface | 5:10 | |
| 2 | Departure | 5:48 | |
| 3 | First Impressions | 16:21 | |
| 4 | Ship's Duties | 14:14 | |
| 5 | Sundays At Sea | 18:40 | |
| 6 | Cape Horn | 23:41 | |
| 7 | Loss of a Man | 12:19 | |
| 8 | Juan Fernandez | 16:55 | |
| 9 | Daily Life | 14:00 | |
| 10 | Santa Barbra | 20:21 | |
| 11 | A South Easter | 11:37 | |
| 12 | Passage Up the Coast | 13:12 | |
| 13 | Monterey | 7:33 | |
| 14 | Trading At Monterey | 27:01 | |
| 15 | Discontent | 32:00 | |
| 16 | Flogging, Part 1 | 19:57 | |
| 17 | Flogging, Part 2 | 18:28 | |
| 18 | Liberty Day on Shore | 21:03 | |
| 19 | San Diego | 19:37 | |
| 20 | Easter Sunday, Part 1 | 19:27 | |
| 21 | Easter Sunday, Part 2 | 17:27 | |
| 22 | Sandwich-Islanders, Part 1 | 20:05 | |
| 23 | Sandwich-Islanders, Part 2 | 19:58 | |
| 24 | New Comers | 23:07 | |
| 25 | California and its Inhabitants | 15:40 | |
| 26 | The Alert | 16:22 | |
| 27 | New Ship and Shipmates, Part 1 | 25:53 | |
| 28 | New Ship and Shipmates, Part 2 | 23:50 | |
| 29 | San Diego Again | 19:20 | |
| 30 | Rumours of War, Part 1 | 23:10 | |
| 31 | Rumours of War, Part 2 | 21:56 | |
| 32 | San Francisco | 22:25 | |
| 33 | A Fandango | 28:11 | |
| 34 | News From Home | 35:07 | |
| 35 | Loading for Home, Part 1 | 24:48 | |
| 36 | Loading for Home, Part 2 | 34:34 | |
| 37 | Homeward Bound | 32:29 | |
| 38 | Bad Prospects, Part 1 | 29:18 | |
| 39 | Bad Prospects, Part 2 | 30:58 | |
| 40 | Doubling Cape Horn | 29:05 | |
| 41 | Northward Ho! | 28:15 | |
| 42 | Nearing Home | 20:55 | |
| 43 | More Stirring Incidents | 24:43 | |
| 44 | Hurrah for Yankee Land! | 24:29 | |
| 45 | Original Concluding Chapter, Part 1 | 23:46 | |
| 46 | Original Concluding Chapter, Part 2 | 25:20 | |
| 47 | Epilogue, Part 1 | 30:47 | |
| 48 | Epilogue, Part 2 | 27:48 | |
| 49 | Epilogue Part 3 | 24:22 |
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