The Days of a Man 1:1907 



was an excellent artist. I remember also Edward 

 Millhauser, a commercial traveler from New York, 

 whose unfailing humor lightened the tedium of the 

 long journey, and Lyman Sperry, a well-known lec- 

 turer on temperance, furnished with an abundance of 

 texts after we reached Australia. 

 Chess on The Moanas first officer being an excellent chess 

 L^' „ player, we played together each day during his free 

 "Moana ^.^^ ^^^ ^ ^j^.^^ ^^ ^^^ nearly every game, but by 



and by I discovered that he handled his queen much 

 better than I did, and that by forcing an exchange of 

 queens I could always beat him. That was not 

 theoretically good chess, only good strategy, and 

 every time he lost he was surprised to see how it had 

 come about. Crossing the Atlantic in 1879, 1 played a 

 good many games with different people, usually win- 

 ning. Finally it was suggested that a man in the 

 steerage would like to try his hand. A rough-looking 

 fellow who spoke no language I knew then came for- 

 ward and met me under the shadow of one of the life- 

 boats. To him I lost regularly. 

 A magic Near the equator we passed Mary Island, a beauti- 

 "'"'' ful atoll of which I made a fairly decent sketch — a 

 ring of coral bearing palms and flovs^ering bushes, and 

 bounding a lagoon with the usual opening by which 

 water levels are preserved. In "Eric's Book of 

 Beasts"^ my drawing was reproduced with the fol- 

 lowing stanza: 



I know a magic circle in the sea 

 Etched on the blue with pale gray coral sand; 

 A mountain sank there once amid the spray, 

 Its eddying circles stiffening into land 

 With lazy surges flapping on the strand. 



1 See Vol. I, Chapter ii, page 28, and Vol. II, Chapter xxxiv, page 250. 



n 200 n 



