Vol. XXXIX, No. 1 WASHINGTON 



January, 1921 



# 



THE 



SATHOIMAL 



GEOGEAPfflC 



MAGAZINE 



• 



COPYRIGHT. 192 1, BY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY. WASHINGTON. D. C. 



THE DREAM SHIP 



The Story of a Voyage of Adventure More Than Half 

 Around the World in a 47-foot Lifeboat 



By Ralph Stock 



WE ALL have our dreams. With- 

 out them we should be clods. 

 It is in our dreams that we 

 accomplish the impossible : the rich man 

 dumps his load of responsibility and 

 lives in a log shack on a mountain top, 

 the poor man becomes rich, the stay-at- 

 home travels, the wanderer finds an abid- 

 ing place. 



The difficulty is to turn one's dreams 

 into realities, and as I happen to be en- 

 joying that rare privilege at the present 

 moment, it is too good to keep. 



For more years than I like to recall, 

 my dream has been to cruise through the 

 South Sea Islands in my own ship. I 

 can't help it ; that has been my dream ; 

 and if you had ever been to the South 

 Sea Islands, and love the sea, it would 

 be yours also. They are the sole re- 

 maining spots on this earth that are not 

 infested with big-game-shooting expedi- 

 tions, globe-trotters, or profiteers ; where 

 the inhabitants know how to live, and 

 where the unfortunate from distant and 

 turbulent lands can still find interest, en- 

 joyment, and peace. 



A DREAM WITH A COMIC-OPERA PE0T 



My dream was as impracticable as 

 most. There was a war to be attended 

 to and lived through, if Providence so 

 willed. There was a ship to be bought, 

 fitted out, and provisioned on a bank 

 balance that would fill the modern cat's- 



meat man with contempt. There were 

 the little matters of cramming into a 

 chronically unmathematical head suf- 

 ficient knowledge of navigation to steer 

 such a ship across the world when she 

 was bought, and of finding a crew that 

 would work her without hope of mone- 

 tary reward. 



The thing looked and sounded suf- 

 ficiently like comic opera to deter me 

 from mentioning it to any but a select 

 few, and they laughed. Yet such is the 

 driving power of a dream, if its fulfill- 

 ment is really desired, that I write this 

 on the deck of my dream ship, anchored 

 off the Isthmus of Panama, five thou- 

 sand miles on the way to my goal. 



HOW THE DREAM MATERIALIZED 



Exactly how it all came about I find it 

 difficult to recall. I have vague recollec- 

 tions of crouching in dug-outs in France, 

 and while others had recourse during 

 their leisure to letter-cases replete with 

 photographs of fluffy girls, I pored with 

 equal interest over sketches and plans of 

 my dream ship. 



In hospital it was the same, and when 

 a medical board politely ushered me into 

 the street, a free man, it took me rather 

 less than four hours to reach the nearest 

 seaport and commence a search that cov- 

 ered the next six months. 



It is no easy matter to find the counter- 

 part of a dream ship, but in the end I 



