Two Years before the Mast. By Richard Henry Dana, jun.
(Sampson Low.)—We are very glad to see an "author's edition" of a very old favourite. Some of our readers may, perhaps, need to be reminded that some thirty years ago Mr. Dana, then or lately a student of Harvard University, went "before the mast," i.e., shipped himself ar a common seaman on board of a trading brig bound from New York for the west coast of America ; and that, happily coming back, he wrote a description, nearly unique in its way, of life in the forecastle. In this- lies the interest, and a very great and permanent interest it is, of the book itself, but this particular edition has an interest of its own. The brig Pilgrim, which Mr. Dana joined, was engaged in the hide trade, and remained for months taking in cargo in the bay of San Francisco, then, as he says, "a vast solitude." Six miles from their anchorage.on one side was a ruinous " presidio," throe miles on the other an equally ruinous "mission," and near the landing a shanty of boards which a. Yankee, in advance of his age, had set up. Other habitations there wore none. Twenty-four years afterwards, in 1859, Mr. Dana visited the city of San Francisco, then numbering a hundred thousand inhabi- tants, the growth of less than a quarter of a century on the shores of that desolate bay. Probably there are other men alive in America who. have seen transformations equally wonderful ; not a few of Mr. Dana's friends and associates in early life are alive, and can boast the same experiences; but the concurrent good fortune of seeing such things and being able to describe them is very rare indeed, and deserves a special recognition. It would be impertinence to praise so well-known a book as Mr. Dana's original work, but we may say that his added chapter, "Twenty-Four Years After," is of very rare interest.
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