A LONG VOYAGE. ,
The:Cruise of the 'Amaryllis.' By Cr. .IL P.. Muhlhauser,.Lt., - With a memoir of the Author by E. Keble Chatterton, and an Introduction by Claud Worth. (John Lane. 8s. 6d.
THE log of this three-year voyage of a craft in which, as the saying 'goes, the head Must be thrust through the skylight when one shaves, ought to cure the most obstinate case of romantic nonsense about the sea that is, if evidence and common sense could ever cure the romantic of their illusions. When Mr. Mulilhadser, who 'evidently : was i daring seaman with a genius for his work, ;Was congratulated on his safe return' horn adVenturintes, he 'replied briefly : "Only a foil would have done it." And he had the best right to a word in the matter.
The Amaryllis,' a yawl of thirty-seven tons Thames measurement, left Plymouth on September 6th, 1920, for Auckland, N.Z., via Panama. On July 6th, 1928, she anchored in Dartmouth harbour, having completed a circumnavigation of the globe. ,`She : was ' Seaworthy vessel but far from being an ideal craft for such a voyage. Perhaps only a man of the ,stamp. - of Mr. Muldhitil.ser could • have pulled her through ; in Mr. Chatterton's memoir there is a story or two of Mr. Muhlhauser's War experiences that betray his excep- tional qualities. A seaman who remained still unsatisfied after commanding a " Q " ship, and after all kinds of hair- raising desperation in the North Sea . when its horizons were calamity, but must go round the world in a craft built for holiday cruising, with two or three left-handed natives to help Wait when he wanted to keep her off leeward reefs; was an unusual case. His example is not to be recommended He was a modest man, but his log cannot disguise the fact that there was more than one occasion when the 'Amaryllis' would have been overwhelmed—and she was very lucky with her weather–if anyone less sidlful had been in charge of her. As it was, three years of confinement, hard- ships, and anxiety in so small a ship 'proved too much for - even such a hardened seaman.
This is a good book of lie sea, for the narrator was a closely observant man—as dde -Might guess—and what interested him, therefore, is always worth hearing about. lie rarely 'speculates ; he records facts.: We -hear- much about the ship and her behaviour; the -weather, the sea, the food, and the people he met in odd places ; nothing about himself. There are one or two officials he reports to us who must now -regvet tl.athe,y mistook the lieutenants modesty Tor —well, what usually, do we read into a shy and quiet demean- our? They badly mistook their man:- Yet a moment's reflection would have Warned them that a' fellow who had navigated such a craft from. Plymouth to the South Seas had better be carefully handled. They foolishly omitted to consider so 'significant a little' ftia; and Mr. Muhihauser sailed away, chuckling, knowing how and where to put them in his log. At least they afford us some amusement The 'Amaryllis' went through the Panama COW, visited the Galapagos, the Marquesas, Rarotonga, the -Fiji islands: and then went to Sydney. Picini Australia She sailed for -New Zealand and from there visited New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands .(a ticklish bit of navigation through that .group), New Guinea, and thence sailed across the" Arafura Sea along the line of the Suridad:–Timor, Flores, • Sumbawa, Bali, Java,_ Suthatra—to Singapore, and then home bythe Red Sea and Cibraitar. It is a long book,' with plenty of photographs and sufficient maps, but it is not too loiig, because it is just the volume for holiday reading.
H. M. TosnarisOri.
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