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Here's a short transcript of the first solo circum-navigator's visit at St. 
Helena, nearing the end of his voyage. Two things that catch my attention:
1) he's found his means of telling his story, and paying for it, by running 
slide shows, even at this early date.
2) they love his story-telling skills. He's ready to write. 


"On Thursday, April 14, 1898, the arrival of Captain
Joshua Slocum in his little yacht Spray constituted an event
as unique in the history of St. Helena as the fact of a man
making alone a voyage round the globe in a nine-ton boat
probably is in the history of the world.
The Spray made her appearance after a smart run of
sixteen days from Cape Town, the news of her arrival causing
a commotion among the community of the island, and many
visited the boat in which a feat requiring rare pluck and
skill had been so successfully accomplished�a feat which
in its extreme daring, amounted to foolhardiness.
Captain Slocum hailed from Boston, from which port he
started on his voyage three years before, on April 24,
1895. He called successively at Fayal, Gibraltar, Pernam-
buco, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, Buenos Ayres, Straits of
Magellan (twice), thence to Juan Fernandez (Robinson
Crusoe's island), Samoa, Newcastle and Sydney (New
South Wales), Melbourne, Launceston (Tasmania), Torres
Straits across the Indian Ocean to the island of Keeling,
thence to Rodrigues, Mauritius, Natal and Cape Town, and
lastly St. Helena, whence he proceeded to the United States.
At the Garden Hall the Captain gave a very interesting
and humorous lecture on his voyage, illustrated by a series
of beautiful lantern-views of the various places he had
visited, and the classes of people met with. Mr. R. P.
Pooley, United States Consul, having introduced the Captain
to the audience with a few amusing remarks, the
lecturer began by narrating an account of his voyage, telling
in a highly humorous manner the many and various incidents
which occurred on his voyage. His reason for
coming alone, he said, was because he could not get the one
he wanted to come with him. He could get lots of others,
but he didn't want them. He considered the failure of
many a great expedition was due to there being too many
who wanted to be master. Columbus' expedition was an
instance of this: if Columbus had been alone, he would have
discovered America long before�in fact, he added, America
would have discovered itself. The Spray he had built
himself; there was not a nail in her he had not driven, and
she took thirteen months to build. When he determined
to make the voyage alone, he put all hardships behind him,
and having been twenty-five years a ship-master knew
pretty well what he undertook. Up to the present he had
not regretted having done so ; not even when in a violent
storm off Cape Horn (in which three vessels were lost�one
the City of Philadelphia) did he regret his undertaking. His
boat had lived through it; in fact, being so light she would
live through a storm that many another vessel would not
survive, for she sat like a duck on the water. He had never
felt any extra fatigue�never once felt over-worked. The
course he came was by deliberation, not by chance; he
pricked off on his chart the course he meant to take, and he
followed it. His chronometer was a watch which went
all right when he did not neglect to wind it. Everything
was done by dead reckoning. The biggest run the Spray
made was 1,200 miles in eight days in a gale. He spoke
two vessels, one the Java. The Captain of this vessel
asked him how long it had been calm. He replied, " I
don't know; I haven't been here long." " How long are you
out ? " was the next query. " Eight days from Boston."
He went below, says Captain Slocum, to fetch his mate to
hear this " Yankee Skipper " tell fish-stories ! The Captain
humorously described some of his experiences with the
native pirates in the Straits of Magellan, a place where the
wind is so strong that not a vestige of moss can grow on
the rocks�strong enough at times to " blow the hair off
a dog's back," he aptly termed it. "/ left my hat there,"
remarked the Captain reflectively, as he felt the bald spot
on the top of his head ! At Gibraltar he was very cordially
received, and was shown through the fortifications. " These
works are," he adds, " said to be worthy of the Russians ;
I say they are worthy of John Bull alone ! " he also paid
a visit to Juan Fernandez, the uninhabited island on which
Alexander Selkirk, better known as Robinson Crusoe,
spent four and a half years. He went to the look-out
place, and also brought a stone from the fireplace of the
cave.
Among many of the views shown was one of Government
House, Pretoria, a building which, says the Captain, would
grace any city in the world. He went to see Oom Paul,
who, when he was told that the Captain had been round
the world, said, "You mean across the world !" Mr.
Kruger believes the world is flat, and is quite positive on
this point.
In speaking of the objects of his voyage, the Captain
frankly admitted that one of them was to make money; as
he cutely remarked, any man with his head screwed on in
the right place wants to do that; then again he possesses a
spirit of adventure.
Altogether the lecture was really interesting and amusing,
and the lantern views superb. At the conclusion cheers were
given for the lecturer, who was entertained at dinner
by His Excellency the Governor and Mrs. Sterndale at
Government House, Plantation. " 

Oh, and I will join Mr. Kruger in saying, "The world is flat! Your spherical 
trigonemtry is mere trickonemtry!!" 

 -FER 


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