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Jerry of the Islands By: Jack London (1876-1916) |
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FOREWORD
It is a misfortune to some fiction writers that fiction and unveracity in
the average person's mind mean one and the same thing. Several years ago
I published a South Sea novel. The action was placed in the Solomon
Islands. The action was praised by the critics and reviewers as a highly
creditable effort of the imagination. As regards reality they said
there wasn't any. Of course, as every one knew, kinky haired cannibals
no longer obtained on the earth's surface, much less ran around with
nothing on, chopping off one another's heads, and, on occasion, a white
man's head as well. Now listen. I am writing these lines in Honolulu, Hawaii. Yesterday, on
the beach at Waikiki, a stranger spoke to me. He mentioned a mutual
friend, Captain Kellar. When I was wrecked in the Solomons on the
blackbirder, the Minota , it was Captain Kellar, master of the
blackbirder, the Eugenie , who rescued me. The blacks had taken Captain
Kellar's head, the stranger told me. He knew. He had represented
Captain Kellar's mother in settling up the estate. Listen. I received a letter the other day from Mr. C. M. Woodford,
Resident Commissioner of the British Solomons. He was back at his post,
after a long furlough to England, where he had entered his son into
Oxford. A search of the shelves of almost any public library will bring
to light a book entitled, "A Naturalist Among the Head Hunters." Mr. C.
M. Woodford is the naturalist. He wrote the book. To return to his letter. In the course of the day's work he casually and
briefly mentioned a particular job he had just got off his hands. His
absence in England had been the cause of delay. The job had been to make
a punitive expedition to a neighbouring island, and, incidentally, to
recover the heads of some mutual friends of ours a white trader, his
white wife and children, and his white clerk. The expedition was
successful, and Mr. Woodford concluded his account of the episode with a
statement to the effect: "What especially struck me was the absence of
pain and terror in their faces, which seemed to express, rather, serenity
and repose" this, mind you, of men and women of his own race whom he
knew well and who had sat at dinner with him in his own house. Other friends, with whom I have sat at dinner in the brave, rollicking
days in the Solomons have since passed out by the same way. My
goodness! I sailed in the teak built ketch, the Minota , on a
blackbirding cruise to Malaita, and I took my wife along. The hatchet
marks were still raw on the door of our tiny stateroom advertising an
event of a few months before. The event was the taking of Captain
Mackenzie's head, Captain Mackenzie, at that time, being master of the
Minota. As we sailed in to Langa Langa, the British cruiser, the
Cambrian , steamed out from the shelling of a village. It is not expedient to burden this preliminary to my story with further
details, which I do make asseveration I possess a plenty. I hope I have
given some assurance that the adventures of my dog hero in this novel are
real adventures in a very real cannibal world. Bless you! when I took
my wife along on the cruise of the Minota , we found on board a nigger
chasing, adorable Irish terrier puppy, who was smooth coated like Jerry,
and whose name was Peggy. Had it not been for Peggy, this book would
never have been written. She was the chattel of the Minota's splendid
skipper. So much did Mrs. London and I come to love her, that Mrs.
London, after the wreck of the Minota , deliberately and shamelessly
stole her from the Minota's skipper. I do further admit that I did,
deliberately and shamelessly, compound my wife's felony. We loved Peggy
so! Dear royal, glorious little dog, buried at sea off the east coast of
Australia! I must add that Peggy, like Jerry, was born at Meringe Lagoon, on Meringe
Plantation, which is of the Island of Ysabel, said Ysabel Island lying
next north of Florida Island, where is the seat of government and where
dwells the Resident Commissioner, Mr... Continue reading book >>
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