I built the Snark and paid
for it, and for all expenses.
I contracted to write thirty-five
thousand words descriptive of the trip for a magazine which was to
pay me the same rate I received for stories written at home.
Promptly the magazine advertised that it was sending me especially
around the world for itself. It was a wealthy magazine. And every
man who had business dealings with the Snark charged three prices
because forsooth the magazine could afford it. Down in the
uttermost South Sea isle this myth obtained, and I paid accordingly.
To this day everybody believes that the magazine paid for everything
and that I made a fortune out of the voyage. It is hard, after such
advertising, to hammer it into the human understanding that the
whole voyage was done for the fun of it.
I went to Australia to go into hospital, where I spent five weeks.
I spent five months miserably sick in hotels. The mysterious malady
that afflicted my hands was too much for the Australian specialists.
It was unknown in the literature of medicine. No case like it had
ever been reported. It extended from my hands to my feet so that at
times I was as helpless as a child. On occasion my hands were twice
their natural size, with seven dead and dying skins peeling off at
the same time. There were times when my toe-nails, in twenty-four
hours, grew as thick as they were long.
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