I read a recent account of a young fisherman’s fight for life while alone in a lifeboat for thirteen days adrift in the Pacific Ocean. It reminded me of Mark Twain’s account of a similar saga of survival, away back in 1866…
The Hornet sailed out of New York with a quantity of kerosene onboard and caught fire in the middle of the Pacific. Capt. Mitchell and his crew set themselves adrift in two lifeboats, the second of which was never to be seen again.
Surviving at sea 43 days on 10 day’s rations for 15 men, they washed ashore at Laupahoihoi on the Big Island of Hawaii. Well, Mark Twain just happened to be there at the time, and scooped the story. His vivid account appeared in the Sacramento Union, the paper that sent him out there to write up the potential of commerce between California and Hawaii. Subsequently it also appeared in Harpers under the by-line, Mark “Swain.”…