From Raft to Raft

by Bengt Danielsson

  Eric, who now seems at last to have realized that Tati was not as much interested in ocean currents as he was, announced curtly that he meant to put him ashore at Hawaii: the fact that this meant a little detour of 4,000 miles did not trouble him at all. Only a few days later they began to notice a nauseous fetid smell. It seemed to come from their store-room, and when they opened the door they saw at once what had happened. Some of the commandant’s minions had evidently searched the boat while they were being interrogated and, presumably hoping to find some compromising documents or miniature infernal machines, had gone to the length of opening all their tins of preserves and carefully soldered boxes of provisions. The water tank they had mercifully left untouched and almost full. When Eric and Tati had thrown overboard all the food that had gone bad, all they had left was a packet of ship’s biscuits.

  For three weeks they lived on biscuits, water and a soup made of grease. At first, of course, they tried to fish, but all their attempts were without result because they had no proper bait. So in order not to waste their quickly diminishing strength, henceforward they concentrated their energies on reaching their far-off destination as quickly as possible. The currents and winds were unfavourable, and life on board became one long nightmare. From the beginning of the fourth week they were so exhausted that they could not even keep a course, but began to drift. Towards the end of the fifth week they at last sighted land, a misty vision of a high, bare, rocky coast. They tried to sit up, but the effort was too great and they fainted away. When they recovered consciousness they were surrounded by the most repulsive, horrible collection of monstrosities they had ever seen. They both thought at first that they had been transported to a well-known burning hot place underground, but one of their rescuers explained matters. They had drifted ashore in the middle of the leper colony of Kalaupapa, on the north side of Molokai in the Hawaii group. Their joy at having come through alive yet again was swiftly dissipated when they learnt that their dear Fou Po II had been smashed against the rocks and that all their log-books, notes and other belongings had been lost.

  During their long stay in hospital Eric read numbers of anthropological books. A picture of a Polynesian double canoe gave him an idea. Why not continue his interrupted study of the ocean currents on board such a craft as this, well-tested and sea-worthy? He would thus be able to study Polynesian navigation at the same time. He was still firmly decided to make all his future voyages alone. But what would become of poor Tati? To return to France by steamer would be very expensive, and Tati had long given Eric all the money he had. Eric generously offered first to make a trip to France with Tati, just as if it had been a little cruise along the coast and not a daring journey halfway round the globe. It was an absurdly magnificent gesture, but Tati, who by this time had adopted Eric’s grandiose ideas of life, quietly accepted the offer. The two inseparable friends, both equally happy at the prospect of being separated at last, immediately set about building a boat for the third time.

  The queer vessel was completed a year later, and at the beginning of March 1937 Eric and Tati took a glad farewell of Hawaii and a crowd of newly acquired friends who, until the last minute, persisted in calling their modest double canoe, only thirty-seven feet long, ‘the two coffins’. They themselves had named her Kaimiloa, after a famous canoe in a Hawaiian legend. Kaimiloa quickly showed herself to be not only a steady and easily managed craft, but also a notably fast sailer. Delighted that his new creation had proved such an excellent sea-boat, and eager to keep his promise to Tati, Eric hoisted all sail and carried out with extraordinary precision and elegance one of the longest and quickest voyages which have ever been undertaken in a craft of this size. The first 2300 miles, from Hawaii to the Wallis Islands, were covered in a little over a month without calling anywhere. Thence Eric resolutely set a course for the Torres Strait, which he passed through this time with such certainty that it almost looked as if he remembered the exact position of every reef from his earlier passage in Fou Po II. The rest of the voyage as far as Bali went easily and quickly, and all earlier records were beaten.

  But the voyage across the Indian Ocean was even more striking. With the kindly help of an unusually strong north-east monsoon, Kaimiloa rushed along like a racing yacht and arrived at Cape Town a mere fifty-nine days later. Her average speed had been not less than 100 miles a day, which is unique for so long a voyage. Perhaps it should be added that Eric and Tati would certainly have made the crossing still more quickly if they had not run into a storm just south of the Cape of Good Hope which smashed Kaimiloa’s rudder and drove them down to the edge of the polar ice. The next stage, from Cape Town to Tangier, took as much as 100 days, but they went out of their way to visit the Azores and Portugal, though curiously enough they did not land at either.

  Tati, delighted to be at home at last and firmly resolved never to undertake any more long voyages under sail, took a hurried farewell of his captain as soon as they reached their final destination, Cannes, and disappeared. But Eric was still as fascinated as ever by the mysteries of the Pacific, and did not mean to stay any longer in France than was absolutely necessary. The Kaimiloa was an extraordinarily good boat, there were no two opinions about that: but that did not mean that she could not be improved, Eric thought. But the improvements he wanted to make, however, were unusually numerous, and it ended in his building quite a new boat with two outriggers, which most suitably received a double name, Kaimiloa-Wakea. Just before this a charming and determined American girl with the pretty Hawaiian name Papaleaiaina, whom he had met in Honolulu, had arrived. Instead of the solitary cruise which he had originally intended, he hastily and gaily decided on a honeymoon voyage to the South Seas with Papaleaiaina. The newly married couple left France in May 1940, just before the fall of France.

  Kaimiloa-Wakea was both faster and safer than her predecessor, and Eric’s navigation was as fine as ever. But through a stroke of ill-luck, such as he encountered all his life with hideous regularity, soon after she had sailed, one dark night near the Canary Islands, Kmmiloa-Wakea found herself in some mysterious manner under the bows of a Spanish fishing boat. The beautiful canoe was cut in two and sank in a few minutes. Eric still could not swim, but Papaleaiaina could, and she managed to keep him from sinking till the Spaniards could launch a boat and pick them up.

  This new escape from drowning was followed by one of the most fantastic episodes in Eric’s adventurous life. He and his young wife were fearfully unhappy in France, to which they had been able to return only with great difficulty after a long time of waiting in the Canary Islands, and he wanted to resume his South Seas studies at all costs. But how could he do this without boat or money, and in the middle of the war? Eric solved this apparently insoluble problem with admirable ingenuity by getting himself appointed French consul in Honolulu as soon as the United States entered into diplomatic relations with the Vichy Government. Seen in the light of subsequent events, his action seems purely opportunist and foolish. But to judge this episode rightly it should be known that Eric, in accordance with old family tradition, was a Royalist, and that his parents had long been neighbours and friends of Marshal Petain. Eric therefore regarded Petain’s personal rule as a step in the right direction, i.e., towards the restoration of the monarchy, and on account of his personal ties of friendship with the old Marshal relied on him even more blindly than the rest of his countrymen, who at that time—it must not be forgotten—with extremely few exceptions still regarded Pdtain as the saviour of France.

  People in Honolulu liked Eric very much, and he became very popular, but when the Vichy Government began to lose its independence and prestige, his position as consul became increasingly difficult. Eventually a point was reached at which the authorities suspected him of being a Japanese spy and put him under arrest. This time, however, the results were less disastrous than ten years before, when the Japanese commandant of Jaluit had suspected him of being an American spy. The authorities soon saw the absurdity of the charge and released him
with a half-hearted excuse. As soon as the war was over he immediately began to look about for a suitable vessel for the long-postponed South Seas cruise which he was now firmly resolved to undertake.

  As he could not find a Polynesian double canoe, he finally decided for a Chinese junk of 150 tons, Cheng Ho. She had originally been a smart pleasure yacht, but during the war had degenerated into an officers’ floating mess at Pearl Harbour. The American Navy had just restored her to her owner, who was eager to find some profitable use for her. Eric, as careless and naive as ever in economic and practical things, and evidently convinced that business and scientific study could be combined, at once formed a company with him to buy up copra and sell foodstuffs, cloth and other goods in French Polynesia.

  Eric’s partner prudently remained on shore during the first voyage. When Eric at last returned to Honolulu, delighted with all the peculiar ocean currents and natives he had encountered, an examination of the accounts revealed that the cruise in some incomprehensible manner showed a loss. Eric was utterly astonished, and wanted to set out on another trip at once to make good the loss. His companion, however, cold-bloodedly started a lawsuit, which went on for weeks and weeks, and hardly had the two parties reached a settlement when a new lawsuit seemed to be impending.

  This was too much for Eric, who saw his newly-won liberty threatened. He hurriedly scraped together a crew, boarded Cheng Ho, set a course for Tahiti, and disappeared for ever out of his partner’s life and that of his wife. Ordinarily at least eight men were needed to sail the big junk, but strange to say Eric and his two inexperienced companions accomplished the long voyage of 2,400 miles without misadventure in eighteen days. This audacious performance caused a great sensation, and Eric’s unlucky partner was not alone in condemning him in severe language for his (to put it mildly) rash action. The only possible excuse which can be offered in this and many similar cases was that Eric was unfortunately born a few hundred years too late and that he ought to have lived in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries, when such generally respected professions as those of pirate and conquistador were open to those who found a quiet life at home irksome.

  It was just after this daring escapade, which took place in 1949, that I met Eric for the first time. He was lively and, despite his age (nearly sixty), as merry as a schoolboy. I fell for his charm almost immediately. In spite of our having diametrically opposite views about almost everything we parted the best of friends. During the next two years, which I spent in the Tuamotu group, Eric turned up now and again with his comical junk, and more than once he stayed a day or two longer than was necessary solely to convince me of the correctness of his, to say the least, revolutionary anthropological theories. I had a definite impression that the copra and retail goods business was in a bad way, and I was right, for some time later the company went smash.

  Eric took this reverse very calmly, not to say nonchalantly, and as usual he had a new surprise in store: he not only applied for but at once obtained a newly-created post as land surveyor in the Austral group, which consists of five mountainous islands, remote and difficult of access, 300 miles south of Tahiti. Years passed without my hearing anything from Eric or about him, except that he was writing a long and learned book on Polynesian navigation and that he was immensely popular owing to his Solomon-like way of settling quarrels between landowners. I was convinced, as everyone else was, that old age had at last made itself felt and that he had settled down to a quiet life for good and all. Now, however, after all that I had heard and seen of his raft expedition, I saw that he had only withdrawn to the Austral Islands for a few years to prepare himself for the last and greatest sea adventure of his life.

  Eager to obtain rather fuller information about Eric’s ambitious plans, I ignored the countless suitcases and trunks which I really ought to have been unpacking, and returned to Papeete the very next morning. I spent a considerable time shouting on the quay before Eric appeared in the doorway of the hut-like cabin, which took up the greater part of the bamboo raft’s deck. His hair had grown much whiter in the two years which had passed since I last saw him, and he looked tired and worried. But when he saw me his face brightened a good deal, and he ran out a plank so that I might go on board.

  As soon as I had sat down in the spacious cabin, Eric began to speak at once, as though anxious to forestall an attack from my side. He said, not without a certain bitterness in his voice:

  ‘Imitations of your Kon-Tiki voyage have degenerated into a futile sport for a long time past, so I’m not surprised at everybody shaking their heads and asking of what use my expedition can be. But I can assure that I am just as serious, and have just as much of a scientific object as Thor Heyerdahl, when he decided to make his raft expedition ten years ago. The only difference is that I want to prove another theory, quite the opposite of his. But I don’t know if there’s any object in my going on, for you’ll only laugh at my theories and certainly think me crazy. . ’

  I earnestly assured him that in the first place I could be neither an opponent nor a supporter of his theories, as he had not yet told me what they were, and in the second place that I had a soft spot for madmen. Eric, visibly relieved, produced a chart of the Pacific and continued:

  ‘As my expedition will be compared with the voyage of the Kon-Tiki anyway, I may as well take Thor Heyerdahl’s theories as my starting point. I quite agree with him that there are many identical artifacts and customs, not to say plants, in South America and in the Polynesian islands. But when it comes to explaining these similarities we do not agree. According to Thor Heyerdahl they exist because the first immigrants into Polynesia were a fairskinned people from Peru, who sailed across the Pacific on balsa rafts and settled in the islands about fifteen hundred years ago. I, on the contrary, after twenty years of study and reflection, have come to the conclusion that the similarities are due to the fact that Polynesian sea-dogs repeatedly made the long voyage to South America and back in prehistoric times and thus both influenced and were influenced by different Indian tribes. So what we have here, in my opinion, is not a migration from one area to another but simply cultural exchanges such as have always taken place and are still taking place between different peoples—as, for example, when American women follow Parisian dress fashions and French musicians play American jazz.’

  ‘But that’s not a new theory at all,’ I unkindly remarked. ‘At least a dozen anthropologists, in various books and articles, have maintained that the Polynesians, on their daring long voyages across the South Seas, reached the South American coast once or several times. My countryman Erland Nordenskiöld, for example, published a study as long ago as 1931, in which—’

  ‘I know perfectly well what Nordenskiöld, Frederici, Dixon, Rivet, Buck, Homell, Emory and all the rest of them have written,’ Eric interrupted me in a thoroughly pugnacious tone. ‘But none of them know anything about navigation, and so they move peoples here and there over the map like chessmen, without regard to the practical problems. Buck imagines, for example, that Polynesian double canoes could sail direct from Tahiti or Mangareva to South America, several thousand miles, right against the strong easterly trade wind, which blows non-stop all the year round. What is new and valuable in my theory is that I show not only what route, but also what kind of craft, the Polynesians used on their voyages to and from South America. Here, look at the map. Wherever the Polynesians who went to America started from, you can be sure that they went down to about 40 degrees south, where strong westerly winds prevail. When they got close to South America the Humboldt Current gave them a free lift up to Peru: and from there, of course, they could easily return to Polynesia with the help of the easterly trade winds and currents, as your Kon-Tiki expedition showed. Everyone to whom I have propounded this simple theory, however, has assured me that it is so stormy at 40 degrees south that any Polynesian crew which dared to make such a rash attempt would have been lost at once. So it is mainly to show that the southern route is the only practicable one that I am prepared
to make this experiment. Of all the anthropologists who have taken an interest in Polynesian navigation, Thor Heyerdahl is the only one who has attempted anything of the kind, and therefore I have much more respect for him than for all my other opponents put together.’

  I nodded reflectively, and then put a question which had long been on the tip of my tongue:

  ‘But, Eric, why don’t you make your voyage of demonstration in a double canoe instead of a bamboo raft? As far as I know outrigger canoes and double canoes were the only vessels the Polynesians had in old times.’

  ‘You are partly right, for no European has ever seen a real seaworthy Polynesian sailing raft made of bamboo,’ Eric replied. ‘But to jump to the conclusion that there never have been any such craft in Polynesia, as everyone has done so far, is surely rather hasty. All proper models had undoubtedly disappeared at the time when the islands were discovered, for the reason, which anyone can understand, that the Polynesians had long before this ceased to make long voyages between the different groups of islands. But degenerate forms of sailing rafts were still to be found everywhere, and even today, on a few islands, some old man can be found who can describe these craft.’

  I must have looked dubious, for Eric raised his voice and added, in a still more decided tone:

  ‘Indeed, sailing rafts must have been used all over the Pacific in remote antiquity. For unless one assumes them to be derived from a common original type, how can one explain the fact that rafts of the same kind are still in use on both sides of the Pacific, in Peru in the east and in Formosa and Indo-China in the west?’

  ‘So that is why you have fitted out your raft with Peruvian centreboards and Chinese rig at the same time?’ I put in.

  Eric nodded gravely. I myself found it hard to take this method of reconstructing a prehistoric type of raft really seriously. But as my intention here is primarily to give an idea of what sort of man Eric de Bisschop was and what his own purpose in undertaking his raft expedition was, I shall omit the keen discussion which followed. It was not interrupted till, an hour or two later, there was a loud knocking on the cabin door.