Overview

The last hand is shaken, the last kiss given, the last look taken -- yes, we are parted! -- for what different scenes -- we, a family bound on a long and perilous voyage to a strange land and a stranger people...Thus began the journal kept by Lucy Kendall on a voyage from New York to California around Cape Horn, one of the few accounts written by women about sea travel of the era. Twenty-four-year-old Lucy, her mother, sister, and a family friend boarded the Josephine, a 947-ton freighter, on May 25, 1852, and began the long trip San Fransisco. They were travelling to join Joseph Kendall, Lucy's father, who has sailed there in 1849. During the 137-day voyage, the travellers suffered many hardships; extremes of temperature, terrifying storms, a man lost overboard-and boredom, all of which Lucy records with wit and compassion. She also describes the pleasures of travel at sea: an endless horizon filled with glowing sunrises, radiant sunsets, a luminous moon, and countless stars. Lucy's journal is framed with the story of her childhood in England and New York and her later life in San Francisco. An introduction by historian Andrew Rolle places the 1852 voyage in historical context.

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9780873281652

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Amy Requa Russell (1896-1985) was a published poet and a prizewinning playwright. Andrew Rolle is retired from Occidental College in Los Angeles, where he was Cleland Professor of History.

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