History

Enchanted Vagabonds
by Michel Janicot

In 1935, an intrepid, adventurous couple, Dana and Helen Lamb, built a large wooden sea-worthy canoe, stocked its hold with basic kitchen utensils, provisions, casks of water, a compass and marine maps, fishing gear, a first aid kit, a flashlight and batteries, an ample supply of waterproof matches, binoculars, cameras and rolls of film, a kerosene lantern and cooking stove, weapons and ammunition, and left southern California bound for Panama.

The six-month journey aboard the “Vagabunda” hugged the western Pacific coast where the Lambs foraged for spring water, free food (fruits, coconuts, bananas) and small wild animals (birds, pigs, turtles, iguanas) whenever they touched land. A great part of their time was spent fishing. Upon their return, they published their adventures in a book entitled Enchanted Vagabonds (New York: Harper & Bros. 1938) which is now considered rare and may be found in better-quality used bookstores.

(Dana Lamb was the grand-nephew of Richard Dana, whose book Two Years Before the Mast became an instant best-seller when it was published in 1840. Richard Dana shipped on as a simple seaman aboard a Yankee clipper ship from Boston that sailed around the Horn to California. The book records the physical features of the California coastline, its flora and fauna, and the customs and lifestyle of the Californians. The ship was one of the first American vessels to engage in the lucrative hide-and-tallow trade. Richard Dana’s chapters on the early days of California, continue to be quoted repeatedly in anthologies devoted to that pre-Gold Rush era; and the book has been considered a classic by Western historians for several decades.)

Dana and Helen Lamb drew several maps of their journey that were included in Enchanted Vagabonds. We reproduce here the one applicable to the state of Guerrero. The reader will notice that in 1936 the river that delineates the state of Michoacan and Guerrero was then named Sacatula; it has since been changed to Rio Balsas. The authors saw only a cluster of fisherman’s huts along Petacalco Bay before they stopped at Isla Grande, the present day Ixtapa. The Lambs then trekked inland to a spot marked “village” which is today’s bustling agricultural city of Pantla. The Lambs did not see any living person in Zihuatanejo, no one according to Lamb lived in Zihuatanejo at the time. Following the coastline is Petatlan Bay with Islas Blancas—the current site of Barra de Potosi—where the Lambs encountered their first alligators there or possibly in the nearby lagoon at Valentin. They then had good hunting inland from Tequepa Bay, and sighted but a few huts on their way to Acapulco. South of that maritime city founded by the Spaniards in the 16th century, the natives they met were hostile, belligerent and unfriendly to the two Anglos. Further south at the entrance of the Dulce River, the fearless couple was attacked by several bellicose natives and certainly would have been killed if Dana hadn’t produced a gun and two pistols. Along the coast of the state of Oaxaca, the adventurers touched land in the well-known, aptly named, Malaria Lagoon, where for several days they suffered from the effects of that disease until they reached Puerto Escondido and rested until they continued paddling towards Chiapas, Guatemala, San Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.

Michel Janicot is a writer and a history buff who lives in Grass Valley, CA. where he is a walking tour guide and has written tour guides and books about California history. Janicot has been a repeat visitor to Zihuatanejo for 10 years and has been writing about history and off the beaten path travel for Another Day in Paradise for seven years.

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