Great Sea StoriesJoseph Lewis French ...It is one of the curiosities of literature, a fact that old Isaac Disraeli might have delighted to linger over, that there have been no collectors of sea-tales; that no man has ever, as in the present instance, dwelt upon the topic with the purpose of gathering some of the best work into a single volume. And yet men have written of the sea since 2500 B.C. when an unknown author set down on papyrus his account of a struggle with a sea-serpent. This account, now in the British Museum, is the first sea-story on record. Our modern sea-stories begin properly with the chronicles of the early navigators-in many of which there is an unconscious art that none of our modern masters of fiction has greatly surpassed. For delightful reading the lover of sea stories is referred to Best's account of Frobisher's second voyage-to Richard Chancellor's chronicle of the same period-to Hakluyt, an immortal classic-and to Purchas' "Pilgrimage."... |
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... Boatswain's mate , pipe away the crew of the jolly - boat . " We also hove to , and were in the act of lowering down the boat , when the offi- cer rattled out- " Keep all fast with the boat ; I can't comprehend that chap's manoeuvres ...
... boatswain , the men who hailed you just now ; the last was knocked on the head , and the former was stabbed and thrown overboard . " We immediately released the men , eighteen in number , and armed them with boarding - pikes . " What ...
... boatswain from the forecastle . Before we could beat to quarters , another sang between our masts . We kept steadily on our course , and as we approached our pigmy antagonist , he bore up . Presently we were alongside of him . " Heave ...
... boat- swain from forward . " The devil ! " quoth Splinter , and he ran along the gangway , and ascended the forecastle , while I kept close to his heels . We looked out ahead , and there we cer- tainly did see a splashing , and boiling ...
... boatswain and man the side . Soon the gig ran alongside ; two of the ship's boys jumped like monkeys over the bulwarks , lighting , one on the main channels , the other on the mid- ship port , and put the side ropes assiduously in the ...