The newspapers published during the War of 1812, granted even that they were vastly prejudiced of course, contained so much of thrilling interest, and so much that is now forgotten...
"Keep her a good full, Mr. Hazard," said Roswell, as he was leaving the deck to take the first sleep in which he had indulged for four-and-twenty hours, "and let her go through the...
On the lake front at Chicago during the World's Fair, close by the entrance to the long walk that led out to the marvellously constructed imitation battle-ship, the Illinois, reste...
An old sailor sat on the Constitution's forecastle, with his back against the carriage of one of the forward carronades. He was skilfully unwinding a skein of spun yarn which he he...
Through drizzling fogs and vapors, and under damp, double-topsails, our wet-decked frigate drew nearer and nearer to the squally Cape. Who has not heard of it? Cape Horn, Cape Horn...
Captain Myron Symington was a long-legged Yankee. There was no mistaking him for anything else but an out-and-out downeaster. As to the length of his underpinning, that was apparen...
Simultaneous ideas occurring to several people, or thought transference, whatever one likes to call the phenomenon, is too frequent an occurrence in most of our experience to occas...
About the year 1786, the merchants and planters interested in the West India Islands became anxious to introduce an exceedingly valuable plant, the bread-fruit tree, into these pos...
One of the carronades of the battery, a twenty-four pounder, had broken loose. This is the most dangerous accident that can possibly take place on shipboard. Nothing more terrible...
We had never yet had the leisure to inspect the stores with which the mutineers had furnished the quarter-boat, and we now found, in spite of their having shifted a lot of provisio...
In an ill hour, God knows, on the 1st of September, 1651, I went on board a ship bound for London. Never any young adventurer's misfortunes, I believe, began sooner, or continued l...
Jim Hawkins, the boy hero of Stevenson's tale, had sailed with a party of adventuresome gentlemen on the ship Hispaniola, to find the pirate gold which, as they had private proof,...
Victor Hugo's "Toilers of the Sea" is a story of the Channel Islands between England and France. Gilliatt, the hero, was a seaman of extraordinary skill and physical strength, a so...
That night, in the mid-watch, when the old man--as his wont at intervals--stepped forth from the scuttle in which he leaned, and went to his pivot-hole, he suddenly thrust out his...
Jack Easy, the hero of Captain Marryat's story, was "no fool, but a bit of a philosopher." He had been spoiled by an indulgent mother and a foolish father, who was continually pros...
The next morning Jack Easy would have forgotten all about his engagement with the captain, had it not been for the waiter, who thought that after the reception which our hero had g...
In the ordinary course of a commercial education, in New England, boys are transferred from school to the merchant's desk at the age of fourteen or fifteen. When I had reached my f...
It was broad day when I awoke, and found myself tossing at the southwest end of Treasure Island. The sun was up, but was still hid from me behind the great bulk of the Spy-glass, w...
For many days we had been tempest-tossed. Six times had the darkness closed over a wild and terrific scene, and returning light as often brought but renewed distress, for the ragin...
In the evening I started, ... down the road I had traversed under so many vicissitudes. "Don't you think that," I asked the coachman, in the first stage out of London, "a very rema...
We cannot detain the narrative, to detail the scenes which busy wonder, aided by the relation of divers marvellous feats, produced among the curious seamen who remained in the ship...
In the storm of the 4th and 5th of August, 1880 at the age of 23 years _Requiescat in pace_! Then Iceland loomed up before her, with its little cemetery lighted up from below the s...
In the storm of the 4th and 5th of August, 1880 She read mechanically under the arch of the doorway; her eyes sought to pierce the distance over the sea. That morning it was untrac...
We continued our cruise along the coast, until we had run down into the Bay of Arcason, where we captured two or three vessels, and obliged many more to run on shore. And here we h...
I am not likely to forget that next morning, the 28th of August, (17--). It was a fine summer's morning, and there was just a little sea on, with a strongish breeze blowing from th...
North Latitude 23-1/2, Longitude East 113; the time March of this same year; the wind southerly; the port Whampoa in the Canton River. Ships at anchor reared their tall masts here...