Captain Graybrook’s Home. A heavy gale was blowing, which shook the windows of the little drawing-room in which Mrs Graybrook and her daughter Hannah were seated at their work. Their cottage was situated close to the sea on the north coast of Wales, so that from it, on a clear day, many a tall ship bound for Liverpool, or sailing from that port, could be seen through the telescope which stood ever... more...

The New Colony. Arrival of the families of Mr Pemberton, Farmer Greening and others, in New Zealand.—Inspect Land.—Encamp near the Port till they can settle on the Land they have selected. A fine emigrant ship, her voyage happily terminated, had just entered her destined port in the northern island of New Zealand. Her anchor was dropped, the crew were aloft furling sails, and several boats... more...

Story 1—Chapter 1. Notes from Pringle Rushforth’s Sea Log. A Letter to Brother Harry, at Eton. It has become a reality, dear Harry. I feel very strange—a curious sensation in the throat, just as if I was going to cry, and yet it is exactly what I have been longing for. You know better than any one how I had set my heart on going to sea, and yet I thought that I should never manage it. But, after... more...

How Uncle Jeff came to “Roaring Water”—The situation of the farm—The inmates of the house—My sister Clarice and Black Rachel—Uncle Jeff—Bartle Won and Gideon Tuttle—Arrival of Lieutenant Broadstreet and his men—The troopers quartered in the hut—Our farm-labourers—Sudden appearance of the redskin Winnemak—His former visit to the farm—Clarice encounters him at the spring—Badly... more...

My home, and how I left it. The day arrived. A post-chaise stood in front of the old grey manor-house. I have it all before me. The pointed gables—the high-pitched, dark weather; stained roof—the numberless latticed windows—the moat, now dry, which had once served to keep out a body of Cromwell’s horse—the tall elms, which had nestled many a generation of rooks—the clump of beech trees, and... more...

Picture a wide, gently undulating expanse of land covered with tall grass, over which, as it bends to the breeze, a gleam of light ever and anon flashes brightly. It is a rolling prairie in North America, midway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. On either hand the earth and sky seem to unite, without an object to break the line of the horizon, except in the far distance, where some tall trees,... more...

Chapter One. The stout trading brig Amity, Samuel Mudge master and part owner, was gliding up Plymouth Sound on a summer’s evening towards her accustomed berth in Catwater, a few years before the termination of the last war between England and France. She had no pilot on board; indeed, her crew averred that the old craft could find the way in and out of the harbour by herself; at all events, her... more...

Introductory—My father’s history—Enters the navy as a surgeon—Learns Spanish—Appointed to the “Zebra,” in the Pacific—Takes Dicky Duff under his charge—A shooting expedition on shore—Captured by Spaniards on coast of Guatemala with Dicky and Paul Loro—Carried to Panama—Meets an old friend, who takes him to Guayaquil—Visit Loja to inspect Peruvian bark—Meets Dr... more...

My father’s land—Born at sea—My school life—Aunt Bretta—Spoilt by over-indulgence—Enticed to sea—The Kite schooner—Contrast of a vessel in port with a vessel at sea—My shipmates—My name fixed in more ways than one—A gale—Repentance comes too late—Suspicious customers—A narrow escape—Naples and its Bay. My father, Eric Wetherholm, was a Shetlander. He was born in the Isle... more...

The trapper’s camp—Beavers caught—The horses killed by wolves—Traps to catch the wolves. In the far western wilds of North America, over which the untutored red-skinned savage roams at liberty, engaged throughout life in war or the chase, by the side of a broad stream which made its way towards a distant lake, an old man and a boy reclined at length beneath a wigwam, roughly formed of sheets of... more...