Sea Stories Books

I By some means, needless to record here, I found myself, not so many years ago, "on the beach" at Melbourne, in Australia. To be on the beach is not an uncommon occurrence for a sailor in any part of the world; but, since the question is suggested, I will say that I was not a very dissipated young fellow of twenty-five, for up to that time I had never even tasted rum in any form, although I... more...

To John Snow's home in Gloucester came the tale this night of how Arthur Snow was washed from the deck of Hugh Glynn's vessel and lost at sea; and it was Saul Haverick, his sea clothes still on him, who brought the word. "I'm telling you, John Snow," said Saul—and he out of breath almost with the telling—"and others than me will by an' by be telling you, what a black... more...

I belong to the family of the Merrys of Leicestershire. Our chief characteristic was well suited to our patronymic. “Merry by name and merry by nature,” was a common saying among us. Indeed, a more good-natured, laughing, happy set of people it would be difficult to find. Right jovial was the rattle of tongues and the cachinnation which went forward whenever we were assembled together either at... more...

WE AND THE WORLD. CHAPTER I. “All these common features of English landscape evince a calm and settled security, and hereditary transmission of home-bred virtues and local attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral character of the nation.”—Washington Irving’s Sketch Book. It was a great saying of my poor mother’s, especially if my father had been out of spirits about the... more...

THE NEW VESSEL OF WITHROW’S It was only a few days before this that the new vessel of Mr. Withrow’s, built by him, as everybody supposed, for Maurice Blake, had been towed around from Essex, and I remember how Maurice stood on the dock that afternoon and looked her over. There was not a bolt or a plank or a seam in her whole hull, not a square inch inside or out, that he had not been over half a... more...

My Birth, Parentage, and Family Pretensions—Unfortunately I prove to be a Detrimental or Younger Son, which is remedied by a trifling accident—I hardly receive the first elements of science from my Father, when the elements conspire against me, and I am left an Orphan. Gentle reader, I was born upon the water—not upon the salt and angry ocean, but upon the fresh and rapid-flowing river. It was in... more...

THE SCHOONER. The great Pacific is the scene of our story. On a beautiful morning, many years ago, a little schooner might have been seen floating, light and graceful as a seamew, on the breast of the slumbering ocean. She was one of those low, black-hulled vessels, with raking, taper masts, trimly-cut sails, and elegant form, which we are accustomed to associate with the idea of a yacht or a pirate.... more...

This tale makes no claim to the character of an exhaustive illustration of all that belongs to the art of diving. It merely deals with the most important points, and some of the most interesting incidents connected therewith. In writing it I have sought carefully to exhibit the true and to ignore the false or improbable. I have to acknowledge myself indebted to the well-known submarine engineers Messrs... more...

I Cap'n Aaron Sproul, late skipper of the Jefferson P. Benn, sat by the bedside of his uncle, "One-arm" Jerry, and gazed into the latter's dimming eyes. "It ain't bein' a crowned head, but it's honer'ble," pleaded the sick man, continuing the conversation. His eager gaze found only gloominess in his nephew's countenance. "One way you look at it,... more...

PREFACE MORE than three years have elapsed since the occurrence of the events recorded in this volume. The interval, with the exception of the last few months, has been chiefly spent by the author tossing about on the wide ocean. Sailors are the only class of men who now-a-days see anything like stirring adventure; and many things which to fire-side people appear strange and romantic, to them seem as... more...