Expeditions & Discoveries Books

CHAPTER 1. DEPARTURE AND PROVISIONING EN ROUTE. 1699. THE AUTHOR'S DEPARTURE FROM THE DOWNS. I sailed from the Downs early on Saturday, January 14, 1699, with a fair wind, in His Majesty's Ship the Roebuck; carrying but 12 guns in this voyage and 50 men and boys with 20 months' provision. We had several of the King's ships in company, bound for Spithead and Plymouth, and by noon we... more...

CHAPTER I. FAREWELL TO OLD ENGLAND. Masts, spires, and strand receding on the right, The glorious main expanding on the bow. At noon on July 1st, 1876, we said good-bye to the friends who had come to Chatham to see us off, and began the first stage of our voyage by steaming down to Sheerness, saluting our old friend the 'Duncan,' Admiral Chads's flagship, and passing through a perfect... more...

The life and trauailes of Pelagius borne in Wales. Pelagius Cambrius ex ea Britanniæ parte oriundus, famati illius Collegij Bannochorensis a Cestria non procul, præpositus, erat, in quo Christianorum philosophorum duo millia ac centum, ad plebis in Christo commoditatem militabant, manuum suarum laboribus, iuxta Pauli doctrinam victitantes. Post quam plures exhibitos, pro Christiana Repub. labores,... more...

TO FORESTAUpon the road to Faerie,O there are many sights to see,—Small woodland folk may one discernHousekeeping under leaf and fern,And little tunnels in the grassWhere caravans of goblins pass,And airy corsair-craft that floatOn wings transparent as a mote,—All sorts of curious things can beUpon the road to Faerie!Along the wharves of Faerie—There all the winds of ChristendieAre musical with... more...

INTRODUCTORY NOTE Sir Walter Raleigh may be taken as the great typical figure of the age of Elizabeth. Courtier and statesman, soldier and sailor, scientist and man of letters, he engaged in almost all the main lines of public activity in his time, and was distinguished in them all. His father was a Devonshire gentleman of property, connected with many of the distinguished families of the south of... more...

INTRODUCTION. Lewis Holberg, the author of the Narrative of Niels Klim, was the most eminent writer among the Danes in the eighteenth century. His works show a surprising versatility of genius, comprising Histories and Treatises on Jurisprudence, together with Satires and Comedies. He was by birth a Norwegian, but was educated at the University at Copenhagen in Denmark. Soon after receiving a... more...

There is no one of the Pioneers of this continent whose achievements equal those of the Chevalier Robert de la Salle. He passed over thousands of miles of lakes and rivers in the birch canoe. He traversed countless leagues of prairie and forest, on foot, guided by the moccasined Indian, threading trails which the white man's foot had never trod, and penetrating the villages and the wigwams of... more...

Chapter I. Jean-Francois Galaup, Comte De Laperouse, was born at Albi, on August 23, 1741. His birthplace is the chief town in the Department of Tarn, lying at the centre of the fruitful province of Languedoc, in the south of France. It boasts a fine old Gothic cathedral, enriched with much noble carving and brilliant fresco painting; and its history gives it some importance in the lurid and exciting... more...

PRINCIPALL SECRETARIE TO HER MAIESTIE, MASTER OF THE COURT OF WARDES AND LIUERIES, AND ONE OF HER MAIESTIES MOST HONOURABLE PRIUIE COUNSELL. Right Honorable, hauing newly finished a Treatise of the long Voyages of our Nation made into the Leuant within the Streight of Gibraltar, and from thence ouer-land to the South and Southeast parts of the world, all circumstances considered, I found none to whom I... more...

THE ISLE OF PINES The scene opens in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the year 1668, where in one of the college buildings a contest between two rival printers had been waged for some years. Marmaduke Johnson, a trained and experienced printer, to whose ability the Indian Bible is largely due, had ceased to be the printer of the corporation, or Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, but... more...