INTRODUCTORY The following extract from the Espejo de Navegantes, or Seamen's Glass, of Alonso de Chaves serves to show the development which naval tactics had reached at the dawn of the sailing epoch. The treatise was apparently never published. It was discovered by Captain Fernandez Duro, the well-known historian of the Spanish navy, amongst the manuscripts in the library of the Academy of... more...

CHAPTER I JACK IN THE SADDLE "Your father is a little late to-night, isn't he Jack?" "Yes, Mrs. Watson, he should have been here a half-hour ago, and he would, too, if he had ridden Sunger instead of his own horse." "You think a lot of that pony of yours, don't you, Jack?" and a motherly-looking woman came to the doorway of a small cottage and peered up the mountain... more...

CHAPTER I. PEMBERTON'S. The clock struck one. It was the tall standing clock in the front room of Pemberton's Hotel, and Pemberton's stands by the highway that runs by the coast of Long Island Sound. It is near the western edge of the village of Greenough, the gilt cupola of whose eminent steeple is noted by far-passing ships. On the beach are flimsy summer cottages, and hard beside them... more...

1661-62. January 1st. Waking this morning out of my sleep on a sudden, I did with my elbow hit my wife a great blow over her face and nose, which waked her with pain, at which I was sorry, and to sleep again. Up and went forth with Sir W. Pen by coach towards Westminster, and in my way seeing that the "Spanish Curate" was acted today, I light and let him go alone, and I home again and sent to... more...

CHRISTMAS TREE. (Pohutukawa). ong ago the Piccaninnies didn't have a rag to their backs except a huia feather which they wore in their hair. They were the jolliest, tubbiest, brownest babies you ever saw with tiny nubbly knobs on their shoulders, as if they had started to grow wings and then changed their minds about it, and little furry pointed ears, as all wild creatures have. Only these were... more...

CHAPTER I.   THE privilege that statesmen ever claim,  Who private interest never yet pursued,  But still pretended 'twas for others' good.  . . . . . .  From hence on every humorous wind that veered  With shifted sails a several course you steered.                 Absalom and Achitophel, Part ii. LORD VARGRAVE had for more than a fortnight remained at the inn at... more...

SALLY CREIGHTON. The frost outside was bitter, and the prairie, which rolled back from Lander's in long undulations to the far horizon, gleamed white beneath the moon, but there was warmth and brightness in Stukely's wooden barn. It stood at one end of the little, desolate settlement, where the trail that came up from the railroad thirty miles away forked off into two wavy ribands that melted... more...

INTRODUCTION THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE OLD ISLAMIC WORLD The rise of Islam is perhaps the most amazing event in human history. Springing from a land and a people alike previously negligible, Islam spread within a century over half the earth, shattering great empires, overthrowing long-established religions, remoulding the souls of races, and building up a whole new world—the world of Islam. The... more...

CHAPTER I HIS CHILDHOOD The Revolutionary War was over. The British soldiers were preparing to embark on their ships and sail back over the ocean, and General Washington would soon enter New York city at the head of the American army. While all true patriots were rejoicing at this happy turn of affairs, a little boy was born who was destined to be the first great American author. William Irving, the... more...

THE BROTHER AVENGED I stood before my master’s board,   The skinker’s office plying;The herald-men brought tidings then   That my brother was murdered lying. I followed my lord unto his bed,   By his dearest down he laid him;Then my courser out of the stall I led,   And with saddle and bit arrayed him. I sprang upon my courser’s back,   With the spur began to goad him;And ere I drew his... more...