CHAPTER I FIRST VOYAGE TO SOUTH AFRICA—CAPE TOWN. "Oh that mine adversary had written a book!"—JOB xxxi. 35. The above words, written by one of the greatest philosophers of olden time, have often impressed me, and I have frequently quoted them when asked why I did not write an account of the interesting travels and adventures I have had in my life. It has therefore required a great deal of... more...

PART I SECTION I Six weeks after the war-cloud smashed over Europe a man called on me. He was an old friend; but the point about him is that at that particular time I fancied him on his farm at least a thousand miles away. "Hello!" I said in surprise. "Why this sudden appearance?" "This is going to be a big thing, my boy. I am off 'Home.' They will need us all." It... more...

CHAPTER I "Look out there, Bud! Look out! There you go!" "Side-stepping soap dishes! What's the idea? Whoa, there, Sock!" The pinto pony reared, swerved sharply to one side as a black streak shot across the trail almost under his feet and then, when the animal came to a sudden stop, there shot over his head the boy who had given vent to the last exclamation. Bud Merkel came down... more...

CHAPTER I. When, before resorting to extreme measures to obtain what the Uitlanders deemed to be their bare rights, the final appeal or declaration was made on Boxing Day, 1895, in the form of the manifesto published by the Chairman of the National Union, President Kruger, after an attentive consideration of the document as translated to him, remarked grimly: 'Their rights. Yes, they'll get... more...

Mr. Sherlock Holmes Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. It was a fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as a "Penang lawyer."... more...

In the academic year of 1947-48 Montague studied the geographic variation in Thomomys talpoides of Wyoming. His study was based upon materials then in the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History. Publication of the results was purposely delayed until previously reported specimens from certain adjacent areas, especially in Colorado, could be examined. In the autumn of 1950 one of us, Hall, was... more...

THE REVENGE OF THE MOORS. For more than three centuries the trading nations of Europe were suffered to pursue their commerce or forced to abandon their gains at the bidding of pirates. From the days when Barbarossa defied the whole strength of the Emperor Charles V., to the early part of the present century, when prizes were taken by Algerine rovers under the guns, so to say, of all the fleets of... more...

PREFACE This volume concludes the series, begun in 1903, which was intended to comprise all the best traditional ballads of England and Scotland. The scheme of classification by subject-matter, arbitrary and haphazard as it may seem to be at one point or another, has, I think, proved more satisfactory than could have been anticipated; and in the end I have omitted no ballad without due justification.... more...

Chapter 41 The Metropolis of the South THE approaches to New Orleans were familiar; general aspects were unchanged. When one goes flying through London along a railway propped in the air on tall arches, he may inspect miles of upper bedrooms through the open windows, but the lower half of the houses is under his level and out of sight. Similarly, in high-river stage, in the New Orleans region, the... more...

CHAPTER I. HOW THEY CAME TO BE "US.""Blue were their eyes as the fairy-flax,Their cheeks like the dawn of day."Longfellow.A soft rather shaky sort of tap at the door. It does not all at once reach the rather deaf ears of the little old lady and tall, still older gentleman who are seated in their usual arm-chairs, one with his newspaper by the window, the other with her netting by the... more...