THE HOUSE OF MAPUHI Despite the heavy clumsiness of her lines, the Aorai handled easily in the light breeze, and her captain ran her well in before he hove to just outside the suck of the surf. The atoll of Hikueru lay low on the water, a circle of pounded coral sand a hundred yards wide, twenty miles in circumference, and from three to five feet above high-water mark. On the bottom of the huge and... more...

CHAPTER I—THE NÜ-CHÊNS AND KITANS The Manchus are descended from a branch of certain wild Tungusic nomads, who were known in the ninth century as the Nü-chêns, a name which has been said to mean "west of the sea." The cradle of their race lay at the base of the Ever-White Mountains, due north of Korea, and was fertilised by the head waters of the Yalu River. In an illustrated Chinese work... more...

e was her brother. The thought gave her the same thrill this morning as it had given her on a morning seventeen years back, when the old family doctor had laid a tiny bundle in her arms and said, "You'll have to be his sister and mother both, Elizabeth." Her twelve years then hung heavily on her; her little face, stained with the marks of recent tears, took on a warmer glow as she touched... more...

CHAPTER I To begin somewhere near the beginning, the Maluka—better known at that time as the new Boss for the Elsey—and I, his "missus," were at Darwin, in the Northern Territory, waiting for the train that was to take us just as far as it could—one hundred and fifty miles—on our way to the Never-Never. It was out of town just then, up-country somewhere, billabonging in true... more...

Chapter First. Mr. Duncan's Discontentment. He starts for the West. Near the Cold Springs, in Lafayette county, Missouri, lived Mr. Duncan, a sturdy woodsman, who emigrated thither with his father, while the Mississippi valley was still a wilderness, inhabited by wild beasts, or the still more savage Indians. His grandfather was an eastern man; but had bared his brawny arm on many a battle field,... more...

PART I Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess. And in this it is not likely that all are mistaken the conviction is rather to be held as testifying that the... more...

PREFACE. A few words by way of Preface are requisite, in order that the objects of the present Work may be stated to the reader, and that he may also be made acquainted with the sources whence the information here communicated is derived, and from consulting which he may still further inform himself concerning Australia. The aim of the writer of the following pages has been,—while furnishing a... more...

CHAPTER I. THE INTRODUCTION. I did not go to Rome to seek for condemnatory matter against the Pope's government. Had this been my only object, I should not have deemed it necessary to undertake so long a journey. I could have found materials on which to construct a charge in but too great abundance nearer home. The cry of the Papal States had waxed great, and there was no need to go down into... more...

Like the love of music, books and pictures, the love of gardens comes with culture and leisure and with the ripening of the home life. The love of gardens, as of every other beautiful and refining thing, must increase to the end of time. More and more must the sympathies enlarge. There must be more points of contact with the world. Life ever becomes richer. Gardening is more than the growing of plants:... more...

CHAPTER I. Early Life in Virginia--Example of Pious Parents. I was born a slave, in Madison county, Virginia, March, 1804. My father, John Davis, and his family, belonged to Robert Patten, Esq., a wealthy merchant, residing in Fredericksburg--who was also owner, in connection with Mr. John Thom, of a large merchant mill, located on "Crooked Run," a stream running between Madison and Culpepper... more...