Chapter I The Train The boy in the third wagon was suffering from exhaustion. The days and days of walking over the rolling prairie, under a brassy sun, the hard food of the train, and the short hours of rest, had put too severe a trial upon his delicate frame. Now, as he lay against the sacks and boxes that had been drawn up to form a sort of couch for him, his breath came in short gasps, and his face... more...

THERE IS A ROD FOR THE BACK OF EVERY FOOL WHO WOULD BE WISER THAN HIS GENERATION. The next morning, when Marmaduke descended to the hall, Madge, accosting him on the threshold, informed him that Mistress Sibyll was unwell, and kept her chamber, and that Master Warner was never visible much before noon. He was, therefore, prayed to take his meal alone. "Alone" was a word peculiarly unwelcome to... more...

DEDICATORY EPISTLE. I dedicate to you, my indulgent Critic and long-tried Friend, the work which owes its origin to your suggestion. Long since, you urged me to attempt a fiction which might borrow its characters from our own Records, and serve to illustrate some of those truths which History is too often compelled to leave to the Tale-teller, the Dramatist, and the Poet. Unquestionably, Fiction, when... more...

"Letty," Mr. DeBrugh remarked between long puffs on his meerschaum, "you've been a fine maid. You've served Mrs. DeBrugh and me for most of fifteen years. Now I haven't much more time in this life, and I want you to know that after Mrs. DeBrugh and I are gone, you will be well taken care of." Letty stopped her dusting of the chairs in Mr. DeBrugh's oak-paneled study.... more...

INTRODUCTION. I VISITED Naples in the year 1818. On the 8th of December of that year, my companion and I crossed the Bay, to visit the antiquities which are scattered on the shores of Baiae. The translucent and shining waters of the calm sea covered fragments of old Roman villas, which were interlaced by sea-weed, and received diamond tints from the chequering of the sun-beams; the blue and pellucid... more...

An Unwelcome Visitor. The beauty of Seville is proverbial. “Who has not seen Seville, has not seen a wonder of loveliness,” say the Spaniards. They are proud indeed of Seville, as they are of everything else belonging to them, and of themselves especially, often with less reason. We must carry the reader back about three hundred years, to a beautiful mansion not far from the banks of the famed... more...

CHAPTER I STATESMEN OF OUR CRITICAL PERIOD I came to consciousness in the then small town of Buffalo in western New York, whither, in Andrew Jackson's day, our household gods and goods were conveyed from Massachusetts for the most part by the Erie Canal, the dizzy rate of four miles an hour not taking away my baby breath. Speaking of men and affairs of state, as I shall do in this opening paper, I... more...

CHAPTER I. Bad beginning of the new year. Dangerous illness. Kindness of Arabs. Complete helplessness. Arrive at Tanganyika. The Doctor is conveyed in canoes. Kasanga Islet. Cochin-China fowls. Beaches Ujiji. Receives some stores. Plundering hands. Slow recovery. Writes despatches. Refusal of Arabs to take letters. Thani bin Suellim. A den of slavers. Puzzling current in Lake Tanganyika. Letters sent... more...

INTRODUCTION. In the midst of the universal sorrow caused by the intelligence that Dr. Livingstone had lost his life at the furthest point to which he had penetrated in his search for the true sources of the Nile, a faint hope was indulged that some of his journals might survive the disaster: this hope, I rejoice to say, has been realized beyond the most sanguine expectations. It is due, in the first... more...

CHAPTER I LE ROI EST MORT "There; that's it. That's where they buried Frenchman," said Andrew—known as River Andrew. For there was another Andrew who earned his living on the sea. River Andrew had conducted the two gentlemen from "The Black Sailor" to the churchyard by their own request. A message had been sent to him in the morning that this service would be required of... more...