The reader may think that while coal must be a dirty cargo it is in other respects an innocent one; but there is no shipmaster who does not dread a long voyage with this kind of freight, for many a fine vessel has been lost owing to the coal taking fire through spontaneous combustion; therefore the greatest care is exercised in carrying it, and whenever the weather will permit, the hatches are opened... more...

I am the last of my type existing today in all the Solar System. I, too, am the last existing who, in memory, sees the struggle for this System, and in memory I am still close to the Center of Rulers, for mine was the ruling type then. But I will pass soon, and with me will pass the last of my kind, a poor inefficient type, but yet the creators of those who are now, and will be, long after I pass... more...

THE LIBERTY OF FRANZAND THEREBELLION OF FUZZY WUZZY Madame Morelli, the pretty little Frenchwoman who makes a half-score of leopards, panthers and jaguars do things which nature never intended them to do, had finished her act and driven the snarling performers through the narrow runway to their separate cages, fastening each one, as she thought, securely. Two French clowns were filling in the time and... more...

THEORIES ON THE ORIGIN OF SPEECH The evolutionary theory is thus propounded by Romanes in his "Mental Evolution in Man," pp. 377-399: "Starting from the highly intelligent and social species of anthropoid ape as pictured by Darwin, we can imagine that this animal was accustomed to use its voice freely for the expression of the emotions, uttering danger signals, and singing. Possibly it may... more...

CHAPTER I The ship—The crew—A hurricane—Cape Verde Islands—Frio—A pampeiro. To get underweigh: It was on the 28th of February 1886, that the bark Aquidneck, laden with case-oil' sailed from New York for Montevideo, the capital o' Uruguay, the strip of land bounding the River Plate on the east, and called by the natives "Banda Oriental." The Aquidneck was a trim and tidy... more...

Chapter I The chief merchant of Ascalon stood in the guest-chamber of his house. Although it was a late winter day the old man was clad in the free white garments of a midsummer afternoon, for to the sorrow of Philistia the cold season of the year sixty-nine had been warm, wet and miasmic. An old woman entering presently glanced at the closed windows of the apartment when she noted the flushed face of... more...

BACK TO BACK Mrs. Scutts, concealed behind the curtain, gazed at the cab in uneasy amazement. The cabman clambered down from the box and, opening the door, stood by with his hands extended ready for any help that might be needed. A stranger was the first to alight, and, with his back towards Mrs. Scutts, seemed to be struggling with something in the cab. He placed a dangling hand about his neck and,... more...

BONES, SANDERS AND ANOTHER To Isongo, which stands upon the tributary of that name, came a woman of the Isisi who had lost her husband through a providential tree falling upon him. I say "providential," for it was notorious that he was an evil man, a drinker of beer and a favourite of many bad persons. Also he made magic in the forest, and was reputedly the familiar of Bashunbi the devil... more...

Once upon a time there was a little boy called Little Yellow Wang-lo. He lived with his father in a boat which was moored in a river near a town His name was Fo-Pa (little Yellow Wang-lo always called him Pa). He was a duck merchant and had hundreds of ducks—white ducks, black ducks, brown ducks, big ducks, little baby ducks, and middle-sized ducks—ducks that said quack, drakes that said quork, and... more...

Hannibal was underfoot and the captain on the bridge, and Rear-Admiral Garnet had shaken hands with the last of the "leading" Fijian white residents, who always did the welcoming and farewelling when distinguished persons visited Levuka, when Lieutenant Bollard approached him and intimated that "a person" from the shore had just come alongside in a boat and desired to see "his... more...