Rupert Sargent Holland was an American author. His works include: Historic Boyhoods (1909), The Boy Scouts of Birchbark Island (1911), The Boy Scouts of Snowshoe Lodge (1915) and King Arthur and The Knights of the Round Table. "A privateer was leaving Genoa on a certain June morning in 1461, and crowds of people had gathered on the quays to see the ship sail. Dark-hued men from the distant shores of Africa, clad in brilliant red and yellow and blue blouses or tunics and hose, with dozens of glittering gilded chains about their necks, and rings in their ears, jostled sun-browned sailors and mer...