Early on a summer morning, about the beginning of the nineteenth century, two fishermen of Forfarshire wended their way to the shore, launched their boat, and put off to sea. One of the men was tall and ill-favoured, the other, short and well-favoured. Both were square-built, powerful fellows, like most men of the class to which they belonged. It was about that calm hour of the morning which precedes sunrise, when most living creatures are still asleep, and inanimate nature wears, more than at other times, the semblance of repose. The sea was like a sheet of undulating glass. A breeze had...

Talk of earthquakes not all the earthquakes that have rumbled in Ecuador or toppled over the spires and dwellings of Peru could compare, in the matter of dogged pertinacity, with that earthquake which diurnally and hourly shocked little Gertie's dwelling, quivered the white dimity curtains of little Gertie's bed and shook little Gertie's frame. A graceful, rounded little frame it was; yet strong, and firmly knit-perhaps in consequence of its having been from infancy so constantly and so well shaken together.

Oh I love the great blue ocean, I love the whistling breeze, When the gallant ship sweeps lightly Across the surging seas. I watched my first ship building; I saw her timbers rise, Until her masts were towering Up in the bright blue skies.

One fine autumn evening, between eight and nine hundred years ago, two large hairy creatures, bearing some resemblance to polar bears, might have been seen creeping slowly, and with much caution, toward the summit of a ridge that formed a spur to one of the ice-clad mountains of Greenland. The creatures went on all-fours. They had long bodies, short legs, shorter tails, and large round heads.

One beautiful summer night, about the beginning of the present century, a young naval officer entered the public drawing-room of a hotel at Nice, and glanced round as if in search of some one. Many people were assembled there-some in robust, others in delicate, health, many in that condition which rendered it doubtful to which class they belonged, but all engaged in the quiet buzz of conversation which, in such a place, is apt to set in after dinner.

On a profoundly calm and most beautiful evening towards the end of the last century, a ship lay becalmed on the fair bosom of the Pacific Ocean. Although there was nothing piratical in the aspect of the ship-if we except her guns-a few of the men who formed her crew might have been easily mistaken for roving buccaneers. There was a certain swagger in the gait of some, and a sulky defiance on the brow of others, which told powerfully of discontent from some cause or other, and suggested the idea that the peaceful aspect of the sleeping sea was by no means reflected in the breasts of the men....

Join us aboard a pirate ship in a time that never was. A swashbuckling tale of mutiny and courage set in the Pacific. Vivid and entertaining.

Manx Bradley was an admiral-"admiral of the fleet"-though it must be admitted that his personal appearance did not suggest a position so exalted. With rough pilot coat and sou'-wester, scarred and tarred hands, easy, rolling gait, and boots from heel to hip, with inch-thick soles, like those of a dramatic buccaneer, he bore as little resemblance to the popular idea of a lace-coated, brass-buttoned, cock-hatted admiral as a sea-urchin bears to a cockle-shell. Nevertheless Manx was a real admiral-as real as Nelson, and much harder worked.

Excerpt from The Red Eric: The Whaler's Last Cruise
New Scenes. - A Fight prevented By a Whale. - A Storm. - Blown off the Yardarm. - Wreck of "The Red Eric"; The Sandbank. - The wrecked Crew make the best of bad circumstances; Life on the Sandbank. - Ailie takes possession of Fairyland. - Glynn and Bumble astonish the Little Fishes; Matters grow worse and worse. - The Mutiny. - Commencement of Boat-building, and threatening storms; The Storm; Preparations for a Long Voyage. - Briant proves that Ghosts can drink. - Jacko astonishes his Friends, and saddens his Adopted Mother; The Boat...

There is a voice in the waters of the great sea. It calls to man continually. Sometimes it thunders in the tempest, when the waves leap high and strong and the wild winds shriek and roar, as if to force our attention. Sometimes it whispers in the calm, and comes rippling on the shingly beach in a still, small voice, as if to solicit our regard. But whether that voice of ocean comes in crashing billows or in gentle murmurs, it has but one tale to tell, -it speaks of the love, and power, and majesty of Him who rides upon the storm, and rules the wave