Six feet water in the hold, sir! That would not have been a pleasant announcement to the captain of the 'Aurora' at any time, but its unpleasantness was vastly increased by the fact that it greeted him near the termination of what had been, up to that point of time, an exceedingly prosperous voyage. "Are you sure, Davis?" asked the captain; "try again." He gave the order under the influence of that feeling which is styled "hoping against hope," and himself accompanied the ship's carpenter to see it obeyed. "Six feet two inches," was the result of this investigation. The vessel, a large...

There is a particular spot in those wild regions which lie somewhere near the northern parts of Baffin's Bay, where Nature seems to have set up her workshop for the manufacture of icebergs, where Polar bears, in company with seals and Greenland whales, are wont to gambol, and where the family of Jack Frost may be said to have taken permanent possession of the land. One winter day, in the early part of the eighteenth century, a solitary man might have been seen in that neighbourhood, travelling on foot over the frozen sea in a staggering, stumbling, hurried manner, as if his powers, though not...

Ned Sinton gazed at the scene before him with indescribable amazement! He had often witnessed strange things in the course of his short though chequered life, but he had never seen anything like this. Many a dream of the most extravagant nature had surrounded his pillow with creatures of curious form and scenes of magic beauty, but never before, either by actual observation or in nightly vision, had Ned Sinton beheld a scene so wonderful as that which now lay spread out before him. Ned stood in the centre of a cavern of vast dimensions-so vast, and so full of intense light, that instead of...

It was five oclock in the afternoon. There can be no doubt whatever as to that. Old Agnes may say what she pleases-she has a habit of doing so-but I know for certain (because I looked at my watch not ten minutes before it happened) that it was exactly five oclock in the afternoon when I received a most singular and every way remarkable visit-a visit which has left an indelible impression on my memory, as well it might; for, independent of its singularity and unexpectedness, one of its results was the series of strange adventures which are faithfully detailed in this volume. It happened...

Nearly two thousand seven hundred years ago-or some-where about eight hundred years BuCu-there dwelt a Phoenician sea-captain in one of the eastern sea-ports of Greece-known at that period, or soon after, as Hellas. This captain was solid, square, bronzed, bluff, and resolute, as all sea-captains are-or ought to be-whether ancient or modern. He owned, as well as commanded, one of those curious vessels with one mast and a mighty square-sail, fifty oars or so, double-banked, a dragons tail in the stern and a horses head at the prow, in which the Phoenicians of old and other mariners were...

Early one morning, in the year 18 hundred and something, the great Southern Ocean was in one of its calmest moods, insomuch that the cloudlets in the blue vault above were reflected with almost perfect fidelity in the blue hemisphere below, and it was barely possible to discern the dividing-line between water and sky. The only objects within the circle of the horizon that presented the appearance of solidity were an albatross sailing in the air, and a little boat floating on the sea. The boat rested on its own reflected image, almost motionless, save when a slight undulation of the water...