Jack Manly; His Adventures by Sea and Land

We had scarcely lost sight of Cape St. Francis when the wind became light and variable, and one of those dense fogs peculiar to that region settled surely and slowly, densely an...

We missed our lost companions sorely, for the death of a shipmate in his hammock, or by falling overboard, makes a great impression on the secluded survivors at sea. His watery...

The wind and sea went down together as day brightened on the cheerless scene. After the night we had passed, how grimly pale and wan our faces seemed in the cold grey dawn of mo...

We had twenty-four hands on board; twelve of these were landsmen, being gunners and batmen, half agriculturists and half fishermen, who, at times, in summer, left their families...

The evening, as it deepened into night, was calm and beautiful: as yet the moon had not risen, but the sky was clear, with an intensity and purity of blue that can only be found...

On the next day (17th of March), when the fleet of adventurers departs for the spring seal fishery, the little seaport town of St. John's presents an unusual aspect of bustle an...

We continued to fish, or rather to hunt, the seals here with considerable success, warping the brig from day to day along the outer edge of the ice, between which and her side w...

Exactly six months had elapsed since I left my father's snug villa at Peckham, with its walls shrouded by roses and honeysuckle; and now I found myself two thousand three hundre...

On the night after our adventure with the whale I had turned in to bed betimes; but was roused about two in the morning by the noise made by Hammer, our carpenter, Cuffy Snowbal...

"I am aware," says the author of _Antonina_, "of the tendency in some readers to denounce truth itself as improbable, unless their own personal experience has borne witness to i...

Making signs that I was a friend, or wished to be considered one, by casting away my asseguy, and placing my hands upon my head and breast, I advanced with a resolute aspect, bu...

We repaired to our sledge alongside, and dragging it a little way from the deserted barque, took a ration of grog (of which we stood much in need), and then I proceeded to exami...

Rejoicing that we trod on firm land once more, Paul Reeves, Hans Peterkin, and I set off to shoot on the great Island of Sermesoak, which is divided from the mainland of Greenla...

It is written--says the Spanish Dominican Friar and Missionary Priest, the Padre Navarette--that the first time reports reached Europe of a spectre haunting the Cape of Storms,...

Long ere the mate's story was concluded, the dense fog--chilly, white, and drenching--had shrouded the dreary isle of Baccalao, and the voices of the penguins alone indicated it...

Inured though we were to the cold, we felt the toil and peril very great when traversing the ice for fifteen miles; but fortunately the day was clear, and not a speck of cloud a...

I cared little about the slaughter of the seals,--indeed, I rather disliked it--and for several days my attention was excited solely by the vessel which was beset so far from us.

It was in the month of August, 1670, that the barque _De Ruyter_, bearing the flag of the Seven United Provinces (then under their High Mightinesses the States General) and name...

Some days after this event, we saw the dark blue of the sea flecked at the horizon by white spots. These increased in size as we approached, and proved to be the floes, or detac...

On recovering, I found myself in the cabin of the _Leda_, with Captain Hartly hanging over me, and chafing my hands and temples, in anxiety and solicitude, with hartshorn and vi...

The last of our stone ballast had long since been thrown overboard on the ice, and was replaced by seal skins. We had now a valuable cargo, over which the hatches were barred an...

The pallor of his countenance, his wasted form, and sunken features shocked me, for I was quite unaware or heedless that he would find an equal ravage in my own appearance. His...

We crossed the line on the last day of June. I need not rehearse the description of a hackneyed ceremony known to all--how curtains were rigged amidships--how Father Neptune wit...

Without pausing for a moment to express friendly or other signs, we rushed down with headlong speed towards the creek, where the canoes lay beached upon the thick fringe of mang...

Soon after this, in a dark and howling night, we were blown from our moorings, and forced to run before the wind, with our topmasts struck, and only our jib and a close-reefed f...

"'I shall never succeed,' is often the parent of failure" (to quote Isaac Taylor when writing on character). "'I will not try any more,' ensures disappointment. 'It is all _chan...

On first approaching, I imagined that a heap of snow had fallen from the upper rocks on the dead ox, and advanced so close that I was only twenty paces from it before discoverin...

After that night a long time of dreamy stupor seemed to elapse, before any distinct sense of existence forced itself upon me. Then I seemed to wake from a heavy slumber (which h...

The barque _Princess_, which, until we touched at Ascension, had been favoured with singularly fine weather, now encountered strong head-winds. She was driven out of her course,...

In our ignorance of the wild country through which we travelled, our sole guide towards the sea was the course of the river Formosa, which rapidly widened into a mighty estuary,...

After various efforts to make ourselves mutually understood, he said something in a kind of jargon which resembled German, and as I had learned that language at home for commerc...

Amoo, the savage who wore the amulet or coin at his neck, proved to be the King's brother; and when first dragged to his miserable dwelling he informed me, by signs--pointing to...

We were in the hands of a tribe addicted to fetishism of the lowest kind. Worse than the ferocious Bisagos, who pay divine homage to a dunghill cock, or the people of Benin, who...

Though our apprehensions were great, our chief sufferings were from cold in that lofty and listless situation; yet our dread of impending dangers was so keen, our hope of a chan...

"When night fell, I came out of the lonely forest to gaze upon the moonlit sea--not that the forest was very _lonely_, after all, as there seemed to be at least fifty thousand b...

When the Senhor Dom Vasco came to his senses, says the Padre Navarette, morning had dawned. All nature was calm, and the warm rays of the rising sun were shedding light and glad...

I cannot describe the emotions of joy with which, after our recent long imprisonment amid the waste of ice we gazed upon its buoyant ripples shining in the sun of May. Its broad...

"Yah, yah," said Amoo, as he placed one hand on my head, and drew the right forefinger of the other across his throat, in a way that was unpleasantly suggestive. Then he laughed...

In this precarious situation I must have been asleep for some hours, when awakened by a dreadful sound, and with a start so nervous that I nearly fell from my roost upon the lon...

In that district of Africa every village has its petty monarch, and these are all vassals of the King of Gabon, who, in turn, is vassal of the King of Benin; and Zabadie, the so...

Next morning I was up early, my bed not being exactly so luxurious as I could have wished; and there was about everything that overpowering odour of blubber which pervades a Gre...

Cuffy Snowball fired his musket at our pursuer, whether with or without effect we know not; but, in reply, a confused discharge of firearms followed, and the balls pattered amon...

The chainbobstay under the bowsprit was snapped, our rudder was split and its pintles were started, but these defects were soon repaired by the carpenter; and next day, at noon,...

The sixth day dawned as the wind freshened and the waning moon went down in clouds; it dawned upon an angry sea, a leaden sky, and with a cold breeze that bore no ship--no hope...

Indeed these, and a kind of shirt of grass-matting, were all the garments I possessed; for the savages, on our capture, tore all our clothes into strips, that each might have a...

Yams, bananas, plantains, even boiled potatoes, and pipkins of pure spring water were liberally provided for us by our black female guardians, six of whom appeared once daily wi...

"If once we are free from the town," said Hartly, "we can find concealment during the day, and by travelling at night may reach the coast. Then, if we can but obtain a canoe, an...

We came to anchor, handed our topsails, but merely hauled up our courses, so as to be ready for sea at a moment's notice. We were in a little sheltered cove, abreast of a small...

The whole of the coast there is broken by innumerable river estuaries, the banks of which are covered by bright green reeds, and broad-leaved weeds and canes of mighty growth. T...

Released from the tree, but still benumbed and sore after being so long bound to it, I was now stretched upon the grass, under the shadow of its great fan-like branches. Many pe...

Steering my course westward, so closely as I could judge, I rode rapidly through wild and pathless places; and when mounted on an animal so sure and swift of foot, I felt more c...

On this night, for more than an hour, there was an unusual beating of tum-tums, and the chorus of some barbaric songs stole upon the wind at times from that quarter of the royal...

Next day the wind veered due west, and we trimmed the _Leda_, to lie close to it, making long tacks to the southward, as we had been driven so far to the north-east.

For three days our course was encumbered by masses of broken ice, which seemed to crowd upon and follow us; thus the brig was constantly being put about or thrown in the wind, b...

I have mentioned that the gentle Mrs. Baylis--she who had nursed us so kindly in our helplessness--had been carried off by the women of this tribe of devils, who confined her in...

A faint response seemed to come through the drift and the hail that was sowing the ice and pathless sea; but it might have been fancy, or my own cry tossed back by the mocking w...

The moon, which had hitherto been concealed in dense vapour, now glanced at times through the flying clouds. It was one of those stormy moons well known in that quarter of the w...