Old Jack

As I said, I went to sleep hanging on to a piece of wreck in the middle of the Mediterranean. It was not an agreeable position to be in, certainly, but it might have been worse....

Away, away the good ship flew to round the far-famed Cape Horn. Stern and majestic it rose on our starboard-hand; its hoary front, as it looked down on the meeting of two mighty...

On leaving the _Glutton_, I was struck down by sickness, and lay for many long months in the hospital at Portsmouth, scarcely expecting to recover. Oh, how hideous did Death, wh...

The little schooner very soon got her cargo on board, and we then put to sea, to return to the brig. We had to make a long reach off-shore to weather a headland, which ran out t...

We had won many a prize from the vasty deep with no little toil, and visited many strange people living under burning suns, when we found ourselves at anchor in the Roads of Bat...

There is a time of life when a person feels that he has left for ever his boyish days and stepped into manhood. I felt that I had passed that boundary when I found myself rated...

Drearily passed the time of my sojourn in that benighted region. Day after day I sought in vain for the means of escape. Vessels often touched at the island; but directly they a...

As the morning sun arose, lighting up Sambro Head in the distance, the clouds of night dispersed from off the sky, and with a fair breeze we ran in under the forts which guard M...

The balls from the pirates' muskets not a little increased the rapidity of our movements. Two or three men in the other boats were hit, and one was killed. When Captain Helfrich...

The pilot was on board, the topsails were loosed, and the order had been given to heave up the anchor, when a boat was seen coming off from the southern shore of the Mersey. A s...

Strong breezes, and cold and thick weather, showed us that we were getting out of the genial latitudes, in which, without much success, we had been for some time cruising, and w...

"And so, Jack, you like a sea-life, do you?" said Peter Poplar to me one day after we had been about two weeks from port. We had had very fine weather all the time, with a north...

Not very long before we sailed, Newman and I had gone on shore, he taking a large sketch-book under his arm; and striking up into the country, we reached a beautiful spot, the o...

"Hurrah! hurrah! Erin-go-bragh!" Such were the cries which the Irish part of our crew uttered, and in which I through sympathy joined, as once more the capstan was manned, and t...

Every sea-port in England was thronged with seamen whom the cessation of war had cast on shore without employment, when as I was strolling along the quays of Liverpool with my h...

We touched at Gibraltar, that the captain might obtain information as to the ports he was to call at. Smyrna, we found, was to be our ultimate destination. He gave notice of the...

"Land! land on the starboard-bow!" was shouted from the foretopmast cross-trees, where several of our men had been, in spite of a pretty hot scorching sun, since dawn, on the lo...

For the remainder of the night we kept anxiously looking over the taffrail, lest our enemy should have again made sail in chase. More than once I thought I saw the rover's shado...

The Maroons did not leave us long in suspense. Once more uttering the most fearful and bewildering shrieks, they advanced from every quarter, completely surrounding, as we judge...

As we lay at our anchors off Salee, we had a view from the mast-head of the open sea, over a point of land which ran out below the town. Snug as we were, it was one day blowing...

Of course you've heard of Donnybrook Fair, close to the city of Dublin. What a strange scene it was, to be sure, of uproar and wild confusion-- of quarrelling and fighting from...

One after the other my white companions were led out for execution. Every moment I expected that my turn would come. Very few showed any great signs of fear, with the exception...