Tom Cringle's Log

Dazzled by the glories of Trafalgar, I, Thomas Cringle, one fine morning in the merry month of May, in the year one thousand eight hundred and so and so, magnanimously determine...

Sleep, gentle sleep-- Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast, Seal up the shipboy’s eyes, and rock his brains, In cradle of the rude imperious surge; And in the visitation of t...

The evening was closing in dark and rainy, with every appearance of a gale from the westward, and the weather had become so thick and boisterous, that the lieutenant of the watc...

I was awakened by the low growling, and short bark of the dog. The night was far spent; the tiny sparks of the fire-flies that were glancing in the doorway began to grow pale; t...

Some time after this, we once more returned to Carthagena, to be at hand should any opportunity occur for Jamaica, and we were lounging about one forenoon on the fortifications,...

The only other midshipman on board the cutter beside young Walcolm, whose miserable death we had witnessed, twas a light delicate little fellow, about fourteen years old, of the...

I confess that I did not promise myself much pleasure from my cruise ashore; somehow or other I had made up my mind to believe, that in Jamaica, putting aside the magnificence a...

another person beside poor Quacco, likely to be crammed into a hole before the day broke, and to be carried to Africa too, for what I knew; but one must needs go when the devil...

The crib in which I was confined was as dark as pitch, and, as I soon found, as hot as the black-hole in Calcutta. I don’t pretend to be braver than my neighbours, but I would p...

“El Pescador de Puerto Escondido, Pesca mas que Peseado, Quando la Luna redonda Reflexado en la mar profunda. Pero cuidado, El pobre sera el nino perdido Si esta por Anglisman c...

The second and acting third-lieutenants were on board the prizes--the purser was busy in his vocation--the doctor ditto Indeed, he and his mates had more on their hands than the...

The malady from whose fangs I had just escaped, was at this time making fearful ravages amongst the troops and white inhabitants of Jamaica generally; nor was the squadron exemp...

“Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried, And danced in triumph o’er the waters wide, The exulting sense, the pulse’s maddening play, That thrills the wanderer of that...

The next morning after breakfast I proceeded to Santiago, and landed at the custom house wharf, where I found everything bustle, dust, and heat; several of the captains of the E...

The spirit had indeed fled--the ethereal essence had departed--and the poor wasted and blood-stained husk which lay before us, could no longer be moved by our sorrows, or gratif...

‘O’er the glad waters of the dark blue sea, Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free, Far as the breeze can bear the billow’s foam, Survey our empire, and behold our hom...

The puncture in Mr Bang’s neck from the boarding-pike was not very deep, still it was an ugly lacerated wound; and if The had not to use his own phrase, been somewhat bullnecked...

‘Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain: Man marks the earth with ruin--his control Stops with the shore,--upon the watery plai...

Like all Portuguese towns, and most Spanish, Panama does not realize the idea which a stranger forms of it from the first view, as he descends from the savannah. The houses are...

One fine morning about this time, we had just anchored on our return from a cruise, when I received, as I was dressing, a letter from the secretary, desiring me instantly to wai...