Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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The actual experiences of intelligent sailors, or voyagers, written by themselves, have, of course, a greater practical value than the sea-stories of clever novelists, while the latter, as a class, confine themselves very much to the quarter-deck. Dana’s “Two Years Before the Mast” is so well known that few of our readers need to be told that it is the story of an American student, who had undermined his health by over-application, and who took a voyage, viâ Cape Horn, to California in order to recover it. But the old brig Pilgrim, bound to the northern Pacific coast for a cargo of hides, was hardly a fair example, in some respects, of an ordinary merchant-vessel, to say nothing of a fine clipper or modern steam-ship. Dana’s experiences were of the roughest type, and may be read by boys, anxious to go to sea, with advantage, if taken in conjunction with those of others; many of them are common to all grades of sea service. A little work by a “Sailor-boy,”39 published some years ago, gives a very fair idea of a seaman’s lot in the Royal Navy, and the two stories in conjunction present a fair average view of sea-life and its duties.