The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Congo Rovers, by Harry Collingwood

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Title: The Congo Rovers
A Story of the Slave Squadron

Author: Harry Collingwood

Illustrator: J. Schonberg

Release Date: April 13, 2007 [EBook #21060]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONGO ROVERS ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

The Congo Rovers
A Story of the Slave Squadron

By Harry Collingwood
________________________________________________________________________
This book by Collingwood is a good story, but as your reviewer has said
elsewhere, told in a rather long-winded manner, and in the notably
Kingston style and format that Collingwood often adopts. Why not?
Kingston was dead before Collingwood started to write, and the style
had been proved to be what young readers of the era liked.

The format specifically is that the book starts with a young boy who is
suddenly offered a posting as a midshipman in a naval vessel about to
sail in a few days' time. The boy accepts, and the story goes on from
there.
________________________________________________________________________
THE CONGO ROVERS
A STORY OF THE SLAVE SQUADRON

BY HARRY COLLINGWOOD

A Story of the Slave Squadron.

CHAPTER ONE.

MY FIRST APPEARANCE IN UNIFORM.

"Um!" ejaculated my father as he thoughtfully removed his double eye-
glass from his nose with one hand, and with the other passed a letter to
me across the breakfast-table--"Um! this letter will interest you, Dick.
It is from Captain Vernon."

My heart leapt with sudden excitement, and my hand trembled as I
stretched it out for the proffered epistle. The mention of Captain
Vernon's name, together with the announcement that the subject-matter of
the letter was of interest to me, prepared me in a great measure for the
intelligence it conveyed; which was to the effect that the writer,
having been appointed to the command of the sloop-of-war _Daphne_, now
found himself in a position to fulfil a promise of some standing to his
dear and honoured friend Dr Hawkesley (my father) by receiving his son
(myself) on board the sloop, with the rating of midship