G FOR HOME
XXXIII CRACKING ON--PROGRESS HOMEWARD--A PLEASANT SUNDAY--A FINE
SIGHT--BY-PLAY
XXXIV NARROW ESCAPES--THE EQUATOR--TROPICAL SQUALLS--A THUNDER STORM
XXXV A DOUBLE-REEF-TOP-SAIL BREEZE--SCURVY--A FRIEND IN
NEED--PREPARING FOR PORT--THE GULF STREAM
XXXVI SOUNDINGS--SIGHTS FROM HOME--BOSTON HARBOR--LEAVING THE SHIP
CONCLUDING CHAPTER

PREFACE

I am unwilling to present this narrative to the public without a few
words in explanation of my reasons for publishing it. Since Mr.
Cooper's Pilot and Red Rover, there have been so many stories of
sea-life written, that I should really think it unjustifiable in me to
add one to the number without being able to give reasons in some
measure warranting me in so doing.

With the single exception, as I am quite confident, of Mr. Ames's
entertaining, but hasty and desultory work, called "Mariner's
Sketches," all the books professing to give life at sea have been
written by persons who have gained their experience as naval officers,
or passengers, and of these, there are very few which are intended to
be taken as narratives of facts.

Now, in the first place, the whole course of life, and daily duties,
the discipline, habits and customs of a man-of-war are very different
from those of the merchant service; and in the next place, however
entertaining and well written these books may be, and however
accurately they may give sea-life as it appears to their authors, it
must still be plain to every one that a naval officer, who goes to sea
as a gentleman, "with his gloves on," (as the phrase is,) and who
associated only with his fellow-officers, and hardly speaks to a sailor
except through a boatswain's mate, must take a very different view of
the whole matter from that which would be taken by a common sailor.

Besides the interest which every one must feel in exhibitions of life
in those forms in which he himself has never experienced it; there has
been, of late years, a great deal of attention directed toward common
seamen, and a strong sympathy awakened in their behalf. Yet I believe
that, with the single exception which I have mentioned, there has not
been a book written, professing to give their life and experiences, by
one who has been of them, and can know what their life really is. A
voice from the forecastle has hardly yet been heard.

In the following pages I design to give an accurate and authentic
narrative of