This book contains a life of Columbus, written with the hope of
interesting all classes of readers.
His life has often been written, and it has sometimes been well
written. The great book of our countryman, Washington Irving, is
a noble model of diligent work given to a very difficult subject.
And I think every person who has dealt with the life of Columbus
since Irving’s time, has expressed his gratitude and respect for
the author.
According to the custom of biographers, in that time and since,
he includes in those volumes the whole history of the West India
islands, for the period after Columbus discovered them till his
death. He also thinks it his duty to include much of the history
of Spain and of the Spanish court. I do not myself believe that
it is wise to attempt, in a book of biography, so considerable a
study of the history of the time. Whether it be wise or not, I
have not attempted it in this book. I have rather attempted to
follow closely the personal fortunes of Christopher Columbus,
and, to the history around him, I have given only such space as
seemed absolutely necessary for the illustration of those
fortunes.

Sku: thelifeofchristophercolumbus

A NEW DISCOVERY DEEPENS A MYSTERY.
When Mrs. Montague entered her room, an hour after Mona went up stairs,
there was a deep frown upon her brow.
She found Mona arrayed in a pretty white wrapper, and sitting before the
glowing grate reading a new book, while she waited for her.
“What are you sitting up for, and arrayed in that style?” she
ungraciously demanded.
“I thought you would need help in undressing, and I put on this loose
wrapper because it was more comfortable than any other dress,” Mona
answered, as she regarded the lady with some surprise, for she had never
before quite so curtly addressed her.

Sku: truelovesreward

_Night on bleak downs; a high grass-grown trench runs
athwart the slope. The earthwork is manned by
warriors clad in hides. Two warriors, BRYS and
GAST, talking_.
_Gast_.
This puts a tall heart in me, and a tune
Of great glad blood flowing brave in my flesh,
To see thee, after all these moons, returned,
My Brys. If there’s no rust in thy shoulder-joints,
That battle-wrath of thine, and thy good throwing,
Will be more help for us than if the dyke
Were higher by a span.–Ha! there was howling
Down in the thicket; they come soon, for sure.
_Brys_.
Has there been hunger in the forest long?
_Gast_.
I think, not only hunger makes them fierce:
They broke not long since into a village yonder,
A huge throng of them; all through the night we heard
The feasting they kept up. And that has made
The wolves blood-thirsty, I believe.
_Brys_.
O fools
To keep so slack a waking on their dykes!
Now have they made a sleepless winter for us.
Every night we must look, lest the down-slope
Between us and the woods turn suddenly
To a grey onrush full of small green candles,
The charging pack with eyes flaming for flesh.
And well for us then if there’s no more mist
Than the white panting of the wolfish hunger.

Sku: emblemsoflove

Toward the end of the summer of 1917 it was very hot in New York, and
hotter still aboard the transatlantic liner thrust between the piers.
One glance at our cabins, at the crowded decks and dining-room, at the
little writing-room above, where the ink had congealed in the ink-wells,
sufficed to bring home to us that the days of luxurious sea travel, of
a la carte restaurants, and Louis Seize bedrooms were gone–at least for
a period. The prospect of a voyage of nearly two weeks was not enticing.
The ship, to be sure, was far from being the best of those still running
on a line which had gained a magic reputation of immunity from
submarines; three years ago she carried only second and third class
passengers! But most of us were in a hurry to get to the countries where
war had already become a grim and terrible reality. In one way or
another we had all enlisted.
By “we” I mean the American passengers. The first welcome discovery
among the crowd wandering aimlessly and somewhat disconsolately about the
decks was the cheerful face of a friend whom at first I did not recognize
because of his amazing disguise in uniform. Hitherto he had been
associated in my mind with dinner parties and clubs.

Sku: wartime

The number of events described in a Source Book must necessarily be
smaller than that in histories of another type; but the aim is to place
the student in contact with the evidence of history in order that he may
become his own historian by drawing his own deductions from the
contemporary records. The greatest historian can find no materials
ulterior to such as are here presented, for there is nothing ulterior to
them but the deeds themselves. They are the records written by the men
who gave their life and health to lay the foundation of Australia’s
greatness–by Phillip, weakening under the racking cares of the infant
state; by Sturt in the scorching desert, as the last duty of an
exhausting day.

Sku: sourcebookhistory

In a former narrative, published in the preceding volume of the illustrated travels, I gave an account of a terrible cyclone which visited the north-eastern coast of Queensland in the autumn of 1866, nearly destroying the small settlements of Cardwell and Townsville, and doing an infinity of damage by uprooting heavy timber, blocking up the bush roads, etc. Amongst other calamities attendant on this visitation was the loss of a small coasting schooner, named the ‘Eva’, bound from Cleveland to Rockingham Bay, with cargo and passengers. Only those who have visited Australia can picture to themselves the full horror of a captivity amongst the degraded blacks with whom this unexplored district abounds; and a report of white men having been seen amongst the wild tribes in the neighbourhood of the Herbert River induced the inhabitants of Cardwell to institute a search party to rescue the crew of the unhappy schooner, should they still be alive; or to gain some certain clue to their fate, should they have perished.

Sku: australiansearchparty