South Sea Shipmates

South Sea Shipmates by John Arthur Barry follows an extraordinary and sight-filled adventure over the South Sea in search of treasure. Excerpt: "Barry was singularly lovable, and made friends wherever he went. Though brave and adventurous, he was gentle and kindly by nature, and no roughness of life and companionship ever made him other than a gentleman in the best sense. He seemed to have a gift for getting on with all sorts and conditions of men on land and sea, and he sketches their various characters with sympathy and insight, and no little sense of humor."

Excerpt from South Sea Shipmates Barry was of a singularly lovable character, and made friends wherever he went. Though brave and adventurous, he was gentle and kindly by nature, and no roughness of life and companionship ever made him other than a gentleman in the best sense. He seemed to have a gift for getting on with all sorts and conditions of men on land and sea, and he sketches their various characters with sympathy and insight, and no little sense of humour. Some of his best work is descriptive. A devoted lover of wild nature, he gives in few words a vivid picture of each scene, of sunlit plain, dry bush, wild coast, or rugged harbour, or luxuriant southern island; but most lovingly the world of the sailing-ships and all possible effects in storm or calm to be encountered on that Sea of which he was for ever the lover and the Son. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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Although Australia was his adopted country and he is counted as an Australian writer, John ArthurBarry was of British birth and upbringing, and of good family in the Old Country. Orphaned of both parents at an early age and with no other relations, by the time he was fourteen he had made up his boyish mind that he must and would "go to sea," and persuaded his guardian to expend his small patrimony on outfit and apprenticeship to the Merchant Service. His earlier sea experiences are faithfully described in his novel "A Son of the Sea" which is indeed a warning to parents and guardians against paying out money to send their boys to sea as so-called "apprentices." But Arthur Barry soon surmounted the disagreeables and difficulties of the first steps in a profession to which he was devoted by nature, learned all that he could at sea, and, finishing his time with credit, he passed his examinations in due course as second and as first mate. But his voyages took him to Australia (in the 'seventies) and the gold diggings proved too attractive, so that his sea life alternated with spells ashore, which finally led to a permanent Bush life, first roving and then in settled employment on sheep-stations in New South Wales. During this time his natural gift of expression, and power of describing what he had seen and experienced, showed itself first in letters to friends at home, and then in contributions to local newspapers, followed by some successes in London periodicals. "The Graphic" and "Chambers Journal" first published his short stories and papers on Bush life. In 1893 he came home for a holiday, bringing many printed "cuttings" out of which a volume was made and published by Messrs Remington as "Steve Brown's Bunyip." To this Rudyard Kipling contributed some fine introductory verses ("The Sea-Wife") as a friendly gift from a younger man then on the rising wave of popularity to a rather older one whose early letters and adventures he used to hear as a boy from mutual friends. Although Arthur Barry had a happy six months in London and might have got on in London journalistic and literary society he had no liking for town and conventional life, and could not stand the English winter, or try to get permanent work in the Old Country. He returned to New South Wales, and for a time to the sheep-station life, while he continued to write a number of stories, which were printed in the "Strand," "Cornhill," and other London magazines and papers. He intended to come back in a year or two; but this was not to be. His first novel, "The Luck of the Native Born," a story of land and sea adventure, was published by Remington; then came a collection of reprinted sea pieces brought out by Methuen as "In the Great Deep," followed by the novel "A Son of the Sea" (Duckworth), and "Red Lion and Blue Star," and "Against the Tides of Fate," both reprints of short stories, and all favorably received by Press and public.

From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, English buccaneers, privateers, and naval expeditions sought fame and fortune in the distant reaches of the South Sea. Beginning with the voyage of Francis Drake in the 1570s and continuing through that of George Anson in the 1740s, a series of predatory English adventurers pursued Spanish treasure, and for a few the dream of riches came true. For most, the voyages ended in disappointment, and sometimes death. This engrossing book investigates these maritime adventures and how they were described in popular accounts of the time--accounts that affected English consciousness and perceptions of the wider world and that influenced the planning and nature of the later great voyages of James Cook and others. Glyndwr Williams, a leading expert on the exploration of the Pacific Ocean, draws on printed accounts of South Sea voyages as well as unpublished records--buccaneer journals, expedition papers, and government documents from public and private archives. For English seamen preying on Spanish trade and treasure, the South Sea was limited to the waters lapping the shores of Chile, Peru, and Mexico. But the vision was wider for others, Williams reveals. Cartographers at home in England, untrammeled by the constraints and dangers of actual voyaging, produced speculative maps with a vast Terra Australis Incognita, with fabulous Islands of Solomon, and with a promised short passage from Atlantic to Pacific. Satirical and utopian writers from Joseph Hall to Jonathan Swift found ample space in the wide ocean for their fictional travelers. And contemporary published voyage accounts--marvelous, though not necessarily reliable--further blurred the line between real and imaginary, contributing to the alluring, exotic image of the South Sea that took root in English folk memory and long outlasted the age of the buccaneers.