xiv INTRODUCTION 



ing prepared and placed, to visit the light- 

 ships and lighthouses on the tender and to be- 

 come intimately familiar with the thousand- 

 and-one details of safeguarding lives and ships 

 was fascinating in the extreme. 



But all this paled into insignificance when 

 the stern-faced commander stretched himself 

 in a steamer-chair beneath his ship's awnings 

 and with the two boys seated at his side, told 

 true stories of adventure on the seven seas. 

 No book of fiction, no Clark Russell sea-tale, 

 was ever half so thrilling as those stories of 

 shipwreck, of naval battles, of Malay pirates 

 and of hair-breadth escapes in which the nar- 

 rator had actually taken part. Little did his 

 hearers dream that in later years a figure in 

 America's next war would be this story teller 

 — Admiral Schley. 



Knowing the interest which the sea and its 

 life held for me when a boy, I believe that it 

 will still prove interesting to the boys of to- 

 day, and I have endeavoured to write a book 

 such as I would have appreciated in my own 

 youth. I have tried to explain the matters 

 which once puzzled me, to tell the most in- 



