Book Description

Excerpt from A Sea Trip in Clipper Ship Days On a chill gray afternoon in December, the good Ship, National Eagle, left the wharf in East Boston, bound for New Orleans. A group of relatives and friends, a few minutes before had filed down the gangway, and were still standing on the wharf, waving hats and handkerchiefs, as the ship, her moorings loosened and cast off, began to move slowly and majestically away from the pier. On board of her, as she glided away, in the waning light of the short winter afternoon, were the Captain; three officers or mates, designated as first, second and third; a carpenter; a steward; a cook; a crew of twenty or more men, known as "sailors before the mast"; and four younger men, called boys to distinguish them from the men of the crew. There were also two passengers, my sister and myself - daughters of the Captain. The Era of the Clipper Ship was the most picturesque, and perhaps the most profitable period, in the maritime life of the United States. It began about 1843 because of the growing demand for a quicker delivery of tea from China. 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.