A Sack of Shakings

Chapter 2: Preface

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About This Book

A collection of maritime essays and sketches presents vivid accounts of shipboard life, sailors’ customs, and practical aspects of navigation and modern warships. Natural-history observations of whales, porpoises, fish, and other ocean creatures are combined with anecdotal voyage narratives, rescues, and descriptions of sailors’ pets. Several pieces examine sea lore and superstitions, ocean winds and currents, and the social order and etiquette aboard ship. The essays are arranged as short, self-contained chapters that blend descriptive naturalism, technical detail, and reflective commentary about the human and animal drama of life at sea.

Preface

Most of the Essays brought together in the present volume have been published in the Spectator, and are here reproduced by the kind permission of the proprietors of that journal, for which I offer them my hearty thanks. It may perhaps not be out of place to mention, for the benefit of any who may wish to know why these Articles have been published in book form, that the action has been taken in deference to the wishes of a very large number of friends who, having read the sketches in the Spectator, desired to have them collected in a permanent and handy shape.