The Romance of a Midshipman (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Romance of a Midshipman I was at Bouville, a little dusky seaport situated on the French coast betwixt Brest and placid old Calais. One long pier strikes fang-like with a flash into the breaches of the sea and the wild play of foam makes a light for that gray and gloomy harbor. The gloom is in the black timbers of pier, in the dark green sheathing of seaweed, in an appearance of darkness in the water where it spreads its inmost extremity. Bouville is full of churches. It may be that in my time you might count one for every hundred head of man and woman. Better for the inhabitants if their spires were of commerce, and smoked; but the weather-cock darts a flame as it revolves, and is an ornament in the air. The harbor is the pleasantest part. I always thought it so when a boy. I was fascinated by the clumsy black smacks, and their huge chocolate lugs, and their deck-loads of gabbling, sprawling men, and noisy, gesticulating women, in immense caps and shining earrings. These poor people are very devout. 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.