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To write something which shall please one's own friends is one thing; to undertake the task of pleasing anybody else is another; and, I take it, a far more difficult one. The writer of the following pages never sought to sail beyond the peaceful and well-marked area of the first, until induced—at the suggestions of his shipmates, though against his better judgment—to venture on the dark and tempest-swept ocean of the second.

The only originality claimed for the narrative is that of introducing such a manifestly inferior production to your notice.

Shipmates, my little bark is frail; deal gently with her, and—let me ask it as a special favor—do not blow too fiercely on her untried sails.

Much depends on the title of a book. Does it convey an adequate idea of the subject-matter? I would claim for mine at least that merit; for is not every sea over which we have voyaged to the eastward of England?