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cting animals and supervising zoos and wrote quite a few books most of them riotously humorous but some of them at the opposite extreme i read a copy of his ghost stories years ago that i still remember when i occasionally wake up in the middle of the night i like his writing a lot and trust that others might do so as well author mudpuddle posted on february 8 2020 categories uncategorized 15 comments on rosy is my relative the adventures of captain singleton daniel defoe 1660 1731 kidnapped as a two year old child young singleton was passed from hand to hand like a bag of groceries until he was six years of age placed in the first of a series of parish schools he was a poor student and ran off when he was twelve a friendly captain gave him a job as cabin boy and took him to newfoundland introducing him to the sea and making a sailor out of him he called him bob later voyages took bob to the mediterranean where he was captured by algerine pirates and rescued by a portugese vessel he had a sort of early career with the portugese traveling to brazil and the east indies as a sailor but he acquired a dark reputation through thievery and learned to hate the portugese as cowards and braggarts returning from a trading trip to goa bob joined a group of mutineers that were marooned on the island of madagascar by the captain after a minor shipwreck they were left with food and other supplies in addition to tools and other necessaries by this time bob was generally recognized as a leader of men and under his direction the mutineers built a boat and sailed around the island their relations with the natives were peaceful in general with occasional difficulties resulting in the expenditure of bullets but the party was not happy with being stranded on the island large as it was and finally decided to cross the straits to africa which they did after building a larger boat in africa they were in a quandary for a while not being able to decide whether to sail up to the red sea around the cape of good hope or to travel across the continent bob convinced them that trekking across to angola was their only viable option so that s what they did the made friends with a local tribe and obtained porters and pack animals for the long journey and left their camp at 12 degrees 35 s and sailing up the quilloa river in mozambique they began their 1800 mile journey which was to take them three years to complete they met hostile tribes on the way and found a lot of gold in both nugget and dust form that had washed down from various mountain ranges at one point they discovered a very large body of fresh water and marched north along the shore until the reached a river several of the trekkees identified it as the nile continuing west they crossed more mountains and eventually arrived at the gold coast with a very large amount of gold they exchanged it for cash money dealing with several dutch traders who had stations in the area bob returned to england at the first opportunity and was there for two years during which time he squandered all his money on the proverbial wine women and song then he managed to get to spain where he met harris another moneyless sailor the two of them obtained passage to brazil but on the way they fomented a mutiny and took over the ship with which they turned pirate and after looting three other ships found themselves the owners of 16 ooo pieces of eight one of the persons they captured was william walters a quaker surgeon who agreed to join them but only if they would consider his opinions and judgements in their nefarious actions this agreed to they spent another year on the brazilian coast wreking havoc amidst local shipping until the area became too hot for them so they decided to pursue their collective interests on the other side of the globe they made a bay in madagascar a base of sorts for awhile until they found themselves attracted to the indian ocean and points south looking for dutch carracks and chinese junks to plunder after several years of piratical activity during which william was an effective voice for the exercise of mercy as regards the unfortunate victims they decided they had enough money spices and raw gold and vowed to give up stealing at this point they had two ships and there was argument about how exactly to profit from their gains and where to go when they were cashed out sailing back to madagascar the collaborative decision was to split the profits and disappear william and bob wanted to leave the rest of the band without recriminations or interference so they planned one more sojourn up the persian gulf to basra where under the pretext of selling the ships they managed to give the crew the slip dressed as armenians with long beards they travelled with their many chests of provender and valuables up the euphrates and across the deserts to alexandria finally ending up in venice where they lived for two years by this time bob through the influence of william had come to regret his immoral and criminal behavior and although he had formerly regarded the whole earth as his home agreed to return to england the pair reached william s sister s house in due course and lived quietly for ever bob married the sister after a while this was a typical defoe novel with lots of action and scene shifts his writing style is fluent and easily comprehensible actually newspaper like as he made his living writing for journals and broadsheets i presume that his purpose in writing the book was to remark upon the uncivil behavior of pirates and stealing in general but he really seemed taken away by his own descriptions of terrain and battles to the point that any moralistic intention was pretty well blanketed under vivid renditions of naval engagements and violent clashes with natives i liked it which might say more about me than i would normally be willing to admit haha it s quite interesting that defoe s discovery of the source of the nile occurred almost one hundred years before it was actually found by speke and grant he pinpointed it at 6 degrees 30 s which is remarkably close to where it actually is at victoria falls near the equator it makes me wonder whether the geographers of that period were more familiar with africa than we today realize author mudpuddle posted on february 1 2020 categories uncategorized 18 comments on the adventures of captain singleton in the land of white death valerian albanov 1881 1919 at the end of the 19th century the problem of the north east passage had yet to be resolved explorers and merchants were interested in discovering whether or not there was a way to sail through the ice pack above russia and siberia and to access thereby the riches of the orient georgiy brusilov and his uncle general boris brusilov became enthused about the financial opportunities proffered by successfully pioneering such a route and the general stated his willingness to foot the expenses of an expedition directed at that end they hired a crew 32 men acquired a ship the st anne and left murmansk in north western russia in august 1912 valerian albanov was employed as navigator the voyage was ostensibly purposed as a hunting expedition as the market for furs of various sorts was a major component of the economy of the times almost immediately the ship was caught in the pack ice it drifted north in a zig zag fashion for a year and half while the crew and officers became more and more lethargic and stultified they still had plenty of food but they began to run out of essential materiel with which to maintain the ship and rigging shooting seals and polar bears had supplemented their dietary requirements but to albanov the future looked bleak so he convinced 22 of the crew members to accompany him with the captain s permission on a sledge ski attempt to reach cape flora on northbrook island in the franz joseph archipelago this was a very small sealer s haven that was regularly visited by hunters and seal oil ships it was located about 200 miles south east of their position albanov managed to build seven sledges and seven canoes from wood and iron salvaged from the ship and departed with the others in april 1914 almost immediately the heavy sledges proved immensely difficult to handle they were so designed that the canoes were tied on top each unit weighing about 400 pounds pressure ridges and jagged uplifted blocks impeded progress and frequent open channels and fissures necessitated the expenditure of extra labor to detour around them the first day they made three miles and although they did better afterwords they never were able to travel much more than 6 or 8 miles in a day and the ice continued drifting north after trekking for four days and struggling for 22 miles albanov s noon sighting showed they had only attained 3 miles from the last location of the ship accidents occurred in which the stove was lost in a polynya an open pond and men began disappearing three of them gave up and returned to the st anne and one wandered off convinced that he saw land on the horizon both compasses broke and the chronometer was damaged so albanov was never sure about their exact location snow blindness was common and extremely painful occasionally the pack ice broke up on one floe they discovered ski tracks and were disconcerted to realize that they were their own storms were frequent and soggy clothes dirt and lice made them miserable but they were encouraged by finding sand on one floe and by the increase in bird sightings particularly gulls that drove them mad with their overwhelming noise men had continued dying and soon after actually spotting land off to the east two members of the crew absconded with most of the remaining food and gear leaving the rest to starve and drown but those left managed to reach the land and to climb a steep ice barrier via a vertical crack in order to step onto rocks and dirt after two years of fighting to stay alive on the ice eggs and eider ducks were abundant and the survivors feasted to repletion but they were all so tired and sluggish that they couldn t decide what to do next cape flora was their destination but there was disagreement on how to get there four of the men decided to travel by land on skis but albanov and two others knew that the only hope was to use the canoes paddling from cape to cape until they arrived so one morning the latter woke up to discover that the four had left taking with them most of the supplies the only thing left to do was to start paddling again one of strongest remaining crew members was alexander konrad he was in one canoe and albanov was in the other they faced violent storms strong currents aggressive walruses occasional immersions and constant headaches but they persevered fighting their weariness and squeezing the last bit of energy and volition out of themselves until they reached cape flora at last the last man besides albanov and konrad died but when the two remaining reached their goal they found shacks and cabins in widely varying states of repair some collapsed some ruined but a few in livable condition they waited in hope of visitors and at last a ship was sighted in the offing and summoning up their remaining strength they canoed their way to it rescued at last they were soon discomfited by finding out that the ship was almost out of coal for its steam engine and that it was leaking a lot before they finally arrived at archangel in north east russia they were once again briefly trapped in the ice and worn out from operating the hand pumps 24 hours a day to keep from sinking the ship was reduced to a bare skeleton all the superstructure having disappeared into the maw of the boiler furnace some years later the diary of alexander konrad was found and had some interesting additions to add to the epic story it was worded in such a way as to indicate that konrad had been one of the two mutineers who had left the rest to starve and die on the ice even though he had later returned to help albanov survive whether this actually the case or not will probably never be known as it was not specifically stated but the truth remains that konrad was probably besides albanov the most capable and energetic member of the crew one of the symptoms of trichinosis a parasitic roundworm found in polar bears is lethargy and weakness there s some speculation that many if not all of the trekkers suffered from this condition as they were reduced to eating raw meat for the last part of their journey albanov died in 1919 blown up in a railway station while returning to moscow from siberia apparently related to the russian revolution konrad lived on until after the second world war the st anne and the rest of the crew were never heard from again author mudpuddle posted on january 27 2020 categories uncategorized 22 comments on in the land of white death ferdinand count fathom tobias smollett 1721 1771 fathom was born in a wagon while his mother was transiting between european battles in the early 1700 s she made a sort of living by selling gin and underclothes to the soldiers she followed the boy was named after her sixth husband and he was raised on brandy and camp food during a battle in the 1716 war against turkey fathom s mom rescued a colonel from death after a bloody engagement and in gratitude he adopted her and her son and took them to live with him in prague fathom was raised as one of the family as a sort of brother to the colonel s real son renaldo fathom early acquired a soft smooth social talent which enabled him to participate gracefully in public activities whereas renaldo the more intelligent of the two was rather inept and graceless at communal functions they were of the same age and at the appropriate time they were both sent off to university in vienna renaldo studied and succeeded as a student but fathom pursuing his nefarious ways fell into the hands of card sharps and learned how to fleece neophyte enthusiasts he managed to win most of renaldo s money in short order but gave it back to him just in order to demonstrate his non existent open handedness renaldo was called home to join his father in another war and fathom was left by himself in the city running low on money fathom befriended a jeweler s daughter wilhelmina and used her to extort money from the parents by various ruses one night he was almost caught in wilhelmina s boudoir by her father he climbed into the chimney to evade detection when the old man left he descended into the room covered with soot causing wilhelmina to scream at his sudden appearance convinced that the devil was paying her a visit several episodes of the sort transpire until fathom having attained a dubious reputation in the neighborhood absconded with some of the father s jewelry and a gold necklace belonging to the daughter he traveled to the military camp where renaldo and his father are preparing to fight the french in another war while the father and son behave heroically in the battle fathom pretended to be ...
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