I have endeavoured in this book to paint sea life as it really is, as it can be seen on any deep-water sailing-ship of the present day, without glossing over the hardships, the hard knocks, the hard words, and the continual struggle and strife of it all. At the same time I have tried to hint at the glamour and fascination which the sea breathes into such souls as respond to its mighty call. As to the queer collection of flotsam which found itself in the down-easter's foc's'le, I can assure my readers that this mixed crowd is in no way unusual; in fact, I am quite certain that the greater number of sailing ships "bound deep water" at the present moment are manned by crews of an even worse mixture of nationalities, trades, and creeds than formed the complement of the Higgins, which, for a ship sailing out of San Francisco, when seamen were scarce, was singularly lucky in finding so many bona-fide sailormen amongst her crew. My reader may ask if the brutality described still goes on on American ships. All I can say is that several of the Yankee Cape Horn fleet are still notorious for it, their officers excusing themselves on the plea that only by the harshest measures can they preserve discipline amongst the hard-cut citizens of all nations who form American crews. Many of the episodes in this book, including the cowpuncher's frontier yarns, I have taken from fact, and the treatment of the knifing dago by the bucko mate in Chapter IV. actually occurred in every detail. As regards the moon-blindness, I have no doubt I shall have to bear with many scoffers and unbelievers, but this I know, that few men who have been used to sleeping in the open, whether sailors or landsmen, will be amongst them. Many a time have I hauled a sleeping man out of the glare of the tropical moon for fear of its direful beams, and many a time have I had the like service done to me. Few old seamen but have some strange yarn to spin anent the strange effects of the moon upon the human countenance exposed to its sinister rays: in most cases it is some hours' or some days' moon-blindness; sometimes it is a queer contraction of the muscles on the side of the face exposed; and I have even heard of cases of idiocy put down to the same cause. Certain it is that the cold beams of our world's satellite are not to be trusted. Why, do they not even poison fish or meat if left exposed to the mercy of their baleful glitter? I must apologise for the sentimental part of this book, but apparently in a work of fiction a certain amount of sentiment is considered necessary, even in a sea yarn. However, if my reader finds it not to his taste, he can skip. We've all learnt to do that, some time or other.
