The pearl divers and Crusoes of the Sargasso Sea

AND CRUSOES OF THE SARGASSO SEA BY GORDON STABLES, M.D., C.M. (SURGEON ROYAL NAVY) AUTHOR OF “THE CRUISE OF THE ROVER CARAVAN,” “FROM PLOUGHSHARE TO PULPIT,” “THE CRUISE OF THE SNOWBIRD,” “FOR ENGLAND HOME AND BEAUTY,” ETC., ETC.
“And when the wind and storm had done, A ship that had rode out the gale Sank down without a signal gun, And none was left to tell the tale.
“Peace be with those whose graves are made Beneath the bright and silver sea.” Longfellow.
Birmingham: ELD & BLACKHAM, 63, 64, 65, Moor Street. TO MY COUSIN NELLIE WIFE OF DR. JOHN ROBERTSON OF ABERDEEN This Book IS DEDICATED WITH EVERY KINDLY WISH BY THE AUTHOR
“My soul is full of longing For the secret of the sea, And the heart of the great ocean Sends a thrilling pulse through me.”
When my own boy and girls, who call me “Daddy,” read any of my books at home—and I am proud to say they all do—a question almost invariably asked is: “But do tell us, is it all true?”
I answer as best I can.
Now, no tale in the world is ever “ all true”: it would not be a story if it were, would it?
Nevertheless I have knocked about all over the world so much, and made so many notes and observations, that I have my imagination to fall back upon less often than if I had stayed by the fireside all my life.
Now I want to tell you right away, that most of my people or heroes in this story have had their prototypes, and I have tried to paint them from the life.
The terrible Indian Mutiny was before my time in the service. I was not there, but the weird little Antonio Garcia I met afterwards at Bombay and elsewhere, and his mysterious glass eye was precisely as I have tried to depict it.