In the summer of 1865 the Navy Department issued a circular to the large body of volunteer officers in the navy, notifying them that as hostilities had ceased, the department would accept the resignations of such as desired to return to private life.
And so in July, I, with many other of my brother officers, sent in my resignation, which was accepted with the thanks of the department “for long and faithful service,” and I received my honorable discharge, a document which, duly framed, now hangs over my library fireplace, crossed by the sword which I had worn during the four eventful years of the civil war.
Since 1865 the old sailor whose career you have followed has had no more hairbreadth ’scapes by field or flood, such as have been here set down, and, barring a couple of peaceful passages to and from Europe in a passenger steamer, he has seen nothing more of the sea than could be observed from the rocks of Nahant or Mt. Desert on a summer afternoon. He meets his old shipmates occasionally at the dinners of the Loyal Legion, and enjoys listening to a good yarn on these occasions with as much zest as he did a full half century ago, when as a boy in the old Bombay he used to coil himself up near the windlass bitts on his first voyage to sea.
And now, after closing this record of more than twenty busy years of a sailor’s life in both branches of the service, the writer, from his cosy chimney corner, bids his readers reluctantly that saddest of all words, good-by.
Books for Young People.
Bret Harte.
The Queen of the Pirate Isle. A Child’s Story. Illustrated in colors by Kate Greenaway. Square 8vo, full gilt, $1.50.
Wilhelm Hauff.
Arabian Days’ Entertainments. Translated by H. P. Curtis. Illustrated by Hoppin. New Edition. 12mo, $1.50.