At the Back of the World: Wanderings Over Many Lands and Seas

9781465681409

213 pages

Library of Alexandria

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Overview

As far back as I can remember the sea had a strange fascination for me, and if, as is the custom with old people to ask a boy, however small, what he is going to be when he is a man, I invariably answered “a sailor of course.” At school the lessons I liked best were geography, and the only books that interested me were those that told of travel in foreign lands. Born in Liverpool, that city by the sea, and living, for the first fourteen years of my life, within a mile of the docks, it was no wonder that I was passionately fond of the water, and all my spare time was spent at the docks talking to the sailors, amongst whom I had heaps of friends. The tales they told me of what they had seen in foreign lands, and the wonders of the deep made me long to grow up as quickly as possible, but it was not until I was fourteen that the opportunity came, and that in a curious way. I had by that time become a great strong lad for my age, and was tired of school, so one day another school companion and I played truant and went down to the docks. After playing about for some time, we thought we would swim across the Mersey and back. I was a capital swimmer, and thought nothing of the feat, but my companion had not been across before. However, we got across splendidly, and after resting a little while we started back, following in the wake of one of the ferry boats. I reached the Pier Head wall first, and turned round to look for my companion—he was nowhere to be seen. I at once told the dock policeman, who took me along to the River Police Office, and after taking my name and address, and sending the men out with the boats to search for my missing friend, he gave me a jolly good thrashing and told me to get back into the water and look for the lad. I looked at him in astonishment, for I was feeling tired, and the thrashing had not refreshed me.