Excerpt from Wandering Sketches of People and Things in South America, Polynesia, California, and Other Places Visited: During a Cruise on Board of the U. S. Ships Levant, Portsmouth, and Savannah Going to sea - Chance voyagers and old cruisers - Human nature at sea - The shark and sailors - Motlier Carey's chickens. I found myself, in my official capacity, on board of one of our public vessels, at a time when our peaceful relations with foreign powers threatened to be disturbed. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.