First Sentence

""Sailors" says the lively American to whom we are indebted for this insight into one of the strange corners of the earth, "are the only class of men who now-a-days see anything like stirring adventure,"-and he adds, that the incidents here recorded "have often served, when spun as a yarn, not only to relieve the weariness of many a night-watch at sea, but to excite the warmest sympathies of the author's shipmates.""