Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Val Wooff and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Transcriber's Note There is some arcane and inconsistent spelling. The dialect, spelling and punctuation have been preserved as far as possible. Obvious typographical errors have been altered, for example where a word was duplicated or a letter duplicated around a hyphen. Hyphenations have been made consistent. AN OLD SAILOR'S YARNS. BY N. AMES. AUTHOR OF "MARINER'S SKETCHES," &c. &c. &c. Extremum hunc, Arethusa, mihi concede laborem. _Virgil._ NEW YORK: GEORGE DEARBORN, 38 GOLD STREET. MDCCCXXXV. * * * * * Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1835, by GEORGE DEARBORN, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. * * * * * WILLIAM VAN NORDEN, PRINT. CONTENTS. * * * * * MARY BOWLINE. . . . . . . 15 OLD CUFF . . . . . . . . . . 53 RIVALS . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 MORTON . . . . . . . . . . . 95 PIRATE OF MASAFUERO . . 329 PREFACE. Mr. Buckingham, noticing the "Nautical Reminiscences" in the New England Magazine, says, no author ever stopped at the second book; and he very gravely proceeds to recommend that my number three should savor more of the style of Goldsmith or Washington Irving. I should have no objection whatever to writing like either of these distinguished authors, _if I could_; but as the case is, I must be content to write as well as I can. The whole article in Mr. B's magazine bore no faint resemblance to a dose of calomel and jalap, administered in a table-spoonful of molasses, in which the sweet and the nauseous are so equally balanced, that the patient is in doubt whether to spit or to swallow. I was, however, exceedingly flattered with the notice bestowed upon me by this literary cynic, as he was never before known to speak well, even moderately, of any author, except natives of Boston, or professors in Harvard University.