The Hot Swamp, by R.M. Ballantyne

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Title: The Hot Swamp

Author: R.M. Ballantyne

Release Date: June 7, 2007 [EBook #21757]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOT SWAMP ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

THE HOT SWAMP, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.

CHAPTER ONE.

A ROMANCE OF OLD ALBION.

OPENS WITH LEAVE-TAKING.

Nearly two thousand seven hundred years ago--or somewhere about eight hundred years BúCú--there dwelt a Phoenician sea-captain in one of the eastern sea-ports of Greece--known at that period, or soon after, as Hellas.

This captain was solid, square, bronzed, bluff, and resolute, as all sea-captains are--or ought to be--whether ancient or modern. He owned, as well as commanded, one of those curious vessels with one mast and a mighty square-sail, fifty oars or so, double-banked, a dragon's tail in the stern and a horse's head at the prow, in which the Phoenicians of old and other mariners were wont to drive an extensive and lucrative trade in the Mediterranean; sometimes pushing their adventurous keels beyond the Pillars of Hercules, visiting the distant Cassiterides or Tin Isles, and Albion, and even penetrating northward into the Baltic, in

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