The Three Commanders

This is the third in the tetralogy commencing "The Three Midshipmen" and ending with "The Three Admirals," so the three principal characters will have been familiar to Kingston's youthful readers. As with the other books it is a very good introduction to Naval life in the middle of the nineteenth century, but there are other things we can learn from this book, as well.

The action soon after the start moves to East Africa, where we see how the anti-slave trade was pursued. The British were against slavery, but the Portuguese, the Americans, the Arabs, and some of the East African states were getting on with it whenever the British backs were turned.

Then we move to the Crimea, where we get a very good view of the naval participation in that war. If you want to know more about the Crimea, you should definitely read this book.

Finally we move to the Pacific, to Sydney and to Hawaii. Here again it is interesting, particularly with regard to the volcanoes of the Hawaii group of islands.

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THE THREE COMMANDERS, BY W.H.G. KINGSTON.

CHAPTER ONE.

MURRAY'S HIGHLAND HOME--A VISIT FROM ADMIRAL TRITON--ADAIR AND HIS NEPHEW APPEAR--MURRAY APPOINTED TO THE OPAL, ADAIR FIRST LIEUTENANT-- PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE--ADMIRAL TRITON AND MRS DEBORAH INVITE MRS MURRAY TO STAY AT SOUTHSEA--THE OPAL AND HER CREW--A POETICAL LIEUTENANT--PARTING BETWEEN MISS ROGERS AND ADAIR--THE OPAL SAILS FOR THE EAST COAST OF AFRICA.

Alick Murray had not over-praised the Highland home of which he had so often spoken when far away across the wide ocean. The house, substantially built in a style suited to that clime, stood some way up the side of a hill which rose abruptly from the waters of Loch Etive, on the north side of which it was situated. To the west the hills were comparatively low, the shores alternately widening and contracting, and projecting in numerous promontories. The higher grounds were clothed with heath and wood, while level spaces below were diversified by cultivated fields. To the east of the house, up the loch, the scenery assumed a character much more striking and grand. Far as the eye could reach appeared a succession of lofty and barren mountains, rising sheer out of the water, on the calm surface of which their fantastic forms were reflected as in a mirror. Across the loch the lofty summit of Ben Cruachan appeared towering to the sky. The scenery immediately surrounding Murray's domain of Bercaldine was of extreme beauty. At some little distance the hill, rising abruptly, was covered with oak, ash, birch, and alder, producing a rich tone of colouring; the rowan and hawthorn trees mingling their snowy blossoms or coral berries with the foliage of the more gigantic natives of the forest, while the dark purple heath, in tufted wreaths, and numerous wild-flowers, were interspersed amid the rich sward and underwood along the shore beneath. Behind the house were shrubberies and a well-cultivated kitchen-garden, sheltered on either side by a thick belt of pines; while in front a lawn, also protected by shrubberies from the keen winds which blew down from the mountain heights, sloped towards the loch, with a gravel walk leading to the landing-place. Murray had added a broad verandah to the front of the house, to remind himself and Stella of Don Antonio's residence in Trinidad, where they had first met. Indeed, in some of its features, the scenery recalled to their memories the views they had enjoyed in that lovely island; and though they confessed that Trinidad carried off the palm of beauty, yet they both loved far better their own Highland home.