In Search of the Castaways

In Search of the Castaways

Jules Verne

5.0
Comment(s)
5
View
67
Chapters

ON the 26th of July, 1864, a magnificent yacht was steaming along the North Channel at full speed, with a strong breeze blowing from the N. E. The Union Jack was flying at the mizzen-mast, and a blue standard bearing the initials E. G., embroidered in gold, and surmounted by a ducal coronet, floated from the topgallant head of the main-mast. The name of the yacht was the Duncan, and the owner was Lord Glenarvan, one of the sixteen Scotch peers who sit in the Upper House, and the most distinguished member of the Royal Thames Yacht Club, so famous throughout the United Kingdom.

Introduction

THE three books gathered under the title “In Search of the Castaways” occupied much of Verne’s attention during the three years following 1865.

The characters used in these books were afterwards reintroduced in “The Mysterious Island,” which was in its turn a sequel to “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.” Thus this entire set of books form a united series upon which Verne worked intermittently during ten years.“In Search of the Castaways,” which has also been published as “The Children of Captain Grant” and as “A Voyage Around the World,” is perhaps most interesting in connection with the last of these titles. It is our author’s first distinctly geographical romance. By an ingenious device he sets before the rescuers a search which compels their circumnavigation of the globe around a certain parallel of the southern hemisphere. Thus they cross in turn through South America, Australia and New Zealand, besides visiting minor islands.The three great regions form the sub-titles of the three books which compose the story. In each region the rescuers meet with adventures characteristic of the land. They encounter Indians in America; bushrangers in Australia; and Maoris in New Zealand. The passage of the searching party gives ground,— one is almost tempted to say, excuse,— for a close and careful description of each country and of its inhabitants, step by step. Even the lesser incidents of the story are employed to emphasise the distinctive features of each land. The explorers are almost frozen on the heights of the Andes, and almost drowned in the floods of the Patagonian Pampas. An avalanche sweeps some of them away; a condor carries off a lad. In Australia they are stopped by jungles and by quagmires; they hunt kangaroos. In New Zealand they take refuge amid hot sulphur springs and in a house “tabooed”; they escape by starting a volcano into eruption.Here then are fancy and extravagance mixed with truth and information. Verne has done a vast and useful work in stimulating the interest not only of Frenchmen but of all civilised nations, with regard to the lesser known regions of our globe. He has broadened knowledge and guided study. During the years following 1865 he even, for a time, deserted his favorite field of labor, fiction, and devoted himself to a popular semi-scientific book, now superseded by later works, entitled “The Illustrated Geography of France and her Colonies.”Verne has perhaps had a larger share than any other single individual in causing the ever-increasing yearly tide of international travel. And because with mutual knowledge among the nations comes mutual understanding and appreciation, mutual brotherhood; hence Jules Verne was one of the first and greatest of those teachers who are now leading us toward International Peace.

Continue Reading

Other books by Jules Verne

More

You'll also like

The Billionaire's Medicine: His Silent Obsession

The Billionaire's Medicine: His Silent Obsession

Sutton Horsley
5.0

My stepmother sold me like a piece of inventory to a man known for breaking people just to plug the financial crater my father left behind. I was delivered to the Morton estate in the middle of a freezing storm, stripped of my phone, and told that if I didn't make myself useful, my senile grandfather would be evicted from his care facility by noon. The master of the house, Adonis Morton IV, was a monster living in a silent mausoleum, driven to the brink of madness by a sensory condition that turned every sound into a physical assault. When I was forced into his suite to serve him, he didn't see a human being; he saw a source of agony. In a fit of animalistic rage, he pinned me to the wall and nearly strangled me to death just for the sound of a shattering teacup. I only survived by using my grandfather’s secret herbal blends and pressure-point therapy to force his overactive nervous system into a drugged sleep. But saving him was my greatest mistake. Instead of letting me go, Adonis moved me into a guest suite connected to his own bedroom by a hidden door. He didn't just want me as a servant; he needed me as a human white-noise machine to drown out the demons in his head. The nightmare deepened when he took the promissory note that defined my freedom and tore it into confetti. By destroying the debt, he destroyed my exit strategy. He replaced my maid’s uniform with a silver silk dress that clung to my skin but did nothing to hide the dark, ugly bruises his fingers had left on my neck. He branded me as his "primary care associate," a title that was nothing more than a gilded cage. I felt a sickening sense of injustice as he forced me to sign a contract that banned me from contacting other men and required me to sleep wherever he slept. He looked at me with a possessive heat, calling me his "medication" rather than a woman. My family had sold my body, but Adonis Morton was intent on owning my very presence, using my grandfather’s medical bills as a leash to keep me within twenty feet of him at all times. Standing in a neglected greenhouse with mud staining my expensive silk, I realized I was no longer a victim waiting for rescue. If I was going to be his medication, I would learn how to be his cure—or his undoing. I began clearing the weeds with a cold, calculated frenzy, determined to turn this prison into my laboratory. He thinks he has trapped a helpless girl, but I am going to pry open the cracks in his stone walls until his entire world comes crashing down.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book
In Search of the Castaways
1

Introduction

10/11/2017

2

Part 1 South America Chapter 1 The Shark

10/11/2017

3

Part 1 South America Chapter 2 The Three Documents

10/11/2017

4

Part 1 South America Chapter 3 The Captain's Children

10/11/2017

5

Part 1 South America Chapter 4 Lady Glenarvan's Proposal

10/11/2017

6

Part 1 South America Chapter 5 The Departure of the "Duncan"

10/11/2017

7

Part 1 South America Chapter 6 An Unexpected Passenger

10/11/2017

8

Part 1 South America Chapter 7 Jacques Paganel is Undeceived

10/11/2017

9

Part 1 South America Chapter 8 The Geographer's Resolution

10/11/2017

10

Part 1 South America Chapter 9 Through the Straits of Magella

10/11/2017

11

Part 1 South America Chapter 10 The Course Decided

10/11/2017

12

Part 1 South America Chapter 11 Traveling in Chili

10/11/2017

13

Part 1 South America Chapter 12 Eleven Thousand Feet Aloft

10/11/2017

14

Part 1 South America Chapter 13 A Sudden Descent

10/11/2017

15

Part 1 South America Chapter 14 Providentially Rescued

10/11/2017

16

Part 1 South America Chapter 15 Thalcave

10/11/2017

17

Part 1 South America Chapter 16 The News of the Lost Captain

10/11/2017

18

Part 1 South America Chapter 17 A Serious Necessity

10/11/2017

19

Part 1 South America Chapter 18 In Search of Water

10/11/2017

20

Part 1 South America Chapter 19 The Red Wolves

10/11/2017

21

Part 1 South America Chapter 20 Strange Signs

10/11/2017

22

Part 1 South America Chapter 21 A False Trail

10/11/2017

23

Part 1 South America Chapter 22 The Flood

10/11/2017

24

Part 1 South America Chapter 23 A Singular Abode

10/11/2017

25

Part 1 South America Chapter 24 Paganel's Disclosure

10/11/2017

26

Part 1 South America Chapter 25 Between Fire and Water

10/11/2017

27

Part 1 South America Chapter 26 The Return on Board

10/11/2017

28

Part 2 Australia Chapter 1 A New Destination

10/11/2017

29

Part 2 Australia Chapter 2 Tristan D'acunha and the Isle of

10/11/2017

30

Part 2 Australia Chapter 3 Cape Town and M. Viot

10/11/2017

31

Part 2 Australia Chapter 4 A Wager and How Decided

10/11/2017

32

Part 2 Australia Chapter 5 The Storm on the Indian Ocean

10/11/2017

33

Part 2 Australia Chapter 6 A Hospitable Colonist

10/11/2017

34

Part 2 Australia Chapter 7 The Quartermaster of the "Britan

10/11/2017

35

Part 2 Australia Chapter 8 Preparation for the Journey

10/11/2017

36

Part 2 Australia Chapter 9 A Country of Paradoxes

10/11/2017

37

Part 2 Australia Chapter 10 An Accident

10/11/2017

38

Part 2 Australia Chapter 11 Crime or Calamity

10/11/2017

39

Part 2 Australia Chapter 12 Toline of the Lachlan

10/11/2017

40

Part 2 Australia Chapter 13 A Warning

10/11/2017