The Cruise of the Midge

"The Cruise of the Midge" is a tense naval adventure that features the perils of the colonial Caribbean, offering an interesting autobiographical portrait of Jamaica in the 1820s. Excerpt: "We stood in, and as we approached I went aloft on the little stump of a mast to look about me. The leaden-coloured sea generally becomes several shades lighter in tropical countries as you approach the shore, unless the latter be regularly up and down, and deep close to. In the present instance, however, although it gradually shoaled, the blue water, instead of growing lighter and greener, and brightening in its approach to the land; became gradually of a chocolate colour, as the turbid flow of the river feathered out like a fan, all round the mouth of it. But as the tide made, the colour changed, by the turgid stream being forced back again, and before it was high water, the bar was indicated by a semicircle of whitish light green, where the long swell of the sea gradually shortened, until it ended in small tumbling waves that poppled about and frothed as if the ebullitions had been hove up and set in motion by some subterraneous fire. But, as yet, the water did not break on any part of the crescent-shaped ledge of sand."