oks from his pen, sometimes four in a year,
all very good reading. The rate of production diminished in the last
ten or fifteen years of his life, but the quality never failed.

He published over ninety books under his own name, and a few books for
very young children under the pseudonym "Comus".

For today's taste his books are perhaps a little too religious, and what
we would nowadays call "pi". In part that was the way people wrote in
those days, but more important was the fact that in his days at the Red
River Settlement, in the wilds of Canada, he had been a little
dissolute, and he did not want his young readers to be unmindful of how
they ought to behave, as he felt he had been.

Some of his books were quite short, little over 100 pages. These books
formed a series intended for the children of poorer parents, having less
pocket-money. These books are particularly well-written and researched,
because he wanted that readership to get the very best possible for
their money. They were published as six series, three books in each
series. One of these series is "On the Coast", which includes "Saved by
the Lifeboat".

Re-created as an e-Text by Nick Hodson, October 1998, reviewed February
2003.

________________________________________________________________________

SIX MONTHS AT THE CAPE, LETTERS TO HIS FRIEND PERIWIMKLE, BY R.M.
BALLANTYNE.

LETTER ONE.

"A LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAVE."

South Africa.

Dear Periwinkle,--Since that memorable, not to say miserable, day, when
you and I parted at Saint Katherine's Docks, [see note 1], with the rain
streaming from our respective noses--rendering tears superfluous, if not
impossible--and the noise of preparation for departure damaging the
fervour of our "farewell"--since that day, I have ploughed with my
"adventurous keel" upwards of six thousand miles of the "main," and now
write to you from the wild Karroo of Southern Africa.

The Karroo is not an animal. It is a spot--at present a lovely spot. I
am surrounded by--by nature and all her southern abundance. Mimosa
trees, prickly pears, and aloes remind me that I am not in England.
Ostriches, stalking on the plains, tell that I am in Africa. It is not
much above thirty years since the last lion was shot in this region,
[see note 2], and the kloofs, or gorges, of the blue mountains that
bound the horizon are, at the present hour, full of "Cape-tigers," wild
deer of different sorts, baboons, monkeys, a