s there was a flow of books 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.

While Ballantyne had some acqaintance with the Eskimo during his years
with the Hudson Bay Company, this book runs a little into the
fantastical. The head of the family who are the heroes of the book has
the belief that there is a sea of ever-warm water surrounding the North
Pole, and that there are islands there abounding in animal life, and
colonised by the Eskimos. The plan is to visit these islands, and stand
upon the actual North Pole, which they find to be a low eminence near to
the hut of a descendant of a seaman of the original Hudson expedition in
1611.

The story is very well-told, and you find yourself almost believing the
Captain's logic. The tension is maintained right up to the last
chapter, so much so that we do not learn whether the family, who have by
this time all become endeared to us, ever get home to England, and what
the father and mother of the Captain's nephews have to say about their
sons' adventures.

Created as an e-Text by Nick Hodson, August 2003.

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THE GIANT OF THE NORTH, OR, POKINGS ROUND THE POLE, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.

CHAPTER ONE.

INTRODUCES OUR HERO AND HIS KINDRED.

The Giant was an Eskimo of the Arctic regions. At the beginning of his
career he was known among his kindred by the name of Skreekinbroot, or
the howler, because he