"This new edition of C. R. Boxer's translations of famous Portuguese shipwreck stories also includes a new translation of the tragic tale of Captain Manuel de Sousa Sepulveda, who was shipwrecked with his family and crew near the Cape of Good Hope in 1552. After enduring treacherous storms that completely destroyed their ship and its cargo, a few hundred passengers and slaves were forced to go ashore, where they struggled for several weeks with starvation and thirst, treks through rugged terrain, attacks and manipulation by African tribes, and conflicts within their own group. Only a handful of survivors reached Mozambique in 1553 after their dreadful and extreme ordeal."--BOOK JACKET.

Disaster at sea is an ever-present peril, inspiring ancient legends, great works of fiction, and countless yarns of deadly typhoons, vessels consumed by fire, and desperate castaways alone on an empty ocean.

Edited from the original Portuguese and translated. The narratives by Diogo do Couto, João Baptista Lavanha and Francisco Vaz d'Almada, translated from the original editions of accounts which were subsequently included in the 'História Trágico-Marítima' edited by Bernardo Gomes de Brito at Lisbon in 1735-6. The introduction and appendices discuss the 'Carreira da Índia'. For a further selection from the same source, see Second Series 132. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1959. Owing to technical constraints it has not been possible to reproduce the sketch map of 'Figure 1:The Carreira da India, 1589-1622' which faced the first page of the book in the first edition.

This stirring narrative is the riveting tale of the sinking of the steamship "Arctic"--a story of extraordinary bravery and appalling cowardice that took nearly 400 lives and the American merchant marine business down with it. of illustrations.