PREFACE

The first part of this new volume of the American Fights and Fighters Series needs no special introduction. Partly to make this the same size as the other books, but more particularly because I especially desired to give a permanent place to some of the most dramatic and interesting episodes in our history—especially as most of them related to the Pacific and the Far West—the series of papers in part second was included.

"The Yarn¹ of the Essex, Whaler" is abridged² from a quaint³ account written by the Mate and published in an old volume which is long since out of print and very scarce. The papers on the Tonquin, John Paul Jones, and "The Great American Duellists" speak for themselves. The account of the battle of the Pitt River has never been published in book form heretofore. The last paper "On Being a Boy Out West" I inserted because I enjoy it myself, and because I have found that others young and old who have read it generally like it also.

Thanks are due and are hereby extended to the following magazines for permission to republish various articles which originally appeared in their pages: Harper's, Munseys, The Cosmopolitan⁴, Sunset and The New Era.

I project another volume of the Series supplementing the two Indian volumes immediately preceding this one, but the information is hard to get, and the work amid many other demands upon my time, proceeds slowly.

CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY.
ST. GEORGE'S RECTORY,
Kansas City, Mo., February, 1910.

1 yarn   

n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事

参考例句：

• I stopped to have a yarn with him.我停下来跟他聊天。
• The basic structural unit of yarn is the fiber.纤维是纱的基本结构单元。

2 abridged   

削减的，删节的

参考例句：

• The rights of citizens must not be abridged without proper cause. 没有正当理由，不能擅自剥夺公民的权利。
• The play was abridged for TV. 剧本经过节略，以拍摄电视片。

3 quaint   

adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的

参考例句：

• There were many small lanes in the quaint village.在这古香古色的村庄里，有很多小巷。
• They still keep some quaint old customs.他们仍然保留着一些稀奇古怪的旧风俗。

4 cosmopolitan   

adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的

参考例句：

• New York is a highly cosmopolitan city.纽约是一个高度世界性的城市。
• She has a very cosmopolitan outlook on life.她有四海一家的人生观。