This for men with a liking for the sea -- but otherwise limited in appeal. Brown loved the sea from boyhood; he was apprenticed young, was shipwrecked in Patagonia, served on a tanker in the Far East, went through a typhoon, traded (even, unwittingly, in opium) -- and finally settled down as pilot in Penang. Plenty of adventure, including a bad session carrying 2000 coolies through a typhoon and meeting the German raider Emden during the first world war. Nice going.