Read "Frank Mildmay" by Frederick Marryat online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
They turned into a long and wide street, in which not a single living figure appeared to break the perspective. Solitude is never so overpowering as when it exists among the works of man. In old woods, or on the tops of mountains, it is graceful and benignant, for it is at home; but where thick dwellings are, it wears a ghost-like aspect. -- INESILLA.
We were ordered to look out for the American squadron that had done so much mischief to our trade; and directed our course, for this purpose, to the coast of Africa. We had been out about ten days, when a vessel was seen from the mast-head. We were at that time within about one hundred and eighty leagues of the Cape de Verd Islands. We set all sail in chase, and soon made her out to be a large frigate, who seemed to have no objection to the meeting, but evidently tried her rate of sailing with us occasionally: her behaviour left us no doubt that she was an American frigate, and we cleared for action.