PREFACE IN this book I have attempted to give some account of the beautiful sailing ships which played so great a part in the development of the great British Dominions undcr the Southern Cross. It is written specially for the officers and seamen of our Mercantile Marine, and I have endeavoured to avoid such a criticism as the following -Heaps about other ships, but my old barkey was one of the fastest and best known of them all and he dismisses her with a line or two. I have made rather a point of giving passage records, as they are an everlasting theme of interest when seamen get together and yarn about old ships. The memory is notoriously unreIiable where sailing records arc concerned, so I have been most carcful to check these from logbooks and Captains reports. Even Lloyds I have found to be out by a day or two on occasions. A great deal of my material has been gathered bit by bit through the past 25 or 30 years. Alas many of the old timers, who so kindly lent me abstract logs...