Gripping non-fiction will keep you reading. A leaking ship, a crazed first mate, four months without touching land, this is the true account of Joseph Manning Smith aboard the Ship Mary Ann bound from Boston, Massachusetts to Calcutta, India. He was twenty-one years old. Joseph wrote in his narrative, "The decks are very hot. I cannot bear my hand upon them where the sun shines and the pitch is frying out of the seams in bubble." Scenes of tedium, humor and the extreme play out in simple direct description from this traveler's pen. Names of ships, people and places, books he read, along with new 'old' words, allow the reader to venture into vectors of historical investigation. Details of ships you meet, where they were built and their ultimate fate can be gleaned from the web. The sailor in all of us can feel the old ship as the voyage progresses.