Posted on 10/10/2014 1:55:30 PM PDT by Old Yeller
In the late 16th century, young British seaman- adventurer Andrew Battell is abducted by Portuguese pirates while seeking treasure off the coast of Brazil. Shipped in chains to the steamy slave-trading colony of Angola, he is seduced and betrayed by a passionate woman, tortured in Angola’s foulest dungeons, then finally condemned to death. Escaping into the African interior, Battell begins the most frightening adventure of his life- a nightmare journey into a strange and exotic world, where to survive, he rises to become trusted blood brother to the barbaric and mysterious warrior-king called the Lord of Darkness.
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Thanks for Theodore Canot book/ the African Slaver. I have it on my PC now
That’s exactly the parts that I had in mind. And it’s amazing to learn how many parts of the globe he had seen. You tend to think that people of that time didn’t travel very far but for sailors that was hardly the case.
Having sharp eyes and being multi-linguistic would be a huge advantage, even for a youngster, and make them highly valuable aboard ship. Crews were often multi-lingual, there were even lingua-francas that were used in the Med. And sharp young eyes were also super critical in the centuries before radar, when the first ship to spot the other had an enormous tactical advantage, including the paramount value of being able to turn around before being spotted by a more powerful or faster enemy ship.
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