The Three Commanders, by W.H.G. Kingston.
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This is the third in the tetralogy commencing "The Three Midshipmen" and
ending with "The Three Admirals," so the three principal characters will
have been familiar to Kingston's youthful readers. As with the other
books it is a very good introduction to Naval life in the middle of the
nineteenth century, but there are other things we can learn from this
book, as well.
The action soon after the start moves to East Africa, where we see how
the anti-slave trade was pursued. The British were against slavery, but
the Portuguese, the Americans, the Arabs, and some of the East African
states were getting on with it whenever the British backs were turned.
Then we move to the Crimea, where we get a very good view of the naval
participation in that war. If you want to know more about the Crimea,
you should definitely read this book.
Finally we move to the Pacific, to Sydney and to Hawaii. Here again it
is interesting, particularly with regard to the volcanoes of the Hawaii
group of islands.
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