'Before the mast'
R.C. Bruce spent many years in the 19th century sailing on British, colonial and American merchant ships, interspersed with spells on the Otago and Queensland goldfields. His 1914 memoir, Reminiscences of a wanderer (written under the name 'Able Seaman' and published by Whitcombe & Tombs), is a ripping yarn of a nomadic labouring life at sea and on land.
