ABOUT BOOK

Fanny Loviot sets out with her sister on a commercial speculation from Havre on the 30th of May 1832 bound for California. They touch at Rio Janeiro, and after many dangers, from which our authoress is never free throughout the volume, they reach San Francisco. A spirited picture is given of life in California; but owing to its dangers, Mademoiselle Fanny, leaving her elder sister behind, resolves to set out with one Madam Nelson on another commercial speculation to Canton, Macao, Hong-Kong, and Batavia. Her partner dies, and she at last arrives at Hong-Kong. All her hopes being thus disappointed, she resolves to return to California, and takes her passage in a Portuguese ship, the Caldera, under a Chilian flag and commanded by a Captain Rooney. After meeting with a typhoon they are boarded by pirates who strip the vessel, and force the Captain and his crew, our authoress and the only other passenger--Than Lingh, a Chinese merchant,--to submit to every indignity.