TY  - BOOK
AU  - Smith, Wilbur A,
TI  - Birds of prey
SN  - 033035289X
AV  - PS3537.M87 .S63Bi 1998
U1  - 823.914 21
PY  - 1998///
CY  - London
PB  - Pan Books
KW  - Seafaring life
KW  - History
KW  - 17th century
KW  - Fiction
KW  - Pirates
KW  - Indian Ocean
KW  - Hijacking of ships
KW  - fast
KW  - South Africa
KW  - To 1836
KW  - Sea stories
N2  - The year is 1667; Sir Francis Courteney and his son Hal are on patrol in their fighting caravel off the Agulhas Cape of South Africa. They are lying in wait for one of the treasure-laden galleons of the Dutch East India Company returning from the Orient. So begins a quest for adventure and the spoils of war that sweeps them from the settlement of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa to the Great Horn of Ethiopia far to the north - at a time when international maritime law permitted acts of piracy, rape, and murder otherwise punishable by death. Wilbur Smith introduces a generation of the indomitable Courteneys and thrillingly re-creates their part in the struggle for supremacy and riches on the high seas

ER  -