And I thought the sailing jargon of the Swallows and Amazons series was mysterious.  But that was just messing around in boats, to quote Ratty, and this rises to a whole other level of importance, as well as impenetrableness.  Fortunately, one of the two main characters, Stephen Maturin, ship’s sturgeon, is absolutely a noobie.  That helps us some as much needs to be explained to him, but at least he is there on board to get the visual version. This period, about 1800, is that […]