Excerpt from On the Borderland I dare not precisely name the scene of this story. Somewhere betwixt the tropics stands a mud-built ruinous town, very mean, dirty, and unwholesome. Low green hills and woods lie behind it, and a grey sea before. In times not long past fleets used to ride beyond the surf, and rich caravans started daily for the inland wilds. That glory has departed, but its ruins amaze the stranger to-day. Amidst the ragged, sun-bleached thatch of negro hovels, lofty walls stand red and crumbling, with windowless eyes that blink towards the ocean. Down at the water's edge, built upon rocks that clang and strain under the beating of the surf, stands a castle. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.