Cannibals and Carnage

In the nineteenth century true stories of cannibal tribes massacring white traders (and vice versa) and missionaries fed the morbid appetites of Europeans, North Americans and colonials. Accounts of cannibalism committed by seafarers on their dead shipmates quickened the pulses of landfolk even more, and pricked their moral disquiet. Acts of desperate men committing unspeakable atrocities. The warring frenzy of cannibal headhunters and their gruesome feasting. Such was the stuff of real-life 'sixpenny romances', rich in human butchery and garnished with treachery and terror. The more atrocious the at rocities, the more exotic the locations; the more sensational the narratives, the greater was the thrall of these thrilling tales of the sea.

GRAHAM FAIELLA was born and raised in Bermuda. He has sailed across the Atlantic twice. In 1973-74 he joined an eighteen-month voyage around the world on a 1,750-ton ex-hydrographic research ship. After graduating from Edinburgh University he became a professional editor and writer. His most recent works reflect his interest in the lives of seafarers and ships, especially in the era of the deep-sea wind-ships.