Kipling may be best known  as a commentator on the British Empire, but he was also a vivid observer and chronicler of the sea—and of ships and all who sailed in them. For him, the sea was the glue which bound the British Empire together. So Kipling wrote copiously about his own voyages—to India, across the Pacific and Atlantic, down to South Africa and Australia— and about the voyages of others. Sailors were particular heroes of his, as adventurers who braved every kind of e