In the summer of 1850 Benjamin Eastman, a sixteen-year old boy from New York City, is asked by his clergyman father to deliver a bundle of books to cousins in St. Petersburg, Russia. It will be his first time away from home. He boards the sailing vessel Chicora in Boston, and on his first day at sea he opens a letter from his mother in which are her prayers and hopes for her eldest son's safe return. Benjamin records the details of the voyage in a...