[ Brassey / Around the World in the Yacht Sunbeam: Our Home on the Ocean for Eleven Months ]
Lady Anna Brassey (1839 - 1887) was a British travel writer and wife of the British politician Sir Thomas Brassey, 1st Earl Brassey. She and her husband took several lengthy voyages on their various yachts, and her accounts of these journeys were popular.
This book, her first, was published in 1878 (New York: Holt) and tells of their longest voyage, in their steam-assisted yacht "Sunbeam" (with over forty people on board), which some believe to be the first circumnavigation of the globe by a private vessel.
There is only one incidental mention of Newfoundlands. The Brassey yacht, passing through the Straits of Magellan into the Mediterranean, comes upon a ship whose cargo of coal has caught fire. All of the stricken ship's sailors are rescued, but Brassey notes the following regarding the captain:
He drowned his favorite dog, a splendid Newfoundland, just before leaving the ship; for although a capital watchdog and very faithful, he was rather large and fierce; and when it was known that the "Sunbeam" was a yacht with ladies and children on board, he feared to introduce him. Poor fellow! I wish I had known about it in time to save his life!" (111)