Skip to main content

Full text of "Sailor town days"

See other formats 


Kill 


3  g 


/ 


9m  t>^a 


%. 


Presented  to  the 

UNIVERSITY  OF  TORONTO 
LIBRARY 

by  the 

ONTARIO  LEGISLATIVE 
LIBRARY 


1980 


SAILOR    TOWN    DAYS 


BY   THE    SAME   AUTHOR 

SONGS  AND   CHANTIES 

SHIPS   AND   FOLKS 

ROVINGS 

RHYMES   OF  THE   RED    ENSIGN 

SEA   SONGS   AND   BALLADS 


.^A 


'■A .  , 


.-..jft*- 


7r,n_.*. 


J 


THE         PROSPECT     OF     WHITBY 


0  ;j  -I  J  X 
SAILOR    TOWN   DAYS 


BY 


C.    FOX   SMITH 


WITH  SIX    ILLUSTRATIONS   BY 


^  ':  V  *;:■ 


ON  I  / 


PHIL.     W.     SMITH  5543  1 


METHUEN   &    CO.   LTD. 

36   ESSEX   STREET  W.C. 

LONDON 


First  Fublished  in  1923 


j>  P 


/V 


TBINI  ED  IN  GKEA1    UKH  AIN 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTORY 

PAGE 

Dock-walloping  as  a  Pastime — The  Lure  of  Dockland — 
Neptune's  Shore  Province — Ship-chandlers  and  Tat- 
tooists — Junk  Stores  and  Smells. i 


PART    I 

DAYS  IN  LONDON 

CHAPTER   I 

A  Dock-haunter's  Paradise — The  Borders  of  Dockland — 
The  Chain  Locker — A  Vanished  Chantry — Ivory,  Apes, 
and  Peacocks — Ratcliff  Highway — Labour-in -Vain  Street — - 
Execution  Dock -         -i? 


CHAPTER   II 

Bygone  Poplar — Blackwall  Yard — Brunswick  Pier  and 
Hotel — Unlucky  Ships — The  West  India  Docks — A  few 
Poplar  Pictures — Anchors — In   Chinatown        -         -        -       36 


CHAPTER  III 
Surrey  Commercial  Docks — "  Montrosa  "  :      the    Fair 
Unknown — Dutchmen  and  Dagoes — Finns  and  Witches — 
Women    at    Sea — The    Return — The    I-ast    of    the    Tea 
Clippers — The  Modem  Sailing  Ship — Deptford  Yard         -       64 


vi  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

CHAPTER  IV 

PAGE 

River  Reaches — Sea  Saints  and  Waterside  Churches — 
"  Over  the  Water  "—Thames  Barges       -        -         -         -       87 

CHAPTER   V 

Tilbury — Gravesend — The     Princess      Pocahontas — ^At 
the  Turn  of  the  Tide 97 


PART    II 

DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE 

CHAPTER   I 

Liverpool  and  the  Western  Ocean — The  Charm  of  the 
Liner — Black  Ivory — Coasting — Fifty  Years  Ago — ^The 
Black  Ball  Line — James  Baines,  the  Ship  and  the  Man — 
Yankee  Buckoes  and  Western  Ocean  Blood  Boats — To 
Australia  in  a  Black  Bailer — Paradise  Street — Bound  for 
'Frisco 103 

CHAPTER  II 

Falmouth  is  a  Fine  Town — ^A  Graveyard  of  Ships — 
The  Quay-Punt 141 

CHAPTER  III 

A  Danish  Harbour — Southampton  Past  and  Present — 
"  Sails  " — Buckler's  Hard — Lymington — On  the  Saltings  -     150 

CHAPTER  IV 

Pacific  Coast— The  Ship  "  Antiope"— The  Killer  Ship — 
Rolling  Stones  —  Lumber — Ships'  Names  —  Sealers  and 
Whalers — Conclusion.        -         -         -         -         -        -        -163 


NOTE — Some  part  of  the  material  included  in  this  volume  has  appeared  in 
the  columns  of  the  "Daily  Chronicle,"  the  "Nautical  Magazine,"  the  "Daily 
Mail,"  and  "Country  Life,"  to  whose  Editors,  as  well  as  to  the  Proprietors  of 
"  Punch,"  due  acknowledgment  is  hereby  made. 


LIST  OF    LLUSTRATIONS 

THE  "  PROSPECT  OF  WHITBY  "        -        -  Frontispiece 

FACING    PACK 

ST.  George's  in  the  east  from  London  docks        30 

THE   BRUNSWICK  HOTEL   FROM  GREEN' S  YARD    -  48 

THE  LOCH  LINNHE  AND  CUTTY  SARK  IN  ALBION 

DOCK 64 

ST.   NICHOLAS    CHURCH  AND   SCHOOLROOM    FROM 

DEPTFORD  GREEN 84 

THE    "  THREE   DAWS,"    GRAVESEND     -  -  -         lOQ 


SAILOR  TOWN    DAYS 


INTRODUCTORY 

Dock-walloping  as  a  Pastime — The  Lure  of  Dockland — 
Neptune's  Shore  Province — Ship-chandlers  and  Tattooists — Junk 
Stores  and  Smells 

TO  the  true  lover  of  the  sea  whom  either 
age  or  infirmity  or  any  other  disabihty  of 
chance  or  circumstance  compels  to  pass 
the  greater  part  of  his  days  ashore,  there  can  be 
no  hobby  so  engrossing,  no  pastime  so  fascinating, 
as  that  occupation  which  may  be  conveniently 
summed  up  in  the  term  "  dock-walloping."  That 
expressive  phrase — borrowed  for  the  occasion  from 
the  ever-expressive  vocabulary  of  the  merchant 
seaman — must  be  taken  in  this  instance  in  a  strictly 
amateur  sense,  not  in  its  primary  meaning  of  the 
strenuous  duties  of  the  lumper  or  longshoreman, 
nor  in  that  secondary  significance  in  which  its 
associations  are  of  the  most  harrowing — indicating, 
as  it  does,  the  compulsory,  painful,  and  depressing 
peregrinations  of  the  sailorman  looking  for  a 
berth. 

Sailors,  as  every  one  knows  who  knows  anything 
about  them,  abhor  walking  above  all  things — unless 
it  be  getting  wet  on  dry  land.  It  is  one  of  the 
pet  delusions  of  people  who  know  nothing  of  sea- 
faring men  that  they  positively  enjoy  getting  wet ; 
whereas  you  never  see  a  captain  go  ashore  without 


2  SAILOR   TOWN   DAYS 

his  umbrella ;  and — at  the  other  end  of  the  social 
scale — go  and  look  at  a  crowd  waiting  to  sign  on 
some  wet  day,  and  you  will  behold  the  very  epitome 
of  draggled  depression  !  And  your  genuine  sailor- 
man  never  walks  a  step  if  he  can  help  it.  He  will 
bhthely  undertake  to  ride  or  drive  anything — 
camel,  elephant,  mule,  velocipede,  or  what  not ; 
but  walk — never  ! 

That  sailor  of  tradition — I  believe  he  dates  as 
far  back  as  Homer — who  avowed  his  intention  of 
taking  an  oar  over  his  shoulder  and  walking  inland 
until  he  should  find  some  spot  whose  inhabitants 
did  not  know  the  use  of  it,  would  not,  I  think,  get 
very  far  upon  his  quest.  Perhaps  along  a  leafy 
lane  or  two — up  one  hill  and  down  another — and 
in  he  would  turn  with  a  sigh  at  the  door  of  some 
wayside  inn,  and  sit  down  with  his  oar  beside 
him,  spinning  his  very  best  yams  for  the  benefit 
of  the  open-mouthed  natives. 

That  much  is  certain  ;  and  it  is  no  less  certain 
that — like  most  legendary  personages — he  really 
existed  at  some  time  in  the  flesh,  whether  in  Greece 
or  Tyre  or  Sidon  or  ancient  Punt.  For,  however 
little  he  may  carry  it  into  practice,  there  is  no 
more  universal  delusion  than  that  of  the  seafaring 
man  that  he  is  by  nature  specially  designed  for  a 
farmer.  He  seldom,  if  ever,  becomes  one,  and  if 
he  does  he  generally  goes  back  to  the  sea  in  the 
long  run  ;  though  I  remember  a  case  of  a  Devon 
sailor-farmer  who  defeated  the  whole  country- 
side in  a  ploughing  contest,  having  affixed  a 
compass  to  his  plough  and  steered  his  course 
thereby. 

What  is  the  reason  of  it,  this  strange  hankering 


INTRODUCTORY  3 

of  the  sailor  for  the  soil  ?  Is  it  merely  a  manifesta- 
tion of  the  truth  of  the  poet's  words  : 

We  look  before  and  after 
And  pine  for  what  is  not  ! 

Or  is  it  the  sheer  contrast  between  the  fickle, 
mobile,  treacherous  element  on  which  he  lives  so 
great  a  part  of  his  days  and  the  solid,  stationary 
quaUties  of  the  earth  ?  Does  he  weary  at  times  of 
that  furrow  which  never  endures,  drive  he  never 
so  deeply ;  desiring,  however  idly,  the  heavy  clods 
of  the  enduring  soil  ? 

I  knew  a  captain  once,  over  on  the  Pacific  coast, 
whose  great  hobby  was  (of  all  things  in  the  world) 
gardening.  He  grew  roses  far  away  in  his  Liverpool 
home — one  could  see  it,  somehow,  in  the  mind's 
eye,  that  trim,  red-brick  villa  in  the  Liverpool 
suburb.  It  was  a  grand  soil  for  roses.  They  grew 
splendidly — splendidly.  They  were  the  envy  of 
the  neighbourhood.  But — well,  somehow,  it  was 
a  funny  thing,  he  had  never  had  the  luck  to  be  at 
home  when  they  were  in  bloom.  It  was  funny, 
when  you  came  to  think  of  it — ^wasn't  it  ? — but 
that  was  how  it  had  always  happened.  One  year 
it  was  Christmas,  with  a  foot  of  snow  on  the 
ground  ;  another,  it  was  spring,  and  the  buds  just 
showing  ;  another,  and  it  was  autumn,  with  only  a 
few  shrivelled  relics  remaining  to  speak  of  the  brief 
glory  that  had  passed  with  summer.  He  had 
never  seen  them  ;  but  he  believed  they  were  a 
show  when  they  were  fuUy  out.  His  wife  assured 
him  that  people  stopped  going  along  the  street  to 
stare  at  them  and  smell  them.  Well,  well, 
next  year — next  year,  perhaps  .  .  .  but  next  year 
brought  the  War. 


4  SAILOR   TOWN  DAYS 

I  wonder  how  he  went  on,  that  decent,  plain 
common-sense  man  who  cherished  so  unexpected  a 
dream-garden  in  his  heart.  Did  he  ever  see  it, 
his  rose-garden  in  June  ?  or  did  he  carry  it  with 
him  to  his  hfe's  end,  that  vision  of  fragrant  perfec- 
tion such  as  no  mortal  garden  ever  knew  ?  .  .  . 
Wallowing  in  the  cold  fogs  of  the  North  Pacific, 
reeking  in  the  steamy  heat  of  the  monsoon  in  the 
China  seas,  the  thought  of  that  far-off  perfection 
had  warmed  his  heart  with  a  vision  of  beauty.  .  .  . 
Perhaps  he  was  lucky — luckier  than  he  knew. 


The  lure  of  dockland  is  akin  to,  yet  subtly  different 
from,  the  charm  of  the  sea.  The  latter  is,  in  a 
sense,  impersonal,  almost  abstract ;  the  former  is 
bound  up  with  its  human  aspect — with  ships  and 
the  men  who  sail  in  them,  who  are,  moreover,  in 
continual  warfare  with  the  very  element  they  Uve 
by.  It  has  the  fascination  and  the  romance  which 
belong  to  hard,  perilous,  wandering  hves.  It 
appeals  to  most  of  the  simple  natural  instincts — 
wonder,  curiosity,  adventure — which  are  a  part  of 
the  equipment  of  most  healthy  human  beings. 

To  your  true  lover  of  dockland  there  is  no  land 
quite  like  it.  True,  one  must  first  discover  it  to 
find  its  charm.  It  is  not  always  beautiful  on  the 
surface.  More  often  than  not  its  beauty  must  be 
sought  for  through  vistas  of  mean  streets  of  an 
incredible  ugliness — through  a  network  of  railway 
sidings  frequented  by  unexpected  engines,  among 
tall  and  grimy  warehouses  and  factories  belching 
forth  smoke  and  evil  odours,  amid  the  deafening 
din  of  dry-docks  and  ship-repairers'  yards,  and  the 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

ear-splitting  racket  of  riveters  at  work.  That  is 
one  side  of  the  picture.  On  the  other,  there  are 
places  where  one  comes  as  it  were  right  into 
dockland  .  .  .  ocean  wharves  lying  dreaming  by  the 
Pacific  .  .  .  behind  them,  the  dusk  ranges  crowned 
with  snow  .  .  .  before,  the  full  tide  flushing  crimson 
with  sunset,  and  the  sky  red  to  the  zenith  with 
afterglow  ...  a  smell  of  forest  fires  in  the  air  .  .  . 
and  a  sailing  vessel  at  the  lumber  mill,  her  yards 
gilded  by  the  last  of  the  sunset,  and  the  little  pink 
clouds  Uke  a  flock  of  rosy  parakeets  tangled  in  her 
rigging. 

Dockland,  strictly  speaking,  is  of  no  country — 
or  rather  it  is  of  all  countries.  It  is,  in  certain 
essentials,  the  same  the  world  over  ;  and  that  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  every  province  of  it  has  its 
own  strongly  marked  characteristics,  sometimes 
racial,  sometimes  climatic,  sometimes  commercial. 
Always  there  is  that  same  fringe  of  shops  which 
in  one  way  or  another  make  their  livehhood  out  of 
the  seafaring  community,  the  same  saloons  and  bars 
and  restaurants  and  cocoa-rooms,  the  same  ship- 
chandlers  with  their  pleasant  smells  of  ropes  and 
canvas,  their  stocks  of  shining  brasses  and  bright 
bunting,  the  places  where  they  sell  sea-boots  and 
oilskins  and  sailors'  beds,  or  exchange  them  for  the 
gaudy  parrots  and  ship-models  and  lumps  of  coral 
the  seamen  bring  in  from  their  voyages  ;  and  the 
junk-stores  with  all  sorts  of  imaginable  and  un- 
imaginable rubbish — ^rusty  blocks,  dried  fishes 
like  bladders,  old  books,  old  boots,  old  battered 
sea-chests. 

Always,  too,  there  is  the  same  passing  crowd  of 
men  of  all  races — white  men,  yellow  men,  black 


6  SAILOR   TOWN  DAYS 

men  :  the  phlegmatic  Anglo-Saxon,  the  dark  or 
red  Anglo-Celt,  the  tall,  lean  "  blue-nose  "  from 
Nova  Scotia,  the  hard-case,  lantern- jawed  down- 
easter,  like  a  figure  out  of  one  of  Herman  Melville's 
novels — those  wonderful  pictures  of  sea-hfe  which, 
after  half  a  century  of  comparative  neglect,  are  at 
present  enjoying  one  of  those  whimsical  vogues 
which  are  the  greatest  irony  of  literary  fame.  Then 
there  are  dark  Lascars  with  their  look  of  inscrutable 
homesickness  and  melancholy,  and  Chinese  stokers 
in  blue  cotton  jackets  and  trousers  and  heelless 
shoes,  padding  along  duck-file  and  chattering  away 
ceaselessly  without  ever  turning  their  heads ;  and 
Japanese  clerks  in  American  store  clothes  and 
aggressive  lumpy-toed  boots.  There  are  all  the 
breeds  of  Latins  whom  the  sailor  classes  broadly  as 
Dagoes — French,  Portuguese,  Mulattoes,  and  black- 
avised  Chilenos  from  the  South  American  nitrate 
ports.  Scandinavians,  too,  of  all  shades  ;  Norwe- 
gians, Scouwegians,  and  Danes,  with  here  and  there 
a  squat,  fur-capped  Finn  from  Abo,  looking  very 
unlike  the  possessor  of  that  gift  of  witchcraft  with 
which  sea-tradition  credits  him. 


You  might  always  know  when  you  have  entered 
the  borders  of  that  queer,  amphibious  country 
which  lies  as  it  were  between  land  and  sea,  even 
were  there  no  visible  signs  of  actual  ships  to  inform 
you  of  it.  For  the  sea  sets  its  sign  manual  unmis- 
takably upon  its  border  kingdoms  in  many  ways — 
on  its  inhabitants,  on  its  atmosphere,  and  last,  but 
by  no  means  least,  on  the  business  that  is  done 
there. 


INTRODUCTORY  7 

Sailor  Town  the  world  over  is  a  realm  apart. 
Under  whatever  flag  it  may  happen  to  be — to 
whatever  temporal  sovereign  it  may  owe  its  external 
allegiance — in  spirit  it  is  of  the  kingdom  of  Neptune  : 
a  shoregoing  Neptune,  it  is  true,  stretching  his  legs 
in  a  pub  and  having  a  gay  time  among  the  girls — 
but  Neptune  just  the  same. 

The  shops  of  Sailor  Town  have  ever  a  certain 
cosmopoHtan  hkeness,  so  that  at  every  turn  you 
are  seeing  things  which  recall  as  in  a  flash  other 
things  the  width  of  the  world  away — under  other 
skies,  and  in  most  ways  totally  different,  yet  in 
some  strange,  undefinable  way  alike.  And  this, 
when  one  considers  it,  is  not  wonderful,  since  the 
population  for  which  these  world-divided  com- 
munities cater  is  the  same — shifting,  changing,  in 
a  continual  state  of  flux,  yet  always  the  same,  just 
as  the  tide  which  laps  against  the  wharves  is  still 
the  same,  though  the  salt  drops  which  compose  it 
are  different  day  by  day. 

There  are,  of  course,  always  the  same  official 
buildings,  such  as  shipping  offices,  harbour  offices, 
and  so  forth,  with  the  usual  cosmopohtan  groups 
gathered  about  them  of  crews  waiting  to  sign  on 
or  to  be  paid  off,  and  clean  Uttle  houses  of  dock- 
masters  and  the  like,  with  their  white  flagstaff s 
before  them.  By  the  way,  that  word  "  cosmo- 
politan "  reminds  me  of  a  big,  burly,  taciturn  lump 
of  a  man,  reeking  vilely  of  the  whale  oil  his  little 
coasting  craft  carried,  who  once  told  me  rather 
amazingly,  in  answer  to  a  casual  inquiry  as  to  his 
nationality,  that  he  was  a  cosmopolitan.  I  dare 
say  he  was,  but  it  was  an  unusual  thing  for  a  sailor 
to  be.     As  a  general  thing,  the  sailor  is  intensely 


8  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

national — the  genuine  shellback,  that  is,  the  sail- 
trained  seaman,  now  fast  passing  away  with  the 
ships  and  the  hfe  he  knew.  He  seeks  out  in  foreign 
ports  the  resorts  of  his  fellow-countrymen,  and 
scorns  any  nearer  approach  to  a  foreign  language 
than  a  sort  of  Chinook  jargon,  which  he  uses 
impartially  wherever  he  goes.  He  regards  the 
customs  and  languages  of  foreign  countries  with  a 
fine  scorn,  not  unmixed  with  suspicion.  He  does 
not  understand  them  ;  he  refuses  to  learn  their 
speech,  just  as  he  refuses  to  provide  against  contin- 
gencies by  learning  to  swim.  He  seldom  wanders 
far  from  his  ship,  but,  like  Melville's  Nantucketer, 
"  for  years  he  knows  not  the  land ;  so  that,  when 
he  comes  to  it  at  last,  it  smells  like  another  world, 
more  strangely  than  the  moon  would  to  an  English- 
man." 

The  sailor,  despite  his  ambition  to  be  a  farmer, 
cherishes  deep  within  his  being  an  inbred  distrust 
of  the  land.  He  dislikes  to  lose  touch  with  his 
ship,  his  floating  home.  CosmopoUtan  in  his  life, 
his  speech,  his  habits,  he  is  yet  the  most  insular  of 
all  men.  Perhaps  it  is  an  instinctive,  an  inherited, 
suspicion,  handed  down  from  the  days  when  to  be 
cut  off  from  his  boats  meant  the  end  of  all  things. 
His  knowledge  of  the  countries  he  visits  is  bounded, 
but  for  occasional  excursions,  by  the  confines  of 
Sailor  Town.  However  many  new  lands  he  dis- 
covered and  named  in  the  centuries  gone  by,  he 
never  explored  them,  leaving  that,  as  a  rule,  to 
gentlemen  adventurers  of  sorts,  who  were  generally 
mighty  sick  on  the  way  thither. 

Yet  perhaps  one  need  not  go  very  far  back  to 
find  a  reason  for  his  distrust  of  the  land  and  its 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

ways.  How  it  has  fleeced  him,  robbed  him,  duped 
him,  stripped  him,  taken  his  hard-earned  pay  and 
shanghaied  him  into  the  foc's'les  of  hell-ships ; 
taken  his  trust  in  womankind,  his  very  soul  itself ! 
What  a  display  it  has  offered  him  of  all  that  is 
worst  in  humanity — cupidity,  treachery,  greed  in 
men  ;  vice  and  infidelity  and  lust  in  women  !  The 
sailor  made  a  thousand  fortunes,  blazed  the  trail 
to  a  hundred  harbours ;  and  his  fellow-men  gave 
him  scant  pay,  hard  living  and  a  nameless  grave. 
Unlettered,  yet  among  the  world's  finest  craftsmen  ; 
laying,  for  a  mere  pittance  of  money,  for  weevily 
bread  and  stinking  meat,  the  foundations  of  a 
thousand  mighty  fortunes,  the  British  merchant 
seaman  of  the  nineteenth  century  stands  up  rugged, 
tremendous,  pathetic  among  the  great  figures  of 
his  time. 

I  remember  once  talking  to  the  engineer  of  a 
coasting  steamer — a  fat,  domestic,  kindly  soul,  who 
kept  canaries  in  some  unspeakably  stuffy  and  oily 
smeUing  httle  cubby-hole  he  inhabited  in  the  bowels 
of  the  ship.  He  had  spent  a  good  many  years  of 
his  Uf e  on  the  Liverpool-Lisbon  run,  and  as  he  was 
an  intelligent  sort  of  man  and  tolerably  well- 
informed  in  a  self-educated  fashion,  as  engineers 
of  small  ships  often  are,  I  thought  he  might  be  able 
to  give  me  some  interesting  sidehghts  on  Lisbon. 

"  Lisbon — oh,  nothing  of  a  place  !  "  he  pronounced 
weightily.  "  Why,  the  trams  " — he  paused — "  the 
trams  there,  they  run  straight  up  the  steepest  hill 
you  ever  saw  .  .  .  hke  a  house-side  .  .  .  straight 
up  !  Why,  all  the  time  I  kept  thinking  we'd  be 
running  down  backwards  ...  I  only  went  once 
.  .  .  dangerous,  I  call  it !     Can't  trust  those  Dagoes, 


10  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

you  know.  No — ^you  take  it  from  me — Lisbon's 
rotten  !  " 

Think  of  it !  For  years  had  that  amazing  man 
plodded  to  and  fro  across  the  Bay,  muffling  up  his 
canaries  at  night — if  he  kept  canaries  then,  which 
he  probably  did,  for  he  was  of  that  type  of  man 
whose  habits  are  all  lifelong — attending  anxiously 
to  his  engines,  and  never  going  ashore  because  he 
didn't  consider  the  trams  were  safe !  I  don't  believe 
he  ever  went  ashore  there  again.  I  am  certain  he 
never  went  a  biscuit-toss  from  his  ship.  Very 
likely  he  spent  his  spare  time  sitting  on  the  hatch- 
coaming,  as  he  did  when  he  was  talking  to  me, 
surveying  Lisbon  from  afar  with  a  look  as  of  a 
benevolent  grocer  slightly  on  the  defensive.  It  is 
strange  how  one  remembers  things.  I  can  see  that 
man  now — his  short,  fat  thighs  and  slightly  pendu- 
lous paunch,  his  rather  infantile  face  with  its 
grey  whiskers,  his  bald  brow  lightly  wrinkled  and 
glistening  with  sweat  hke  a  mirror  in  damp  weather. 
A  man  like  a  benevolent  grocer  in  one  of  those 
small  corner  shops  which  competition  and  multiple 
shops  are  slowly  but  surely  nudging  out  of  existence. 

I  believe  that  little  coaster  had  occasion  to  run 
for  it  from  the  attentions  of  Fritz  during  the  Great 
War  ;  it  was  during  that  wonderful  summer  that 
preceded  it,  and  in  Falmouth  Harbour,  to  be  exact, 
when  the  news  of  Sarajevo  had  just  come  in,  that 
he  told  me  about  Lisbon  and  its  terrible  trams. 
She  must  have  looked  remarkably  like  an  old 
lady  running  away  from  an  unexpected  mad  bull. 
I  fancy  I  see  my  engineer  friend  pottering  about 
among  his  cranks  and  cylinders,  his  forehead  shiny 
with  perspiration  and  wrinkled  just  a  little,  murmur- 


INTRODUCTORY  11 

ing,  "  Dangerous,  I  call  it,"  in  tones  of  mild 
expostulation — not  a  heroic  figure,  perhaps,  but  a 
remarkably  reliable  one. 


But  to  return  once  again  to  Sailor  Town.  There 
are,  of  course,  all  the  shops  which  minister  to  the 
needs  of  the  sailor  afloat,  and,  though  there  are 
honourable  exceptions,  do  it,  in  nine  cases  out  of 
ten,  very  indifferently  indeed.  The  very  nature  of 
their  trade  is  a  temptation,  no  doubt,  to  the  lower 
types  of  commercial  minds.  Their  customers,  they 
Imow  full  well,  will  in  all  probability — to  borrow  a 
phrase  from  that  anonymous  aphorism  which 
confronts  one  with  such  maddening  persistency 
from  business  men's  desks — "  Pass  that  way  but 
once  "  ;  therefore  they  are  meet  to  be  cheated  and 
imposed  upon  with  leaky  oilskins  and  bad  blankets 
and  rotten  gear  of  every  conceivable  kind,  even  down 
to  clasp-knives  with  flaws  in  them.  If  there  be 
some  special  corner  of  a  marine  inferno  reserved 
for  offenders  deserving  particular  attention,  surely 
such  dishonest  tradesmen  should  occupy  it — and 
would  if  the  heartfelt  curses  of  poor  sailormen, 
soaked  to  the  skin  in  the  icy  seas  of  the  Horn, 
could  take  them  thither. 

Then  there  are  those  establishments  which  cater 
for  the  wants  of  the  ship  herself — where  they  sell 
bunting  and  paint  and  anti-fouling  composition 
and  what  not — the  ship-chandlers,  with  their 
delightful  array  of  new  rope  in  clean-smeUing  coils, 
and  gleaming  brass  lamps  in  gimbals.  One  would 
think  that  it  must  be  a  good  honest  trade,  that  of 
the  ship-chandler,  though  I  believe  it  has  its  tricks 


12  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

like  all  other  trades.  And  why,  by  the  way,  a  ship- 
chandler  ?  A  tallow-chandler  one  can  understand  ; 
but  in  what  way  a  ship's  needs  should  be  specially 
associated  with  candles  it  is  difficult  to  sumiise. 

Then,  of  course,  there  are  the  hosts  of  establish- 
ments concerned  with  the  mariner's  creature 
comforts — the  cocoa  rooms  (what  is  the  connexion 
between  cocoa  and  the  sea,  other  than  the  fact  that 
it  is  cheap  and  feeding  and  hot  ?)  ;  there  are 
dining  rooms  in  endless  variety.  Occidental,  Panama, 
and  so  on  ;  and  there  are  London's  good  pull-ups 
for  carmen,  and  coffee  stalls  like  the  "  Star  of  the 
East,"  which  looks  so  depressingly  unoriental  on 
a  cold  March  day,  with  the  cold  rain  driving  and 
the  dock  entrance  churned  into  yellow  mud,  shrink- 
ing into  the  curve  of  the  wall  by  the  West  India 
Dock  gate  Uke  a  Lascar  in  cold  weather. 

And  there  are  the  photographers'  shops,  with 
stiff  hkenesses  of  young  men  in  brass-bound  coats 
and  peaked  caps,  gazing  stonily  into  space  ;  and 
tattooists'  rooms  with  fearful  and  wonderful  devices 
displayed  to  tempt  the  vain,  regardless  of  personal 
suffering,  to  have  portrayed  on  their  persons  snakes 
and  dragons  and  monsters  of  the  deep.  Why  is 
tattooing  stiU  so  universal  a  practice  among  seafaring 
men  ?  It  has  long  survived  most  of  the  sailor's 
personal  adornments — the  gaudy  neckerchiefs  and 
the  gold  or  more  often  brass  ear-rings  which  used 
to  be  worn  by  so  many,  and  are  still  occasionally 
to  be  seen  gleaming  among  the  greasy  curls  of  some 
Dago  seaman. 

Tattooing  is  probably  to  a  great  extent  "  swank." 
It  was  originally  only  done  in  Eastern  ports,  and 
to  sport  tattoo  marks  showed  the  genuine  "  Sou' 


INTRODUCTORY  13 

Spainer."  Sometimes  such  decorations  have  embar- 
rassing possibihties.  I  know  a  retired  sailorman 
in  a  country  village,  a  member  of  one  of  the  most 
godly  Dissenting  families  in  the  countryside,  who 
displays  on  his  hairy  forearm  as  secular-looking  a 
young  person  as  could  well  be  conceived  in  the 
scantiest  imaginable  of  petticoats.  I  often  wonder 
what  his  chapel- going  family  said  to  him  when  he 
first  came  home  from  foreign  parts  with  that  scan- 
dalous female  indelibly  engraved  upon  his  person. 

Sentiment  might  on  occasion  have  something  to 
do  with  the  practice.  To  carry  the  name  of  your 
sweetheart  within  a  true  lover's  knot  somewhere 
about  your  anatomy  was  a  touching  demonstration 
of  eternal  fidelity,  and  might  also  serve  as  a  reminder 
when  absence  wore  thin  the  threads  of  tender 
recollection. 

But,  as  a  rule,  there  seems  little  doubt  that  the 
sailor's  tattoo  marks  had  a  more  serious  import. 
They  were  meant  either  as  charms,  or,  in  the  last 
resort,  for  the  same  purpose  as  the  identification 
disk  in  time  of  war,  in  case  of  being  lost  at  sea  ; 
so  that,  for  instance,  the  Roman  Cathohc  sailor 
who  carried  a  crucifix  tattooed  on  his  body  might 
be  fairly  sure  of  receiving  a  Catholic  burial  if  he 
were  cast  ashore  in  any  Christian  country. 


Last,  but  not  least,  there  are  the  junk  stores — 
those  fascinating  mixtures  of  all  sorts  of  romantic 
rubbish  :  dried  devil  fishes  that  look  so  disconcert- 
ingly like  bleached  skuUs  in  a  dim  light,  lumps  of 
coral  plant,  ship  models,  wooden  cases  filled  with 
designs  made  of  tiny  pink  and  white  and  rainbow- 


14  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

coloured  tropic  shells,  old  jars  such  as  a  jinn  might 
lurk  in,  and  bottles  of  dusk-red  Indian  pottery, 
old  sea-boots,  and  literal  junk  of  every  sort  and 
description.  I  remember  one  such  junk  store,  over 
on  the  Pacific  coast.  I  discovered  it  one  magical 
rose-flushed  evening  between  daylight  and  dusk — 
such  a  junk  store,  with  such  promise  of  interesting 
finds  in  its  dark  recesses. 

There  were  some  yellow  old  ivories  in  one  heap, 
and  a  pile  of  old  technical  nautical  books  in  another, 
and  an  old  sailor's  fiddle  that  may  have  squeaked 
to  the  shuffle  of  bare  feet  under  many  a  tropic 
moon.  .  .  .  But  I  never  could  find  it  again.  I 
suppose  the  shop  had  changed  hands,  in  some  quite 
usual,  matter-of-fact  way,  or  been  pulled  down,  or 
had  a  new  front  put  on  to  it.  They  do  these 
transformations  very  suddenly  in  those  parts.  But 
its  disappearance  left  an  impression  as  magical 
and  mysterious  as  my  first  impression  of  it  :  as  if 
it  were  something  less  real  than,  and  as  transient 
as,  the  small  rosy  clouds  of  that  vanished  sunset. 
There  is  the  dock  smell,  too,  made  up  of  various 
things,  pleasant  and  unpleasant — such  as  Stockholm 
tar,  and  bilge  water,  and  ship's  paint,  and  warm 
whiffs  of  oil  from  engine-rooms,  and  smells  of  food 
from  cooks'  galleys  .  .  .  the  universal  dock  smell 
to  which  every  port  adds  its  own  particular  ingre- 
dient, according  to  the  particular  trade  or  trades  it 
is  concerned  with  ;  such  as,  to  take  one  or  two 
instances,  the  tremendous  aroma  of  rum,  Hke  the 
ghost  of  a  whole  shipload  of  Treasure  Island  pirates, 
which  pervades  one  part  of  the  West  India  Docks 
in  the  Port  of  London,  and  the  smell  of  nitrates 
which  stands  for  the  queer,  dry,  dusty  coast-towns 


INTRODUCTORY  15 

of  Chile  and  Peru,  with  their  anchorages  open 
to  the  "  Northers "  ;  and  the  mixed  smell  of 
lumber  and  whale  oil  which  means  the  North 
Pacific. 

And  always,  dominating  everything,  there  are 
the  fluttering  ensigns  and  house-flags,  the  clustered 
masts  and  funnels  of  the  ships.  Great  and  small, 
ugly  or  beautiful,  deep  sea  or  coastwise,  all  have 
their  portion  of  the  sea's  inheritance  of  wonder. 
Perhaps  it  is  a  big  liner  with  her  tiers  of  decks  and 
slender  wireless  ;  or  a  modem  cargo-boat  bristUng 
with  derricks,  all  for  use  and  nothing  for  beauty  ; 
or  some  old  "  has-been  "  of  the  days  of  sail,  her 
long  masts  and  spars  cut  down,  but  still  showing 
even  in  her  decay  the  faded  semblance  of  her 
bygone  beauty  ;  or  a  powerful  ocean-going  fore- 
and-after,  with  open  bulwarks  where  the  seas  may 
wash  to  and  fro  when  she  is  wallowing  deep  laden 
in  the  Cape  Horn  seas. 


..J 


-".        >. 


t:l- 


PART    I 

DAYS  IN  LONDON 

CHAPTER  I 

A  Dock-haunter's  Paradise — The  Borders  of  Dockland — The 
Chain  Locker — A  Vanished  Chantry — Ivory,  Apes,  and  Peacocks 
— Ratclitf  Highway — Labour-in-Vain  Street — Execution  Dock 

THE  Port  of  London,  taking  it  "by  and  large," 
is  the  dock-haunter's  paradise. 
Every  port  has  its  own  special  character- 
istic— has,  too,  its  own  particular  period  with  which 
it  seems  to  have  been  specially  associated.  There 
are  the  liner  ports,  like  Southampton  ;  and  there 
are  grain  and  emigrant  and  cotton  ports,  like 
Liverpool ;  and  coal  ports  where  everything  is 
black,  and  china  clay  ports  where  everything  is 
white,  and  salt  ports,  and  fish  ports,  and  frozen- 
meat  ports  ;  and  ports  of  call,  hke  Falmouth  and 
Queenstown  (which  we  are  now  to  accustom  our- 
selves to  call  "  Cobh  ")  ;  and  lumber  ports  where 
the  windjammers  still  come  in  with  wonder  and 
mystery  from  the  sea. 

But  it  is  given  to  this  Port  of  London  to  combine 
something  of  them  all.  There,  under  the  grey, 
smoke-veiled  London  skies,  on  the  bosom  of  London's 
ancient  river,  shall  be  found  the  ships,  the  cargoes, 
and  the  sailor-folk  of  every  nation  under  heaven. 
2  17 


18  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

Here,  it  is  a  smart  passenger  liner  for  India  or 
"  the  Colonies,"  as  the  sailor  still  calls  Australia, 
all  white  paint  and  shining  brasses,  with  wide  decks 
where  the  passengers  may  lounge  under  their 
awnings  in  the  Red  Sea  heat.  There  it  is  an  ugly, 
slab-sided  freighter  disgorging  from  her  holds  copra 
or  Lima  beans,  or  matting-swathed  bales,  or  tea 
chests,  or  wool  from  the  Riverina,  or  maize,  or 
bundles  of  thin  veneer,  or  glossy  linseed  from  South 
America.  Again,  it  is  some  bluff  old  tub  of  a 
wooden  barque  from  the  Baltic,  a  Noah's  Arkish 
sort  of  affair,  with  a  pump-windmill  forward, 
generally  a  dog,  and  very  often  a  woman's  apron 
somewhere  about ;  or  some  "  lost  lady  of  old  time," 
slender  and  beautiful  even  in  her  decay,  dreaming 
to  herself  in  some  quiet  comer  of  one  of  the  older 
basins  where  no  one  ever  seems  to  come,  of  that  taU 
and  beautiful  sisterhood  passed  for  ever  from  the 
world  of  waters. 

They  come  from  dusty  little  Spanish  towns 
between  the  Andes  and  the  sea,  from  pandanus- 
thatched  native  towns  of  Malaya  standing  up  on 
their  leaning  stilts  like  some  queer  kind  of  water 
insect,  from  lonely  lumber-wharves  on  the  Pacific 
coast,  where  the  sawdust  deadens  every  footstep, 
and  the  shrill  note  of  the  saws  cuts  like  a  knife  the 
drowsy  quiet  of  the  summer  afternoons,  from  old 
Dutch  Java  towns  of  marble  and  melancholy,  from 
the  Baltic,  the  Pacific,  the  Persian  Gulf,  the  Gulf 
of  Siam,  and  where  the  surf  roars  over  the  sandy 
bars  at  the  mouths  of  African  rivers.  They  have 
been  loaded  by  the  very  latest  thing  in  dock 
machinery,  at  giant  elevators  and  lonely  httle 
wharves,  by  blond  Finns  and  chattering  Japanese, 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  19 

and  swarms  of  chanting,  sweating,  betel-chewing 
KHngs.  And  the  river  of  London  knows  them  all — 
knows  them  as  he  knew  their  forerunners  centuries 
ago. 

It  is  this  continuity  of  maritime  tradition  which 
is  one  of  the  most  significant  points  about  the  Port 
of  London  :  this  connected  history  leading  right 
back  to  the  beginnings  of  British  ocean  trade.  You 
come  up  against  it  at  every  turn.  As  the  world 
grew,  so  London  grew.  So  long  as  her  trade 
remained  largely  continental,  the  Pool  and  its 
immediate  vicinity  sufficed  to  serve  her  needs. 
Blackwall  and  Deptford,  until  the  eighteenth 
century,  were  mainly  devoted  to  the  Naval  service  ; 
though  Deptford  in  Greenland  Dock  boasts  what 
claims  to  be  the  oldest  of  all  the  existing  docks. 

All  the  dock  systems  on  the  north  side  of  the 
river  are  connected  by  long  tradition  with  the 
East  and  South — with  the  hot,  tropical  seas  that 
wash  the  shores  of  India,  China,  and  Ceylon,  with 
South  Africa  and  the  Antipodes.  Surrey  Docks, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  especially  linked  with  the 
northern  waters — with  the  Baltic,  the  North 
Atlantic,  and  the  cold  oceans  that  lap  the  southern 
and  northern  ice-packs.  And  the  invisible  threads 
which  join  them  are  not  the  work  of  a  few  years  ; 
they  have  existed  for  centuries.  There  are  Canadian 
hners  saihng  to-day  from  the  very  spot  whence 
valiant  men  put  forth  in  their  cockleshells  three 
centuries  ago  to  the  shores  of  the  newly  discovered 
continent.  There  are  ships  unloading  Baltic  lumber 
hard  by  the  place  where  the  ships  of  Willoughby 
and  Chancellor  and  Edge  fitted  out  for  the  frozen 
seas  in  the  seventeenth  century.     There  are  ships 


20  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

sailing  to  the  Arctic  seas  from  the  same  waters  that 
saw  the  saihng  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company's  first 
fleet  to  found  a  northern  empire  yet  undreamed  of  but 
by  a  few  great  dreamers  like  that  royal  visionary, 
Prince  Rupert — that  prince  of  whom  popular 
tradition  has  made  a  mere  noisy  cavalier,  a  royster- 
ing  commander  of  horse.  Many  a  time  must  he 
have  longed  to  sail  with  the  merchant  adventurers 
far  from  the  unclean  atmosphere  of  the  Court  he 
loathed  ;  and  it  may  be  that  here  on  Thames-side 
he  loved  to  meet  old  shipmates  of  his  West  Indian 
days,  and  talk  with  them  of  perils  run  by  sea  and 
land  in  the  brave  days  of  youth. 


You  begin  to  breathe  a  more  or  less  nautical 
atmosphere  when  you  get  as  far  east  as  the  Port 
of  London  "  Authority's  "  building  and  the  offices 
of  the  big  shipping  companies  in  Leadenhall  Street 
and  Fenchurch  Street.  It  gets  gradually  stronger 
as  you  turn  down  the  Minories,  past  the  shop  where 
they  sell  charts  and  books  on  seamanship,  wondering 
perhaps,  if  you  chance  to  think  of  it,  where  the 
widow  sister  of  William,  the  Quaker  friend  of 
Defoe's  "  Captain  Singleton,"  lived  with  her  four 
children  and  kept  her  shop,  until  you  reach  Tower 
Hill  and  the  boundaries  of  Sailor  Town  proper. 

I  wonder  how  many  Londoners  there  are  who 
could  give  the  right  answer  if  they  were  asked  the 
way  to  "  Chain  Locker."  Not  one  in  a  thousand, 
most  likely  ;  but  to  the  seafaring  community  it  is 
probably  better  known  than  any  other  spot  in  the 
whole  of  the  Metropolis,  better  even  than  its  near 
neighbour  the  Tower  of  London  itself. 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  21 

For  the  Chain  Locker  is  the  name  given  by  the 
sailormen  to  the  Shipping  Office  on  Tower  Hill, 
where  crews  sign  on  and  pay  off,  and  where  the 
effects  of  dead  seamen  are  kept  either  until  they 
are  claimed,  or — failing  a  claimant — until  they  are 
sold  by  auction  after  the  statutory  time  has  elapsed  : 
his  dungarees,  his  donkey's  breakfast,  his  hookpot 
and  pannikin,  his  knife,  his  marline-spike,  and 
the  rest  of  his  poor  possessions,  mostly  to  find  their 
way  in  course  of  time  into  the  junk  stores  and 
"  sea  outfitters'  "  shops  of  Limehouse  and  Poplar. 
Why  "  chain  locker  ?  "  The  connexion  is  obvious 
enough  between  anchors  and  the  arrival  and 
departure  of  ships  .  .  .  anyway,  the  Chain  Locker 
may  very  well  serve  as  the  starting  point  of  a 
cruise  through  London's  Sailor  Town. 

From  the  Tower  Bridge  you  can  look  down  on 
the  Upper  Pool,  busy  enough  still  with  the  comings 
and  goings  of  ships,  with  steamers  and  barges  and 
tugs  towing  strings  of  lighters,  though  the  centre 
of  gravity  has  long  ago  shifted  downstream.  But 
it  was  busier  far  in  the  days  before  the  docks  were, 
when  the  shipping  was  all  unloaded  into  lighters, 
and  the  cargo  then  conveyed  to  the  wharves,  or 
"  legal  quays,"  which  hned  the  waterside.  Those 
were  the  days  when  the  river  was  infested  by  shoals 
of  "  river  pirates  "  of  various  shades  of  distinction. 
There  were  the  "  river  pirates  "  proper,  who  annexed 
lighters  and  cargoes  bodily,  very  much  after  the 
style  of  the  piratical  junkmen  of  the  Canton  River 
in  the  'fifties.  There  were  "  scuffle  hunters,"  or, 
as  we  should  call  them,  "  sneak  thieves,"  who 
haunted  the  quays  and  wharves — "  light  horsemen,' 
"  heavy  horsemen,"  and  "  mudlarks."     Those  were 


22  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

the  illegal  plunderers ;  and  legal  plundering,  too,  was 
characteristic  of  the  times.  The  profiteering  spirit 
was  abroad  then  as  now,  and  the  wharf-owners 
levied  shameless  toll  on  the  merchants  using  the 
wharves.  Yet  they  have  picturesque  and  pleasant 
names,  some  of  the  old  wharves  :  "  King  Henry's 
Wharf,"  "  Lion  Wharf,"  "  Eagle  Wharf,"  "  Moiety 
Wharf,"  "Hubbucle's  Wharf  "—I  don't  know 
whether  there  is  a  Hubbucle  now,  but  the  name 
has  a  wonderfully  Dickensian  sound — and  the 
various  Sufferance  Wharves  recall  one  of  the 
attempts  made  as  far  back  as  the  days  of  the 
Tudors  to  cope  with  the  evil  of  the  proprietary 
quays.  The  Sufferance  Wharves  were  only  held, 
as  their  name  indicates,  on  sufferance,  that  is,  the 
grant  of  them  was  not  renewable  if  the  holders 
abused  their  privileges  by  charging  exorbitant  tolls. 
Whether  the  scheme  worked  or  not  is  not  recorded  ; 
in  any  case,  the  construction  of  the  docks  put  an 
end  to  the  abuse  for  good  and  all. 

Right  opposite  you  as  you  stand  on  Tower  Hill 
is  the  yellow  stuccoed  facade  of  the  St.  Katharine's 
Dock  main  entrance — a  characteristic  Georgian 
building,  with  the  date  (1828)  over  the  gateway. 
St.  Katharine's  Dock  nowadays  is  mostly  given 
over  to  continental  and  coasting  steamers.  Its 
makers  were  not  men  of  vision  like  those  who 
planned  the  stately  West  India  and  East  India 
systems.  They  had  no  idea  of  making  provision 
for  ships  bigger  than  those  of  their  own  day ; 
hence,  now  as  then,  no  ship  of  more  than  about 
one  thousand  tons  can  enter,  even  at  the  most 
favourable  state  of  the  tide. 

The  principal  interest  of  St.  Katharine's  Dock 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  28 

really  centres  in  the  site  on  which  it  hes,  once 
occupied  by  one  of  London's  oldest  religious  founda- 
tions. A  chantry,  a  graveyard,  and  a  hospital  for 
lay  brethren  all  lie,  so  to  speak,  beneath  the  surface 
of  the  dock,  and  the  rattle  of  winches  sounds 
unceasingly  where  once  the  chime  of  St.  Kathar- 
ine's by  the  Tower  called  the  folk  to  praise  and 
prayer.  Gone  is  the  little  old  chantry  chapel 
built  by  Edward  the  Third's  queen,  and  the  hospital 
endowed  by  Stephen's  wife,  Matilda,  in  memory  of 
her  two  dead  children.  And  long  silent  have  been 
the  voices  of  the  chanting  choristers  who,  says  old 
Stow,  "  sang  but  little  less  sweetly  than  those  of 
Paul's  Church  itself."  A  print  in  the  British  Museum 
shows  you  the  church,  a  small  building  with  a  low 
square  tower,  standing  among  tall  old  lap-boarded 
houses  such  as  may  still  be  seen  here  and  there  in 
waterside  London. 

There  was  a  considerable  outcry  when  the  old 
landmarks  were  swept  away  ;  but  it  is  suggested 
that  it  was  not  entirely  disinterested,  nor  based  on 
antiquarian  zeal,  and  that  the  denunciation  of  the 
vandahsm  of  the  scheme  was  simply  a  case  of  "  any 
stick  to  beat  a  dog  with."  The  lay  brothers  were 
found  a  new  home  near  Regent's  Park,  and  the 
spiritual  needs  of  the  neighbourhood,  out  of  which 
the  opponents  of  the  new  dock  had  made  a  great 
capital,  were  met  by  an  annual  payment  to  the 
parson  of  St.  Botolph,  Aldgate,  of  fifty  pounds.  The 
old  hospital  forms  the  background  of  one  of  the  late 
Sir  Walter  Besant's  novels  of  old  London,  "  Saint 
Katharine's  by  the  Tower."  Nobody  seems  to  read 
Besant  nowadays,  but  his  books — albeit  a  trifle 
pedestrian  sometimes — are  worth  a  hundred  of  the 


24  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

emotional  gibberings  of  the  "  jazz  "  novelists  of 
the  neo-Georgian  fashion. 


If  you  want  to  see  the  nearest  modem  equivalents 
of  King  Solomon's  ivory,  apes,  and  peacocks,  then 
London  Docks  is  one  of  the  best  places  to  look  for 
them.  To  be  strictly  literal,  so  far  as  the  apes  and 
peacocks  are  concerned,  you  might  perhaps  look 
for  those  with  more  success  in  the  animal  emporiums 
of  Rat  cliff  Highway,  just  the  other  side  of  the  dock 
wall ;  but  if  you  were  making  a  map  in  the  old 
style  of  the  London  dock  region,  you  would  certainly 
not  be  far  wrong  in  inscribing  "  Heere  much  Ivorie." 

For  ivory  you  may  see  in  plenty  on  what  is 
pleasantly  described  as  the  "  Ivory  Floor,"  though 
it  is  not,  as  one  might  expect,  approached  by  way 
of  the  Ivory  Gate.  Two  hundred  thousand  pounds 
worth  of  it  at  once  is  set  out  there  in  orderly  array 
— a  sight  to  recall  the  days  when  one's  youthful 
pulses  thrilled  to  the  great  doings  of  Allan  Quater- 
main  and  his  companions.  There  is  ivory  from 
India,  from  Abyssinia,  from  East  Africa,  from  the 
Belgian  Congo — giant  tusks  weighing  a  hundred- 
weight and  a  half,  and  little  ones  but  a  few  feet  in 
length.  There  are  rhinoceros  horns,  black  and 
sinister,  and  tusks  of  wild  boars,  curved  like  old- 
fashioned  hunting  horns  ;  fossil  ivory  from  tusks 
of  mammals  that  roamed  the  Siberian  barrens 
in  the  far  dawn  of  time  ;  walrus  teeth,  and  spiral 
horns  of  narwhals  as  long  as  barbers'  poles  and 
very  like  the  traditional  armament  of  the  unicorn, 
Herman  Melville  in  "  Moby  Dick  "  has  an  interesting 
passage  about  the  narwhal.     "  The    Narwhal,"  he 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  25 

says,  "  is  some  sixteen  feet  in  length,  while  its  horn 
averages  five  feet,  though  some  exceed  ten  and  even 
attain  to  fifteen  feet.  Strictly  speaking,  this  horn 
is  but  a  lengthened  tusk,  growing  out  from  the  jaw 
in  a  line  a  little  depressed  from  the  horizontal. 
But  it  is  only  found  on  the  sinister  side,  which  has 
an  ill  effect,  giving  its  ownsr  something  analogous 
to  the  aspect  of  a  clumsy  left-handed  man.  What 
precise  purpose  this  ivory  horn  or  lance  answers  it 
would  be  hard  to  sa3^  It  does  not  seem  to  be  used 
like  the  blade  of  the  sword-fish  and  bill-fish : 
though  some  sailors  tell  me  that  the  Narwhal 
employs  it  for  a  rake  in  turning  over  the  bottom 
of  the  sea  for  food.  Charley  Coffin  said  it  was 
used  for  an  ice-piercer  ;  for  the  Narwhal,  rising  to 
the  surface  of  the  Polar  Sea,  and  finding  it  sheeted 
with  ice,  thrusts  his  horn  up,  and  so  breaks  through. 
But  you  cannot  prove  either  of  these  surmises  to 
be  correct.  .  .  .  The  Narwhal  I  have  heard  called 
the  Tusked  Whale,  the  Horned  Whale,  and  the 
Unicorn  Whale.  He  is  certainly  a  curious  example 
of  the  Unicomism  to  be  found  in  almost  every 
kingdom  of  animated  nature.  From  certain  clois- 
tered old  authors  I  have  gathered  that  this  same 
sea  unicorn's  horn  was  in  ancient  days  regarded 
as  the  great  antidote  against  poison,  and,  as  such, 
preparations  of  it  brought  immense  prices.  It  was 
also  distilled  to  a  volatile  salt  for  fainting  ladies, 
the  same  way  that  the  horns  of  the  male  deer  are 
manufactured  into  hartshorn.  Originally  it  was 
in  itself  accounted  an  object  of  great  curiosity. 
Black  Letter  tells  me  that  Sir  Martin  Frobisher  on 
his  return  from  that  voyage,  when  Queen  Bess  did 
gallantly  wave  her  jewelled  hand  to  him  from  a 


26  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

window  of  Greenwich  Palace,  as  his  bold  ship 
sailed  down  the  Thames  :  '  When  Sir  Martin  returned 
from  that  voyage,'  saith  Black  Letter,  '  on  bended 
knees  he  presented  to  her  highness  a  prodigious 
long  horn  of  the  Narwhal,  which  for  a  long  period 
after  hung  in  the  castle  of  Windsor.'  "  And  so  we 
come  back  again  to  London  River,  and  to  the  sea 
unicorn  horns  which  Frobisher's  inheritors  bring 
home  to  twentieth-century  England. 

Above  the  Ivory  Floor  is  the  Spice  Floor,  and 
above  that  again  the  Cinnamon  Floor — places  of  a 
glorious  Arabian  Nights'  fragrance,  scented  hke 
some  caravan  winding  across  the  deserts  with  all  its 
bubbling  camels  laden  with  odorous  bales  :  sticks 
of  cinnamon  and  cassia,  cloves  and  nutmegs  by  the 
million,  ginger  and  the  delicate  fihgree-work  of 
mace,  in  bales  and  reddish  teakwood  boxes  from 
Penang  and  Zanzibar  and  Java,  and  barrels  from 
the  West  Indies.  And  you  may  also  see  fiery  red 
chillies,  and  think  of  "  Becky  Sharp  "  ;  and  quinine 
enough  to  doctor  the  whole  universe  ;  and  pools 
of  quicksilver  in  which  you  m.ay  look  at  your 
mirrored  face  and  send  your  penknife  and  a  two- 
pound  weight  for  a  sail.  Then  there  are  wool  ware- 
houses (very  good  for  the  lungs,  I  beheve)  and 
ostrich  feather  stores  and  wine  cellars  ;  and  tea 
and  tobacco  and  bamboos  and  canes  and  queer 
skins  from  inside  animals  which  it  is  earnestly  to 
be  hoped  are  not  destined  to  be  transformed  into 
sausage  skins. 

There  is  no  Ratcliff  Highway  nowadays  in  the 
London  street  guides,  which  is  on  the  whole  rather 
a  pity.  The  habit  of  changing  the  names  of  streets 
always   seems  to   me   a   singularly   pointless   one, 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  27 

especially  since  such  changes  are  nearly  always  for 
the  worse  from  every  point  of  view  but  that  of  the 
unimaginative  philistines  who  are  usually  responsible 
for  them.  Why,  for  instance,  should  the  time- 
honoured  Petticoat  Lane  have  given  place  to  the 
meaningless  and  uninspired  Middlesex  Street,  unless 
it  were  that  the  Victorians  considered  it  indeUcate 
to  allude  to  a  feminine  undergarment  ?  And  why 
should  RatcHff  Highway  have  lost  its  identity  in 
that  of  St.  George's  Street  ?  Perhaps  it  was  thought 
that  a  street  called  after  a  saint  must  of  necessity 
develop  a  few  saintly  characteristics ;  and  as  a  matter 
of  fact  it  has  become  something  of  a  reformed  neigh- 
bourhood, though  it  is  doubtful  if  the  change  of  name 
has  had  anything  to  do  with  it.  A  street  by  any 
other  name  smells  just  as  unsavoury  ;  and  if  names 
could  have  any  effect  of  the  auto-suggestive  kind, 
then  some  of  those  dehcate,  fragrant  names  of  foul 
courts  and  alleys  would  work  a  much-needed  miracle. 
Ratchff  Highway  was,  as  its  name  indicates, 
once  the  main  street  running  eastward  through  the 
waterside  parish  of  Ratchff  as  far  as  RatcHff  Cross, 
whose  name  still  remains  to  commemorate  either  a 
market  cross  or  a  wayside  shrine — probably  the 
latter.  Its  importance  as  a  thoroughfare  passed 
away  to  a  great  extent  with  the  construction,  early 
in  the  nineteenth  century,  of  the  new  Commercial 
Road  to  provide  a  more  direct  route  to  the  East 
and  West  India  Docks.  But  for  fully  a  century  it 
enjoyed  the  reputation  of  being  one  of  the  toughest 
streets  in  the  world — on  an  equality  with  such 
sinks  of  iniquity  as  the  "  Barbary  Coast  "  in  San 
Francisco,  or  Paradise  Street,  Liverpool,  in  its  most 
unregenerate  days. 


28  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

All  the  dregs  and  offscourings  of  male  and  female 
humanity  swarmed  in  the  foul  and  filthy  dens  of 
the  Highway,  ready  to  prey  on  the  lusts,  the  follies, 
and  the  trustfulness  of  the  sailor.  Before  his  ship 
had  fairly  docked  a  horde  of  boarding-house  keepers' 
and  tailors'  runners  were  over  her  rail,  insinuating 
themselves  into  the  good  graces  of  the  seamen, 
plying  them  with  rotgut  liquor,  and  speedily 
gaining  the  reputation  of  being  the  best  of  good 
fellows  and  a  real  friend  to  sailormen.  And  off 
rolled  poor  Jack  to  his  "  home  from  home  "  in  the 
filthy  purlieus  of  the  Highway,  there  to  remain 
half  drunk  until  his  pay  was  spent  and  he  was  well 
in  the  debt  of  his  erstwhile  hospitable  host,  who 
then  sold  him  to  an  outward-bounder  like  so  much 
cold  mutton,  and  pocketed  his  advance  note,  having 
made  a  great  show  of  generosity  by  endowing  his 
victim  with  a  shoddy  pretence  of  an  "  outfit." 
Many  and  many  a  sailorman  has  gone  ashore  with 
a  good  suit  of  shoregoing  clothes  and  a  pocket  full 
of  money — to  be  found  the  next  morning  in  the 
Highway  naked  but  for  his  shirt  and  pants,  drugged 
and  robbed  by  some  of  the  choice  companions  he 
had  picked  up  in  the  evil  haunts  of  the  district. 

Most  of  the  notorious  dance-halls  and  public- 
houses  are  now  no  more  than  fast-fading  memories. 
Gone  long  ago  are  "  Paddy's  Goose "  and  the 
"  Hole  in  the  Wall  "  and  the  "  Mahogany  Bar  "— 
places  which  (for  all  their  infamous  associations) 
must  have  heard  some  wild  tales  of  the  sea  from 
the  men  who  drifted  into  them  from  the  wide  world. 
Of  the  "  Mahogany  Bar  "  and  the  "  Hole  in  the 
Wall  "  no  trace  remains  ;  there  is  a  "  Paddy's 
Goose  "  still,  but  it  is  a  very  different  affair  from 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  29 

the  notorious  tavern  whose  real  sign  was  the  "  White 
Swan,"  known  as  "  Paddy's  Goose "  wherever 
sailors  met  together.  Apparently  the  proprietors 
of  the  reformed  "  Paddy's  Goose  " — the  British 
and  Foreign  Sailors'  Society — do  not  share  the  view 
of  the  re-christeners  of  the  Highway  as  to  the 
effects  of  a  bad  name,  for  they  have  boldly  retained 
the  old  style,  and  even  set  up  the  old  sign  of  the 
"  Swan "  over  the  new  premises.  Mr.  Arthur 
Morrison  has  enshrined  the  name  of  the  "  Hole  in 
the  Wall "  in  his  fine  romance  of  Sailor  Town  of  that 
name  :  a  wonderful  picture  of  Ratcliff  long  ago, 
its  bulUes,  its  smugglers,  its  river  pirates — all  that 
was  wild  and  reckless  and  sinister  in  the  life  of  the 
old  waterside  of  London. 

Gone,  too,  is  all  but  the  fading  memory  of  "  Tiger 
Bay,"  that  evil  district  which  formerly  lay  between 
the  Highway  and  what  is  now  Cable  Street,  with  its 
"  Norwegian  Flag  "  and  "  Swedish  Flag  "  dance- 
halls,  where  girls  of  fourteen  years  old — old  in  the 
ways  of  vice  before  they  had  left  the  years  of 
childhood  behind — danced  the  can-can  with  drunken 
sailors  of  all  nationahties.  How  "  Tiger  Bay  " 
came  by  its  name  I  know  not  ;  but  it  could  have 
had  none  more  appropriate,  for  the  men  and  women 
who  inhabited  it  were  tigers  in  human  shape. 

There  is  a  stone  in  the  churchyard  of  St.  George's 
in  the  East  which  recalls  one  of  the  most  tragic 
occurrences  in  the  history  of  Ratcliff  Highway — 
an  incident  to  which  De  Quincey  makes  reference 
in  his  savagely  ironical  essay  on  "  Murder  as  a  Fine 
Art."  In  December,  1811,  a  young  couple  of  the 
name  of  Marr,  together  with  their  infant  child, 
were  brutally  murdered  at  No.  29  Ratcliff  Highway, 


30  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

under  circumstances,  says  the  long-rhymed  epitaph, 
now  only  partly  decipherable,  "  too  Horrid  to 
Relate."  The  murderer  escaped  scot-free  for  the 
time  being,  only  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  justice 
shortly  afterwards  when  in  the  act  of  trying  to 
repeat  the  performance  at  another  house  in  the 
Highway.  He  managed  to  commit  suicide  while 
under  sentence  of  death  ;  and  the  tale  goes  that 
during  some  street  repairs  in  the  district  years 
later  a  human  skeleton  was  found  at  a  meeting  of 
four  cross-roads  with  a  stake  driven  through  its 
ribs,  which  was  believed  to  be  that  of  the  murderer. 

To  a  great  extent  the  district  is,  externally,  httle 
changed.  Some  of  the  narrow  alleys  still  survive, 
such  as  Ship  Alley,  whose  old  leaning,  gabled  houses, 
with  their  stoutly  shuttered  windows,  bear  witness 
to  need  in  bygone  days  for  protection  against  unwel- 
come intruders.  Nasty  places,  too,  these  crooked 
byways  must  have  been  on  dark  or  foggy  nights — 
with  only  the  pale  light  of  a  lamp  at  the  streetward 
end  throwing  a  feeble  ray  along  them,  and  the  blank 
face  of  the  frowning  dock  wall  opposite  ;  handy 
places  in  which  to  sandbag  or  pitch-plaster  a  half- 
drunk  sailorman  or  slip  a  knife  between  his 
shoulders. 

Rambling  up  one  of  these  alleys  one  day  I  came 
out  into  a  queer  little  old-world  square,  with  dis- 
creet-looking Georgian  houses  round  it  whose  walls 
could  no  doubt  tell  some  strange  tales  if  they  chose. 
It  was  just  such  a  respectable,  staid-looking  spot  as 
might  have  been  inhabited  a  century  or  so  ago  by 
shipbuilders  or  wharfingers  or  the  master  mariners 
whose  names  and  caUings  are  still  to  be  read  on 
the  weathered  and  grimy  stones  in  the  churchyard 


w 


ST.     GEORGE'S     IN     THE     EAST     FROM     LONDON     DOCKS 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  81 

of  St.  George's.  Now  they  are  filthy,  swarming 
tenements,  with  sooty  bambinos  tumbhng  about 
their  untended  steps,  and  slatternly  foreign  women 
gossiping  in  the  once  hospitable  Georgian  doorways, 
under  the  fanlights  dim  with  dirt.  In  the  middle 
of  the  square  the  remains  of  a  cast-iron  railing 
lay  round  a  quadrangle  of  sour,  sooty  earth,  all 
humps  and  hollows,  where  two  or  three  workmen 
were  busy — not  very  busy,  though — demolishing  a 
little  church  or  chapel  of  the  orthodox  eighteenth 
century  style  of  architecture.  One  side  of  it  was 
already  down,  and  the  gaunt  rafters  of  the  roof, 
the  tom-up  floor  with  its  open  vaults  and  stones 
thrown  all  awry,  looked  like  some  strange  vision  of 
the  Day  of  Judgment.  A  horrible  litter  of  rags 
about  the  floor,  and  the  half-obliterated  name  over 
the  door  of  Something-isky,  Marine  Store,  showed 
to  what  depths  of  degradation  the  place  had 
sunk. 

A  local  luminary  informed  me  that  it  used  to  be 
the  Swedish  Church,  where  they  buried  the  "  Kings 
o'  Sweden  an'  them  " — a  rather  surprising  piece  of 
folk-lore  whose  authenticity  I  was  quite  sorry  to 
be  compelled  to  doubt.  However,  I  made  some 
further  inquiries,  and  was  rewarded  by  the  discovery 
that  the  place  had  been  the  first  Swedenborgian 
Church  founded  by  Swedenborg  himself,  and  that 
he  was  buried  there.  His  body  was  only  removed  a 
few  years  ago  and  reinterred  in  Sweden — not  so 
picturesque  a  story  as  that  of  the  apocryphal 
"  Kings  o'  Sweden  an'  them,"  but  sufficiently  inter- 
esting all  the  same.  It  must  have  been  a  pretty 
httle  building  in  its  day,  with  a  few  trees  waving 
round  it,  and  the  grass  growing  green  in  its  grave- 


32  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

yard,  before  Mr.  Isky  and  his  marine  store  entered 
its  forsaken  portals. 


I  spent  quite  a  long  time  one  day  looking  for 
Labour-in-Vain  Street — for  no  particular  reason 
that  I  know  of  except  that  its  quaint  name  had  taken 
my  fancy,  as  names  sometimes  do,  and  that  I  had 
made  of  the  name  a  kind  of  imaginary  portrait  of 
the  place  to  my  own  satisfaction.  It  appears  on  the 
map  as  a  crooked  and  rather  narrow  street  leading 
down  from  ShadweU  High  Street  in  the  direction  of 
the  river ;  and  the  picture  I  had  formed  of  it  was 
of  one  of  those  survivals  of  old  waterside  Ratcliff 
such  as  one  does  still  find  here  and  there — a  street 
of  old-fashioned  houses  such  as  the  families  of  decent 
seafaring  folk  may  have  lived  in  a  century  ago,  when 
Wapping  was  still  a  pleasant  enough  region  to  dwell 
in  of  the  salty  sort. 

I  found  it  at  last  and,  as  generally  happens,  it 
wasn't  in  the  least  like  my  preconceived  idea  of  it ! 

It  was  about  the  twentieth  person  I  asked  who 
showed  it  to  me.  The  other  nineteen  were 
"strangers  in  that  part  "  or  else  looked  at  me  sus- 
piciously, as  if  they  thought  I  was  "  'avin'  a  gyme." 

"  Labour-in-Vain  Street  ?  "  said  No.  Twenty  ; 
"  that's  Labour-in-Vain  Street — and  there  ain't 
one  person  in  a  hundred  about  here  could  tell  you," 

I  followed  the  direction  of  his  pointing  finger, 
but  I  could  see  no  street  at  all :  nothing  but  the 
spiked  raihngs  of  a  very  new  recreation  ground 
sloping  down  to  the  Shadwell  Basin  dock  entrance 
from  the  river,  and  a  nearly  demolished  building 
at  the  comer. 


DAYS  IN   LONDON  33 

"  Yes,"  he  continued,  warming  to  his  subject, 
"  that's  Labour-in- Vain  Street,  that  is,  or  leastways 
it  used  to  be.  Pulled  it  all  down,  they  'ave,  to 
make  room  for  this  'ere  park,  and  turned  'undreds 
of  famihes  out  to  do  it.  Call  it  a  free  country  ! 
They  turned  an  old  lady  out  o'  that  'ouse  they're 
puUin'  down  now,  an'  she  died  two  days  after  they 
moved  'er.  Seventy-five  years  old,  an'  'er  family 
hved  in  that  'ouse  a  hundred  and  fifty  years.  An' 
then  they  wonder  at  all  these  'ere  Shin  Feiners  an' 
Bolsheeviks  an'  such.  Free  country,  indeed  !  .  .  . 
'  What  was  it  called  Laboui -in-Vain  Street  for  ?  ' 
I  couldn't  tell  you.  I've  lived  in  these  parts  all 
my  life,  but  I  couldn't  tell  you  that — not  unless  it 
was  because  there  used  to  be  a  dust-shoot  at  the 
end  of  it,  and  I  suppose  you  might  call  shootin' 
dust  labour  wasted.  Similarly,  you  might  ask  me 
why  they  call  that  place  down  by  Tunnel  Pier 
'  Execution  Dock  ' — I  couldn't  tell  you.  I  might 
tell  you  they  say  they  used  to  hang  people  there, 
long  ago — mind,  I  don't  say  they  didn't,  nor  I 
don't  say  they  did.  All  as  I  can  say  is  I  never  see 
'em — consequence  is,  I  can't  say,  not  for  certain." 

Still,  I  can't  bring  myself  to  accept  that  horrible 
dust-shoot  derivation  for  the  quaint  old  name. 
Rather  may  it  have  belonged  to  some  remote  time 
when  the  street  was  a  mere  causeway  among 
marshes  and  shifting  sands,  and  all  efforts  to  make 
a  stable  foundation  for  the  builder  seemed  to  be 
but  Labour  in  Vain.  Or,  better  still,  may  not  some 
piously  minded  builder  of  days  gone  by  have 
adorned  his  dwelling  with  a  motto  from  the  words  of 
the  Psalmist : 

Except  the  Lord  build  the  house,  they  labour  in  vain  that  build  it. 
3 


34  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

So  I  shall  never  see  Labour-in-Vain  Street  after 
all.  Perhaps  it  is  just  as  well.  I  dare  say  the  reality 
would  have  banished  the  dream  for  ever.  But  it 
still  winds  on  through  the  world  of  dreams,  with  its 
leaning  old  lap-boarded  houses,  its  glimpses  of  green 
gardens,  its  windows  with  bottled  ships  and  huge 
shells  mysteriously  murmuring  of  the  sea.  .  .  . 

*  *  *  *  * 

They  are  talking  ominously  about  "  improve- 
ments "  to  the  Shadwell  Basin  which  threaten  to 
sweep  away  some  of  the  very  few  remaining  bits  of 
the  Wapping  waterfront.  There  is  a  pretty  old- 
fashioned  house — a  dockmaster's,  I  think — on  the 
pierhead,  and  beside  it  a  little  old  tavern  bearing 
the  old-world  name  of  the  "  Prospect  of  Whitby." 
I  don't  know  the  origin  of  this  name  either,  but  it 
was  probably  that  of  one  of  those  old  "  Geordie  " 
collier  brigs  whose  allotted  anchorage  was  just  at 
this  point,  opposite  the  end  of  Old  Gravel  Lane, 
so  called  on  account  of  the  loads  of  gravel  which 
used  to  be  carted  down  that  way  as  ballast  for  the 
colliers  on  their  return  journey. 

The  "  Prospect  of  Whitby  "  is  nothing  much  to 
look  at  from  the  street  side  ;  but  if  you  go  along  the 
narrow  passage  which  separates  it  from  the  next 
building,  and  so  down  the  worn  steps  to  the  water- 
side, you  can  step  right  back  three-quarters  of  a 
century.  There  are  a  couple  of  barges  lying  on  the 
mud,  with  some  men  working  on  their  hulls,  and 
behind  is  the  old-fashioned  inn,  with  its  green- 
painted  wooden  balcony  overlooking  Limehouse 
Reach  and  the  Rotherhithe  shore  opposite,  and  a 
row  of  faces  looking  over  the  tops  of  pint  pots,  and 


DAYS   IN  LONDON  35 

spitting  solemnly  into  the  tide,  as  the  owners  of 
similar  faces  have  done  for  generations. 

Close  by  this  bit  of  foreshore  is  that  spot  of  sinister 
associations  known  to  bygone  generations  as  "  Exe- 
cution Dock."  Here  it  was  that  pirates  were  hung 
in  chains,  by  way  of  example  to  such  daring  spirits 
among  the  sea-going  community  as  might  feel 
inclined  to  emulate  their  doings.  Mr.  Masefield, 
in  his  book  of  essays,  "  A  Mainsail  Haul,"  gives  a 
graphic  Httle  pen-picture  of  the  kind  of  end  which 
generally  awaited  the  High  Tobymen  of  the  sea  as 
certainly  as  Tyburn  Tree  loomed,  a  grisly  shape,  at 
the  end  of  the  highwayman's  road  of  adventure. 

Both  by  the  map  and  by  local  tradition  the  site 
of  Execution  Dock  may  be  fixed  with  tolerable 
certainty.  It  was  situated  almost  where  the  present 
Tunnel  Pier  and  the  Thames  PoHce  Station  stand, 
between  King  Henry's  Wharf  and  that  of  the  Aber- 
deen Steam  Navigation  Company.  It  is  a  conspicu- 
ous spot,  such  as  our  forefathers  considered  desirable 
for  a  gibbet,  and  the  gallows  with  its  grisly  burden 
would  be  visible  on  a  clear  day  the  whole  length  of 
Upper  and  Lower  Pool ;  while  on  dark  or  foggy 
nights  the  chamel  odour  and  the  dismal  clanking 
of  the  chains  would  strike  awe  into  the  hearts  of 
the  crews  of  ships  anchored  or  groping  their  way  up 
or  down  the  river. 


CHAPTER  II 

Bygone  Poplar — Blackwall  Yard — Brunswick  Pier  and  Hotel 
— Unlucky  Ships — The  West  India  Docks — A  few  Poplar 
Pictures — Anchors — In  Chinatown 

THE  district  of  Poplar  is  said  to  get  its 
name  from  the  number  of  poplar  trees 
which  grew  there  in  days  gone  by.  You 
find  no  poplars  there  nowadays ;  but  then,  neither 
do  you  find  kings  at  Seven  Kings,  nor  hay  in  the 
Haymarket,  nor  saints  in  St.  John's  Wood.  That 
they  are  not  there  now  is  not  to  say  that  they  were 
not  there  aforetime. 

The  poplars  (if  poplars  there  were)  may  quite 
conceivably  have  been  those  which  were  planted 
round  the  old  Brunswick  Dock  to  serve  as  a  wind- 
break to  protect  the  ships  lying  there.  They  are 
quick-growing  trees,  and  so  would  have  been  very 
likely  to  be  chosen  for  that  purpose. 

The  names  "  Blackwall  "  and  "  Millwall  "  seem 
to  be  older.  Why  Blackwall  I  know  not ;  Millwall 
is  said  to  have  been  so  called  on  account  of  a  wind- 
mill which  formerly  stood  there.  The  derivation 
of  the  "  Isle  of  Dogs  "  is  a  vexed  question.  Some 
authorities  maintain  that  it  got  its  name  from  the 
kennel  of  hounds  Charles  the  Second  kept  there. 
Others  again  say  it  was  the  "  Isle  of  Ducks,"  because 
of  the  great  number  of  wildfowl  which  frequented 
marshy  fastnesses.     Either  derivation  may  be  the 

36 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  87 

right  one ;  but  future  etymologists  may  well 
conjecture  that  it  was  originally  the  "  Isle  of  Docks," 
for  it  contains  no  less  than  three  of  the  great  dock 
systems,  as  well  as  some  of  the  smaller  ones,  such 
as  the  Poplar  Dock  and  Blackwall  Basin. 

One  pictures  Poplar  in  the  old  days  as  a  pleasant 
enough  riverside  place,  already  only  at  the  beginning 
of  its  shipbuilding  renown — a  place  of  comfortable 
houses  inhabited  by  seafaring  folk  and  by  the 
shipwrights  and  other  craftsmen  employed  at  the 
Blackwall  Yard.  Many  famous  men  have  passed 
along  its  narrow  High  Street  in  those  days — not 
least  among  them  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  whose  house 
in  Poplar  survived  the  changes  and  chances  of 
centuries  only  to  be  swept  away  by  the  construction 
of  the  Blackwall  Tunnel.  A  picture  of  the  house 
may  still  be  seen  in  the  Poplar  Free  Library,  showing 
it  as  a  quaint,  unassuming  place,  where  no  doubt 
Sir  Walter  was  glad  to  retire  to  his  books  and  his 
dreams  from  the  hollow  insincerities  of  the  Court, 
and  where  he  may  have  welcomed  many  a  seafaring 
man  with  brave  tales  to  tell  of  the  great  doings  at 
sea  and  the  fabled  gold  of  Guiana.  One  would 
have  thought  the  makers  of  the  Tunnel  might  have 
contrived  to  spare  so  historic  a  dwelling  ;  and  that 
it  might  have  been  acquired  for  the  purposes  of  a 
museum  of  nautical  history  in  this  spot,  which  was 
the  cradle  of  Britain's  maritime  greatness. 

Poplar  jogged  along  comfortably  enough,  building 
her  king's  ships  with  their  towering  stem-  and 
forecastles,  their  bows  a  splendour  of  conch- 
blowing  Tritons  and  sea  monsters,  and  the  ships 
for  "  John  Company"  with  their  old-world  names, 
"  Globe,"  "  Hector,"  "  Trades  Increase,"  and  "  New 


38  SAILOR  TO^VN  DAYS 

Year's  Gift."  It  had  its  great  days,  too,  when 
BlackwaU  Yard  was  a-flutter  with  bunting,  and  aU 
the  great  folk  came  down  from  Town  to  see  a  new 
Indiaman  take  the  water.  Royal  visitors  were  not 
infrequent,  from  the  days  of  Charles  the  Second 
onward.  The  Merry  Monarch,  hke  a  good  many 
other  people,  had  as  good  an  eye  for  a  fine  ship  as 
for  a  pretty  woman.  Pepys  has  more  than  one 
reference  to  BlackwaU — to  "  the  fine  new  dock 
there,"  to  some  natural  curiosities  he  saw  there  in 
the  way  of  fossihzed  oak,  and  to  the  ships  building, 
amongst  them  the  "  Royal  Oak,"  built  in  1661,  the 
ninth  ship  which  appears  on  the  records  of  the  yard. 
But  the  zenith  of  Poplar's  prosperity  was  in  the 
middle  of  last  century.  Then  it  was  that  the 
shipyards  of  Wigram  &  Green,  of  Joseph  Somes 
and  Walker,  hummed  with  activity,  and  the  sound 
of  the  shipwrights'  hammers  and  the  caulkers' 
mallets  was  never  silent.  The  East  and  West 
India  Docks  were  thronged  with  the  lofty  masts 
and  delicate  network  of  standing  and  running 
rigging  of  the  fairest  ships  man  ever  built.  It  was 
the  crown  of  the  centuries-long  development  of  the 
sailing  ship.  The  whole  waterfront  was  a  buzz  of 
excitement  when  the  first  ships  were  expected  with 
the  new  season's  teas.  Every  tavern  between 
BlackwaU  and  the  Pool  echoed  with  the  names  of 
the  various  ships  of  the  fleet — "  Ariel,"  "  Ther- 
mopylae," "  Sir  Lancelot."  Nor  was  the  interest 
confined  to  the  seafaring  community ;  even  in 
country  viUages  far  from  the  smell  of  salt  water, 
the  news  of  the  "  China  tea  race  "  was  anxiously 
awaited  and  staid  business  men  betted  freely  on 
the  great  event. 


DAYS   IN  LONDON  39 

The  old  Poplar  shipowners  and  builders  belonged 
to  a  type  of  business  men  fast  passing  away.  In 
them  the  personal  side  of  shipowning  was  strongly 
emphasized.  Their  firms  were  no  mere  soulless 
machines.  Many  of  them — like  Captain  John 
WiUis,  whose  "  white  hat,"  says  Mr.  Basil  Lubbock 
in  one  of  his  fascinating  books  of  nautical  history, 
"  was  as  familiar  an  object  as  the  capstan  on  the 
Dierhead  of  the  East  India  Dock" — had  themselves 
fou  -ed  the  sea.  Their  captains  were  their  personal 
friends  ;  .heir  ships  were  not  mere  dividend-earning 
machines,  but  almost  Uving  things.  The  loss  of 
the  chpper  "  Spindrift  "  so  affected  her  owner  that 
he  went  out  of  his  mind.  Their  attitude  towards 
their  ships  was  indeed  more  like  that  of  a  racehorse 
owner  towards  his  stud.  Some  of  them,  like  Captain 
WiUis,  would  never  sell  their  ships  to  foreign  owners  ; 
but  in  most  cases  death  brought  about  the  break- 
up of  their  fleets  at  last,  and  even  the  beautiful 
"  Cutty  Sark,"  the  apple  of  Willis's  eye,  passed 
finally  into  ahen  hands. 

Several  terrible  sea-disasters  are  associated  with  the 
name  of  a  very  well-known  Thames-side  firm,  that  of 
Duncan  Dunbar.  The  "  Cospatrick  "  was  destroyed 
by  fire,  and  her  survivors  were  reduced  to  such  a 
terrible  plight  that  they  were  at  last  driven  to 
cannibahsm.  The  loss  of  the  "  Northfieet,"  with 
more  than  two  hundred  lives,  off  Dungeness  was  a 
second  ;  and  most  terrible  of  all  was  the  wreck  of 
the  "  Dunbar  "  off  Sydney  Head  with  only  one 
survivor.  The  sharks  and  the  merciless  sea  took 
the  rest. 

Those  were  the  days  when  a  ship  was  a  ship  to 
the  seaman — to  be  growled  at,  no  doubt,  on  occasion. 


40  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

but  to  be  defended  and  upheld  against  others  with 
an  almost  personal  pride.  I  got  into  conversation 
one  day  with  an  old,  lame  shipkeeper  in  London 
Docks,  who  had  been  a  sailor  in  the  wool  clippers. 
How  his  eyes  lightened  as  he  spoke  of  them,  how 
he  rolled  their  names,  those  old  ships,  off  his  tongue, 
as  he  yarned  away,  roughly  l3nical,  on  the  subject 
of  the  ships  of  yesterday  !..."!  knowed  Green's 
ships — the  '  Superb  '  an'  the  '  Melbourne  '  an' 
them — an'  the  '  Sobra'n,'  I  knowed  'er — '  .^er- 
merus  ' — '  Esperus  ' — '  Star  o'  France  ',  .  .  went 
out  to  Melbourne  in  seventy  days,  she  did  ;  but  the 
'  John  o'  Gaunt '  beat  'er  .  .  .  an'  the  Lochs, 
'  Loch  GsiTry  '  an'  '  Loch  Vennachar '  .  .  .  lost 
with  all  'ands,  she  was  .  .  .  an'  the  '  Ben  Venue  ' 
as  Bully  Martin  was  skipper  of  .  .  .  an'  mind, 
them  was  ships  !  Talk  about  your  China  clippers — 
the  place  for  them  was  the  light  winds,  an'  just  the 
flap  o'  their  sails  to  take  'em  along.  But  them  big, 
powerful  ships,  same  as  I've  been  talkin'  about, 
they  wanted  a  gale  o'  wind  to  show  theirselves  off. 
An'  plenty  o'  sails  in  the  locker,  too,  'cos  when 
Bully  Martin  set  it,  'e  set  it,  an'  it  'ad  to  stop  there 
if  it  blew  out  o'  the  boltropes.  London  to  Melbourne 
non-stop,  that  was  'is  ticket  .  .  .  Oh,  them  was 
ships,  them  was  !  " 


There  is  always  a  sort  of  leisurely  dignity  about 
the  East  India  Docks.  Nobody  ever  seems  in  a 
vulgar  hurry  there,  and  the  spirit  of  old  John 
Company  still  seems  to  linger  about  them.  They 
are  given  up  now,  for  the  most  part,  to  liners — Union 
Castle   boats — and   cargo   boats   from   the   East. 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  41 

When  you  leave  behind  the  clanging  trams  and  the 
rumble  of  the  buses  in  the  East  India  Dock  Road, 
it  is  not  hard  to  people  the  dock  basin  with  the 
ships  of  the  past — to  fancy  some  trim  Blackwall 
frigate  at  her  berth,  or  a  slim  China  clipper  being 
towed  in  by  her  attendant  tug,  proudly  as  the 
winner  of  a  classic  race  being  led  in  to  the  paddock : 
first  home  with  the  season's  teas. 

And  the  strip  of  waterfront  which  lies  tucked 
away  between  the  masts  and  funnels  of  the  shipping 
in  the  dock  and  the  river,  with  its  endless  busy 
procession  of  craft,  great  and  small,  is — with  certain 
of  the  buildings  upon  it — perhaps  more  intimately 
connected  than  any  other  spot  on  Thames-side  with 
the  history  of  our  maritime  development  during  the 
past  three  and  a  half  centuries. 

In  itself,  and  at  a  first  glance,  the  place  is  not 
much  different  from  any  other  part  of  grimy,  in- 
dustrial Poplar.  True,  the  big  yellow-brick  building 
on  the  waterfront,  with  its  roomy  bow-windows 
looking  out  across  the  river,  suggests  thoughts  of 
another  century  than  ours  ;  and  there  is  a  lingering 
picturesqueness  about  the  little  pier  close  at  hand, 
where  a  couple  of  Thames  barges  are  just  now 
lying,  their  tawny  sails  brailed  up,  their  old- 
fashioned  brass  vanes  flashing  in  the  sun.  But  for 
the  rest  it  is  just  an  ordinary  ship-repairing  estab- 
lishment, with  a  steamer  or  two  in  dry  dock  (looking 
as  uncompromisingly  ugly  as  only  a  steamer  out 
of  its  proper  element  can  look)  and  the  usual  ship- 
yard clutter  of  rusty  plates,  derelict  ventilators 
and  fidley  gratings,  and  maritime  litter  of  every 
sort  and  kind. 

But  this  is  none  other  than  the  celebrated  Black- 


42  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

wall  Yard — "  Green's  Yard  " — ^which  was  building 
ships  in  the  days  of  the  Tudors,  and  remains  to-day 
as  the  sole  survivor  of  the  great  Thames  shipbuilding 
firms  of  the  past.  It  was  in  existence  in  the  days 
of  Elizabeth,  and  provided  ships  for  her  Navy  ; 
but  the  first  vessels  definitely  recorded  on  the 
annals  of  the  yard  are  the  "  Globe,"  "  Thomas," 
and  "  Hector,"  built  in  1612  for  the  Honourable 
East  India  Company. 

These  ships  mark  the  beginning  of  a  connexion 
with  John  Company  which  lasted  until  the  break-up 
of  the  Company's  fleet  in  1832.  An  old  eighteenth- 
century  print  shows  the  yard  as  it  then  was,  with 
an  Indiaman  on  the  stocks  and  Green's  cows 
grazing  in  the  pleasant,  tree-studded  meadows  which 
stretched  back  to  what  is  now  the  East  India  Dock 
Road  with  its  clanging  trams  and  jostling  polyglot 
traffic.  In  those  days  a  lock  communicated  with 
the  dock,  which  then,  as  now,  lay  at  the  back  of 
the  yard,  and  there  was  situated  the  mast-house,  a 
structure  beneath  which  the  completed  huU  was 
placed  for  the  masts  to  be  lowered  into  position. 
The  yard  was  a  busy  place  then  ;  one  old  print 
shows  six  ships  on  the  stocks,  and  as  well  as  the 
building  of  new  ships  the  repair  of  old  ones  added 
to  the  volume  of  business  done  there. 

The  old  East  Indiamen,  although  not  noted  at 
any  time  for  fast  sailing  qualities,  were  beautiful 
ships  in  their  way.  Only  the  best  of  materials 
were  employed  in  their  construction,  and  when  the 
fleet  was  dispersed  and  the  ships  were  sold  some 
realized  upwards  of  six  thousand  pounds  for  breaking 
up.  Their  bows  were  rich  with  scrollwork  and 
gilding  and  great  swelling  figureheads,   and  their 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  43 

quarter-galleries  and  sternports  were  enriched  with 
figures  of  Tritons  and  mermaids,  foliage  and 
flowers. 

But  they  were  wonderfully  stout  and  seaworthy, 
those  apple-cheeked  old  wagons,  and,  moreover, 
they  could  on  occasion  put  up  a  capital  fight  against 
a  pirate  or  privateer  or  even  a  ship  of  the  line. 

The  passing  of  John  Company  marked  the  begin- 
ning of  a  new  era.  The  firms  which  had  formerly 
built  for  the  Company  now,  with  the  disappearance 
of  the  monopol}',  entered  the  field  as  owners  and 
builders  on  their  own  account,  and  among  them 
Blackwall  Yard — then  Wigram  &  Green's — was 
one  of  the  most  important. 

Then  began  the  period  of  the  celebrated  "  Black- 
wall  Frigates,"  which  kept  up  some  of  the 
best  traditions  of  the  Company's  service  whilst 
relinquishing  many  of  its  drawbacks.  These  ships, 
which  were  often  fast  sailers — though  speed,  except 
in  one  or  two  notable  instances,  was  not  the  chief 
aim  of  the  Blackwall  builders,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Australian  Black  Bailers  and  the  tea  and  wool 
chppers — were  justly  famed  in  the  Indian  and 
Australian  trades  during  the  palmy  days  of  sail. 
Among  notable  ships  of  the  period  may  be  mentioned 
the  beautiful  "  Newcastle,"  the  "  Windsor  Castle," 
the  "  Superb  " — Green's  first  iron  ship — the 
"  Kent,"  the  "  Alfred,"  and  the  "  Essex."  They 
went  in  for  a  great  deal  of  smartness  and  a  semi- 
naval  discipline.  Captain  Crutchley,  in  "  My  Life 
at  Sea,"  describes  them  as  follows  :  "  The  ships  of 
Green,  Wigram,  Smith,  and  Dunbar  were  the 
lineal  descendants  of  the  old  East  Indiamen.  They 
carried  big  crews,  and  they  were  mostly  commanded 


44  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

and  officered  by  men  who  were  splendid  seamen  as 
well  as  gentlemen.  The  command  of  one  of  these 
vessels  for  a  voyage  extending  over  nine  months 
might  be  worth  a  thousand  pounds." 

A  "  Memorandum  of  Ships  built  at  Blackwall 
Yard,"  compiled  by  a  member  of  the  firm,  records 
some  eight  hundred  ships,  beginning  with  the 
"  Globe  "  in  1612,  and  ending  with  some  unnamed 
barges  in  1907,  when,  says  a  note,  the  firm  gave  up 
shipbuilding  and  went  in  for  repairs. 

Perhaps  the  most  notable  incident  in  the  whole 
of  the  yard's  long  history  was  the  building  of  the 
tea  clipper  "Challenger."  It  has  been  said  that 
as  a  general  rule  the  Blackwall  ships  went  in  for 
all-round  seaworthy  qualities  rather  than  for  speed, 
but  to  that  rule  the  "  Challenger  "  was  a  brilliant 
exception.  At  that  time — the  early  'fifties — the 
astonishing  records  which  were  being  made  by  the 
new  American  clippers  were  causing  something  Uke 
a  panic  among  British  owners,  whose  ships  were 
lying  idle  in  Chinese  ports  while  the  Yankee  cracks 
were  being  freely  chartered  by  London  merchants 
at  far  higher  rates. 

It  was  then  that  Richard  Green  of  Blackwall — 
"  Dicky  "  Green  as  he  was  popularly  termed  in 
shipping  circles — came  forward  and  built  the  clipper 
"  Challenger "  as  a  direct  counterblast  to  the 
American  "  Challenge."  The  Yankee  was  a  far 
bigger  ship  ;  but  the  little  "  Challenger  "  beat  her 
on  the  homeward  run  with  the  new  teas,  and  British 
shipowners  began  to  take  heart  of  grace.  Curiously 
enough,  BlackwaU  Yard  never  went  into  the  tea 
trade  very  deeply.  Green's  only  built  two  clippers 
besides  the  "Challenger  "— "  Highflyer  "  and  "  Min." 


DAYS  IN  LONDOxV  45 

"  Highflyer "  was  never  in  the  first  flight,  and 
"  Min  "  met  a  violent  end  early  in  her  career. 

About  the  yard,  as  you  see  it  to-day,  httle  remains 
that  is  old,  except  an  eighteenth  century  dated 
stone  which  has  been  embodied  in  some  newer 
buildings  at  the  entrance  from  Poplar  High  Street, 
Richard  Green's  old  house,  and  the  dividing  wall 
between  "  Green's  "  and  what  was  once  the  equally 
famous  yard  of  Money  Wigram.  Wigram  and 
Green  were  partners  until  about  the  middle  of  last 
century,  and  when  the  partnership  was  dissolved 
the  yard  was  divided  into  two  equal  parts,  and  a 
wall  run  up  between  the  two  in  twenty-four  hours. 
It  sounds  hke  quick  work,  but  the  wall  stands  to 
this  day,  though  Wigram's  yard  has  long  been 
closed  down,  and  its  site  is  now  occupied  by  the 
Midland  Railway  Company. 

Richard  Green's  old  house  is  a  good  example  of 
a  solid,  comfortable  Georgian  or  Early  Victorian 
house,  such  as  contented  captains  of  industry 
three-quarters  of  a  century  ago,  when  no  doubt 
Poplar  was  a  pleasanter  place  of  residence  than 
it  is  to-day,  and  people  like  Dickens's  "  Captain 
Ravender  "  of  the  "  Golden  Mary  "  hved  in  the  old- 
fashioned  houses  in  Poplar  High  Street. 

The  curious  may  find  some  few  models  of  Black- 
wall  ships  in  the  Reading  Room  of  the  Poplar  Free 
Library,  and  others  are  to  be  seen  in  the  Shipping 
Section  of  South  Kensington  Museum.  I  have 
also  seen  some  pictures  in  the  possession  of  the  firm 
— those  quaint  and  by  no  means  artistic  representa- 
tions of  the  ships  they  built  which  it  was  the  custom 
of  shipowners  to  commission  journeyman  artists  to 
paint  for  them  :   pictures  with  neat,  permanently 


46  SAILOR  T0\^^  DAYS 

waved  sea,  and  sails  so  round  and  taut  you  could, 
as  the  saying  went,  "  crack  a  flea  on  them,"  In 
the  cellars  of  the  old  Brunswick  Hotel  I  have  been 
shown  some  half-models,  mostly  of  the  yard's  later 
ships.  I  wonder  if  there  is  any  authentic  model  in 
existence  of  the  historic  httle  "  Challenger."  I 
have  never  heard  of  one,  nor  even  seen  a  picture 
of  her. 

It  is  strange  to  think  that,  of  all  that  strength, 
beauty,  and  swiftness;  all  that  wealth  of  patient 
labour  and  craftsman's  skill ;  that  sohd  oak  and  teak 
and  elm  that  had  been  growing  through  the  slow 
generations  ;  that  copper,  and  iron,  and  flashing 
brass  ;  that  stout  canvas  and  honest  rope — there 
should  after  a  few  years  no  more  remain  than  of  a 
child's  paper  boat  launched  on  a  gutter  stream  : 
no  more,  but  for  a  memory  in  some  old  man's  mind, 
a  model  or  two  in  a  few  seafaring  famiHes,  a  name 
in  an  old  seaman's  song. 

In  the  Poplar  Library  may  also  be  seen  the  old 
house-flag  of  Wigram  &  Green,  a  St.  George's  Cross 
■  with  a  blue  square  in  the  centre.  There  is  rather 
an  interesting  story  of  the  origin  of  this  flag.  One 
of  Wigram  &  Green's  ships,  the  "  Sir  Edward 
Paget,"  arrived  in  port  flying  the  firm's  new  house- 
flag,  at  that  time  the  St.  George's  cross  only  on  a 
white  ground.  Promptly  a  naval  officer,  greatly 
scandalized  by  the  spectacle  of  a  merchant  vessel 
flying  an  admiral's  flag,  sent  a  peremptory  message 
to  the  "  Paget  "  ordering  the  obnoxious  flag  to  be 
instantly  struck.  There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to 
obey  ;  but  the  captain  of  the  "  Paget  "  got  over 
the  difficulty  in  a  highly  ingenious  fashion.  Whip- 
ping out  his  blue  silk  bandana,  he  handed  it  to  the 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  47 

sailmaker,  with  instructions  to  stitch  it  on  in  the 
middle  of  the  offending  bunting.  This  done,  the 
flag  was  hoisted  anew,  and  the  makeshift  device 
remained  the  house-flag  of  Green  &  Wigram  as  long 
as  the  fleets  existed — Wigram's,  after  the  partner- 
ship was  dissolved,  retaining  the  original  flag  with 
the  blue  patch  over  the  centre  of  the  red  cross  ; 
Green's  flying  the  flag  with  the  red  cross  over  the 
blue  centre. 

The  Blackwall  tradition  has  added  at  least  two 
phrases  to  the  nautical  vocabulary.  "  Shipshape 
and  Blackwall  fashion  "  is  still  a  term  symbolical 
of  everything  smart  and  efficient  in  the  way  of 
"  sailorizing."  True,  it  has  a  variant,  such  as  have 
many  of  the  old  shanties — "  Shipshape  and  Bristol 
fashion."  But  it  is  more  than  likely  that  the 
west-country  port  borrowed  the  term  from  the 
Thames-side  yard.  After  all,  Bristol  is  rather  too 
general  to  fit  the  context ;  whereas  Blackwall  and 
smartness  were  undeniably  synonymous  from  the 
days  of  the  East  Indiamen. 

The  other  phrase  in  which  the  name  of  Blackwall 
figures  is  in  connexion  with  the  sailor's  knot,  known 
as  a  "  Blackwall  hitch."  A  Blackwall  hitch  is, 
strictly  speaking,  a  half-knot ;  it  is  a  method  of 
securing  the  end  of  a  rope  to  a  hook-block  by 
simply  passing  the  end  of  the  rope  round  the  hook 
and  under  itself  in  such  a  way  that  it  will  jam  when 
a  strain  is  put  upon  it.  Or  it  may  be  used  for 
joining  two  hawsers  together.  A  midshipman's 
hitch  and  a  double  Blackwall  hitch  are  other  and 
more  complicated  forms  of  the  same  thing  ;  and 
here  it  may  be  mentioned  that  apprentices  in  the 
Blackwall  fleet  were  always  called  "  midshipmen  " 


48  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

— Whence,  possibly,  the  term  "  midshipmen's  hitch  " 
apphed  to  a  variation  of  the  Blackwall  hitch.  But 
why  the  Blackwall  hitch  should  be  thus  specially 
locahzed  it  is  hard  to  say.  It  is  one  of  the  simplest 
knots  conceivable,  and  must  be  wellnigh  universal 
among  seafaring  folk. 


That  big,  bow-windowed,  yellow-brick  building 
already  referred  to  is  now  used  as  offices  for  Black- 
wall  Yard.  But  it  is  obvious  enough  to  the  most 
casual  observer  that  it  was  not  built  for  that  purpose. 

This  was  once  the  "  Brunswick  Hotel,"  and  its 
name  still  survives  in  that  of  the  pier  adjoining. 
In  the  old  days,  when  an  East  Indiaman  was  ready 
for  sea,  she  would  be  warped  out  through  the  lock 
entrance  of  the  Brunswick  Dock  and  anchor  off  the 
pier  until  it  was  time  for  her  to  sail.  Sometimes 
stress  of  weather  or  some  other  circumstance  might 
keep  her  alongside  the  pier  for  many  days,  and  the 
passengers  and  their  friends,  the  officers  and  their 
friends,  provided  the  Brunswick  Hotel  with  plenty 
of  custom. 

Then  its  lofty  rooms — now  mainly  divided  by 
office  partitions — were  continually  thronged  by  the 
going  or  returning  passengers  of  the  East  Indiamen  ; 
and  it  was  also,  we  are  told,  patronized  by  Royalty 
in  the  person  of  the  Duke  of  Clarence,  afterwards 
WiUiam  the  Fourth,  who  often  used  to  go  down  to 
Blackwall  to  enjoy  the  nautical  society  in  which 
he  was  always  far  more  at  home  than  in  the  stilted 
atmosphere  of  the  Court. 

What  memories  they  hold,  those  big,  spacious 
rooms    and    echoing    stairways !    What    shadowy 


THE     BRUNSWICK     HOTEL     FROM     GREE.v's     VARD 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  49 

figures  of  folk,  real  and  unreal,  seem  to  throng 
them  !  Colonel  Newcome  and  httle  CHve  side  by 
side  with  the  latter's  great  namesake — soldiers, 
yellow-faced  nabobs,  pompous  civil  servants,  officers 
with  wonderful  whiskers  and  trim  waists  such  as 
would  put  the  twentieth  century  maidens  to  shame, 
women  in  the  crinohnes  and  ringlets  of  the  Mutiny 
period,  and  ayahs  gay  as  tropical  birds  with  Uttle 
pale  children  cUnging  to  them — while  from  the  pier 
outside  seem  to  echo  the  cries  of  the  seamen  and  the 
shouted  orders  of  the  mates,  the  creak  and  moan 
of  the  mooring  ropes,  and  the  song  of  the  river  wind 
through  shroud  and  spar. 

Later,  the  building  was  used  as  a  sort  of  hostel 
for  emigrants  during  the  rush  to  Australia  in  the 
'sixties,  adding  yet  another  phase  to  the  human 
drama  that  these  old  walls  have  seen — to  be  finally 
converted,  as  we  have  seen,  into  Green's  offices, 
the  purpose  it  still  serves. 

Blackwall  Yard  itself  is  not  the  best  place  in  the 
world  to  dream  in  during  working  hours ;  but 
Brunswick  Pier  (when  it  is  quiet)  is  a  wonderfully 
quiet  and  secluded  httle  spot.  The  old  hotel  closes 
it  in  at  one  end  ;  at  the  other  is  the  entrance  to  the 
East  India  Docks  ;  and  at  the  back  are  the  dock  wall 
and  the  Great  Eastern  Railway's  Blackwall  Station. 

Even  the  railway  station  helps  to  keep  up  the 
illusion  of  the  past,  an  unusual  thing  for  a  railway 
station  to  do. 

I  suppose  there  are  people  who  come  and  go  by 
train  to  and  from  Blackwall  Station.  But  I  have 
never  seen  any.  It  looks,  with  its  curious  mid- 
Victorian  architecture — a  vast,  echoing,  desolate 
place  it  is,  with  huge,  gaunt,^flyblown  waiting-rooms, 

4 


50  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

and  a  mouldy,  musty  smell  about  it — as  if  it  had 
been  locked  up  and  forgotten  for  years.  To  me,  it 
always  suggests,  I  know  not  why,  mystery  stories 
by  Wilkie  Collins,  and  the  illustrations  in  the  early 
volumes  of  "  Cornhill."  I  have  cudgelled  my  brains 
many  a  time  in  the  attempt  to  establish  the  mental 
connexion  between  the  two.  If  I  were  what  I 
believe  is  called  a  "  psychic  "  person — ^which  I  am 
happy  to  say  I  am  not — I  might  be  able  to  work  it 
out ;  but  as  it  is — unless  it  be  that  the  musty  smell 
is  like  that  of  bound  volumes  of  ancient  magazines 
— I  can  only  give  it  up.  But  whatever  the  reason, 
there  it  is ;  and  I  never  see  that  station,  with  its 
great  empty  caves  of  cold  and  desolation,  and  its 
shabby,  blistered  paint,  and  its  windows  with  blue 
and  brown  coloured  glass  in  them,  but  I  expect  to 
see  females  in  deep  mourning,  and  crinolines,  or 
garments  with  camel-like  protuberances  behind, 
and  hair  done  up  in  braids  and  chignons,  and  pork- 
pie  hats,  hke  a  photograph  album  come  to  life, 
issuing  from  its  yawning  portals. 

On  fine  afternoons  in  summer  old  Poplar  and 
young  Poplar  and  out-of-work  Poplar  repairs  to 
Brunswick  Pier  to  dream  its  old  dreams  or  its  young 
dreams,  or  push  the  "  by  by  "  out,  or  sit  and  spit 
into  the  river,  as  the  case  may  be.  But  in  the  biting 
days  of  early  spring,  or  the  foggy  days  of  autumn, 
you  can  generally  have  the  place  all  to  yourself. 
It  is  a  rare  place  to  dream  in  then  when  the  sun  goes 
down  in  a  great  sullen  pomp  and  pageantry  of  clouds, 
and  the  mist  and  the  low-hanging  smoke  together 
seem  to  fashion  themselves  into  a  hundred  shifting, 
changing  shapes.  It  is  easy  enough  then  to  call  up 
the  fair  ghosts  of  the  vanished  Blackwallers — stately 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  51 

Indiaman,  slim  clipper,  South  Sea  whaler,  King's 
ship,  and  Blackwall  frigate — swept  away,  one  and 
all,  on  the  great  river  of  years,  flowing  as  steadily 
and  unrestingly  on  its  way  as  London's  river  rushing 
eternally  to  the  sea. 


Blackwall  Yard  is  about  the  last  survivor  of  the 
old  London  shipbuilding  concerns.  The  once 
famous  yard  of  Joseph  Somes  lies  somewhere 
beneath  the  waters  of  the  South  West  India  Dock. 
Northfleet  Yard,  where  some  of  the  Dunbar  ships 
were  built,  is  long  ago  gone,  and  so  is  Bilbe,  Perry 
&  Company's  place  in  Rotherhithe,  the  home  of  that 
brief  but  interesting  phase  of  shipbuilding  history — 
the  era  of  the  composite  ship.  The  last  vessel  of 
any  importance  to  be  built  in  Poplar  was  the  Super- 
Dreadnought  "  Thunderer,"  launched  from  the  slips 
of  the  Thames  Yard,  at  Millwall,  in  1911. 

Another  Millwall  celebrity  was  the  famous  "  Great 
Eastern,"  that  costly  experiment  whose  one  useful 
bit  of  work  was  done  when  she  helped  to  lay  the 
Atlantic  cable.  It  is  perhaps  not  generally  known 
that  when  the  "  Great  Eastern  "  came  to  be  broken 
up,  the  skeleton  of  a  man  was  found  built  into  her 
hull,  between  the  double  bottoms  which  were  one 
of  the  special  features  of  the  ship — quite  enough, 
according  to  nautical  superstition,  to  account  for 
the  persistent  ill-fortune  which  dogged  her. 

The  "  Great  Eastern  "  cost  nearly  three-quarters 
of  a  million  to  build,  and  almost  ruined  most  of  the 
people  who  had  anything  to  do  with  her  She  was 
designed  to  carry  first-class  passengers  to  India,  and 
her   accommodation   was   far   ahead   of   anything 


52  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

known  at  that  time.  Her  saloon  was  "  as  big  as 
Drury  Lane  Theatre,"  and  a  special  point  was  her 
lighting,  by  gas  "  made  on  board."  She  had  six 
masts  and  five  funnels — one  of  the  latter  was 
removed  when  she  was  cable-laying — and  both 
paddle  and  screw  engines.  She  started  badly  with  the 
accidental  drowning  of  her  first  commander,  Captain 
Harrison,  when  he  was  going  on  board  her  in  a  small 
boat  in  Southampton  Water.  Her  next  accident 
was  an  explosion,  which  caused  several  casualties, 
during  her  trial  trip  round  the  coast.  On  her  first 
trip — to  New  York,  not  to  India — she  only  carried 
about  fifty  passengers.  They  must  have  had  a  weird 
experience  in  that  great,  empty  ship.  She  made 
several  trips,  none  of  which  paid,  and  then,  in  1864, 
took  to  cable-laying.  Her  ill-luck  pursued  her  to 
the  very  end  of  her  career,  for  on  her  way  to  Liver- 
pool from  Dublin  to  be  broken  up,  she  got  adrift, 
lost  her  tugs,  and  was  picked  up  heading  for  the 
Clyde  after  having  had  a  narrow  shave  of  being 
wrecked  on  the  Calf  of  Man.  Her  huge  hull  was  only 
painted  twice  during  her  life,  and  on  one  of  the  two 
occasions  two  hundred  tons  of  mussels  was  scraped 
off  it.  In  many  ways  her  great  size  was  a  serious 
drawback  to  her,  for  there  was  no  dock  which  could 
take  her  at  that  time,  and  her  speed  must  have 
suffered  greatly  through  the  foulness  of  her  keel. 

Two  of  the  last  clippers  built  for  the  China  tea 
trade  were  also  Millwall  ships — "  Hallowe'en " 
and  "  Blackadder."  Curiously  enough,  "  Black- 
adder's  "  early  history  was  also  one  long  record  of 
disaster.  Millwall  seems  to  have  specialized  in 
"  unlucky  "  ships. 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  58 

I  am  not  sure  that  the  West  India  Docks  are  not 
the  most  picturesque  of  all  the  dock  systems  on  the 
Poplar  side  of  the  river.  There  is  a  sort  of  spacious- 
ness and  dignity  about  them  befitting  the  great  days 
when  they  were  planned  ;  generally,  too,  there  is 
a  warm  West  Indian  smeU  of  sugar  and  spice  and 
all  that's  nice — not  forgetting  Jamaica  rum.  Ships 
— even  steamers — always  look  their  best  there. 
There  is  something  wonderfully  satisfying  about  the 
view  you  get  from  the  end  of  one  of  these  long  basins, 
when  the  berths  are  nearly  aU  occupied  and  there 
are  two  or  three  ships  lying  out  in  the  middle  of 
the  dock  as  well — the  many  coloured  funnels,  the 
fluttering  ensigns  and  house-flags,  the  pleasant 
rattle  of  cargo  derricks  mingled  with  the  mewing 
of  gulls. 

There  is  usually  a  great  variety  of  shipping  there — 
steamers  of  all  kinds  :  Danish,  Swedish,  American, 
as  well  as  British,  and  the  last  time  I  was  there 
I  saw — but  with  as  yet  too  clear  a  recollection  of  our 
drowned  sailors  to  feel  any  very  warm  glow  of 
hospitality — one  or  two  specimens  of  the  ubiquitous 
Hun,  from  which  were  being  unloaded  a  variety  of 
punts  and  canoes  and  such  like  pleasure  craft.  Then 
there  are  often  two  or  three  big  fore-and-afters  and 
perhaps  a  little  topsail  schooner  (ten  to  one  she  is 
from  Wales — the  "  Cadwallader  Jones  "  or  some 
such  name)  from  some  quiet  little  Welsh  port  on 
the  shores  of  Cardigan  Bay  or  the  Bristol  Channel, 
where  the  wood  smoke  hangs  blue  of  an  evening 
over  the  slate  roofs  of  the  little  town,  and  there  are 
slabs  of  dried  fish  hanging  outside  most  of  the  cottage 
doors  in  the  narrow  chmbing  streets  .  .  .  and  by 
the  seaweed-hung  quay  a  lantern  shines  out  in  the 


54  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

twilight  .  .  .  and  on  Sunday  the  Welsh  voices, 
which  have  scolded  shrilly  in  the  streets  all  week, 
float  out  melodiously  from  a  dozen  httle  chapels  of 
Ebenezer  and  Zion. 

The  lovely  big  model  of  the  West  Indiaman"over 
the  entrance  to  the  Export  Dock  is  getting  sadly  the 
worse  for  wear.  She  looks  rather  as  if  she  had  been 
for  a  cruise  on  her  own  account  some  night  when 
the  everyday  world  was  asleep,  and  got  badly  mixed 
up  with  a  West  Indian  hurricane  ;  for  her  top- 
gallant masts  have  carried  away  altogether,  and  the 
shrouds  are  lying  across  the  lower  rigging.  I  wonder 
it  is  no  one's  business  to  take  her  down  and  have 
her  re-rigged  and  thoroughly  overhauled.  It  ought 
not  to  be  a  difficult  matter.  There  are  still  skilled 
riggers  to  be  found,  and  there  are  plenty  of  good 
rigged  models  of  ships  of  the  period  to  go  by.  It 
is  a  sad  pity  to  see  her  going  all  to  pieces  for  want 
of  a  stitch  in  time. 

I  like  those  big,  open  sheds  where  they  store  the 
great  balks  of  teak  and  mahogany  and  greenheart 
and  what  not  from  the  tropical  forests.  Great, 
dark,  mysterious  places  they  are,  with  glints  of 
daylight  showing  here  and  there  through  the  rafters, 
and  making  long,  dusty  lanes  of  sunlight  when  the 
sun  strikes  through  them.  The  mighty  logs  seem 
to  have  brought  with  them  something  of  the 
brooding,  inscrutable  spirit  of  the  dark  land  whence 
they  came — so  that,  even  on  the  brightest  day,  to 
plunge  into  the  shadow  of  those  dusky  piles  is  to 
fancy  you  hear  a  faint  echo  of  the  throbbing  of 
African  drums,  smell  the  hot  smell  of  sluggish  pools 
where  crocodiles  he  basking  like  logs  in  the  sUnie, 
or  hear  the  dull  thunder  of  the  surf  on  sandy  bar 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  55 

where  the  great  rivers  of  Africa  crawl  sullenly  to 
meet  the  sea. 


There  is  beauty  in  Poplar  even  now. 

Perhaps  it  is  a  swing-bridge  opening  to  allow  the 
passage  of  some  httle  French  sailing  vessel  from 
Rouen  or  Dieppe  or  Havre,  with  an  old  man  at  the 
wheel  of  so  impossible  and  unbelievable  a  nautical- 
ness  that  one  can  excuse  the  cry  of  "  Skipper 
sahdines  "  from  some  impolite  wharf -rat  ...  or 
a  tall  windjammer  hfting  her  spars  above  the  sheds 
in  a  rosy  sunset. 

I  remember  once — it  was  in  one  of  the  mean 
streets  of  the  Isle  of  Dogs,  where  nearly  all  the 
houses  have  flagstaffs  in  their  back  gardens  and 
something  in  the  nature  of  a  nautical  curiosity  in 
the  front  windows — I  remember  seeing  a  big 
windjammer  (the  "  Rowena  "  she  was)  which  had 
just  gone  into  dry-dock.  Her  bowsprit  soared 
right  over  the  roofs  of  the  "  smoky  dwarf  houses," 
her  masts  towered,  incredibly  tall,  over  the  huddle 
of  grimy  slates.  She  looked  a  thing  strangely  aloof, 
strangely  unreal — hke  man's  undying  dream  of 
beauty  taking  shape,  rising  triumphant,  over  the 
sordid  smallness  of  his  daily  life.  .  .  . 

Her  crew  were  just  leaving  her.  They  came 
streaming  out  through  the  dock  gates  as  I  passed 
— the  usual  mixed  forecastle  crowd  of  all  nation- 
alities, Dutch,  Dagoes,  Finns,  a  nigger  or  two,  and 
at  the  tail  of  the  procession  a  fur-capped,  thickset 
fellow  with  a  battered  fiddle  tucked  under  his  arm, 
and  on  either  side  of  him,  eager  and  excited,  a 
bunch  of  apprentices  in  the  most  disreputable  of 


56  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

dungarees.  .  .  .  They  will  remember  that  old 
shell-back  and  his  fiddle,  those  boys,  when  they  are 
grown  to  be  old  men,  and  think  how  never  music 
sounded  so  wonderful  as  the  squeaky  tunes  he 
wrung  out  of  it  in  the  golden  dog-watches  of  long  ago. 

I  suppose  the  next  generation  of  seafarers  will 
know  the  "  sail "  apprentice  no  more.  Cadets 
there  will  be,  no  doubt,  or  midshipmen,  or  whatever 
they  choose  to  call  them  ;  but  the  genuine  "  Brass- 
bounder  "  of  the  days  gone  by — never  again.  It 
was  a  hard  school  they  went  to,  those  youngsters, 
but  it  made  fine  men  of  them.  I  remember  a  Hner 
officer  describing  how  he  had  shown  one  of  the 
cadets  in  his  charge  some  snapshots  of  his  first  ship 
— whose  memory  he  cherished  as  most  sailormen 
do  cherish  such  memories,  with  tender  and 
unashamed  sentiment.  "  Good  Lord  !  "  was  all 
the  enhghtened  young  modem's  comment.  "  Fancy 
going  to  sea  in  things  hke  that !  "  "  Young  cub  !  " 
added  my  informant  bitterly.  "  I  could  have  boxed 
his  young  ears  !  " 

Many  old  sailors — and  not  very  old  ones  either 
in  point  of  age — must  have  chuckled  over  the 
paragraphs  in  the  Press  about  the  two  "  boy  " 
scouts  who  accompanied  the  Shackleton  Expedition. 
Boys  !  why,  they  were  husky  young  men  !  and 
the  apprentice  of  twenty  years  ago  had  sailed 
Sou'  Spain  half-a-dozen  times  at  their  age,  and 
thought  precious  httle  about  it.  Times  are  changed. 
Farewell,  you  young  "  Brassbounder  !  "  You  had 
your  faults  and  your  failings,  no  doubt.  You  were 
as  full  of  mischief  as  an  egg  is  full  of  meat ;  but 
you  had  faced  death  when  other  lads  are  at  their 
books,  and  suffered  while  yet  a  mere  child  in  years 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  67 

your   stem   initiation   in   the   mysteries   of   your 
heritage,  the  sea. 


I  don't  suppose  I  could  find  the  place  again  if 
I  tried.  I  only  know  it  is  somewhere  in  the  Isle 
of  Dogs.  The  masts  and  yards  of  a  big  sailing  ship 
had  beckoned  to  me  over  the  tops  of  the  sheds  and 
the  roofs  of  the  grimy  houses.  I  wanted  to  get  to 
closer  quarters  with  her  ;  and  with  this  end  in  view 
I  turned  in  at  an  open  gateway  which  looked  as 
if  it  led  down  to  the  basin  where  she  was  lying. 
It  didn't,  but  I  was  not  corry  that  I  had  made  the 
mistake. 

It  was  a  queer,  quiet  place  :  quiet  like  a  marine 
store  where  no  one  ever  seems  to  buy  anything — 
with  the  rather  sinister  quietness  of  such  places. 
Outside,  the  traffic  boomed  by,  a  cold  wind  blew 
off  the  river,  stirring  the  idle  rigging  of  the  moored 
vessel,  and  a  few  gulls  hovered  above  her  with  thin, 
shrill  pipings.  There  was  a  sky  of  pale  greys  and 
blues,  blown  clouds  and  misty  spaces  between,  the 
sun  going  down  tearfully  behind  a  bank,  and  a  wan 
light  shining  on  the  puddles. 

And  all  round,  nothing  but  anchors — anchors  of 
all  shapes  and  sizes,  rusted  beyond  recognition  or 
comparatively  new,  ranging  from  the  regular  old- 
fashioned  "  mud-hook  "  to  the  modem  stockless 
pattern  which  projects  from  every  steamer's  hawse- 
pipe.  There  they  lay,  piled  up  in  orderly  heaps, 
with  lanes  leading  in  among  them  hke  pathways 
among  tombs.  The  wonder  is  where  they  all  come 
from.  Some  may  have  been  fished  up  out  of  the 
mud  when  a  cable  has  parted ;    certain  worthy 


58  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

tradesmen  of  the  South  Pacific  coast  do  a  good 
business  in  this  Hne,  after  the  dreaded  "  Norther  " 
has  bidden  many  a  good  vessel  sUp  her  cables  and 
run  for  open  sea. 

Are  they  merely  old  iron,  on  their  way  to  the 
smelter's  furnace  again  ?  or  are  they  going  to  be 
furbished  up,  like  the  effects  of  dead  sailors,  and 
sold  as  new  to  resume  their  unchronicled  wanderings, 
and  grip  once  more  the  mud  of  harbours  known  and 
unknown  ?  If  they  could  only  talk,  what  yams 
they  could  tell,  these  sea-fretted  lumps  of  old  iron  ! 
— yams  of  small,  strange  cities,  white  under  tropic 
skies  ;  of  surf  breaking  over  West  Indian  reefs, 
and  seabirds'  cries  shrill  and  keen  above  its  thunder  ; 
palm-fringed  islets  and  thirsty  Bahaman  cays  of 
ghost-watched  pirates'  treasure  ;  and  queer  little 
dusty  towns  under  the  seaward  slope  of  the  Andes 
with  a  red  anchor  painted  up  on  the  cUff-side  to 
guide  vessels  to  their  moorings.  What  salt  crust 
of  the  seas  has  caked  about  them  ;  what  joy  of 
meeting,  pangs  of  parting,  and  splendour  of  young 
adventure  have  accompanied  their  laborious  resur- 
rection from  the  harbour  slime  or  the  dehrious  rattle 
of  the  cable  through  the  hawse-pipe  at  the  long 
voyage's  end  I  .  .  .  Well,  here  they  are  now  at 
their  last  long  anchorage,  after  all  those  perilous 
tossings  to  and  fro  ;  instead  of  the  long  sighing 
of  the  tides,  the  faint  roar  of  the  traffic  ;  instead 
of  the  sea-salt  caking  on  stock  and  fluke,  the  smoke 
and  grime  of  this  yard  in  the  Isle  of  Dogs.  .  .  . 

A  beery  old  ruin  of  a  man — shufiling,  blear-eyed, 
horribly  evil-looking — was  lurking  among  the  heaps 
of  anchors,  with  a  sinister  senile  giggle  all  the  while 
on  his  lips. 


DAYS  IN  LO>sT)ON  59 

"  No,"  he  said,  "  no,  there  ain't  no  way  to  the 
waterside,  not  out  o'  this  yard,  there  ain't,"  and 
then  broke  off  with  that  suggestive  titter,  as  if  he 
had  some  nasty  secret  he  wanted  to  share  with  you. 

"  Can  you  tell  me  the  name  of  the  ship  yonder  ?  " 
I  asked. 

"  Oh,  yes  ! — she's  the  '  Rebecca,'  she  is.  .  .  . 
Hee-hee  !  "  He  turned  his  red-rimmed  eyes  towards 
the  proud  vessel — as  proud  and  fine  as  "  proud 
Maisie  in  the  wood  walking  so  early  " — again  with 
that  meaning  giggle  of  his.  "  She  won't  be  fioatin' 
around  so  very  long,  she  won't.  Nor  none  o'  them 
old  saihn'  ships  won't.  .  .  .     Hee-hee  !  " 

It  was  as  if  he  said,  "  Ah-ha,  my  lady  !  You 
will  go  the  same  way  as  all  the  rest.  Your  bones 
will  lie  about  the  shipbreakers'  yards  .  .  .  your 
strong  men,  your  lovers,  will  be  scattered  near  and 
far  .  .  .  and  your  anchors  will  lie  here  when  you 
are  gone  and  forgotten  .  .  .  Eh-hee  !  " 

The  memory  of  his  snicker,  Hke  the  low  chuckle 
of  a  foul  tide,  still  lingered  as  I  left  the  yard.  I 
turned  and  looked  back  once  at  the  piled  anchors, 
looking  in  the  dim  hght  like  monsters  of  the  primeval 
shme  ;  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  faint  echo  of  a 
forgotten  chorus  came  blowing  out  of  the  pale 
simset : 

The  sails  are  furled,  our  work  is  done — 

Leave  her,  Johnnie,  leave  her  ! 
And  now  ashore  we'll  have  our  fun — 

It's  time  for  us  to  leave  her  ! 

I  suppose  one  cannot  leave  this  part  of  dockland 
without  at  any  rate  a  passing  glance  at  Chinatown. 
It  is  curious  how  strong  a  hold  Chinatown  seems 
to  have  nowadays  on  the  popular  imagination.     A 


60  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

good  many  people  seem  to  consider  it  as  the  out- 
standing feature  of  the  dock  regions,  whereas  in 
point  of  fact  it  covers  but  a  very  small  area,  and 
it  is  possible  to  walk  about  Sailor  Town  all  day  and 
never  see  a  single  yellow  man. 

I  may  as  well  admit,  first  as  last,  that  I  know 
next  to  nothing  about  the  inner  life  of  Chinatown, 
nor  have  I  the  slightest  desire  to  do  so.  I  don't 
want  to  eat  Chinese  food  out  of  imperfectly  washed 
crockery.  I  see  nothing  in  the  least  degree  romantic 
about  the  pet  particular  vices  of  Chinese  firemen, 
and  the  degraded  white  people,  male  and  female, 
who  share  them  ;  and  (though  I  may  be  wrong) 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  exotic  and  Oriental 
glories  of  Chinatown,  so  far  as  Limehouse  is  con- 
cerned, exist  mainly  in  the  flamboyant  imaginations 
of  sensational  journalists  and  scenario  writers. 

At  any  rate,  there  is  no  outward  promise  of  any 
such  thing  in  Limehouse  Causeway  and  Pennyfields, 
which  are  the  principal  streets  of  Chinatown.  They 
are  furtive,  dingy,  unclean-looking  places,  lacking 
the  least  touch  of  Oriental  colour  and  sunlight,  such 
as  one  finds  in  plenty  in  the  Chinatown  of  such 
ports  as  Vancouver  and  Victoria.  Chinatown  does 
not  seem  to  harmonize  well  with  the  English 
climate,  even  when  the  sun  is  shining.  In  rain  or 
fog  its  sordid  dreariness  is  a  thing  unspeakable. 

Perhaps  it  is  partly  that  the  London  Chinaman 
always  seems  to  wear  European  clothes — excellent 
clothes,  too,  which  seem  to  suggest  that  he  is 
prosperous  and  thrifty.  You  see  no  rags  or  dirt  in 
Pennyfields,  though  in  the  "  delicatessen  "  emporium 
at  the  comer  opposite  you  may  smell  the  most 
gorgeous  stink  that  ever  came  out  of  the  East.     It 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  61 

nearly  knocks  you  down  as  soon  as  you  cross  the 
threshold,  but  it  is  worth  daring  for  the  sake  of 
seeing  one  of  the  weirdest  collections  of  Chinese 
eatables  I  ever  saw  anywhere  :  all  sorts  of  horrible- 
looking  dried  fishes  and  reptiles,  hke  the  stock-in- 
trade  of  the  Apothecary  in  "  Romeo  and  Juhet  "  ; 
a  pecuhar  kind  of  kippered  duck,  spreadeagled  like 
a  caricature  of  the  imperial  bird  of  Germany,  with 
its  bill  and  legs  left  on  ;  "  leg  of  toad  and  eye  of 
newt  "  ;  and  some  mysterious  black  fibrous  masses 
which  look  hke  old  wigs  or  the  stuf&ng  out  of  a 
chair  seat,  I  never  dare  venture  on  any  of  those 
unknown  meaty  or  fishy  comestibles  ;  but  out  of  a 
collection  of  tinned  fruit  and  vegetables — water  lily 
roots,  and  water  chestnuts,  and  bamboo  shoots, 
which  I  have  met  elsewhere,  and  found  not  unhke 
com  in  the  cob — I  bought  "  Li  Chee  in  Syrup."  It 
looked  on  the  outside  of  the  tin  rather  hke  a  large 
raspberry  or  loganberry,  but  proved  to  be  some 
kind  of  white,  fleshy  fruit  with  the  stone  taken  out, 
and  a  flavour  something  hke  that  of  a  mango. 
There  are  no  curiosity  shops  like  those  on  the 
Pacific  coast,  no  windows  full  of  ivory  carvings  and 
silks  and  coloured  cottons  ;  only  a  few  tea-bowls, 
and  some  rather  handsome  tall  vases,  and  bundles 
of  chopsticks,  mixed  up  with  boxes  of  betel-nut, 
and  queer  little  sugar-covered  cakes,  and  Chinese 
drinkables  put  up  in  old  whisky  bottles  with  the 
Chinese  inscriptions  stuck  on  over  the  old  whisky 
labels.  Every  other  shop  is  a  restaurant,  or 
"  hcensed  to  sell  tobacco,"  or  "  hcensed  boarding- 
house  for  seamen  "  ;  and,  presumably,  the  notices 
being  in  Enghsh,  they  cater  for  white  patrons. 
Inside  one  place  a  queer  httle  wizened  old  man  is 


62  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

beating  out  with  little  hammers  a  thin  tinlding  tune 
on  some  kind  of  zither  in  a  black  and  gilt  lacquer 
case,  and  you  catch  a  glimpse  of  a  couple  of 
bedizened  white  women  coming  down  from  the 
upper  regions  with  a  smartly  dressed  Chinaman 
in  tow. 

Generally  most  of  the  shops  are  shuttered — a 
thing  which  I  never  saw  in  a  Pacific  coast  Chinatown. 
Whether  anything  illicit  goes  on  behind  those 
discreet  shutters,  or  whether  they  are  closed  simply 
for  the  sake  of  privacy,  I  cannot  say  ;  perhaps  a 
little  of  both  would  not  be  far  short  of  the  truth. 
Chinamen  certainly  dishke  being  "  overlooked." 
I  remember  once  trying  to  get  a  photograph  (when 
you  come  to  think  of  it,  it  was  really  rather  a  rude 
thing  to  do)  of  some  Chinese  firemen  in  a  Blue 
Funnel  Liner,  when  they  had  just  set  forth  their 
httle  handleless  cups  and  were  squatting  down  on 
their  hunkers  to  afternoon  tea.  One  of  the  ship's 
engineers  offered  to  get  the  photograph  for  me  ; 
but  in  the  twinkhng  of  an  eye  all  the  httle  cups 
were  whiffled  out  of  sight,  and  the  malevolent  looks 
that  man  got  were  enough  to  make  your  blood 
run  cold. 

"  You  should  have  jollied  'em  a  bit,"  said  the 
burly  mate,  when  he  heard  of  the  incident.  "  Bless 
you,  they're  all  right,  if  you  know  how  to  manage 
'em  !  It's  those  engineers — they  don't  like  'em, 
I'll  jolly  'em  for  you  !  "  And  he  did — jollied  'em 
so  successfully  that  I  got  an  excellent  photograph 
of  them  preparing  some  sort  of  vegetables  for  their 
dinner,  all  grinning  from  ear  to  ear,  and  the  mate 
in  the  middle  of  the  group  doing  the  "  jollying  "  act. 

You  see  no  silk- jacketed,  wide-trousered  Chinese 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  63 

women  in  Limehouse,  with  sleek  hair  and  a  flower 
stuck  coquettishly  in  it ;  no  funny  little  Chinese 
babies  like  little  yellow  dolls  come  to  life.  Such 
women  as  you  see  are  white,  and  the  funny  little 
yellowish  children  are  not  more  than  half  Oriental. 
Certainly  the  Chinese  seem  very  fond  of  their 
children,  and  I  have  heard  it  stated  that  women 
of  a  certain  class  prefer  Chinese  husbands  to  white 
ones.  They  don't  come  home  drunk  to  beat  their 
wives  when  they  have  spent  all  their  wages.  But 
there  is  something  intensely  repugnant  about  the 
notion  of  an  alliance  between  the  yellow  and  the 
white  races — especially,  perhaps,  between  yellow 
men  and  white  women. 


CHAPTER  III 

Surrey  Commercial  Docks — "  Montrosa  "  :  the  Fair  Unknown 
— Dutchmen  and  Dagoes — Finns  and  Witches — Women  at 
Sea — The  Return — The  Last  of  the  Tea  Clippers — The  Modem 
Sailing  Ship — Deptford  Yard 

IF  you  take  a  boat,  say,  at  Millwall  Pier,  and 
cross  over  to  the  steps  at  the  end  of  Redriff 
Road — or  Swing  Bridge  Road,  as  it  is  called 
on  the  older  maps — you  find  yourself  in  another 
hemisphere. 

If  the  associations  of  Blackwall  are  with  the 
East,  those  of  Rotherhithe  and  Deptford  are  no  less 
with  the  North  and  West.  You  find  the  traces  of 
that  association  everywhere :  in  the  names  of 
the  Docks  themselves  (Baltic,  Greenland,  Russia, 
Canada),  in  the  types  of  men  you  see  lounging 
about  the  street  comers  or  looking  over  the  rails 
of  the  ships  in  dock — fair-haired  Finns,  stocky 
Swedes,  tall,  blue-eyed  Vikings,  never  a  dusky  or 
a  yeUow  man — in  the  very  names  of  the  taverns 
and  eating-houses  ("  Baltic,"  "  Copenhagen," 
"  Odessa  "),  in  place  of  the  "  Stars  of  the  East," 
"  Jamaica,"  and  "  Cape  of  Good  Hope  "  on  the 
other  side  of  the  water. 

They  have  a  peculiar  charm  of  their  own,  these 
Surrey  Docks  :  an  air  of  spaciousness  and  freedom, 
with  their  wide  stretches  of  water  not  shut  in  by 
lofty  warehouses  and  sheds,  but  surrounded  by 
vistas  of  stacked-up  deals  giving  off  a  pleasant 

64 


r  i 


-I 


^-. 


\  X 


-  V         ^ 

■    t 


to 
>i 

:2 
o 

z 

< 

a: 
>^ 

"< 


a: 
u 
c 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  65 

resinous  odour.  And  they  abound,  as  none  of  the 
other  docks  do,  in  picturesque  ghmpses  of  old 
timber  droghers  from  the  Baltic,  with  perhaps  a 
pump  windmill  betraying  their  leakiness  but  giving 
an  extra  old-fashioned  touch  for  all  that ;  and  big 
four-  or  five-masted  Yankee  schooners,  and  here 
and  there  some  lofty  Clyde-built  fullrigger  with 
painted  ports,  the  marks  of  the  Cape  Horn  weather 
still  upon  her. 

In  point  of  age  the  Surrey  Commercial  Docks  may 
claim  priority  even  over  the  East  and  West  India 
systems.     The   first   real   dock   on   Thames-side — 
other  than  the  wet  docks  at  Deptford  and  Blackwall 
Yards,  which  were  only  intended  for  the  fitting  out 
and  repair  of  ships  and  not  for  the  loading  and 
discharging  of  cargoes — was  that  which  was  known 
originally  as  the  "  Rowland  Great  Wet  Dock,"  and 
occupied  roughly  the  same  ground  as  the  existing 
Greenland   Dock.     The   Rowland   Dock  was   con- 
structed early  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  later 
passed  into  the  possession  of  the  same  Perry  who 
built   the  famous   Brunswick   Dock  at   Blackwall. 
During  the  eighteenth  century  it  was  largely  used 
by  the  vessels  engaged  in  the  whale  fishery,  which 
at  that  time  employed  no  less  than  two  hundred  and 
fifty  British  ships  ;    and  no  doubt  the  Greenland 
Dock  smelled  to  heaven  when  there  were  plenty  of 
spouters  at  their  berths. 

There  are  echoes  of  this  vanished  whale  fishery  to  be 
found  in  many  an  old  sea  song  and  ballad,  notably 
the  fine  old  shanty  of  "  Reuben  Ranzo,"  which 
tells  how 

Ranzo  was  no  sailor — 
Shipped  aboard  a  whaler 


66  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

and  after  a  succession  of  harrowing  experiences, 
including  "  lashes  four  and  twenty,"  the  captain 
"  taught  him  navigation  "  and  he  became  in  due 
course  "  chief  mate  of  that  whaler." 

Then  there  is  the  ballad  of  "  The  Sailor  Laddie  "  : 

My  love  has  been  to  London  city, 

My  love  has  been  to  Port  Mahon, 
My  love  is  away  at  Greenland, 

I  hope  he  will  come  back  again  .  .  . 

The  last  verse  establishes  a  definite  connexion 
with  London  River  : 

Come  you  by  the  Buoy  and  Nore, 

Or  come  you  by  the  Roperie, 
Saw  you  of  my  true  love  sailing, 

Oh,  saw  you  him  coming  home  to  me  ? 

The  old  sea  song,  "  The  Whale,"  or  "  The  Green- 
land Fishery  "  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  describes 
how  one  Captain  Speedicut's  ship,  "  the  '  Lion  '  so 
bold  from  England  bore  away,"  to 

the  cold  country  where  the  frost  and  the  snow  doth  lie, 
Where  there's  frost  and  there's  snow,  and  the  whales  they  do  blow 
And  the  daylight's  never  gone — 

Brave  boys — 
And  the  dayhght's  never  gone. 

The  song  almost  certainly  originated  as  an  EngHsh 
song,  and  the  reference  to  Stromness  in  some 
versions  has  probably  crept  in  later.  It  is  tradi- 
tional in  Somersetshire  as  well  as  at  sea,  and  the 
date  mentioned  in  one  variant,  1861,  is  most  likely 
intended  for  1761,  when  the  British  whale  fishery 
was  at  the  height  of  its  prosperity. 

With  the  passing  of  the  Greenland  fishery,  grain 
and  lumber  became  the  chief  cargoes  that  were 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  67 

discharged  at  Greenland  Dock  ;  and  grain  and 
lumber  (chiefly  the  latter)  remain  the  great  interest 
of  the  Surrey  Commercial  Docks  right  dowTi  to  the 
present  day. 


"  We  mostly  puts  the  old  sailers  in  Lady  Dock," 
a  dock  official  once  told  me  when  I  asked  him  where 
some  ship  I  was  looking  for  was  lying.  They  could 
not  choose  a  haven  more  fitly  named. 

It  was  in  Lady  Dock  that  I  came  across 
"  Montrosa,"  and  I  always  think  of  her  as  the 
Unknown  Lady. 

She  had  been  in  dock  some  Httle  time,  and  was 
likely  to  be  there  some  time  still,  for  the  boom  in 
tonnage  which  had  brought  her  to  London  with  her 
last  cargo  was  over. 

She  was  a  small  ship  by  comparison  with  the  big 
Clyde  "  four  posters  "  of  the  'seventies  and  'eighties 
— perhaps  a  thousand  tons  or  so,  more  or  less — but 
she  had  about  her  a  grace  and  a  well-bred  beauty 
that  there  was  no  mistaking. 

Her  figurehead  was  worn  and  weathered,  so  that 
the  bare  wood  showed  here  ai?d  there  through  the 
shabby  white  paint ;  but  time  and  weather  had 
been  kinder  to  it  on  the  whole  than  are  their  alien 
owners  to  the  figureheads  of  some  old  ships  I  have 
known,  who  daub  them  so  generously  with  gaudy 
reds  and  blues  that  they  look  more  hke  old-fashioned 
Dutch  dolls  than  anything  else  you  could  imagine. 

There  was  no  one  on  board  at  the  time  but  the 
cook,  who  was  also  ship-keeper,  leaving  out  'of 
account  some  unseen  beings  who  were  tapping  and 
tinkering  away  somewhere  inside  her  hull.     The 


68  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

cook  was  from  the  Aaland  Islands,  where  the  ship 
was  registered  :  a  loquacious  person  for  a  Scou- 
wegian,  and  very  full  of  indignation  about  the 
Finnish  nationality  recently  decreed  for  the  islands 
by  some  new  self-determination  arrangement. 

He  had  known  the  ship,  it  seemed,  twenty  years 
ago  .  .  .  she  was  under  the  British  flag  then,  he 
said  in  his  broken  English  ...  a  full-rigged  ship, 
but  the  captain  that  had  her  at  the  time  (he  had 
shares  in  her)  sent  down  the  yards  from  her  mizen 
mast  ..."  'Montrose'  she  ban  called  then,  not 
'Montros-a  '  "  .  .  .  you  could  see  the  name  on  the 
ship's  bell  like  that—"  Montrose." 

There  it  was,  the  old  name,  on  the  old  bell  that 
had  counted  so  many  watches  ;  and  a  brass  capstan 
head  showed  that  she  had  come  from  Barclay  Curie's 
yard  in  the  early  'sixties. 

That  was  all.  I  never  could  learn  any  more  of 
that  ship's  history.  She  figured  a  year  or  two  ago 
in  the  courts,  in  a  case  which  turned  on  a  rather 
out-of-the-way  point  of  law,  the  exact  definition  of 
"  barratry."  She  was  abandoned  by  her  crew,  who 
alleged  that  she  had  struck  a  mine,  but  her  owners, 
trying  to  repudiate  a  charter  party,  asserted  that 
the  crew  had  started  the  leak  by  removing  a  couple 
of  rivets,  which  woidd  have  constituted  the  offence 
signified  by  the  old  phrase  in  charter  parties — 
"  barratry  of  master  mariners  or  crew."  But  of 
her  story  under  the  British  flag  I  could  find  nothing. 
Lloyd's  List  told  no  more  than  I  already  knew. 
Even  her  builders'  records  did  not  go  back  so  far 
as  that.  There  was  a  "  Montrose  "  which  belonged 
to  Scrutton's  vanished  fleet,  saihng  to  the  West 
Indies  ;    and  another  under  a  Liverpool  house-flag 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  69 

(that  of  Greenshields,  Cowie  &  Co.).  She  might 
have  been  either  of  these  ships,  most  Ukely  the 
latter,  for  I  find  their  "  Montrose  "  referred  to  as 
one  of  the  smaller  and  earlier  ships  of  the  fleet  ; 
or,  again,  she  may  have  been  neither.  Queries  in 
the  nautical  papers  and  magazines  have  brought 
forth  no  Hght  upon  her  past.  She  seems  a  ship 
quite  forgotten — hke  a  strayed  princess  who  knows 
nothing  of  herself  but  a  name  that  was  once  hers, 
and  a  vague  and  shadowy  recollection  of  a  vanished 
splendour.  .  .  .  Where  are  they,  all  the  captains, 
absolute  monarchs  in  that  little  kingdom,  who  once 
trod  her  poop  or  sat  at  the  head  of  the  table  in  her 
tarnished  little  saloon  ...  all  the  mates  who  ever 
cocked  a  critical  eye  at  the  trim  of  their  yards  or 
the  set  of  a  main  royal  ...  all  the  lively  young 
brassbounders  who  filled  her  dark  little  halif-deck 
with  noise  and  mischief  and  the  glorious  dream 
which  is  youth  ?  .  .  .  Gone  long  since  are  those 
who  were  old  when  she  was  young  ;  and  those  who 
were  young  with  her  are  old  men  to-day — hke  her, 
perhaps,  dreaming  the  long  days  by  in  quiet  back- 
waters of  seaports. 

So  many  voyages,  so  many  storms  and  calms, 
so  many  strange  lands  and  strange  seas,  so  many 
cargoes  in  so  many  far  harbours,  and  here  she  hes, 
with  all  of  them  lost  and  forgotten — and  her 
figurehead  smiles  its  faint,  enigmatic  smile,  gazing 
out  across  the  murky  dock  water  with  the  wide, 
blank,  unseeing  stare  that  has  looked  on  so  many 
changes  and  chances  of  the  sea. 


Sailors  classify  the  nations  of  Europe  roughly  as 


70  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

Dutchmen,  Dagoes,  and  Russian  Finns.  Dutchmen 
are  members  of  any  of  the  Teutonic  races  ;  Dagoes 
belong  to  any  and  all  of  the  Latin  breeds  ;  Russian 
Finns  are  a  class  by  themselves.  The  term  Dutch- 
man of  course  speaks  for  itself ;  "  Dago  "  is  probably 
a  corruption  of  Diego — just  as  "  Ranzo  "  in  the 
shanty  is  almost  certainly  a  version  of  "  Lorenzo," 
with  all  due  deference  to  those  authorities  who 
identify  the  adventurous  tailor  with  Daniel  Rantzau, 
one  of  the  national  heroes  of  Denmark. 

Dutchmen  and  Dagoes  have  for  a  long  time 
formed  the  biggest  proportion  of  sailing  ship  crews, 
even  under  the  British  flag.  Dutchmen  especially 
will  take  less  wages  and  do  not  stick  out  for  good 
treatment  as  English  crews  do.  They  are  more 
docile  and  more  amenable  to  discipline.  The 
British  sailor  is  still  the  same  turbulent  breed  the 
Conqueror  found  in  his  newly  acquired  kingdom  ; 
but  nearly  all  ships'  officers  say  the  same  :  "  When 
it  comes  to  a  tight  place,  give  me  the  Britisher  all 
the  time."  Dutchmen,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Norwegians,  who  are  still,  as  they  have  always 
been,  among  the  finest  seamen  in  the  world,  are 
what  you  might  call  a  bit  slow  in  stays,  and  there 
are  many  jokes  at  the  expense  of  the  heavy-witted 
Jon  Smit  and  Hans  Dans. 

You  sail  in  a  packet  that  flies  the  Black  Ball, 

You've  robbed  some  poor  Dutchman  of  clothes,  boots  and  all, 

says  the  old  shanty ;  and  there  was  not  a  doubt 
that  some  of  the  more  unscrupulous  members  of  a 
foc's'le  crowd  would  think  Hans  Dans  fair  game. 
Dagoes  are  not  popular  at  sea.  They  are  given 
to  panicking  at  awkward  moments,  and  sometimes 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  71 

to  using  a  knife  instead  of  their  fists  in  a  friendly 
argument.  And  of  course  they  feel  the  cold  much 
more  than  natives  of  northern  latitudes.  The 
French,  of  course,  you  can  hardly  classify  as  Dagoes. 
They  possess  some  of  the  finest  saiUng  ships  afloat 
— notably  the  huge  five-master  "  La  France,"  and 
those  fine  Nantes  ships  "  Notre  Dame  d'Arvor," 
"  General  Negrier,"  and  others.  French  ships  go 
in  a  lot  for  black-and-white  paint  on  their  lower 
rigging  ;  it  looks  smart,  but  old  shellbacks  distrust 
too  much  paint,  as  it  often  covers  a  multitude  of 
sins  in  the  way  of  rotten  ratlines. 

It  is  strange  that  the  races  which  have  in  the 
past  been  among  the  cleverest  and  most  daring  of 
navigators — the  countrymen  of  Columbus,  of  Cabot, 
of  Bartholomew  Diaz  and  Prince  Henry  the  Navi- 
gator— should  have  in  modern  times  so  poor  a 
repute  as  seamen. 

You  would  hardly  expect  so  smaU  a  race  as  the 
Finns  to  call  for  a  separate  classification,  yet  such 
they  certainly  have. 

Finns  are  great  witches.  In  fact,  they  had  so 
bad  a  name  among  some  old  shellbacks  that  they 
did  not  like  being  in  the  same  crowd  with  a  Finn. 
They  can  do  all  kinds  of  uncanny  things  with  the 
weather  ;  and  old  salts  can  generally  tell  you  yams 
about  being  becalmed  for  weeks  on  end,  or  persis- 
tently hindered  by  contrary  winds,  and  all  because 
there  was  a  Finn  on  board. 

However  that  may  be,  the  Finns  are  certainly 
coming  strongly  to  the  front  as  owners  of  saihng 
tonnage,  and  you  see  quite  a  number  of  handsome 
ships — generally  old  British  ships — haihng  from 
Abo  or  Mariehamn.     The  Finns  are  good  seamen. 


72  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

and  their  ships  are  usually  well  cared  for  and  well 
found. 

It  was  on  board  a  Finnish  ship  that  I  saw  one 
day  the  surprising  apparition  of  a  white-aproned 
woman,  sitting  in  the  bows,  over  the  anchor,  her 
chin  on  her  hand,  looking  as  if  she  were  lost  in  a 
homesick  dream  of  Finland  far  away.  She  had  a 
stohd,  wooden,  unexpressive  face,  and  but  for  the 
apron  you  might  have  almost  thought  she  was  the 
ship's  figurehead  come  up  there  for  a  rest.  I  dare 
say  she  wasn't  thinking  of  Finland  at  all ;  her  mind 
may  have  been — probably  was — a  comfortable 
void.  She  was  the  cook,  the  mate  said  in  his 
admirable  English  (Finnish  officers  have  to  pass 
examinations  in  English,  French,  German,  and 
Swedish  for  their  mate's  ticket),  and  a  very  good 
cook,  too.  A  curious  hfe  for  a  woman  to  adopt  ! 
I  don't  know  if  her  husband  was  on  board  in  any 
capacity.  If  not,  she  must  have  been  as  weU  able 
to  take  care  of  herself  as  the  lady  in  the  "  Berkshire 
Tragedy,"  who  "  died  an  old  maid  among  black 
savages." 

The  surprising  thing  was  to  see  a  woman  at  all 
on  board  a  Finnish  ship,  of  all  ships  in  the  world, 
considering  that  the  Baltic  is  the  sea  where  maritime 
superstitions  endure,  if  they  endure  anywhere  in 
the  modem  world. 

One  of  the  most  deeply  rooted  prejudices  of  the 
old-fashioned  shellback  was  that  which  classed 
women  with  corpses  (and  Russian  Finns)  as  unlucky 
shipmates,  however  attractive  ashore.  Where  the 
tradition  arose  is  a  mystery  ;  but,  whatever  the 
reason,  the  fact  remains  that  many  seamen  of  the 
old  school  objected  very  strongly  to  a  "  petticoat  " 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  78 

on   board,    even   when   the   garment    in   question 
belonged  to  the  captain's  wife. 

Probably  fewer  captains'  wives  go  to  sea  now 
than  used  to  in  the  days  of  sail.  Then,  a  sailor 
was  so  long  away  from  home  that  his  wife  had  to 
choose  between  enduring  the  discomforts  of  a 
nautical  life  and  spending  years  at  a  stretch  as  a 
grass  widow.  Nowadays,  a  sailor's  absence  from 
home  are,  generally  speaking,  less  lengthy  ;  more- 
over, it  is  doubtful  if  such  unsentimental  concerns 
as  big  modem  steamship  companies  would  allow 
their  officers  to  take  their  wives  along  with  them. 

Superstition  apart,  there  was  a  certain  amount 
of  reason  for  the  old  sailor's  prejudice.  The 
chances  of  disaster  were  given  an  added  terror 
when  there  were  women  to  consider  :  especially 
in  the  days  when  the  dangers  of  a  sea  voyage 
included  possible  capture  by  pirates  or  slavers. 

None  the  less,  there  were  plenty  of  captains  whose 
wives  regularly  accompanied  them  afloat,  and  whose 
children  were  bom  on  board  ship  and  spent  a  good 
deal  of  their  childhood  there.  If  evidence  were 
required,  one  need  only  point  to  the  stately  teak 
double  bed  which  formed  part  of  the  captain's 
cabin  equipment  in  many  of  the  cUpper  ships. 

The  behef  must  have  dated  back  several  centuries, 
to  the  days  when  women  seldom  or  never  went  to 
sea  at  all,  and,  had  it  not  been  deeply  implanted, 
it  could  not  have  survived  as  long  as  it  did  the 
carrying  of  women  passengers  in  the  emigrant 
saihng  ships  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The 
unpopularity  of  woman  afloat  did  not  prevent  her 
from  being  a  very  favourite  theme  in  old  sea  songs, 
and  the  lady  who  "  went  to  sea  for  love  of  he  in 


74  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

masculine  attire  "  is  found  in  more  than  one  of 
those  interminable  ditties  beloved  of  the  shell- 
back. 

In  port,  of  course,  Nelson's  men  were  allowed 
the  society  of  their  charmers  :  hence  the  term 
"  show  a  leg  " — as  follows  :  sailors  in  those  days 
never  wore  stockings  ;  and  when  it  was  time  for 
Jack  to  turn  out  and  begin  his  duties  on  deck,  his 
lady  was  allowed  to  continue  her  slumbers  a  little 
longer.  When  the  bosun  came  round  to  hunt  out 
the  laggards,  the  occupants  of  the  hammocks  were 
bidden  to  "  show  a  leg  " — and  if  the  leg  had  a 
stocking  on  it  the  owner  was  left  undisturbed  ! 

There  is  one  authenticated  instance  of  a  woman 
who  most  certainly  was  not  a  Jonah  at  sea.  That 
was  the  wife  of  the  captain  of  the  American  clipper 
"  Neptune's  Car,"  who,  when  her  husband  was 
suddenly  stricken  with  blindness  on  a  voyage  from 
New  York  to  San  Francisco,  herself  took  on  the 
navigation  of  the  vessel,  and  brought  her  safely 
into  'Frisco. 


"  Alejandrina  "  was  another  interesting  visitor 
to  the  Surrey  Docks.  Her  original  name  was 
"  Andrina " — I  believe  she  was  christened  in 
honour  of  the  daughter  of  a  member  of  the  firm 
which  owned  her — so  that  it  didn't  require  much 
alteration  to  paint  in  her  new  one. 

Hers  was  a  strange  history.  Twenty  years  ago 
and  more,  when  yet  King  Edward  VH  was  hardly 
crowned,  when  the  Entente  Cordiale  had  not  been 
heard  of,  and  motor  cars  were  still  objects  of  derision 
when  they  tried  to  climb  hills,  when  the  Channel 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  75 

flight  was  still  undreamed  of  but  by  a  few  unregarded 
enthusiasts — twenty  years  ago,  then,  this  "Andrina" 
ran  aground,  not  very  far  from  Punta  Arenas,  in 
one  of  those  dense  fogs  which  are  as  great  a  terror 
to  the  navigator  of  Cape  Stiff  as  the  biggest  blow 
he  can  muster — possibly  greater. 

No  doubt  they  tried  all  the  usual  devices  to  get 
her  off,  jettisoning  cargo  and  anything  else  they 
could  think  of,  and  no  doubt  the  captain  suffered 
all  the  agony  of  spirit  shipmasters  go  through  under 
such  circumstances.  But  in  the  end  they  had  to 
give  it  up.  She  refused  to  budge,  and  the  cost  of 
a  tow  to  the  nearest  port  for  repairs  would  have 
been  as  much  as  the  ship  was  worth.  So  there  they 
left  her. 

The  silence  of  those  desolate  shores  closed  over 
her.  The  summer  came  with  its  scorching  sun,  the 
winter  with  his  howling  gales,  his  frosts  and  snows 
— and  there  "  Andrina  "  lay,  year  in,  year  out, 
like  Andromeda  on  her  rock,  waiting  for  some 
nautical  Perseus  to  come  and  set  her  free.  Perseus 
came  in  due  course,  though  he  was  mighty  leisurely 
about  it :  and  fortunately  the  dragon  was  in  no 
great  hurry  either,  or  there  would  have  been  precious 
little  left  of  her  for  him  to  rescue.  He  was  rather  a 
prosaic  Perseus,  too,  in  the  form  of  a  couple  of  tugs 
from  Chile,  and  he  had  an  eye  on  a  substantial 
profit  out  of  the  rescue. 

She  must  have  been  a  sorry  sight,  that  once-proud 
ship  ;  for  twenty  years  the  habitation  of  seabirds 
and  of  Patagonian  Indians,  each  as  dirty  as  the 
other.  The  Indians  had  picked  her  clean  as  a 
bone  of  anything  they  could  carry  away,  and  burned 
whatever  they  could  find  to  bum  ;   and  there  was 


76  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

always  the  likelihood  that  she  might  turn  out  to 
be  too  badly  holed  to  get  her  off. 

But  she  wasn't — not  a  bit  of  it.  All  that  she 
needed  was  a  few  rivets  in  her  hull  and  a  new  plate 
or  two — and  to  sea  once  more  went  "  Andrina  " 
under  her  new  name  and  her  new  flag — a  veritable 
Rip  Van  Winkle  among  ships. 


Fog  lay  on  London  River,  and  its  drifting  and 
uncertain  coils  made  the  ships  in  dock  look  more 
like  ghosts  and  shadows  than  things  of  sohd 
substance. 

It  was  not  just  the  day  one  would  choose  for 
dock-haunting.  In  foggy  weather  it  is  easier  than 
you  might  think  to  make  a  false  step  and  get  into 
the  water,  and  once  in — as  a  dock  policeman  once 
put  it  to  me — "  you're  lucky  if  you  get  out  before 
they  pull  you  out."  But  the  purpose  which  took 
me  there  was  something  in  the  nature  of  a  pilgrimage. 

The  poHceman  at  the  dock  gate  directed  me  to 
the  spot  I  wanted  without  hesitation.  "  Been  quite 
a  lot  askin'  for  her,"  he  said. 

She  was  lying  in  Albion  Dock,  along  with  two  or 
three  steamers  and  a  fine  Loch  barque,  the  "  Loch 
Linnhe  " — a  beautiful  ship,  which  one  would  have 
lingered  to  see  on  ordinary  occasions.  To-day,  she 
was  passed  by  with  but  a  glance  ;  for  she  was  not 
the  ship  I  sought. 

There  she  lay,  almost  concealed  by  the  ugly 
carcass  of  a  Swedish  tramp  steamer  :  a  small  ship, 
rigged  as  a  barquentine,  with  the  name  "  Ferreira  " 
standing  out  in  glaring  yellow  paint  on  her  wheel- 
box.     An  old  ship,  and  by  the  look  of  her  drawing 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  77 

near  to  the  end  of  her  tether  .  .  .  yet  hers  was  a 
name  which  still  sounds  like  a  trumpet  call  to  all 
lovers  of  lovely  ships. 

For  this  old  "  Ferreira,"  with  her  rutted  decks, 
her  blistered  paint,  her  rigging  all  rags  and  tatters 
and  "  Irish  pennants,"  her  preposterous  row  of 
painted  ports  (latest  freak  of  the  Dago  fancy),  her 
figurehead,  thick  with  clumsy  successive  coats  of 
paint,  showing  a  pathetic  lopped  arm  as  evidence 
of  the  gallant  ship's  latest  struggle  with  the  sea — 
this  was  none  other  than  the  famous  clipper  ship 
"  Cutty  Sark,"  one  of  the  fastest  ships  that  ever 
sailed  under  the  Red  Duster,  as  she  has  proved 
herself  one  of  the  best  able  to  withstand  the 
ravages  of  the  sea  and  of  the  years. 

Dagoes  treat  old  ships  as  badly  as  they  treat 
animals.  It  is  always  to  me  a  sad  thing  to  see  our 
fine  old  ships  sold  foreign.  There  seems  about  this 
marketing  of  their  old  bones  a  something  commer- 
cially callous — an  ingratitude,  an  unfeelingness, 
towards  the  fine  fabric  which  the  skill  and  devotion 
of  seamen  have  in  some  sort  made  a  living  thing. 
The  ship  leaving  the  slipways  was  hke  Galatea 
leaving  the  sculptor's  hands  ;  it  was  the  sea  and 
the  seaman  who  breathed  upon  her  and  made  her 
human.  And  to  sell  such  a  ship  as  "  Cutty  Sark  " 
was  hke  selhng  pieces  of  men's  lives — it  was  like 
selhng  courage,  skill,  endurance,  devotion,  which 
had  gone  to  make  her  what  she  was — and  still 
is,  for  aU  her  ruined  beauty — the  symbol  of  a  great 
and  vanished  generation.  But  a  ship  sold  to  a 
Scandinavian  is  at  least  sold,  as  one  might  say,  to 
a  good  home.  The  Scandinavian  has  the  right  sea 
tradition.     His  ships  may  be  a  trifle  starved,  but 


78  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

they  are  seldom  dirty.  The  difference  between 
selhng  a  ship  to  Scandinavia  and  to  the  Dagoes  is 
analogous  to  that  between  seUing  an  old  horse  to  a 
poor  country  farmer  and  to  a  rag-and-bone  man. 

Still,  the  Dagoes  must  have  in  a  way  more  feeling 
for  our  own  old  ships  than  we  have  ourselves,  since 
they  do  at  all  events  give  them  homes  of  a  sort  in 
their  old  age.  The  Dago  who  did  the  honours  of 
the  ship — he  was  a  woolly-headed  Portuguese, 
evidently  with  a  strong  dash  of  the  African  in 
his  composition — had  a  genuine  enthusiasm  for  her. 

"  We  come  through  some  terrible  weather  dis 
las'  trip,"  he  announced  with  many  dramatic 
gestures  ;  "I  look  death  in  de  eye  .  .  .  maintopmast 
go  .  .  .  foretopmast  go  .  .  ,  everyt'ing  go  .  .  . 
water,  water  fore  an'  aft  .  .  .  oh,  I  look  death  in 
de  eye,  I  tell  you,  sure.  .  .  .  An'  dis  ol'  ship,  she 
nevaire  leak — not — one — drop  !  I  tell  you,  if  I 
rich  man,  I  buy  dis  ol'  ship.  She  ain'  much  to 
look  at  now — not  'nough  sailor  for  kip  'er  clean, 
see  !  But  she  fine  ol'  ship  ...  if  I  rich  man,  I 
teU  you,  I  buy  'er  .  .  .  but — I  jus'  poor  sailorman, 
no  can  buy  ship.  ...  De  man  what  was  mate  of 
'er — 'e  come  down  one  day  to  see  'er  .  .  .  'e  ol' 
man,  grey  'air,  an'  when  'e  see  'is  ol'  ship  'e  cry.  ..." 
Slow  tears  of  rage,  so  hard  to  shed  .  .  .  tears  for 
beauty  tarnished,  for  youth  fled,  for  dreams  perished ! 

I  hear  that  the  old  ship  is  to  be  barque-rigged 
again,  and  given  her  old  name.  But  is  there  in  all 
this  great  and  wealthy  nation  of  ours  no  one  who 
cares  enough  for  our  maritime  traditions  to  buy 
"  Cutty    Sark  "   for   the  nation  ?*     Many   an    old 

*  Since  these  words  were  written  the  hearts  of  ship-lovers 
have  been  gladdened  by  the  news  of  the  purchase  of  "  Cutty 
Sark"  by  Captain  Dowman,  of  Falmouth. 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  79 

sailorman,  no  doubt,  has  said,  like  our  woolly- 
headed  friend,  "  If  I  rich  man,  I  buy  dat  ol'  ship." 
But  the  sea  service  seldom  provides  those  who 
follow  it  with  the  wherewithal  to  buy  ships.  There 
is  outcry  enough  when  our  art  treasures  go  abroad  ; 
but  ships  such  as  these  are  not  the  treasures  of  a 
few  ;  they  are  of  the  very  blood  and  fibre  of  the 
nation.  England  might  have  been  no  less  great 
without  a  "  Blue  Boy  "  ;  she  would  assuredly  not 
have  held  her  greatness  without  ships  like  "  Cutty 
Sark  "  and  men  like  those  who  manned  her.  She 
is  the  last  survivor  of  a  great  age — the  age  when 
British  shipbuilders  and  seamen  took  up  the  chal- 
lenge to  British  maritime  supremacy,  and  won. 
The  money  which  bought  her  would  not  be  money 
wasted.  She  "  nevaire  leak."  She  has  it  in  her 
to  make  good  passages,  even  now.  And  when  her 
day  is  done,  there  would  not  be  wanting  those  who 
would  buy  souvenirs  of  her  teak  and  copper  as 
readily  as  the  Naval  Service  buys  rehcs  of  the  old 
"  Britannia." 

"  Cutty  Sark's  "  history  is  too  long  to  be  told 
here.  Indeed,  there  is  enough  in  it  for  a  volume. 
She  traces  her  pedigree  back  through  Willis's 
wonderful  old  ship,  "  The  Tweed,"  to  a  French 
frigate,  a  prize  of  war,  which  lay  in  Bombay  early 
in  the  nineteenth  century.  The  Parsee  firm  which 
built  "  The  Tweed  " — the  "  Punjaub,"  as  her  name 
was  first — are  believed  to  have  copied  the  Unes  of 
the  nameless  Frenchman,  and  the  result  was  one 
of  the  finest  ships  in  the  history  of  the  British 
mercantile  marine.  "  Cutty  Sark,"  again,  was 
very  largely  modelled  on  "  The  Tweed."  She  was  a 
noted  ship  both  in  the  China  tea  trade,  for  which 


80  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

she  was  first  intended,  and  in  the  "  Colonies  run," 
and  old  sailors  are  still  hard  put  to  it  to  say  whether 
she  or  the  great  "  Thermopylae  "  was  the  faster. 
Her  wings  are  clipped  now,  her  spars  and  masts 
cut  down  ;  but,  standing  by  her  poop,  beside  her 
pitted  wheel,  I  seemed  to  see,  as  the  long  pageant 
of  her  life  passed  through  my  mind,  her  decks 
gleaming  like  snow  as  of  old,  her  great  courses 
bellying  full  and  white  in  the  wind  .  .  .  and  to 
catch  the  far  echo  of  a  score  of  men  singing  out  at 
the  royal  halhards. 

I  looked  back  as  I  went,  before  the  hull  of  the 
tramp-steamer  had  quite  hidden  her  from  sight. 
The  fog  was  growing  heavier,  and  from  the  river 
the  sirens  of  the  groping  shipping  came  with  a 
melancholy  frequency.  She  looked  as  she  was,  a 
ghost — a  ghost  come  back  for  awhile  to  the  scenes 
she  knew  in  the  years  long  departed.  Yet  surely 
it  is  not  here,  in  these  foggy,  dismal  waters,  that 
her  ghost  should  hnger.  Rather  should  she  wave 
her  farewell  to  Anjer  in  the  scarlet  sunrise — or  flash 
for  a  moment,  a  gleaming  vision  like  the  dip  of  a 
sea-bird's  wing,  before  the  eyes  of  the  drowsy 
look-out  in  the  Trades — or  off  Dungeness  signal  a 
shadowy  pilot  before  she  fades,  a  mist,  into  the 
mist  of  morning — or  stooping  before  the  Westerhes, 
run,  an  unsubstantial  wraith,  white  and  fleeting  as 
foam,  between  the  piled-up  mountainous  seas  of 
the  Horn. 

***** 

I  often  think  what  a  different  sight  a  modem 
harbour  would  have  been  had  the  steam  engine 
proved  impracticable  at  sea  and  the  sailing  ship 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  81 

continued  her  development  from  the  point  it  had 
reached  in  the  'seventies.  Imagine  the  docks 
crowded  with  great  four-  and  five-masted  saiUng 
vessels  like  "  La  France,"  or  "  Kobenhavn,"  or 
that  big  German-built  prize  "  Peking."  which  lay 
in  Surrey  Docks  some  time  ago,  or  that  "  Preussen  " 
which  just  before  the  war  might  be  seen  sticking 
on  Dover  chffs  ;  a  prophetic  symbol,  had  one  but 
known  it,  of  the  fate  in  store  for  "  Preussens  " 
which  try  conclusions  with  the  shores  of  Britain. 
What  a  forest  of  towering  spars  would  have  been 
there — what  a  network  of  standing  and  running 
rigging — in  place  of  the  stumpy  pole-masts  and 
gaunt  ungainly  derricks  which  meet  the  eye  at 
every  turn  ! 

There  seems  to  be  a  tendency  to  build  rather  more 
of  these  big  sailing  vessels  of  late  years  ;  and  if, 
which  seems  at  any  rate  a  remote  possibihty,  the 
coal  and  oil  supplies  of  the  world  should  in  the  course 
of  years  peter  out  in  part  if  not  altogether,  it  may 
well  be  that  humanity  may  once  again  be  glad  to  ask 
the  help  of  what  an  American  writer  has  aptly 
termed  "  God  Almighty's  wind."  Should  sail  come 
into  its  own  again,  what  form  will  the  sailing  vessel 
of  the  future  take  ?  Probably  that  of  the  big 
square-rigged  auxiharies  hke  the  "  Kobenhavn,"  or 
else  that  of  the  four-  and  five-masted  schooners, 
which  have  been  so  much  more  frequently  seen  since 
the  war  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  They  cannot 
compare  for  beauty  with  the  square-rigger,  but  for 
all  that  they  have  a  kind  of  austere  beauty  of  their 
own.  Men  trained  to  squaresail  don't  take  kindly 
to  them  as  a  rule,  but  from  the  economic  point  of 
view  they  have  the  merit  of  not  requiring  large  and 
6 


82  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

skilled  crews  to  handle  them.     It  seems  more  than 
likely  that  they  have  come  to  stay. 


Nowhere,  perhaps,  do  the  associations  of  the  Tudor 
adventurers  gather  so  closely  as  at  Deptford,  the 
"  depe  ford  "  over  the  Ravensbourne  which  was 
known  in  Chaucer's  day.  Here  it  was  that  Queen 
EUzabeth  came  in  state  from  her  palace  of  Green- 
wich to  dub  Sir  Francis  Drake  knight  on  board  his 
ship  the  "  Pelican,"  or  "  Golden  Hynde,"  as  she  was 
renamed  at  Gloriana's  whim.  The  "  Golden  Hynde  " 
— "  Drake's  brave  oak,"  in  Cowley's  phrase — lay  a 
long  time  at  Deptford,  and  she  seems  to  have  suf- 
fered the  indignity  of  being  converted  into  a  sort  of 
"  Teas  Provided  "  rendezvous.  But  they  must  have 
provided  something  stronger  than  tea,  for  it  was 
during  a  drunken  brawl  with  a  person  of  low  charac- 
ter named  Archer,  whom  he  met  on  a  visit  to  the 
"  Hynde,"  that  poor  Kit  Marlowe  came  by  his  in- 
glorious and  untimely  end  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine. 
A  brass  tablet  recently  erected  in  the  church 
commemorates  the  event  and  Marlowe's  memory — 
but  the  place  of  his  burial  is  unmarked. 

In  1600  the  East  India  Company  established  their 
first  yard  at  Deptford,  leaving  it,  however,  a  few 
years  later  for  BlackwaU  Yard  over  the  water.  But 
the  Royal  Dockyard  continued  to  build  ships  as 
late  as  1869,  the  last  ship  built  there  being  H.M.S. 
"  Druid  "  in  that  year.  It  was  at  Deptford  Yard 
that  Captain  Cook's  ships,  "  Resolution "  and 
"  Discovery,"  fitted  out  for  his  last  voyage  ;  and 
the  "  Discovery  "  again  fitted  out  in  1791  and  sailed 
under  the  command  of  that  worthy  successor  of 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  83 

Cook,  Captain  George  Vancouver,  whose  name  is 
linked  for  ever  with  one  of  England's  fairest  island 
possessions  and  finest  Pacific  harbours.  No  trace 
of  the  dockyard  now  remains,  and  its  site  is  occupied 
by  the  Foreign  Cattle  Market ;  but  a  wonderful 
miniature  model  of  contemporary  date  is  to  be  seen 
in  the  South  Kensington  Museum,  which  gives  an 
admirable  impression  of  the  old  dockyard  as  it  was 
when  ships  were  building  there. 

The  association  of  Deptford  with  that  venerable 
institution,  the  Trinity  House,  should  not  be  for- 
gotten. In  1512  Sir  Thomas  Spert,  the  builder  of 
the  great  ship  "  Harry  Grace  a  Dieu,"  founded  at 
Deptford  the  Guild  of  the  Holy,  Blessed,  and 
Glorious  Trinity,  for  the  purpose,  among  other 
things,  of  maintaining  beacons  to  guide  mariners 
along  the  shoals  and  windings  of  the  river.  From 
these  beginnings  grew  up  the  great  organization 
which,  under  the  Master  and  Elder  Brethren  of 
Trinity  House,  to-day  controls  all  the  lighting  and 
pilotage  of  the  Enghsh  coasts. 

The  connexion  with  Deptford  was  maintained 
until  quite  recent  times,  including  the  annual  dinner, 
with  the  ancient  Trinity  Grace,  dating  from  the 
fourteenth  century  : — 

Alia  Trinita  beata 

Da  noi  sempre  adorata, 

Trinita  gloriosa, 

Unita  meravigliosa, 

Tu  sei  manna  supcma 

E  tutta  desiderata. — Amen, 

There  is  Httle  left  of  old  Deptford  nowadays, 
except  the  few  old  houses  grouped  about  the  tri- 
angular open  space  which  was  once  (and  still  bears 


84  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

the  name  of)  Deptford  Green,  and  the  fine  old  seven- 
teenth century  church,  with  its  much  older  stone 
tower,  rising  at  the  base  of  the  triangle  behind  the 
little  old  Carolean  schoolhouse.  This  tower  is 
beheved  to  have  been  originally  used  as  a  beacon  for 
mariners,  which  is  likely  enough.  Many  of  the 
Cornish  churches  were  undoubtedly  used  as  light- 
houses, and  St.  Helen's  Church  in  York  had  a  fire 
lighted  nightly  in  its  open  belfry  to  guide  travellers 
in  the  Middle  Ages  approaching  the  city  through 
the  forest  surrounding  it. 

Deptford  Church  is  full  of  the  atmosphere  of  the 
days  when  Deptford  was  still  the  "  navy -building 
town  "  that  Pope  termed  it.  Here  are  the  wordy 
memorials  of  successive  generations  of  master  ship- 
wrights, the  lengthy  Latin  epitaph  of  Peter  Pett,  and 
that  of  Jonas  Shish,  master  shipwright  and  friend 
of  Evelyn  the  diarist.  His  epitaph,  composed  by 
himself  on  his  deathbed,  shows  him  to  have  been 
something  of  a  versewright  as  well. 

By  sin  I  die,  the  wages  due  to  all. 
By  sin,  as  I,  the  Universe  must  fall, 
Yet,  Holy  Jesu,  bring  me  to  the  throne 
Of  Heavenly  bliss  where  God  doth  reign  alone, 
That  I  may  sacred  anthems  always  sing 
With  Holy  Angels  to  their  Sovereign  King. 
Once  I  was  strong  but  am  intombed  now 
To  be  dissolved  in  dust,  and  so  must  you. 
In  health  remember  still  that  latter  end, 
That  will  beget  care  ne'er  to  offend. 

There  is  a  curious  tradition  recorded  in  local 
history  to  the  effect  that  the  great  Admiral  Benbow 
was  buried  at  Deptford,  and  the  testimony  has  been 
brought  forward  of  local  residents  whose  great- 
grandfathers said  they  had  been  present  at  the 
funeral.     There  seems  to  be  no  foundation  whatever 


■iv-' 


^L.     «V 


.jsm\  'i*E 


_..„ 


1 


a 
a 

a 
o 


•Tff^^V^-^ 


■■<--'!;jC» : -;, 


%:. 


a 
z 
< 


D 
£ 
O 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  85 

for  the  legend,  or  for  disbelieving  the  statement  in 
the  church  of  Kingston,  Jamaica,  that  the  admiral 
lies  there.  Probably  the  funeral  the  Deptford 
ancients  remembered  was  that  of  Captain  Benbow, 
the  admiral's  son,  whose  epitaph  may  be  seen  in  the 
church  to  the  present  day. 

In  the  church  may  also  be  seen  the  memorials  of 
the  Evelyns  of  Sayes  Court,  reminding  us  of  the 
best-known,  if  not  the  most  interesting,  of  Dept- 
ford's  yesterdaj'^s — the  sojourn  there  of  Peter  the 
Great,  Czar  of  Muscovy,  while  he  was  learning  the 
business  of  a  shipwright  at  the  Royal  Dockyard. 
Nothing  remains  now  of  Evelyn's  country 
pleasaunce,  which  he  found  so  convenient  a  retreat 
in  the  days  of  the  Great  Plague,  or  of  his  bees  work- 
ing under  glass,  which  intrigued  Mr.  Samuel  Pepys 
so  mightily  ;  or  of  his  glorious  holly  hedge,  four 
hundred  feet  long,  five  feet  thick  and  nine  feet 
high,  "  ghttering  with  its  armed  and  varnished 
leaves  ;  the  taller  standards  at  orderly  distances, 
blushing  with  their  natural  coral  .  .  .  mocking  the 
rudest  assaults  of  the  weather,  beasts,  or  hedge- 
breakers."  Thus  wrote  Evelyn  in  his  "  Sylva," 
doubtless  having  his  own  hedge  in  mind  ;  but  the 
"  rude  assaults  "  of  the  Czar  of  Muscovy  were  to 
prove  too  much  even  for  that  formidable  barrier. 
Plunging  into  such  a  prickly  mass  sounds  an  amuse- 
ment rather  hke  that  of  the  gentleman  who 

Lived  in  our  town, 

And  he  was  wondrous  wise, 

He  jumped  into  a  quickset  hedge 

And  scratched  out  both  his  eyes  ; 

but  the  Czar,  assisted  by  a  wheelbarrow,  did  it  not 
once  but  many  times. 


86  SAILOR  TOWS<i  DAYS 

Before  the  advent  of  the  Russians,  Evelyn  had  let 
the  house  to  Admiral  Benbow,  and  found  him  rather 
a  rough  tenant ;  but  he  must  have  wished  the 
admiral  back  again  when  his  servant  reported  the 
hay  that  the  imperial  sub-tenant  was  making 
there.  Both  Admiral  Benbow  and  Evelyn  had  a 
lengthy  bill  of  dilapidations  to  present  to  the 
Admiralty  when  the  distinguished  shipwright  and  his 
retinue  had  departed.  "  Here  have  we  right  nasty 
people,"  complained  Evelyn's  servant,  and  the  bill  for 
"  soyled  and  spoyled  "  furniture  and  carpets,  for 
broken-down  hedges,  and  lav/ns  "  spoyled  by  their 
leaping  and  showing  tricks  "  on  them,  suggest  that 
the  epithet  was  justified. 

Somewhere  near  Deptford  Green  was  the  "  poor 
solitary  thatched  "  house  where  Evelyn  first  saw 
Grinling  Gibbons  at  work.  There  is  some  of 
Gibbons'  work  in  the  church,  including  a  ghastly 
piece  of  macabre  imagining  on  the  theme  of  Ezekiel 
in  the  valley  of  dry  bones.  It  used  to  be  over  the 
door  of  the  little  seventeenth  century  mortuary  in 
the  comer  of  the  churchyard,  and  probably  the 
stone  "  Jolly  Roger  "  emblems  on  the  gateposts 
were  intended  to  harmonize  with  it. 


CHAPTER  IV 

River  Reaches — Sea  Saints   and  Waterside  Churches — "  Over 
the  Water  " — Thames  Barges 

SIXTEEN  reaches  in  all  lie  between  the  Tower 
Bridge  and  Gravesend,  averaging  about  a 
mile  in  length,  with  one  exception.  First — 
beginning  at  the  Bridge — is  the  Upper  Pool,  or,  as 
it  is  generally  called,  The  Pool ;  next  comes 
Lower  Pool,  whose  name  also  sufficiently  explains 
itself.  Limehouse  Reach,  Greenwich  Reach,  and 
Blackwall  Reach  complete  the  big  bend  in  the  river 
made  by  the  Isle  of  Dogs.  Next,  skirting  the 
Silvertown  shore,  comes  the  euphoniously-styled 
"  Bugsby's  Reach."  Who  was  Bugsby,  and  why 
should  he,  of  all  men,  have  been  allowed  to  have  a 
whole  Reach  all  to  himself  ? 

Woolwich  Reach  follows,  obvious  and  uninterest- 
ing enough  ;  and  so  on  to  Gallions  or  Galleons  Reach 
— both  spellings  seem  to  be  admitted  as  correct. 
The  origin  of  the  name  is  obscure.  For  my  own 
part,  I  prefer  to  speU  my  "  galleons  "  with  an  "  e," 
and  to  maintain  against  all  comers  that  it  was  so 
called  from  some  bygone  prizes  of  war  brought  home 
by  Ehzabethan  seadogs  ;  but  there  is  possibly  some 
quite  other,  and  much  more  prosaic,  derivation. 

From  the  elbow  in  the  Kent  shore  which  bears 
at  the  same  time  the  beautiful  name  of  Margaret- 
ness  and  the  prosaic  one  of  Tripcock  Point,  Barking 

87 


88  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

Reach  (with  its  many  odours,  most  of  them  nasty) 
extends  to  Halfway  Reach — the  "  half  way  "  being 
between  London  Bridge  and  Gravesend,  Erith, 
one  of  the  many  old  "  hithes  "  or  harbours  along  the 
course  of  the  river,  gives  its  name  to  the  two  succeed- 
ing reaches,  the  second  of  which  bears  the  rather 
curious  name  of  "  Erith  Rands  " — a  term  which 
seems  likely  enough  to  have  a  common  origin  with 
the  Dutch  "  rand "  for  a  reef,  well  known  in 
connexion  with  the  Witwatersrand  ;  the  name  may 
refer  to  some  shoal  or  sandbank  in  the  river. 

Long  Reach  is,  of  course,  so  called  because  it 
extends  for  a  distance  of  about  three  sea  miles 
between  Erith  Rands  and  St.  Clement's  Reach. 
The  connexion  between  St.  Clement  and  the  sea 
(of  which  more  presently)  is  obvious  enough,  and  it 
is  quite  likely  that  this  reach  may  have  been  an 
anchorage.  Northfieet  Hope,  and  lastly  Gravesend 
Reach,  make  up  the  tale. 

The  term  "  hope  "  for  a  sea-channel  or  reach  of 
a  river  is  one  which  occurs  fairly  frequently.  It  is 
found  again  in  Lower  Hope  below  Gravesend,  and 
in  Hudson's  Hope  in  the  far  northern  seas. 
Whether  it  is  connected  with  the  kind  of  hope  that 
springs  eternal,  or  whether  it  is  merely  a  corruption 
of  "  ope,"  and  signifies  a  stretch  of  open  water 
revealed  by  a  curve  in  the  channel,  is  a  question  the 
word-wise  may  answer. 


St.  Clement  is  one  of  several  saints  especially 
associated  with  ships,  sailors,  and  the  sea.  His 
special  sign  is  the  anchor,  his  martyrdom  having 
taken  the  form  of  being  cast  into  the  sea  tied  to  an 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  89 

anchor,  and  the  anchor  sign  is  used  to  mark  the 
boundaries  of  the  parish  of  St.  Clement  Danes. 
It  seems  more  than  hkely  that  some  of  the  "  Hope 
and  Anchor  "  inn  signs  may  have  been  originally 
representations  of  the  saint  and  his  emblem,  which 
were  given  a  new  name  at  the  time  of  the 
Reformation. 

England's  St.  George  is  also,  of  course,  a  great 
patron  of  sailors.  In  the  Mediterranean  he  was 
looked  on  as  having  special  power  over  dragons  and 
monsters  of  the  deep,  and  he  was  also  looked  upon 
as  a  protector  of  land  subject  to  floods — hence  the 
dedication  to  him  of  such  riverside  churches  as 
St.  George's,  Southwark,  and  St.  George-in-the- 
East. 

Normandy  has  her  St.  Michael  in  the  Peril  of  the 
Sea  ;  and  there  is  a  whole  calender  of  lesser  Cornish 
saints  :  St.  Gerrans,  St.  Piran,  St.  Mawes — the 
same  as  the  Breton  St.  Malo — St.  Keveme  and  the 
rest. 

The  principal  patron  of  sailors  in  the  old  days, 
however,  was  St.  Nicholas  of  Myra,  to  whom, 
among  others,  the  parish  church  of  Deptford  is 
dedicated.  I  do  not  know  what  special  nautical 
associations  there  are  udth  the  good  Bishop  other 
than  his  stilling  of  a  storm,  and  the  miraculous 
restoration  to  hfe  of  a  httle  boy  who  fell  overboard 
from  the  ship  in  which  the  saint  was  voyaging — all 
of  which  will  be  found  duly  set  forth  in  pictured  form 
on  the  ancient  font  of  Winchester  Cathedral. 

I  do  not  remember  at  the  moment  any  riverside 
church  dedicated  to  the  great  Fisherman  Saint. 
There  is  Limehouse  Parish  Church,  whose  handsome 
tower  is  as  conspicuous  a  landmark  as  was  once  the 


90  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

masthouse  at  Brunswick  Dock ;  and  St.  Ann 
Shadwell,  in  the  midst  of  the  docks  ;  and  St.  George 
in  the  East,  built  by  one  of  Wren's  pupils,  and  not 
without  something  of  the  Wren  dignity,  though 
lacking  the  Wren  grace.  But  of  all  the  waterside 
churches  of  London  perhaps  the  best  is  the  little 
Church  of  St.  John  of  Wapping,  an  unpretentious 
little  eighteenth  century  building  with  a  low  spire, 
and  a  churchyard  where  the  master  mariners  of  a 
century  ago  still  sleep  undisturbed.  Most  of  the 
churchyards  have  been  made  into  gardens,  and  the 
change  is  in  most  cases  all  for  the  better.  But  that 
of  Wapping  still  keeps  something  of  its  old-world 
peace.  The  river  air  blows  through  it  and  sets  the 
long  grass  waving,  and  rustles  the  green  leaves 
of  spring  over  the  graves  of  the  master  of  the 
"  Humility  "  of  Alnmouth  and  all  the  rest  of  the 
sailormen  who  made  their  last  landfall  here  genera- 
tions ago. 

I  suppose  most  people  have  some  pet  particular 
daylight  terror  of  their  own — cats,  or  cows,  or 
snakes,  or  spiders,  or  being  in  a  railway  carriage  with 
the  door  shut.  Mine — one  of  them — is  the  Black- 
wall  Tunnel. 

Reason  may  tell  me  that  if  I  disappear  into  its 
yawning  mouth  in  a  'bus  I  shall  reappear  in  due 
course  at  the  far  end.  Reason  may  argue  as  she 
likes,  but  I  dechne  to  beUeve  her. 

And  those  portentous  domed  blow-holes  into  it, 
like  engine-room  ventilators  to  the  nether  regions — 
with  the  fearful  rumbhngs  and  reverberations  which 
are  generated  in  them  by  the  mere  passage  of  a 
pygmy  horse  and  cart  far  below  ! — they  are  like 
something  out  of  a  bad  dream,  or  a  book  about  the 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  91 

future  by  Mr.  H.  G,  Wells.  There  are  four  Thames 
tunnels  altogether  by  which  one  can  cross  the  river 
below  bridge  ;  but  the  only  one  I  have  ever  been 
in  is  the  old  original  Thames  Tunnel — Brunei's 
Tunnel,  from  Wapping  to  Rotherhithe — and  that 
was  in  a  train.  The  railway  took  it  over  some  years 
ago,  and  the  weird  sort  of  arcade  or  fair  which  used 
to  be  at  its  entrance  has  long  been  a  thing  of  the 
past.  It  must  have  been  a  mildewy  sort  of  affair 
at  the  best  of  times. 

The  place  of  the  Thames  Tunnel  for  foot  traffic 
has  been  taken  by  the  Rotherhithe  Tunnel  a  little 
further  along  dov/n  stream,  and  there  is  also  a  foot 
tunnel  at  Greenwich  ;  but  for  me  the  best  way  of 
getting  across  the  river  will  always  be — unless  in 
very  wet  or  foggy  weather — the  good  old-fashioned 
way  of  "  over  the  water." 

You  follow  a  street — gritty  with  dust  in  dry 
weather,  and  slimy  on  wet  days  with  the  thin  yellow 
dockland  mud — that  winds  between  the  warehouses 
and  repairing  yards  and  dock  basins  until  it  ends 
suddenly  in  a  flight  of  shallow,  worn  stone  steps 
leading  down  to  the  river  water  when  the  tide  is 
in,  and  the  river  mud  when  it  is  out.  There  are 
generally  one  or  two  beery  beings  of  the  wharf-rat 
type  leaning  against  the  low  wall  at  the  top  of  the 
steps,  and  a  chattering  bunch  of  amphibious 
urchins  disporting  themselves  in  their  birthday  suits 
and  wranghng  like  a  lot  of  young  gulls  over  some 
treasure  trove  in  the  way  of  a  derelict  plank  or  a 
dead  cat. 

It  doesn't  look  a  very  likely  place  to  get  across 
the  river ;  but  if  you  make  a  funnel  of  your  hands 
and  send  forth  into  space  a  hail  of  "  0-over  the 


92  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

water  !  "  a  boat  will  materialize  from  somewhere 
and  put  you  across  for  a  matter  of  a  shilling  or  so, 
as  near  as  the  tide  will  allow  to  the  very  spot  you 
want. 

Many  memories  must  be  theirs,  these  old  river 
stairs,  for  they,  like  the  wharves,  were  there  before 
the  docks.  Memories  of  smugglers  and  river  pirates, 
of  the  pressgang  storming  through  the  riverside 
parishes  and  leaving  weeping,  wailing,  and  curses 
behind  it.  Memories  of  their  palmy  days  when  there 
were  thousands  of  watermen  plying  their  trim-built 
wherries  between  shore  and  shore,  and  between  the 
stairs  and  the  shipping  moored  in  the  river.  Then, 
all  the  river  steps  were  constantly  busy  with  the 
comings  and  goings  of  boats,  and  crowded  with  sea- 
faring folk  of  every  sort — smart  captains'  gigs, 
ships'  shore  boats  full  of  sailors  in  shoregoing  rig, 
boats  whose  sullen  rowers  wore  the  livery  of  shame, 
taking  out  convicts  to  the  prison  ships,  and  a  horde 
of  crimps'  boats  swarming  about  newly-arrived 
craft,  with  plenty  of  liquor  on  board  to  get  the  men 
fuddled  before  they  had  so  much  as  left  the  ship, 
almost  before  her  anchor  had  touched  bottom. 
Quaint  old-world  names  they  have,  many  of  them, 
such  as  Cherry  Garden  Stairs,  near  to  which  the 
cherries  grew  for  the  delectation  of  Mr.  Pepys  and 
his  friends  .  .  .  and  Globe  Stairs,  hard  by  the  old 
Globe  Theatre  .  .  .  and  Pageant  Steps,  recalling 
the  water  spectacles  of  bygone  days  .  .  .  Cocoanut 
Stairs  and  Jamaica  Stairs  .  .  .  and,  perhaps  most 
famous  of  all,  Wapping  Old  Stairs,  associated, 
as  we  have  seen,  with  the  grim  ceremonies  of 
Execution  Dock.  Chiefly,  however,  the  renown 
of  Wapping  Old  Stairs  rests  on  the  old  song  of  the 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  98 

sentimental  school  of  Dibdin,  rendered  by  Colonel 
Newcome  at  the  Cave  of  Harmony  with  such  dis- 
tressing results  : 

Your  Molly  has  never  been  false,  she  declares, 
Since  last  time  we  parted  at  Wapping  Old  Stairs, 
When  1  swore  that  I  still  would  continue  the  same. 
And  gave  you  the  'bacco  box  marked  with  my  name. 

"  Your  trowsers  I'll  mend,  and  your  grog  too  I'll 
make,"  declares  Molly  in  the  song  ;  but  it  is  to  be 
feared  that  the  grog-making  would  be  more  in  the 
line  of  most  of  the  Wapping  Mollies  of  the  period 
than  the  trowser-mending. 

Last  there  are  the  Httle  unnamed  stairs  not  found 
on  the  maps — shmy,  sinister-looking  steps  leading 
furtively  up  to  deserted,  tumbledown  buildings  with 
boarded  windows,  or  evil  httle  taverns  whence  in 
the  bad  old  crimping  days  many  a  drugged  sailor 
may  have  been  hurried  to  the  boat  waiting  at  the 
stairfoot — to  awake  in  the  foc's'le  of  an  outward- 
bounder,  a  sadder  and  let  us  hope  a  wiser  man. 


If  one  were  to  be  asked  what  craft  is  most  charac- 
teristic of  the  Port  of  London,  the  answer  would  be 
neither  smart  hner  nor  workaday  tramp,  neither 
tanker  nor  collier,  squarerigger  nor  schooner,  but 
the  Thames  barge. 

No  river  scene  is  complete  without  its  barges. 
They  are  everywhere — beating  to  windward  up  the 
reaches  with  brown  sails  spread,  jostling  the  ships 
from  all  the  seas  in  the  dock  basins,  or  settling  down 
for  the  night  alongside  quiet  wharves  or  flagstaffed 
pierheads,    and   ever^^vhere   helping   to   lend   that 


94  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

variety  to  the  scene  which  is  the  great  charm  of 
London  dock  and  river  views. 

The  London  barge  has  changed  but  httle  during 
the  last  century  and  a  half.  She  is  still  to-day,  in 
all  essentials,  just  the  same  as  you  see  her  in  E.  W. 
Cooke's  etchings,  tacking  about  among  the  East 
Indiamen  and  seventy-fours  as  she  does  to-day 
among  the  hners  and  cargo-steamers.  The  out- 
standing feature  of  the  barge  rig  is  the  "  sprit  " 
(or  "  spreet,"  as  most  seafaring  men  pronounce  it), 
the  diagonal  spar  on  which  the  boomless  mainsail 
is  extended  from  the  peak.  It  is  a  rig  specially 
adapted  for  busy  river  traffic,  owing  to  the  ease  and 
rapidity  with  which  the  big  sail  can  be  either  brailed 
up  or  lowered  from  the  peak  by  lowering  the  sprit. 
To  look  at,  the  latter  process  is  by  no  means  work- 
manlike, the  effect  produced  being  rather  like  the 
week's  wash  in  a  strong  wind  ;  but  it  seems  to  act 
all  right.  In  addition  to  the  sprit  mainsail,  all 
barges  carry  a  small  spritsail  abaft  the  tiller,  the 
mast  being  in  many  cases  fixed  to  and  working  with 
the  tiller  itself. 

There  are  two  distinct  types  of  London  barges  : 
the  topsail  or  seagoing  barge,  which  carries  a  gaff- 
topsail  and  jib,  and  the  river  or  Medway  barge  which 
has  a  pole  mainmast  and  no  topsail.  The  topsail 
barges  ply  along  the  south  and  east  coasts,  as  far 
west  as  Southampton  and  as  far  north  as  Lowestoft, 
and  even  on  occasion  trade  foreign  once  in  a  while 
to  Rouen  or  Havre  or  Dunkirk.  The  Medway 
barges  seldom  go  farther  afield  than  the  Thames 
estuary  and  its  tributary  creeks  and  rivers.  There 
is  a  subdivision  of  the  Medway  class  of  barge  known 
as  a  "  stumpy,"  which  is  really  a  sort  of  half-way 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  95 

house  between  a  barge  and  a  lighter  ;  in  fact,  you 
might  almost  call  her  a  hghter  with  sails.  But  it 
is  surprising  what  rapid  progress  these  clumsy- 
looking  craft  can  make,  and  they  share  the  excellent 
qualities  of  the  barge  proper  when  beating  to 
windward. 

It  is  surprising  what  an  amount  of  cargo  a  barge 
can  pack  away  into  her  capacious  hull,  and  to  see 
the  number  of  bricks  that  can  be  unloaded  from  one 
is  something  of  an  eye-opener.  She  can  stand  plenty 
of  weather,  and  to  see  a  big  topsail  barge  snoring 
down  Channel  deep-laden  and  with  her  lee  rail  under 
water,  the  seas  washing  continually  over  her  closed 
hatches,  is  an  inspiriting  sight  in  its  way.  She  seems 
to  have  survived  the  general  depression  in  the  coast- 
ing trade  ;  at  all  events,  there  are  always  plenty  of 
barges  to  be  seen  between  London  and  Gravesend. 

Barges  make  ideal  cruising  yachts  for  many 
reasons.  They  combine  shallow  draught  with 
roominess  of  hull,  and  they  will  easily  stand  a  little 
additional  head-room.  Many  people  go  in  for  an 
auxiliary  engine,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  a  barge 
goes  so  well  to  windward  that  the  engine  need  hardly 
ever  be  used  except  in  fiat  calms.  And  for  their 
size  they  need  very  Httle  help  to  handle  them. 

There  is  always  something  about  a  Thames  barge 
which  strikes  a  homely  note — especially  when  you 
see  her  snugly  moored  alongside  some  quiet  little 
pier  when  evening  is  coming  on.  Sometimes  there 
is  a  cosy  ghmpse  of  a  lighted  cabin,  and  a  savoury 
smell  of  something  cooking  for  supper,  the  homely 
round  face  of  a  brown  teapot,  a  woman's  apron 
about,  for  the  barge  skipper  often  takes  the  missus 
along  with  him.     Perhaps  there  may  be  other  and 


96  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

less  pleasant  concomitants  of  barge  life  at  close 
quarters — such  as  rats  or  cockroaches,  or  insects 
more  obnoxious  still.  But  what  would  you  ?  At 
any  rate  you  can't  see  them,  .  .  .  The  barge  has 
not  the  glamour  of  strange  seas,  the  phantom  lure 
of  far  horizons  ;  she  has  no  dark  tale  to  tell  of  wild 
doings  in  foreign  Sailor  Towns.  But  she  has  her  own 
homely  charm — such  charm  as  dwells  by  little 
wharves,  and  tarred  shipboarded  inns,  and  creeks 
where  the  sunset  flames  along  the  levels,  and  there 
are  lights  and  singing  o'  nights  in  the  leaning  old 
waterside  taverns. 


CHAPTER  V 

Tilbury — Gravesend — The  Princess  Pocahontas — At  the  Turn 
of  the  Tide 

OF  all  the  strange  spots  where  people  first 
set  foot  on  EngHsh  soil,  Tilbury  must  surely 
be  one  of  the  strangest.  But  as  indeed  so 
often  happens,  most  likely  not  one  in  a  thousand 
of  the  folk  who  come  to  Tilbury  ever  sees  it  at  all. 
Perhaps  it  is  night,  and  the  Thames  shore  a  mere 
windy  desolation  under  the  stars  ;  or  even,  by  day- 
light, it  remains  a  confused  impression  of  low,  flat 
shores,  a  big  railway  station.  Customs  formalities, 
the  hurry  and  bustle  of  farewells  and  greetings — 
and  then  the  boat  train  whisks  them  off  from  Til- 
bury without  them  having  ever  really  looked 
at  it. 

They  are  talking  of  constructing  a  deep-water 
landing  stage  at  Tilbury  where  hners  may  berth 
at  all  states  of  the  tide,  but  to  Tilbury  itself  it  will 
probably  make  little  difference. 

It  is  a  strange  and  desolate  region,  yet  not  with- 
out its  own  quahty  of  fascination — a  region  of  flats 
and  marshes,  cried  over  continually  by  seabirds  and 
by  the  boisterous  winds  that  come  piping  in  from 
the  sea  and  tossing  the  trees  over  the  deserted  gun- 
emplacements  of  Tilbury  Fort.  The  httle  Fort  has 
a  handsome  Carolean  gatehouse  adorned  with  stone 
trophies  of  cannon  and  Roman  armour.  It  is  "  in 
7  97 


98  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

the  style  of  Coehorn  and  Vauban "  (low  be  it 
whispered,  but  I  have  known  the  time  when  I 
should  have  said  Coehorn  was  a  musical  instrument  1) 
and  several  kings  have  altered  and  added  to  it. 
But  now  it  is  empty  and  desolate — desolate  with  the 
dismal  desolation  of  disused  military  places,  with 
the  shrouded  forms  of  a  few  forsaken  guns 
squatting  swathed  by  tarpauhns  like  veiled  Eastern 
mourners. 

For  its  size  it  has  many  associations,  beginning 
with  the  days  when  Wat  Tyler  halted  there  with 
Jack  Straw  and  his  rabble  rout  on  the  way  to 
London.  And  here,  of  course.  Queen  Elizabeth 
reviewed  her  troops  at  the  time  of  the  Armada.  I 
believe  those  people  who  seem  to  spend  their  time 
unsettling  other  people's  cherished  beliefs  have 
discovered  that  she  never  did  anything  of  the  kind, 
and  that  the  winds  blowing  over  Tilbury  marshes 
never  caught  those  gallant  words  of  hers  that  ring 
in  the  pages  of  history.  It  was  not  the  present 
Fort  which  stood  there  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  day, 
but  a  mere  blockhouse  of  which  the  great  Earl  of 
Leicester  was  governor. 

Tilbury  Fort,  of  course,  has  also  its  literary  fame, 
for  was  it  not  here  that  the  fair  Tilburina  in  "  The 
Critic  "  went  mad  in  white  satin  for  love  of  Don 
Whiskerandos  ?  The  Fort  is  all  that  there  is  of  old 
Tilbury,  but  for  the  little  inn  so  aptly  named  the 
"  World's  End,"  a  romantic  place  of  many  gables 
and  windows  that  must  wink  warmly  on  cold  nights 
across  the  desolate  marshes. 

*  >>■  4:  *  ♦ 

Gravesend  is  a  curious  little  town — part  country 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  99 

town,  part  seaport,  part  seaside  resort  which  has 
somehow  missed  fire.  You  pass  abruptly  from  the 
steep  sloping  streets  where  the  air  is  unmistakably 
flavoured  with  salt,  with  little  houses  whose  open 
doors  give  glimpses  of  nautical  interiors,  to  prim, 
decorous  terraces  and  crescents  of  the  Regency 
period,  hke  bits  of  Bloomsbury  dumped  down  on  the 
Thames  shore.  There  was  a  day  when  an  attempt 
was  made  to  "  boost  "  Gravesend  as  a  resort,  about 
the  time  when  the  ingenious  Rosher,  some  time 
in  the  'thirties,  turned  a  disused  chalk-pit,  such  as 
you  see  beside  the  railway  going  down  to  Gravesend, 
into  the  once-renowned  Rosherville  Gardens,  now 
a  vanished  glory,  where,  so  a  Gravesend  worthy 
regretfully  informed  me,  there  "  used  to  be  monkeys 
an'  all."  But  Rosherville,  "  monkeys  an'  all,"  is 
shut  up  and  dead.  Its  last  phase  was  as  a  cinema 
studio,  but  that  too  has  passed  away. 

Nowadays  the  pier,  a  picturesque  little  affair  on 
squat  Doric  columns,  is  mainly  used  by  the  pilots — 
"  mud  pilots  "  waiting  for  ships  to  take  up  the  river, 
and  Channel  pilots  who  have  come  up  from  Dungeness 
waiting  for  a  ship  to  take  back.  Pilotage  above 
Gravesend  is  compulsory,  and  even  coasting  skippers 
with  a  pilot's  ticket  have  to  take  a  "  mud 
pilot." 

Pilots  and  shrimps  might  be  described  as  the 
principal  products  of  Gravesend.  You  see  the 
shrimp  everywhere.  Even  the  local  ale  is  called 
"  Shrimp  Brand,"  and  if  the  people  of  Gravesend 
consume  anything  hke  a  proportion  of  the  shrimps 
you  see  in  the  various  wholesale  and  retail  shrimp 
emporiums  they  must  nearly  live  on  them. 
Shrimps,  pilots — and  caged  larks  !     I  never  saw  so 


100  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

many  caged  larks  an3Avhere  as  there  are  in  Graves- 
end.  Wherever  you  go,  you  are  haunted  by  the 
plaintive  cries  and  flutterings  of  these  little  captives 
in  their  tiny  wired  cells.  What  is  the  reason  of  it, 
I  wonder  ;  are  larks  cheap  and  numerous  in  Kent  ? 
At  any  rate  it  is  one  of  my  few  grievances  against 
Gravesend. 

Fielding,  in  his  "  Voyage  to  Lisbon,"  speaks  of 
Gravesend  in  no  very  complimentary  terms.  But 
then  his  feelings  may  have  been  coloured  by  his 
wife's  toothache  and  the  discomfort  and  extortion 
which  troubled  him  on  the  voyage.  The  craft  "called 
a  cod  boat  "  which  thrust  her  bowsprit  through 
the  cabin  window  must  have  been  the  finishing 
touch. 

But  it  is  really  a  pleasant  little  place  on  a  bright 
day,  though  it  depends  very  greatly  on  its  weather 
moods — and  perhaps  on  one's  own  moods.  Under 
a  grey,  stooping,  melancholy  sky  that  tones  the  river 
down  to  the  same  grey  and  melancholy  colour,  it 
seems  a  place  full  of  sad  farewells.  But  when  the 
sun  breaks  through  and  flashes  on  the  white  caps 
of  the  river,  then  the  wind  seems  a  jolly  rover 
whistHng  in  rope  and  spar,  and  calling  young 
adventure  on  the  long  road  round  the  world. 

I  wonder  what  mood  the  river  was  in  when  first 
the  Princess  Pocahontas  saw  it,  coming  home  to 
Gravesend  with  her  English  husband,  there  to  end 
her  short  life  far  from  her  native  forests.  The  old 
church  of  St.  George,  where  she  hes  buried,  is 
singularly  bare  of  monuments,  the  reason  being  a 
disastrous  fire  in  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
actual  site  of  the  Princess's  grave  is  lost ;  but  a  brass 
in  the  chancel  wall  commemorates  her  short  life 


..     .  .    •>'  '"  *•: 


THE     "  THREE     DAWS,**     GRAVESEND 


DAYS  IN  LONDON  101 

and  early  death  at  the  age  of  twenty-two  "  when 
about  to  revisit  her  native  land,"  and  the  Colonial 
Dames  of  America  have  given  recently  a  stained- 
glass  window  in  memory  of  her,  having  for  its 
subject  the  story  of  Ruth. 

Poor  Princess — poor  "  Belle  Sauvage  !  "  like  Ruth, 

sick  for  home, 
She  stood  in  tears  amid  the  alien  com. 

The  mysterious  blight  which  always  withers  the 
Red  Man's  kindred  when  they  dwell  beneath  a  roof 
did  not  spare  her.  One  pictures  her  suffering  the 
weird  physickings  of  the  day  with  native  stoicism  ; 
with  great  dark  eyes  constantly  turning  to  the  grey 
river  which  to  her  was  but  the  road  which  should 
one  day  lead  her  back  to  her  homeland. 

Gravesend  is  at  its  quietest  when  it  is  almost  low 
water.  Rows  of  tugs  he  out  in  the  water  like  bell 
boys  waiting  for  messages  in  an  hotel  corridor.  A 
hner  in  the  river  has  the  Blue  Peter  flying  at  the  fore, 
and  a  tender  alongside  ;  and  a  big  freighter  is  showing 
her  pilot  flag  and  making  ready  to  get  her  anchor. 

The  ships  swing  idly  round  athwart  the  stream. 
The  tide  is  on  the  turn.  A  great  activity  begins 
to  manifest  itself  among  the  tugs.  One  bustles  off, 
and  with  much  fuss  and  flurry  takes  the  liner's 
hawser  and  swings  her  round  into  midstream. 
DowTi  comes  the  Peter.  There  is  a  flutter  of  white 
from  her  rail,  answered  from  the  tender,  and  away 
she  goes  Norewards.  A  motor  boat  with  a  brass- 
buttoned  pilot  darts  out  from  the  pier  :  he  jumps 
for  the  Jacob's-ladder  of  an  incoming  steamer, 
and  away  shoots  the  boat  on  the  instant.  It  is  a 
demonstration  in  the  art  of  boarding  moving  ships 


102  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

to  see  a  Thames  pilot  come  on  board.  Barges  begin 
to  move  up  river  with  the  tide.  The  great  proces- 
sion has  begun  again — the  unending  procession  of 
Britain's  shipping  which  has  been  going  on  for  so 
many  centuries,  the  same  yet  not  the  same — the 
pageant  of  London  River. 


PART    II 

DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE 

CHAPTER  I 

Liverpool  and  the  Western  Ocean— The  Charm  of  the  Liner- 
Black  Ivory— Coasting— Fifty  Years  Ago— The  Black  Ball 
Line— James  Baines,  the  Ship  and  the  Man— Yankee  Buckoes 
and  Western  Ocean  Blood  Boats — To  Australia  in  a  Black 
Bailer — Paradise  Street — Bound  for  'Frisco 

THE  spirit  of  Liverpool  is  the  spirit  of  the 
Western  Ocean.  Her  ships  and  her  seamen 
may  sail  to  every  harbour  in  the  seven  seas — 
to  Half  Jack  and  Abo,  to  Hakodate  and  Palembang 
and  Malacca — but  it  is  the  Western  Ocean  which 
has  set  his  seal  upon  her  for  all  time.  The  Western 
Ocean,  stern,  strong,  and  terrible  even  in  his  repose 
— with  his  fogs  and  ice,  his  storms  and  hurricanes, 
praising  the  Lord — a  breaker  of  strong  ships,  a 
maker  of  strong,  resolute,  iron  men.  The  Western 
Ocean  is  no  place  for  weaklings.  He  flings  unsea- 
worthy  ships  contemptuously  aside  as  broken  toys  ; 
he  tries  men  in  a  test  from  which  they  come  out 
failures  or  conquerors. 

It  is  the  Western  Ocean  that  has  brought  Liver- 
pool her  greatness,  as  he  breaks  and  makes  her  ships 
and  her  seamen.  It  is  the  business  of  the  Western 
Ocean  that  has  built  up  her  wealth — emigrants, 
cotton,  and  grain.     Hers,  in  her  early  days,  were 

103 


104  SAILOR  TO\\'N  DAYS 

never  th-  barbaric  pomps  and  splendours  of  the 
Indies,  b  pagoda  tree  showered  down  gifts  of 
gold  a-^  '  '  cr  at  her  christening  feast.  No  ivory, 
apes,  icocks  made  wonderful  her  wharves ; 

no  spu<  ..  i  strange  woods,  no  lacquer  and  brass- 
ware,  n<-  M  "Tant  sandalwood  nor  rich  dyes,  no  bales 
of  prii  igs  camel-borne  over  the  Asian  deserts. 

It  was  iK>n  sterner  stuff,  yet  no  less  the  stuff  of 
romance,  .at  the  foundations  of  her  greatness  were 
laid.  Stmgth  and  speed,  strength  and  hardihood 
in  her  seaien,  strength  and  swiftness  in  the  ships 
they  nam  — these  have  been  the  quahties  Liverpool 
has  askeii  hroughout  her  history  from  the  ships 
and  men  I  n\  she  owes  her  pride  of  place  among 
cities,  an  .  ail  the  merchant  princes  of  Lancashire 
their  weal:. 

Strengi.  and  speed,  obviously  enough,  impress 
even  the  lost  casual  of  visitors  to  the  docks  of 
Liverpool  i  their  modem  manifestations.  I  sup- 
pose in  a  SQse  there  is  no  waterfront  so  well  known 
to  the  gencil  pubhc  as  that  of  Liverpool — to  people, 
that  is,  wb  have  no  special  business  there  nor  any 
particular  iterest  in  or  knowledge  of  ships.  A  ride 
along  the  '.'erhead  Railway  is  one  of  the  "  sights  " 
of  Liverpoi ;  and  if  you  want  to  realize  just  how 
ignorant  cits  birthright  an  island  race  can  be,  take 
a  ride  on  lat  railway  and  listen  to  the  comments 
made  theri  and  you  will  probably  get  a  good  idea 

of  it. 

The  ignomce  of  this  people  concerning  the  ship- 
ping whicli  3  its  very  life  is  truly  a  terrible  thing. 
I  read  a  bok  lately,  pubUshed  by  a  firm  of  reput 
and  written  y  an  author  of '  '<:rary  ability,  in  whi 
the  hero  (c  heroine,  I  fc  "  ich)  was  descrit 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THRE  105 

as  proceeding  from  Trafalgar  Square :  the  Embank- 
ment, and  there  beholding  "  a  great  hip  "  close  to 
the  shore,  with  "  swarthy  foreign  iilors  at  work 
upon  her  decks."  I  wonder  whe  that  author 
really  had  in  her  mind.  H.M.S  "  President," 
probably,  with  the  R.N.V.R.  at  drill  Dr  the  "  Royal 
Sovereign  "  bound  foreign  away  o  a  seven-and- 
sixpenny  Great  Circle  to  Southend  ad  back.  The 
same  daring  writer  also  beheld  "  ra-sailed  fishing 
boats  "  darting  hither  and  thither  ij  j^ondon  River. 
What  sort  of  a  catch  they  expect  i  she  did  not 
mention  :   possibly  it  was  the  Ores  Seal ! 

To  the  real  lover  of  ships,  Une3  and  ships  of 
war  are  interesting  in  precisely  inve3-3  ratio  to  their 
attractiveness  to  the  generaUty  c  folk.  People 
who  know  not  a  ship  from  a  sardin-tin  will  swarm 
over  the  latest  thing  in  leviathans  ^;th  appropriate 
exclamations  of  admiration,  and  now  about  as 
much  when  they  have  finished  as — ^-ell,  as  the  aver- 
age liner  passenger  !  I  once  heari .  young  lady— 
somewhere  off  the  coast  of  Newfoudland  it  was— 
announce  with  the  pride  of  discovc.-,  "  Just  fancy  ! 
How  thrilling !  We're  on  the  'jgger  Bank  !  " 
and  another  fair  young  thing  who  ad  been  making 
the  running  with  Mr.  Sparks,  the  -;reless  operator, 
exclaimed  with  the  right  nautical  ir,  "  We've  just 
been  forrard,  seeing  the  wireless  "—the  wireless 
cabin  in  that  particular  ship  hppening  to  be 
situated  right  away  aft. 


It  were  a  foolish  affectation,  wor-y  of  such  cranks 
and  poseurs  as  wish  to  return  to  le  habits  of  the 
Middle  Ages  in  dress  and  other  dexils,  to  deny  any 


i 


106  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

measure  of  beauty  to  the  steamship — intrinsic 
beauty,  that  is,  apart  from  the  beauty  of  associa- 
tion with  which  the  sea  endows  upon  occasion  the 
ughest  craft  that  floats. 

The  journalese  phrase  is  not  often  well  chosen  ; 
but  the  threadbare  cliche  of  "  Atlantic  greyhound  " 
is  for  once  in  the  right  place.  There  is  a  kind  of 
stark,  stripped  beauty  about  those  long,  lean  hulls 
with  their  shm,  keen  cutwaters  and  gracefully 
sloping  counter.  The  so-called  "  cruiser  stem  "  is  an 
abomination.  But  take  the  hull  of  one  of  the  older 
Atlantic  hners,  the  old  "  Teutonic,"  for  instance, 
whose  career  (one  of  the  longest  and  finest  a  steamer 
ever  had)  was  ended  a  year  ago  when  she  was  sold 
for  breaking-up  to  a  continental  ship-knacker : 
it  has  not  the  beauty  of  the  old  sailing  ship,  not  the 
generous  curves,  the  wealth  of  detail  of  the  early 
East  Indiaman  or  ship  of  the  line,  not  the  grace  of 
the  sailing  clipper ;  but  in  its  way  and  for  its 
purpose  it  was  perfection.  Its  beauty  is  the  beauty 
which  always  belongs  in  some  sense  to  a  thing 
excellently  designed  for  its  purpose. 

But  for  those  huge,  and  so  essentially  German, 
monstrosities  of  which  we  see  and  hear  so  much 
nowadays  I  cannot  profess  any  enthusiasm.  Their 
bigness  leaves  me  unimpressed  ;  their  splendours 
leave  me  cold.  One  fancies  the  sons  and  daughters 
of  the  Fatherland  gazing  dutifully  up  at  their  tiers 
of  decks,  the  vulgarly  flamboyant  scrollwork  on 
their  portly  bustles,  and  murmuring  respectfully, 
*'  Kolossal  1  "  Yes,  they  are  kolossal,  but  they  are 
not  ships.  Had  I  all  the  wealth  of  the  movies,  I 
would  not  spend  some  hundreds  of  it  on  a  suite  in 
one  of  these  bloated,  lumbering  floating  hotels  and 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  107 

paradises  for  profiteers,  which  cannot  berth  without 
a  swarm  of  tugs  to  haul  them  about,  and  wallow  as 
helplessly  as  stranded  turtles  on  the  shghtest  pro- 
vocation. Of  their  magnificence  I  say  nothing  ;  as 
ships  I  maintain  that  they  are,  and  always  will  be, 
atrocities. 

There  is  perhaps  no  port  which  provides  so  admir- 
able a  setting  for  Hners  as  Liverpool.  They  look 
"  right "  there,  somehow,  in  proportion.  The 
breadth  of  the  river  makes  a  roomy  stage  for  them, 
and  the  dignity  of  the  new  waterfront  is  in  keeping 
with  their  largeness.  But,  when  all  is  said,  hners 
never  look  at  their  best  in  dock.  When  they  are 
coahng,  they  are  positively  indecent ;  when  they 
are  being  berthed  by  half-a-dozen  fussy,  snorting 
little  tugs,  they  are  hke  nothing  so  much  as  GuUiver 
a  captive  among  the  Lilhputians.  They  need  move- 
ment to  give  meaning  to  them,  to  justify  their 
being. 

I  keep  stored  away  a  mental  picture  of  the 
"  Mauretania  "  striding  down  the  Irish  Sea,  reehng 
out  the  miles  behind  her,  only  a  month  before  the 
Great  War  was  to  call  upon  her  strength  and  speed 
for  greater  uses  even  than  that  of  making  record 
passages.  She  looked  beautiful  then,  with  her  blue 
ensign  flying  from  her  monkey-gaff,  and  her  immacu- 
late paintwork  flashing  back  the  June  sun — the 
wind  and  the  grey  wind-shepherded  clouds  seeming 
to  hasten  with  her — a  picture  of  effortless,  assured 
efficiency  in  her  particular  sphere. 

There  is  invariably  an  interest,  too,  though  strictly 
speaking  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  docks,  in  seeing 
the  departure  of  a  great  passenger  liner — a  thrill 
which  communicates  itself  to,  which  can  certainly  be 


108  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

more  enjoyably  felt  by,  those  not  intimately  con- 
cerned. However  close  the  achievements  of  speed 
may  draw  the  ends  of  the  earth — though  people  talk 
to  one  another  from  New  York  to  Liverpool  as  once 
they  never  dreamed  of  doing  over  as  many  yards — 
still  there  is  something  in  our  humanity,  some  in- 
herited, some  instinctive  response  to  a  symbol,  which 
makes  us  thrill  at  the  sight  of  the  slowly  broadening 
stretch  of  water  opening  as  the  ship  gathers  way 
between  her  and  the  land  she  is  leaving.  To  some 
it  may  mean  much,  to  others  little  ;  to  some  it 
may  be  but  an  ordinary  incident  of  business  or 
pleasure,  to  others  a  breaking  loose,  a  shaking  off 
of  bonds.  To  some  it  is  parting — and  that  strip 
of  dirty  river  water  in  very  truth  the  "  unplumbed, 
salt,  estranging  sea."  What  wonder,  then,  that 
such  a  moment  should  bring  always  with  it  a  silence, 
a  catching  of  the  breath,  the  sudden  tears  stinging 
the  eyes,  blurring  the  vision  ? 

H:  *  *  #  * 

Liverpool,  like  other  ports  one  might  name,  has 
indeed  her  African  associations,  quite  other  than 
those  by  which  the  sister  port  of  Birkenhead  is 
said  to  have  acquired  the  nickname  of  "  Monkey- 
town." 

Birkenhead,  and  the  Mersey  generally,  is  of  course 
intimately  associated  with  the  Elder  Dempster 
line  of  steamers  to  West  Africa,  and  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  trade,  the  story  goes,  there  was  quite  a 
roaring  business  done  in  monkeys.  The  captains 
always  used  to  ship  a  nice  consignment  of  monkeys 
on  their  own  account,  what  he  could  dispose  about 
his  own  quarters — in  old  days,  what  could  be  stowed 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  109 

along  the  break  of  the  poop — being  the  captain's 
perquisite.  However,  they  brought  so  many 
monkeys  that,  according  to  the  inexorable  law  of 
supply  and  demand,  they  created  a  slump,  and  the 
time  came  when  monkeys  were  going  in  Birkenhead 
at  sixpence  each.  Hence,  of  course,  Monkeytown. 
The  story  sounds  like  one  which  was  invented  in 
the  days  when  Birkenhead  and  Liverpool  were 
rivals  rather  than  sisters  ;  but  it  still  flourishes. 
Birkenhead  nowadays  ought  to  be  called  Cowtown 
rather  than  Monkeytown,  for  its  special  association 
is  with  mobs  of  tossing  horns  and  terrified  rolling 
eyes,  and  the  unmistakable  whiff  of  the  cattle 
boats. 

But  the  early  connexion  with  Africa  from  which 
I  have  digressed  is  the  trade  in  black  ivory,  which  in 
bygone  days  was  by  no  means  unknown  to  her. 
Few  of  her  existing  docks — except,  possibly,  the 
old  Salthouse  Dock,  of  which  more  presently — can 
have  seen  much  of  the  poor  bewildered  "  prime 
niggers,"  shivering  in  the  grey  Northern  weather, 
and  rolling  their  wild,  bewildered  eyes — as  wild  and 
terrified  as  those  of  the  Argentine  steers — upon  the 
strange  shoreline  of  the  Mersey  estuary.  But  I 
remember  reading,  years  ago,  in  a  cheap  paper- 
backed edition  I  bought  in  a  moment  of  desperation 
at  a  village  shop,  one  hopelessly  wet  holiday-time, 
a  forgotten  novel  of  (I  should  think)  the  "  Ten 
Thousand  a  Year  "  period.  Its  author  I  cannot 
remember — I  am  not  sure  it  was  not  by  that  prolific 
author  "  Anon  " — but  its  title,  if  I  am  not  mistaken, 
was  "  John  Manisty,  Liverpool  Merchant."  It  was 
an  incredibly  prosy  novel,  and  horribly  printed  on 
bad  paper  ;   and  I  remember  so  httle  about  it  that 


110  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

I  think  the  weather  must  have  taken  a  turn  for  the 
better  before  I  finished  it.  But  the  one  part  of  it 
that  found  permanent  lodgment  in  the  scrap-heap 
of  memory  was  the  statement  that  there  are — or 
were  when  the  book  was  written — still  to  be  seen 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Goree  Piazza  the  barred 
dens  where  the  slaves  were,  so  to  speak,  put  into 
cold  storage  during  the  process  of  transhipment  to 
the  plantations  which  were  their  final  destination. 
Whether  those  places  still  exist  I  cannot  say.  I 
have  never  looked  for  them,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  the  scrap  of  memory  only  came  to  the  surface 
while  I  was  writing  these  pages. 

At  any  rate,  though  one  may  smell  many  and 
various  smells  in  Liverpool,  it  is  something  to  be 
thankful  for  that  the  acrid  odour  of  crowded 
African  humanity  is  not  among  them.  People  who 
made  fortunes  out  of  slave-dealing  no  doubt  thought 
themselves  just  as  good  as  anyone  else  ;  and  so  no 
doubt  they  probably  were.  They  acted  according 
to  their  hghts,  and  the  standards  of  the  age  they 
lived  in  ;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  officers 
of  the  ships  which  engaged  in  the  trade.  And  after 
all  it  must  be  remembered  that  it  was  not  really  an 
idylhc.  Golden  Age  sort  of  existence  from  which  the 
slave  was  torn  away.  Generally  the  slave  was  in 
the  first  place  a  black  chief's  prisoner  of  war  ;  and 
the  alternative  for  him  was  between  being  marched 
down  into  the  hold  of  a  slave-ship  and  converted 
not  over  humanely  into  bodily  sustenance  and 
personal  adornment  for  his  captors. 

i|e  *  *  «  * 

In  the  good  old  days — say,  ten  or  twelve  years 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  111 

ago — you  could  choose  your  special  fancy  out  of  a 
round  dozen  coasting  lines  sailing  out  of  Liverpool, 
and — for  an  expenditure  of  somewhere  around  fifteen 
shillings  a  day — enjoy  to  all  practical  purposes  just 
the  same  sort  of  a  holiday  as  the  millionaire  in  his 
steam  yacht — only  rather  better,  for  the  passenger- 
and-cargo  coaster  is  after  all  a  real  ship,  whereas  the 
smartest  steam  yacht  afloat  is  no  more,  ultimately, 
than  a  costly  plaything.  How  jolly  they  were, 
those  pleasant  little  coasting  cruises — now,  alas,  like 
so  many  simple,  pleasant  and  vanished  joys,  classed 
as  "  pre-war  !  "  Will  they  come  again,  I  wonder, 
now  that  the  Ministry  of  Transport  is  gone,  having 
done  more  than  the  Hun  to  kill  the  coasting  trade  ? 
I  wonder  ;  it  is  easier  to  kill  a  trade  than  to  revive 
it. 

You  went  aboard  your  chosen  packet  in  Bramley- 
Moore,  or  Nelson,  or  Trafalgar,  or  whatever  dock 
she  might  be  lying  in,  with  a  solitary  dignified  leisure 
quite  unlike  the  portentous  fuss  which  attends  the 
sailing  of  a  liner.  Sometimes  it  might  be  after  dark, 
the  dock  fights  and  the  ships'  fights  throwing  long, 
wavering  reflections  upon  the  dark,  still  dock  water 
— or  it  would  be  morning,  and  a  cold  wind  ruffling 
the  grey  water  and  hurrying  the  grey  clouds,  and 
making  the  tossing  bell  buoy  reel  and  clang.  What 
a  sense  of  freedom  was  yours  !  How  good  the  ham 
and  eggs  tasted  that  you  got  for  breakfast — how 
sweetly  you  slept  in  your  tiny  state-room — or  if  your 
unaccustomed  surroundings  made  you  wakeful, 
how  pleasantly  you  drowsed  and  dozed,  woke  and 
slept  and  woke  again,  while  the  little  ship's  bell 
counted  the  watches,  and  the  waves  went  hush- 
hushing  under  her  keel !     How  lazily  the  hours  went, 


112  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

plugging  along  at  a  leisurely  eight  or  nine  knots, 
seldom  out  of  sight  of  land,  watching  the  passing 
shipping,  and  yarning  with  the  fat,  red-faced  skipper 
who  doesn't  object  to  privileged  passengers  on  the 
bridge. 

You  generally  got  roly-poly  pudding,  or  "  duff," 
on  the  bill  of  fare.  It  must  be  a  tradition  in  the 
coasting  trade,  and  I  fancy  it  must  have  been  there 
that  the  nautical  chestnut  originated  which  Mr, 
John  Masefield  has  enshrined  in  "  Captain  Margaret" 
— the  story  of  the  skipper  who,  presiding  at  the  cabin 
table,  had  a  roly-poly  duff  placed  before  himself, 
the  mate,  and  the  solitary  passenger.  "  Do  you 
like  pudding  end  ?  "  says  he  to  his  passenger. 
*'  No,  thanks,"  says  the  passenger.  "  Well,"  says 
the  skipper,  "  me  and  mister  here  does  !  "  so  he 
cuts  the  duff  in  two  and  the  passenger  gets  none. 
Another  story  which  is  very  popular  in  coasting 
circles  is  that  slightly  Rabelaisian  one  of  the  lady 
passenger  who  was  so  greatly  alarmed  when  she 
heard  the  crew  ordered  to  "  haul  up  the  main  sheet 
and  spanker." 

I  remember  one  such  cruise — it  was  only  a 
month  before  the  war — the  Channel  smooth  as 
a  millpond,  night  by  night  the  sun  going  down  in  a 
pomp  of  golden  glory,  and  one  great  star  making 
a  silver  pathway  over  the  waters.  Such  strange, 
perfect,  magical  evenings — with  schools  of  porpoises 
hurling  themselves  head  over  heels  in  the  steamer's 
bow-wave  like  things  gone  mad  with  joy.  It  was 
like  a  dream  of  the  morning  of  the  world.  You 
would  hardly  have  wondered  to  see  a  white,  fair 
face  glimmering  through  the  glass-green  bow-wave, 
and  a  singing  mermaiden  on  every  bird-haunted  ness 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  113 

and  headland.  .  .  .  But  that  is  long  ago  now — 
all  gone,  and  the  little  coaster  is  gone  too,  as  many 
another  fairer  and  finer  was  to  go  in  the  years  we 
did  not  dream  of  then. 


Cheap  as  coasting  cruises  were  in  those  days, 
they  were  cheaper  still  in  1870,  if  one  may  judge 
from  the  figures  quoted  in  a  shipping  handbook  of 
that  date.     Then,  you  could  go  by  steamer  from 
Liverpool  to  London  for  17/6,  to  Dundalk  for  10/-, 
to  Glasgow  for  12/6.     Presumably  the  passengers 
didn't  get  the  run  of  their  teeth  for  that ;  but  even 
making  a  reasonable  allowance  for  meals,  it  must 
have  been  a  wonderfully  cheap  way  of  getting  about. 
And  those  know  not  England  who  know  her  not 
from   the  sea.     More   than  her  fat  pastures,   her 
sliding  rivers,  her  green  woodlands,  I  think  it  must 
have  been  that  seaward  aspect  of  England  that 
made  so  many  men  desire  her — desire  and  dream 
of  her  as  a  lover  enchanted  of  a  seamaiden — her 
headlands,  twice  daily  wooed  by  the  fierce  Atlantic 
yet   never    made   his   own ;     her   golden   beaches 
whispering  secrets  to  the  tides  ;    her  aloof  beauty, 
like  that  of  a  guarded  princess  ;  her  rocks  and  reefs 
like  couchant  watchdogs  at  her  portals.     I  remember 
once  in  the  days  of  the  war,  as  the  crowded  train 
rushed    on    through    a    green    English    landscape, 
talking  to  a  tall  Australian   soldier.     He  wasn't 
going  back  to  AustraUa,  he  said.     It  wasn't  that 
he  didn't  love  Austraha  ;   but — well,  England  had 
got  him,  somehow  I     He  had  written  to  his  people 
in  Austraha  to  tell  them.     He  didn't  suppose  they'd 
understand,  though.     But,  it  was  when  he  came  up 
8 


114  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

the  Solent  in  the  hospital  ship,  and  he  saw  it  all  so 
peaceful  and  green,  and  something  inside  him  said, 
"  This'll  do  for  me — for  ever  !  " 

That  same  shipping  handbook  I  have  mentioned 
gives  several  interesting  items  of  Liverpool  informa- 
tion.    The   advertisement   of   the   Cunard   Line — 
headed  by  an  illustration  of  a  Hner  of  the  period, 
with  one  funnel,  and  barque-rigged  but  lacking  a 
main  course  to  make  room  for  the  funnel — gives 
the  interesting  fact  that  the  highest  fare  (in  ships 
"  not    carrpng    emigrants  ")    was    "  Twenty-six 
Pounds,  including  Steward's  Fee  and  Provisions, 
but  not  Wines  and  Spirits,"  of  which,  however,  the 
intending  passenger  is  assured  "  a  plentiful  supply 
is   carried."     Think   of   it — £26 — not   much   more 
than  a  mere  emigrant  pays  in  these  vaunted  days 
of  progress  !     And  remember,   too,   that  in  those 
times  a  passage  took  ten  days  or  a  fortnight — 
sometimes    more,    very    seldom    much    less.     Of 
Canadian  lines  the  Allan  line  is  the  sole  representa- 
tive.    The   White    Star    Line   was   not    then   in 
existence ;     but    the    now    forgotten    Guion    Line 
(a  French  venture),  Inman's  famous  Cities,  record- 
holders    in   their   day,   and  the   extinct   National 
S.S.     Company,     are    all    advertised.     And    it  is 
interesting  to  note  among  the  names  on  the  Cunard 
saihng  lists  that  of  the  "  Samaria,"  which  has  just 
been  given  to  one  of  the  latest  additions  to  the 
Cunard  fleet.     Otherwise,  the  names  are  all  different. 
Why,  I  wonder  ?     Is  it  on  account  of  the  supersti- 
tion widely  cherished  among  seafaring  folk  that  it 
is  unlucky  to  give  a  ship  a  name  which  has  been 
held   by   a   predecessor  ?     Many   sailors,   I   know, 
credit  the  iU-luck  of  Lord  Dunraven's  successive 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  115 

"  Valkyries  "  and  Sir  Thomas  Lipton's  "Shamrocks" 
to  this  cause. 


In  the  Black  Ball  Line  I  served  my  time — 
Hooroar  for  the  Black  Ball  Line  I 

SO  runs  the  old  shanty,  which  has  been  sung  on 
board  saihng  ships  by  hundreds  of  sailormen  to 
whom  the  Black  Ball  Line  itself  was  no  more  than 
a  name  and  a  nautical  tradition.  The  funny  part 
of  it  is  that  there  are,  or  were,  two  Black  Ball  Lines, 
both  of  which  were  intimately  connected  with 
Liverpool ;  just  as  there  were  two  White  Star  Lines 
of  sailing  ships — the  Liverpool  firm  which  ran 
clippers  to  Australia  in  the  'fifties,  and  the  Aberdeen 
White  Star  Line,  whose  name  and  house-flag, 
together  with  the  distinctive  green  colouring  of  the 
hulls,  is  continued  in  the  same  firm's  line  of  steamers 
to  the  Cape  and  Austraha. 

The  original  Black  Ball  Line  was  one  of  the 
American  lines  of  packet  ships  plying  between 
Liverpool  and  North  American  ports,  and  was 
founded  as  long  ago  as  1816.  These  American 
packets  were  notoriously  hard-run  ships,  renowned 
alike  for  their  speed,  the  seamanship,  and  the 
man-handling  propensities  of  their  officers,  and  the 
"  toughness  "  of  their  crews,  which  made  ability  to 
render  a  good  account  of  himself  in  a  "  rough  house  " 
a  sine  qua  non  in  a  packet-ship  skipper  or  mate. 

References  to  the  old  Black  Ball  Line  abound  in 
the  old  Western  Ocean  shanties.  Says  the  damsel 
in  "  Can't  You  Dance  the  Polka  ?  "— 

My  fancy  man's  a  sailor 

With  his  hair  cut  short  behind. 
He  wears  a  tarry  jumper, 

And  he  sails  in  the  Black  Ball  Line. 


116  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

And  again,  in    one  version  of    "  Tom's  Gone   to 
Hilo"— 

Yankee  sailors  you'll  see  there 

With  long  seaboots  and  short-cut  hair. 

The  long  seaboots  (or  "  red  topboots  "  as  one  version 
puts  it)  seem  to  have  been  a  distinctive  part  of 
"  Yankee  John's"  rig  in  the  packet-ship  days,  and 
the  "  neck  shave  "  must  have  also  been  popular 
in  America  even  so  long  ago,  to  judge  by  the  shanty- 
man's  frequent  references  to  "  short-cut  hair." 
"  I  know  you're  a  Black  Bailer  by  the  cut  of  your 
hair,"  says  the  pohceman  to  the  sailor  in  one  of 
the  many  versions  of  "  Blow  the  Man  Down." 

In  the  days  of  the  packet  ships  nearly  all  the 
Liverpool  hues  were  American-built  and  owned. 
The  Swallowtail  was  another  well-known  line, 
which  we  find  mentioned  in  conjunction  with  the 
Black  BaU  Line  in  the  concluding  stanza  of  the 
old  sea  ballad  celebrating  the  exploits  of  the  famous 
"  Dreadnought."  This  story  contains  so  many 
local  Liverpool  references  that  it  may  be  of  interest 
to  quote  a  few  of  its  many  stanzas  : 

There  is  a  flash  packet — flash  packet  of  fame, 
She  belongs  to  New  York  and  the  Dreadnought's  her  name ; 
Bound  away  to  the  westward  where  the  wild  waters  flow. 
She's  a  Liverpool  packet — oh,  Lord,  let  her  go  I 

Oh,  the  Dreadnought's  a-hauling  out  of  Waterloo  Dock, 
Where  the  boys  and  the  girls  on  the  pierhead  do  flock. 
They  will  give  us  three  cheers  while  the  tears  freely  flow, 
Saying  :   "  God  bless  the  Dreadnought  where'er  she  may  go." 

Oh,  the  Dreadnought  is  waiting  in  the  Mersey  so  free 
For  the  Independence  to  tow  her  to  sea, 
For  to  round  that  Rock  Light  where  the  Mersey  does  flow — 
Bound  away  to  the  westward  in  the  Dreadnought  we'll  go. 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  117 

Now  the  Dreadnought's  a-howling  down  the  wild  Irish  Sea, 
Her  passengers  merry  with  hearts  full  of  glee, 
Her  sailors  like  lions  walk  the  decks  to  and  fro — 
She's  the  Liverpool  packet — oh.  Lord,  let  her  go  ! 


Then  a  health  to  the  Dreadnought  and  to  her  brave  crew. 
To  brave  Captain  Samuels  and  his  officers  too, 
Talk  about  your  flash  packets,  Swallowtail  and  Black  Ball, 
The  Dreadnought's  the  flier  that  can  lick  them  all  1 

The  song  goes  to  one  of  those  regular  droning 
"  conie-all-ye  "  tunes  that  the  old-fashioned  shell- 
back loved  to  sing — very  much  through  his  nose, 
through  an  interminable  succession  of  verses,  varied 
according  to  the  individual  performer's  fancy  with 
grace  notes  and  quavers  and  "  twiddley  bits  "  to 
taste. 

The  American  Black  Bailers  had  a  large  black  ball 
painted  on  the  fore-topsail,  the  "  Dreadnought "  a  red 
cross,  and  another  line,  the  "  Dramatic,"  whose 
ships  were  called  after  Sheridan  and  similar  cele- 
brities, a  black  cross.  The  "  Dreadnought "  was 
undoubtedly  a  very  fast  ship  ;  but  many  authorities 
have  questioned  the  accuracy  of  her  "  record " 
passage  from  Sandy  Hook  to  Liverpool. 

*  *  *  ♦  * 

But  the  Black  Ball  Line,  which  was  Liverpool's 
special  glory,  was  a  different  concern  altogether. 
Founded  in  the  eighteen-fifties  by  James  Baines, 
the  son  of  a  Liverpool  confectioner,  it  rapidly 
became  one  of  the  most  famous  lines  of  saihng 
vessels,  not  only  in  Liverpool,  but  in  the  world. 
The  exploits  of  the  Black  Bailers,  and  of  their  rivals 
the  equally  famous  White  Star  clippers,  were  told 
and  sung  wherever  sailors  met  together  in  the  ports 
of  the  seven  seas. 


118  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

The  career  of  James  Baines,  the  founder  of  the 
Black  Ball  Line,  would  provide  a  wonderful  theme 
for  the  novelist's  pen.  Starting,  as  has  just  been 
said,  from  humble  beginnings,  he  had  established 
himself  by  the  time  he  was  thirty  as  one  of 
Liverpool's  leading  shipowners.  He  seems,  indeed, 
to  have  been  a  man  gifted  with  something  not  far 
short  of  genius,  as  well  as  with  certain  of  the 
faults  and  foibles  usually  associated  with  genius. 
His  portrait  shows  a  florid-looking  man — one  may 
hazard  the  guess  that  he  was  a  decidedly  "  ginger  " 
man — with  the  whiskers  proper  to  the  period,  and 
rather  profuse  fuzzy  hair  with  a  "  kink  "  in  it.  A 
rather  dandified-looking  man,  on  the  whole,  but  with 
heavy  pouches  under  the  eyes  that  hint  at  burning 
the  candle  at  both  ends.  A  nervous,  highly-strung 
fellow,  "  hung  on  strings,"  as  the  saying  goes ; 
and  with  the  capacity  to  make  either  a  big  success 
of  life  or  a  big  failure,  but  never  to  take  the 
comfortable,  safe  middle  course. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  made  both  ;  for,  after 
having  owned  a  fleet  not  far  short  of  a  hundred 
ships,  and  ordered  ships  from  the  foremost  builders 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  he  died  at  last  in 
very  low  water  indeed.  His  face  suggests  the 
vanity  which  was  undoubtedly  one  of  his  strongly 
marked  failings,  which  showed  itself  in  having  his 
finest  ship  named  after  himself  and  adorned  with 
his  own  bust  by  way  of  a  figurehead  ...  a  sanguine 
sort  of  man,  whose  optimism  might  lead  him  to 
success  or  betray  him  to  disaster. 

One  quality  he  most  certainly  had  was  a  wonderful 
flair  for  a  ship.  The  first  of  the  famous  Black 
Bailers  was  the  celebrated  "  Marco  Polo,"  one  of 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  119 

those  remarkable  vessels  like  the  old  "  Tweed," 
whose  turn  of  speed  is  hard  to  account  for.  She 
does  not  look  in  the  least  like  a  flier,  to  judge  by 
the  pictures  of  her ;  a  heavy,  square-looking, 
broad-beamed  ship,  much  more  of  the  old  Indiaman 
type  than  that  of  the  extreme  clippers  just  beginning 
to  come  in. 

The  wave  which  lifted  James  Baines  and  his 
ships  to  fame  and  fortune  was  the  great  rush  of 
emigrants  to  the  Australian  goldfields.  The  small 
slow  vessels  which  had  hitherto  sufficed  for  the 
needs  of  the  Colonial  trade  proved  quite  inadequate 
to  cope  with  the  new  conditions  ;  and  for  various 
reasons  British  shipowners  sought  new  tonnage 
across  the  Atlantic.  For  one  thing,  the  ships  were 
wanted  in  a  hurry,  and  American  ships  were  built 
more  quickly  and  more  cheaply  than  British  ones. 
But  above  all  the  demand  was  for  fast  ships,  such 
as  those  which  the  Down-east  and  Nova  Scotian 
yards  had  already  been  turning  out  with  such 
notable  success  to  meet  the  similar  situation 
created  by  the  Califomian  gold  rush. 

The  "  Marco  Polo  "  was  not  specially  built  for 
speed,  being  a  Quebec-built  timber  ship.  But  fast 
she  was — probably  her  underwater  lines  were  finer 
than  her  picture  would  seem  to  suggest.  Under 
her  famous  captain  "  Bully  "  Forbes  she  made  such 
notable  passages  that  James  Baines  soon  began  to 
spread  his  legs  wider,  and  he  presently  commissioned 
Donald  Mackay,  the  famous  designer  and  builder 
of  clippers,  to  build  for  him  four  new  ships  calculated 
to  "  lick  creation."  These  four  ships — "  James 
Baines,"  "  Lightning,"  "  Donald  Mackay,"  and 
"  Champion    of    the    Seas " — were    amongst    the 


120  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

fastest  ships  ever  built,  and  although  every  stick 
of  them  has  long  since  vanished,  their  memory  is 
still  cherished  in  the  tradition  of  the  days  of  sail. 

Mr.  John  Masefield,  in  his  "  Sailor's  Garland," 
gives  a  version  of  the  Black  Ball  Line  shanty  which 
reads  like  a  modernized  one.  To  begin  with,  it 
is  a  combination  of  two  distinct  shanties,  "  The 
Black  Ball  Line  "  and  the  "  Banks  of  Sacramento," 
the  latter  going  to  the  well-known  Christy  Minstrel 
tune,  "  Camptown  Races."  Most  people  describe 
it  as  being  derived  from  the  last-named  song,  but 
as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  a  question  which  of  the  two 
is  the  older.  "  The  Banks  of  Sacramento  "  certainly 
dates  from  the  late  'forties  or  early  'fifties  ;  whether 
"  Camptown  Races "  came  earlier  than  that  I 
cannot  say,  but  I  should  doubt  it.  , 

But  to  return  to  Mr.  Masefield's  shanty — the 
words  run : 

From  Limehouse  Docks  to  Sydney  Heads, 
We  were  never  more  than  seventy  days, 

which  is  very  unlikely  to  refer  to  the  Black  Ball 
Line,  since  only  one  or  two  of  the  Black  Bailers 
ever  sailed  from  London,  and  that  was  not  to 
Sydney,  but  to  Brisbane,  during  the  rush  to  that 
port  in  the  'sixties,  while  the  passages  they  made 
were  over  a  hundred  days.  I  should  think  Mr. 
Masefield's  shantyman  must  have  been  confusing 
the  Black  Bailers  with  the  Blackwallers,  as  the 
latter  of  course  always  sailed  from  London,  and 
generally  to  Sydney.  But  the  reference  to  the 
seventy  days'  passage  may  very  well  come  from 
the  original  Black  Ball  song,  since  the  line's  Post 
Office  contract  guaranteed  the  landing  of  the  mails 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  121 

in  sixty-five  days,  with  a  penalty  of  a  hundred 
pounds  for  each  day  in  excess  of  that  time. 

Both  the  "  Lightning  "  and  the  "  James  Baines  " 
met  their  end  by  fire  :  the  former  off  Geelong  Pier 
and  the  latter  in  the  Huskisson  Dock  in  1858. 
She  continued,  however,  to  serve  a  useful  purpose 
for  many  years,  for  her  hull  formed  part  of  the  old 
Prince's  Landing  Stage  until  that  also  was  destroyed 
by  fire  in  1874.  "  James  Baines  "  must  have  been 
launched  under  a  fiery  star. 

Captain  "  Bully  "  Forbes  of  the  "  Marco  Polo  " 
was  a  well-known  Liverpool  figure  in  the  days  of 
the  Black  Bailers.  He,  like  James  Baines  himself, 
was  a  bit  of  a  soldier  of  fortune,  and  had  many  of 
the  characteristics  of  the  type.  He  liked  to  be  in  the 
limelight,  and  was  something  of  a  poseur  in  his  way ; 
but  for  all  that  he  must  have  been  a  magnificent 
seaman,  daring  and  reckless  to  a  fault.  Probably 
all  the  feting  he  got  in  Liverpool  went  to  his  head  ; 
at  any  rate,  he  lost  the  Black  Bailer  "  Schomberg  " 
on  her  maiden  voyage,  and  from  that  time  his  sun 
began  to  set.  He  died — a  broken  and  disappointed 
man — when  he  was  still  comparatively  young. 

By  the  way,  the  epithet  "  Bully  "  which  is  found 
in  conjunction  with  the  names  of  a  good  many 
well-known  captains  does  not  necessarily  imply 
anything  discreditable.  It  may,  indeed,  on  the 
contrary,  suggest  a  note,  however  grudging,  of 
admiration.  True,  one  might  fairly  conclude  that 
a  person  who  was  popularly  known  as  "  BuUy^" 
this,  that,  or  the  other  would  be  more  or  less  of  a 
"  tough  nut  " — sometimes  (as  in  the  case  of  the 
famous  Bully  Waterman)  decidedly  more  rather  than 
less  ;  but  that  is  all  it  amounts  to.   "  Bully  "  was,  of 


122  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

course,  quite  a  frequent  expression  in  the  shanties, 
as,  for  instance,  "  Blow,  boys,  bully  boys,  blow  " — 
and  that  brings  us  to  the  consideration  of  the 
"  bucko  "  officer  and  the  arguments  for  and  against 
him. 

*  *  *  Hf  * 

There  is  one  Hne  of  the  song  in  praise  of  the 
"  Dreadnought  "  which  is  emphatically  incorrect — 
namely,  that  which  asserts  how  "  her  sailors  like 
lions  walk  the  decks  to  and  fro  " — which  they  most 
assuredly  never  did,  unless  the  "  Dreadnought  " 
was  a  very  different  proposition  from  the  usual  run 
of  Western  Ocean  "  blood-boats."  The  greater 
part  of  a  crew  of  packet -rats  on  the  first  day  out 
would  not  have  recovered  themselves  sufiiciently 
to  walk  the  deck  like  Hons  or  anything  else  by  the 
time  the  "  Dreadnought  "  was  "  a-howling  down 
the  wild  Irish  Sea."  Brought  on  board  drugged 
or  drunk,  with  nothing  but  the  clothes  they  stood 
up  in  to  protect  them  from  the  bitter  North  Atlantic 
weather — mental  and  bodily  wrecks  after  a  pro- 
longed course  of  the  delights  of  Paradise  Street 
and  Playhouse  Square — their  spirits  further  cowed 
by  an  impartial  hammering  administered  all  round 
by  the  "  blowers  and  strikers,"  as  the  mates  were 
facetiously  termed — it  would  be  a  sick,  sorry,  and 
subdued  crowd  that  tailed  on  to  sheet  or  halyard 
with  hardly  enough  life  among  them  to  Hft  a 
Western  Ocean  shanty. 

It  is  one  of  the  paradoxes  of  sea  history  that  the 
ships  of  a  nation  which  prides  itself  ashore  on  its 
devotion  to  democratic  ideals  should  have  earned 
an  ocean-wide  notoriety  for  the  rough  handling 
sailors    received    aboard    them.     What    was    the 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  123 

reason  for  the  man-handling  habits  of  the  Down-east 
or  Bkie-nose  skippers  and  mates  ?  It  is  hard  to 
say.  Perhaps  the  souring  effects  of  successive 
generations  of  Puritanical  upbringing  may  have 
had  something  to  do  with  it.  A  Puritanical 
tradition  undoubtedly  encourages  both  a  tyrannical 
habit  of  mind  and  a  tendency  to  give  other  people 
"  small  Hell."  Perhaps  too  the  conditions  of  the 
Atlantic  packet  service  tended  to  create  a  form  of 
discipline  enforced  by  the  knuckle-duster  and 
marhne-spike  form  of  argument.  And  the  worst 
of  such  a  tradition  is  that — once  estabUshed — you 
have  to  go  on  with  it.  The  resiilt  of  the  rule  of 
the  American  bucko  was  that  no  man  would  ship 
before  the  mast  in  American  vessels  but  thorough- 
going "  hard  cases  "  who  knew  what  to  expect — 
and  generally  got  it.  Such  men  would  only  regard 
as  a  fool  or  a  coward  anyone  who  attempted  to 
treat  them  like  reasonable  beings,  but  they  soon 
learned  to  respect  a  hard  hitter  and  a  good  seaman. 

The  tradition  of  rough  usage  in  American  ships 
did  not  die  out  with  the  packets  and  chpper  ships. 
Readers  of  Mr.  Morley  Roberts'  diverting  yam, 
"  The  Promotion  of  the  Admiral,"  may  be  assured 
that  the  living  counterparts  of  Captain  Blaker  and 
his  tough-nut  mates  might  be  found  in  ships  saihng 
out  of  'Frisco  in  the  palmy  days  of  the  grain  fleet 
less  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago. 

The  "  Philadelphia  Catechism  "  quoted  by  R.  H. 
Dana  in  "  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast  " — 

Six  days  shalt  thou  labour  and  do  all  thou  art  able, 

And  on  the  seventh  holystone  the  decks  and  scrape  the  cable, 

continued  to  be  the  guiding  principle  of  the  American 


124  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

sailing-ship  officer.  American  ships  were  famous  for 
their  snow-white  decks  and  ghstening  brass  and 
paintwork,  but  all  these  glories  were  not  bought 
for  nothing.  They  meant  endless  driving  by  hard- 
fisted  mates,  ever  ready  with  fist  or  marhne-spike 
or  belaying  pin,  or  a  well-aimed  kick  from  a 
sea-booted  foot,  who  thought  nothing  of  depriving 
the  watch  below  of  their  few  hours'  rest  in  order 
to  put  an  extra  finish  on  the  gleaming  whiteness  of 
the  deck.  They  were  fair  to  look  upon,  but  in 
nine  cases  out  of  ten  they  were  heU  to  those  who 
sailed  in  them. 

Some  terrible  tales  are  on  record  of  certain 
Yankee  skippers.  The  celebrated  Bully  Waterman 
is  said  to  have  had  a  man  who  had  faUen  from  aloft 
stitched  up  in  a  bolt  of  sail  and  thrown  overboard 
before  the  breath  was  out  of  his  body,  and  whether 
this  and  many  similar  tales  are  true  or  false,  there 
seems  to  be  a  pretty  fair  consensus  of  opinion  that 
Waterman  was  a  very  hard  case  indeed. 

A  recent  writer  in  the  "  Nautical  Magazine " 
quotes  Captain  Clarke's  book  on  "  The  Chpper 
Ship  Era "  in  Captain  Waterman's  favour,  and 
cites  the  portrait  given  there  of  the  famous  bucko 
in  support  of  his  plea.  "  The  face,"  he  says, 
"  shows  a  striking  resemblance  to  the  portraits  of 
Disraeli !  "  For  my  own  part  I  can  trace  no  such 
likeness.  If  it  is  like  anyone,  it  is  like  a  Velasquez 
portrait  of  Philip  of  Spain.  It  is  a  face  striking 
and  unusual,  but  terrible.  Arrogance  and  cruelty 
seem  indicated  in  every  line  of  the  nose  and  jaw, 
and  the  cold,  cruel  mouth,  with  its  full  under-lip 

But  there  is  a  reverse  side  to  the  medal.  The 
haphazard  way  in  which  the  crews  of  merchant 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  125 

ships  had  to  be  recruited  very  often  made  the 
navigator's  lot,  Uke  the  poHceman's,  "  not  a  happy 
one."  And  since  a  ship,  once  she  is  at  sea,  has  to 
be  sailed  somehow,  it  is  hardly  to  be  wondered  at 
that  the  sorely  exasperated  officer  of  the  watch  in 
British  and  American  ships  alike  sometimes  lost 
patience  with  his  unhandy  crowd,  and  let  fly  with 
his  fists. 

Stories  strange  but  true  are  told  of  the  methods 
employed  by  some  of  the  Paradise  Street  boarding- 
house  masters  in  order  to  provide  credentials  for 
would-be  sailors  anxious  to  get  a  free  passage  out 
to  the  goldfields.  A  line  was  drawn  across  the 
floor,  over  which  the  candidate  was  called  upon 
to  walk  a  stated  number  of  times,  and  a  cow's  horn 
was  placed  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  which  he 
then  solemnly  circumnavigated.  The  boarding-house 
master  was  then  able  to  swear  without  perjuring 
himself  in  the  letter,  that  he  had  a  prime  seaman 
available  who,  to  his  personal  knowledge,  had 
crossed  the  Line  twenty  times  and  rounded  the 
Horn  a  dozen.  Moreover,  most  crews  contained 
a  certain  number  of  men  of  the  sea-lawyer  type 
who  might  be  expected,  as  soon  as  they  touched 
land,  to  work  up  a  well-merited  hiding  into  a  case 
of  gross  ill-treatment  of  an  industrious  and  blameless 
mariner. 

The  bucko  officers  were,  beyond  a  doubt,  magni- 
ficent seamen.  In  their  big,  slashing  chppers  they 
cracked  on  to  glory  as  few  men  have  done  before 
or  since,  and  when  our  own  China  clippers  wrested 
from  them  the  palm  of  speed  it  was  from  rivals 
worthy  of  their  steel,  Enghsh  officers  who  have 
been  through  the  mill  of  the  American  saihng  ship 


126  SAILOR  TO^^^  DAYS 

may  fairly  claim  to  have  proved  their  mettle  by 
having  been  obhged  to  hold  their  own  in  a  free 
fight  with  the  crew  several  times  a  week. 

I  wonder  what  some  of  the  real  old  Yankee 
buckos  would  have  said  to  the  ready-made  officers 
who  were  being  turned  out  recently  to  man 
America's  new  merchant  fleet.  The  tale  is  told 
that  a  Liverpool  pilot,  bringing  in  an  American 
ship,  asked  the  officer  of  the  watch  to  give  him  an 
azimuth.  "  Sure,"  said  the  obhging  officer,  and 
promptly  vanished,  to  reappear  shortly  with  the 
information :  "  Sorry,  Pilot,  but  the  stoo-ard 
cain't  mix  one  of  those !  " 


I  have  before  me  a  shabby  manuscript  book 
which  contains  an  unofficial  ship's  newspaper  of 
which  an  uncle  of  the  present  writer  was  editor 
during  the  passage  of  the  Black  Bailer,  "  Young 
Australia,"  to  Moreton  Bay  in  1864.  A  few  quota- 
tions from  its  pages  may  be  of  interest  here,  though, 
strictly  speaking,  although  a  Liverpool  ship,  the 
"  Young  Austraha  "  on  this  occasion  sailed  from 
London. 

The  "  Young  Australia  "  he  describes  as  a  "  beauti- 
fully modelled  cHpper  with  lofty  sails  and  admirably 
adapted  for  speed.  The  captain  we  found  to  be 
agreeable  and  wishful  to  make  all  on  board  com- 
fortable ;  the  crew  are  picked  men,  no  lubbers 
amongst  them,  but  we  could  do  with  a  rather  larger 
complement  of  hands.  With  regard  to  the  pas- 
sengers, who  number  two  hundred  and  eighty-six, 
there  are  amongst  them  a  fine  lot  of  handsome 
young  fellows  and  a  few  pretty  girls,  many  of  whom 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  127 

are  from  Ireland."  The  number  of  passengers,  by 
the  way,  was  soon  increased,  for  we  read  of  the 
birth  of  a  fine  boy  on  the  second  day  out.  "  The 
ship  left  Gravesend  in  a  drizzhng  rain,  enough  to 
give  any  poor  emigrant  the  horrors.  ...  In 
consequence  of  the  wet,  sou'westers  and  oilskin 
coats  were  quite  the  rage,  and  crinoUnes  were  put 
aside  for  future  wear.  All  seemed  incUned  to  be 
joUy  under  every  circumstance,  and  there  was  none 
of  that  weeping  and  moping  amongst  the  female 
passengers  that  might  have  been  expected.  In 
the  evening  we  were  regaled  by  the  pleasing  and 
melodious  strains  of  concertina,  cornopean,  flute, 
and  fiddle,  all  playing  different  tunes  simultaneously 
— and  the  well-known  airs  of  '  Rule  Britannia,' 
'  Limerick  Races,'  the  '  Old  Hundredth,'  and 
*  Dixie's  Land  '  were  dehghtfuUy  blended  into  one 
harmonious  whole." 

On  May  14th,  after  a  brief  stay  at  Plymouth,  to 
take  on  more  passengers,  "  we  were  all  mustered 
on  the  poop,  and  the  roll  was  called,  and  at  eight  in 
the  evening  a  tug  was  signalled  for,  and  away  we 
went  Southward  Ho  1  .  .  .  Cheer  after  cheer  from  our 
crew,  taken  up  by  the  sailors  in  the  other  vessels, 
announced  the  fact  that  we  were  at  last  leaving  our 
beloved  country  for  a  distant  home.  ...  On 
Sunday,  our  fat  little  doctor  held  Divine  Service 
on  the  poop,  being  converted  for  the  time  being 
into  an  equally  fat  httle  parson." 

The  shortage  of  hands  already  referred  to  was 
remedied  according  to  the  usual  custom  on  board 
emigrant  cHppers  by  the  enrolment  of  about  a  dozen 
volunteers  from  among  the  passengers,  who,  says 
the  candid  chronicler,  "  commenced  their  duties  with 


128  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

vigour ;  in  many  cases,  however,  their  zeal  wore 
off  with  the  novelty,  though  we  are  glad  to  state 
that  there  are  honourable  exceptions  to  this." 

"  We  passed  ships,"  he  observes,  "  almost  every 
day,  none  of  them  being  able  to  keep  up  with  our 
vessel,  of  whose  saihng  powers  we  had  all  grown 
proud.  Singular  to  relate,  all  that  we  signalled 
were  sailing  under  the  British  flag,  being  a  grand 
proof  of  the  greatness  of  our  commercial  enterprise, 
which  sets  its  sails  to  every  wind  that  blows,  and 
sends  the  blessings  of  civiUzation  to  every  nation 
on  the  face  of  the  globe." 

An  interesting  account  of  the  second  cabin 
accommodation  appears  under  the  heading,  "  Our 
Office." 

"  The  interior  [we  learn]  is  about  the  same  size 
and  shape  as  a  Brighton  bathing  van.  On  one 
side  are  two  shelves  about  six  feet  by  two,  intended 
as  altars  dedicated  to  Somnus,  on  which  are  nightly 
immolated  the  forms  of  our  literary  and  pictorial 
editors.  Boxes  are  stowed  away  in  every  available 
comer,  while  a  large  one  is  lashed  up  at  the  end, 
and  forms  a  swinging  desk.  As  we  have  neither 
deadhght  nor  porthole,  '  no  Hght  but  rather  dark- 
ness visible  '  is  our  natural  portion,  so  that  we  have 
to  bum  candles  whenever  we  write,  even  at  midday. 
Overhead  is  a  mosaic  of  tins  and  hams,  pots  and 
pans,  which  of  course  are  a  great  assistance  to 
thought ;  the  sides  are  decorated  with  a  graceful 
variety  of  clothing,  whilst  a  beautiful  picture  and 
looking-glass  form  a  capital  set-off  to  the 
whole." 

As  regards  food  conditions,  these  were  very 
different Jrom  those  which  even  steerage  passengers 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  129 

demand  at  the   present   time,  for   we  read   under 
the  heading,  "  How  we  Dine  "  : — 

"  Let  a  person  who  has  never  ventured  on  a  long 
voyage  .  .  .  picture  to  himself  the  feelings  of  a  newly- 
fledged  second-cabin  passenger  on  board  an  emigrant 
ship  when  the  inward  monitor  begins  to  make  its 
wants  manifest.  For  some  time  the  too  sensitive 
stomach  of  the  transformed  landsman  revolts  at 
the  bare  thought  of  the  salt  pork,  salt  junk,  salt 
fish,  and  salt  everything  on  which  he  is  now  obliged 
to  regale  himself.  After  a  week  or  two  he  looks 
with  a  wistful  eye  at  the  ship's  butcher,  as  that 
functionary  brings  out  the  sheep  and  pigs  to 
slaughter  for  the  use  of  the  first  cabin,  and  when 
'  three  bells  '  tells  him  it  is  dinner  time  he  turns 
listlessly  towards  the  mess-room.  .  .  .  After  pro- 
viding himself  with  knife,  fork,  and  spoon,  he  sits 
down  on  a  precarious  form  that  groans  under  his 
weight,  and  there  awaits  the  pleasure  of  the  cooks 
and  stewards.  Presently,  the  stewards  appear 
with  soup  or  bouilli  as  the  first  course,  the  curious 
appearance  of  which  is  only  equalled  by  its  re- 
markable flavour.  Same  plates  serve  for  course 
number  two,  which  consists  of  salt  junk,  out  of 
which  we  have  serious  ideas  of  making  a  pair  of 
thick  seaboots." 

Carving  models  out  of  salt  pork  was  quite  a 
favourite  diversion  among  old-fashioned  salts  of 
a  facetious  turn  of  mind,  and  I  believe  one  of  the 
Paradise  Street  hostelries  used  to  display  an  example 
of  this  form  of  marine  art.  And  while  on  this 
subject,  reference  may  be  made  to  another  noted 
Liverpool  product,  namely,  the  Liverpool  "  pan- 
tile," which  is  no  relation  to  the  Tunbridge  Wells 

9 


130  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

variety,  but  is  simply  the  special  brand  of  "  hard 
tack  "  supplied  to  ships  saiHng  out  of  Liverpool. 
The  Liverpool  pantile  is  famed  above  all  its  kind 
for  its  surpassing  hardness,  and  many  a  seaman's 
best  tooth  has  gone  "  west  "  in  the  process  of 
tackling  it. 

"  Our  Live  Stock  "  forms  the  subject  of  another 
article.  "  The  stock  farm  on  board,  consisting  of 
pigs,  sheep  and  poultry,  is,  or  rather  has  been, 
quite  an  institution  ;  we  say  has  been,  for  as  two 
or  three  deaths  have  happened  every  week,  whilst 
only  one  birth — and  that  unexpected — has  occurred 
during  the  whole  voyage,  we  have  had  in  our  own 
case  familiar  experience  of  the  old  saying,  '  Always 
taking  out  of  the  mealtub  and  never  putting  in 
soon  comes  to  the  bottom,'  for  the  miserable  speci- 
mens still  remaining  are  few  in  number.  At  the 
commencement  of  the  voyage  the  sheep  seemed 
pretty  lively  in  their  pens,  probably  owing  to  their 
being  in  the  vicinity  of  the  roystering  blades  who 
used  the  roof  of  their  humble  abode  for  a  variety 
of  purposes — for  card-playing,  reading,  etc.,  during 
the  day,  and  as  a  dormitory  by  night  whilst  we  were 
passing  through  the  heat  of  the  Tropics.  The 
poultry  and  ducks  had  a  pen  of  much  smaller 
dimensions,  from  which  they  looked  out  in  a  dis- 
consolate manner — protruding  their  heads  through 
the  lattice-work  in  front,  they  raised  their  voices 
as  if  in  protest  against  the  hard  usage  they  were 
receiving.  Notwithstanding  their  being  cooped  up 
so  closely  that  it  seemed  almost  impossible  to  stir, 
we  are  credibly  informed  they  found  room  to  lay 
several  eggs  during  their  confinement. 

"  Under  the  forecastle  is  situated  the  pigsty. 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  131 

containing  a  goodly  number  of  fine  young  grunters, 
which,  in  accordance  with  their  usual  habit,  keep  all 
alive  with  their  shrill  tones  of  joy  at  feeding-time, 
and  which  seem  to  thrive  well  under  the  able 
management  of  the  butcher  and  his  satellite,  the 
well-known  Jemmy  Ducks,  whose  place  we  should 
say  ought  decidedly  to  be  among  the  fowls." 

Here  it  may  be  observed  that  nautical  pigs  are 
invariably  known  as  Dennis — hence  the  phrase, 
"  If  you  do  such  and  such  a  thing  (hold  on  to  the 
rathnes,  for  instance,  and  strike  a  rotten  one) ,  your 
name's  Dennis," — signifying,  of  course,  that  your 
fate  will  be  similar  to  that  which  awaits  the  denizen 
of  the  sty. 

Speaking  of  animals  on  board  ship,  I  once  knew 
a  ship's  dog  in  Victoria  which  had  never  been 
ashore  for  eight  years.  Apparently  he  had  a  true 
shellback's  distrust  of  landsmen  ;  but,  unhke  most 
shellbacks,  he  carried  it  into  practical  effect.  He 
had  been  lost  when  ashore  as  a  puppy,  and  the 
lesson  had  gone  home.  How  many  humans,  I 
wonder,  could  thus  profit  by  experience  ? 

The  skipper  of  the  "  Young  Australia  "  seems  to 
have  lived  up  to  the  Black  Ball  tradition  as  regards 
"  cracking  on,"  for  we  read  of  a  good  many  topsails 
and  to'ga'n's'ls  being  blown  to  shreds  in  the  high 
south  latitudes,  and  the  ship  made  some  good  runs, 
one  of  330  miles  in  twenty-four  hours,  which  was 
pretty  good  going,  especially  for  an  American 
soft-wood  ship  which  had  seen  several  years'  service. 
Like  a  good  many  of  the  chppers,  she  gave  her 
passengers  rather  a  bad  time,  cabins  being  flooded 
out  over  and  over  again.  In  bad  weather,  "  char- 
coal   was    burnt    between    decks    to    purify    the 


132  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

atmosphere,  it  being  exceedingly  close.  ...  As 
the  hatchways  were  closed  the  atmosphere  was 
stifling  below,  so  enveloping  themselves  in 
waterproof  garments  of  all  shapes,  colours  and 
descriptions,  the  nether  members  being  protected 
by  leggings  and  seaboots,  most  of  the  male  passen- 
gers sallied  out  on  deck,  resolved  rather  to  brave 
the  storm  than  get  almost  smothered  below." 

One  other  point  alluded  to  is  so  characteristic 
of  the  wooden  ship  that  the  reference  deserves 
quotation — that  is,  pumping  ship.  With  the  coming 
of  the  iron  ship  this  everyday  process  became  more 
or  less  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  also  a  good  many  of 
the  shanties  specially  connected  with  it.  "  During 
the  day,"  says  our  chronicler,  "  we  hear  numerous 
odds  and  ends  of  sea  ditties,  but  to  get  at  the  full 
tide  of  sailors'  song  we  must  wait  till  the  order  to 
'  pump  ship  '  is  given.  This  important  duty  is 
performed  at  least  daily  on  board  the  '  Young 
Australia.'  Towards  the  witching  hour  of  night 
the  wild  concert  generally  begins,  and  all  the  musical 
talent  on  board  is  brought  out  for  the  occasion. 
The  ropes  are  seized  by  stalwart  arms  and  pumping 
ship  commences  in  earnest.  The  conductor  for  the 
night,  generally  a  tall  thin  man  with  a  loud  voice 
and  a  large  collection  of  songs,  begins  the  solo,  and 
the  men  who  are  working  vigorously  at  the  pump 
join  with  all  their  might  and  main  in  the  spirited 
chorus.  We  might  mention  as  peculiar  amongst 
the  other  strange  songs  which  we  nightly  hear,  one 
which  we  think  must  be  called  '  Pat's  Apprentice- 
ship,' as  it  goes  through  the  history  of  a  number  of 
years  during  which  '  poor  Paddy  works  on  the 
railway.'     What   becomes   of   him   eventually   we 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  133 

have  not  yet  been  able  to  discover,  but  we  suppose 
that  the  hne  is  not  yet  finished." 

Elsewhere  appears  a  note  expressing  a  wish  that 
someone  would  note  down  the  words  and  airs  of 
some  of  the  shanties  used  on  board.  The  word, 
"  shanty,"  by  the  way,  does  not  appear.  If  anyone 
had  done  so  the  result  would  have  been  an  invaluable 
record,  for  shantying  was  at  its  best  in  such  ships 
as  the  Colonial  passenger  clippers. 

We  may  aptly  take  leave  of  the  "  Young 
Australia  "  with  the  following  lyrical  outburst  : — 

To  THE  "  Young  Australia." 

Here's  a  song  to  our  craft. 
To  our  gallant  little  craft. 

Which  sails  o'er  the  waters  blue, 
For  she  sets  her  sails 
To  the  favouring  gales, 

And  answers  her  helm  so  true. 

Here's  a  song  and  "  Hooray  " 
To  the  gallant  Captain  Grey, 

Who  commands  this  craft  so  well. 
For  in  spirit  and  skill 
And  hearty  good  will 

He  bears  away  the  bell. 

Here's  a  song  to  the  crew. 
To  the  volunteers  too. 

In  friendship  may  all  combine. 
And  now  we'll  end  our  lay 
With  a  stout  "  Hip-hip-hurray  " 

For  the  bonnie  Black  Ball  Line  ! 


Fashionable  and  commercial  Liverpool  prides 
itself  upon  its  Bold  Street  and  Lord  Street,  with 
their  shops  which,  local  patriotism  declares, 
challenge  comparison  with  London's  ;  upon  its  Art 
Gallery  and  its  St.  George's  Hall,  upon  James  Street 


134  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

and  its  huge  shipping  offices,  and  its  great  new  docks, 
Gladstone  and  Canada  Graving  Dock,  with  their 
wonderful  up-to-date  machinery. 

But  it  is  in  Paradise  Street  that  you  must  seek 
for  the  key  to  Liverpool's  modem  greatness.  It 
is  in  the  old  saihng-ship  docks,  the  Salthouse, 
King's,  and  Queen's,  Albert,  Canning,  Wapping, 
and  the  rest — that  you  will  find  the  ghosts  of  her 
past.  It  is  there,  in  those  quiet  old  dock  basins 
with  their  ranges  of  low,  old  buildings,  and  their 
bollards  which  have  been  worn  like  old  stone 
altars  by  the  frettings  of  the  mooring-ropes  of  so 
many  pilgrim  ships,  that  aU  these  old  Liverpool 
memories  seem  to  gather  and  hover,  Hke  the  sea- 
gulls that  for  ever  hover  and  pipe  about  the  dock 
sheds  and  the  shipping. 

Paradise  Street  is  an  ordinary,  unbeautiful 
thoroughfare  nowadays,  even  though,  Hke  Ratcliff 
Highway,  it  has  left  its  wild  and  rumbustious  past 
behind.  It  has  no  architectural  beauties  unless  it 
be  its  Sailors'  Home  ;  and  anything  it  may  ever  have 
possessed  in  the  way  of  a  disreputable  quaintness 
seems  to  have  passed  away  with  its  unregenerate 
days. 

But  it  has  had  in  its  day  and  its  way  a  fame  as 
wide  as  any  street  in  the  world.  Its  name  has  been 
heard  on  all  the  winds  that  blow.  It  has  broken 
the  stately  silence  of  the  dawn  on  still,  tropic 
seas.  It  has  mingled  with  the  strong  thrumming 
of  the  Trades  in  sail  and  shroud,  and,  snatched 
from  the  lips  of  weary,  striving,  breathless  yet  still 
undaunted  men,  it  has  added  for  a  moment  its 
puny  note  to  the  roar  of  the  stormy  Westerhes.  It 
has    rung    across    the    lonehest    anchorages,    the 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  135 

remotest  harbours  ;  mat-thatched  Malayan  villages 
have  heard  it,  and  still,  palm-ringed  lagoons,  and 
the  huddled  flat  roofs  of  "  rose-red  cities  half  as  old 
as  Time." 

It  is  a  rough,  wild,  haunting  old  melody,  that  of 
the  "  hoisting  "  or  "  halyard  "  shanty  of  "  Blow 
the  Man  Down,"  which  ought  to  be  the  civic 
anthem  of  Liverpool.  Unlike  most  shanties,  it 
has  several  versions,  all  of  which  are  more  or  less 
accepted.  One  of  them  does  not  refer  to  Paradise 
Street  at  all ;  in  fact,  it  is  an  adaptation  of  a  totally 
different  shanty  to  the  popular  tune.  Another, 
which  shall  be  quoted  in  another  place,  is  a  Black 
Ball  shanty,  and  is  probably  the  original  version. 
A  third,  which  is  here  given  in  full,  is  that  given 
both  by  Mr.  John  Masefield  and  the  late  Mr.  J.  E. 
Patterson,  in  their  collections  of  shanties.  It  has 
more  literary  merit  than  the  older  one,  and  it 
certainly  admirably  conveys  the  Paradise  Street 
idea  : 

As  I  was  a-walking  down  Paradise  Street — 

Aye-aye — blow  the  man  down  I — 
A  pretty  young  gal  there  I  chanced  for  to  meet — 

Give  me  some  time  to  blow  the  man  down. 

This  pretty  young  gal  then  she  said  this  to  me  : 
"  There's  a  spanking  full-rigger  just  ready  for  sea." 

That  spanking  full-rigger  to  Melbourne  was  bound, 
She  was  very  well-rigged  and  very  well-found. 

But  as  soon  as  the  packet  was  clear  of  the  Bar, 
The  mate  knocked  me  down  with  the  end  of  a  spar. 

And  as  soon  as  the  packet  was  out  on  the  sea 
I'd  cruel  bad  treatment  of  every  degree. 

So  I  give  you  this  warning,  afore  we  belay, 
Don't  ever  take  heed  of  what  spanking  gals  say — 
Give  us  some  time  to  blow  the  man  down  I 


136  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

A  coarse,  crude  old  rhyme  enough ;  but  how 
it  seems  to  bring  the  whole  scene  back  to 
life  !  .  .  . 

A  sailor  comes  rolling  down  Paradise  Street, 
hands  in  pockets,  head  on  chest,  the  very  picture 
of  "  spent-up  "  depression.  He  is  not  very  drunk, 
but  neither  is  he  quite  sober.  He  has  had  little  to 
eat,  and  an  old  shipmate  has  just  stood  him  a  drink 
or  two,  which  have  gone  to  his  head.  Alluring 
smells  are  wafted  to  him  from  the  doors  of  the 
public-houses — the  "  Dewdrop,"  the  "  Steer  Inn," 
and  the  rest — but  their  charms  are  not  for  a  poor 
devil  like  him  whose  pay-roll  has  long  been  a  thing 
of  the  past.  Only  this  morning  his  boarding-house 
boss,  once  so  cordial,  has  looked  coldly  upon  him, 
and  roughly  ordered  him  to  make  room  for  a 
newcomer.  It  is  a  case  of,  in  the  words  of  the  old 
sea  song — 

In  comes  old  Grouse  with  a  frown, 
Saying  "  Get  up.  Jack,  let  John  sit  down." 

John,  of  course,  being  the  newly-arrived  Sou' 
Spainer  with  a  year's  pay  to  burn,  and  Jack  the 
poor  prodigal  whose  money  is  spent. 

Even  the  "  spanking  gal  "  who  clings  to  his  arm 
— a  typical  Paradise  Street  charmer — is  beginning 
to  waver  in  her  devotion.  The  "  Lightning  "  is 
due  in  port  during  the  next  week  or  two  with  an 
old  flame  of  hers  on  board,  and  she  thinks  it  is  high 
time  Jack  "  got  a  move  on." 

She  has  been  devoted  to  him  for  nearly  two  months 
— a  long  time  according  to  her  lights  .  .  .  and  a 
whole  fortnight  since  his  money  was  done.  If  it 
wasn't  for  the  money,   she'd   stick  to    Jack,   so 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  137 

she  would  .  .  .  but  there,  a  poor  girl's  got  to 
live.  .  .  . 

High  above  the  dock  sheds  rise  the  slender  masts 
of  a  dipper  ship— the  "  Donald  Mackay,"  "  Red 
Jacket,"  or  perhaps  the  mighty  "  James  Baines  " 
herself.  Jack  stands  swaying  back  on  his  heels  a 
httle  unsteadily,  and  gazes  up — up  at  the  fine 
tracery  of  her  rigging. 

"  Ain't  she  a  fine  ship  ?  "  says  Poll  artlessly. 
"  A  friend  o'  mine,  she  goes  with  a  chap  as  sails  in 
'er  .  .  .  'e  says  they  get  the  best  grub  'e  ever  struck." 

"  'Ow'd  it  be  if  I  was  to  sign  on  in  'er,  Poll  ?  " 
says  Jack  suddenly.  "  Glad  to  get  rid  o'  me, 
wouldn't  yer  ?  " 

Polly  sheds  a  few  easy  tears. 

"  I  don't  know  'ow  hever  I'll  get  on  when  you're 
gone.  Jack,"  she  snivels,  and  her  ample  bosom 
heaves  readily. 

But  Jack  only  smiles  a  queer,  wry  smile.  He 
knows — none  better — how  much  her  affection  and 
her  tears  are  really  worth.  He  is  sick  of  the  land 
and  its  ways — its  false  friends,  its  loose  women, 
its  pleasures  that  leave  nothing  but  empty  pockets 
and  an  aching  head. 

It  is  the  way  of  the  world.  It  is  just  as  well 
Polly  is  faithless.  If  it  were  otherwise,  she  would 
very  likely  break  her  heart  for  him. 

And  deep  down  in  his  muddled  mind  he  knows 
that  stately  ship  as  the  symbol  of  his  first  love, 
a  love  more  cruel  in  her  way  than  this  poor 
Blowsabella  of  Paradise  Street,  a  love  whose  gifts 
are  hardship,  and  cold,  and  peril  in  great  waters — 
yet  to  whom,  while  breath  is  in  his  body,  he  will 
continually  return. 


138  SAILOR  TO^^  DAYS 

"  Oh,  Lord  love  ye,  Polly  !  "  he  says.     "  Ye'U 
soon  get  another  fancy  man  !  " 


I  searched  Liverpool  through  for  sailing  craft  one 
day  not  long  ago,  and  none  did  I  find  but  a  few 
topsail  schooners  loading  salt  and  Sunlight  Soap  for 
little  Welsh  and  West  country  harbours,  and  one 
ugly  tub  of  a  four-masted  schooner,  as  leaky  as  a 
sieve,  and  by  the  looks  of  her  a  war  product  of  the 
U.S.  Shipping  Board  or  I  am  greatly  mistaken. 
Surely  no  nation  ever  put  so  many  hideous  night- 
mares in  the  form  of  ships  on  the  water  as  the  United 
States  during  the  War  period.  The  one  great  point 
in  their  favour  is  that  they  will  soon  be  gone.  Sail 
and  steam  alike,  they  were  so  very  "  War  "  in  their 
construction  that  not  many  of  them  will  survive 
a  few  years'  service. 

Coburg  Dock,  Brunswick  Dock,  Canning  Dock, 
I  passed  by  them  all,  and  nowhere  did  I  see,  lifting 
stately  masts  and  spars  in  splendid  aloofness  over 
the  squat  dock  buildings  and  the  masts  and  funnels 
of  the  steamers,  even  one  survivor  of  all  the 
"  spanking  full-riggers  "  which  once  brought  their 
wonder  and  beauty  to  the  fiat  Mersey  shore.  No  tall 
Cape  Homer  at  the  grain  berths  in  Waterloo  Dock 
— ^no  barques  from  the  Baltic — ^no  nitrate  ships 
from  Taltal  or  Iloilo  or  Coquimbo. 

Salthouse  Dock  was  empty  but  for  one  solitary 
tramp  steamer,  and  even  she  seemed  to  have  gone 
to  sleep.  It  was  alone  with  its  memories  ;  memories 
of  fair  ships  and  skilled  captains,  of  stalwart  mates 
and  hard,  rough,  fearless  crews,  in  the  great  days  of 
sail.    Memories  of  a  life  which  will  soon  be  as  remote 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  189 

and  as  uncomprehended  as  that  of  another  planet. 
Memories  of  lordly  Colonies  clippers,  swift  packet 
ships,  'Frisco  grain  fleet — all  vanished  like  summer 
clouds  below  the  horizon  of  the  bygone  years. 
Like  summer  clouds,  white  and  fair ;  and,  alas  I 
wellnigh  as  transient  in  their  strength  and  beauty. 
In  this  lies  the  especial  pathos  of  the  passing  of  the 
saihng  ship.  Like  the  tropic  plant  which  grows  for 
a  hundred  years,  blooms  once  and  dies,  the  sailing 
ship  had  hardly  reached  the  height  of  her  develop- 
ment before  her  knell  was  sounded.  .  .  . 

Out  in  the  river  a  big  four-master,  'Frisco  bound, 
is  just  getting  under  way.  The  wind  is  fair,  and 
already  she  is  hoisting  her  topsails  ready  to  drop 
the  tug's  hawser  as  soon  as  she  is  clear  of  the 
anchorage.  The  mate,  a  big  raw-boned  "  blue- 
nose,"  with  hands  like  hammers,  and  a  mouth  hke 
a  slit  across  his  lean  face,  is  storming  about  the 
deck  trying  to  rouse  the  half-drunk,  half-dead 
crew  to  some  semblance  of  wiUing  hvehness. 

"  Na-ow  then — are  ye  sailors,  or  ca-arpses,  or 
what  are  ye  ?  A-in't  there  a  shantyman  among 
the  whole  blamed  crowd  o'ye  ?  " 

And,  the  crew  remaining  unresponsive,  he  bursts 
forth  himself  in  a  voice  which  is  strong,  rather  than 
melodious — accompanying  the  strains  with  a  sort 
of  obhgato  of  comments  and  exhortations,  more 
pointed  than  poUte  : 

"  As  I  was  a-walking  down  Paradise  Street — 

(Give  it  hp,  ye  Mahound  sojers  I  ")  And  in  a 
wavering,  half-hearted  fashion  two  or  three  of  the 
crowd  take  up  the  chorus — 

Aye-aye — blow  the  man  down. 

"  A  big  fat  policeman  I  chanced  for  to  meet — 


140  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

(Sing  up  there,  d ye  !  .  .  .  you,  ugly,  sing  up 

— air  ye  deaf  or  dumb  or  what  are  ye  ?  ")  The 
second  line  of  the  chorus  comes  a  shade  more 
vigorously  : 

Give  us  some  time  to  blow  the  man  down  ! 

And  gradually  the  shanty  takes  hold  as  verse  after 
verse  recounts  how  the  policeman  accuses  the 
sailor  : 

You  sail  in  a  packet  that  flies  the  Black  Ball — 

You've  robbed  a  poor  Dutchman  of  clothes,  boots  and  all ; 

and  how  the  unlucky  culprit  finishes  up  by  "  getting 
six  months  in  Liverpool  town  for  kicking  a 
p'Hceman  and  blowing  him  down."  Great  is  the 
power  of  the  shanty  over  the  sailorman  !  At  last 
the  chorus  comes  roaring  out  with  a  will,  ringing 
out   across   the   river,    a   full-throated   volume   of 

sound.  .  .  . 

A  dream— a  dream  like  the  rest  !  Long  since 
she  took  her  last  departure  from  the  shores  of 
Time  and  made  her  landfall  on  the  coasts  of  Eternity. 
But  still  the  echo  of  the  shantyman's  strain  seems 
to  linger  on  the  breeze  that  is  flecking  the  turbid 
Mersey  channel  with  white  horses,  and  the  wind 
seems  to  bring  again  the  ghost  of  an  old  sea  song  : 

Bound  away — bound  away — where  the  wild  waters  flow — 
She's  a  Liverpool  packet — oh,  Lord,  let  her  go  ! 


■V..'  ,,,_^  <_V' 

CO      '^    NS-7:      W         ^ 


CHAPTER  II 

Falmouth  is  a  Fine  Tovm — A  Graveyard  of  Ships — The  Quay- 
Punt 

I  NEVER  come  to  Falmouth  but  I  have  that 
strange  feehng  of  coming  home. 
The  first  time  I  was  there  I  came  to  it  from 
the  sea.  It  was  on  a  Sunday  evening,  and  the 
streets  were  full  of  returning  churchgoers  ;  and  by 
the  time  I  had  walked  the  length  of  Market  Strand 
and  back  it  was  dark.  I  had  never  been  within  a 
couple  of  hundred  miles  of  the  place  before  ;  yet, 
somehow  I  never  thought  of  asking  the  way.  I 
beheve  I  could  have  found  it  blindfold.  Everything 
seemed  famiUar — the  very  smell  of  the  Madonna 
lilies  in  the  barrack  garden  and  the  great  geranium 
that  covered  the  whole  building.  When  next  I 
went  (alas  !)  lihes  and  geraniums  were  alike  gone. 
A  gale  of  wind  had  torn  down  the  one,  soldiers  in 
huts  in  the  barrack  garden  had  wiped  out  the 
others. 

I  am  not,  as  I  have  said  elsewhere,  what  I  believe 
is  called  "  psychic."  But  if  it  be  true  that  men's 
souls  are  not  here  once  only  (and  how  else  account 
for  that  strange  sense  of  famiharity  with  which  one 
visits  some  places  and  sees  some  faces  for  the  first 
time  ?) — if  it  be  true  that  the  vagrant  soul  of  man 
sojourns  more  than  once  on  earth,  then  some  time, 
I  know,  mine  dwelt  aforetime  in  Falmouth  town. 
And  I  hke  to  think  so,  for  Falmouth  is  a  fine  town 

141 


142  SAILOR  TO^VN  DAYS 

with  ships  upon  the  bay,  even  though  those  words 
were  not  really  first  sung  in  her  praise  at  all,  but 
in  that  of  the  little  town  of  Amble  in  Northumber- 
land, as  near  the  northern  hmit  of  England  as 
Falmouth  is  near  its  farthest  west. 

Falmouth's  distinctive  "  period  "  is  the  eighteenth 
and  early  nineteenth  centuries.  Eighteenth  century 
are  the  tall,  handsome  brick  houses  in  Arwenack 
Street  that  are  now  the  sailors'  hospital ;  eighteenth 
century,  too,  the  httle  old  bow-windowed  shops  in 
Market  Strand  standing  cheek  by  jowl  with  the 
plateglass  fronts  of  more  enterprising  emporiums  ; 
eighteenth  century  the  old  inns  that  have  given  a 
Cornish  welcome  to  the  passengers  of  the  mail 
packets  in  years  gone  by  ;  and  eighteenth  century, 
above  all,  some  of  the  bravest  of  her  memories. 

The  glory  of  Falmouth  was  the  Post  Office  Packet 
service,  which  was  founded  about  the  close  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  continued  until  1850, 
when  changing  conditions  and  the  introduction  of 
steam  brought  about  the  transfer  of  the  service 
to  Southampton,  where,  as  the  Royal  Mail  Steam 
Packet  Company,  it  still  continues,  the  only  steam- 
ship company,  by  the  way,  with  a  Royal  Charter. 

The  original  mail  packets  were  local  ships 
chartered  for  the  purpose  ;  later,  as  the  service 
grew  in  importance,  and  the  risks  of  war  began  to 
demand  special  qualities  on  the  part  of  ships, 
officers  and  crews,  brigs  began  to  be  built  expressly 
for  the  service  (a  good  many  were,  in  fact,  built  at 
Mylor  Creek)  and  armed  with  brass  nine-pounders, 
post-office  guns,  as  they  were  popularly  called.  There 
is  an  excellent  bas-relief  of  the  mail  packet  "  Duke 
of  Marlborough  "  to  be  seen  on  the  front  of  the 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  143 

handsome  Georgian  house  of  the  name  of  "  Marl- 
borough," formerly  the  home  of  Captain  Bull, 
commodore  of  the  packet  fleet  in  his  day,  who 
commanded  several  of  the  packets  at  one  time  and 
another,  and  engaged  in  several  fights  with  privateers 
with  varying  success.  Captain  Bull  planted  those 
magnificent  avenues  of  elms  round  about  Marl- 
borough. Like  Cuddy  Collingwood  with  his  pockets 
full  of  acorns,  he  planted  for  posterity.  Elm  was 
nearly  as  important  in  shipbuilding  as  oak.  But  the 
packets  are  gone — gone  and  all  but  forgotten — 
and  the  elms  still  hft  their  stately  heads  above  the 
homes  of  a  posterity  which  needs  them  not. 

The  story  of  the  Falmouth  packets  contains  the 
record  of  many  a  gallant  fight.  There  is  the  story 
of  the  "  Antelope's  "  great  fight  with  the  French 
privateer  "  Atalanta,"  when,  the  "  Antelope's  " 
master  and  mate  being  both  killed,  the  boatswain, 
"  an  illiterate  fellow,"  one  Pascoe,  lashed  the  two 
ships  together  lest  his  prize  might  drift  from  him, 
and  led  his  boarding  party  to  victory.  Then  there 
is  the  tale  of  Captain  Cock's  engagement  with  the 
American  privateers,  "  Tom "  and  "  Bona,"  in 
which,  although  defeated,  the  honours  of  war 
rested  with  the  loser,  for  both  "  Tom  "  and  "  Bona  " 
— bigger  and  better  armed  ships — were  in  nearly 
as  bad  a  pHght  after  the  fight  as  the  httle 
"  Townshend."  The  American  commander  himself 
bore  witness  to  his  enemy's  pluck  in  the  following 
manner  : — 

I  do  certify  that  Captain  J.  Cock,  of  the  Packet  brig 
"  Townshend,"  captured  this  day,  did  defend  his  ship 
with  courage  and  seamanship,  and  that  he  did  not  strike 
his  Colours  until  his  vessel  was  perfectly  unmanageable 
and  in  the  act  of  sinking. — November  nth,  1812, 


144  SAILOR  TO^Y^  DAYS 

More  than  one  of  these  engagements  took  place 
within  sight  of  Falmouth  harbour,  watched,  no 
doubt,  from  the  very  same  spot  by  Saint  Mawes 
Castle  w^hence,  in  time  of  w^ar,  I  looked  out  one  day 
on  a  certain  livehness  round  about  the  Manacles, 
drifters  bustling  about  like  terriers  about  a  rat-hole  ; 
and  learned  the  next  day  that  yet  another  undersea 
pirate  had  gone  to  his  account. 


Mr.  Joseph  Conrad  in  "  Youth  "  remarks,  a  trifle 
tartly,  that  the  good  people  of  Falmouth  make  their 
living  out  of  the  misfortunes  of  others.  And  so 
perhaps,  in  a  way,  they  do,  or  rather  did — much  in 
the  same  way  as  the  people  of  the  Falkland  Islands. 

But  that  can  hardly  be  considered  cause  for 
reproach.  Wrecking  has  long  been  a  thing  of  the 
dark  past ;  and  indeed  one  sometimes  wonders  if 
it  ever  was  so  frequently  practised  as  some  people 
would  have  us  beheve.  After  all,  the  Channel 
gales  and  fogs  must  have  brought  a  goodly  harvest 
to  the  Cornish  reefs  and  headlands  without  any 
extraneous  assistance  on  the  part  of  the  natives, 
and  if,  as  they  no  doubt  did,  they  made  a  practice 
of  laying  lawless  hands  on  Crown  property  in  the 
form  of  flotsam,  jetsam,  and  lagend,  I  don't  know 
that  one  can  blame  them  overmuch.  Falmouth 
used  to  have  a  curious  by-product  of  maritime 
disaster,  that  of  photographs  of  wTecks.  Before 
the  War,  the  Falmouth  shops  displayed  a  wonderful 
collection  of  photographs  of  local  shipwTecks— 
rather  a  depressing  gallery,  it  is  true — but  re- 
markably interesting. 

Among  them,  there  was  the  British  wool-cHpper 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  145 

"  Cromdale,"  which  ran  ashore  in  a  fog,  and  the 
beautiful  sky-sail  cHpper,  "  Queen  Margaret " — a 
terrible  picture  this,  showing  the  splendid  ship  all 
helpless  and  battered  by  the  seas — and  a  big  German, 
the  "  Pindos,"  swept  bare  as  a  bone,  her  hull 
lying  clean  over  in  a  horrible  helplessness.  These 
classically  named  Germans  got  the  worst  of  it  more 
than  once  among  the  Cornish  reefs  and  breakers, 
for  it  was  just  before  the  War  that  the  "  Hera  " 
drove  on  to  the  Dodman  and  several  of  her  crew 
were  drowned. 

There  is  a  strange  little  sequel  to  this  story. 
One  of  the  rescued  Germans  stayed  for  some  con- 
siderable time  in  the  village  and  made  quite  a 
number  of  friends  there — departing  with  mutual 
wishes  for  a  future  meeting.  The  wish  was  destined 
to  find  an  unexpected  fulfilment. 

The  two  men  who  saved  the  German's  Ufe  were 
called  up  for  naval  service  when  the  War  broke  out. 
One  sailed  in  the  ill-fated  "  Good  Hope,"  and  went 
down  with  her  at  Coronel.  The  other  in  the  Falk- 
land Islands  battle  saw  the  survivors  from  the 
"  Scharnhorst  "  brought  on  board  ;  and  the  first 
German  who  came  up  the  side  was  the  man  whom 
he  had  last  seen  in  the  little  village  street  at 
Portscatho.  So  they  did  meet  again  after  all,  those 
two,  atoms  drifted  together  out  of  the  vast  chaos 
of  v/ar. 

They  are  certainly  rather  harrowing,  thes'^'  ship- 
wreck pictures,  but  they  are  so  interesting his+orically 
that  I  was  sorry  to  find  them,  last  time  I  was  in 
Falmouth,  all  but  unobtainable.  Why,  I  cannot 
say.  Whether  the  Government,  having  allowed 
charts  of  the  coast  to  be  sold  freely  up  to  the  third 

10 


146  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

year  of  the  War,  and  let  a  German  ship-chandler's 
wife  continue  to  Uve  on  the  Custom  House  Pier 
long  after  her  husband  had  been  arrested  and 
interned,  had  suddenly  taken  it  into  their  heads 
that  the  photographs  might  give  information  to 
the  enemy — or  whether  the  local  pubhcity  depart- 
ment had  "  kiboshed  "  them  on  the  ground  that  a 
reputation  for  shipwrecks  would  be  what  the 
Western  booster  would  term  a  "  knock  "  for  the 
district,  I  know  not.  Anjrway,  they  were  gone, 
and  grisly  though  they  were,  I  wish  I  had  got  a 
complete  collection  of  them. 


If  it  were  possible  to  trace  to  their  origins  all 
those  bewildering  diversities  of  fore-and-aft  rig 
which  make  the  Enghsh  Channel  so  fascinating  a 
field  of  observation  for  lovers  of  sailing  craft,  the 
result  would  be  an  interesting  demonstration  of 
the  way  in  which  a  broad  general  type  is  modified 
to  suit  local  requirements.  The  same  thing,  of 
course,  holds  good  in  regard  to  most  branches  of 
agricultural  and  industrial  activity — carts,  imple- 
ments, houses,  and  what  not — but  it  is  perhaps 
nowhere  to  be  seen  quite  so  clearly  as  in  local 
types  of  boats  and  rigging. 

The  yawl,  the  ketch,  the  lugger,  the  dandy,  the 
cutter,  the  schooner,  the  "  mumblebee,"  the  barge, 
the  bawley,  these  and  all  the  other  varieties,  leaving 
out  of  account  the  larger  coasting  craft  such  as 
topsail  and  two-topsail  schooners,  jackass  barques 
and  their  kindred,  all  represent  adaptations  from 
one  original  type,  brought  about  by  some  pecuHarity 
of  harbour  or  river,  some  special  demand  of  local 


Days  here  and  there        i4f 

trade  or  its  conditions.  Sometimes,  it  is  true, 
there  is  a  distinction  without  a  difference  ;  but  as  a 
rule  the  reason  for  each  divergence  is  to  be  sought 
for  in  the  gradual  developments  of  our  coastwise 
history. 

The  quay-punt  (the  Falmouth  boat  par  excellence) 
is,  perhaps,  as  complete  an  example  of  this  as  could 
be  cited,  since  its  pecuhar  qualities  came  into  being 
during  two  of  the  most  romantic  and  stirring 
periods  of  our  sea  story.  The  palmy  days  of  the 
quay-punt  were  those,  firstly  of  the  mail  packets 
and  then  of  the  great  times  of  sail,  and  it  is  from 
requirements  consequent  upon  those  days  that 
their  present  model  draws  its  origin.  Those  re- 
quirements are  passing  away,  or  have  already 
passed  ;  yet  the  quay-punt  remains  and  is  likely 
to  do  so.  Local  usage  in  such  matters  as  boat- 
building and  rigging  dies  very  hard,  for  there  are 
probably  few  people  so  essentially  conservative  as 
seafaring  communities. 

The  quay-punt  may  be  roughly  described,  for 
the  benefit  of  those  who  have  never  made  its 
acquaintance,  as  a  yawl-rigged  boat  with  a  square 
punt-hke  stem,  this  latter  giving  it  the  name  it 
bears.  The  only  difference  in  rig  between  the  quay- 
punt  and  the  yawl  is  that  the  former  carries  no 
gaff-topsail,  the  pecuharity  lying  in  the  hull,  not 
the  rig,  which  is  not  specially  distinctive. 

To  find  the  why  and  wherefore  of  the  quay-punt 
one  need  only  glance  at  the  two  most  important 
pages  of  Falmouth  history  to  realize  them  at 
once.  The  great  industry  of  the  town,  during 
practically  the  whole  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
may  be  summed  up  in  the  phrase  still  current  in 


148  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

local  speech — "  tendin'  on  the  ships,"  During  the 
Napoleonic  Wars,  in  addition  to  the  mail  packets, 
transports,  ships  of  war,  and  all  the  big  volume  of 
channel  trade,  crowded  harbour  and  roads  and 
provided  the  people  of  the  town  with  a  livelihood 
and  an  occupation. 

With  the  decline  of  the  packet  service,  came  in 
the  roaring  times  of  sail  in  the  'sixties,  'seventies, 
and  'eighties,  the  years  when  the  glory  of  the 
sailing  ship  reached  its  zenith  and  bade  fair  for  a 
time  to  resist  the  rivalry  of  steam.  It  was  then 
a  rare  thing  not  to  find  a  goodly  number  of  fine 
vessels,  such  as  London,  Greenock,  and  the  Clyde 
were  turning  out  from  their  famous  yards,  anchored 
in  the  calm  waters  of  the  Carrick  Roads,  beneath 
the  green  slopes  of  Trefusis  Point  which  have 
gladdened  the  sea-weary  eyes  of  so  many  home- 
returning  sailormen.  Even  in  more  recent  years  it 
has  been  nothing  remarkable  to  see  fifteen  or  twenty 
big  deepwatermen  for  "  Falmouth  for  orders " 
with  grain  from  'Frisco,  wool  from  Australia  or 
nitrates  from  the  American  West  Coast  ports,  or 
perhaps  driven  in  by  a  Channel  gale  for  shelter  in 
the  ample  anchorage  the  roads  have  to  offer. 

And  in  all  this  bustle  and  prosperity  the  quay- 
punts  had,  of  course,  their  share.  Bumboatmen, 
shipping  agents'  men,  tailors'  runners,  all  kinds  of 
'longshore  tradesmen  both  good  and  bad,  were 
continually  at  their  coming  and  going  between 
ship  and  land.  Not  that  their  activities  were  by 
any  means  confined  to  harbour  work.  "  First 
come,  first  served,"  is  emphatically  the  case  where  a 
homeward-bound  crew  with  money  to  spend  is 
concerned,    and    the    more    enterprising     of    the 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  149 

Falmouth  folk  would  be  alongside  an  incoming 
homeward-bounder  as  soon  as  the  pilot.  Mr, 
Frank  T.  Bullen  has  a  very  good  word  to  say  for 
the  Falmouth  bumboat  fraternity,  accounting  the 
sailorman  lucky  who  lays  out  his  money  in  the 
West  Countrie,  before  the  sharks  of  Sailor  Town 
get  hold  of  him  and  his  hard-earned  pocketful  of 
coins. 

But  the  glory  is  departed.  The  sailing  vessels 
which  anchor  in  Carrick  Roads  are  few  and  far 
between  by  contrast  with  the  stately  fleet  which 
once  used  to  throng  there  with  slender  masts  and 
tawny  yards,  and  make  the  slopes  of  Roseland 
echo  with  the  shantying  of  the  crews.  Falmouth 
boatmen  depend  nowadays  on  other  things  ;  on 
pleasure  and  passenger  traffic,  a  bit  of  small  coasting 
trade,  a  bit  of  fishing,  a  bit  of  this  and  that.  The 
good  old  days  survive  in  a  few  'longshore  yarns,  and 
in  the  quay-punt  herself. 

A  good  sea-boat  (though  there  are  some  people 
who  think  her  bluff  stem  makes  her  a  trifle  unhandy), 
roomy,  safe,  and  sensible,  in  short,  the  very  best 
boat  ever  devised  for  her  own  peculiar  and  original 
calling — "  tendin'  on  ships." 


CHAPTER  III 

A    Danish    Harbour — Southampton     Past    and     Present — 
"  Sails  " — Buckler's  Hard — Lymington — On  the  Saltings 

IF  the  connexion  of  Liverpool  be  with  the 
Western  Ocean,  equally  so  is  that  of  Southamp- 
ton with  France.  It  has  not  always  been  a 
happy  marriage,  so  to  speak  ;  for  in  the  early  days 
the  men  of  Crecy  and  Agincourt  marched  through 
the  West  Gate  to  take  ship  for  the  wars,  and  in  the 
fourteenth  century  French,  Spaniards,  and  Genoese 
sailed  up  the  Solent  to  plunder  and  slaughter  all 
up  the  narrow  Southampton  streets.  But  that  is 
long  ago  now,  and  the  memory  of  the  past  altogether 
buried  beneath  that  of  the  five  long  years  during 
which  Britons  marched  steadily  through  Southamp- 
ton on  their  way  to  battles  redder  and  fiercer  than 
any  field  of  Agincourt. 

Many  invaders  have  sailed  up  the  Solent  in  the 
centuries  gone  by.  Not  for  nothing  was  Southamp- 
ton a  waUed  town  in  the  days  that  are  gone.  The 
first  sea  fight  in  Enghsh  history  was  fought  in 
Hamble  River,  when  King  Alfred  put  the  dreaded 
Vikings  to  rout,  and  hanged  his  prisoners  from 
the  walls  of  his  Palace  of  Wolvesey  by  way  of 
encouragement  to  any  of  their  countrymen  who 
might  take  a  fancy  to  sail  their  longships  up  the 
Itchen. 

Speaking  of  the  Danes  in  Hampshire,  there  is  a 

150 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  151 

curious  series  of  mounds  and  hollows  by  the  side 
of  the  River  Test,  some  twenty  miles  from  its  mouth, 
which  has  been  pronounced  by  some  experts  to  have 
been  a  Danish  war  harbour. 

I  know  it  is  always  a  dangerous  thing  to  differ 
from  authorities,  and  generally  speaking  I  like  to 
give  them  the  benefit  of  the  doubt,  and  agree  with 
anything  in  the  nature  of  a  romantic  tradition. 
But  I  must  own  to  having  experienced  several 
uncomfortable  pangs  of  doubt  about  that  Danish 
harbour.  Remembering  how  almost  obUterated 
are  all  traces  of  so  important  and  so  comparatively 
recent  a  shipbuilding  centre  as  Buckler's  Hard, 
it  is  unhkely  that  anything  constructed  so  many 
centuries  ago  should,  be  so  easily  traceable  to-day. 
Besides  which,  I  fail  to  see  why  the  Danes  should 
have  made  so  permanent  an  earthwork  at  this 
particular  spot.  So  far  as  I  can  make  out,  their 
visits  to  the  Hampshire  rivers  were  more  in  the 
nature  of  raiding  incursions  than  of  permanent 
lodgments,  and  to  construct  such  engineering 
works  as  these  must  have  taken  in  the  time  of  the 
Danes  at  least  several  years  and  employed  some 
hundreds  of  people. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  hkely  enough  that, 
especially  before  any  good  roads  had  been  made  in 
the  district,  the  Test  may  have  been  more  or  less 
navigable  as  far  as  the  so-called  "  Danish  Harbour," 
in  which  case,  what  more  probable  than  that  horse- 
drawn  barges  may  have  been  used  on  the  river  ? 
Later,  again,  there  was  the  canal  over  whose  bed 
the  Andover-Southampton  railway — known,  good- 
ness knows  why,  as  the  Sprat  and  Winkle  Line — 
now  runs  ;  and  I  should  be  rather  inclined  to  think 


152  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

that  the  Danish  harbour  may  have  been  neither 
more  nor  less  than  a  lay-by  for  canal  boats,  possibly 
a  barge  builder's  yard  as  well. 

But  there  is,  fortunately,  no  question  whatever 
about  the  Danish  longship  which  was  dug  out  of 
the  mud  of  Hamble  River,  nor  of  Alfred's  battle 
there.  You  may  see  a  fragment  of  the  ship  to-day 
in  the  Southampton  Museum. 


I  don't  know  what  particular  tavern  the  author 
of  "  The  Faithful  Heart  "  had  in  his  mind.  The 
old  "  Dolphin  "  in  the  High  Street  is  the  very  ideal 
of  a  seaport  inn,  with  its  hospitable  bow-windows 
and  wide  arched  entrance  giving  glimpses  of  a 
charming  yard  all  gay  window-boxes  and  quaint 
angles.  The  church  of  Holy  Rood,  too,  has  in- 
teresting associations  with  the  Dibdin  family, 
though  the  church,  all  but  the  spire,  is  not  old. 
I  believe  "  to  want  the  vane  off  the  church  steeple  " 
is  a  figure  of  speech  for  desiring  the  unattainable. 
But  I  never  see  the  fascinating  ship-vane  on  the 
spire  of  Holy  Rood  without  greatly  desiring  to 
commit  the  sacrilege  of  ascending  to  the  top  of  the 
steeple  and  carrying  it  off. 

But  on  the  whole  I  should  not  call  the  town  of 
Southampton  a  very  salty  place.  "  One  foot  on 
sea  and  one  on  shore,"  its  regard  seems  rather  to 
the  shore  than  the  sea,  and  you  would  hardly  know 
that  you  were  in  a  seaport  town  until  you  get  into 
the  old  streets  that  lead  down  to  the  Town 
Quay. 

As  a  seaport,  during  the  nineteenth  century, 
Southampton  may  be  said  to  have  missed  its  oppor- 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  153 

tunit3^  though  it  is  doing  its  best  now  to  make  up 
for  it  by  providing  accommodation  for  the  largest 
liners  afloat,  and  by  that  astonishing  tin-town, 
known  as  Atlantic  Park,  intended  as  a  kind  of 
dumping  ground  for  European  emigrants  awaiting 
embarkation  for  the  United  States.  There  is  no 
port,  not  even  Liverpool,  where  you  see  so  many 
"  mammoth  liners " — to  use  the  reporter's  pet 
phrase — at  one  and  the  same  time  as  at  South- 
ampton. There  is,  indeed,  so  much  vastness  as  to 
be  oppressive,  and  even  the  sight  of  the  enormous 
week's  wash  being  carried  away  by  hordes  of 
stewards  does  not  improve  matters.  You  can  see 
more  washing  on  the  Docks  at  Southampton,  and 
more  globe-trotters,  than  anywhere  else  in  the 
world,  perhaps. 

But  even  so  recently  as  just  before  the  War  the 
Atlantic  invasion  had  only  just  begun,  and  South- 
ampton was  still  the  special  preserve  of  the  Royal 
Mail  Steam  Packet,  the  P.  and  O.  and  the  Union 
Castle  boats.  Among  the  outward  and  visible 
signs  of  the  tropical  connexions  of  the  port  was 
the  rash  of  parrots  which  used  to  come  out  on 
the  Southampton  doorsteps  of  a  sunny  afternoon. 
I  don't  see  so  many  parrots  since  the  War.  Perhaps 
parrot  food  was  unobtainable  :  or  possibly  the 
patriotic  citizens  of  Southampton  served  them  up 
for  dinner  like  Ser  Federigo's  Falcon. 

Captain  Crutchley  in  his  book  of  nautical  reminis- 
cence, "  My  Life  at  Sea,"  gives  a  pleasant  picture  of 
Southampton  in  the  early  'seventies — "  a  nice  quiet 
Httle  place  with  just  enough  of  the  best  sort  of 
shipping  to  make  it  of  considerable  importance." 
At  that  time  the  P.  and  0.  boats  lay  in  the  outer 


154  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

basin,  and  "  always  presented  a  beautiful  appear- 
ance; .  .  .  with  rigging  and  sails  in  perfect  order 
they  were  all  that  the  eye  of  a  sailor  could  desire," 
.  .  .  their  old-fashioned  bowsprits  extending  right 
out  over  the  quays.  Queen's  Terrace  and  the 
Canute  Hotel  were  the  principal  resorts  of  officers  of 
the  ships  in  port.  Queen's  Hotel  is  stiU  to  be  seen, 
an  old-world  crescent  with  rows  of  pleasant  bow- 
windowed  houses.  But  the  Canute  Hotel  has  had 
to  yield  pride  of  place  to  the  great  new  pile  of  the 
South  Western,  with  its  time-ball  on  its  highest 
pinnacle  dominating  town  and  harbour. 

I  always  fancy  that  the  R.M.S.P.  and  Union  boats 
look  upon  the  big  Atlantic  ferry  steamers  as  inter- 
lopers, and  grumble  together  in  their  quarter  of 
the  docks  about  the  invasion  of  the  port  by  these 
profiteers,  much  like  disgruntled  old  gentlemen 
lamenting  the  decay  of  their  pet  particular  club. 

I  saw  Shackleton's  "  Quest  "  when  she  was  fitting 
out  in  Southampton.  There  seemed  to  be  a  shadow 
of  ill-luck  on  her  from  the  start.  A  carpenters' 
strike  was  the  trouble  at  the  time  I  saw  her,  and 
I  remember — though  it  is  easy  to  remember  such 
things  after  the  event — the  faint  sense  of  depression 
I  carried  away  from  her.  She  had  been  chosen  by 
men  who  know  all  there  is  to  know  about  the  work 
she  had  to  do  ;  but  she  gave  me  an  impression  of 
her  inadequacy  which  almost  amounted  to  a  sense 
of  impending  disaster.  The  tragedy  was  to  come 
sooner  than  anyone  dreamed  of,  and  in  a  different 
fashion. 

When  you  get  tired  of  counting  bundles  of  washing 
it  is  a  relief  to  go  along  the  docks  and  count  boxes 
of  tomatoes  or  baskets  of  strawberries,  or  whatever 


/ 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  155 

may  happen  to  be  the  seasonable  fruit  for  the  time 
being.  You  would  hardly  think  there  were  so  many 
tomatoes  in  the  world  ;  certainly  you  would  not 
think  they  could  be  grown  within  the  limits  of  the 
Channel  Islands.  Another  Southampton  import 
is  onions.  The  French  boats  bring  them — long 
brown  strings  of  them — from  Normandy  and 
Brittany,  and  brown-faced  women  and  boys  sell 
them  from  door  to  door.  Otherwise  fruit  and  frozen 
meat  are  about  the  only  imports  Southampton 
has,  except  oddments  in  the  way  of  lumber  and 
seacoal  for  the  httle  wharves  along  the  Itchen. 

Looking  out  from  the  little  windows  of  the 
Tudor  House  museum — where  there  are  to  be  seen 
some  interesting  pictures  of  old  Southampton,  and 
one  of  the  finest  bone  ship  models  I  ever  saw 
anywhere — looking  out  from  there  over  the  high- 
pitched  tiled  roofs  and  leaning  gables  of  the  houses 
in  Blue  Anchor  Lane  and  the  old  walls  with  trees 
and  red  valerian  growing  in  their  crannies,  it  is  not 
impossible  to  recall  visions  of  the  past — plundering 
Dane,  dreaming  Crusader,  men  of  Crecy  and  Agin- 
court,  invading  French  and  Genoese,  and  the 
little  band  that  left  the  old  Town  Quay  in  the 
"  Mayflower  "  for  freedom's  sake.  A  green  land, 
a  fair  land,  a  land  greatly  to  be  desired,  greatly  to 
be  loved,  greatly  to  die  for  ...  a  land  hallowed 
for  ever  by  many  everlasting  farewells.  .  .  .  But 
hark  !  there  goes  the  blaring  note  of  a  liner  making 
ready  to  sail,  scattering  the  unsubstantial  ships  of 
dream  hke  morning  mists  on  the  Solent. 


Through  the  open  door  of  the  sail-loft  a  hght 


156  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

breeze  blows  in,  and  with  it  a  faint  odour  of  salt 
and  pitch  and  tidal  flats  at  low  water. 

Most  of  the  heads  busily  bent  over  the  work  are 
grey  or  bald,  for  sail-makers  are  more  readily 
met  with  nowadays  among  the  elders  than  among 
the  young.  The  decline  of  the  great  saihng-ship 
era  set  a  good  many  experienced  sailormen  looking 
for  a  job  ashore,  such  as  are  still  to  be  found  in 
places  which  cater  for  the  yachtsman's  needs  as 
well  as  for  the  lesser  uses  to  which — even  on  board 
steamships — canvas  is  still  put. 

Old  "  Sails  "  sits  stitching  away  industriously  at 
a  "  dodger  "  for  an  Atlantic  liner's  bridge.  His 
well-worn  "  palm  "  is  polished  with  age  and  use, 
and  the  bench  upon  which  he  sits,  with  its  row  of 
holes  for  his  marhne-spikes,  bradawls,  and  similar 
implements,  is  worn  into  smooth  irregularities  like 
an  old  church  pew.  His  leather  apron  is  slit  in  a 
thousand  places  ;  how  it  manages  to  stick  together 
at  all  only  "  Sails  "  himself  knows. 

It  is  more  than  fifty  years  since  first  "  Sails  " 
went  to  sea,  and  a  very  different  thing  his  trade  was 
then  from  this  (finicking,  it  must  sometimes  seem  to 
him)  business  of  dodgers  and  windsails  and  such-hke 
mere  side-issues  at  the  best,  which  is  nearly  aU  that 
is  left  of  it,  but  for  an  occasional  mainsail  for  a 
racing  cutter. 

Where  are  they  now,  the  big  courses,  the  snowy 
royals,  the  jibs — outer  jib,  inner  jib,  jib-o-jib — 
beneath  whose  strain,  so  the  old  song  runs,  "  the 
mighty  boom  bent  like  a  wooden  hoop  " — to  say 
nothing  of  the  Jamie  Green,  the  watersails,  stunsails, 
ringtail,  savealls,  all  the  rest  of  the  flying  kites 
whose  very  uses  and  names  are  all  but  forgotten  ? 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  157 

Gone,  all  gone,  like  the  ships  that  carried  them  ; 
and  here  sits  old  "  Sails,"  with  his  spectacles  on  his 
nose,  and  his  nutcracker  jaws  whose  teeth  long 
since  went  to  glory  on  hard-tack  and  harness  beef — 
just  the  same  steady,  reliable  old  sea-craftsman  as 
he  was  when  he  sat  on  deck  in  the  flying-fish  weather, 
patching  at  an  old  fine-weather  suit  for  the  Tropics, 
or  stitching  away  at  the  boltropes  which  were  to 
stand  the  strain  of  the  stormy  "  Westerlies  "  in  a 
big  blow  off  the  pitch  of  the  Horn. 


Of  all  those  beautiful  creeks,  rivers,  and  inlets, 
beloved  of  the  yachtsman  in  search  of  winter 
quarters,  which  run  inland  from  the  Solent  into 
green  England,  there  is  perhaps  none  more  beautiful 
than  the  Exe,  or,  as  it  is  usually  called,  the  Beauheu 
River  (pronounced  Bewley,  please,  pace  Lord 
Macaulay  in  his  "  Armada,"  who  makes  "  the 
rangers  of  Beaulieu  "  rhyme  with  flew). 

It  runs  up  from  a  rather  difficult  entrance  for  a 
stranger  to  those  waters,  where,  as  many  a  nautical 
amateur  has  learnt  from  sad  experience,  it  is  one  of 
the  easiest  things  in  the  world  to  get  stuck  in  the 
mud  until  the  tide  thinks  fit  to  lift  you  off  again. 
Thence  it  winds  in  broad  silvery  reaches  when  the 
tide  is  high,  past  expanses  of  shining  mud  at  low 
water,  through  the  heart  of  the  New  Forest,  with 
great  clumps  of  oaks  and  beeches,  broken  here  and 
there  by  the  darker  hues  of  pine,  yew — "  Hampshire 
weed  " — and  holly,  growing  dowTi  to  the  very  edge 
of  the  salt  water. 

Some  few  miles  inland,  in  one  of  the  river's  widest 
reaches,  a  little  pier — a  new  one,  dating  only  from 


158  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

King  Edward  the'  Seventh's  reign — runs  out  into 
the  water,  visited  during  the  summer  season  by 
excursion  steamers  from  Southampton  and  South- 
sea.  Beyond  is  a  stretch  of  short-cropped  grass, 
and  beyond  that  again  a  Httle  cluster  of  roofs  and 
chimneys,  which  even  at  a  casual  glance  have  a 
look  curiously  distinct  from  the  customary  huddle 
of  thatch  and  tiles  and  church  spire  which  makes 
up  the  characteristic  Hampshire  village.  At  the 
water's  edge  some  green  mounds  and  a  few  decaying 
timbers  suggest  the  previous  existence  of  some 
now-vanished  structure. 

A  place  of  peace  and  quiet — a  quiet  unbroken  but 
for  the  song  of  the  birds,  the  sigh  and  rustle  of  the 
forest  trees,  the  little  woodland  stirrings  of  bird  and 
beast  and  insect,  the  hum  of  midges  dancing  over 
the  quiet  pools,  the  gentle  sob  and  gurgle  of  the 
river  among  its  swaying  water- weed. 

Nothing  is  here  to  suggest  the  busy  world  of 
men,  except  for  the  occasional  passing  bustle  of 
the  comings  and  goings  of  excursionists.  Even  the 
ubiquitous  char-a-banc  is  never  seen  here,  though 
you  may  find  it  in  its  hundreds  not  many  miles 
away,  clustering  about  the  relics  of  the  ancient 
abbey  of  Beaulieu. 

But  here  is  in  its  way  as  much  a  monument  of  the 
vanished  past  as  the  famous  ruin  itself.  For  this 
is  none  other  than  the  once  far-famed  Buckler's 
Hard,  cradle  of  some  of  the  most  noted  of  the 
"  wooden  walls  "  of  Nelson's  day.  Here  was  built 
the  celebrated  "  Agamemnon,"  "  Nelson's  darhng," 
whose  fame  is  hnked  with  his  and  that  of  St.  Vincent 
for  all  time ;  and  a  succession  of  ships  of  the  line, 
frigates  and  smaller  craft,  until  the  yard  finally 


DAYS  IIERE  AND  THERE  159 

closed  down  in  the  'twenties  of  last  century. 
Those  mouldering  timbers  are  the  rehcs  of  the  old 
sUpways  on  which  the  mighty  fabrics  rose  slowly 
up  from  garboard-strake  to  gunwale  ;  and  there 
beyond  are  the  very  houses  in  which  the  workers 
at  the  Hard  dwelt  when  it  was  at  the  height  of  its 
activity — old  Georgian  houses  which  seem  to  belong 
more  to  old  Deptford  or  Poplar  than  to  the  heart  of 
rural  Hampshire. 

The  hamlet  consists  of  two  rows  of  these  old 
houses,  facing  each  other  across  a  stretch  of  village 
green.  The  house  nearest  to  the  water  on  the  left- 
hand  side  as  you  face  the  river  is  one  of  rather 
more  pretensions  than  the  rest,  with  its  pedimented 
door,  wide  windows,  and  a  glimpse  through  a  long 
passage  of  a  pleasant  garden  at  the  back.  One 
fancies  it  the  residence  of  some  foreman  or  master 
shipwright ;  the  others,  dweUings  of  the  various 
workmen,  skilled  craftsmen  for  the  most  part, 
like  the  majority  of  shipyard  workers  in  those 
days. 

Early  in  the  eighteenth  century  the  then  Montagu 
of  BeauUeu  evolved  a  scheme  for  establishing  a 
great  port  at  Buckler's  Hard  for  trade  with  the  West 
Indies,  of  which  he  had  been  for  some  years  governor. 
This  plan,  however,  fell  through,  or  rather  it  never 
actually  materialized  ;  and  about  the  middle  of  the 
century  the  famous  shipyard  was  founded  there. 

Who  was  Buckler  ?  In  all  probabihty  no  one 
knows.  All  but  his  name  is  forgotten,  like  those 
unknown  pioneers  whose  names  still  linger  about 
lonely  lakes  in  the  Rockies. 

There  are  not  a  great  number  of  houses  for  so 
important  a  centre ;    but  it  must  be  remembered 


160  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

that  in  all  probability  only  the  hulls  of  the  ships 
would  be  built  at  Buckler's  Hard,  where  the  supply 
of  timber  was  near  at  hand,  to  be  rigged  and  fitted 
out  at   Portsmouth. 

A  busy  scene  enough  it  must  have  been  in  the 
days  gone  by,  and  one  which  it  is  not  difficult  even 
now  to  conjure  up  before  the  eye  of  fancy.  Down 
yonder  on  the  slipways  are  the  massive  ribs  of  some 
trim  frigate  or  proud  seventy-four,  and  a  busy  hum 
of  activity  fills  the  air,  punctuated  by  the  monoton- 
ous drub-drub  of  the  caulkers'  mallets  and  the  tap 
of  the  shipwrights'  hammers.  Out  on  the  quiet 
water  lies  the  hull  of  a  ship  which  may  quite  con- 
ceivably have  fought  in  Blake's  fleet — the  sheer 
hulk  alongside  which  the  new  ship  will  lie  when  she 
is  ready  for  her  masts  to  be  hoisted  into  position. 
Everywhere  is  the  pleasant  shipyard  smell  of  tar, 
and  pitch,  and  shavings,  and  sawdust — the  sort  of 
smell  which  (banished  from  the  modem  shipyard) 
still  lingers  in  little  boat-builders'  sheds  in  quiet, 
decaying  ports  and  fishing  towns,  where  the  old 
methods  and  materials  still  to  some  extent  prevail. 

But  now,  all  is  silent.  Everything  is  changed 
but  the  river,  and  the  forest  of  lordly  oaks  that  were 
saplings  when  ships  were  a-building  at  Buckler's 
Hard.  Somewhere  out  in  the  Solent  comes  a  long 
wail  from  the  siren  of  a  liner  making  for  Southamp- 
ton. There  are  the  great  new  ships,  the  modern 
harbour  and  its  manifold  bustle.  But  here  is  only 
peace — peace  and  quiet,  and  the  great  memories 
of  the  past. 


Lymington  might  stand  as  the  type  of  many  a 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  161 

dozen  little  decayed  and  decaying  English  ports 
which  once  enjoyed  a  bustUng  trade  in  a  small  way, 
and  raised  up  generations  of  good  sailormen  to 
supply  the  needs  of  our  Navy  and  our  merchant 
ships.  In  her  day  she  must  have  been  almost  as 
important  a  place  as  Southampton  ;  but  chance 
passed  on  up  the  Solent  and  left  her  peacefully 
dreaming  by  her  winding  muddy  river  and  breezy 
salt  marshes.  But  even  so  she  had  her  com- 
fortable complement  of  coasting  trade :  topsail 
schooners  and  London  barges  and  what  not,  coming 
and  going,  enough  to  keep  her  two  or  three  local 
pilots  busy  and  prosperous,  and  fill  the  "  Alarm," 
and  the  "  Solent,"  and  the  "  Quay  "  inns  with  talk 
and  singing  in  the  evenings. 

But  these  have  passed  away  now :  they  passed 
when  the  Great  War  came,  and  they  have  never 
returned.  They  passed  away,  of  course,  in  part, 
with  the  salt  industry,  which  at  one  time  had  forty 
salt-pans  at  work  and  paid  £50,000  annually  in 
taxes.  Then  they  went  altogether  when  the  War 
came.  All  that  comes  now  is  an  occasional  barge 
with  a  load  of  bricks  or  coal  or  gravel.  And  there 
are  a  few  blue-jerseyed  loungers  on  the  tiny  quay, 
most  of  whom  have  sailed  in  yachts  a  year  or 
two,  and  come  home  to  settle  down  to  a  kind  of 
amphibious  existence. 

Yachting  furnishes  both  the  chief  industry  and 
the  chief  excitement  of  the  place  nowadays.  The 
quaint  httle  "  Alarm "  inn  is  called  after  the 
celebrated  yacht  of  that  name  ;  she  is  believed  to 
have  been  the  biggest  cutter  ever  built,  her  Hnes  and 
her  name  having  been  taken  from  a  smuggler 
captured  off  the  Isle  of  Wight. 
II 


162  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

They  have  a  wild,  weird  charm  of  their  own, 
these  desolate  "  saltings,"  where  you  can  walk  for 
miles  along  the  dikes  between  the  tide-left  mud 
when  the  water  is  low  and  sheets  of  lapping  water 
when  the  sea  is  in.  Out  towards  the  Solent,  Jack- 
in-the-Basket,  the  Cocked  Hat,  and  the  rest  of  the 
guiding  marks  which  show  the  winding  course  of 
the  channel,  stand  out  in  the  sunset  like  gibbeted 
pirates.  It  is  plain  enough  to  see  that  Lymington 
"  needs  no  bulwarks,  no  towers  along  the  steep." 
So  far  as  attack  from  the  sea  was  concerned  she  had 
no  need  to  do  anything  but  dismantle  Jack-in-the 
Basket  and  his  companions,  and  sleep  soundly 
o'  nights  without  the  slightest  fear  of  the  French 
or  anyone  else. 

Across  the  levels  comes  strangely  the  sound  of  a 
high  shrill  voice  singing  that  "  she  must  be  some 
wonderful  girl."  An  enterprising  town  council 
has  engaged  a  troupe  of  entertainers,  and  they  are 
going  through  a  programme  on  the  draughty  little 
bandstand  for  the  edification  of  a  few  children  with 
prams,  and  the  long  orange-coloured  sunset,  flaming 
on  the  river  reaches  and  flushing  the  seaward  face 
of  the  Wight,  and  the  thin  wind  that  comes  coldly 
over  the  saltings  at  evening.  It  is  growing  dark, 
and  Jack-in-the-Basket  is  settling  to  his  lonely 
vigil ;  and  the  lights  are  flashing  out  one  by  one  in 
the  tall  old  Georgian  houses  and  low-ceiled  water- 
side inns  of  the  little  ancient  seaport  that  sent 
eight  ships  to  fight  the  Armada. 


CHAPTER  IV 

Pacific  Coast — The  Ship  "  Antiope  " — The  I^ller  Ship — 
Rolling  Stones — Lumber — Ships'  Names — Sealers  and  Whalers 
— Conclusion 

YOU  can  sit  on  the  edge  of  the  Outer  Wharf  at 
Victoria,  and  fish  for  black  bass  with  a  bit  of 
white  cotton  rag,  and  watch  the  great  ships 
come  in  from  the  sea  with  the  wonder  of  the  East  in 
their  holds. 

Over  across  the  Strait  of  Juan  de  Fuca  the  sum- 
mits of  the  ranges  on  the  American  mainland  are 
flushed  with  faint  rose,  for  it  is  only  at  sunset  that 
the  black  bass  will  bite.  There  is  a  smell  of  forest 
fires  in  the  air,  and  a  glow  on  the  flanks  of  the  remote 
mountains,  and  a  light  wisp  of  cloud  that  means 
miles  of  ravaged  woodland  and  an  inferno  of  smoke 
and  flame  in  which  men  are  fighting,  parched  and 
blackened  like  demons.  The  Hght  on  Brotchie 
Ledge  has  just  begun  to  wink  leisurely,  and  far  out 
on  Race  Rocks  the  lighthouse  answers  it  with  his 
occulting  beam. 

The  sun  has  gone  down  into  the  China  Seas  in  a 
great  fiery  golden  pomp,  like  the  sea-burial  of  an  old 
Norse  king,  and  a  splendid  afterglow,  slow  and 
solemn  as  a  funeral  march,  goes  flooding  up  to  the 
zenith  like  the  glow  of  a  funeral  pyre  ;  and  on  the 
edge  of  it  hangs  a  lonely  star.  A  small  moon  drifts 
Uke  a  feather  dropped  from  an  archangel's  wing. 

163 


164  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

A  riding-light  has  begun  to  glimmer  in  the  rigging 
of  the  anchored  windjammer  in  the  Royal  Roads. 

It  was  on  one  of  these  magical  evenings  that  I 
knew  even  a  Blue  Funnel  freighter — surely  one  of 
the  greatest  achievements  in  the  way  of  absolute 
ughness  that  man  in  the  guise  of  a  "  naval  archi- 
tect "  ever  perpetrated — it  was  on  such  an  evening 
that  I  have  known  even  one  of  these  slab-sided 
atrocities  assume  for  a  transient  hour  a  haunting 
and  fantastic  glamour. 

She  came  in  slowly,  steaming  out  of  that  rose 
glory  of  sea  and  sky  ;  a  black,  squat  monster,  with 
her  double  derricks  standing  up  hke  gibbets  against 
the  afterglow.  Her  port  and  starboard  hghts  sent 
long  green  and  red  reflections  into  the  faintly- 
rippled  tide  ;  and  the  electric  hghts  on  her  shelter 
deck  made  a  queer  cold  contrast  with  the  warm 
light  of  the  evening. 

She  was  bringing  a  full  complement  of  Chinese 
immigrants,  and  they  had  all  gathered  together 
along  the  bulwarks,  under  the  electric  lights, 
staring  out  towards  the  new  land  they  were  nearing. 
There  must  have  been  some  hundreds  of  them,  all 
clustered  there  together,  and  as  silent  as  death- 
some  hundreds  of  yellow  faces,  ahke  with  the  un- 
canny ahkeness  of  the  Mongol,  their  staring  eyes 
seeming  the  only  things  ahve  in  them  ;  and  in  that 
queer  blending  of  lights  they  looked  hke  a  cargo  of 
souls  in  some  half-crazed  vision  of  a  mediaeval 
craftsman — some  Ship  of  Death  in  an  engraving  by 
an  old  German  artist.  It  was  an  unforgettable 
picture  in  its  weird,  uncanny  fashion. 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  165 

I  always  used  to  like  those  names  of  little  one-ship 
companies  which  were  (and  perhaps  are)  still  to  be 
seen — in  white  lettering  on  a  black  ground — on  the 
door- jambs  of  low,  old-fashioned  office-blocks  in 
certain  quiet  and  sea-smelling  byways  of  waterside 
Victoria.  It  was  not  only  that  they  represented 
a  day  before  the  day  of  great  corporations,  of 
multiple  shops  and  multiple  ships,  but  there  was  a 
smack  of  romance  about  their  designations.  One 
felt  vaguely  that  a  ship  thus  individually  owned 
must  have  a  more  individual  and  adventurous 
career  than  one  of  several  dozen  owned  by  a  limited 
company  with  plate-glass-windowed  offices.  The 
name—"  The  Ship  '  Poltalloch,'  "  or  whatever  it 
might  be — might  stand  as  that  of  some  yam  of  the 
sea — something  with  treasure-seeking  in  it,  and 
blackbirding,  and  youth,  and  danger,  and  villainy, 
and  the  sound  of  the  sea. 

The  "  Ship  '  Poltalloch  '  "  I  saw  once  in  propria 
persona.  She  was  in  dry  dock  at  Esquimalt,  and  she 
had  rather  an  interesting  figurehead,  I  remember, 
of  a  bewigged  Georgian-looking  personage,  who  I 
fancy  must  have  been  copied  either  from  some 
family  portrait  or  old  engraving,  or  else  from  the 
figurehead  of  some  much  older  vessel.  But  of 
the  ship  "  Antiope  "  I  never  saw  anything  but  that 
matter-of-fact  little  white-lettered  plate,  with  the 
picture  it  always  called  up  of  a  shapely  hull  and 
white  sails,  of  a  swift  ship  running  like  a  deer  through 
the  waves  that  leapt  at  her  flanks  Uke  hounds.  I 
never  saw  her,  and  I  am  sorry,  for  she  had  as  strange 
and  eventful  a  fife  story  as  a  ship  ever  had. 

She  was  built  in  1866,  by  Reid  of  Glasgow,  and  her 
active  sea  career  only  ended  a  short  time  ago,  though 


166  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

(as  will  be  seen)  it  had  not  been  quite  unbroken. 
She  is  thus  older  by  a  few  years  than  that  other 
splendid  veteran,  "  Cutty  Sark  "  ;  but  she  has 
known  a  good  many  more  ups  and  downs  than  the 
famous  China  flyer. 

She  started  hfe  under  the  ownership  of  Messrs. 
Joseph  Heap  &  Sons,  of  Liverpool,  rice  millers. 
The  firm  speciahzed  in  the  sort  of  name  to  which  the 
shellback  invariably  used  to  give  strange  pro- 
nunciations of  his  own :  "  Parthenope," 
"  Melanope,"  and  "  Eurynome "  were  others  of 
their  fleet.  I  saw  "  Melanope  "  many  a  time, 
dragging  out  her  old  age  as  a  coal  hulk  at  the 
C.P.R.  wharf  at  Esquimalt. 

"  Antiope,"  Hke  her  sisters,  sailed  on  a  regular 
round  from  Liverpool  to  Australia  with  passengers 
and  general  cargo,  from  AustraUa  to  India  with 
anything  that  came  her  way — often  it  would  be 
horses  from  New  South  Wales — and  on  to  Rangoon 
to  load  rice  for  home.  Then  she  passed  to  another 
Liverpool  firm,  and  made  some  good  runs  in  the 
Austrahan  wool  trade. 

When  the  star  of  the  clipper  ship  began  to  set, 
"  Antiope  "  shared  the  fate  of  many  more  British 
sailing  craft.  She  was  "  sold  foreign  "  to  the 
Russians,  but  they  had  not  had  her  long  before 
she  was  captured  as  a  prize  of  war  by  the  Japanese. 
Her  captors  sold  her  "  in  prize."  It  is  curious,  by 
the  way,  that  the  Japanese,  clever  sailors  though 
they  are,  never  seem  to  have  gone  in  for  big  saihng 
vessels,  either  squaresail  or  fore-and-aft.  She  was 
now  once  again  under  the  Red  Duster,  being  owned 
and  registered  in  Victoria,  at  which  time,  no  doubt, 
her  name  figured  on  the  white-lettered  plate  I  knew. 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  167 

She  put  in  some  years  in  the  Pacific  coast  lumber 
trade — round  the  Horn  to  London  or  Liverpool, 
across  the  Pacific  to  Newcastle,  N.S.W.  (a  run 
on  which  many  a  good  ship  has  gone  down  with  all 
hands),  down  the  coast  to  the  nitrate  ports  with 
lumber — and  then  changed  hands  once  more,  this 
time  going  to  New  Zealand  for  conversion  into  a 
coal  hulk. 

And  there,  you  might  have  thought,  would  be  an 
end  of  her,  as  would,  no  doubt,  have  been  the  case 
but  for  the  Great  War.  When  tonnage  began  to 
soar,  the  old  "  Antiope  "  was  refitted  and  re-rigged 
and  sent  forth  to  sea  again,  like  many  another  old 
sailer,  to  earn  freights  such  as  had  been  never 
dreamed  of  even  in  her  days  of  prosperity. 

She  had  not  been  at  sea  long,  however,  before  she 
ran  aground  while  trying  to  make  Bluff  Harbour 
after  being  partly  disabled  in  a  gale.  Even  after 
fifty  years  of  service,  it  was  still  thought  worth  while 
to  bring  a  salvage  outfit  down  to  try  to  float  her  ; 
but  all  efforts  failed,  and  she  would  have  been  left 
for  the  seas  to  work  their  will  upon  had  not  an 
enterprising  local  journalist  detected  the  leak  while 
exploring  the  hold  with  the  aid  of  a  rope-ladder. 
She  was  patched  up  again  and  towed  into  Port 
Chalmers  for  repairs,  and  after  the  War  was  still  at 
sea  and  earning  good  money. 

Now  she  is  once  more  converted  into  a  hulk — 
this  time  a  sugar  hulk  at  Chinde — and  during  the 
recent  cyclone  she  rode  through  it  all  at  her  moorings 
undamaged  when  nearly  every  other  craft  in  the 
river  was  sunk. 

If  ships  could  speak  they  could  tell  some  wonder- 
ful yams.      But  I  doubt  if  any  could  tell  much 


168  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

queerer  ones  than  the  ship  "  Antiope  " — clipper 
ship,  prize  of  war,  timber  drogher,  coal  hulk — at 
sea  in  time  of  war  for  a  second  time,  shipwrecked, 
refloated,  and  now  at  last  a  hulk  once  again,  with  a 
cyclone  by  way  of  diversion  for  her  old  age. 

Her  old  ribs  must  still  be  as  sound  as  ever,  and 
there  is  just  a  chance  that  she  has  not  seen  the  end 
of  her  adventures  even  yet.  .  .  .     Who  knows  ? 

4:  i|i  4:  4:  ^ 

The  "  Antiope  "  was,  without  doubt,  a  "  lucky  " 
ship.  But  I  once  came  across  in  Victoria  one  of 
the  authentic  examples  of  an  "  unlucky  "  ship — 
one  of  those  fatal  ships  the  persistency  of  whose 
misfortunes  is  such  that  no  theory  of  coincidence 
can  ever  satisfactorily  explain  them  away. 

She  was  an  ugly  brute  of  a  steamer — one  of  the 
old  China  Mutual  ships — with  nothing  about  her  to 
suggest  mystery  or  superstition  or  anything  of  the 
kind.  But  she  killed  her  man  every  voyage  with  a 
sinister  and  appalling  regularity.  She  used  to  do 
it  in  all  sorts  of  conceivable  and  inconceivable 
ways — bursting  gauge-glasses  in  the  engine-room, 
accidents  with  cargo-derricks,  accidents  while  coal- 
ing, accidents  to  shore-boats,  people  falling  down 
open  hatches — any  kind  of  mishap  you  could 
possibly  think  of  either  in  harbour  or  at  sea. 

The  time  I  saw  her  in  Victoria  she  had — so  far — 
not  taken  her  usual  toll.  But  she  was  only  biding 
her  time.  She  did  it  while  she  was  there — did  it 
with  a  wire  hawser  that  gave  way  unexpectedly  and 
knocked  a  fellow  into  the  harbour.  It  must  have 
been  stranded  somewhere,  though  nobody  knew  it 
was.      The  ship  had  taken  her  toll ! 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  169 

What  was  the  reason  of  it — that  strange  doom 
which  slunk  in  her  wake  year  after  year  ?  Had 
someone  chalked  obscenities  on  her  hull  in  the 
shipyard  where  she  was  built  ?  I  have  heard  the 
"  Titanic's  "  doom  ascribed  to  the  fact  that  Orange 
shipyard  labourers  had  chalked  "  To  Hell  with  the 
Pope  "  on  all  her  plates.  Was  she  "  built  in  th' 
ecUpse  and  rigged  with  curses  dark  ?  "  Did 
someone  meet  a  red-haired  woman  on  his  way  to 
work  on  her,  and  not  turn  back  ?  Did  she 
carry  somewhere  within  her  a  ghastly  secret 
Uke  that  of  the  "  Great  Eastern  "  ?  Who  can 
say  ? 

Another  ship  with  rather  a  curious  history  which 
was  a  visitor  to  Victoria  was  the  barquentine 
"  Alta  " — the  ship  without  a  flag,  she  used  to  be 
called.  I  forget  exactly  how  it  came  about,  but, 
briefly,  during  the  process  of  changing  ownership, 
she  was  for  a  time  actually  sailing  under  no  flag 
at  all.  It  was  a  situation  with  any  number  of 
interesting  possibiUties.  Supposing,  for  instance, 
anyone  had  happened  to  be  bom  in  her  on  that 
particular  voyage — ^he  would  have  been  a  citizen  of 
Nowhere.  It  has  been  propounded  by  the  United 
States  Immigration  Authorities  that  the  son  of 
British  parents  bom  in  Egypt  was  an  Egyptian — 
hence,  presumably,  a  person  bom  nowhere  would  not 
legally  be  aUve  at  all.  I  wonder  what  would  be 
his  precise  position  in  law.  If  he  married,  would 
he  be  really  married,  or  would  his  wife  be  considered 
to  have  been  married  to  Nobody  ?  If  he  committed 
a  crime,  would  he  be  outside  all  law,  being  a  native 
of  Nowhere  ?  It  would  be  a  useful  position  for  a 
potential  filibuster  or  soldier,  for  he  could  dispose 


170  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

of  his  services  to  any  country  he  fancied  without 
being  a  traitor  to  his  own. 


The  Pacific  coast  is  a  great  place  for  rolling  stones 
of  every  sort  and  description.  I  remember  meeting 
what  I  should  say  was  the  very  perfection  of  the 
type.  He  was  sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  Outer 
Wharf — it  was  in  Victoria — on  a  sort  of  coaming 
that  runs  along  the  edge,  very  comfortable  to  sit 
on,  though  given  to  exuding  tar  in  very  hot  weather. 
His  coat — I  don't  think  there  was  a  shirt  under- 
neath— was  fastened  together  with  string,  being 
innocent  of  buttons.  His  knee  showed  through 
his  trousers.  His  boots  were  ruins.  But  he  spoke 
with  the  unmistakable  accents  of  cultivation. 

I  don't  think  he  was  a  drunkard  :  he  had  none  of 
the  squaUd  signs  of  it.  He  may  have  been  a  gambler, 
but  I  doubt  that  either.  I  should  rather  take  him 
for  one  of  those  bom  tramps,  who  have  some  strain 
of  gipsy  blood  that  keeps  them  constantly  on  the 
move,  who  abhor  the  clothes,  the  conventions,  the 
cribbed  and  cabined  Ufe  of  cities,  and  choose  for 
their  comrades  the  sailor,  the  cowboy,  the  gaucho, 
for  their  habitation  the  tent,  the  herdsman's  hut, 
the  camp-fire,  the  foc's'les  of  ships.  His  eyes  were 
clear  and  his  skin  tanned  ;  he  had  none  of  the  look 
of  the  declasse  for  all  his  rags  and  tatters.  I  talked 
to  him  quite  a  long  time  about  ships,  of  which  he 
seemed  to  know  a  good  deal.  I  only  saw  him  once. 
He  was  the  sort  you  only  see  once.  But  I  have 
often  wondered  what  his  history  was. 

Then  there  were  the  old  sealing  captains — many 
of  them  hailed  from  the  Shetlands  :     fair-haired. 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  171 

blue-eyed  men  of  the  purest  Norse  type — and  all 
kinds  of  old  seafaring  men,  like  the  ship's  carpenter 
who  was  building  himself  a  boat  in  his  front  garden 
in  the  summer  evenings,  and  was  always  ready  for  a 
yam  of  his  old  sailing-ship  days.      One  I  remember 
was  of  an  experience  in  the  baths  at  Sydney,  when  he 
found  himself  sharing  his  dip  with  a  good-sized  shark. 
Captain    Barclay-Bates    was    a    different    type 
altogether.      Captains,  by  the  way,  were  decidedly 
frequent  in  those  days.      Anybody  was  a  captain 
who  had  ever  commanded  so  much  as  a  motor  boat — 
or  even  a  hockey  team.      But  Barclay-Bates  was  a 
real  captain  all  right,  taking  a  turn  ashore.       He 
was  generally  up  to  the  ears  in  some  wonderful  new 
financial  scheme,  which  never  seemed  to  get  any 
further   than   renting   a   palatial   suite   of   offices, 
having  them  newly  "  kalsomined,"  and  engaging  a 
stenographer.       Not  that  there  was  anything  dis- 
honest about  the  man.      He  was  simply  one  of  the 
most  incurable  optimists  that  ever  stepped,  and  a 
bit  of  a  fantastic  into  the  bargain.      He  was  a  perky 
little   cock-sparrow   of    a   man,    with    a   bristling 
moustache  and  aggressive  pointed  beard  ;     and — 
with  a  cheesecutter  cap  over  one  eye — ^he  would 
have  looked  the  part  of  Captain  Kettle  to  perfection. 
I  fancy  really  he  must  have  been  a  reincarnation  of 
a  buccaneer  who  had  sacked  Panama  with  Henry 
Morgan,     and     buried     ghost-watched    chests    of 
doubloons  in  islands  of  the  Caribbees.     He  cropped 
up  not  long  ago  in  some  sort  of   a   comic-opera 
performance,  in  which  he  held  a  number  of  Dago 
officials  scared  stiff  with  a  revolver  in  one  hand, 
while  he  overawed  his  own  crew  with  the  other. 
How  he  must  have  revelled  in  it ! 


172  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

Then  there  was  the  pilot  with  the  inexhaustible 
supply  of  yarns.  He  was  rather  Uke  a  red  round- 
about Uttle  edition  of  the  Ancient  Mariner,  for 
he  was  always  ready  to  "  loll  on  a  bollard,  a  sun- 
burned son  of  the  sea,"  arrange  himself  in  a  graceful 
attitude  with  his  arm  hooked  round  a  post,  and  spin 
the  longest  and  the  most  amazing  yams  you  ever 
heard  in  your  Hfe.  It  was  currently  reported  that 
he  once  told  one  that  lasted  all  the  way  from 
Tacoma  to  Nanaimo — and  that  only  at  the  rate  of 
seven  knots — and  even  then  it  wasn't  finished. 
But  they  were  really  excellent  yarns,  some  of 
them  .  .  .  and  true — oh,  well,  you  can't  have 
everything,  and  the  great  point  about  them  was 
that  they  might  quite  conceivably  have  been ; 
except  that  one  about  the  captain's  wife  who  was 
so  stout  that  when  she  was  transferred  from  one 
ship  to  another  the  two  vessels,  which  had  got 
locked  together  in  a  storm  at  Valparaiso,  parted 
company  by  sheer  force  of  gravity.  I  never  could 
quite  swallow  that  one  .  .  .  but  the  irony  of  it  was 
that  his  very  best  yam  was  the  one  most  people 
never  believed,  and  in  my  opinion  it  was  true  from 
start  to  finish  ! 


There  was  nearly  always  a  sailing  vessel  at  the 
lumber  mill  wharf — either  one  of  the  yearly-lessening 
number  of  British  square-riggers  or  some  old  "  has- 
been  "  sold  to  Chile  or  Italy,  or  at  the  least  one  of 
the  big  raking  American  fore-and-afters  that  are 
such  a  feature  of  the  Pacific  coast  harbours.  How 
it  brings  it  all  back,  when  you  see  in  your  daily 
paper  some  familiar  ship's  name — see  it,  as  (alas  !) 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  178 

one  too  often  does  see  it,  under  the  ominous  heading 
"  Reinsurance  Rates  "...  and  watch  it,  as  the 
days  go  by,  and  the  rate  creeps  up  higher  and  higher, 
from  five  guineas  to  ten,  from  ten  to  twenty,  till  it 
gets  up  as  high  as  ninety  .  .  .  and  then — ^well,  either 
the  old  barky  snaps  her  fingers  at  the  underwriters 
by  turning  up  somewhere,  or  else  she  drops  out  of 
the  hst  as  uninsurable,  presently  to  be,  in  due 
course,  "  posted  missing." 

To  anyone  who  has  known  a  fine  ship— known 
her  only,  as  you  might  put  it,  as  an  acquaintance 
— such  an  announcement  cannot  but  give  something 
of  a  pang.  Whatever  comes  or  goes,  you  will  not 
see  her  more.  And  you  remember  her,  how  tall 
and  fine  she  looked,  there  by  the  lumber  mill .  .  .  and 
feel  the  sawdust  under  your  feet,  and  hear  the  shrill 
note  of  the  saws,  and  smell  the  pungent  resinous 
smell  of  the  new  lumber  .  .  .  and  remember  yams 
you  heard  on  board  her,  and  the  captain's  bird 
singing  in  the  sunlight  .  .  .  and,  last  of  all,  you 
remember  how  you  saw  her  towing  out  to  Flattery 
in  the  early  morning,  shaking  the  reefs  out  of  her 
topsails  for  the  first  stage  of  the  five-thousand-mile 
run  Home. 

Ah,  weU  ;  and  so  she  is  gone  !  Poor  old  Stirling- 
shire .  .  .  gone  at  the  last  under  a  new  name  and 
a  new  flag — a  sad  end  for  a  good  ship  ! 

Some  fine  ships,  Chilean  owned,  used  to  come 
in  from  the  nitrate  ports.  The  Chilenos — the 
"  English  of  the  Pacific  " — have  bought  many  of 
our  old  stagers,  and  they  generally  allow  them  to 
retain  their  old  names  until  the  end.  I  saw  the 
famous  cHpper  "  Ivanhoe  "  once,  though  not  at 
very  close  quarters.     There  had  been  a  light  mist 


174  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

in  the  early  hours — just  enough  to  keep  the  Brotchie 
Ledge  fog  signal  bleating — but  it  had  cleared  as  the 
sun  mounted,  leaving  that  wonderful  translucency 
in  the  air  that  so  often  follows  mist.  She  was 
towing  down  from  Nanaimo  or  Ladysmith,  where 
she  had  been  taking  on  a  cargo  of  coal ;  and  in  that 
bright,  virginal,  crystal-clear  morning  she  looked 
as  if  seen  through  fine  glass — like  a  bottled  ship  in 
a  crystal  flask  miraculously  made  ij^al.  She  had 
no  sail  set,  and  every  spar  and  rope  stood  out 
wonderfully  distinct,  the  clean,  fine  lines  of  her 
hull  outlined  on  a  sea  as  fiat  as  a  mirror. 

Very  often  ships  sold  foreign  are  re-named,  and 
you  may  sometimes  discover  some  famous  old 
flyer  masquerading  under  some  unpronounceable 
pseudonym  or  other.  To  the  ship-lover  it  is  one 
of  the  rare  moments  of  triumph,  such  as  comes  to 
the  connoisseur  who  finds  some  rare  first  edition 
in  a  heap  of  tattered  rubbish  on  a  bookstall,  when, 
exploring  the  neglected  decks  of  some  old  forlorn 
barque,  he  spells  out  on  capstan  head  or  bell,  green 
with  verdigris  or  pitted  with  rust,  the  letters  of 
some  name  that  was  once  one  to  conjure  with 
wherever  sailors  met.  True,  unUke  most  collectors, 
you  can't  take  your  find  away  with  you — but  when 
your  collection  is  a  collection  of  memories,  what 
matter  ? 


The  naming  of  ships  seems  nowadays  to  be  some- 
thing of  a  lost  art  among  us.  Take,  for  instance, 
those  masterpieces  of  inept  nomenclature,  the 
"  War  "  ships,  which  began  quite  reasonably  with 
"  War  Spear,"  "  War  Sword,"  and  the  Hke,  then 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE     175 

degenerated  into  such  meaningless  combinations 
as  "  War  Beryl  "  and  "  War  Peridot,"  and  touched 
the  nadir  of  unimaginative  futility  in  the  "  War 
Fig." 

War  Fig !  Could  anything  be  conceived  more 
inane,  more  meaningless,  or  more  inappropriate  ? 
It  suggests  a  dozen  questions — as,  why,  to  begin 
with.  Fig  at  all  ?  What  possible  connexion  is  there 
between  figs  and  ships,  except  in  the  capacity  of  a 
cargo  ;  and,  even  if  Fig  be  conceded,  then  why  on 
earth  War  Fig  ?  What  is  a  War  Fig,  and  why  is 
a  War  Fig  different  from  a  Peace  Fig,  or  for  the 
matter  of  that  a  pre- War  Fig  ? 

Then  there  are  the  American  "  standard  "  ships, 
which  are  in  Httle  better  case  :  the  "  Lake  Gravity," 
for  example,  and  the  "  Lake  Frugality,"  which 
might  quite  conceivably  be  accompanied  by  the 
"  Lake  Prohibition  "  or  the  "  Lake  Sobriety."  The 
United  States  Mail  Line  started  rather  terribly  with 
the  "  Panhandle  State,"  and  "  Centennial  State  " 
was  httle  better  ;  "  Lone  Star  State,"  on  the  other 
hand,  makes  quite  a  good-sounding  name.  But 
the  line  has  now  abandoned  its  States  in  favour  of 
Presidents.  WTien  one  comes  to  think  of  it,  what 
an  absurdity  it  is  to  call  a  ship,  which  is  feminine, 
after  a  man,  thus  compelling  the  utterance  of  all 
sorts  of  ridiculous  statements — as,  for  instance, 
"  the  '  President  Garfield  '  has  lost  her  propeller  !  " 

And  yet  there  can  be  a  very  charm  in  incongruity. 
There  is  a  kind  of  magnificent  insolence  about  a 
stately  Oriental  or  classical  polysyllable  flaunted 
over  the  seven  seas  from  the  counter  of  an  ugly, 
matter-of-fact  little  cargo  drudge.  Nor  need  one 
quarrel  with  those  plain,  sensible  New  England 


176  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

names  of  men  and  women  so  often  borne  by 
American  ships,  and  especially  by  American  sailing 
ships  :  those  "  Willie  T.  Thises  "  and  "  Annie  M. 
Thats "  which  inevitably  call  before  the  mind's 
eye  one  of  those  big,  austere  Yankee  schooners, 
with  their  almost  Puritanical  simpHcity  of  Une  and 
rig.  They  seem  to  belong  to  httle  one-man  or  family 
shipyards  in  Massachusetts  or  Maine ;  and  they 
suggest  lean,  lantern-jawed  skipper-owners  given 
to  religion,  and  hard-fisted  mates,  the  Hneal  de- 
scendants of  just  such  seamen  as  "Long  Tom 
Coffin  "  or  Melville's  "  Starbuck."  With  us,  similar 
names  are  seldom  found  nowadays  outside  the 
coasting  trade  ;  and  even  there  we  prefer  such 
flights  of  fancy  as  "  Pride  of  the  West  "  or  "  Cornish 
Belle." 

True,  our  big  Hners  are  well  enough  named — 
our  "  Olympics ''  and  "  Baltics  "  (I  wonder  why 
the  White  Star  Line  has  never  used  the  obvious 
"  Gaelic  "),  our  "  Aquitanias  "  and  "  Empresses  " 
and  the  rest,  to  say  nothing  of  the  Blue  Funnel 
Line's  Homeric  jaw-crackers.  But  there  is,  after 
all,  an  air  of  standardizing  about  all  these  names. 
They  lack  that  human  touch  which  was  present  in 
the  old  ship  names. 

How  they  sing  themselves  in  the  memory,  those 
old  names  of  ships — "  Golden  Hynde,"  "  May- 
flower," "  Jesus  of  Lubeck,"  "  Trade's  Increase," 
"  Globe,"  "  Hector,"  "  Good  Intent,"  "  Betsy 
Cains,"  "  Cognac  Packet."  Names  of  China  clippers 
beautiful  and  brave  to  hear  as  the  names  of  beautiful 
and  gallant  things  ought  to  be  :  "  Thermopylae," 
"  Ariel,"  "  Lothair,"  "  Sir  Lancelot  "  ;  names  of  big 
slashing  Colonial  clippers  and  Blackwall  frigates: 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  177 

"  Star  of  Peace,"  "  Jerusalem,"  "  Thyatira,"  with 
others  called  after  WeUington's  Peninsular  victories, 
"Vimiera,"  "  Albuera,"  "  Vittoria."  There  is  a 
"  Vimiera  "  afloat  to-day,  but  she  is  a  much  newer 
ship  than  the  Blackwaller  of  that  name.  The 
American  cHppers  were  no  less  high-sounding : 
"  Romance  of  the  Seas,"  "  Great  Republic," 
"  Flying  Cloud,"  "  Sea  Serpent,"  "  Chariot  of 
Fame,"  and  "  Neptune's  Car  "  being  characteristic 
examples  ;  and  it  should  be  added  that  they  were 
generally  fitted  with  very  elaborate  full-length 
figureheads  to  match. 

But  there  are  beautiful  names  to  be  found  among 
more  modem  sailing  vessels,  though  a  shade  less 
fanciful.  There  are  the  Scottish  Shires  for  example, 
"  Kinross-shire,"  "  Elginshire,"  "  Clackmannan- 
shire "  ;  and  the  Hills,  "  Marlborough  Hill  "  and 
the  rest ;  the  Bens,  "  Ben-Nevis  "  and  "  Ben- 
more  "  ;  Counties,  like  the  "  County  of  Linlithgow  "  ; 
and  good  Enghsh  names  hke  "  Rowena "  and 
"  Harold." 

But  perhaps  the  best  of  all  were  those  of  the 
Sierras  :  "  Sierra  Nevada,"  "  Sierra  Morena,"  and 
so  on  ;  and  those  other  names  of  mountains  which 
were  borne  with  such  beautiful  appropriateness 
by  some  fine  Liverpool  ships  now  no  more : 
"  Matterhom,"  "  Lyderhom,"  and  "  Silberhom." 
The  likeness  of  one  of  those  tall  towers  of  whiteness 
to  a  far-seen  peak  of  snow  makes  the  idea  both 
an  obvious  and  a  particularly  happy  one. 

Needless  to  say,  the  beautiful  names  of  the  ships 
sometimes  got  rather  unceremonious  treatment 
from  their  unlettered  crews.  A  case  in  point  is 
that  of  the  old  cHpper  "  Antiope,"  whose  story  is 

12 


178  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

given  elsewhere  in  these  pages.  On  her  maiden 
voyage,  the  story  goes,  more  than  one  old  shellback 
foretold  for  her  an  early  and  a  violent  end.  How 
could  she  be  anything  else  but  an  unlucky  ship, 
was  their  contention,  when  she  was  fitted  up  with  a 
name  like  "  Anti-hope "  ?  What  did  it  mean, 
anyway,  if  it  didn't  mean  "  against  hope  "  ?  But 
that  was  nearly  sixty  years  ago,  and  the  "  Anti- 
hope  "  is  stUl  afloat,  so  the  croakers  were  for  once 
wide  of  the  mark  ! 


I  daresay  there  are  now  none  of  those  old  decaying 
seaUng  schooners  left  which  used  to  lie,  green  and 
rotting,  in  that  part  of  Victoria's  Inner  Harbour 
known  as  "  The  Arm  " — a  dismal,  stagnant  sort  of 
spot,  dedicated  to  garbage,  and  dead  cats,  and 
snags,  and  sawmill  refuse,  and  mouldering  slipways, 
and  sinister  leaning  boathouses  that  seemed  waiting 
for  murders  to  be  committed  in  them. 

There  were  still  two  or  three  there,  the  year 
before  the  War,  poor  melancholy-looking  relics  of 
what  had  been  in  their  day  among  the  most  sea- 
worthy and  staunch  of  small  seagoing  craft.  I 
believe  one  or  two  of  them  were  taken  to  serve  as 
some  kind  of  bonfire  at  one  of  those  peculiar  carnivals 
or  similar  festive  occasions  of  which  the  Pacific 
coast  is  so  inordinately  fond.  But  they  refused 
either  to  burn  or  sink. 

Some  have  been  fitted  out  with  auxihary  engines 
and  turned  into  halibut  schooners  ;  and  I  wonder 
more  people  have  not  seen  their  possibilities  as 
cruising  yachts.  One — the  "  Casco  " — earned  some 
considerable  renown  through  her  association  with 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  179 

Robert  Loiiis  Stevenson,  who  went  cruising  in  her 
to  the  South  Seas. 

The  sort  of  seaHng  connected  with  Victoria  was 
not  that  horrid  business  of  bloody  massacre  on  the 
rookeries.  The  Victoria  seal  fishery  was  pelagic, 
that  is,  it  was  carried  on  among  the  seals  in  the 
open  sea  on  their  way  northwards  to  their  breeding 
grounds  in  the  Pribyloffs.  Nor  was  the  seal  hunted 
the  same  as  that  whose  spoils  adorn  peeress  and 
profiteeress.  It  was  the  hair  seal,  not  the  fur  seal. 
The  method  of  hunting  was  by  shooting  the  seals 
in  the  water  ;  but  when  the  threatened  extinction 
of  the  seals  by  indiscriminate  slaughter  led  to  the 
appointment  of  a  commission  to  frame  regulations 
for  their  protection,  it  was  ordained  that  no  seals  were 
to  be  taken  unless  by  spearing.  That  sounded  the 
death-knell  of  the  Victoria  sealing  fleet.  "  What 
chance  had  we,"  said  a  grizzled  old  seahng  skipper, 
"  poking  about  with  sticks  like  a  lot  of  old  women 
stirring  mush  ?  "  It  broke  the  heart  of  many  a 
stout  captain  and  many  a  gallant  ship. 

Whaling  has  always — "  always,"  that  is,  in  the 
sense  of  the  white  man's  "  always " — been  an 
important  industry  in  Victoria.  There  used  to  be 
plenty  of  whales  even  in  the  shallow  waters  of  the 
Gulf  of  Georgia  and  the  Strait  of  Juan  de  Fuca, 
and  there  is  a  settlement  on  one  of  the  Gulf  islands 
which  must  have  been  founded  by  whalers,  called 
still  Whaletown.  There  used  to  be  a  trying  station 
at  Victoria  itself,  but  that  with  its  sweet  odours  has 
long  since  been  banished,  and  the  nearest  one  to 
Victoria  is  now  at  Nootka  Sound  on  the  West 
Coast  of  the  island.  I  never  smelled  a  trying 
station,  but  I  have  smelled  the  little  steamers  which 


180  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

brought  the  barrels  of  whale  oil  to  Victoria,  and 
that  to  the  real  thing  is,  I  believe,  "  as  sunlight 
unto  moonlight  and  as  water  unto  wine." 

The  whale  which  is  mostly  hunted  in  the  North 
Pacific  is  the  finback,  and  a  few  sulphur-bottoms 
and  sperm  whales  are  also  taken.  The  finback  is  a 
variety  of  whalebone  whale,  like  the  Greenland  or 
"  right "  whale,  having  the  distinctive  arrange- 
ment of  shutters  inside  his  mouth — the  "  gill-bone  " 
of  commerce — provided  with  fringes  through  which 
he  sorts  the  mysterious  substance  known  as  "  brit  " 
upon  which  he  feeds.  It  is  the  sperm  whale  which 
provides  the  teeth  which,  when  appropriately 
decorated  with  tattoed  designs,  are  a  very  favourite 
nautical  curiosity. 

The  whale  fishery,  unlike  the  seal  fishery, 
continues,  but  its  head-quarters  are  now  in  the 
Queen  Charlotte  Islands.  Stefansson's  ship,  the 
"  Karluk,"  was  originally  a  whaler,  and  I  saw  some 
of  her  old  brass  guns  and  harpoons  when  she  was 
fitting  out  at  Esquimalt. 

I  once  had  a  queer  little  experience  on  board  one 
of  the  whaHng  steamers.  It  was  Dominion  Day 
or  something  of  the  kind,  and  the  Outer  Wharf 
lay  baking  in  the  sun,  quite  deserted.  The  little 
steamer  seemed  quite  deserted  too,  and  for  sheer 
idleness  I  ascended  her  gang-plank  and  went  aboard. 
There  seemed  no  one  about,  though  there  was 
a  fire  burning  in  the  cook's  galley  ;  but  when  I 
stood  on  her  little  bridge  I  became  aware  of  a  voice 
calling  insistently  something  I  could  not  make  out. 
It  was  a  queer  voice,  and  the  language  sounded 
like  nothing  I  had  ever  heard.  I  followed  it  to 
the  saloon,  opened  a  cabin  door,  and  there  on  the 


DAYS  HERE  AND  THERE  181 

captain's  double  bed  was  a  green  parrot  in  a  cage, 
gabbling  away  at  the  top  of  its  voice  all  the  nautical 
endearments  it  knew  1 


They  were  talking  of  improving  the  Outer  Wharf 
at  Victoria  when  I  was  last  there  ;  indeed,  they  had 
begim  to  build  a  pretentious  breakwater  and  con- 
crete piers  which,  so  far  as  I  could  make  out,  nobody 
wanted  in  the  least. 

I  hope  they  have  not  improved  it — or,  if  they 
have  done,  I  hope  that  at  least  they  have  left  the 
old  piers  with  the  piles  upon  which  teredo  n  avails 
had  been  so  busy  that  one  always  felt  a  deHghtful 
uncertainty  whether  the  next  Blue  Funnel  liner 
that  chanced  along  might  not  give  it  an  extra 
nudge  and  send  the  whole  thing  galley-west. 

I  hope  the  water  still  goes  singing  through  them 
tide  by  tide,  and  that  the  planking  still  gives  through 
its  interstices  those  green  glimpses  of  jade-coloured 
water  beneath.  I  hope  there  is  still  that  sound  as 
of  the  feet  of  ghostly  sailormen  along  the  wharves, 
and  voices  talking  away  in  strange  tongues,  and 
that  the  gulls  still  mew  and  pipe  and  sit  in  long 
rows  upon  the  sheds  as  they  used  to  do.  I  hope 
the  old  sheds  still  hold  their  old  mixed  smell  of 
nitrates  and  whale  oil  and  Chinese  bales  .  .  .  and 
that  the  Chinese  firemen  still  play  fan-tan  in  the 
evenings,  squatting  on  their  heels  on  the  forecastle 
head  of  the  Blue  Funnel  hner.  ...  I  hope  these 
things  have  not  changed  ;  for  it  is  one  of  the  bitter 
things  of  hfe  to  find  a  place  changed  that  has  shared 
your  dreams. 

I  think  I  will  go  again,  one  of  these  days,  and 


182  SAILOR  TOWN  DAYS 

see.  ...  It  may  be  I  shaU  still  find  ships  at  the 
lumber  mill,  though  not  the  ships  I  knew.  It  may 
be  that  still,  at  high  noon  in  some  street  of  China- 
town, when  the  shadow  lies  on  the  white-hot 
pavement  in  dark  pools,  in  some  dusk  room  with  a 
dwarf  tree  in  a  blue-and-white  pot  in  the  window 
they  still  play  the  same  little  tune  on  a  two-stringed 
fiddle  of  China :  a  little  tune  of  a  few  notes  that 
seems  to  have  neither  end  nor  beginning — dropping 
like  a  thin  thread  of  silver  into  the  hot  gold  of  the 
afternoon.  .  .  . 


PRINTED   BY 

JARROLD   &  SONS,   LTD., 

NORWICH. 


A   FEW   OF 

Messrs.  Methuen's 

PUBLICATIONS 

Armstrong   (Warwick   W).     THE  ART  OF  CRICKET. 

Sicoiid  EJUxon.     llhistrated.     Crown  8vo,  63.  net. 

Atkinson      (T.      D.).      ENGLISH      ARCHITECTURE. 

Illustrated.     Sixth  Edition.     Fcap.  8vo,  53.  net. 

Bain  (F.  W,)— 

In  the  Great  God's  Hair  (Seventh  Edition)  ;  A  Draught  of  the 
Blue  (Seventh  Eduion)  ;  An  I.vcarnation  of  the  Snow  (Fourth 
Edition)  ;  A  Mine  of  Faults  (Fifth  Edition)  ;  A  Digit  of  thb 
Moon  (Fourteenth  Edition);  The  Livery  of  Eve  (Third  Edition); 
A  Heifer  of  the  Dawn  (Eleventh  Edition)  ;  An  Essence  of  the 
Dusk  (Filth  Edition)  ;  The  Descent  of  the  Sun  (Ninth  Edition)  ; 
The  Ashes  of  a  God  (Third  Edition)  ;  Bubbles  of  the  Foam 
[Third  Edition)  ;  A  Syrup  of  the  Bees  (Second  Edition)  ;  Thb 
Substance  of  a  Dream  (Second  Edition).  Fcap.  8vo,  5s.  net  each. 
An  Echo  of  the  Spheres.     Wide  Demy,  ids.  6d.  net. 

Baker  (C.   H.   Collins).     CROME.     Illustrated.     Quarto, 

£5  5S.  net. 

Bateman  (H.  M.). 

A  Book  of  Drawings.  Fifth  Edition.  Royal  4to,  109.  fid.  net. 
Suburbia,  Dciny  410,  6s.  net.  More  Drawings.  Second  Edition. 
Royal  4to,  los.  6d.  net. 

Beckford  (Peter).     THOUGHTS  ON  HUNTING.     In  a 

series  of  Familiar  Letters  to  a  Friend.  With  an  Introduction  and 
Notes  by  J.  Otho  Paget.  Illustrated.  Fifth  Edition.  Demy 
8vo,  6s.  net. 

Belloc  (H.)— 

Paris.  Illustrated.  Fourth  Edition.  Crown  8vo,  8s.  6d.  net 
Hills  and  the  Sea.  Thirteenth  Edition.  Fcap.  8vo.  6s.  net.  Also  Fcap. 
8vo,  2s.  net.  On  Nothing.  Fourth  Edition.  Fcap.  8vo,  6s.  net. 
Also  Fcap.  8vo,  2%.  net.  On  Everything.  Fourth  Edition.  Fcap. 
8vo,  6s.  net.  Also  Fcap.  8vo,  2s.  net.  On  Something.  Third 
Edition.  Fcap.  8vo,  6s.  net.  Also  Fcap.  8vo,  2s.  net.  First  and 
Last.  Second  Edition.  Fcap.  8vo,  6s.  net.  This  and  That  and 
the  Other.     Second  Edition.     Fcap.  8vo,  6s.  net. 

Braid  (James),  Open  Champion,  1901,  1905,  1906,  1908, 

and  19 10.  ADVAN'CED  GOLF.  Illustrated.  Eleventh  Edition. 
Demy  8vo,  14s.  net. 

Chandler  (Arthur),  D.D., late  Lord  Bishopof  Bloemfontein. 

Ara   Cctli  ;    An    Essay  in  Mystical    Theology.      Seventh  Edition. 

5S.  net.     Faith  and  Experience.       Third  Edition.    5s.  net.      The 

Cult  of  the  Passing  Moment.      Fifih   Edition.      69.  net.      Thb 

English  Church  AND  Rk-union.   53.  net.  Scala  Mundi.   4s.6d.net. 

Chesterton  (G.  K.)— 

The  Ballad  of  the  White  Horse.  Sixth  Edition.  6s.  net. 
All  Things  Considered.  Fourteenth  Edttion.  6s.net;  also  Fcap. 
8vo,  2S.  net.  Tremendous  Triples.  Sixth  Edition.  63.  net ;  also 
Fcap.  8vo,  2S.  net.  Alarms  and  Discursions.  Second  Edition. 
6s.  net.  A  Miscellany  of  Men.  Third  Edition.  66.  net.  Th« 
Uses  of  Diversity.  6s.  net.  Wink,  Watbr,  and  Song.  Twelfth 
Edition.     IS.  6d.  net. 

Clouston    (Sir    T.    S.).     THE    HYGIENE    OF    MIND. 

Illustrated.     Seventh  Edition.     Demy  8vo,  I03.  6d.  net. 


MESSRS.    METHUEN'S    PUBLICATIONS 


Clutton-Brock  fA.)— 

Thoughts  on  the  War,  is.  6d.  net ;  What  is  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven?  5s.  net;  Essays  on  Art,  5s.  net;  Essays  on  Books, 
6s.  net ;  More  Essays  on  Books,  6s.  net. 

Conrad     (Joseph).     THE    MIRROR     OF    THE     SEA: 

Memories  and  Impressions.  Fourth  Edition.  Fcap.  8vo,  6s.  net; 
also  Fcap.  8vo,  2s.  net. 

Dickinson  (G.  Lowes).     THE  GREEK  VIEW  OF  LIFE. 

Fourteenth  Edition.     Crown  8vo,  5s.  net. 

Dobson  (J.  F.).     THE  GREEK  ORATORS.     Crown  8vo. 

7s.  6d.  net. 

Drever  (James).     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  EVERYDAY 

LIFE.     Third  Edition.     Crown  8vo,  6s.  net. 
THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF    INDUSTRY.     Crown    8vo, 
5s.  net. 

Einstein    (A.).     RELATIVITY:   THE  SPECIAL    AND 

THE  GENERAL  THEORY.     Seventh  Edition.    Crown  8 vo,  5s.  net. 
SIDELIGHTS      ON       RELATIVITY.  Crown     8vo, 

3S.  6d.  net. 
THE     MEANING     OF     RELATIVITY.     Crown     Svo, 

js.  net. 

Olher  Books  on  the  Einstein  Theory. 

SPACE— TIME— MATTER.  By  Hermann  Weyl. 
Demy  Svo,  i8s.  net. 

EINSTEIN  THE  SEARCHER  :  His  Work  explained  in 
Dialogues  with  Einstein.  By  Ale.xander  Moszkowski.  Demy 
Svo,  i2s.  6d.  net. 

AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  THEORY  OF  RELA- 
TIVITY.    By  Lyndon  Bolton,  M.A.     Crown  Svo,  5s.  net. 

RELATIVITY  AND  GRAVITATION.  By  various 
Writers.     Edited  by  J.  Malcolm  Bird.     Crown  Svo,  7s.  6d.  net. 

RELATIVITY   AND   THE    UNIVERSE.      By   Harry 

Schmidt.     Second  Edition.     Crown  Svo,  5s.  net. 
THE   IDEAS   OF   EINSTEIN'S  THEORY.     By   J.   H. 

Thirring,  Ph.D.     Second  Edition.     Crown  Svo,  5s.  net. 
Evans  (Lady).     LUSTRE  POTTERY.     With  24  Plates. 

Royal  Quarto,  £2  12s.  6d.  net. 

Fyleman  (Rose).  FAIRIES  AND  CHIMNEYS.  Four- 
teenth Edition.     Fcap.  8vo,  3s.  6d.  net. 

THE  FAIRY  GREEN.  Seventh  Edition.  Fcap.  Svo, 
3S.  6d.  net. 

THE    FAIRY   FLUTE.       Thiyd  Edition.       Fcap.   Svo. 

3S.  6d.  net. 

THE  RAINBOW  CAT  AND  OTHER  STORIES. 
Fcap.  Svo,  3s.  6d.  net. 

Gibbins  (H.  de  B.).     THE  INDUSTRIAL  HISTORY  OF 

ENGLAND.  With  5  Maps  and  a  Plan.  Twenty-seventh  Edition. 
Crown  Svo,  53. 

Gibbon  (Edward).     THE  DECLINE  AND  FALL  OF  THE 

ROM.'VN  EMPIRE.  Edited,  with  Notes,  Appendices,  and  Maps,  by 
J.  B.  Bury.  Illustrated.  Seven  Volumes.  Demy  Svo,  each 
12s.  6d.  net.  Also  Seven  Volumes.  Uaillustrated.  Crowa  Svo, 
each  7s.  6d,  aet. 


MESSRS.    METHUEN'S    PUBLICATIONS 


Glover  (T.  R.).     THE  CONFLICT  OF  RELIGIONS  IN 

THE  KAKLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE.  Ntrith  Edition.  Demy  8vo, 
los.  6d.  net. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  TRADITION  AND  ITS  VERIFICA- 
TION.    Second  Edition.     Crown  8vo,  6s.  net. 

POETS  AND  PURITANS.  Second  Edition.  Demy 
8vo,  los.  6d.  net. 

VIRGIL.     Fourth  Edition.     Demy  8vo,  los.  6d.  net. 

FROM  PERICLES  TO  PHILIP.  Third  Edition.  Demy 
8vo,  los.  6d.  net. 

Grahame  (Kenneth),  Author  of  "  The  Golden  Age."   THE 

WIND   IN   THE   WILLOWS.     With   a    Frontispiece   by   Graham 
KoBERTSGM.     Twelfth  Edition.     Crown  8vo,  7s.  6d.  net. 
Illustrated  Edition.     With  drawings  iu  colour  and  line,   by  Nancy 
Barnhart.     Small  4to,  los.  6d.  net. 

Hall  (H.  R.).  THE  ANCIENT  HISTORY  OF  THE 
NEAR  EAST  FROM  THE  EARLIEST  TIMES  TO  THE 
BATTLE  OF  SALA.MIS.  Illustrated.  Pifth  Edition.  Demy 
8vo,  £1  IS.  net. 

Herbert  (A.  P.).     THE  WHEREFORE  AND  THE  WHY. 

New  Ruymes  for  Old  Children.    Illustrated  by  George  Morrow. 

Fcap.  4to,  3s.  6d.  net. 
"TINKER.    TAILOR..."       A   Child's   Guide   to   the 

Professions.  Illustrated  by  George  Morrow.   Fcap.  410,  39.  6d.  net. 
LIGHT    ARTICLES    ONLY.     Illustrated    by    George 

Morrow.     Second  Edition.     Crown  8vo,  6s.  net. 

Holdsworth  (W.  S.).  A  HISTORY  OF  ENGLISH  LAW. 
\'ols.  I.,  II.,  III.     Each  Second  Edition.     Demy  8vo,  each  £1  5s.  net. 

Hutton  (Edward)— 

The  Cities  of  Umbria  (Fifth  Edition)  ;  The  Cities  of  Lom- 
BARDY  ;  The  Cities  of  Rouagva  and  the  Marches;  Florence 
AND  NoRTiiERN  TuscANY,  WITH  Gknoa  (Third  Edition)  ;  Siena 
and  Southern  Tuscany  (Second  Edition)  ;  Venice  and  Vsnetia  ; 
The  Cities  of  Spain  (Fifth  Edition);  Naples  and  Southern 
Italy.  Illustrated.  Crown  8vo.  Each  8s.  6d.  net.  Rome  (Fourth 
Edition),  6s.  net. 

Inge  (W.  R.).  CHRISTIAN  MYSTICISM.  (The  Bamp- 
ton  Lectures  for  1899).     Fifth  Edition.     Ciown  8vo,  7s.  6d.  net. 

Jenks  (E.).     A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  ENGLISH  LAW. 

Second  Edition.     Demy  8vo,  12s.  6d.  net. 

Julian  (Lady),  Anchoress  at  Norwich,  a.d.,  1373.  REVE- 
LATIONS OF  DIVINE  LOVE.  A  Version  from  the  MS.  in  the 
British  Museum.  Edited  by  Grace  Warrack.  Seventh  Edition. 
Crown  8vo,  5s.  net. 

Kidd  (Benjamin).     THE  SCIENCE  OF  POWER.     Ninth 

Edition.     Crown  Svo,  7s.  6d.  net. 

SOCIAL  EVOLUTION.  A  New  Ed.  Demy  Svo. 
8s.  6d.  net. 

A  PHILOSOPHER  WITH  NATURE.     Second  Edition. 

Crown  Svo.    6s.  net. 

Kipling     (Rudyard).       BARRACK-ROOM     BALLADS. 

228th  Thousand.  Fiftyfifth  Edition.  Crown  Svo,  7s.  6d.  net.  Also 
Fcap.  Svo,  6s.  net  ;  leather  7s.  6d.  net.  Also  a  Service  Editioa.  Two 
Volumes,     Square  Fcap.  Svo,     Each  3s.  net 


4  MESSRS.    METHUEN'S    PUBLICATIONS 

THE    SEVEN    SEAS.     i6ist     Thousand.     Thirty-fourth 
Edition.    Crown  8vo,  7s.  6d.  net.     Also  Fcap.  8vo.  6s,  net ;    leather 
7s.  6d.  net.     Also  a  Service  Edition.     Two  Volumes.     Square  Fcao' 
8vo.     Each  3s.  net. 

THE  FIVE  NATIONS.  129/A  Thousand.  Twenty- 
third  Edition.  Crown  8vo,  7s.  6d.  net.  Also  Fcap.  8vo,  6s.  net ; 
leather,  7s.  6d.  net.  Also  a  Service  Edition.  Two  volumes.  Square 
reap.     8vo.     Each  3s.  net. 

DEPARTMENTAL  DITTIES.  102nd  Thousand.  Thirty- 
fourth  Edition.  Crown  8vo,  7s.  6d.  net.  Also  Fcap.  8vo,  6s.  net.  ; 
leather,  7s.  6d.  net.  Also  a  Service  Edition.  Two  Volumes. 
Square  Fcap.  8vo.     Each  3s.  net. 

THE  YEARS  BETWEEN,  g^th  Thousand.  Crown 
8vo,  7s.  6d.  net.  Also  Fcap.  8vo,  6s.  net ;  leather,  7s.  6d.  net.  Also 
a  Service  Edition.  Two  Volumes.  Square  Fcap.  8vo.  Each  3s. 
net. 

TWENTY  POEMS  FROM  RUDYARD  KIPLING. 
Fcap.  8vo,  IS.  net. 

A  KIPLING  ANTHOLOGY— VERSE  :  Selected  from 
the  Poetry  of  Rudyard  Kipling.  Third  Edition.  Fcap.  8vo,  63. 
net.     Leather,  7s.  6d.  net. 

Lamb  (Charles  and  Mary).    THE  COMPLETE  WORKS. 

Edited  by  E.  V.  Lucas.     A  New  and  Revised  Edition  in  Six  Volumes. 
With  Frontispiece.     Fcap.  8vo.     Each  63.  net. 

The  Volumes  are  : — 

I.     Miscellaneous  Prose.     11.     Elia  a.md  thh  Last  Essays 

OF  Elia.     hi.     Books  for  Children,     iv.     Plays  and  Poems. 

V.  and  VI,     Letters. 

Lankester    (Sir    Ray).     SCIENCE    FROM    AN    EASY 

CHAIR.      First     Series.      Illustrated.     Fifteenth     Edition.     Crown 
8vo,  73.  6d.  net.     Also  Fcap.  8vo,  as.  net. 

SCIENCE  FROM  AN  EASY  CHAIR.  Second  Series. 
Illustrated.  Third  Edition.  Crown  8vo,  7s.  6d.  net.  Also  as  MORE 
SCIENCE  FROM  AN  EASY  CHAIR.     Fcap.  8vo,  as.  net. 

DIVERSIONS  OF  A  NATURALIST.  Illustrated. 
Third  Edition.     Crown  8vo,  73.  6d.  net. 

SECRETS  OF  EARTH  AND  SEA.     Illustrated.   Crown 

8vo,  8s.  6d.  net. 

Lescarboura     (A.     C).     RADIO    FOR    EVERYBODY. 

Edited    by    R.    L.    Smitu-Rose,    M.Sc.      Illustrated.      Crown    8vo, 
7s.  6d.  net. 

Lodge  (Sir  Oliver)  — 

M.\N  AND  THE  UNIVERSE,  Crown  8vo,  7s.  6d.  net  ;  also  Fcap.  8vo, 
2«.  net ;  The  Survival  of  Man  ;  A  Study  in  Unrecognised  Human 
Faculty,  Crown  8vo,  7s.  6d.  net ;  also  Fcap.  8vo,  2s.  net  ;  Reason 
and  Belief,  2s.  net ;  The  Substance  of  Faith,  2s.  net :  Raymond 
Revised,  6s.  net. 


MESSRS.    METHUEN'S    PUBLICATIONS 


Lucas  (E.  V.)— 

The  Life  of  Charles  Lamb,  two  volumes,  Fcap.  8vo,  21s.  net; 
Edwin  Austin  Abbey,  R.A.,  2  vols.,  (6  6s.  net:  Vermeek  of  Delft, 
Fcap.  4to,  10s.  6J.  net.  A  W'a.ndkrer  is  Holland,  ids.  6d.  net;  A 
Wanderer  in  London,  10s.  6il.  net ;  London  Revisited,  ios.  6d.  net; 
A  W'ANDtRER  IN  Pakis,  Crown  8vo,  IOS.  6J.  net  ;  also  Fcap.  8vo,  6s. 
net;  A  Wanderer  in  Florence,  ios.  6J.  net;  A  Wanderer 
IN  Venice,  ios.  6d.  net ;  The  Oi-en  Koad  :  A  Little  liook  for 
Wayfarers,  Fcap.  8vo,  6s.  6d.  net  ;  The  Friendly  Tow.n  :  A  Little 
Book  for  the  Urbane,  6s.  net;  Fireside  and  Sunshine,  6s.  net; 
Character  and  Comedy.  6s.  net  ;  The  Gentlest  Art  :  A  Choice 
of  Letters  by  Fntertiining  Hands,  6s.  6d.  net  ;  The  Second  Post, 
6s.  net  ;  Her  Infinite  Variety  :  A  Feminine  Portrait  Gallery, 
6s.  net;  Good  Company  :  A  Rally  of  Men,  6s.  net  ;  One  Day  and 
Another,  6s.  net;  Old  Lamps  for  New,  6s.  net;  Loiterer's 
Harvest,  6s.  net  ;  Cloud  and  Silver,  6s.  net ;  A  Boswell  of 
Baghdad  and  other  Kssays,  6s.  net ;  'Twixt  Eagle  and  Dove, 
6s.  net  ;  The  Phantom  Journal,  and  Other  Essays  and 
Diversions,  6s.  net;  Giving  and  Receiving,  63.  net;  Specially 
Selected  :  A  Choice  of  Essa>'s,  illustrated  by  G.  L.  Stampa, 
-s.  6d  !U't  ;  Urbanities,  illustrated  by  G.  L.  Stampa,  7s.  6d.  net  ; 
You  Know  What  People  Are,  illustrated  by  George  .Morrow, 
5s.  nei,  iHE  British  School:  An  Anecdotal  Guide  to  the  Br.t:sh 
Painters  an  1  Paintings  in  the  National  Gallery,  6s.  net  :  Rovino 
East  and  Roving  West:  Notes  gathered  in  India,  Japan,  and 
America,  5s.  net. 

McDougall     (William).       AN      INTRODUCTION     TO 

SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY.    Scventecnih  Edition.    Qz.  8vo,  8s.  6d.  net. 

BODY  AND  MIND  :  A  History  and  A  Defence  of 
Animism.  Vv'ith  Diagrams.  Fiilh  Edition.  Demy  Svo,  123.  6d. 
net. 

Maeterlinck  (Maurice) 

The  Blue  Bird  :  A  Fairy  Play  in  Six  Acts,  63.  net  and  2s.  net. 
The  Betrothal,  Fcap,  6s.  net,  paper  3s.  6d.  net;  Mary 
Magdalene,  5s.  net  and  23.  net  ;  Death,  3s.  6d.  net  ;  Our 
Eternity,  6s.  net  ;  The  Unknown  Guest,  6s.  net ;  The  Wrack  of 
THE  Storm,  6s.  net ;  The  Miracle  of  Saint  Anthony  :  A  Play 
in  One  Act,  3s.  6d.  net ;  The  Burgomaster  op  Stilemonde  :  A 
Play  in  Three  Acts,  5s.  net  ;  Mountain  Paths,  6s.  net  ;  Tyltyl, 
Told  for  Ch.ldren  UH'istrated),  21s.  net.  (The  above  books  are 
Translated  by  A  Tei.xeira  de  Mattos.)  Poems,  5s.  net.  (Done 
into  English   by  Bernard  Miall). 

THE  GREAT  SECRET.  (Translated  by  Bernard  Miall), 

7S.  6d.  net. 

Methuon     (A.).     AN     ANTHOLOGY     OF     MODERN 

VERSE.     With    Introduction   by   Robert   Lynd.     Ninth  Edition. 
Fcap.  8vo,  6s.  net.     Thin  paper,  leather,  7s.  6d.  net. 

SHAKESPEARE    TO    H.VRDY :     An   Anthology   of 

English  Lyrics.     Fcap.  Svo,  6s.  net.     Leather,  7s.  6d.  net. 

Milne    (A.    A.).     NOT    THAT    IT    MATTERS.     Third 

Edition.     Fcap.  Svo,  6s.  net. 
IF  I  MAY.      Third  Edition.     Fcap.  Svo,  6s.  net. 
THE  SUNNY  SIDE.     Crown  Svo.  6s.  net. 

Norwood    (Gilbert).     GREEK   TRAGEDY.     Demy    Svo, 

134.  6d.  net. 


6  MESSRS.    METHUENS    PUBLICATIONS 

Oxenbam  (John).      Nine  Volumes  of  Poems.     Small  pott 

8vo,  IS.  3d.  net  each  volume. 

Bees  in  Amber.  2s.  net.  All's  Well  ;  The  King's  High 
Way;  The  Vision  Splendid  ;  The  Fiery  Cross  ;  Hearts 
Courageous;  High  Altars;  All  Clear!  Gentlemen — The 
King  !    2s.  net. 

Petrie    (W.    M.    Flinders).     A   HISTORY    OF    EGYPT. 

Illustrated.     Six  Volumes.     Crown  8vo,  each  9s.  net. 

I.  From  the  1st  to  XVItii  Dynasty.  Ninth  Edition.  (12s. 
net).  II.  The  XVIIth  and  XVIIIth  Dynasties.  Sixth 
Edition.  III.  XIXth  to  XXXth  Dynasties.  Second  Edition. 
IV.  Egypt  under  the  Ptolemaic  Dynasty.  J.  P.  Mahaffy. 
Second  Edition,  v.  Egypt  under  Roman  Rule.  J.  G.  Milne. 
Second  Edition,  vi.  Egypt  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Stanley 
Lane-Poole.     Second  Edition. 

Pollard  (A.  F.).  A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT 
V\'.-\R.     With  19  Maps.     Second  Edition.     Crown  Svo,  los.  6d.  net. 

Pollitt  (Arthur  W.).     THE  ENJOYMENT  OF  MUSIC. 

Crown  Svo,  5s.  net. 

Rees  (J.  F.).     A  SOCIAL  AND  INDUSTRIAL  HISTORY 

OF  ENGLAND.  1815-1918.     Crown  Svo.  js.  net. 

Smith    (S.    C.    Kaines).     LOOKING    AT    PICTURES. 

Illustrated.     Fcap.  Svo,  6s.  net. 

Stancliffe.  GOLF  DO'S  AND  DON'TS.  Being  a  very 
little  about  a  good  deal  ;  together  with  some  new  saws  for  old  wood 
• — and  knots  in  the  golfer's  line  which  may  help  a  good  memory  for 
forgetting.     Eighth  Edition.     Fcap.  Svo,  2S.  6d.  net. 

QUICK  CUTS  TO  GOOD  GOLF.  Second  Edition. 
Fcap.  Svo,  2S.  6d.  net. 

Stevenson    (R.    L.).     THE    LETTERS    OF    ROBERT 

LOUIS  STEVENSON  TO  HIS  FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS.  Selected 
and  Edited  by  Sir  Sidney  Colvin.  Four  Volumes.  Fifth 
Edition.     Fcap.  Svo,  6s.  net  each. 

Tilden  (W.  T.).  THE  ART  OF  LAWN  TENNIS.  Illus- 
trated.    Fourth  Edition.     Crown  Svo,  6s.  net. 

LAWN  TENNIS  FOR  YOUNG  PLAYERS:  LAWN 
TENNIS  FOR  CLUB  PLAYERS:  LAWN  TENNIS  FOR 
MATCH  PLAYERS.      Each  Fcap.  Svo,  2s.  6d.  net. 

Tileston  (Mary  W.).  DAILY  STRENGTH  FOR  DAILY 
NEEDS.     Twenty-seventh  Edition.     Medium  i6mo,  3s.  6d.  net. 

Turner    (W.    J.).     MUSIC    AND    LIFE.     Crown    Svo, 

7s.  6d.  net. 

Underhill    (Evelyn).    MYSTICISM.     A    Study    in    the 

Nature  and  Development  of  Man's  Spiritual  Consciousness.  Eighth 
Edition.     Demy  Svo,  15s.  net. 

THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  THE  LIFE  OF 
TO-DAY.     Third  Edition.     Crown  Svo,  7s.  6d.  net. 

Vardon  (Harry).     HOW  TO  PLAY  GOLF.     Illustrated. 

Fijteenth  Edition.     Crown  Svo,  5s.  6d.  net. 

Waterhouse  (Elizabeth).     A  LITTLE  BOOK  OF  LIFE 

AND  DEATH.  Selected  and  Arranged.  Twenty-first  Edition, 
Small  Pott  Svo,  cloth,  2%.  6J.  net  ;  paper,  is.  6d, 


MESSRS.    METHUENS    PUBLICATIONS 


Wilde    (Oscar).     THE    WORKS    OF    OSCAR    WILDE. 

Fifteen  Volumes.     Fcap.  8vo,  each  6s.  6d.  net.     Some  also   Fcap. 
8vo,  JS.  net. 

I.  Lord  Arthur  Savilk's  Crime  and  the  Portrait  of  Mr. 
W.  H.  II.  The  Duchess  of  Padua,  in.  Poems,  iv.  Ladv 
Windermere's  Fan.  v.  A  Woman  of  no  Importance,  vi. 
An  Ideal  Hlisband.  vii.  The  Importance  of  being  Earnest. 
VIII.  A  House  op  Pomegranates,  ix.  Intentions,  x.  Ub 
Profundis  and  Prison  Letters,  xi.  Essays,  xii.  Salome, 
A  Florentine  Tragedy,  and  La  Sainte  Courtisane.  xni.  A 
Critic  in  Pall  Mall.  xiv.  Selected  Prose  of  Oscar  Wilde. 
XV.     Art  and  Decoration. 

^  HOUSE  OF  POMEGRANATES.     Illustrated.     Crown 

4to,  213.  net. 
FOR  LOVE  OF  THE  KING:  A  Burmese  Masque.   Demy 

8vo,  8s.  6ii.  net. 

Wilding  (Anthony  F.),  Lawn-Tennis  Champion  1910-^.911. 
ON  THE  COURT  A.ND  OFF.  Illustrated.  Eighth  Edition. 
Crown  8vo,  7s.  6d.  net. 

Young  (G.  Wintlirop).  MOUNTAIN  CRAFT.  Illus- 
trated.    Demy  8vo,  £1  5s.  net. 

The  Antiquary's  Books 
Illustrated.     Demy  8vo,  los.  6d.  net  each  volume 

Imcient  Painted  Glass  in  England  ;  Archeology  and  False  .Anti- 
quities ;  The  Bells  of  England  ;  The  Brasses  op  England  ; 
Celtic  Art  in  Pagan  and  Christian  Times  ;  Churchwardens' 
Accounts  ;  The  Domesday  Inquest ;  The  Castles  and  Walled 
Towns  of  England  ;  English  Church  Furniture  ;  English 
Costume,  from  Prehistoric  Times  to  the  End  of  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury ;  English  Monastic  Life  ;  English  Seals  ;  Folk-Lore  as 
AN  Historical  Science  ;  The  Gilds  and  Companies  of  London; 
The  Hermits  and  Anchorites  op  E.ncland  ;  The  Manor  and 
Manorial  Records  ;  The  Medieval  Hospitals  of  England  ; 
Old  English  Instruments  of  Music  ;  Old  English  Libraries  ; 
Old  Service  Books  of  the  English  Church  ;  Parish  Life  in 
Medi.eval  England  ;  The  Parish  Registers  of  England  ; 
Remains  of  the  Prehistoric  .Age  in  England  ;  The  Roman  Era 
IN  Britain  ;  Romano-British  Buildings  and  Earthworks  ;  Thb 
Royal  Forests  of  England  ;  The  Schools  of  Medi^bval  Eng- 
land ;    Shrines  op  British  Saints. 

The  Arden  Shakespeare 

Demy  8vo,  6s.  net  each  volume 

An  edition  of  Shakespeare  in  Single  Plays.  Edited  with 
&  full  Introduction,  Textual  Notes,  and  a  Commentary  at 
the  foot  of  the  page.      Thirty-seven  Volumes  are  now  ready. 

Classics  of  Art 

Edited  by  Dr.  J.  H.  W.  Laing 

Illustrated.     Wide  Royal  8vo,  from  15s.net  to  £3  3s.  net. 

The  Art  of  the  Greeks;  Thb  Art  op  the  Romans;  Chardin  ; 
DoNATKLLO  ;  George  Romney  ;  Ghirlandaio  ;  Lawrence  ;  Michel- 
angelo ;  Raphael;  Remurandt's  Etchings;  Rembrandt's 
Paintings;      Tintoretto;      Titian;      Turner's    Sketches    and 

DkA  wings;      VBUAZQUfiJ. 


MESSRS.    METHUEN'S   PUBLICATIONS 


The  "  Complete"  Series 

Illustrated.     Demy  8vo,  from  5s.  net  to  i8s.  net 

The  Complete  Airman  ;  The  Complete  Amateur  Boxer  ;  Thb 
Complete  Association  Footballer  ;  The  Complete  Athletic 
Trainer  ;  The  Complete  Billiard  Player  :  The  Complete  Cook; 
The  Complete  Foxhunter  ;  The  Complete  Golfer ;  Thb 
Complete  Hockey  Player  ;  The  Complete  Horseman  ;  Thb 
Complete  Jujitsuan  (Crown  8vo)  ;  The  Complete  Lawn  Tennis 
Player  ;  The  Complete  Motorist;  The  Complete  Mountaineer; 
The  Complete  Oarsman  ;  The  Complete  Photographer ;  Thb 
Complete  Rugby  Footballer,  on  the  New  Zealand  System  ; 
The  Complete  Shot ;  The  Complete  Swimmer  ;  The  Complets 
Yachtsman. 

The  Connoisseur's  Library 

Illustrated.     Wide  Royal  8vo,  31s.  6d.  net 

English  Coloured  Books  ;  Etchings  ;  European  Enamels  ;  Finb 
l;ooKS  ;  Glass  ;  Goldsmiths'  and  Silversmiths'  Work  ; 
Illuminated  Manuscripts  ;  Ivories;  Jewellery;  Mezzotints; 
Miniatures  ;    Porcelain  ;   Seals  ;    Wood  Sculpture. 

Eight  Books  by  R.  S.  Surtees 
With  the  original  Illustrations  in  Colour  by  J.  Leech  and 

others. 
Fcap.  8vo,  6s.  net  and  7s.  6d.  net. 

Ask  Mamma  ;  Handley  Cross  ;  Hawbuck  Grange  ;  Hillingdon  Hall; 
JoRROCKs's  Jaunts  and  Jollities  ;  Mr.  Sponge's  Sporting  Tour; 
Mr.  Facev  Romford's  Hounds  ;    Plain  or  Ringlets  ? 


Plays 

Fcap.  8vo,  3s.  6d.  net 

Kismet;  Milestones;  Typhoon;  An  Ideal  Husband;  The  Wars 
Case;  General  Post;  The  Great  Adventure;  The  Honey- 
moon ;  Across  the  Border.     (Crown  8vo.) 

Fiction 

Novels  by  Richard  Bagot,  H.  C.  Bailey,  Arnold  Bennett,  G.  A. 
Birmingham,  Marjorie  Bowen,  Epgar  Rice  Burroughs,  G.  K.  Ches- 
terton, Joseph  Conrad,  Dorothy  Conyers,  Marie  Corelli,  Beatrice 
Harraden,  R.  S.  Hichens,  Anthony  Hope,  W.  W.  Jacobs,  E  V. 
Lucas,  Stephen  McKenna,  Lucas  Malet,  A.  E.  W.  Mason,  W.  B. 
Maxwell,  Arthur  Morrison,  John  Oxenham,  Sir  Gilbert  Parker, 
Alice  Perrin,  Eden  Phillpotts,  Richard  Prvce,  "  Q,"  W.  Peii 
Ridge,  H.  G.  Wells,  and  C.  N.  and  A.  M.  Williamson. 
A  Complete  List  can  be  had  on  application. 

Methuen's  Two  Shilling  Series 

This  is  a  series  of  cop>Tight  books — fiction  and  general  literature— 
which  has  been  such  a  popular  success.  If  you  will  obtain  a  list  of  the 
series  you  will  see  that  it  contains  more  books  by  distinguished  wnteis 
than  any  other  series  of  the  same  kind.  You  will  fiuU  the  volumes  at  ail 
booksellers  and  on  all  railway  bookstalls, 


( 


PLEASE  DO  NOT  REMOVE 
CARDS  OR  SLIPS  FROM  THIS  POCKET 

UNIVERSITY  OF  TORONTO  LIBRARY 


PR  Smith,   C.   Fox   (Cicely  Fox) 

6037  Sailor  town  days 

M37S3