WINDJAMMERS AND SEA TRAMPS
By
WALTER RUNCIMAN, Sen.
Author of "The Shellback's Progress in the Nineteenth Century."
SECOND EDITION.
LONDON AND NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE:
THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD.
NEW YORK: 3 EAST 14TH STREET.
1905.
"THE —— RATS HAVE EATEN UP HOLLAND"THESE EXPERIENCES AND OPINIONS
OF THINGS NAVAL
NEW AND OLD
ARE DEDICATED
WITH EVERY SENTIMENT OF ESTEEM
TO
JOHN DENT AND WILLIAM MILBURN
AND TO THE MEMORY OF
E.H. WATTS
CONTENTS
PREFACE
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY
CHAPTER II. PECULIAR AND UNEDUCATED
CHAPTER III. A CABIN-BOY'S START AT SEA
CHAPTER IV. THE SEAMAN'S SUPERSTITIONS
CHAPTER V. THE SEAMAN'S RELIGION
CHAPTER VI. SAFETY AND COMFORT AT SEA
CHAPTER VII. WAGES AND WIVES
CHAPTER VIII. LIFE AMONG THE PACKET RATS
CHAPTER IX. BRUTALITY AT SEA
CHAPTER X. BRAVERY
CHAPTER XI. CHANTIES
CHAPTER XII. JACK IN RATCLIFF HIGHWAY
CHAPTER XIII. THE MATTER-OF-FACT SAILOR
CHAPTER XIV. RESOURCEFULNESS AND SHIPWRECK
CHAPTER XV. MANNING THE SERVICE
ILLUSTRATIONS
(After Drawings by THOMAS RUNCIMAN)
"THE —— RATS HAVE EATEN UP HOLLAND"
TARRING THE MAINMAST STAY
TELLING HIS FORTUNE
A PARTING CHEER TO THE OUTWARD BOUND
RATCLIFFE HIGHWAY: "CARRYING SMALL CANVAS"
A BERWICKSHIRE HAVEN
PREFACE
"I went in at the hawse-hole and came out at the cabin window." It was thus that a certain North Country shipowner once summarised his career while addressing his fellow-townsmen on some public occasion now long past, and the sentence, giving forth the exact truth with all a sailor's delight in hyperbole, may well be taken to describe the earlier life-stages gone through by the author of this book. The experiences acquired in a field of operations, that includes all the seas and continents where commerce may move, live, and have its being, have enhanced in value and completed what came to him in his forecastle and quarter-deck times. He learned in hi