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- 8641
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:48:16.153Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
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- 8589
- text
- THE ’GEES
In relating to my friends various passages of my sea-goings, I have at
times had occasion to allude to that singular people the ’Gees,
sometimes as casual acquaintances, sometimes as shipmates. Such
allusions have been quite natural and easy. For instance, I have said
_The two ’Gees_, just as another would say _The two Dutchmen_, or _The
two Indians_. In fact, being myself so familiar with ’Gees, it seemed as
if all the rest of the world must be. But not so. My auditors have
opened their eyes as much as to say, ‘What under the sun is a ’Gee?’ To
enlighten them I have repeatedly had to interrupt myself, and not
without detriment to my stories. To remedy which inconvenience, a friend
hinted the advisability of writing out some account of the ’Gees, and
having it published. Such as they are, the following memoranda spring
from that happy suggestion.
The word _’Gee_ (g hard) is an abbreviation, by seamen, of _Portugee_,
the corrupt form of _Portuguese_. As the name is a curtailment, so the
race is a residuum. Some three centuries ago certain Portuguese convicts
were sent as a colony to Fogo, one of the Cape de Verds, off the
north-west coast of Africa, an island previously stocked with an
aboriginal race of negroes, ranking pretty high in incivility, but
rather low in stature and morals. In course of time, from the
amalgamated generation all the likelier sort were drafted off as food
for powder, and the ancestors of the since called ’Gees were left as the
_caput mortuum_, or melancholy remainder.
Of all men seamen have strong prejudices, particularly in the matter of
race. They are bigots here. But when a creature of inferior race lives
among them, an inferior tar, there seems no bound to their disdain. Now,
as ere long will be hinted, the ’Gee, though of an aquatic nature, does
not, as regards higher qualifications, make the best of sailors. In
short, by seamen the abbreviation ’Gee was hit upon in pure contumely;
the degree of which may be partially inferred from this, that with them
the primitive word Portugee itself is a reproach; so that ’Gee, being a
subtle distillation from that word, stands, in point of relative
intensity to it, as attar of roses does to rose-water. At times, when
some crusty old sea-dog has his spleen more than usually excited against
some luckless blunderer of Fogo, his shipmate, it is marvellous the
prolongation of taunt into which he will spin out the one little
exclamatory monosyllable Ge-e-e-e-e!
The Isle of Fogo, that is ‘Fire Isle,’ was so called from its volcano,
which, after throwing up an infinite deal of stones and ashes, finally
threw up business altogether, from its broadcast bounteousness having
become bankrupt. But thanks to the volcano’s prodigality in its time,
the soil of Fogo is such as may be found of a dusty day on a road newly
macadamised. Cut off from farms and gardens, the staple food of the
inhabitants is fish, at catching which they are expert. But none the
less do they relish ship biscuit, which, indeed, by most islanders,
barbarous or semi-barbarous, is held a sort of lozenge.
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