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- 6677
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:56.339Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 6625
- 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 Verdes, off the northwest coast of Africa, an island previously
stocked with an aboriginal race of negroes, ranking pretty high in
civility, 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 mortum_, 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 unusually
excited against some luckless blunderer of Fogo his shipmate, it is
marvelous 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 on a dusty day on a road newly
macadamized. 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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