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- 2605
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.838Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2545
- text
- hear myself called to, out of the clear blue air, or from the depths of
the deep blue sea. But I did not have much leisure to indulge in such
thoughts; for the men were now getting some _stun’-sails_ ready to
hoist aloft, as the wind was getting fairer and fairer for us; and
these stun’-sails are light canvas which are spread at such times, away
out beyond the ends of the yards, where they overhang the wide water,
like the wings of a great bird.
For my own part, I could do but little to help the rest, not knowing
the name of any thing, or the proper way to go about aught. Besides, I
felt very dreamy, as I said before; and did not exactly know where, or
what I was; every thing was so strange and new.
While the stun’-sails were lying all tumbled upon the deck, and the
sailors were fastening them to the booms, getting them ready to hoist,
the mate ordered me to do a great many simple things, none of which
could I comprehend, owing to the queer words he used; and then, seeing
me stand quite perplexed and confounded, he would roar out at me, and
call me all manner of names, and the sailors would laugh and wink to
each other, but durst not go farther than that, for fear of the mate,
who in his own presence would not let any body laugh at me but himself.
However, I tried to wake up as much as I could, and keep from dreaming
with my eyes open; and being, at bottom, a smart, apt lad, at last I
managed to learn a thing or two, so that I did not appear so much like
a fool as at first.
People who have never gone to sea for the first time as sailors, can
not imagine how puzzling and confounding it is. It must be like going
into a barbarous country, where they speak a strange dialect, and dress
in strange clothes, and live in strange houses. For sailors have their
own names, even for things that are familiar ashore; and if you call a
thing by its shore name, you are laughed at for an ignoramus and a
landlubber. This first day I speak of, the mate having ordered me to
draw some water, I asked him where I was to get the pail; when I
thought I had committed some dreadful crime; for he flew into a great
passion, and said they never had any _pails_ at sea, and then I learned
that they were always called _buckets._ And once I was talking about
sticking a little wooden peg into a bucket to stop a leak, when he flew
out again, and said there were no _pegs_ at sea, only _plugs._ And just
so it was with every thing else.
But besides all this, there is such an infinite number of totally new
names of new things to learn, that at first it seemed impossible for me
to master them all. If you have ever seen a ship, you must have
remarked what a thicket of ropes there are; and how they all seemed
mixed and entangled together like a great skein of yarn. Now the very
smallest of these ropes has its own proper name, and many of them are
very lengthy, like the names of young royal princes, such as the
_starboard-main-top-gallant-bow-line,_ or the
_larboard-fore-top-sail-clue-line._
I think it would not be a bad plan to have a grand new naming of a
ship’s ropes, as I have read, they once had a simplifying of the
classes of plants in Botany. It is really wonderful how many names
there are in the world. There is no counting the names, that surgeons
and anatomists give to the various parts of the human body; which,
indeed, is something like a ship; its bones being the stiff
standing-rigging, and the sinews the small running ropes, that manage
all the motions.
- title
- Chunk 2