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- CHAPTER XXVI.
A SAILOR A JACK OF ALL TRADES
As I began to learn my sailor duties, and show activity in running
aloft, the men, I observed, treated me with a little more
consideration, though not at all relaxing in a certain air of
professional superiority. For the mere knowing of the names of the
ropes, and familiarizing yourself with their places, so that you can
lay hold of them in the darkest night; and the loosing and furling of
the canvas, and reefing topsails, and hauling braces; all this, though
of course forming an indispensable part of a seaman’s vocation, and the
business in which he is principally engaged; yet these are things which
a beginner of ordinary capacity soon masters, and which are far
inferior to many other matters familiar to an _“able seaman.”_
What did I know, for instance, about _striking a top-gallant-mast,_ and
sending it down on deck in a gale of wind? Could I have _turned in a
dead-eye,_ or in the approved nautical style have _clapt a seizing on
the main-stay?_ What did I know of _“passing a gammoning,” “reiving a
Burton,” “strapping a shoe-block,” “clearing a foul hawse,”_ and
innumerable other intricacies?
The business of a thorough-bred sailor is a special calling, as much of
a regular trade as a carpenter’s or locksmith’s. Indeed, it requires
considerably more adroitness, and far more versatility of talent.
In the English merchant service boys serve a long apprenticeship to the
sea, of seven years. Most of them first enter the Newcastle colliers,
where they see a great deal of severe coasting service. In an old copy
of the Letters of Junius, belonging to my father, I remember reading,
that coal to supply the city of London could be dug at Blackheath, and
sold for one half the price that the people of London then paid for it;
but the Government would not suffer the mines to be opened, as it would
destroy the great nursery for British seamen.
A thorough sailor must understand much of other avocations. He must be
a bit of an embroiderer, to work fanciful collars of hempen lace about
the shrouds; he must be something of a weaver, to weave mats of
rope-yarns for lashings to the boats; he must have a touch of
millinery, so as to tie graceful bows and knots, such as _Matthew
Walker’s roses,_ and _Turk’s heads;_ he must be a bit of a musician, in
order to sing out at the halyards; he must be a sort of jeweler, to set
dead-eyes in the standing rigging; he must be a carpenter, to enable
him to make a jurymast out of a yard in case of emergency; he must be a
sempstress, to darn and mend the sails; a ropemaker, to twist _marline_
and _Spanish foxes;_ a blacksmith, to make hooks and thimbles for the
blocks: in short, he must be a sort of Jack of all trades, in order to
master his own. And this, perhaps, in a greater or less degree, is
pretty much the case with all things else; for you know nothing till
you know all; which is the reason we never know anything.
A sailor, also, in working at the rigging, uses special tools peculiar
to his calling—_fids, serving-mallets, toggles, prickers,
marlingspikes, palms, heavers,_ and many more. The smaller sort he
generally carries with him from ship to ship in a sort of canvas
reticule.
The estimation in which a ship’s crew hold the knowledge of such
accomplishments as these, is expressed in the phrase they apply to one
who is a clever practitioner. To distinguish such a mariner from those
who merely _“hand, reef, and steer,”_ that is, run aloft, furl sails,
haul ropes, and stand at the wheel, they say he is _“a sailor-man”_
which means that he not only knows how to reef a topsail, but is an
artist in the rigging.
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