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- 5047
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- CHAPTER XXVIII.
HE GOES TO SUPPER AT THE SIGN OF THE BALTIMORE CLIPPER
In the afternoon our pilot was all alive with his orders; we hove up
the anchor, and after a deal of pulling, and hauling, and jamming
against other ships, we wedged our way through a lock at high tide; and
about dark, succeeded in working up to a berth in _Prince’s Dock._ The
hawsers and tow-lines being then coiled away, the crew were told to go
ashore, select their boarding-house, and sit down to supper.
Here it must be mentioned, that owing to the strict but necessary
regulations of the Liverpool docks, no fires of any kind are allowed on
board the vessels within them; and hence, though the sailors are
supposed to sleep in the forecastle, yet they must get their meals
ashore, or live upon cold potatoes. To a ship, the American merchantmen
adopt the former plan; the owners, of course, paying the landlord’s
bill; which, in a large crew remaining at Liverpool more than six
weeks, as we of the Highlander did, forms no inconsiderable item in the
expenses of the voyage. Other ships, however—the economical Dutch and
Danish, for instance, and sometimes the prudent Scotch—feed their
luckless tars in dock, with precisely the same fare which they give
them at sea; taking their salt junk ashore to be cooked, which, indeed,
is but scurvy sort of treatment, since it is very apt to induce the
scurvy. A parsimonious proceeding like this is regarded with
immeasurable disdain by the crews of the New York vessels, who, if
their captains treated them after that fashion, would soon bolt and
run.
It was quite dark, when we all sprang ashore; and, for the first time,
I felt dusty particles of the renowned British soil penetrating into my
eyes and lungs. As for _stepping_ on it, that was out of the question,
in the well-paved and flagged condition of the streets; and I did not
have an opportunity to do so till some time afterward, when I got out
into the country; and then, indeed, I saw England, and snuffed its
immortal loam—but not till then.
Jackson led the van; and after stopping at a tavern, took us up this
street, and down that, till at last he brought us to a narrow lane,
filled with boarding-houses, spirit-vaults, and sailors. Here we
stopped before the sign of a Baltimore Clipper, flanked on one side by
a gilded bunch of grapes and a bottle, and on the other by the British
Unicorn and American Eagle, lying down by each other, like the lion and
lamb in the millennium.—A very judicious and tasty device, showing a
delicate apprehension of the propriety of conciliating American sailors
in an English boarding-house; and yet in no way derogating from the
honor and dignity of England, but placing the two nations, indeed, upon
a footing of perfect equality.
Near the unicorn was a very small animal, which at first I took for a
young unicorn; but it looked more like a yearling lion. It was holding
up one paw, as if it had a splinter in it; and on its head was a sort
of basket-hilted, low-crowned hat, without a rim. I asked a sailor
standing by, what this animal meant, when, looking at me with a grin,
he answered, “Why, youngster, don’t you know what that means? It’s a
young jackass, limping off with a kedgeree pot of rice out of the
cuddy.”
Though it was an English boarding-house, it was kept by a broken-down
American mariner, one Danby, a dissolute, idle fellow, who had married
a buxom English wife, and now lived upon her industry; for the lady,
and not the sailor, proved to be the head of the establishment.
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