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- I
(_An inside Narrative_)
In the time before steamships, or then more frequently than now, a
stroller along the docks of any considerable seaport would occasionally
have his attention arrested by a group of bronzed marines, man-of-war’s
men or merchant sailors in holiday attire ashore on liberty. In certain
instances they would flank, or, like a bodyguard, quite surround some
superior figure of their own class, moving along with them like
Aldebaran among the lesser lights of his constellation. That signal
object was the ‘Handsome Sailor’ of the less prosaic time alike of the
military and merchant navies. With no perceptible trace of the
vainglorious about him, rather with the off-hand unaffectedness of
natural regality, he seemed to accept the spontaneous homage of his
shipmates. A somewhat remarkable instance recurs to me. In Liverpool,
now half a century ago, I saw under the shadow of the great dingy
street-wall of Prince’s Dock (an obstruction long since removed) a
common sailor, so intensely black that he must needs have been a native
African of the unadulterate blood of Ham. A symmetric figure much above
the average height. The two ends of a gay silk handkerchief thrown loose
about the neck danced upon the displayed ebony of his chest; in his ears
were big hoops of gold, and a Scotch Highland bonnet with a tartan band
set off his shapely head.
It was a hot noon in July; and his face, lustrous with perspiration,
beamed with barbaric good-humour. In jovial sallies right and left, his
white teeth flashing into view, he rollicked along, the centre of a
company of his shipmates. These were made up of such an assortment of
tribes and complexions as would have well fitted them to be marched up
by Anacharsis Cloots before the bar of the first French Assembly as
Representatives of the Human Race. At each spontaneous tribute rendered
by the wayfarers to this black pagod of a fellow--the tribute of a pause
and stare, and less frequent an exclamation--the motley retinue showed
that they took that sort of pride in the evoker of it which the Assyrian
priests doubtless showed for their grand sculptured Bull when the
faithful prostrated themselves. To return----
If in some cases a bit of a nautical Murat in setting forth his person
ashore, the Handsome Sailor of the period in question evinced nothing of
the dandified Billy-be-Dam, an amusing character all but extinct now,
but occasionally to be encountered, and in a form yet more amusing than
the original, at the tiller of the boats on the tempestuous Erie Canal
or, more likely, vapouring in the groggeries along the tow-path.
Invariably a proficient in his perilous calling, he was also more or
less of a mighty boxer or wrestler. It was strength and beauty. Tales of
his prowess were recited. Ashore he was the champion, afloat the
spokesman; on every suitable occasion always foremost. Close-reefing
topsails in a gale, there he was, astride the weather yard-arm-end, foot
in ‘stirrup,’ both hands tugging at the ‘ear-ring’ as at a bridle, in
very much the attitude of young Alexander curbing the fiery Bucephalus.
A superb figure, tossed up as by the horns of Taurus against the
thunderous sky, cheerily ballooning to the strenuous file along the
spar.
The moral nature was seldom out of keeping with the physical make.
Indeed, except as toned by the former, the comeliness and power, always
attractive in masculine conjunction, hardly could have drawn the sort of
homage the Handsome Sailor in some examples received from his less
gifted associates.
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