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- Lieutenant ashore. If was now Captain Claret’s turn to be honoured. The
cutter lay still, and the Lieutenant off hat; while the Captain only
nodded, and we kept on our way.
This naval etiquette is very much like the etiquette at the Grand Porte
of Constantinople, where, after washing the Sublime Sultan’s feet, the
Grand Vizier avenges himself on an Emir, who does the same office for
him.
When we arrived aboard the English seventy-four, the Captain was
received with the usual honours, and the gig’s crew were conducted
below, and hospitably regaled with some spirits, served out by order of
the officer of the deck.
Soon after, the English crew went to quarters; and as they stood up at
their guns, all along the main-deck, a row of beef-fed Britons,
stalwart-looking fellows, I was struck with the contrast they afforded
to similar sights on board of the Neversink.
For on board of us our “_quarters_” showed an array of rather slender,
lean-checked chaps. But then I made no doubt, that, in a sea-tussle,
these lantern-jawed varlets would have approved themselves as slender
Damascus blades, nimble and flexible; whereas these Britons would have
been, perhaps, as sturdy broadswords. Yet every one remembers that
story of Saladin and Richard trying their respective blades; how
gallant Richard clove an anvil in twain, or something quite as
ponderous, and Saladin elegantly severed a cushion; so that the two
monarchs were even—each excelling in his way—though, unfortunately for
my simile, in a patriotic point of view, Richard whipped Saladin’s
armies in the end.
There happened to be a lord on board of this ship—the younger son of an
earl, they told me. He was a fine-looking fellow. I chanced to stand by
when he put a question to an Irish captain of a gum; upon the seaman’s
inadvertently saying sir to him, his lordship looked daggers at the
slight; and the sailor touching his hat a thousand times, said,
“Pardon, your honour; I meant to say _my lord_, sir!”
I was much pleased with an old white-headed musician, who stood at the
main hatchway, with his enormous bass drum full before him, and
thumping it sturdily to the tune of “God Save the King!” though small
mercy did he have on his drum-heads. Two little boys were clashing
cymbals, and another was blowing a fife, with his cheeks puffed out
like the plumpest of his country’s plum-puddings.
When we returned from this trip, there again took place that
ceremonious reception of our captain on board the vessel he commanded,
which always had struck me as exceedingly diverting.
In the first place, while in port, one of the quarter-masters is always
stationed on the poop with a spy-glass, to look out for all boats
approaching, and report the same to the officer of the deck; also, who
it is that may be coming in them; so that preparations may be made
accordingly. As soon, then, as the gig touched the side, a mighty
shrill piping was heard, as if some boys were celebrating the Fourth of
July with penny whistles. This proceeded from a boatswain’s mate, who,
standing at the gangway, was thus honouring the Captain’s return after
his long and perilous absence.
The Captain then slowly mounted the ladder, and gravely marching
through a lane of “_side-boys_,” so called—all in their best bibs and
tuckers, and who stood making sly faces behind his back—was received by
all the Lieutenants in a body, their hats in their hands, and making a
prodigious scraping and bowing, as if they had just graduated at a
French dancing-school. Meanwhile, preserving an erect, inflexible, and
ram-rod carriage, and slightly touching his chapeau, the Captain made
his ceremonious way to the cabin, disappearing behind the scenes, like
the pasteboard ghost in Hamlet.
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