A Sack of Shakings

So matters progressed until we were half-way up the Indian Ocean from St. Paul’s. One night in the middle watch I happened to say (in what connection I don’t know), “It’s my bir...

Of course, on board merchant ships the range of variety among pets is somewhat restricted. Cats, dogs, monkeys, pigs, sheep, goats, musk-deer, and birds (of sorts) almost exhaus...

As I have said elsewhere, the shark eats man because man is easy to catch, not because he likes man’s flesh better than any other form of food, as many landsmen and even sailors...

Bolins, modern “bowlines,” were anciently used much more than now. At present they are slight ropes which lead from forward to keep the weather edges (leaches) of the courses ri...

Many stories are current about the peculiar aptitude possessed by sailors of taming all sorts of wild creatures that chance to come under their care, most of them having a much...

But, passing on to the actual conditions of conflict, let us suppose the sportsman cruising in the North Atlantic between the Cape Verde Islands and the West Indies--a wide rang...

So passed a night and a day of such length that the ceaseless tumult of wind and wave had become normal, and slighter sounds could be easily distinguished because the ear had be...

“About fifteen years ago now, as near as I can reckon (for we don’t keep much account of time except we’re on monthly wage), I was cruising the Kingsmills in the old _Salem_, Ca...

One day when she was discharging in London there came alongside an old seaman, weather-worn and hungry-looking. Something in the build of the old ship caught his eye, and with q...

Quite differently, yet with its own distinctive privacy, do the stormy regions of the ocean impress the beholder. In the fine zones the wind’s presence is suggested rather than...

Swift upspringing the man answers gladly to the call. And forth to meet him come a joyous band of his fellows, their dancing feet scarce touching the earth. Not a weakling among...

We went thence to Hong-Kong, and there, as if in emulation of the “old man’s” hobby for flowers, all hands went in for birds, mostly canaries, which can be obtained in China mor...

Not without a groan do I recall a passage in one of the handsomest composite barks I ever saw. Her name I shall not give, as she was owned in London, and may be running still, f...

But in the fervour of my recollections of Poley, I have quite neglected another most important branch of the _Harbinger’s_ family of animals, the sheep. Being such a large ship,...

Such a vessel as this carried one huge sail bent to a yard resembling a gigantic fishing-rod whose butt when the sail was set came nearly down to the deck, while the tapering en...

Sailors often speak of an “ugly” sea, but the adjective has quite another meaning to that usually attached to it. They do not mean that it is ugly in appearance, for they well k...

Not the least of the mighty changes wrought by the advent of steam as a motive-power at sea is the alteration it has made in the superstitious notions current among seamen from...

We, however, troubled ourselves but little with these speculations. The one thing patent to us was that our little pets were exposed to the most deadly peril, that these ravenou...

Thus our orphan grew and waxed great. Together, without mishap of any kind, these lords of the flood skirted the southern slopes of the globe. In serene security they ranged the...

For the first time that voyage an attempt was made to confine a portion of our farm-stock within a pen, instead of allowing them to roam at their own sweet will about the decks....

By this time the faces of Nat’s audience had lost the look of apprehension they had worn at first. Everybody had an account to settle with those pigs, which swarmed homelessly a...

While the whaler to which I belonged was lying at Honolulu I one day went ashore for a long ramble out of sight and hearing of the numerous questionable amusements of the town,...

So mysterious are all the physical phenomena of the sea that it is, perhaps, hardly possible to say of any particular one that it is more wonderful than the rest. And yet one is...

Most of the Essays brought together in the present volume have been published in the _Spectator_, and are here reproduced by the kind permission of the proprietors of that journ...

In the intervals (frequently occurring) between the shipment of one consignment of logs and the arrival of another, it was part of our duties to hunt along the river banks for o...

Once more the logic of events is compelling the attention of all and sundry to the fact, hardly realised by the great majority of people, that in the personnel of the Navy we ha...