Australian Tales - Setis

Jack Tars, Ahoy!
HEAVE to, my hearties! while I spin you a yarn, which may serve you
for a life-line, if you will coil it away in your memory's locker. But hold
on a bit, let me hoist my number, lest you mistake me for some hungry
cruiser, wanting to board you for your dunnage. I am as true a Briton as
ever loved roast beef, or sung “God save the Queen;” and the Union Jack
is flying at my mizen peak, which is a sign that I am not a pirate, or a
privateer. I claim to be a friend of seamen, and though I am not a
professional sailor (as the cockney said, when he voyaged round the
London Tower ditch in a baker's trough), I know all the ropes on board a
ship, from the spanker sheet to the flying-jib downhaul. I can hand, reef,
and steer — or I could when I was young and able — I could also splice
a rope, strop a block, or do an odd job with a palm and needle; though
only in amateur's style. I have been shaved by Neptune's barber, with a
razor like a saw, and shaving paste à la tur tub; and have been bled and
blistered by the same amphibious functionary, though I cannot
recommend him either as an easy shaver or a satisfactory surgeon. I have
doubled Cape Horn in winter, and was nearly doubled up myself with
cold, I have scudded round Cape of Good Hope under bare poles, but
have not the slightest wish to scud round it again in similar weather, I
have made several long voyages, and scores of short voyages to sea, and
have had many sailors in my service, at sea and on shore too; so I may
without presumption say I know something about sea life, and seamen. I
have always felt a strong interest in their welfare; and it is that friendly
feeling which prompts me now to take up my pen.
Yes, I recollect, feeling a strong affection for seamen, long before I
ever stepped on a deck, or knew the flavour of salt junk, or the colour of
sea water. Many a time have I sat, when a boy, under a tree in Greenwich
Park, and listened to a tough yarn from some old weather beaten tar, in a
quaintly cut blue coat and cocked hat, a timber leg, and his face the
colour of a cedar chest; and as he has stumped to and fro, with his
telescope under his arm, as if he were pacing the deck of the forecastle;
narrating in his sea lingo, the exciting particulars of the action, in which
he received that slash on the cheek, or that smash on the nose; where his
starboard arm was disabled by a splinter, and his larboard leg carried
away by a chain shot; I have felt, as he touchingly described his
sufferings, my soft young heart move, and almost melt, like a lump of