Australian Tales - Setis

lot of young seaman I never beheld.
Poor fellows! it is sad, indeed! to reflect upon their untimely fate, so
soon afterwards. That melancholy wreck engaged my thoughts by day,
and my dreams by night, for weeks after its occurrence. Often I have
imagined the heart-piercing cries of those one hundred and ninety noble
fellows, as my fancy has pictured the terrible scene, at the moment when
the masts fell crashing over the side, and hurled them through the boiling
surf, into the jaws of death.
Yes, I sympathise with sailors most cordially. I love them as a class,
and feel glad to observe any movement for their benefit.
Of course I do not mean to say that they are all honest hearted, though
rough and rollicksome. I have occasionally sailed with intolerable
nuisances, yclept “sea lawyers,” with tongues as lively as seals' flippers,
though not so harmless; I have also met with lazy, drunken, and
dangerous fellows, who would do anything Old Mischief prompted to
annoy their captain or officers; and I have also seen captains and officers
who would do anything to annoy their crew. Still, such characters,
though by no means rare, are not plentiful; and I have met with honest
and true men in an overwhelming majority, and I believe that most
unprejudiced travellers could make a similar report.
But I fancy I hear some impatient son of Neptune exclaim, as he
hitches up his nether garments, “Odds! blow me through a bunghole,
shipmate. This yarn of yours arn't no use to us for a ‘stand-by!’ Belay
that lady's bobbin, and pay out something handy for us, as you promised
to do, when you first hailed us to heave-to. We don't want any more
wordy sympathy, and that sort of music, because, though it sounds as
sweetly as a jew's-harp, it isn't very satisfying — as the hungry sailor
said when he swallowed a snowball. We are nice, handy men in a squall,
as everybody knows who has been to sea; and most people believe that
they would be very short of sugar and tea, and one or two other things, if
it were not for sailors. Oh, yes, sir; all the world knows our wonderful
virtues, and sometimes we are appreciated too — by timid passengers, in
very bad weather especially.
“Please to bear a hand, Mr. Boomerang, and spin something worth our
while to coil away in our sea chests.”
“Ay, ay, my hearties!” I reply. “Stand by for it now. You know that old
age overtakes seamen as well as landsmen, and the former are peculiarly
liable to infirmities, besides those which are usually incidental to old age.
You active young A.B.'s (able seamen) can now shin up to the
maintruck, and slide down again by the backstay, or lay out on the yardarm
in a gale, as nimbly as squirrels, and you can do a hard day's work
and laugh all the while, for your supple limbs are as strong as capstan
bars. The winter winds may howl along our iron coast and lash the sea
into foam, but they are harmless to your hardy frames. So long as you