  It has not been the purpose of this sketch of a poem’s history, with which has been joined other matters, reminiscent or germane, to enter into a discussion relative to the origin of chanties, or to attempt to trace the four lines of Captain Billy Bones’ song to any source beyond their appearance in “Treasure Island.” In a more or less extensive, though desultory, reading of a little of almost everything, the writer has never stumbled upon any chanty or verse from which the famous quatrain might have sprung. Nor has he ever met anyone who remembers to have read or heard of anything of the kind. This includes Allison himself, an omnivorous reader, a Stevenson admirer and student, a friend of many of Stevenson’s friends, and who, since the appearance of “Treasure Island,” has had hundreds of letters and conversations bearing on the subject. While “Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum,” as a line, occasionally has since been used in modern versification, but without any of the Stevenson flavor and seldom with much poetic or dramatic instinct, all authorities appear to be agreed that he evolved the quatrain. This however is not a point at issue here. What seems to be of prime importance to this narrative though, is that Allison, taking this quatrain as a starting point, wrote a wholly modern versification in words and meter so skillfully used as to create not only a vivid atmosphere of piracy and antiquity, but of unskillfulness and coarseness. That is the highest expression of art. YO-HO-HO! In an annoying discussion of Young Allison’s “Derelict” and the origin of the chanty beginning “Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest,” The New York Times quotes Robert Louis Stevenson as saying “Treasure Island came out of Kingsley’s ‘At Last,’ where I got ‘The Dead Man’s Chest.’” That is interesting, and apparently authentic, but it has nothing to do with Allison’s poem. The development of that poem, as related by C. I. Hitchcock in The Scoop two weeks ago, is as clearly established as the similar process out of which emerged Smith’s “Evolution,” and is abundantly attested. Allison’s chanty is one of the best, if not the very best, in its class, and The Scoop is glad to have been given a chance to so accredit it. Taking up the subject matter, our Bramleykite Pilling, a retired mariner now enjoying his otium cum dignitate at the town of Athol in the state of Massachusetts, writes this letter: “Fifteen or twenty men trailing onto a rope, fitting each other like spoons, as the sway-back pull induced whatever was at the other end to give way. “Nothing ever was broken, as it was seen to that such a possibility did not exist; hence the command ‘Break something, break something.’ “A chanty contained one verse or line only, the rest depending on the composition of the man who sang the verse or line. The pull was always at the accent of the chorus, as follows: “‘Blow a man down is a blow me down trick. Blow—Blow—Blow—a man Down. Blow a man down to the home of old Nick. Give me some time to blow a man down.’ “The pull being at every other line, there are eight pulls in the above. “For a quick pulling chanty we often use this one: “‘Rendso was no sailor— Rendso, boys, Rendso, He shipped on board a whaler— Rendso, boys, Rendso.’ “What happened to Rendso depended on the imagination of the one who sang the ‘coal box’—the line. Here is a heaving chanty, or slow pull: “‘To South Australia we’re bound to go— Heave away, heave away. Let the wind blow high or low— We’re bound to South Australia. We’re going home and don’t give a damn— Heave away, heave away. For the captain, the mate or any other man— We’re bound to South Australia.’ “‘Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest’ never was used as a chanty. It would require too much bass; but it was used as a drone, which it is. An abstracted man would use a line, or may be, the whole verse, or the first line, used as derision. For illustration: “When I was last at the Press Club a question pertaining to the sea came up. One man sought the dictionary. To express my contempt I repeated the first line. ‘We have no use for the dictionary. To hell with it,’ expresses the idea. We sailors have a language of our own. It is ours, it is up to us to put you right when the impossible is said. I quote two such lines: “‘We wrapped ’em all in a mains’l tight With twice ten turns of the hawser’s bight! “A mainsail is made of 0, 1 or 2 canvas, which will stand alone; 28 sheet-iron would do as well. “A hawser, with us, is anything in the shape of a rope which is above six inches circumference. You will note that the bight is used—two parts, or loop. Instead of using the largest rope on board a ship, the smallest—skysail bunt-line—would have been more to the point. “A sailor would get back at me by saying ‘Perhaps she didn’t carry skysails.’ “I would reply, ‘Suppose the mainsail was as soft as silk and the hawser as pliable, would you, as a sailor, throw them away on dead men?’ “A mistaken idea exists that Stevenson wrote the Billy Bones song and only used one verse in “Treasure Island.” He ‘quotes’ the only verse there is. We of the sea locate the scene of the verse at Dead Chest Island, half way between the S. W. & S. E. points of Porto Rico, four and one-half miles off shore, which was used as a buccaneer rendezvous, and later as the haven of wreckers and smugglers. It was first named by the Spanish ‘Casa de Muertos’—the Coffin. “While I knew that Stevenson wrote, I did not know him as a writer. I knew him as the grandson and son of men who dared to do, and who achieved in the doing. I also knew him as a man interested in everything pertaining to the sea. “In fancy, I can see him gazing off to leeward, and hear him drone—as of yore— “‘Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest.’” My personal interest in “Derelict” from its earliest stages has led me to discuss it with many people, some of them A. B.’s, and this is the first criticism I have ever heard of the technic of the words used to convey the picture. I do not mean to say that Bramleykite Filling’s points are not well taken, technically, but I do say that qualified sailors, with literary judgment, have been carried over these delinquencies of technic, if that expresses it, by the very vividness but simplicity of the picture, which could not be so were there a false note in either sentiment or portrayal. Thus for this purpose a mainsail is a piece of jute bagging, if you please, or ordinary canvas, and a hawser is a flexible rope. Oct. 26, 1914. Dear Hitch: Bramleykite Pilling’s comments on “Derelict,” from the standpoint of scientific criticism, seem to me to be beyond any sort of reproach. He is evidently an actual, real water sailor who learned his nautics within the smell of bilgewater and the open sea. My own education as an able seaman was gained from years of youthful deep study of dime-novel sea yarns by Ned Buntline, Fenimore Cooper, Sylvanus Cobb, Jr., Billy Bowline, and other masters of the sea in libraries. I have, however, made two ocean trips from Norfolk to New York, time 23 hours. On both occasions I went sound asleep at the end of the first hour and woke up at the end of twenty-third hour. Under such circumstances I may have missed many important details of realism. I have also visited often the tomb of that fine old patriot-pirate and ex-Alderman, Dominique You, in the old French cemetery at New Orleans. As chief gunner for Jean Lafitte, he was some pirate; as chief artilleryman for Gen. Andrew Jackson at the battle of New Orleans, he was some patriot. I feel stronger in my piracy than in my seamanship. I love criticism—especially of poetry. If there is a single verse, or, mayhap, one line, of “Derelict” that will hold, without leaking, anything of a specific gravity heavier than moonshine, it would surprise me. But it seems to, when it is adopted as a “real chanty”—and that’s the test, that it “seems.” Y. E. A. |
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