  Abaft the beam.—That half of a ship included between her amidship section and the taffrail. (For ‘taffrail,’ see below.) Abel Brown.—An unquotable sea-song. Advance-note.—A note for one month’s wages issued to sailors on their signing a ship’s articles. Belaying-pins.—Bars of iron or hard wood to which running rigging may be secured or belayed. Belaying-pins, from their handiness and peculiar club-shape, are sometimes used as bludgeons. Bloody.—An intensive derived from the substantive ‘blood,’ a name applied to the Bucks, Scowrers, and Mohocks of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Blue Peter.—A blue and white flag hoisted at the fore-trucks of ships about to sail. Bollard.—From bol or bole, the round trunk of a tree. A phallic or ‘sparklet’-shaped ornament of the dockside, of assistance to mariners in warping into or out of dock. Bonded Jacky.—Negro-head tobacco or sweet cake. Bull of Barney.—A beast mentioned in an unquotable sea-proverb. Bumpkin.—An iron bar (projecting out-board from the ship’s side) to which the lower and topsail brace blocks are sometimes hooked. Cape Horn fever.—The illness proper to malingerers. Catted.—Said of an anchor when weighed and secured to the ‘cat-head.’ Chanty.—A song sung to lighten labour at the capstan sheets, and halliards. The soloist is known as the chanty-man, and is usually a person of some authority in the fo’c’s’le. Many chanties are of great beauty and extreme antiquity. Clipper-bow.—A bow of delicate curves and lines. Clout.—A rag or cloth. Also a blow:—‘I fetched him a clout i’ the lug.’ Crimp.—A sort of scoundrelly land-shark preying upon sailors. D.B.S.—Distressed British Sailor. A term applied to those who are invalided home from foreign ports. Dungaree.—A cheap, rough thin cloth (generally blue or brown), woven, I am told, of coco-nut fibre. Forward or Forrard.—Towards the bows. Fo’c’s’le (Forecastle).—The deck-house or living-room of the crew. The word is often used to indicate the crew, or those members of it described by passengers as the ‘common sailors.’ Fore-stay.—A powerful wire rope supporting the fore-mast forward. Gaskets.—Ropes or plaited lines used to secure the sails in furling. Goneys.—Albatrosses. Guffy.—A marine or jolly. Gullies.—Sea-gulls, Cape Horn pigeons, etc. Heave and pawl.—A cry of encouragement at the capstan. Hooker.—A periphrasis for ship, I suppose from a ship’s carrying hooks or anchors. Jack or Jackstay.—A slender iron rail running along the upper portions of the yards in some ships. Leeward.—Pronounced ‘looard.’ That quarter to which the wind blows. Mainsail haul.—An order in tacking ship bidding ‘swing the mainyards.’ To loot, steal, or ‘acquire.’ Main-shrouds.—Ropes, usually wire, supporting lateral strains upon the mainmast. Mollies.—Molly-hawks, or Fulmar petrels. Wide-winged dusky sea-fowls, common in high latitudes, oily to taste, gluttonous. Great fishers and garbage-eaters. Port Mahon Baboon, or Port Mahon Soger.—I have been unable to discover either the origin of these insulting epithets or the reasons for the peculiar bitterness with which they sting the marine recipient. They are older than Dana (circa 1840). An old merchant sailor, now dead, once told me that Port Mahon was that godless city from which the Ark set sail, in which case the name may have some traditional connection with that evil ‘Mahoun’ or ‘Mahu,’ prince of darkness, mentioned by Shakespeare and some of our older poets. The real Port Mahon, a fine harbour in Minorca, I think that the phrases originated at the time of Byng’s consequent trial and execution. Purchase.—See ‘Tackle.’ Quidding.—Tobacco-chewing. Sails.—The sail-maker. Santa Cruz.—A brand of rum. Scantling.—Planks. Soger.—A laggard, malingerer, or hang-back. To loaf or skulk or work Tom Cox’s Traverse. Spunyarn.—A three-strand line spun out of old rope-yarns knotted together. Most sailing-ships carry a spunyarn winch, and the spinning of such yarn is a favourite occupation in fine weather. Stirrup.—A short rope supporting the foot-rope on which the sailors stand when aloft on the yards. Tack.—To stay or ’bout ship. A reach to windward. The weather lower corner of a course. Tackle.—Pronounced taykle. A combination of pulleys for obtaining of artificial power. Taffrail.—The rail or bulwark round the sternmost end of a ship’s poop or after-deck. Trick.—The ordinary two-hour spell at the wheel or on the look-out. Windward or Weather.—That quarter from which the wind blows. THE following pages contain advertisements of books by the same author, and other poetry NEW BOOKS BY JOHN MASEFIELD The Daffodil Fields Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net; postpaid, $1.36 “Neither in the design nor in the telling did or could ‘Enoch Arden’ come near the artistic truth of ‘The Daffodil Fields’.”—Sir Quiller-Couch, Cambridge University. A Mainsail Haul Cloth, 12mo. Preparing As a sailor before the mast Masefield has traveled the world over. Many of the tales in this volume are his own experiences written with the same dramatic fidelity displayed in “Dauber.” The Tragedy of Pompey Cloth, 12mo. Preparing A play such as only the author of “Nan” could have written. Tense in situation and impressive in its poetry it conveys Masefield’s genius in the handling of the dramatic form. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY JOHN MASEFIELD’S “The Everlasting Mercy” was awarded the Edward de Polignac prize of $500 by the Royal Society of Literature for the best imaginative work of the year.” “John Masefield is the man of the hour, and the man of to-morrow too, in poetry and in the playwriting craft.”—John Galsworthy. “—recreates a wholly new drama of existence.”—William Stanley Braithwaite, N. Y. Times. “Mr. Masefield comes like a flash of light across contemporary English poetry, and he trails glory where his imaginations reveals the substances of life. The improbable has been accomplished by Mr. Masefield; he has made poetry out of the very material that has refused to yield it for almost a score of years. It has only yielded it with a passion of Keats, and shaped it with the imagination of Coleridge.”—Boston Evening Transcript. “Originality, force, distinction, and deep knowledge of the human heart.”—Chicago Record-Herald. “They are truly great pieces.”—Kentucky Post. “A vigor and sincerity rare in modern English literature.”—The Independent. “If Mr. Masefield has occasionally appeared to touch a reminiscent chord with George Meredith, it is merely an example of his good taste and the sameness of big themes.”—George Middleton in La Follette’s Magazine. PUBLISHED BY JOHN MASEFIELD’S “John Masefield has produced the finest literature of the year.”—J. W. Barrie. “John Masefield is the most interesting poetic personality of the day.”—The Continent. “Ah! the story of that rounding the Horn! 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Three volumes in one. $1.25 net Contains “The Shirt,” a new poem of impressive poignancy and power. “A Millet in word-painting, who writes with a terrible simplicity, is Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, born in Hexham, England, in 1878, of whom Canon Cheyne wrote: ‘A new poet of the people has risen up among us.’ The story of a soul is written as plainly in ‘Daily Bread’ as in ‘The Divine Comedy’ and in ‘Paradise Lost.’”—The Outlook. FIRES $1.25 net “In ‘Fires’ as in ‘Daily Bread,’ the fundamental note is human sympathy with the whole of life. Impressive as these dramas are, it is in their cumulative effect that they are chiefly powerful.”—Atlantic Monthly. WOMENKIND $1.25 net “Mr. Gibson is a genuine singer of his own day and turns into appealing harmony the world’s harshly jarring notes of poverty and pain.”—The Outlook. PUBLISHED BY Three Important New Volumes of Poetry By JOHN HELSTON LONICERA AND OTHER POEMS Preparing This book introduces another poet of promise to the verse-lovers of this country. It is of interest to learn that Mr. Helston, who for several years was an operative mechanic in electrical works, has created a remarkable impression in England where much is expected of him. This volume, characterized by verse of rare beauty, presents his most representative work, ranging from the long descriptive title-poem to shorter lyrics. By HERMANN HAGEDORN POEMS AND BALLADS Preparing “His is perhaps the most confident of the prophecies of our new poets for he has seen most clearly the poetry in the new life. His song is full of the spirit of youth and hope.... It is the song that the new century needs. His verse is strong and flexible and has an ease, a naturalness, a rhythm that is rare in young poets. In many of his shorter lyrics he recalls Heine.”—Boston Transcript. By FANNIE STEARNS DAVIS MYSELF AND I $1.00 net “For some years the poems of Miss Davis have attracted wide attention in the best periodicals. That note of wistful mysticism which shimmers in almost every line gives her art a distinction that is bound to make its appeal. In this first book—where every verse is significant—Miss Davis has achieved very beautiful and serious poetry.”—Boston Transcript. PUBLISHED BY |
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