Some time ago, on the way from Glasgow to Liverpool, amongst the confusion and bustle in the railway terminus at Greenock, I was interested by seeing what struck me more by contrast with the rest of the scene, but, from old associations, would have drawn my attention at any time. Passengers, porters, and trucks were meeting from both directions; ladies and gentlemen anxious about their bandboxes and portmanteaus; one engine puffing off its steam, and another screaming as it departed. Through the midst of all, a group of six seamen, from a third-class carriage, were lugging along their bags and hammocks, dingy and odorous with genuine tar in all its modifications. Five of the party, of different heights, ages, and sizes, were as dark-brown mahogany-colour, in face, throat, and hands, as some long sea-voyage had made them, evidently through latitudes where the wind blows the sun, if the sun doesn't burn the wind. One was a fine, stout, middle-aged man, with immense whiskers and a cap of Manilla grass, a large blue jacket, with a gorgeous India handkerchief stuffed in its capacious outside pocket, and brown trousers, with boots, whom I at once set down for the boatswain of some good East-Indiaman. The sixth was a woolly-pated negro lad, about nineteen or twenty, dressed in sailor's clothes with the rest, but with his characteristically shapeless feet cramped up in a pair of Wellingtons, in which he stumped along, while his companions had the usual easy roll of their calling. The fellow was black as a coal, thick-lipped and flat-nosed; but if, like most negroes, he had only kept grinning, it would not have seemed so ridiculous as the gravity of his whole air. Some young ladies standing near, with parasols spread to save their fair complexions from the sun, said to each other, "Oh, do look at the foreign sailors!" I knew, however, without requiring to hear a single word from them, that they were nothing else but the regular true-blue English tars; such, indeed, as you seldom find belonging to even the sister kingdoms. A Scotchman or an Irishman may make a good sailor, and, for the theory of the thing, why, they are probably "six and half-a-dozen;" but, somehow, there appears to be in the English sea-dog a peculiar capacity of developing the appropriate ideal character—that frank, bluff, hearty abandon, and mixture of practical skill with worldly simplicity, which mark the oceanic man. All dogs can swim, but only water-dogs have the foot webbed and the hair shaggy. The Englishman is the only one you can thoroughly salt, and make all his bread biscuit, so that he can both be a boy at fifty, and yet chew all the hardships of experience without getting conscious of his wisdom.

So I reflected, at any rate, half joke, half earnest, while hastening to the Liverpool steamer, which lay broadside to the quay, and, betwixt letting off steam and getting it up, was blowing like a mighty whale come up to breathe. The passengers were streaming up the plank, across by her paddle-boxes, as it were so many Jonahs going into its belly; amongst whom I was glad to see my nautical friends taking a shorter cut to the steerage, and establishing themselves with a sort of half-at-home expression in their sunburnt weatherly faces. In a little while the "City of Glasgow" was swimming out of the firth, with short quick blows of her huge fins, that grew into longer and longer strokes as they revolved in the swells of the sea; the jib was set out over her sharp nose to steady her, and the column of smoke from her funnel, blown out by the wind, was left, in her speed, upon the larboard quarter, to compare its dark-brown shadow with the white furrow behind. At the beginning of the long summer evening the round moon rose, white and beautiful, opposite the blue peaks of Arran, shining with sunset. By that time the steamer's crowded and lumbered decks had got somewhat settled into order; the splash of the paddles, and the clank of the engine, leaping up and down at the window of its house, kept up a kind of quiet, by contrast, in spite of the different noises going on around. Amongst such, a nuisance apparently inseparable from and peculiar to steamboats, is a blind fiddler, whose everlasting infernal scrape, squeaking away on the foredeck, one cannot help blending with the thump and shudder of those emetic machines on a large scale, and considering it not the least element in producing the disagreeable phenomena so well known on board of them. One of these said floating musicians, who thus wander probably in imitation of Arion, and in revenge for his fate, was now performing to the groups near the paddle-boxes. Beyond them, however, by the steamer's patent iron windlass, there was a quiet space at the bow, where, in a short time, I perceived the figures of the sailors relieved against the brisk sea-view above the insignificant bowsprit. I went forward out of the privileged regions to smoke a cigar, and found the two elder ones sitting over the windlass in conversation with another seafaring passenger, evidently less thoroughbred, however. The rest were walking backwards and forwards to a side, with the quick rolling walk, limited in extent, so characteristic of the genus nauta—the negro turning his head now and then to grin as he heard the music, but otherwise above mixing in the rabble of already disconsolate-looking people behind. He was plainly considered by his shipmates, and considered himself, on a footing of perfect equality: his skin was no odium to the men of the sea, whose lot he had no doubt shared, whatever it might have been in the cabin. Their bedding was already spread under shelter of the half top-gallant forecastle at the heel of the bowsprit, amongst spars and coils of rope. Although sailors are understood to go half-fare in steamers, they no doubt preferred the accommodation thus chosen. It was amusing to notice how the regular, long-sea, wind-and-canvass men seemed to look down upon the hermaphrodites of the "funnel-boat," and were evidently regarded by them as superior beings; nor did they hold much communication together.

While standing near, I made a remark or two to the eldest of the seamen, whom I had marked down for the leader of the little nautical band; and it was not difficult to break ice with the frank tar. He was more intelligent and polished than is usual even with the superior class of his vocation, having seen more countries of the globe, and their peculiarities, than would set up a dozen writers of travels. They had all sailed together in the same vessels for several voyages: had been last to Calcutta, Singapore, and Canton, in a large Liverpool Indiaman, to which they were returning after a trip, during the interval, on some affair of the boatswain's at Glasgow; and, curiously enough, they had made a cruise up Loch Lomond, none of them having seen a fresh-water lake of any size before. In the mean time, while the negro passed up and down with his companions before me, I had been remarking that his naked breast, seen through the half-open check shirt, was tattooed over with a singular device, in conspicuous red and blue colours: indeed, without something or other of the sort he could scarcely have been a sailor, for the barbarians of the sea and those of the American forest have a good deal in common. This peculiar ornament of the sable young mariner I at length observed upon to the boatswain. "Jack Moonlight!" said the seaman, turning round, "come here, my son: show the gentleman your papers, will ye?" The black grinned, looked flattered, as I thought, and, opening his shirt, revealed to me the whole of his insignia. In the middle was what appeared meant for a broken ring-bolt; above that a crown; below an anchor; on one side the broad arrow of the dock-yard, and on the other the figures of 1838. "My sartif'cates, sar, is dat!" said the negro, showing his white teeth. "That's his figure-head, sir," said one of the younger sailors, "but he's got a different mark abaft, ye know, Mr Wilson!" "Never mind, Dick," said the boatswain; "the one scores out the other, my lad." The black looked grave again, and they resumed their walk. "What's his name, did you say?" I inquired,—"Moonlight?" "Yes, sir; Jack Moonlight it is." Ut lucus a non lucendo, thought I: rather a preternatural moonlight—a sort of dark-lantern! "Why, who christened him that?" I said. "Well, sir," replied the boatswain, "the whole ship's company, I think: the second mate threw a ship's-bucket of gulf-stream water over his head, too, for a blessing; and the black cook, being skilled that way, gave him the marks. Jack is his christen name, sir—Moonlight is what we call his on-christen one." "There's a entire yarn about it, sir," remarked the other sailor. "I wish you would tell it me!" said I to the boatswain, seating myself on the windlass, while his two companions looked to him with an expression of the same desire. "Why, sir," said the bluff foremast officer, hitching up his trousers, and looking first at one boot and then at the other, "I'm not the best hand myself at laying up the strands of a matter; but however, as I was first whistle in the concern, why, you shall have the rights of it. You see, sir," continued he, "we were lying at that time inside the Havannah, opposight the Mole—the Mary Jane of Bristol, Captain Drew, a ship o' seven hundred tons. 'Twas in the year '38, I think, Tom?" "Ay, ay, Mr Wilson," replied the other sailor, "'tis logged correct enough on Jack Moonlight's breast." "She was round from Jamaica for some little matter to fill up," continued the boatswain, "so we didn't leave the cable long betwixt wind and water; but, two nights before the Mary Jane sailed, a large Portugee schooner came in, and brought up within thirty fathoms of our starboard quarter, slam on to us, so as we looked into her cabin windows, but nothing else. She'd got the American flag flying, and a Yankee mate that answered sometimes, 'twas said, for the skipper; but by the looks of her, and a large barracoon being a'most right in a line with her bowsprit, we hadn't no doubt what she was after. The first night, by the lights and the noise, we considered they landed a pretty few score of blacks, fresh from the Guinea coast and a stew in the middle passage. And all the time there was the Spanish guard-boats, and the court sitting every few days to look after such tricks, and saying they kept a watch the devil himself couldn't shirk. There was a British cruiser off the Floridas, too, but we reckoned she'd been blown up the Gulf by a hurricane the morning before. Next night was bright moonlight, so they were all quiet till two bells of the third watch; then they began to ship off their bales again, as they call 'em—the moon being on the set, and the schooner in a shadow from the ware-houses. 'Twas all of a sort o' smothered bustle aboard of her, for the sailmaker and I was keeping our hour of the anchor-watch. I was only rated able seaman at that time in the Mary Jane. Well, the shadow of the schooner came almost as far as the currents about our rudder, and I was looking over the quarter, when I thought I saw a trail shining in it, as if something was swimming towards us. 'Sailmaker,' says I, 'is that the shark, d'ye think, that they say is fed alongside of one o' them slavers here for a sentry?' 'Where?' said the sailmaker, and 'Look,' says I. Just that moment what did I see but the woolly black head of a nigger come out into the stroak of white water, 'twixt our counter and the schooner's shadow, swimming as quiet as possible to get round into ours! 'Keep quiet, mate,' I said; 'don't frighten the poor fellow! He's contrived to slink off, I'll bet you, in the row!' Next we heard him scrambling up into the mizen chains, then his head peeps over the bulwarks, but neither of us turned about, so he crept along to the forecastle, where the scuttle was off, and the men all fast in their hammocks. Down he dives in a moment. The sailmaker and I slipped along to see what he'd do. Right under the fok'sle ladder was the trap of the cook's coal-hole, with a ring-bolt in it for lifting; and just when we looked over, there was the nigger, as naked as ye please, a heaving of it up to stow himself away, without asking where. As soon as he was gone, and the trap closed, 'Why,' said the sailmaker, 'he's but a boy.' 'He's a smart chap, though, sure enough, sailmaker!' says I. 'But what pauls me, is how quick he picked out the fittest berth in the ship. Why, old Dido won't know but what it's his wife Nancy's son, all blacked over with the coals!' 'Well, bo',' says the sailmaker, laughing, 'we mustn't let the black doctor get down amongst his gear, on no account, till the ship's clear away to sea!' Doctor, you know, sir—that's what we call the cook at sea. 'Never fear, mate,' says I, 'I'll manage old Dido myself, else he'd blow the whole concern amongst them confounded planters in the cabin.' This Dido, you must understand, sir, was the black cook of the Mary Jane: his name, by rights, was Di'dorus Thomson; but he'd been cook's mate of the Dido frigate for two or three years before, and always called himself Dido—though I've heard 'twas a woman's name instead of a man's. He was a Yankee nigger, as black as his own coals, and had married a Bristol woman. She had one son, but he was as white as herself; so 'twas a joke in the ship against old Dido, how he'd contrived to wash his youngster so clean, and take all the dirt on himself. We run the rig on him about his horns, too, and the white skin under his paint, till the poor fellow was afraid to look in a glass for fear of seeing the devil.

"Next morning, before we began to get up anchor, the cook turns out of his hammock at six o'clock to light the galley fire, and down he comes again to the forecastle to get coals out of his hold. 'Twas just alongside of my hammock, so I looked over, and says I, 'Hullo, doctor! hold on a minute till I give ye a bit of advice.' 'Mine yar own bus'ness, Jack Wilson,' says the cross-grained old beggar, as he was. 'Dido,' says I, 'who d'ye think I see goin' down your trap last night?' 'Golly!' says he, 'don't know; who was dat, Jack—eh?' and he lets go of the trap-lid. 'Why, Dido,' I told him, ''twas the devil himself!' 'O Lard!' says the nigger, giving a jump, 'what dat gen'leman want dere? Steal coal for bad place! O Lard!—Hish!' says he, whispering into my hammock, 'tell me, Jack Wilson, he black or white—eh?' 'Oh, black!' I said; 'as black as the slaver astarn.' 'O Lard! O Lard! black man's own dibble!' says old Dido; 'what's I to do for cap'en's breakfast, Jack!' 'Why, see if you haven't a few chips o' wood, doctor,' says I, 'till we get out o' this infernal port. Don't they know how to lay the old un among your folks in the States, Dido?' I said, for I'd seen the thing tried. 'Golly! yis!' says the nigger; 'leave some bake yam on stone, with little rum in de pumpkin—'at's how to do!' 'Very good!' says I; 'well, whatever you've got handy, Dido, lower it down to him, and I daresay he'll clear out by to-morrow.' 'Why, what the dibble, Jack!' says he again, scratching his woolly head, 'feed him in 'e ship, won't he stay—eh?' 'Oh, for that matter, Dido,' says I, 'just you send down a sample of the ship's biscuit, with a fid of hard junk, and d—me if he stay long!' A good laugh I had, too, in my hammock, to see the cook follow my advice: he daren't open his hatch more than enough to shove down a line with some grub at the end of it, as much as would have provisioned half a dozen; so I knew there was a stopper clapped on the spot for that day.

"When we began to get up anchor, a boat belonging to the schooner pulled round us, and they seemed to want to look through and through us, for them slavers has a nat'ral avarsion to an English ship. They gave a squint or two at old black Dido, and he swore at 'em in exchange for it like a trooper: 'tis hard to say, for a good slack jaw, and all the dirty abuse afloat, whether a Yankee nigger, or a Billingsgate fishwoman, or a Plymouth Point lady, is the worst to stand. I do believe, if we'd been an hour later of sailing, they'd have had a search-warrant aboard of us, with a couple of Spanish guardos, and either pretended they'd lost a fair-bought slave, or got us perhaps condemned for the very thing they were themselves. However, off we went, and by the first dog-watch we'd dropped the land to sou'-west, with stunsails on the larboard side, and the breeze on our quarter.

"Next morning again the black cook gives me a shake in my hammock, and says he, 'Mus' have some coal now, Jack; he gone now, surely—eh, lad?' 'Go to the devil, you black fool,' says I, 'can't ye let a fellow sleep out his watch without doing your work for you?' 'O Golly,' says the cook in a rage, 'I sarve you out for dis, you damn tarry black-guard! Don't b'lieb no dibble ever dere! I water you tea dis blessed mornin' for dis!' 'Look out for squalls, then, doctor,' says I; and he lifts the trap, and began to go down the ladder, shaking his black fist at me. 'Good b'ye, Dido!' says I, 'make my respects to the old un!' 'O you darty willain!' he sings out from the hole; and then I heard him knocking about amongst his lumber, till all of a sudden he gave a roar. Up springs the young nigger from under hatches, up the ladder and through the trap, then up the fok'sle steps again, and out on deck, and I heard him running aft to the quarter-deck, where the mate was singing out to set another stunsail. Down fell the trap-lid over the coal-hole, and old Dido was caught like a mouse. If it hadn't been for our breakfast, I daresay we'd have left him there for a spell; but when the doctor got out he was as cowed as you please. 'Jack Wilson,' says he to me, 'you say quite right—him black dibble dere sure 'naff, Jack! see him go up in flash 'o fire out of de coal, den all as dark as —— Hullo, 'mates,' says he, 'you laugh, eh? Bery funny though, too—ho-ho-ho!' so he turned to grinning at it till the tears ran out of the big whites of his eyes. 'What does the parson say, doctor?' asks an old salt out of his hammock—'stick close to the devil, and he'll flee from ye!' 'Ho-ho-ho!' roars old Dido; 'bery good—ho-ho-ho!' says he; 'old dibble not so bery frightenful after all, now I see he right black!' 'I say, though, old boy,' puts in the foremastman again, 'I doesn't like to hear ye laugh at the devil that way—ye don't know what may turn up—'tis good seamanship, as I reckon, never to make an enemy of a port on a lee-shore, cook!' 'Ay, ay, old ship,' said another; 'but who looks for seaman's ways from a cook?—ye can't expect it!' 'I tar'ble 'fraid of white dibble, though, lads,' said old Dido, giving an impudent grin. 'Well, if so be,' says the old salt, 'take my word for it, ye'd better keep a look-out for him—that's all. White or black, all colours has their good words to keep, an' bad ones brings their bad luck, mate!'

"Well, sir, as for the young run-away, 'twas all of a kick-up on the quarterdeck about him; he couldn't speak a word of English, but he hung on the mate's feet like one for bare life. Just then the captain came on deck with two lady passengers, to take a look of the morning; the poor fellow was spar-naked, and the ladies made a dive below again. The captain saw the slave-brand on his shoulder, and he twigged the whole matter at once; so he told the mate to get him a pair of trousers, and a shirt, and put him to help the cook. Dido laughed louder than ever when he found out the devil wasn't so black as he was painted; and he was for indopting the youngster, by way of a sort o' jury son. However, the whole of the fok'sle took a fancy to him, considering him a kind of right to all hands. He was christened Jack, as I said before, and instead of hanging on, cook's mate, he was put up to something more seaman-like. By the time the Mary Jane got home, black Jack could set a stunsail, or furl a royal. We got Dido to give him a regular-built sartificate on his breast, of his being free to blue water, footing paid, and under the British union-jack, which 'twas the same as you saw just now, sir."

"Well," said I, "but you haven't explained why he was called by such a curious appellation as Moonlight, though?"

"Hold on a bit, sir," said the boatswain, "that's not the whole affair from end to end, yet. The next voyage I sailed again in the Mary Jane to Jamaica, for I always had a way of sticking to the same ship, when I could. I remember Dido, the cook, had a quarrel with his wife, Nancy; and one of the first nights we were at sea, he told black Jack, before all the fok'sle, how he meant to leave him all his savings, which everybody knew was no small thing, for Dido never spent any of his wages, and many a good cask of slush the old nigger had pocketed the worth of. We made a fine run of it that time down the Trades, till we got into the latitude of the Bahamas, and there the ship stuck like a log, with blue water round her, as hot as blazes, and as smooth as glass, or a bowl of oil. Once or twice we had a black squall that sent her on a bit, or another that drove her back, with a heavy swell, and now and then a light air, which we made the most of—setting stunsails, and hauling 'em down again in a plash of rain. But, altogether, we thought we'd never get out of them horse latitudes at all, having run over much to west'ard, till we saw the line of the Gulf Stream treading away on the sea line to nor'west, as plain as on a chart. There was a confounded devil of a shark alongside, that stuck by us all through, one of the largest I ever clapped eyes on. Every night we saw him cruising away astarn, as green as glass, down through the blue water; and in the morning, there he was under the counter, with his back fin above, and two little pilot-fish swimming off and on round about. He wouldn't take the bait either; and every man forud said there was some one to lose his mess before long; however, the cook made a dead set to hook the infernal old monster, and at last he did contrive to get him fast, with a piece of pork large enough for supper to the larboard watch. All hands tailed on to the line, and with much ado we got his snout over the taffrail, till one could look down his throat, and his tail was like to smash in the starn windows; when of a sudden, snap goes the rope where it spliced to the chain, down went the shark into the water with a tremendous splash, and got clear off, hook, chain, bait an' all. We saw no more of him, though; and by sunset we had a bit of a light breeze, that began to take us off pleasantly.

"We had had full moon nearly the night before, and this night, I remember, 'twas the very pearl of moonlight—the water all of a ripple sparkling in it, almost as blue as by day; the sky full o' white light; and the moon as large as the capstan-head, but brighter than silver. You might ha' said you saw the very rays of it come down to the bellies of the sails, and sticking on the same plank in the deck for an hour at a time, as the ship surged ahead. Old Dido, the cook, had a fashion of coming upon deck of a moonlight night, in warm latitudes, to sleep on top o' the spars; he would lie with his black face full under it, like a lizard basking in the sun. Many a time the men advised him against it, at any rate to cover his face; for, if it wouldn't spoil, they said, he might wake up blind, or with his mouth pulled down to his shoulder, and out of his mind to boot. It wasn't the first time neither, sir, I've known a fellow moonstruck in the tropics, for 'tis another guess matter altogether from your hazy bit o' white paper yonder: why, if you hang a fish in it for an hour or two, 'twill stink like a lucifer match, and be poison to eat. Well, sir, that night, sure enough, up comes Dido with a rug to lie upon, and turns in upon the spars under the bulwarks, and in five minutes he was fast asleep, snoring with his face to the moon. So the watch, being tricky inclined ways on account of the breeze, took into their heads to give him a fright. One got hold of a paint-pot out of the half-deck, and lent him a wipe of white paint with the brush all over his face; Dido only gave a grunt, and was as fast as ever. The next thing was to grease his wool, and plaster it up in shape of a couple o' horns. Then they drew a bucket of water, and set it on the deck alongside, for him to see himself. When our watch came on deck, at eight bells, the moon was as bright as ever in the west, and the cook stretched out like Happy Tom on the spars, with his face slued round to meet it. In a little the breeze began to fall, and the light canvass to flap aloft, till she was all of a shiver, and the topsails sticking in to the masts, and shaking out again, with a clap that made the boom-irons rattle. At last she wouldn't answer her wheel, and the mate had the courses hauled up in the trails; 'twas a dead calm once more, and the blue water only swelled in the moonlight, like one sheet of rear-admiral's flags a-washing in a silver steep,—that's the likest thing I can fancy. When the ship lay still, up gets the black doctor, half asleep, and I daresay he had been laying in a cargo of Jamaica rum overnight: the bucket was just under his nose as he looked down to see where he was, and the moon shining into it. I heard him roar out, 'O de dibble!' and out he sprang to larboard, over the bulwarks, into the water. 'Man overboard, ahoy!' I sang out, and the whole watch came running from aft and forud to look over. 'Oh Christ!' says one o' the men, pointing with his finger—'Look.' Dido's head was just rising alongside; but just under the ship's counter what did we see but the black back-fin of the shark, coming slowly round, as them creatures do when they're not quite sure of anything that gives 'em the start. 'The shark! the shark!' said every one; 'he's gone, by ----' 'Down with the quarter-boat, men!' sings out the mate, and he ran to one of the falls to let it go. The young nigger, Jack, was amongst the rest of us; in a moment he off with his hat and shoes, took the cook's big carving-knife out of the galley at his back, and was overboard in a moment. He was the best swimmer I ever chanced to see, and the most fearless: the moonlight showed everything as plain as day, and he watched his time to jump right in where the shark's back-fin could be seen coming quicker along, with a wake shining down in the water at both fins and tail. Old Dido was striking out like a good un, and hailing for a rope, but he knew nothing at all of the shark. As for young Jack, he said afterwards he felt his feet come full slap on the fish's back, and then he laid out to swim under him and give him the length of his knife close by the jaw, when he'd turn up to bite—for 'twas what the youngsters along the Guinea coast were trained to do every day on the edge of the surf. However, curious enough, there wasn't another sign of this confounded old sea-tiger felt or seen again; no doubt he got a fright and went straight off under the keel; at any rate the boat was alongside of the cook and Jack next minute, and picked 'em both up safe. Jack swore he heard the chain at the shark's snout rattle, as he was slueing round his head within half a fathom of old Dido, and just as he pounced upon the bloody devil's back-bone; the next moment it was clear water below his feet, and he saw the white bells rise from a lump of green going down under the ship's bends, as large as the gig, with its belly glancing like silver. If so, I daresay the cook's legs would have stuck on his own hook before they were swallowed; but, anyhow, the old nigger was ready to believe in the devil as long as he lived. The whole matter gave poor Dido a shake he never got the better of; at the end of the voyage he vowed he'd live ashore the rest of his days, to be clear of all sorts o' devilry. Whether it didn't agree with him or not, I can't say, but he knocked off the hooks in a short time altogether, and left young Jack the most of his arnings, on the bargain of hailing by his name ever after. 'Twas a joke the men both in the Mary Jane and the old Rajah got up, when the story was told, to call the cook Dido Moonlight, because, after all, 'twas the death of him: and when Jack shipped with the rest of us here aboard of the Rajah, having seen Dido to the ground, why, all hands christened him over again Jack Moonlight; though to look at him now, I daresay, sir, you wouldn't well fancy how such things as black Jack's face and moonlight was logged together, unless the world went by contrairies!"