superior in every respect, notwithstanding certain
croakers, is infinitely better than his ancestors in the very quality
which was their best; the modern sailor faces death soberly and decently
in forms far more terrible than were ever dreamt of by his forefathers.
When the _Calliope_ steamed out of Apia Harbour in the hurricane of March,
1889, the youngest grimy coal-trimmer, whose sole duty it was to silently
shovel coal, even though his last moment came to him while doing it,
never once asked if the ship was making way. All hands in this department
were on duty for sixteen hours, and during that time no sound was heard,
save the ring of the shovels firing the boilers, nor was a question asked
by any man as to the progress of the ship or the chances of life and
death.

Compare this end-of-the-century story with that of the loss of the
_Wager_, one of the ships of Anson's squadron; and compare the behaviour
of the _Wager's_ castaways with that of the bluejackets who stood to
attention on the deck of the _Victoria_ till the word was given to jump as
the ship heeled over--recent instances quoted merely because they occur to
the writers' minds, for there are any number of others. Such cases
illustrate forcibly this truth: we have, by careful training of the modern
sailor, added to the traditional bravery of the class a quality, not
lacking, but never properly developed, in the old type, that is, the
dignity of coolness and self-restraint, the perfect control of men in the
supreme moments of excitement and death.

Dampier's men, from a very early stage in his voyage, were a trouble to
him. Two only of them, he says, had ever crossed the line, and he was in
continual fear of some sickness arising because they were too lazy to
shift themselves, but would lie in their hammocks in wet clothes. Three
months after the ship got to sea, when nearing Brazil, he tells us that

"the disorders in my ship made me think at present that Pernambuco
would not be so fit a place for me, being told that ships ride
there two or three leagues from the town, under the command of no
forts; so that whenever I should have been ashore it might have
been easy for my discontented crew to have cut or slipt their
cables, and have gone away from me, many of them discovering
already an intention to return to England, and some of them
declaring openly that they would go no further onwards than
Brazil. I altered my cour