he is one of the
sharers in a parcel from on shore, he is fortunate, for he may possibly
partake of a pudding which might be thrown over the masthead without
remaining whole after its fall on deck; but it matters little if he has
no daintily-prepared provender. Jack Fisherman seats himself on a box or
on the floor of the cabin; he produces his clasp-knife and prepares for
action. When his huge tin dish is piled with a miscellaneous assortment
of edibles, it presents a spectacle which might make all Bath and
Matlock and Royat and Homburg shudder; but the seaman, despising the
miserable luxuries of fork and spoon, attacks the amazing conglomeration
with enthusiasm. His Christmas pudding may resemble any geological
formation that you like to name, and it may be unaccountably allied with
a perplexing maze of cabbage and potatoes--nothing matters. Christmas
must be kept up, and the vast lurches of the vessel from sea to sea do
not at all disturb the fine equanimity of the fellows who are bent on
solemnly testifying, by gastronomic evidence, to the loyalty with which
Christmas is celebrated among orthodox Englishmen. The poor lads toil
hard, live hard, and they certainly feed hard; but, with all due
respect, it must be said also that they mostly pray hard; and, if any
one of the cynical division had been among the seamen during that awful
time five years ago, he would have seen that among the sea-toilers at
least the "glad" season is glad in something more than name--for the
gladness is serious. Sights of the same kind may be seen on great ships
that are careering over the myriad waterways that net the surface of the
globe; the smart man-of-war, the great liner, the slow deep-laden
barque toiling wearily round the Horn, are all manned by crews that keep
up the aged tradition more or less merrily; and woe betide the cook that
fails in his duty! That lost man's fate may be left to the eye of
imagination. Under the Southern Cross the fair summer weather glows; but
the good Colonists have their little rejoicings without the orthodox
adjuncts of snow and frozen fingers and iron roads. Far up in the bush
the men remember to make some kind of rude attempt at improvising
Christmas rites, and memories of the old country are present with many a
good fellow who is facing his first hard luck. But the climate makes no
difference; and, apart from all religious considerations, there is no
social event that so draws together the sympathies of