FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86  
87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   >>   >|  
o must have been drowned; while even the life-buoy itself had drifted away out of sight. The forecastle-men fished it up from the bows, and the seamen thronged round it. "Bad luck! bad luck!" cried the Captain of the Head; "we'll number one less before long." The ship's cooper strolled by; he, to whose department it belongs to see that the ship's life-buoys are kept in good order. In men-of-war, night and day, week in and week out, two life-buoys are kept depending from the stern; and two men, with hatchets in their hands, pace up and down, ready at the first cry to cut the cord and drop the buoys overboard. Every two hours they are regularly relieved, like sentinels on guard. No similar precautions are adopted in the merchant or whaling service. Thus deeply solicitous to preserve human life are the regulations of men-of-war; and seldom has there been a better illustration of this solicitude than at the battle of Trafalgar, when, after "several thousand" French seamen had been destroyed, according to Lord Collingwood, and, by the official returns, sixteen hundred and ninety Englishmen were killed or wounded, the Captains of the surviving ships ordered the life-buoy sentries from their death-dealing guns to their vigilant posts, as officers of the Humane Society. "There, Bungs!" cried Scrimmage, a sheet-anchor-man,[2] "there's a good pattern for you; make us a brace of life-buoys like that; something that will save a man, and not fill and sink under him, as those leaky quarter-casks of yours will the first time there's occasion to drop 'ern. I came near pitching off the bowsprit the other day; and, when I scrambled inboard again, I went aft to get a squint at 'em. Why, Bungs, they are all open between the staves. Shame on you! Suppose you yourself should fall over-board, and find yourself going down with buoys under you of your own making--what then?" ---- [FOOTNOTE-2] In addition to the _Bower-anchors_ carried on her bows, a frigate carries large anchors in her fore-chains, called _Sheet-anchors_. Hence, the old seamen stationed in that part of a man-of-war are called _sheet-anchor-man_. ---- "I never go aloft, and don't intend to fall overboard," replied Bungs. "Don't believe it!" cried the sheet-anchor-man; "you lopers that live about the decks here are nearer the bottom of the sea than the light hand that looses the main-royal. Mind your eye, Bungs--mind your eye!" "I will," retorted Bungs
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86  
87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

anchor

 

anchors

 

seamen

 
overboard
 
called
 

pitching

 
squint
 

bowsprit

 

scrambled

 

inboard


quarter
 

retorted

 

pattern

 

occasion

 

looses

 
stationed
 

nearer

 

chains

 

bottom

 
lopers

intend

 
replied
 

carries

 

Suppose

 

staves

 

carried

 

frigate

 
addition
 

making

 

FOOTNOTE


official

 

depending

 

hatchets

 

belongs

 

strolled

 

department

 

relieved

 

regularly

 

sentinels

 

cooper


drifted

 

forecastle

 

drowned

 

fished

 

thronged

 

number

 
Captain
 

similar

 

precautions

 

Englishmen