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Updated: June 22, 2025
They were, indeed, one-piece canoes, which they had a perfect right to be, as the word canoe comes from the name the West Indian natives gave their dug-outs when questioned by Columbus. Nowadays the dug-out is generally used for the dirtier work of 'longshore fisheries. It has lost its elegance of form, and may be said to have reverted to a lower type.
How few educated people seem to understand the servant class in England, or the working men! Except for Mr. Bart Kennedy's A Man Adrift, I know of scarcely any book that shows a really sympathetic and living understanding of the navvy, the longshore sailor man, the rough chap of our own race.
But, perhaps, the best plan for me to pursue, in order to make you fully understand the matter in all its bearings, will be to "begin at the beginning," as your regular 'longshore professional storytellers say, in the good old- fashioned way, without any more backing and filling, and veering and hauling, which mode of progression, as every decent sailor knows, only tends to take a craft off her proper true course, and make lots of leeway; whereas, if we sail on free, with a fair wind and a steady helm, you'll soon be able to follow in my wake and form a correct opinion of your own as to the merits of my logical conclusions.
They have the faculty of gazing long and intently at nothing, and of disputing for hours over subjects of scarcely greater tangibility; but their capabilities and efficiency must not be measured by their customary longshore attitude.
He had a cadet brother who was a seaman still, and who drifted out of longshore knowledge for great gaps of time, and came back again liker to mahogany than he had been before, a thought more abundant in blasphemy, and a great deal richer in gold pieces with the heads of every king in Christendom stamped upon them. It was this wanderer's daughter who made the place my paradise.
Thus, in time, he had acquired a reputation for being unreliable and a wind-bag, with the result that skippers were chary of engaging him. Not to be too prolix, at the time Captain Scraggs made the disheartening discovery that he had to have a skipper for the Maggie, Mr. Gibney found himself reduced to the alternative of longshore work or a fo'castle berth in a windjammer bound for blue water.
"Come along!" cried Cary to the malcontents; "we're raw longshore fellows, but we won't be outdone by any old sea-dog of them all." And setting to work himself, he was soon followed by one and another, till order and work went on well enough. "And where are we going, when the mast's up?" shouted some saucy hand from behind.
Now, my course to Gibraltar had been taken with a view to proceed up the Mediterranean Sea, through the Suez Canal, down the Red Sea, and east about, instead of a western route, which I finally adopted. By officers of vast experience in navigating these seas, I was influenced to make the change. Longshore pirates on both coasts being numerous, I could not afford to make light of the advice.
Bless you! I only took to the coasting line two or three years ago, when you and I first ran foul of each other; and the reason for my doing that was in cons'quence of my getting spliced, and the missus wanting me to take a 'longshore berth.
On the wharf was a big automobile, surrounded by a gaping crowd of small boys and 'longshore loafers. We drew up beside the landing. Our feminine passenger sprang ashore and ran up the steps, to be seized in her father's arms. Mrs. Colton was there also, babbling hysterically. I watched and listened for a moment. Then I started the engine. "Shove off," I ordered. The lightkeeper was astonished.
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