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Updated: May 28, 2025
It being necessary to go alongside the coal-wharves in order to replenish the bunkers of the Negros, orders were given that rat-guards circular pieces of tin about the size of a barrel-top should be fixed to our hawsers, thus making it difficult, if not impossible, for rats to invade the ship by that route, while sailors armed with clubs were posted along the landward rail to despatch any rodents that might succeed in gaining the deck.
We had just tied up to the dock and I returned immediately and instructed the mate to be sure to put the rat-guards on our mooring lines, and not to use any sort of gangplank. When I returned to the vessel later that night I found that the mate had neglected to put on the rat-guards and logged him for it.
"And it's worse luck still for any mate aboard my ship who neglects to put the rat-guards on the lines when the vessel is lying at the dock," he growled. "You lubberly idiot!" "But I did put the rat-guards on the lines," the mate protested. "Yes, I know you did; but I had to remind you of it," Matt replied. "You didn't get them on in time and now the Lord only knows how many rats we have aboard.
He grew steadily worse. There were no rats aboard the Retriever when she left San Francisco. I recalled that the first night we tied up to the dock in Manila a dirty little China Coast tramp lay just ahead of us; and as I passed her on my way uptown I saw a rat run down her gangplank. She had rat-guards on her mooring lines.
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