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Updated: June 4, 2025
He well knew the sort of dock rats he must put up with if he wished to make up his crew with city hands for a short trip. The sea tramps who are within reach of coasting skippers are the same kind of worthless material that shiftless farmers must depend upon in harvest time.
This they did forthwith, and, taking them into the cabin of his ship, he briefly and hurriedly explained to them the manoeuvre he intended to adopt to outwit the Spaniards. This explanation was soon made, and the two skippers immediately returned to their respective ships.
He started to say something, and then checked himself. Finally he blurted out: "I've heard tell of some Yankee skippers who've given a bad name to your infernal shipping, an' I reckon I've run up against one. But no fear! I recognize you as our saviour, an' won't say a word, sir.
The little monosyllable No was again put in requisition, with this qualification "that they did not like the Botany Bay skippers." It was most interesting to observe our savages when we got well out to sea. They soon appeared to become accustomed to their novel situation, and seemed to feel quite at home and at their ease "on board ship." Their exertions at the pumps were indefatigable.
His strange looking craft attracted considerable attention among the skippers of about forty sea-going vessels wind bound at the same time at the Land's End, and much ridicule was thrown on her odd looks, so unlike the English salt water shipping.
Whaling skippers are not likely to trust their crews in port, for the possible three year term of shipment stretches out into an unendurable vista in the mind of the imprisoned sailor. For that is what a sailor is a prisoner. As the great Samuel Johnson declared, a sailor is worse off than a man in jail, for the sailor is not only a prisoner, but he is in danger all of the time!
To the mast-heads of other vessels out in the night were other skippers, or seine-masters, and all with skill and nerve and a great will to get fish. The Johnnie was making perhaps ten knots good now, and with every jerk the painter of the seine-boat chafed and groaned in the taffrail chock. The skipper from the boat called for more line. "Slack away a bit, slack away. We're not porpoises."
"Some trading vessel may sight us in the nick o' time," hopefully suggested Joe. "Never say die!" "Trust most honest skippers to give the Inlet a wide berth," was the lugubrious reply. "This harbor was used by pirates afore Blackbeard's time. I was a silly 'prentice-boy, same as you, Joe, wi' Cap'n Willum Kidd when we lay in here to caulk his galley for the long voyage to Madagascar."
This discovery for the moment was horrifying to me. I concluded if all the other things did not take me off the skippers would, but the good doctor assured me that the wigglers didn't amount to much in that place, and he would soon fix them. He diluted some turpentine, took a quantity of it in his mouth and squirted it into the wound, and over the stump.
From the summit of Jebel Royan, at an altitude of 600 feet, can be seen 40 miles away the outlines of Omdurman and Khartoum that is in the morning or evening, when the distorting freaks of the mirage are not in evidence. The steamboat skippers who had ten-horse power steam sirens, used them, after the manner of their kind, and made night doubly hideous.
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