. Recollections of a sea wanderer's life; an autobiography of an old-time seaman who has sailed in almost every capacity before and abaft the mast, in nearly every quarter of the globe, and under the flags of four of the principal maritime nations. lves in the samecategory as blubber hunters (whalemen). These latterbeing, for the most part, quiet, sedate fellows, recruitedprincipally from the country districts of New England, hadno great love for either sea or seamen. They regarded thesea, the ship, and the rudiments of seamanship as they wouldthe implements and the elementary knowledge of any
. Recollections of a sea wanderer's life; an autobiography of an old-time seaman who has sailed in almost every capacity before and abaft the mast, in nearly every quarter of the globe, and under the flags of four of the principal maritime nations. lves in the samecategory as blubber hunters (whalemen). These latterbeing, for the most part, quiet, sedate fellows, recruitedprincipally from the country districts of New England, hadno great love for either sea or seamen. They regarded thesea, the ship, and the rudiments of seamanship as they wouldthe implements and the elementary knowledge of any othertrade—namely, as means to attain the end proposed, whichwas nothing higher or more romantic than to get as muchoil as possible, and retire upon their earnings to the seclusionof their native villages, and buy a few acres of ground, orstart a country inn. To them the swaggering, roysteringpacket sailor was an enigma, an object of apprehension anddisgust. It is needless to add that the gentlemen in bluecoats and brass buttons, viewing with the disdain born ofconscious superiority all classes of seamen except their own,had a special contempt for the mariners of the Black Ball,Black Star, Tapscott, Swallow-Tail, and numerousother JACK ASHORE. 92 SAILORS. Whatever may have been the origin of this aversion, itcertainly existed, and the packet sailors, actuated, perhaps,by sheer bravado, or by a determination to have the gameas well as the name, drew deeper and broader the line whichseparated them from other seamen. Ashore they were to be found in the haunts of vice anddrunkenness moored head and stern in the grog-shop, in-separable from the lower class of sailor boarding-houses,
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectseafari, bookyear1887
