the British proportion was even less. Thus it may be said that up to the
date I have mentioned the crews of British merchant ships engaged in deep
water voyages to Australia, to the East Indies and round the Horn were
essentially British. The small proportion of foreigners which I remember
were mostly Scandinavians, and my general impression remains that those
men were good stuff. They appeared always able and ready to do their
duty by the flag under which they served. The majority were Norwegians,
whose courage and straightness of character are matters beyond doubt. I
remember also a couple of Finns, both carpenters, of course, and very
good craftsmen; a Swede, the most scientific sailmaker I ever met;
another Swede, a steward, who really might have been called a British
seaman since he had sailed out of London for over thirty years, a rather
superior person; one Italian, an everlastingly smiling but a pugnacious
character; one Frenchman, a most excellent sailor, tireless and
indomitable under very difficult circumstances; one Hollander, whose
placid manner of looking at the ship going to pieces under our feet I
shall never forget, and one young, colourless, muscularly very strong
German, of no particular character. Of non-European crews, lascars and
Kalashes, I have had very little experience, and that was only in one
steamship and for something less than a year. It was on the same
occasion that I had my only sight of Chinese firemen. Sight is the exact
word. One didn't speak to them. One saw them going along the decks, to
and fro, characteristic figures with rolled-up pigtails, very dirty when
coming off duty and very clean-faced when going on duty. They never
looked at anybody, and one never had occasion to address them directly.
Their appearances in the light of day were very regular, and yet somewhat
ghostlike in their detachment and silence.

But of the white crews of British ships and almost exclusively British in
blood and descent, the immediate predecessors of the men whose worth the