While we poor Sailors went to the tops
And the land lubbers laid below.

The anonymous author of a curious composition entitled _The Complaynt of
Scotland_, written in 1548, seems to be the only man who took more
interest in the means than in the ends of seamanship. He was undoubtedly
a landsman. But he loved the things of the sea; and his work is well
worth reading as a vocabulary of the lingo that was used on board a
Tudor ship. When the seamen sang it sounded like 'an echo in a cave.'
Many of the outlandish words were Mediterranean terms which the
scientific Italian navigators had brought north. Others were of Oriental
origin, which was very natural in view of the long connection between
East and West at sea. Admiral, for instance, comes from the Arabic for a
commander-in-chief. _Amir-al-bahr_ means commander of the sea. Most of
the nautical technicalities would strike a seaman of the present day as
being quite modern. The sixteenth-century skipper would be readily
understood by a twentieth-century helmsman in the case of such orders as
these: _Keep full and by! Luff! Con her! Steady! Keep close!_ Our modern
sailor in the navy, however, would be hopelessly lost in trying to
follow directions like the following: _Make ready your cannons, middle
culverins, bastard culverins, falcons, sakers, slings, headsticks,
murderers, passevolants, bazzils, dogges, crook arquebusses, calivers,
and hail shot!_

Another look at life afloat in the sixteenth century brings us once more
into touch with America; for the old sea-dog DIRECTIONS FOR THE TAKYNG
OF A PRIZE were admirably summed up in _The Seaman's Grammar_, which was
compiled by 'Captaine John Smith, sometime Governour of Virginia and
Admiral of New England'--'Pocahontas Smith,' in fact.