PREFACE
I. INTRODUCTORY
II. PECULIAR AND UNEDUCATED
III. A CABIN-BOY'S START AT SEA
IV. THE SEAMAN'S SUPERSTITIONS
V. THE SEAMAN'S RELIGION
VI. SAFETY AND COMFORT AT SEA
VII. WAGES AND WIVES
VIII. LIFE AMONG THE PACKET RATS
IX. BRUTALITY AT SEA
X. BRAVERY
XI. CHANTIES
XII. JACK IN RATCLIFF HIGHWAY
XIII. THE MATTER-OF-FACT SAILOR
XIV. RESOURCEFULNESS AND SHIPWRECK
XV. MANNING THE SERVICE




PREFACE


"I went in at the hawse-hole and came out at the cabin
window." It was thus that a certain North Country shipowner
once summarised his career while addressing his
fellow-townsmen on some public occasion now long past, and
the sentence, giving forth the exact truth with all a
sailor's delight in hyperbole, may well be taken to describe
the earlier life-stages gone through by the author of this