A Collection of Stories by Jack London
page 71 of 124 (57%)
page 71 of 124 (57%)
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The difference between the sea-life then and now can be no better epitomised than in Dana's description of the dress of the sailor of his day: "The trousers tight around the hips, and thence hanging long and loose around the feet, a superabundance of checked shirt, a low-crowned, well- varnished black hat, worn on the back of the head, with half a fathom of black ribbon hanging over the left eye, and a peculiar tie to the black silk neckerchief." Though Dana sailed from Boston only three-quarters of a century ago, much that is at present obsolete was then in full sway. For instance, the old word _larboard_ was still in use. He was a member of the _larboard_ watch. The vessel was on the _larboard_ tack. It was only the other day, because of its similarity in sound to starboard, that _larboard_ was changed to _port_. Try to imagine "All larboard bowlines on deck!" being shouted down into the forecastle of a present day ship. Yet that was the call used on the _Pilgrim_ to fetch Dana and the rest of his watch on deck. The chronometer, which is merely the least imperfect time-piece man has devised, makes possible the surest and easiest method by far of ascertaining longitude. Yet the _Pilgrim_ sailed in a day when the chronometer was just coming into general use. So little was it depended upon that the _Pilgrim_ carried only one, and that one, going wrong at the outset, was never used again. A navigator of the present would be aghast if asked to voyage for two years, from Boston, around the Horn to California, and back again, without a chronometer. In those days such a proceeding was a matter of course, for those were the days when dead |
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