File:The merchant vessel - a sailor boy's voyages around the world (1884) (14593301398).jpg

Identifier: merchantvesselsa1884nord (find matches)
Title: The merchant vessel : a sailor boy's voyages around the world
Year: 1884 (1880s)
Authors: Nordhoff, Charles, 1830-1901 LaPlante, Charles. egr Wyllie, W. L. (William Lionel), 1851-1931. ill Dodd, Mead & Company. pbl
Subjects: Boys Conduct of life Voyages and travels Voyages around the world Merchant ships Seafaring life Sailing Slavery
Publisher: New York : Dodd, Mead & Co.
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Public Library

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r wandering, vagabond mode oflife, having about it much more of freedom than there is foundin general at sea, chimed well with the spirit of adventurewhich had induced me to become a sailor. And had it notbeen that my fighting qualities were immensely below par,and likely ever to remain so, I might have been to this daya Sydney cove. Pity that that little Yankee dont know how to use hismaulers—thats all he needs to make a tip-top chum of him,I overheard one of them saying one day. They take great pride in interlarding their language withvarious phrases of a slang peculiar to the Australian depen-dency of Great Britain. A round assertion is generally backedby My bloody colonial oath on that, mate, as a sign thatits truth is entirely beyond question. By dint of a good deal of management, and a persistentexercise of that Yankee faculty, asking questions, I got out oftwo of my shipmates, before we reached Svdnev, some of theirsingular experiences. One of these had been from the first an
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JIMS YARN. - ; ■object of great curiosity to me. His back and breast, as wellas the back of his neck, and his arms and legs, were entirelycovered with a mass of circles and other odd figures, prickedin with India ink, or some other blue pigment. To see variousfigures on a sailors arms, or even on other portions of hisbody, is too common to occasion remark. But this was plainlynot the work of any sailor artist, but bore traces of savageworkmanship. We were but a few days aboard when I learnedincidentally that Jim had been for five years a prisoner amongthe savages on the Island of Papua or New Guinea. He wasmuch more silent than any of his comrades, and it was onlyafter most persistent and repeated questioning that he at lasttold me the story of his adventures there. He had been cast away, or wrecked, upon the island,while in one of the little schooners which sail from Sydneyfor the purpose of collecting sandal-wood and tortoise-shell, insearch of which they visit all the unfrequente

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