ON SEAMANSHIP
"The tar's a smart tar that can band, reef and steer,
That can nimbly cast off and belay;
Who in darkest nights finds each halyard and gear,
And dead reckoning knows well, and leeway;
But the tar to please me must more knowing be."—
Dibden—(Modernized).
ON SEAMANSHIP
I have been all my life a lover of the sea; an observer of its natural and social conditions; a student of its phases and fabrics; but while my mind in its long and wide search has touched upon almost every subject connected with ocean life, the one that has constantly interested and fascinated me is that which relates to the care and government of sailing vessels. This art, which is called seamanship, is one of man's oldest and noblest attainments. What does the world owe to him who possessed it?
To him the civilization of to-day owes its existence. Man cramped in the confines of a continent, a prisoner at low-water mark, a dwarf in a dwarf world, was released, lifted and enlightened by the Master of the Sail. It was he who found the universe upon the sea, and brought it home; a free gift, with the more costly but less valuable trophies of distant trade. It was he who, broadening the world's world, broadened the world's mind. With the spices and silks of the East, with the gold and tobaccos of the West, he laded his ships with the new knowledge, a commodity that paid no revenues to the crown, that added nothing to the wealth and glory of princes, but, flowing slowly and steadily into the minds of men, incited the intelligent few to broader, nobler and more splendid achievements, and filtering through the masses, long steeped in inveterate ignorance, uplifted, enriched and regenerated all.
In the shadow of his sail hamlets became cities; wealth increased, suffering diminished. In his callous hands, the helm, that through daylight and darkness guided his vessel from land to land, was more marvelous in its powers than the famed ivory wand of the Eastern genii; and to all who sought to receive, his sail bore more jewels than ever burdened the magic carpet, or came into the hands of the daring and fortunate through the incantations of the Sons of the Hidden Light. While with one hand he struggled with chaffering Trade for her sordid coin, with the other he threw into the laps of Science and Art innumerable treasures. Impartial in his generosity as in his gifts, he gave to Astronomy new constellations, to Medicine rare and efficacious herbs, to Art fresh and invigorating colors, and to Literature a strange breed of heroes, novel situations and unfamiliar plots.
The freedom that he found upon the high seas he brought back to cheer the slaves of the mart. Kings bargained for his services, nobles and merchants offered their purses to assist in his ventures. In return for three paltry vessels he presented Spain with an empire; to prove a chimera false he perished among the northern ices. No sea was too broad to daunt him; no land was too distant to escape his search. The miseries he endured, the hardships he underwent, were forgotten in the joys of a new discovery. He opened roads of trade that brought riches and power to his country, and sprinkled these pathways with the bones of his companions—victims of exposure, famine and disease.