CAAG. _See_ KAAG.
CABANE. A flat-bottomed passage-boat of the Loire.
CABBAGE. Those principally useful to the seaman are the esculent
cabbage-tree (_Areca oleracea_), which attains to a great height in the
W. Indies. The sheaths of the leaves are very close, and form the green
top of the trunk a foot and a half in length; this is cut off, and its
white heart eaten. Also, the _Crambe maritima_, sea-kail, or marine
cabbage, growing in the west of England.
CABIN. A room or compartment partitioned off in a ship, where the
officers and passengers reside. In a man-of-war, the principal cabin, in
which the captain or admiral lives, is the upper after-part of the
vessel.
CABIN-BOY. A boy whose duty is to attend and serve the officers and
passengers in the cabin.
CABIN-LECTURE. _See_ JOBATION.
CABIN-MATE. A companion, when two occupy a cabin furnished with two
bed-places.
CABLE. A thick, strong rope or chain which serves to keep a ship at
anchor; the rope is cable-laid, 10 inches in circumference and upwards
(those below this size being hawsers), commonly of hemp or coir, which
latter is still used by the Calcutta pilot-brigs on account of its
lightness and elasticity. But cables have recently, and all but
exclusively, been superseded by iron chain.--_A shot of cable_, two
cables spliced together.
CABLE, TO COIL A. To lay it in fakes and tiers one over the other.--_To
lay a cable._ (_See_ LAYING.)--_To pay cheap the cable_, to hand it out
apace; to throw it over.--_To pay out more cable_, to let more out of
the ship.--_To serve or plait the cable_, to bind it about with ropes,
canvas, &c.; to keep it from galling in the hawse-pipe. (_See_ ROUNDING,
KECKLING, &c.)--_To splice a cable_, to make two pieces fast together,
by working the several yarns of the rope into each other; with chain it
is done by means of shackles.--_To veer more cable_, to let more out.
CABLE-BENDS. Two small ropes for lashing the end of a hempen cable to
its own part, in order to secure the clinch by which it is fastened to
the anchor-ring.
CABLE-BITTED. So bitted as to enable the cable to be nipped or rendered
with ease.
CABLE-BITTS. _See_ BITTS.
CABLE-BUOYS. Peculiar casks employed to buoy up rope cables in a rocky
anchorage, to prevent their rubbing against the rocks; they are also
attached to the end of a cable when it is slipped, with the object of
finding it again.
CABLE-ENOUGH. The call when cable enough is veered to permit of the
anchor being brought to the cat-head.
CABLE-HANGER. A term applied to any person catching oysters in the river
Medway, not free of the fishery, and who is liable to such penalty as
the mayor and citizens of Rochester shall impose upon him.
CABLE-LAID ROPE. Is a rope of which each strand is a hawser-laid rope.
Hawser-laid ropes are simple three-strand ropes, and range up to the
same size as cablets, as from 3/4 to 9 inches. (_See_ ROPE.)
CABLE-SHEET, SHEET-CABLE. The spare bower cable belonging to a ship.
Sheet is deemed stand-by, and is also applied to its anchor.
CABLE'S LENGTH. A measure of about 100 fathoms, by which the distances
of ships in a fleet are frequently estimated. This term is frequently
misunderstood. In all marine charts a cable is deemed 607.56 feet, or
one-tenth of a sea mile. In rope-making the cable varies from 100 to 115
fathoms; cablet, 120 fathoms; hawser-laid, 130 fathoms, as determined by
the admiralty in 1830.
CABLE-STAGE. A place constructed in the hold, or cable-tier, for coiling
cables and hawsers on.
CABLE-STREAM, STREAM-CABLE. A hawser or rope something smaller than the
bower, used to move or hold the ship temporarily during a calm in a
river or haven, sheltered from the wind and sea, &c.
CABLE-TIER. The place in a hold, or between decks, where the cables are
coiled away.
CABOBBLED. Confused or puzzled.
CABOBS, OR KEBAUB. The Turkish name for small fillets of meat broiled on
wooden spits; the use of the term has been extended eastward, and in
India signifies a hot spiced dish of fish, flesh, or fowl.
CABONS. _See_ KABURNS.
CABOOSE, OR CAMBOOSE. The cook-room or kitchen of merchantmen on deck;
a diminutive substitute for the galley of a man-of-war. It is generally
furnished with cast-iron apparatus for cooking.
CABOTAGE [Ital.] Sailing from cape to cape along a coast; or the details
of coast pilotage.
CABURNS. Spun rope-yarn lines, for worming a cable, seizing, winding
tacks, and the like.
CACAO [Sp.] The plant _Theobroma_, from which what is commonly termed
cocoa is derived.
CACCLE, OR KECCLE. To apply a particular kind of service to the cable.
(_See_ KECKLING.)
CACHE. A hidden reservoir of provision (to secure it from bears) in
Arctic travel. Also, a deposit of despatches, &c.
CADE. A small barrel of about 500 herrings, or 1000 sprats.
CADENCE. The uniform time and space for marching, more indispensable to
large bodies of troops than to parties of small-arm men; yet an
important part even of their drill. The regularity requisite in pulling.
CADET. A volunteer, who, serving at his own charge, to learn experience,
waits for preferment; a designation, recently introduced, for young
gentlemen formerly rated volunteers of the first class. Properly, the
younger son in French.
CADGE, TO. To carry.--_Cadger_, a carrier. Kedge may be a corruption, as
being carriable.
CAESAR'S PENNY. The tip given by a recruiting sergeant.
CAFFILA. _See_ KAFILA.
CAGE. An iron cage formed of hoops on the top of a pole, and filled with
combustibles to blaze for two hours. It is lighted one hour before
high-water, and marks an intricate channel navigable for the period it
burns; much used formerly by fishermen.
CAGE-WROCK. An old term for a ship's upper works.
CAIQUE, OR KAIQUE. A small Levantine vessel. Also, a graceful skiff seen
in perfection at Constantinople, where it almost monopolizes the boat
traffic. It is fast, but crank, being so narrow that the oars or sculls
have their looms enlarged into ball-shaped masses to counter-balance
their out-board length. It has borne for ages the wave-line now brought
out in England as the highest result of marine architecture. It may have
from one to ten or twelve rowers.
CAIRBAN. A name in the Hebrides for the basking-shark.
CAIRN. Piles of stones used as marks in surveying.
CAISSON, OR CAISSOON. An adopted term for a sort of float sunk to a
required depth by letting water into it, when it is hauled under the
ship's bottom, receives her steadily, and on pumping out the water
floats her. These were long used in Holland, afterwards at Venice, and
in Russia, where they were known as _camels_ (which see). Caisson is
also a vessel fitted with valves, to act instead of gates for a dry
dock. Used also in _pontoons_ (which see).
CAKE-ICE. Ice formed in the early part of the season.
CALABASH. _Cucurbita_, a gourd abundant within the tropics, furnishing
drinking and washing utensils. At Tahiti and the Sandwich Islands they
attain a diameter of 2 feet. There is also a calabash-tree, the fruit
not exceeding the size of oranges.
CALABASS. An early kind of light musket with a wheel-lock. Bourne
mentions it in 1578.
CALALOO. A dish of fish and vegetables.
CALAMUS. _See_ RATTAN.
CALANCA. A creek or cove on Italian and Spanish coasts.
CALAVANCES [_Phaseolus vulgaris._ _Haricot_, Fr.] Small beans sometimes
used for soup, instead of pease.
CALCULATE, TO. This word, though disrated from respectability by
American misuse, signified to foretell or prophesy; it is thus used by
Shakspeare in the first act of "Julius Caesar." To calculate the ship's
position, either from astronomical observations or rate of the log.