where the feature has disappeared the term has gone with it. Where the
expression is retained the meaning is more or less identical with the
original words. A few exceptions may be quoted: “Bittacle” was anciently
the name of the binnacle; obviously derived from the French _habitacle_
(a small habitation). “Caboose” was formerly the name of the galley or
kitchen of small merchantmen. Falconer spells it “coboose,” and
describes it as a sort of box or house to cover the chimney of some
merchant ships. Previous to the introduction of the caboose, the
furnaces for cooking were, in three-deckers, placed on the middle deck;
in two-decked ships in the forecastle; and, adds my authority (the
anonymous author of a treatise on shipbuilding, written in 1701), “also
in all ships which have forecastles the provisions are there dressed.”
“Cuddy” is a forcible, old-fashioned word that has been replaced by the
mincing, affected term “saloon.” In the last century it signified “a
sort of cabin or cookroom in the fore-part or near the stern of a
lighter or barge of burden.” It is curious to note the humble origin of
a term subsequently taken to designate the gilded and sumptuous
first-class cabin accommodation of the great Indian, American, and
Australian ships. “Forecastle,” again, I find defined by old writers as
“a place fitted for a close fight on the upper deck forward.” The term
was retained to denote the place in which the crew live.
The exploded expressions are numerous. A short list may prove of
interest. “Hulling” and “trying” were the words which answer to what we
now call “hove-to.” “Sailing large,” having the wind free or quartering;
this expression is dead. “Plying” was the old term for “beating”—“we
plyed to windward”—_i.e._ “we beat to windward.” The word is obsolete,
as is “spooning,” replaced by “scudding.” For “veering” we have
substituted “wearing.” Some good strong, expressive phrases have
vanished. Nobody nowadays talks of “clawing-off,” though the expression
is perfect as representing a vessel clutching and grabbing at the wind
in her efforts to haul off from a lee shore. For “shivering” we now say
“shaking.” “The top-sail shivers in the wind!” In these days it
“shakes.” We no longer speak of the “top-sail atrip,” but of the
top-sail hoisted or the yard mast-headed. “Hank for hank,” signifying
two ships beating together and always going about at the same moment, so
that one cannot get to windward of the other, is now “tack for tack.” We
have ceased to “heave out stay-sails:” they are now loosed and hoisted.
The old “horse” has made way for the “foot-rope,” though we still retain
the term “Flemish horse” for the short foot-rope at the top-sail
yard-arms. The word “horse” readily suggests the origin of the term
“stirrup,” a rope fitted to the foot-rope that it may not be weighed
down too deep by the men standing on it. It is plain that “horse” is
owing to the seamen “riding” the yard by it. Anything traversed was
called a “horse.” The term is still used. The “round-house” or “coach”
yielded to “cuddy,” as “cuddy” has to “saloon.” The poop remains; but
the “poop-royal” of the French and the Spaniards, or the “topgallant
poop” of our own shipwrights—a short deck over the aftermost part of the
poop—has utterly disappeared.
“Whoever were the inventors,” writes Sir Walter Raleigh in “A Discourse
of Shipping,” included in his Genuine Remains, “we find that every age
hath added somewhat to ships, and to all things else; and in mine own
time the shape of our English ships hath been greatly bettered. It is
not long since the striking of the Top-mast (a wonderful ease to great
Ships both at Sea and in Harbour) hath been devised, together with the
Chain Pump, which takes up twice as much water as the ordinary did. We
have lately added the Bonnet and the Drabler. To the Courses, we have
devised Studding Sails, topgallant Sails, Sprit-sails, Topsails. The
Weighing of Anchors by the Capstone is also new. We have fallen into
consideration of the length of Cables, and by it we resist the malice of
the greatest Winds that can blow.”
Although this passage has reference to improvements made in the fabrics
of ships during the closing years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth and of
the opening of that of James I., it is curious, as illustrative of the
conservatism of the sailor, that by omitting the “sprit-sail” these
words of Raleigh might stand for the ships of to-day. No sailor
unacquainted with the archæology of his own calling would believe that
the studding-sail, the bonnet, the drabbler, the chain-pump, the
topgallant-sail, and even the sprit-sail (a sail that was in use down to
so late a period as the close of the first quarter of the present
century) were as old as Raleigh’s hey-day. Certainly the terms given by
Sir Walter would furnish us with a clue to the paternity of these
cloths. “Studding-sail,” for example. Falconer derives it from _scud_,
_stead_, or _steady_. I am inclined to think it is derived from the verb
“to stud”—to adorn, to cover, but not necessarily, as Johnson says,
“with studs or shining knobs.” It is quite conceivable to think of a
forked-beard lifted over a ruff in admiration of canvas that raises the
cry, “By’r Lady, but she is now studded with sail!” Assuredly we moderns
would not regard a studding-sail as a steadying sail in any sense of the
word. The “bonnet” mentioned by Raleigh is an additional piece of canvas
made to lace on to the foot of a sail. The term _bonnet_ applied to a
thing worn at the _foot_ advises us of an ironical derivative. But of
“drabbler” the etymology is obvious. To drabble is to wet, to befoul.
Now the drabbler is an additional piece of canvas laced to the bonnet,
and necessarily coming very low, unquestionably takes its name from
“drabbling”—getting wet. The sprit-sail and sprit-top-sail are among the
vanished details; so indeed is the sprit-sail-yard, which may be said to
have been conquered, like a cold young virgin, by the invention of
“whiskers”—small booms or irons, one on each side the bowsprit, and
formerly projecting from the _cat-heads_, whence possibly the term. Of
many sea-expressions the origin is sufficiently transparent. I offer a
few examples. “Bilge” is the part of a vessel’s bottom which begins to
round upwards. The word is corrupted from the old “bulge, the outermost
and lowest part of a ship, that which she bears upon when she lies on
the ground.” “Butt” is the joining of two planks endways. “To start a
butt” is to loosen the end of a plank where it unites with another. This
word is got from “abut.” “Chock-a-block,” said when anything is hoisted
by a tackle as high as the block will let it go. Chock here means choke,
and in that sense is implied in such expressions as “chock-aft,”
“chock-home,” etc. Formerly “jib” was spelt “gyb.” A vessel in running
is said to “gybe” or “jibe” when the wind gets on the lee side of her
fore and aft sails and blows them over. As this in the old days of
square rigs and “mizon yards” would be peculiar to the “gyb” or “jib,”
the expression is sufficiently accounted for. “To stay” is to tack; a
ship “in stays” is a ship in the act of tacking. I interpret “to stay”
by the verb “to stop;” “she is staying”—she is stopping; “in stays”—in
the act of stopping.[38] “Tack” is the weather lower corner of a
square-course when set. “To tack” may be accepted as metaphorically
expressing the action of rounding into the wind in the direction of the
tacks. “topgallant,” says Johnson, “is proverbially applied to anything
elevated or splendid,” and quotes from L’Estrange: “I dare appeal to the
consciences of topgallant sparks.” Prior to the introduction of
topgallant sails, there was nothing higher than the topsails. Taking
“topgallant” as of proverbial application to whatever is elevated, if
not splendid, one easily sees how the topgallant fabric of a ship—its
sail, mast, and gear—obtained the name it is known by. “To luff” is to
put the helm down, so as to bring the vessel closer to the wind. This
word is manifestly taken from “loof,” which in olden times was the term
applied to the after-part of the bows of a ship. “Quick-work” was the
name given to that part of a ship’s sides which is above the
channel-wales. “’Tis commonly perform’d with Firdeal,” says an old
writer, “which don’t require the fastening nor the Time to work it, as
the other parts, but is Quicker done.” The ancient spelling gives us
“halyards” for “halliards”—ropes and tackles for hoisting sails and
yards. To hale is to haul; so that “halyards,” “halliards,” is _ben
trovato_.[39]
Footnote 38:
This may seem too obvious; but meanings may often be sought a great
deal too deep. “To bring a ship upon the stays” formerly signified to
luff till the vessel lost all way.
Footnote 39:
“Dead-eyes” were originally called “dead man’s eyes.” They are blocks
with holes in them for setting up the rigging with.
In old marine narratives and novels the term “lady’s hole” frequently
occurs. I was long bothered by this expression, which I indirectly
gathered to signify a sort of cabin; but in what part of the ship
situated, and why so called, I could not imagine, until in the course of
my reading I lighted upon a description of a man-of-war of 1712, in
which it is stated that “the lady’s hole” is a place for the gunner’s
small stores, built between the partners of the mainmast, and looked
after by a man named “a lady,” “who is put in by turns to keep the
gun-room clean.” Terms of this kind are revelations in their way, as
showing for the most part the sort of road the marine philologist must
take in his search after originals and derivatives. A vessel is said to
be “hogged” when the middle part of her bottom is so strained as to
curve _upwards_. To the shape of a hog’s back, therefore, is this
expression owing. But the etymology of the word “sagged,” which
expresses the situation of a vessel when her bottom curves _downwards_
through being strained, I am unable to trace.[40] “Gangway” means the
going-way—the place by which you enter or quit a ship. “Gudgeons”—braces
or eyes fixed to the stern-post to receive the pintles of a rudder, I
find the meaning of in the old spelling for the same thing,
“gougings”—the eye being _gouged_ by the pintle. “Lumpers” is a name
given to dock-labourers who load or discharge vessels; it was their
custom to contract to do the work by the _lump_, and hence the word.
“Stevedore” (one whose occupation is to stow cargoes) originates with
the Spanish _estibador_, likewise a stower of cargoes. The etymology of
certain peculiarly nautical expressions in common use on shipboard must
be entirely conjectural. Take “swig off”—_i.e._ to pull upon a
perpendicular rope, the end of which is led under a belaying-pin. The
old readings give it as “swag off,” “swagging off.” The motion of this
sort of pulling is of a swaggering kind, and I have little doubt that
the expression of “swig,” or “swag,” comes from “swaggering.”[41] “Tail
on, tally on!” the order for more men to haul upon a rope, possibly
expresses its origination with some clearness. “Tail on!”—lengthen the
tail of pullers; “Tally on!”—add men in a countable way. It is usual to
speak of a ship as being “under way.” It should, I think, be “under
weigh.” The expression is wholly referable to the situation of a ship in
the act of moving after her anchor has been lifted or “weighed.”
Similarly should it be, “the anchor is aweigh,” not the anchor is
“away”—the mate’s cry from the forecastle when the anchor is atrip or
off the ground.
Footnote 40:
To _sag_ used to mean “to hang as a bag on one side.” I cannot find
anything in this definition to correspond with the sea-term. It
suggests the etymology, however, of the phrase “to sag to leeward,”
applicable to a ship trending leewardly through the action of waves
and wind whilst sailing.
Footnote 41:
Since this was written I find in Bailey, “To swag: to force or bear
downwards as a weight does to hang on.” This settles the paternity of
“swig.”
Blocks, a very distinctive feature in the equipment of a vessel, get
their names in numerous cases from their shape or conveniency. A
_cant_-block is so called because in whalers it is used for the tackles
which cant or turn the whale over when it is being stripped of its
blubber; a _fiddle_-block, because it has the shape of that instrument;
a _fly_-block, because it shifts its position when the tackle it forms a
part of is hauled upon; _leading_-blocks, because they are used for
guiding the direction of any purchase; _hook_-blocks, because they have
a hook at one end; _sister_-blocks, because they are two blocks formed
out of one piece of wood, and suggest a sentimental character by
intimate association; _snatch_-blocks, because a rope can be _snatched_
or whipped through the sheave without the trouble of reeving;
_tail_-blocks, because they are fitted with a short length or _tail_ of
rope by which they are lashed to the gear; _shoulder_-blocks, because
their shape hints at a _shoulder_, there being a projection left on one
side of the shell to prevent the falls from jamming. In this direction
the marine philologist will find his work all plain sailing. The sources
whence the sails, or most of them, take their appellations are readily
grasped when the leading features of the apparently complicated fabric
on high are understood. The _stay-sails_ obtain their names from the
stays on which they travel. “Top-sail” was so entitled when it was
literally the top or uppermost sail. The origin of the word “royal”[42]
for the sail above the topgallant-sail we must seek in the fancy that
found the noble superstructure of white cloths _crowned_ by that
heaven-seeking space of canvas.
Footnote 42:
This sail was, on its introduction, called “topgallant-royal.”
The etymology of “hitches” is not far to seek. But first of the “hitch”
itself. “_To hitch_, to catch, to move by jerks.” I know not where it is
used but in the following passage—nor here know well what it means:
‘Whoe’er offends, at some unlucky time
Slides in a verse, or _hitches_ in a rhyme.’—POPE.
So writes Dr. Johnson. Had he looked into the old “Voyages,” he would
have found “hitch” repeated very often indeed.[43] From the nautical
standpoint, he defines it accurately enough as “to catch.” Pope’s use of
the term puzzled the Doctor, and he blundered into “to move by jerks.”
But Pope employs it as a sailor would; he _hitches_ the culprit in a
line—that is, takes an intellectual “turn” with his verse about him, or,
as the poet puts it, suffers the person to “hitch” himself. To hitch is
to fasten, to secure a rope so that it can run out no further. From
“hitch” proceed a number of terms whose paternity is very easily
distinguished. The “Blackwall hitch” takes its name from the famous
point of departure of the vanished procession of Indiamen and Australian
liners;[44] the “harness hitch,” from its form, which suggests a bit and
reins; “midshipman’s hitch,” from the facility with which it may be
made; “rolling hitch,” because it is formed of a series of rolling turns
round the object it is intended to secure, and other rolling turns yet
over its own part; a “timber hitch,” because of its usefulness in
hoisting spars and the like through the ease of its fashioning and the
security of its jamming. The etymology of knots, again, is largely found
in their forms. “The figure-of-eight knot” is of the shape of the figure
eight; the diamond readily suggests the knots which bear its name
(single and double diamond-knots); the “Turk’s-head knot” excellently
imitates a turban. To some knots and splices the inventors have given
their names, such as “Elliot’s splice” and “Matthew Walker” knot. The
origin of this knot is thus related by a contributor to the _Newcastle
Weekly Chronicle_:—
Footnote 43:
Indeed, any old Dictionary would have supplied the meaning.
Footnote 44:
As does the “Blackwall lead,” signifying a rope taken under a pin.
“Over sixty years ago an old sailor, then drawing near to eighty years
of age, said that when he was a sailor-boy there was an old rigger,
named Matthew Walker, who, with his wife, lived on board an old covered
hulk, moored near the Folly End, Monkwearmouth Shore; that new ships
when launched were laid alongside of this hulk to be rigged by Walker
and his gang of riggers; that also old ships had their rigging refitted
at the same place; and that Matthew Walker was the inventor of the
lanyard knot, now known by the inventor’s name wherever a ship floats.”
It has been suggested that “knot,” the sailor’s word for the nautical
mile, springs from the small pieces of knotted stuff, called _knots_,
inserted in the log-line for marking the progress of a ship through the
water. It is worth noting, however, that in the old “Voyages” the word
_knot_, as signifying a mile, never occurs. It seems reasonable to
suppose that it is a word not much older than the close of the last
century.
Amongst puzzling changes in the sea-language must be classed the names
of vessels. “Yacht” has been variously defined: as “a small ship for
carrying passengers;” as “a vessel of state.” The term is now understood
to mean a pleasure craft. “Yawl” was formerly a small ship’s boat or a
wherry: it has become the exclusive title of yachts rigged as cutters,
but carrying also a small sail at the stern, called a mizzen. The
“barge” was a vessel of state, furnished with sumptuous cabins, and
canopies and cushions, decorated with flags and streamers, and propelled
by a band of rowers. This hardly answers to the top-sail barges and
dumb-barges of to-day! The word “bark” has been Gallicized into
“barque,” possibly as a marine protest against the mis-application as
shown in these lines of Byron—
“My boat is on the shore,
And my bark is on the sea;”
Or the—
“My bark is my bride!”
of the sea-song. By bark the poets intend any kind of ship you please:
but to Jack it implies a particular rig. The Americans write “bark” for
“barque,” and rightly; for though Falconer says that “bark is a general
name given to small ships,” he also adds: “It is, however, peculiarly
appropriated by seamen to those which carry three masts without a mizzen
top-sail.” The “pink” is another craft that has “gone over.” Her very
narrow stern supplied the name, pink having been used in the sense of
small, as by Shakespeare, who speaks of “pink-eyne,” small eye. The
“tartan,” likewise, belongs to the past as a rig: a single mast, lateen
yard and bowsprit. The growth of our ancestors’ “frigott,” too, into the
fire-eating _Saucy Arethusas_ of comparatively recent times, is a story
full of interest.
I have but skimmed a surface whose depths should honestly repay careful
and laborious dredging. The language of the sea has entered so largely
into common and familiar speech ashore,[45] that the philologist who
neglects the mariner’s talk will struggle in vain in his search after a
mass of paternities, derivatives, and the originals, and even the sense,
of many every-day expressions. It is inevitable that a maritime nation
should enlarge its shore vocabulary by sea terms. The eloquence of the
forecastle is of no mean order, and in a hundred directions Jack’s
expressions are matchless for brevity, sentiment and suggestion. But the
origin and rise of the marine tongue is also the origin and rise of the
British navy, and of the fleets which sail under the red ensign. The
story of the British ship may be followed in the maritime glossaries,
and perception of the delicate shades and lights, of the subtleties,
niceties and discriminations of the ocean dialect is a revelation of the
mysteries of the art of the shipwright, and the profession of the
seaman.
Footnote 45:
Take as a single example the expression “The devil to pay.” To “pay”
is to pour melted pitch into a seam for the purposes of caulking. The
“devil” is a name given by caulkers to a particular seam hard to get
at. Hence, “There is the devil to pay, and no pitch hot.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_THEN AND NOW._
The occasional stranding of an ocean steamer, and the consequent
transhipment or landing of the passengers, furnishes about the best
illustration to be found of the extraordinary inconvenience that delay,
in these days of swift and sure despatch, carries with it. The immense
discomfort experienced is really a tribute to the management of the
people who undertake to convey passengers. We are so habituated to
precision, we are so used to confidently count not only on the hour but
on the moment even of our arrival and departure, that a single failure
is as much felt as though something had gone wrong in nature; and a
small shock of earthquake is not more startling than detention for a day
in a voyage round the world.
I was in the neighbourhood of the Downs not long since; it was blowing a
fresh breeze from the westward, and I believe there could not have been
less than three hundred vessels at anchor: ships of all kinds, from the
large three-masted vessel down to the billyboy, from the high, light,
slate-coloured steamer, down to the little schooner loaded to her ways
with salt. There they lay, and there a goodly number of them had lain
for some days. When they should start for their three hundred
destinations depended entirely upon the wind. It was like a picture out
of an ancient sea-book, an old-world pageant, with something of irony in
what you could not but regard as its affected correspondence with times
whose true spirit found interpretation in a large steamer of the
National line majestically stemming at ten knots into the wind’s eye.
Taking the first volume that comes to hand from a row of maritime
records, and opening it at hazard, my eye lights on this: “Jan. 6,
1771.—The wind having shifted to the East, upwards of four hundred and
fifty sail of ships, outward bound, which had been detained by the
westerly winds many weeks, sailed from the Downs.” 1771, and I, writing
this in the close of 1886, am fresh from beholding just such another
spectacle! How eloquent are time’s comments! how everywhere, throughout
all things, is old human nature breaking out! No need to wade through
history to remark the character of survivals and recurrences, to note
where the echoes die or where the reverberations gather fresh volume.
Study the mighty page of the sea. The years, to be sure, write no
wrinkles on its azure brow, but every ripple is a library, and there are
more meanings in it than herrings. But to be windbound! The traveller
scarcely knows the meaning of the word in this age. To lie off Deal for
a space of time longer than a New Zealand steamer occupies in measuring
the distance betwixt Tilbury and Wellington! Why, in these days you may
be stranded thrice, thrice transhipped, and yet reach your destination
in the time a ship took in the age of the fine old English gentleman to
drop down to Gravesend and let go her anchor in the Downs.
Henry Fielding, when he started on his voyage to Lisbon, left his house
on Wednesday, June 26, 1754. He arrived at Rotherhithe in two hours, and
immediately went on board, expecting to sail next morning. On Sunday,
June 30, the ship “fell down” to Gravesend. Next day she got as far as
the Nore, and brought up. Tuesday, July 2, they again set sail, and
anchored off Deal; weighed on the 4th, and after a short struggle
anchored again off Deal. Started on the 6th, and on the 11th “came to an
anchor at a place called Ryde.” On the 22nd they fell down to St.
Helen’s, and on the 25th were off the island of Portland, “so famous for
the smallness and sweetness of its mutton,” and anchored in Torbay.
Started again August 1. On the 3rd the captain took an observation, and
discovered that Ushant bore some leagues northward from him. So that it
took Fielding thirty-eight days to sail from Rotherhithe to Ushant! The
voyage to New Zealand is now performed in two days less.[46]
Footnote 46:
It does not seem that the _Lisbon Packet_ forty-eight years later was
much superior to the vessel described by Fielding, to judge from
Byron’s verses written in 1809.
“Hey day! call you that a cabin?
Why ’tis hardly three feet square!
Not enough to stow Queen Mab in:
Who the deuce can harbour there?
‘Who, sir? plenty—
Nobles twenty
Did at once my vessel fill’—
Did they? Jesus,
How you squeeze us!
Would to God they did so still!
Then I’d ’scape the heat and racket
Of the good ship _Lisbon Packet_.”