SOME SAILORS' SUPERSTITIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 271, 13 November 1909, Page 15

SOME SAILORS' SUPERSTITIONS.

(By OLD SALT.)

It will be generally conceded that giiicri are among-?;, ".he most conser- ; tative oi men. ir orce of circumstances eoHipeis the adoption o£ improved memoes, Jut in his aoart of aearts Jack jijgnshes the oli-usaioned ways and italics utterly the "n-eu-iangled contrap- , jjoar , waiea have found lavour with tie practical .mi mercenary rhip-owner. ■ffeii <io I remember, many years azo, Ijjtins as cicerone to two fellow apprenjjjes who were making their first visit to London. Amid the wealth of trea- j gnres dispiayeJ in tae National (gallery, one picture h»'.i ihfoi r?pt>llbound- It by one of the old master*, and I cepicted the miraculous .irajght of fsiies; bat what aroused the amazed ' afcuratioa of any companions wa? the fact that some gear upon the fishing }>o3t bore a close resemblance to a tickle known to this day as a "HaD ly 3f11y." In principle it was identical ( iriti the ""Convenient William"' whi-.'h j they had ;c frequently handled and as j I frequently abjured, when tautening up j jhe weather braces and momentarily expectins a green sea on top of them. I Artists have erred. Tintoretto, for in- j ■ etanee, who armed the children of Israel,' < ifhen crossing the Red with muskets; ; , tut I have no doubt that this artist j uas correct, and although we may have | improved to the extent of patent sheave?,! tlie old blo.-ks and the purchase are the lame. Webster's definition (literal) of gnperstition is "a r-tanding still over ; lomethinz amazing: hence an excessive '; reverence or fear of that which is unknown or mysterious." That is Jack's conservative attitude —a standing still— and he hug= his to his (heart, while all the talk of telepathic communication, projections of the astral body, sub-conscious receptivity, and so on. pa.-=e= by him unheeded, and any stray hicts which reach him are shaken j off with as little ceremony as the water I from hi? jnu'-n-p-ter—and leave behind : E5 little impression. Sir Oracle, whom it was my pleasure to introduce to reader? a= the ""bosun" fa some sketch?* entitled "In the Second Dog-watch." ".'hich appeared in these columns, still take= his seat upon the fore-batch, and. with the stern admonition addressed to a jiivenile member of tie erew —"Now then, younpr feller-me-lad. don't you talk :ibout things wot you don't understand:" , —proceeds to tell a story that would stagger Mr. Stead and make M~ Be=ant Mush. A wise : nan knows limitations, so I will not attempt to present the story in the bosunV picturesque language (even if Ej editor wc=nld print it), but here it is in effect. "TVe were outward hound from Liverpool to Melbourne with general carso. ■A full-rigged ship about 2000 tons register. About 70 days out, after we J had rounded the Cape (of Good Hopel, j "I iiad the firsr whee! in the afternoon I vaich. and just about two bells the c'J man came on deck and sanij out 'How's her head?" " South-east by south, a qnarter south,' I replied. The"skipper came aft. had 3 look in the binnacle, taen he turned round very suddenly and looked at mc sort of snspicious: tlten he had another look at the compass card, shook his I cad. and walked forward to the break of the poop, and nailed the second mate, who was lookinsr sfier some work on the main deck. ' Mr. Gibbs. lav aft hers a minute, please.* Tnen the two of them came and squinted in the binnacle: they whispered for a Tvhile. and the captain turned to mc. 'Barnes.' he said, "no you see anything stranse about this compass-card?' 'No. sir,' said I. 'Look closer.' he said, very impatient. I stepped off the srating-. looked in. and very nearly let go of tne spokes, for there, very faint, but very distinct, was a woman's hand, very ■white and soft-looking, with a turquoise ring- on the third finger, and the forel finger stretched out on the card. They . Were watching my face, and the skipper i only asked one question—' How is the i finger pointing?" More than half dazed. ; \ I answered. 'South by east, sir.' "Aye!' j Then, turning to the second: ' Mr. Gibbs, j square away the foreyards.' ' Aye. aye, \ > et!' and singing out ' Weather fore- • trace!' as he jumped down the poop I ladder, he ran for'ard to slack away to leeward. The skipper told mc to let ler go off until we were heading south I by east, and as the second came aft » ' again he said, "That's her course, Mr. s Gibbs, and send a look-out man on to j the fore-topgallant yard.' He went J below then—for a nip, I suspect—and 5 Ye kept our new course ali that after- { noon and all night. Just before the ; aoming watc h was relieved (8 a.m.), ' the lookout hailed, 'On deck, there! 5 1 m on the starboard bow!' By noon £ *c were almost alongside her, a" wreck | I Uoft and below, spar 3 pounding her* 1 Cdes, her decks a raffle of gear like a t \ junk shop, and so low in the water that, I &s she walloped around, the sea= just : rolled over he r mam deck with barely ! »lathom of bulwarks to stop them :, i aad better permit the bosun to tell ! Qe rest of his story: his diffidence will in the first word. "Mc to the first mate an' five others pulled «i to her in the lifeboat, an' as if they ! If eipectin' us, there was a Jacob's Mder made fast to the after bitts, an' " c P° or folks aboard give a cheer as ; *»nld V broke your heart to- 'ear naen we 'ad a chance, we jumped for ■ie ladder, an' as soon as we was on J« a lady comes out of a mob wot "mi. anqing on to the taffraU an'— us. says she; < thaak God! Thank J™" 1 ; lou've come.' I catches 'old of - and to steady 'er, an' she puts up «• other to shove some 'air out of 'er an strike mc pink! if she "adn't that identical turkoy rm~—a r-rf oTal thin ?" (probably marI TTn Settm -» "' I see n in the binnacle. I »f > We got ' em aII aboard, forty-two I £ c ?' an ' sto °d by till the old hooker .-Mafeed. We 'adn't long to wait, an' \ 1^21^3 th ' s lady—she was a parson's I V-v , was, ?oin ' out to J oin ' e r m China-^h e told us as 'ow as arternoon afore we took 'em off j ?ot all hands on the poop-deck an' \ for 'rip. Aye! prayed for 'elp, i -Jv wa; 'er a-lfiadin , the prayer. I "f?ed for 'e!p. an." with profound "imFfeaveness. "w e wo* the answer!" ■i story is also told which reeemblaf inasmuch as its sequel is the Clung o f a chip's company and pasjttst when they were about to Moa hope. In this narrative the capwas aroused from his afternoon nap jt* ghostly visitor, attired in a long r**: e°at and soft clerical hat; the "pss retreated from the side of the .bunk, through the state-room r, and into the saloon, where it stood oaing. onl:> . t0 ji ?appear the I jjSrf 1 mariner approached it. On the fe * -T l ' M chalk and sate upon which ™<«ed the ship's course and readinz C,~ c "g- in order to work out what »s the .< dead reckoning .-.. but "■se elate m bold letters appeared the

words, "Steer S.S.W." In much pertur- | bation oi spirit the skipper summoned his officers, who each and all disclaimed being guilty of any monkey business. Eventually the ghostly exhortation was obeyed, with the happy result, already mentioned, and it was discovered that the instigator of the appeal to a Divine providence was a minister of religion who ; occupied the position of chaplain upon i the unfortunate emigrant ship to which 1 succour so timely arrived. J To come closer to home, a retired sea- 'J captain, now resident in Auckland, tells mc that some years ago, when living ' with his parents in Murray-street, Ho- ! ban, news was received that his brother' ' had been invalided home from the East Indies, where he had been engaged in military duties. One night, shortly after ' i this, the family was alarmed by a sudden ecream, and my sailor friend rushed : downstairs to find his mother lying in ' a faint at the door of the sitting-room. .\\ hen she recovered consciousness, her . first words were, " is dead. I saw : him mvr there, lying by the fire-place, ■ ail bu: his face covered up with a military ' rug. He is dead!" By mail, intelligence ! was received that the poor fellow died in ! Greenwich Hospital on the morning of \ j the day upon which his mother had the : ■ —what —hallucination? ! Many people here will reme-ruber Dick ( Hill, the popular commander of the i ><haw, Savill and Albion Company's West- < land. A friend of mine, now also ashore 'in Auckland—old sailormen always fra- j ' terniso—was a shipmate with Hill when i jhe sailed as chief mate under his bro- ■ I ther. Captain Hill, of the barque Wave ; Queen. When about two months 1 : out from Home, and somewhere in the i '' Indian Ocean, the chief officer went on 1 ' j deck at midnight to take the middle i > I watch, and told his brother, who was j ■ i just, going below, ""Something has hap- < > j pened to the old gentleman. He came . -I into my berth to-night. I saw him as .; »! plainly—plainer than I see you." The j ' captain was inclined to pooh! pooh! the ; 1 story, but at his brother's urgent request < > consented to make an entry in the ship's ; ' . log. noting both date and time. Upon i arriving at, the vessel's destination—an i " Australian port—the first news received , was of the parent's death, date and ; j time coinciding exactly with that enter- •! Ed in the official log. No doubt this ! I story has been heard by some of my '■ i readers at first hand, for Dick Hill told 'I it often, and nothing could shake his j faith in the truth of the—what?—appari- ; I tion? Few people perhaps have better cause ' 'to entertain a prejudice against the number thirteen than has the writer, and yet this prejudice is so wide-spread that ;in numbers of hotels in Australia I have found bedrooms that should have borne ' that number lettered 12a or 12b, or with , some other device to propitiate the timid or superstitious wayfarer. To be taken to I hospital ijpon three occasions and in ! three different places and to find oneself : each time occupying bed number thirteen ' is not reassuring, yet that is what occurred to mc in San Francisco. Calcutta, and London. Certainly I have survived to ' ! tell the tale, and, I hope, many others. It was whilst lying in ..the last-named hospital, whither I had been carried as j the result of an accident. At the time | 'I i was third officer of a steamer trading | to the Mediterranean and Black Sea, with • an occasional trip to the River Plate, and. always zealous in the execution of my duty, tried to ascertain if there were not a quicker way of reaching the 'tweendeeks than by means of the ladder. 1 found one, hence the necessity for drydocking in hospital. I say it was whilst lying there that our chief officer came to pay mc a friendly visit. He. by the way, I was at one time navigating officer on the 1 Sunbeam—but that is another story. • After the exchange of usual courtesies, he J said—but let him speak for himself. - "Did I ever tell you about that Dago " J deck-hand I had with mc once? He was .! a man with a mania or possessed of a f ] devil or something 'which was rather ", vague.' He had been in hospital before • joining my ship, and they had put him > . into No. 13* bed. You know how super- • J stitious these Dagoes are?" As he ' glanced round the ward to see that there : were no natives of Southern Europe • I within earshot, I furtively twisted the I card around that hung above my head, ' or his nice regard for my susceptibilities , might have robbed mc of a story. "Well, the fellow would have it that one night . while he lay there a ring of fire ran i round the number at tne head of his bed. , like 'there,'" pointing—l had not shifted the card a bit too rfoon—"and in the middle of it was '13 February, 18 . ; Addio.' He was a Greek or Italian or —" "Rock-scorpion." I suggested; the name , applied to the Maltese by whom Gibraltar ; is infested, and a name, by the way, which never fails to make a Maltese v?ry ' cross. "Ay, very likely. Well, one even- , ing—l'd forgotten all about the yarn, but jit was the 13th of February, and the ' I next day we crossed the line, bound for Durban. By Jove! it was that time in ! East London I met the girl who—" "But I what about the Dago?" I remonstrated. "Oh. aye! He was standing on the pinBail just abaft the fore-rigging, smoking a cigarette, when the quartermaster j struck eight bells. What little wind : there was, was coming over our bows, so I I told Antonio to jump and tell the look- | ! out to make it eight bells for'rard; but | ■ the man had heard it. and as the last vibration died away the Dago came a little bit further aft, walking along the pin-rail like a monkey, looked up at mc, echoing the call of the look-out man: 'All is well, signor. Addio'; then slung his cigarette over the side and slipped after it as if he were tumbling out of his bunk. I threw a lifebuoy as soon as I jhad telegraphed 'Stop!'; 'sa-vv him touch ! it. push it away from him, and then with both hands stretched up over his head, he sank like a deep-sea lead. Pick him up? Oh, no. I got the boat away, but there are too many sharks about where the water is warm ; and. Dago or Britisher, it is all the same to them." Poor Antonio! Only a Dago, but possessed of a soul; his intelligence obsessed by a superstitious fear, he has solved, for himself at least, many mysteries which are still puzzling us. "And about that girl," my old shipmate continued, but T interrupted him. "Look, old man. it is awfully good of you to have come to scr mc, T)ut tne nurse does not like visitors to stay tor long." "Why, I should have thought they would have cheered you up?" "So they do. Ho well, old chap" (I did not mean the name to escape mc, but il ny a ■pas de quoi). '"'So they do; bring mc another yarn next time you come." "I will, my boj-; a bosuns locker full, if you like." Of course, it is purely a coincidence, and perhaps hardly worthy of mention, but it was upon the 13th day of February of a certain year that I first dropped anchor in Australian waters, the particular -waters being those of Port Phillip Bay; and it was then that I determined to "give up following the sea as a profession ("swallowing the anchor," in the vernacular), and to employ my experience and knowledge gained of it as a convenience whenever this Johnnie Bowlegs felt it "time to pack his kit and trek."