THE LASCAR AS A SAILOR.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 311, 31 December 1923, Page 7

THE LASCAR AS A SAILOR.

NOT AN IMPRESSIVE FIGURE. More than 50,000 Asiatic seamen are employed in vessels of British registry, says the Cape "Argus." Most of them are Indian lascars, of whom the great majority are Mohammedans from the coast districts of the Bombay Presidency—Surat, Thanna, Alibag, and Ratnaghihi. Of the lascar one hears conflicting accounts. When an accident befalls an eastward-bound liner charges of unsteadiness and lack of discipline are often made. Some large lines pride themselves on shipping none but whitee crews, and are favoured by a section of the travelling public on that account. Ask any of the P. and O. officers, who are the best men qualified to judge, and you wgilV probably be told that the lascar, when commanded by officers he knows and trusts, able to give him intelligible orders in his own tongue, is as good a sailor a3 most, and capable of performing acts of great heroism. The lascar does rot cut a very im- I pressive figure unless he be a "serang,'' i portly and black-bearded, in holiday j rig of crimson sash and gold-laced turban. Of his courage and seamanship,, however, no one can doubt who has seen . him at home in his small sailing craft off the Indian coast at the height of the south-west monsoon, in seas that i would almost make the coxswain of the ' Ramsgate lifeboat anxious. The lascar ( is a sailor by hereditary calling, whose forefathers have followed the sea for generations. It was his forefathers who manned the long galleys of Angria's pirate fleet, and for centuries he has been accustomed to cross the broad Indian Ocean to the shores of Africa,, bound on we know not what errands —to j fetch, perchance, coal-black slaves and ; eunuchs for the Court of an Indian prince. In all weathers, in small and j illfound vessels, with no proper charts or compasses, and scantily provided with food and fresh water, his were the hands that "guided home the plunging boats that beat from Zanzibar." ,