AROUND THE WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 199, 23 August 1930, Page 4

AROUND THE WORLD.

GOSSIP OF THE PORTS.

it horizon."

(By LEE-EORE-RRACE.)

During the past few years there have British ships and British the vovagc Ot a, ioieit," every sailorman will be keen to read i 1 . Such a book, entitled ' Horizon, | iusfc come to hand. This remarkably wellwritten boot comcs from Ken Attadl, a r ns the voyage m the w Melbourne U <"' every book dealiS the sea which ha. been pnbb.hed during the past thirty years, andlrnust admit that many passages in Hoiizon filled me with passionate antagonism, lh So fs very candid and very blunt, and as I read slowly through the interestmg T tried hard to rememoer it we did those things or said those things 111 my sailing-ship days which the author te is iia were ot' every-day occurrence aboard the Archibald Russel. Perhaps I would be correct in saying that the men ot the sailing ships were about the roughest, the most uncouth, the most illiterate, and the most simple of all mankind, hut the author goes further, and tells us that thej aie also the most obscene. He slurs nothing in the telling of his story. He rips the romance of the sea to shreds, and shows the windjammer sailorman as an abandons'. loathsome, and obscene creature. The Sailor's Habits. ' ' he author is a landsman, and perhaps lie viewed his life on the Archibald Russel with the critical eye of a landsman, judging his shipmates by their careless, healthy utterances. But he goes further, he tells us that the crew of the ship revelled in filth during the greater part of the voyage. He says: Once more our sails belly from their yards, and the ship bends to port under the north-east breath. Once more lam compelled to upset my bunk and transfer my pillow to the opposite end—my bunk being cross-rigged. It is only on such occasions that my bunk gets turned over for an airing. ... I am past caring about hygiene— the ozone preserves my health. What is the use of caring? My bed is lousy and will remain lousy until I vacate it for ever. Airing and attempted delousing make no difference. . . . What is more, I don't want to be any different. I have come to wrinkle my nose contentedly at the careless air surrounding me. Ido not want to be clean. I am taking a whole-hearted childish delight in being dirty and smelly. . . . Try as I might, I cannot recall to mind any of my shipmates who were other than scrupulously clean in person and clothing, and, in my day, woe betide the man who was otherwise. Of course, it was a Swedish ship he was aboard of, and perhaps things have changed since the old Red Duster disappeared from the peaks of the windjammers. But if the author is critical of his shipmates we can forgive him, for he atones for his misdeeds by giving us some beautiful word pictures in describing old Father Ocean. Here are a few extracts:-— The only sounds that one is conscious of are those of the steady zooming of the wind in the ringing and sails, and the swishswish hissing of the water as our bows cut through. . . . Skimming high on the crest of one huge wave, we glide swiftly down a valley—the trough of two towering green giants. I am near the windward railing, and the spray as" the waves crash against us goes over my head. Outside the great wind is whipping the -wave-crests into tine mist, which catches and reflects the sun's rays in a barrage of rainbows. Neptune often shows me his line jewels when he and I are alone and unobserved. . . .

That is a beautiful extract, and shows us that the author is no mean writer. His descriptive powers are really splendid, and many smiles of recollection will come to the faces of the old-timers as they read this: — Take for instance the running gear. Rope, rope, rope, and still more rope—miles of it —and every single rope has got a name. It hangs everywhere, like giant spiders' webs, and ranges in thickness from cordrope to whacking gr§at stuff that would kill a man if it feli on him. This is used for towing purposes. Three-quarters of my waking, time is devoted to fondling rope - untying it, tying it again, pulling it up, pulling it down, heaving it, forwards, upwards, sideways, downwards, doing physical jerks with it, or else neatly quoiting it on pins along the bulwark railing or around the masts. For the first two weeks of the trip I suffered wretchedly from a rope complex. The thing became a nightmare to me. . . . During the second week I bad a physical repulsion for all shapes and sizes of rope. And there are miles and miles more rope down among the stores, just itching to come forth and be pulled. The dreadful irony of it I The Tropical Night. The following is the finest passage in the book, and is, without a doubt, the best description of a tropical night I have ever read:— Mysterious night! Rough music from the f'c'sle, the dark shapes of the masts describing circles, ellipses, figures of eight, be the ship ever so steady, among the flowers which sparkle, brightly from, the garden of heaven. Tropical night in a sailing ship is a new and delicious world, for all the blowing of a whistle, the blustering, the slave .driving. In such a night as this one can forget and forgive much. The night becomes such as the imagination makes of it. All the world is- still, save for the flashing of the phosphorescence in the water, the twinkling of stars in heaven, and that gentle swaying of the masts. The commonplaces of the day are mere oblivion in, such a night as this. Who could resist the glittering invitation of those million bright eyes that gaze down from their lofty stations in such friendly fashion ? They are the most friendly things in all this friendless sea of warmth." I must go up aloft and commune with the stars and the night. I feel like the immortal Jack climbing up a huge, beanstalk as I ascend, hand over hand—until I am sitting astride the royal.yard—and gaze toward the infinite. Up here the rough music down below sounds softer, more kindly, as the beys warble their Swedish shanties to the accompaniment of Kolex's accordion. . . . Every sailing ship sailomian who reads tile book will linger long over that descripV° n ' r , WI . U rcmiml them of the happy days or their seafaring career, because it i was i ?? ni ? hts snch as these that the naidships of the voyage were forgotten. Cape Horn. And in the book one will find the very opposite to the foregoing. This is the authors pen-picture of Cape Horn, and the description is exactly as I saw it on many occasions:— \ rage! treacherous, temiiftoiU- v. I P e — cold ' deserted, and on <d ti, witU sudden fierce ™ i • • hail the size of marbles, with ]k ,hn-:, m , n ' k" 1 , m °aning and shrieking bIBPkS « ot demented devils, with the ' 4 thunder-clouded mien of heaven scowling down m . angry menace upon it. : 'roi,; the- region of wind, storm, and m.r>7?' rpe i u: i ffnles ana eternal rain— tL °f r 4 honrs w 'thout rain. It i!i i : y. rt; ot Aeolus: The sun shows ther C 1 the sky, even in line weather, it, overcast and cloudy. . Gales of each other at short intervals t, ri ,! V '; ral d , llys " The wry n omenda- ' . ' e Pbiee.damns it. Situated' in the " w vicinity nre the following:— Island Ca^t,? orn 'n DeSOlat « Bay - Doceit V, },' ™ 1 ?? "-a' l ' 11, E,lst a "d West IT'iViliv R n, 0 ?. Harbour, Gore Roads, Itatdj Bui. Odd little assortment The only spot on the chart that holds out. any Inntl 1 ? 0 <at ' s Hope Harbour, and that is seen away on tlle chart where it can't be I think I have given sufficient extracts to show my readers that "Horizon" is a w oithy- book. My sailing days are long behind me, and although there are many things in Horizon that hit hard agains't my youthful altars, I am glad that these things cud not happen in a ship under our