THE ROMANCE OF THE SEA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13202, 13 June 1906, Page 7

THE ROMANCE OF THE SEA.

LECTURE BY FRANK T. BULLE'N.

Mil. 'Feani; T. Bvllex, who may almost claim to be " the discoverer of the sea " (in a literary sense), gave hi'; first lecture at His Majesty's Theatre 1 last evening to a large and highly appreciative audience. Mr. Bitllen, as a lecturer, is not at all like readers of his fascinating books' might imagine him to be. He is not an orator, and evidently does not aspire to become one; but lie is a most accomplished yarn spinner, drawing upon an apparently inexhaustible supply of material and using most graphic language in describing men and things of the sea. He. has a charming manner of telling a story, and running through all his wit and humour (of which there was much last evening) is a thin but strong thread of seriousness, for, as ho showed very clearly, the sailor and his environment have very little in them that is other than serious and grimly real. Mr. Bullen, who almost apologised for being a self-educated man,, prefaced his lecture with the remark that howeve." much romance there might be about- other professions, there appeared to him to be very little of it in that of the sailor. He confessed that as a boy of llg years of age he went to seanot with the hope of becoming: a pirate, an admiral, or a buccaneer; but. to get loud, having partially failed in that quest for three years before, when he faced the world alone as a boy of about nine. .Mr. Builen, then, was well aide to express an export and trustworthy opinion of the life '"forward'' as- it wasover some 30 years ago, and to compare it with the conditionsin many cases but little changed—that prevail at sea to-day. There were people, ha said, who were never tired of talking of the romance of the sea— ho did not reler lo people residing in Australia, or New Zealand who were more or less familiar with ocean travel, but to those at Home—who knew very little about the subject. -Some of them deplored the gradual departure of sailing vessels before steam. He admitted thai there was a good deal of the picturesque about a sailing ship; but the conditions of life onboard were so hard when compared with life ashore that they had led 'to the rapid decline of British sailormen, whose places were taken by foreigners and aliens. As tile lecturer put it himsoif, "unless something is done to slop this, the British mercantile marine will go to the dogs and Dagos." Sailing ships were in commission to-day that years ago ha'd been manned with 45 men, but were now sent to sea with a crew of 12 or 14- men; and rot the woiik 011 board of them was 110 easier, nor the. boasted "mechanical appliances" any compensation for the reduction of hands. ".1 would like to see the donkey-engine that can be sent i aloft," ho said, "to furl a 'main-royal.'" Mr. Bullen related some interesting stories of the New Zealand ship llangitikei, which, lie said. on one trip in which he served, put to sea- in a living gale, with all 011 board her drunk, excepting three men. _ He •attributed the safety of many British sailing ships to-day not to the manning or to the skill of their crew, but to Providence. He instanced a Nova Sc-ctian shin of 8000 tons', which had 12 hands only before the mast. .Strain had not by any means spoiled the 'romance of rbo sea. for Mr. Bullen, who paid a high tribute to the marine engineer and his k> often unrecognised heroism. 'live lecture was listened to with manifest ■pleasure from beginning to end, and Mr. Pullen's many amusing stories, mostly of his own personal .experiences, were always in good taste, • cleverly told, and cordially received. , His speech is as fluent, as is his pen: he whs never once monotonous, but, on the contrary, the time passed so pleasantly in hi? company that the audi wee was markedly sorry when he retired. The lecture was illustrated with a number of beautiful photographs of sailing and steam vessels, which had a distinct relation to Mr, Bulion's remarks, and did much to elucidate ■what he had to say, or to emphasise what he wished his audience to oarry away in their minds. In this evening's lecture, '.whales and Whale-fishing " Mr. Bullen will deal not only with his actual experiences while huntin" the whale in most.',of the warm seas of the globe, but also with the lnb'ts and idiosvncracies of the various representative, whales, of which the sperm or cachalot, is : the undoubted'chief. The pictures of some of the incidents of whaling in the Soutnern Ocean are said to be of a startling character. ■