On the whole, however, he admired the ship
greatly, and was taken with the club's plans for going cruising. He
said he felt safer after noting that the lifeboats were guaranteed
to hold forty persons with cubic feet.
By this time, all sense of verbal restraint had been lost, and the
club (if we must be candid) concluded its session by chanting, not
without enjoyment, its own sea chantey, which runs as follows:--
I shipped aboard a galleass
In a brig whereof men brag,
But lying on my palliass
My spirits began to sag.
I heard the starboard steward
Singing abaft the poop;
He lewdly sang to looard
And sleep fled from the sloop.
"The grog slops over the fiddles
With the violins of the gale:
Two bitts are on the quarterdeck,
The seamen grouse and quail.
"The anchor has been catted,
The timid ratlines flee,
Careening and carousing
She yaws upon the sea.
"The skipper lies in the scupper,
The barque is lost in the bight;
The bosun calls for a basin--
This is a terrible night.
"The wenches man the winches,
The donkey men all bray--"
... I hankered to be anchored
In safety in the bay!
[Illustration]
A SUBURBAN SENTIMENTALIST
That wild and engaging region known as the Salamis Estates has
surprising enchantments for the wanderer.
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