were aloft, active as cats, laying out on the yards and booms,
reeving the studding-sail gear; and sail after sail the captain
piled upon her, until she was covered with canvas, her sails
looking like a great white cloud resting upon a black speck.
Once more. A race in the Pacific:
Our antagonist was in her best trim. Being clear of the point, the
breeze became stiff, and the royal-masts bent under our sails, but
we would not take them in until we saw three boys spring into the
rigging of the California; then they were all furled at once, but
with orders to our boys to stay aloft at the top-gallant mast-heads
and loose them again at the word. It was my duty to furl the fore-
royal; and while standing by to loose it again, I had a fine view
of the scene. From where I stood, the two vessels seemed nothing
but spars and sails, while their narrow decks, far below, slanting
over by the force of the wind aloft, appeared hardly capable of
supporting the great fabrics raised upon them. The California was
to windward of us, and had every advantage; yet, while the breeze
was stiff we held our own. As soon as it began to slacken she
ranged a little ahead, and the order was given to loose the royals.
In an instant the gaskets were off and the bunt dropped. “Sheet
home the fore-royal!”–“Weather sheet’s home!”–“Lee sheet’s
home!”–“Hoist away, sir!” is bawled from aloft. “Overhaul your
clewlines!” shouts the mate. “Aye-aye, sir, all clear!”–“Taut
leech! belay! Well the lee brace; haul taut to windward!” and the
royals are set.
What would the captain of any sailing-vessel of our time say to
that? He would say, “The man that wrote that didn’t learn his
trade out of a book, he has BEEN there!” But would this same
captain be competent to sit in judgment upon Shakespeare’s
seamanship–considering the changes in ships and ship-talk that
have necessarily taken place, unrecorded, unremembered, and lost to
history in the last three hundred years? It is my conviction that
Shakespeare’s sailor-talk would be Choctaw to him. For instance–
from The Tempest:
Master. Boatswain!
Boatswain. Here, master; what cheer?
Master. Good, speak to the mariners: fall to’t, yarely, or we run
ourselves to ground; bestir, bestir!
(Enter mariners.)
Boatswain. Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare,
yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to the master’s whistle . . .
Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring her to try wi’
the main course . . . Lay her a-hold, a-hold! Set her two courses.
Off to sea again; lay her off.
That will do, for the present; let us yare a little, now, for a
change.
If a man should write a book and in it make one of his characters
say, “Here, devil, empty the quoins into the standing galley and
the imposing stone into the hell-box; assemble the comps around the
frisket and let them jeff for takes and be quick about it,” I
should recognize a mistake or two in the phrasing, and would know
that the writer was only a printer theoretically, not practically.
I have been a quartz miner in the silver regions–a pretty hard
life; I know all the palaver of that business: I know all about
discovery claims and the subordinate claims; I know all about
lodes, ledges, outcroppings, dips, spurs, angles, shafts, drifts,
inclines, levels, tunnels, air-shafts, “horses,” clay casings,
granite casings; quartz mills and their batteries; arastras, and
how to charge them with quicksilver and sulphate of copper; and how
to clean them up, and how to reduce the resulting amalgam in the
retorts, and how to cast the bullion into pigs; and finally I know
how to screen tailings, and also how to hunt for something less
robust to do, and find it. I know the argot of the quartz-mining
and milling industry familiarly; and so whenever Bret Harte
introduces that industry into a story, the first time one of his
miners opens his mouth I recognize from his phrasing that Harte got
the phrasing by listening–like Shakespeare–I mean the Stratford
one–not by experience. No one can talk the quartz dialect