At Night, Some Of Us Got A Boat And Went On Board, And Found
A Large, Roomy Forecastle, (For She
Was squarer forward than
the Alert,) and a crew of a dozen or fifteen men and boys,
sitting around on
Their chests, smoking and talking, and ready
to give a welcome to any of our ship's company. It was just
seven months since they left Boston, which seemed but yesterday
to us. Accordingly, we had much to ask, for though we had seen
the newspapers that she brought, yet these were the very men who
had been in Boston and seen everything with their own eyes. One of
the green-hands was a Boston boy, from one of the public schools,
and, of course, knew many things which we wished to ask about, and
on inquiring the names of our two Boston boys, found that they had
been schoolmates of his. Our men had hundreds of questions to ask
about Ann street, the boarding-houses, the ships in port, the rate
of wages, and other matters.
Among her crew were two English man-of-war's-men, so that, of course,
we soon had music. They sang in the true sailor's style, and the
rest of the crew, which was a remarkably musical one, joined in the
choruses. They had many of the latest sailor songs, which had not
yet got about among our merchantmen, and which they were very choice
of. They began soon after we came on board, and kept it up until
after two bells, when the second mate came forward and called "the
Alerts away!" Battle-songs, drinking-songs, boat-songs, love-songs,
and everything else, they seemed to have a complete assortment of,
and I was glad to find that "All in the Downs," "Poor Tom Bowline,"
"The Bay of Biscay," "List, ye Landsmen!" and all those classical
songs of the sea, still held their places.
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