The Project Gutenberg EBook of "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men, by Louis Becke

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men
From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other
Stories" - 1902

Author: Louis Becke

Release Date: March 29, 2008 [EBook #24954]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "PIG-HEADED" SAILOR MEN ***

Produced by David Widger

"PIG-HEADED" SAILOR MEN

By Louis Becke

T. FISHER UNWIN, 1902

LONDON

Crossing from Holyhead to Ireland one night the captain of the steamer
and myself, during an hour's talk on the bridge, found that we each had
sailed in a certain Australian coasting steamer more than twenty years
before--he as chief officer and I as passenger; and her shipwreck one
Christmas Eye (long after), which was attended by an appalling loss of
life, led us to talk of "pig-headed" skippers generally. His experiences
were large, and some of his stories were terrible even to hear, others
were grotesquely humorous, and the memory of that particularly pleasant
passage across a sea as smooth as a mill pond, has impelled me to
retell some of the incidents I related to him of my own adventures with
obstinate, self-willed, or incapable captains.

My first experience was with a gentleman of the "incapable" variety, and
befell me when I was quite a lad. I had taken my passage in a very
smart little Sydney (N.S.W.) barque bound for Samoa _via_ the Friendly
Islands. She was commanded by a Captain Rosser, who had sailed her for
nearly twenty years in the South Sea trade, and who was justly regarded
as the _doyen_ of island skippers. He was a "Bluenose," stood six
feet two in his stockinged feet, and was a man of the most determined
courage, unflinching resolution, and was widely known and respected by
the white traders and the natives all over the South Pacific.

In those days there was quite a fleet of vessels engaged in the South
Sea trade, and most of them were owned in, and sailed from Sydney, and
I could have secured a passage in any one of three other vessels, but
preferred the _Rimitara_ (so I will call her), merely because the agent
had told me that no other passenge