come on board several days previously, and proved to be much better than the average to be obtained in cotton ports, places where sailors are generally scarce, and the rough screw-gangs mostly fill their places. ///// Nordhoff gives so much detail --though much still is unclear to us, today-- that I think this bears a close reading and lots of discussion. I think what Nordhoff describes might have been some sort of turning point (no pun intended). What do you guys think? I am going to break for now, but re-reading this with the earlier references clearly established before it, I am starting to think new things about the directions of "flow" of this sort of songs. "...many of the screw-gangs have an endless collection of songs, rough and uncouth, both in words and melody, but answering well the purposes of making all pull together, and enlivening the heavy toil." "One song generally suffices to bring home the screw, when a new set is got upon the bale, and a fresh song is commenced." Sound like there had to have been a lot of songs. Perhaps a whole repetoire, like the body of songs that seems to have appeared rather quickly aboard ships around/after this time? Funny, though, that if there were so many songs, we see the repetition of a few. "the foreman begins the song, and at the end of every two lines the worm of the screw is forced to make one revolution, thus gaining perhaps two