The San Francisco call., 1897-07-25

The sloop- of-war Benicia was hurrying
homeward under the impulse of all plain
canvas and with weather topmast stud
ding sails concaving out from their booms,
their taut guys vibrating in a high-ten-
stoned treble to the pull of a ripping quar-
ter breeze.
For i've slow owing years she had
been wandering around the Asiatic ports,
blistering in Singapore, bucking harbor
ice IN Chemulpo, digging up volcanic mud
with her anchor in Nagasaki and gather
ing all manner Of vile deposits from the
oozy waters of the Yang-tse. Now she
was plunging eastward across the Pacific,
with half-gale harmony humming
through her tophamper and the full
spring OF life in the lift and sweep OF her
body.
Even the sea seemed glad of her COM
ing, and the merry foam t1ecked pillows
Tipped like lovers TO the line of her weather
forecastle rail as she leaned to the deep
windward roll.
To her crew it had been five years OF
purposeless passing from place to place
a needless raising of the anchor to let 1t
go again in another harbor-and by the
rived for the vessel TO leave the station all
hands had made up their minds to die
there and be buried in despised foreign
deviP' cemetery on the weedy outskirts OF
some malodorous Chinese city.
The fore and main topmen's gangways,
led by the to'gallant forecastle, had pro-
tested vehemtntly even TO the verge OF
profanity against this interminable linger-
ing beyond the usual three years. But
neither the small marine sprite, who Is
often reported to be 'sitting up aloft, nor
the Secretary of the Navy sitting in his
office at W ashington, had seen ut to take
the Benicia off the wretched bl ow-hot-
b lew- cold coast, and the gangways, still
led by the to'gallant forecastle, had settled
down to the apathy of quiet growing at
each other.
Finally the "homeward- bound pen
nant" went up to the royal masthead and
W hen the stops were broken, letting the
great new streamer float for the first time
on the breeze, the natty old craft which
bore Sonora Vallejo's baptismal name was
poising on wide canvas wings for flight to-
ward the sunrise.
Cook Lind OF the afterguard mess, who
claimed in the face of much adverse COM
ment that he was a kinsman of the sweet
throated Jennie of Sweden, had composed
song to be sung in grand chorus when
the vessel turned her golden fgurehead
toward the purple 0 ccident. Its title was
1.-The Benicia's Homeward Bound, and
Boatswain's Mate Sake Fisher, the arch
critique OF the navy, said the composition
was fair to middlIng."
In the same breath. however. he handed
down a modi fication of this judgment,
which was that the tuneful cook was only
q Skowegian hobo who had drifted out of
st. Paul, Mimi, and was without right 10
the name he bore. This aspersion on his
social status and estate in nowise ratified
the bard nor ruffied the even flow of his
numbers, and as it was known that Fisher
himself aspired POLITICALLY som etimes the
belief obIained that he was moved 10
CRITICS m by literary rivalry, and this took
the edge off his verdict. Consequen ntly
the cook main tanned caste in the after
guard mess. The song ran on in a con-
trast between the fierce JOY sailor feels
when his ship begins TO reach out for
native land and the very Ordinary sort OF
satisfaction that comes II at all, to the
torpid soul of the farmer. even in seasons
of the most prodigal harvest The plower
of the sea seems TO find his antthesis in
the plower of the lea. In his oddly put
together mind The sailor somehow feels
that his own virtues have no kindred in
the makeup of the agriculturist, and also
that the granger has managed TO become
possessed of frailties which he himself so
far has successfully eluded.
Fisher was full believer in the theory
Of the quiet antagonism between the two
no Bile professions and rather leaned to
that view in an epic, which be rigged out
himself, he said. The first verse. as fol-
10 ws, moved grandly along the line Of its
authors faith:
Sez tn Bo'sun to tn Admiral
His trowsers up a-hitchin',