The record-union., 1899-08-31
THE Way OF a Ship"

Frank T. Bullen, author of The
Cruise of the Cachalot,'' ETC., tells the
readers of the September Century OF
the ways of certain ships he has
sailed on as mate or foremasthand. His
introduction runs thus:
Solomon had, among the many
mighty qualities of mind which have
secured his high eminence as the Wisest
man of the world, an attribute which
does not always accompany abundant
knowledge. He was prompt to admit
his limitations, as far as he knew them,
frankly and fully. And among them
he confesses an inability to understand
1.-The way of a ship in the midst of
sea-" 1t may be urged that there was
little to wonder at in this, since the
eXigencies of his position must have
precluded his gaining more than the
slightest actual experience of seafar-
ing. Yet it is marvellous that he should
have mentioned this thing, seemingly
simple to a shore dweller, which is TO
all mariners a mystery past finding
out. No matter how long a sailor may
have sailed the seas in one ship, Or
how deeply he may have studied the
ways of that ship under apparently all
combinations of wind and sea, he viii
never be found to assert thoughtfully
| that he knows her altogether Much
more, then, are the myriad idiosyn-
crasies of all ships unknowable. Kip
/ ling has done more, perhaps, than any
/ other living writer to point out how
! certain fabrics of mans construction
| become invested with individuality of
/ ,ie+a 1~at toIa Is, Of CO
| acute an observer could not fail to no
tice how pre-eminently is this the case
with ships.
Now, in what follows / seek, as best
I may, to show, by niggardly handful
of instances in my own experience, how
the personality" of ships expresses
itself, and how incomprehensible these
manifestations are to the men whose
business it is to study them. Even be-
fore the ship has quilted the place o.
her birth, yea, while she is yet a-build-
ing, something Of this may be noted.
One man will study deepest mathemat-
ical problems, will perfectly apply his
| formulae, and see them accurately en-
| bodied in steel or timber, SO that by
| all ordinary laws Of cause and effect
| the resultant vessel should be a marvel
| of speed, stability and strength. And
| yet she is a failure. She has all the
vices that the sailor knows and breads;
crank, slow. leewardly, hanging in
| stays, impossible to steer satisfactorily.
| Every man who ever sails in her car
/ ries in his tenacious sea memory, to
/ the day of his DEATH vengeful recollec-
| tions of her perversities, and often in
| the dog-watch holds forth to his ship
| mates in eloquent denunciation of her
manifold iniquities long after one would
| have thought her very name would be
| forgotten. Another shipbuilder, inno-
! cent of a. scintilla of mathematics, inn
| patient of diagrams, will begin appar-
emily without preparation, adding tim
! Der to timber, and breast-hook to stem.
until out of the dumb cavern of his
mind a ship is evolved, his inexpressi-
| bic idea manifested in graceful yet
massive shape. And that ship will be
! all that the other is not AS if the
| spirit Of her builder had somehow been
wrought into her frame, she behaves
with intelligence, and becomes the de-
light, the pride, of those fortunate
/ enough to sail in her.