Evening star., 1906-06-16

aR6O OF lNDiAN TEA
road and tie up at another pier on railroad
time-everything cut and dried Why. I'd
almost as soon be captain of somebody's S
steam yacht"
We both laughed, for 1 had tried skip
pering a Pittsburg millionaires palace,
and after two months of 1t l had given up
my gold and white stateroom, and the
brass bedstead, and the Empire furniture,
and the piano and the library, not to men
tion the $1,000 a year salary, to take on
a Glasgow tramp, 1,S00 tons burden, that
went peddling soap and salt Goldfish down
San Domingo way, and carried back
hides and logwood.
"For to Admire"
That's it. Some of us-lots of us, as a
matter of fact-could no more bear to go
everlastingly between the two everlasting
ly same ports than many men on land can
bear to be shut up day after day in an
Office. We're like Kipling's time-expired
wanted
"For to admire and for to see,
For TO be old this world wide
It pn, never done one no ,o good t. to me; ae;.,
A stupid thing is a six or seven days
transatlantic passage compared to sev-
enty or hundred days tramp voyage. that
takes a man across seasons and under
new stars, while he pokes into ports where
he knows not what hides under his keel
or what scene will open up before his
bows.
We know something of the round world.
We are the only human beings who do.
When we go into any port, matter
how world forgotten or how great, we are
at home the moment walk the water
front.
The ships that lie there may be cargo
steamers or junks pirogues or out-rg
ger dugouts. We may not be able to un-
dp-ct and n~a raf hn ln mol lyara
by the sailors there. But they are our
kind-free mariners, adventuring around
the world.
Walking along the water streets of a
port town the tramp captain sees the story
of each ship as soon as he glances at 1t.
He knows just where ii comes from and
what seas II ploughed. He can tell almost
to a mile the days run
Here Is small feet of brigantines-fve
of them, one as like the other as can be.
Even the landsmen would admire them
and exclaim that they look like yachts,
they do with their white and gold paint
and their springing. clean Lines. But that's
all the landsmen would know.
Now | saw them last on the San Bias
coast. Who knows where that Is? Ninety
nine persons out Of hundred wouldn't
know whether It's on the eastern hemi-
sphere or the western. Yet down there on
the San Bias coast, which Is stuck away
IL cove OF the Caribbean sea, north OF
the lsthmus of Panama, the Indians once
raised the American flag and became a
part OF the United States without asking
us for our leave. And we really had to go
through a lot Of forrnaiity to get them to
go back to the allegiance that they owed.
Are Fast Sailors.
Now these San Bias brigantines are won
ders for fast sailing. They are built for
speed because they carry fruits and cocoa
nuts and when they head northwest
through the great heave of the bright blue
Caribbean and slant into the trades they
go as fast as most ordinary steamers I've
had one of them hang on to my flank day
after day and night after night. Each
dawn would show her bowling along at
just the same slant, and hour after hour
she'd go with us, her crew never moving
hand to shift sail. And so she'd hang
on, through the Windward Passage out
through the Bahamas and until we got up
north, where she lost the trades. And even
after we left her huh down. we didn't
gain on her so much for she came In by
Sandy Hook only eleven hours after we
were berthed
That West Indy trade, still has the
same charm for most of us that IL appears
to have had for the old fellows OF the Span
ish Main. Now and then we still get fat
pickires, quite apart from flibustering.
which is fairly steady line of trade in it
| self This very captain that l mentioned
as having left a liner to become a tramp
| captain. has $4,000 In the bank now as his
| share of the treasure trove of the Tropie of
| Cancer. He was plugging along dawn
| Just far enough off Christopher Columbus
| Island. San Salvador. to raise 1t above tne
| horizon when he sighted a derelict He
! towed her into Crooked Island passage. She
! was a Maine-built schooner, full OF hard
| WOOD lumber out OF South America--ma-
| hogany and other woods, that were worth
something. l tell you. The fun of 1t
was that the derelict had been floating far
| out at sea for months. More than score
/ of ships shad sighted her. and three had
! tried at different times to set fire TO her to
! destroy tle menace to navigation. Then a
/ current swung her In toward the Bahamas.
/ And the sea luck of 1t was that the tramp
| had been delayed four hours by break
downin the engine room. II 1t hadn't been
! for that he would have passed San Saliva
! dor In the night and never sighted the dere-
| lict AS 1t was. his share OF the salvage
| was $4,000
| But II isn't so much the pickings as the
| way man can Just wallow in sheer con-
| tent and slumberous ease of mind In those
| plugging, at ten miles an hour or so. day
| In, day out. over vastly undulating
| smooth ocean of indescribable blue blue as,
\ tub fun Of wash blue: so blue that even
! the frotb kicked UP by the sieep-fun screw
seems blue. All around Is the swinging.
| fitting sky, Just wonderfully blue as the
| sea. You cannot look aloft -or below you
| cannot look out of port. without seeing
| the splendid color. till at last you feel as II
| the wind blows one way. never varying q
| point, never blowing more or less than. just
so much.
| / don't think that a man ever tires of
| the beauty of the sight when the ship AZ
last raises one Of the splendid Islands. All