"
Now the ordinary sailor sings songs with the merriest or most blackguard
words to the most dirge-like tunes; but our fishermen sing religious
words to the liveliest tunes they can learn. I notice they are fonder of
waltz rhythms than of any others. The merchant sailor will drawl the
blackguard "I'll go no more a-roving" to an air like a prolonged wail;
the fisherman sings "Home, beautiful home" as a lovely waltz. Blair
always encouraged the men to sing a great deal, and therein he showed
the same discretion as good merchant mates.
I cannot describe Freeman's ecstasies, and I wish I could only give an
idea of the helmsman's musical method. This latter worthy had easy
steering to do, so he joined in; he was fond of variety, and he sang
some lines in a high falsetto which sounded like the whistling of the
gaff (with perhaps a touch of razor-grinding added); then just when you
expected him to soar off at a tangent to Patti's topmost A, he let his
voice fall to his boots, and emitted a most bloodcurdling bass growl,
which carried horrid suggestions of midnight fiends and ghouls and the
silent tomb. Still, his mates thought he was a musical prodigy; he was
entranced with the sweetness and power of his own performance, and the
passengers were more than amused, so every one was satisfied.
The gentlemen who vary my slumbers by howling "The Rollicking Rams" in
eight different keys at four in the morning would call the ship's
company of that schooner soft.
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