Uw zoekacties: Sailortown,

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037 Sailortown
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Sailortown,
Titel:
Sailortown
Naam uitgever:
Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. - E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc.
Jaar van uitgave:
1997
Omschrijving:
Liedtekst en Liedtekst verklaring
Aantal pagina's:
360
Taal:
Engels
Plaats van uitgave:
London & Newe York
Auteur:
Stan Hugill
ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN SAILORTOWNS
in the fo'c'sles of many New Bedford whalers Manila men were often to be found. Williams writes that, in his time—about the eighties—in Iloilo, two Malays joined his ship by way of the boarding-house masters, on the strength of two advance notes and a bottle of canea. I think this latter drink was the cam of South America. Just prior to the First World War many German ships made
Taku Bar and Chinwangtao ports o' call, taking timber to the for- mer and porcelain stone to the latter, but shore-leave in these days was limited in such ports. Batavia in Melville's day was a tough spot, and he cites the case of a ship losing every man-jack there with Java Fever. By the seventies, at least aboard Dutch ships, life seems to have
been more pleasant, for in 1878 the custom was to allow Dutch sailors a 'wife' while the ship lay here. She was paid by the authorities to darn, sew, and wash the clothes of the seamen, and she was kept under strict supervision—or so it is recorded. The writer has often heard a yarn repeated by old sailors that in the early days of the Blue Funnel Line on the China Coast, before the First World War, Chinese sew- sews were allowed aboard the ships in a similar manner, for to darn, sew, and 'dobhi' a seaman's clothes. In some cases they were kept aboard the ship as she visited the various coast ports of Amoy, Swatow, Ningpo, and so on, going ashore again in Hong Kong when the ship left for the homeward run. In Tanjong Priok and Cheribon Java Fever was common, and
often prevented crews from going ashore. When they did, however, they found the Dutch 'Squareface' gin cheap, and the Javanese prostitutes or 'mick-macks' accommodating. Some seamen thought these tawny-skinned girls the salt of the earth. During the First World War there was a character, well known in the above men- tioned steamship company, nicknamed 'Java Jones'. As soon as the ship made the Java coast, he would go ashore dressed solely in a sarong, with an alarm clock in his hand, speaking Malay only from the time he left the ship onwards, seeking out his little 'mick-mack' in her mosquito-infested shack, and sleeping with her until the ship sailed again. Rangoon was a great sailing-ship port, rice being the main cargo
shipped here. During its hey-day, around the seventies and eighties of the last century, fifty to a hundred windbags would be seen swing- ing at their anchors to the strong tidal waters abreast the city. There were no wharves, nor mooring buoys at this time, and ashore small- pox often raged. Ships such as Counties, Falls, Halls, Stars, Sierras, Crowns, and Abbeys loaded here, but apart from an occasional bum- boat bringing out booze and the odd sew-sew girl it was not a port for great sailor activity ashore. In fact, it was more of a soldier than a sailor city. One ship would be selected from the others as bethel-ship, to which those who felt like it could go on a Sunday to take part 3 "
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Organisatie: Shanty Nederland
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