Uw zoekacties: Sailortown,

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037 Sailortown
Erfgoedstuk
Bladmuziek
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 Making fast to the buoys was quite a job. The moorings were of a
type known as 'holdfasts'. These 'holdfasts' were fastened by heavy leading chains shackled to heavy anchors buried deeply ashore, they in turn being kept clear of the bottom of the river by hollow iron buoys. A ship's chains, in sailing-vessel days, were crossed from either bow, and a native diver would go down and shackle them to the hold- fasts. This was done astern as well as ahead, the chains in this case leading out from the quarter-pipes at the break of the poop, their bights being lashed up to the taflFrail with strong cordage. At Budge-Budge pontoons were used as bridges to convey the oil
ashore, but at the other moorings lighters of all kinds would convey the cargoes to the river-banks. All ships had awnings stretched fore and aft, and, in the cyclone season, when there were often tidal bores in the river, all upper yards would be sent down and jibbooms 'reefed'. According to Crowe and other sailor writers, nearly every morning
dead bodies would be festooning the ships' mooring chains. Life was cheap in Calcutta in the seventies and eighties of the last century. Overhead the kites or 'shite-hawks' as they were called, would wheel and swoop with a weather eye on the bloated corpses. The water was polluted by such corpses and yet ships filled their tanks from this river. The river would be full of small native river-craft—the original 'dinghy'—with their canopies, vari-coloured hulls and stripe-painted sculls and paddles, the bumboats selling monkeys and booze, the launches of the various shipping companies with the karanis or clerks aboard, and, on certain days, ships' gigs and jolly-boats engaged in regattas. In the nineties Captain T. Y. Powles, who founded the Mariners'
Cricket Club in Calcutta, often arranged boat races between the various ships in port. He once fixed a match between Conway and Worcester boys from different ships, the Conways winning, and the cup, I believe, is now at Conway in Wales. In the eighties, opposite the Maidan, there would be moored ships stretching for over a mile, seven abreast in tiers, consisting of Carmichael's Golden Fleece fleet, Pooles' Abbeys, Williamson and Milligan's Waverley Line, as well as ships from Fcrnie's, de Wolf's, Craig's, Beazley's, Corry's, Brockle- banks', and many others. At this time the loading of jute was the prime reason for all these 'bottoms' being in the Hughli, and it was in these rather tough days that a foul murder was committed aboard the jute-loading ship the Muncaster Castle. It is given in full in Lubbock's The Last of the Wind- jammers. To get the jute well stowed the 'screwing' system, practised in the
Gulf port cotton traders, was also used in Calcutta. When this three skysail ship was ready to sail someone noticed that the third mate was missing, apparently the day before he had had some trouble with the coolies working at the jackscrews and had given one a clip over the 313
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Organisatie: Shanty Nederland
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