Scan barcode
oldpondnewfrog's review against another edition
4.0
At the last minute—after two years sailing and a last sublime voyage around Cape Horn, long even once "the Boston girls had hold of the tow-rope," scudding 2,000 miles in nine days—the crew acquired onions with which to forestall scurvy. They'd been starting to drop. All the men in the forecastle refused to let the cook cook the onions; they ate them raw, ravenous for them, stuffed them deep in their pockets to snack on during watches, like treats.
Before that almost every meal they ate was salt beef (or fresh beef) and hard bread. The potatoes and onions after that.
They worked.
This was a fantastic account, barely breaching into a life imaginable to me. It's got a lot of qualities I like: atmospheric, earnest, romantic, some good characters, good rhythm to the prose but made with duck cloth not satin. I love his "had got" while they work on steeving the hides into the hold:
Had got, had got, had got.
I carry a little other life with me now.
Good book.
Before that almost every meal they ate was salt beef (or fresh beef) and hard bread. The potatoes and onions after that.
They worked.
This was a fantastic account, barely breaching into a life imaginable to me. It's got a lot of qualities I like: atmospheric, earnest, romantic, some good characters, good rhythm to the prose but made with duck cloth not satin. I love his "had got" while they work on steeving the hides into the hold:
This was a windfall for us, for they had a set of new songs for the capstan and fall, and ours had got nearly worn out by six weeks' constant use. I have no doubt that this timely re-enforcement of songs hastened our work several days.I read that two or three times before it took—they needed a fresh infusion of literal songs. I assumed it was just another sailor's word I didn't know.
Had got, had got, had got.
I carry a little other life with me now.
Good book.
It was in the winter of 1835–6 that the ship Alert, in the prosecution of her voyage for hides on the remote and almost unknown coast of California, floated into the vast solitude of the Bay of San Francisco.
stephang18's review against another edition
3.0
Mizzen! Jib! Top'sl! Stay'sl! Focsle! Reef'sl! Gallant'sl! Expect to hear those words over and over and over. The most valuable part of this book is historical, especially California in the 1840s, a completely alien place.
More...