COLLOQUIAL SHIP NAMKS. 171 



driver — another term that can be appreciated only by those 

 who have felt such pounding^, well described in German as 

 stampfrcHcn , to pitch when ridin.i^ at anchor. A lighter degree 

 of somewhat the same kind of movement seems to be the 

 source of the Ico^itimate terms skip-jack and dandy, applied to 

 light, speedy vessels. 



Tea-7vajs^07i , formerly applied to the ships of the East India 

 Company from their usual cargo, is a colloquial example of 

 the large class of ship names referring to cargo and trade. 

 The wagon idea appears again in 7vhcclbarro7v , applied to 

 steamboats having a large stern paddle-wheel, which gives 

 them a general appearance fully justifying the name. In 

 allusion to their characteristic shape the canal-boatman calls 

 his boat a chunkcr and the sections of it boxes. Under the 

 same idea bjitter-box was formerly applied in England to a 

 beamy trading-vessel. The ship as a l)o.x is regularly exem- 

 plified by German />itsc, Dutch bin'sr, Spanish bncha and 

 English bliss, a kind of fishing-boat. 



The transfer of the title of the commander of the fleet to his 

 own vessel is an old custom still in vogue. Milton speaks of 



" The tallest pine- 

 Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast 

 Of some great amniiral." 



It is interesting to note the change of gender when the 

 officers' names, Spanish cl almirantc, cl capitdn, el sultan, 

 French le capHainc, are applied to their ships as la almiranta, 

 la capitana, la sultana and la capitaine. Commodore is fre- 

 quently applied to the largest or first-arrived vessel in a fleet 

 of fishermen, where, as in the poet's use of admiral, the refer- 

 ence is directly to the superiority of the vessel itself. 



The English sailor's nickname for a vessel of the Royal 

 Navy is Geordie, which I take to be in memory of the "Royal 

 George" and the English kings of that name. Burns has the 

 same form and reference in describing the British gold coins 

 as "the sweet, yellow darlings wi' Geordie imprest." So 



