98 ALL AFLOAT 



men, women, and children knew every 

 vessel's crew and all about them. The men 

 were farmers, fishermen, lumbermen, ship- 

 builders, and ' deepwatermen,' often all in one. 

 Among other peoples, only Scandinavians ever 

 had such an all-round lot as this. Even in 

 the present century, with its increasing multi- 

 formity of occupation, books full of nauticalities 

 can be read and understood in these countries 

 by everybody, though such books cannot be read 

 elsewhere except by the seafaring few. Busi- 

 ness meant ships or shipping ; so did politics, 

 peace and war, adventure and ambition. 



But there is a different tale to tell when the 

 tonnage outran the Bluenose ability to man 

 it, and Dutchmen, Dagos, miscellaneous wharf- 

 rats, and ' low-doWn ' Britishers had to be 

 taken on instead. If the crew was mixed and 

 the officers Bluenose there was sure to be 

 trouble of graduated kinds, all the way up 

 from simple knock-downs to the fiercest gun- 

 play of a real hell ship. The food was inferior 

 to that aboard the Yankees. But in discipline 

 there was nothing to choose. An all-Bluenose 

 or all-Yankee sometimes came as near the 

 perfection of seamanship and discipline as 

 anything human possibly can. But aboard 

 a mixed Bluenose the rule of bend or break 



