VISIT TO UONOLULU. 200 



for the sole, diabolical satisfaction of keeping them 

 "at it." Of course, the incidence of the work was 

 divided, since so many of the crew were quite unable 

 to do any sailorizing, as we term work in sails and 

 rigging. Upon them, then, fell all the common labour, 

 which can be done by any unskilled man or woman 

 afloat or ashore. 



Of this work a sailor's duties are largely made up, but 

 when good people ashore wonder " whatever sailors do 

 with their time," it would be useful for them to remember 

 that a ship is a huge and complicated machine, needing 

 constant repairs, which can only be efficiently performed 

 by skilled workmen. An " A.B." or able seaman's duties 

 are legally supposed to be defined by the three ex- 

 pressions, " hand, reef, and steer." If he can do those 

 three things, which mean furling or making fast sails, 

 reefing them, and steering the ship, his wages cannot 

 be reduced for incompetency. Yet these things are the 

 A B C of seamanship only. A good seaman is able to 

 make all the various knots, splices, and other arrange- 

 ments in hempen or wire rope, without which a ship 

 cannot be rigged j he can make a sail, send up or down 

 yards and masts, and do many other things, the sum 

 total of which need several years of steady application 

 to learn, although a good seaman is ever learning. 



Such seamen are fast becoming extinct. They are 

 almost totally unnecessary in steamships, except when 

 the engines break down in a gale of wind, and the crowd 

 of navvies forming the crew stand looking at one another 

 when called upon to set sail or do any other job aloft. 

 Then the want of seamen is rather severely felt. But 

 even in sailing ships — the great, overgrown tanks of two 

 thousand tons and upwards — mechanical genius has 



