by Herman Melville
CHAPTER 1
IN THE time before steamships, or then more frequently than now, a
stroller along the docks of any considerable sea-port would
occasionally have his attention arrested by a group of bronzed
mariners, man-of-war's men or merchant-sailors in holiday attire
ashore on liberty. In certain instances they would flank, or, like a
body-guard quite surround some superior figure of their own class,
moving along with them like Aldebaran among the lesser lights of his
constellation. That signal object was the "Handsome Sailor" of the
less prosaic time alike of the military and merchant navies. With no
perceptible trace of the vainglorious about him, rather with the
off-hand unaffectedness of natural regality, he seemed to accept the
spontaneous homage of his shipmates. A somewhat remarkable instance
recurs to me. In Liverpool, now half a century ago, I saw under the
shadow of the great dingy street-wall of Prince's Dock (an obstruction
long since removed) a common sailor, so intensely black that he must
needs have been a native African of the unadulterate blood of Ham. A
symmetric figure much above the average height. The two ends of a
gay silk handkerchief thrown loose about the neck danced upon the
displayed ebony of his chest; in his ears were big hoops of gold,
and a Scotch Highland bonnet with a tartan band set off his shapely
head.
It was a hot noon in July; and his face, lustrous with
perspiration, beamed with barbaric good humor. In jovial sallies right
and left, his white teeth flashing into he rollicked along, the centre
of a company of his shipmates. These were made up of such an
assortment of tribes and complexions as would have well fitted them to
be marched up by Anacharsis Cloots before the bar of the first
French Assembly as Representatives of the Human Race. At each
spontaneous tribute rendered by the wayfarers to this black pagod of a
fellow- the tribute of a pause and stare, and less frequent an
exclamation,- the motley retinue showed that they took that sort of
pride in the evoker of it which the Assyrian priests doubtless
showed for their grand sculptured Bull when the faithful prostrated
themselves.
To return.
If in some cases a bit of a nautical Murat in setting forth his
person ashore, the Handsome Sailor of the period in question evinced
nothing of the dandified Billy-be-Damn, an amusing character all but
extinct now, but occasionally to be encountered, and in a form yet
more amusing than the original, at the tiller of the boats on the
tempestuous Erie Canal or, more likely, vaporing in the groggeries
along the tow-path. Invariably a proficient in his perilous calling,
he was also more or less of a mighty boxer or wrestler. It was
strength and beauty. Tales of his prowess were recited. Ashore he
was the champion; afloat the spokesman; on every suitable occasion
always foremost. Close-reefing top-sails in a gale, there he was,
astride the weather yard-arm-end, foot in the Flemish horse as
"stirrup," both hands tugging at the "earring" as at a bridle, in very
much the attitude of young Alexander curbing the fiery Bucephalus. A
superb figure, tossed up as by the horns of Taurus against the
thunderous sky, cheerily hallooing to the strenuous file along the
spar.
The moral nature was seldom out of keeping with the physical make.
Indeed, except as toned by the former, the comeliness and power,
always attractive in masculine conjunction, hardly could have drawn
the sort of honest homage the Handsome Sailor in some examples
received from his less gifted associates.