Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

330 страница из 418

The seamen of all nations, it has, in effect, been said, resemble each the other more than do the nations to which they belong. “As,” says a well-known writer, “the sea receives and amalgamates the waters of all the rivers which pour into it, so it tends to amalgamate the men who make its waves their home. … The seaman from the United States is said to carry to the forecastle a large stock of ‘equality and the rights of man,’ and to be unpleasantly distinguished by the inbred disrespect for authority which cleaves, perhaps inseparably, to a democrat who believes that he has whipped mankind, and that it is his mission, at due intervals, to whip them again. But, on board, he, too, tones down to the colour of blue water, and is more a seaman than anything else.” The French sailor is painted, by Landelle, as the embodiment of the same frolicsome lightheartedness, carelessness of the future, abandonment to impulse, and devotion to his captain, comrades, and ship, with which we are familiar in the English sailor, on the stage. But although depicted as much more polished than, it is to be feared, the average sailor could be in truth, he finishes by saying: “Il est toujours prêt à céder le haut du pavé à tout autre qu’à un soldat.” It would seem, then, that the French sailor revenges the treatment of society on the soldiers of his country. Is there not a similar feeling existing, perhaps to a more limited extent, between the sailors and soldiers of our own country? It hardly, however, extends to the officers of the “United Service.”