Happy Christmas, friends!

Cool, John, it's always good to see more travelogues; they usually have some 'gems' that are not in the deliberate articles.

The schooner MONTAUK was out of New York. This part of the voyage, between Bermuda and St. Kitts, was in March 1884.

McQuade seems to have read Adam's 1879 ON BOARD THE ROCKET, I think. He is not noting these chanties because he heard them, but rather knows of them from elsewhere (and noting that he did not hear them). Adams' text is the only one that had the "Knock a Man down" at this point (well, along with Luce 1883, who got it from Adams). That, and the way he invokes Dibdin as Adams did, suggests that he read it.

For recording purposes, here is the passage:

//
Since the general employment of steam in navigation, the habits of sailors have naturally changed so as to conform, in some degree at least, to the existing condition of sea service. The old Jack tar, with his natty blue jacket, immaculate white trousers, flowing neckerchief, and jaunty tarpaulin hat, is being merged in the greasy stoker. The dust, smoke, cinders and soot of the steamship make sad havoc with the purity of white duck; the stiff tarpaulin has no place in the sweltering confines of the boiler-room and coal-bunker; everything is done by machinery; the anchor is hoisted by steam, the sails set by steam, and even the vessel steered by steam. William and Black-eyed Susan belong to the stage, and the oil-stained sailor of to-day is but a grimy representative of the airy and romantic jolly tar, who danced the sailor's hornpipe, wielded a heavy cutlass as if it were a toothpick, and blasted his 'eyes, and shivered his timbers, and avasted, and ahoyed, in days of yore. As steam has so largely superseded manual labor, the sea-songs with which sailors used to keep time when pulling and hauling in combined and simultaneous effort, are dying away in faint echoes, and soon they will only mingle with the discredited strains of the nearly forgotten mermaid. True there are navies to keep up the old standard, and sailing vessels and yachts to maintain the recollection and traditions of the blue jackets, but they are fast being smothered by steam. Occasionally we hear some of the familiar chants, but " Ranzo," " Haul Away, Joe," and "Knock-a-man-down," rarely animate the sailor in this period of maritime degeneracy. Of course seamen have to be educated in their vocation, but the sailor has become something like the mechanic. Large manufactories and mills, with complex labor-saving apparatus, have done away measurably with the journeyman who served his time as an apprentice to an experienced master. Machinery not only works, but thinks, and the machine-feeder takes the place of the skilled mechanic.

The sea-songs of Dibdin and others were really made for landsmen, and are different from the sailors' chants proper, which were of other material; like their working toggery, expressive and matter-of-fact. Prosody received but scant consideration, but the rhymes were a sort of rugged doggerel, with a refrain strongly accentuated, which served as a signal for all to pull away together. They were called Shanty songs, from the French word chanter, to sing, and many of them are familiar, having been incorporated in magazine articles and published in books.
//

But then we have the new chanty!: LARGY KARGY, attributed to the West Indies.

//
One of the sailors aboard the Montauk, who has been in the West Indies, furnishes the following example of a Shanty song, which is evidently the composition of some one possessed of a better ear for rhythm than the ordinary chanteur, as the measure is reasonably accurate. The refrains, Largy Kargy and Weeny Kreeny, are evidently corruptions of Spanish words, probably intended for Largo Cargo and Buena Carina—big cargo, and good little girl:

We're bound for the West Ingies straight,
    Largy—Kargy, Haul away O—h.
Come lively, boys, or we'll be late,
   Weeny—Kreeny, Haul away O—h.

We'll have rum and baccy plenty,
    Largy—etc.,
Cocos, yams, and argy-denty,
    Weeny—etc.

No more horse ' and dandy funky,
But St. Kitten's roasted monkey.

We'll go fiddle with black Peter,
Dance all night with Wannereeter.

At Kooreso we'll get frisky,
Throwing dice with Dutch Francisky.

When we've found the pirate's money,
We'll live on shore eating honey.

Wear big boots of allygator,
Taking Nance to the thayayter.

We'll bunk no more with cockroaches,
    Largy—Kargy—Haul away O—h,
But ride all day in soft coaches,
    Weeny—Kreeny, Haul away O—h.
//

I love it!

Charlie-- Yes, I love that one, too. It is such a cool example to have -- a song in a minstrel context that does not disguise its work song roots (?). No, we're not forgetting that one -- I think somewhere along the line we found that it could be dated to at least as early as 1848, so it is "filed" there at present. The same text also had a version of the "Sailor Fireman " (stoker's chant) and "Fire Down Below". Cheers!