The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #167430   Message #4193457
Posted By: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
12-Dec-23 - 03:31 PM
Thread Name: Maritime work song in general
Subject: RE: Maritime work song in general
“I listened. I had no need to listen intently. I soon heard noises. They were evidently caused by heavy objects striking and bumping, just as if the sailors were still busy lading the vessel. I could hear their voices, too, though not very distinctly. Now and then certain ejaculations reached me, and I could make out the words "Heave!" "Avast heavin'!" and once the "Yo-heave-ho!" chanted by a chorus of the crew.

“Why, they are actually at work loading the vessel in the night-time!”” [p.151]

“Then I heard voices–human voices. Oh, how pleasant to my ears! First, I heard shouts and short speeches, and then all of them mingling together in a chant or chorus. Rude it may have been, but during all my life never heard I sounds that appeared to me so musical or harmonious as that work-song of the sailors.” [p.462]
[The Boy Tar, Or, A Voyage in the Dark, Reid, 1860]