last, a load) is Saxon.  A ship in ballast comes from the Baltic,—­a vessel and cargo from the Bay of Biscay.  Sailors must eat; but there is a significant distinction between merchant-seamen and man-o’-war’s-men.  The former is provided for at the “caboose,” or “camboose,” (Dutch, kombuis); the latter goes to the “galley,” (Italian, galera, in helmet, primitively).  This distinction is fast dying out,—­the naval term superseding the mercantile,—­just as in America the title “captain” has usurped the place of the more precise and orthodox term, “master,” which is now used only in law-papers.  The “bowsprit” is a compound of English and Dutch.  The word “yard” is English; the word “boom,” Dutch.  The word “reef” is Welsh, from rhevu, to thicken or fold; “tack” and “sheet” are both Italian; “deck” is German.  Other words are the result of contractions.  Few would trace in “dipsey,” a sounding-lead, the words “deep sea”; or in “futtocks” the combination “foot-hooks,”—­the name of the connecting-pieces of the floor-timbers of a ship.  “Breast-hook” has escaped contraction.  Sailors have, indeed, a passion for metamorphosing words,—­especially proper names.  Those lie a little out of our track; but two instances are too good to be omitted:—­The “Bellerophon,” of the British navy, was always known as the “Bully-ruffian,” and the “Ville de Milan,” a French prize, as the “Wheel-’em-along.”  Here you have a random bestowal of names which seems to defy all analysis of the rule of their bestowal.

If the reader inclines to follow up the scent here indicated, we can add a hint or two which may be of service.  We have shown the sources, which should, for purposes of classification, be designated, not as English, Italian, Danish, etc., but nautically, as Mediterranean, Baltic, or Atlantic.  These three heads will serve for general classification, to which must be added a fourth or “off-soundings” department, into which should go all words suggested by whim or accidental resemblances,—­such terms as “monkey-rail,” “Turk’s head,” “dead-eye,” etc.,—­or which get the name of an inventor, as a “Matthew-Walker knot.”  More than that cannot well be given without going into the whole detail of naval history, tactics, and science,—­a thing, of course, impossible here.

This brings us to another view of the subject, which may serve for conclusion.  A great many people take upon themselves to act for and about the sailor, to preach to him, make laws for him, act as his counsel, write tracts for him, and generally to look after his moral and physical well-being.  Now eleven out of every dozen of these are continually making themselves ridiculous by an utter ignorance of all nautical matters.  They pick up a few worn-out phrases of sea-life, which have long since left the forecastle, and which have been bandied about from one set of landsmen to another, have been dropped by sham-sailors begging on fictitious wooden-legs, then by small sea-novelists, handed to