CONTENTS
ONE OF JACK B. YEATSS BOOKS
FOR CHILDREN.
A LITTLE
FLEET
PRICE ONE SHILLING NET.
or, Coloured by the Author, with an Original Sketch
in Colours, price 5s. net.
PUBLISHED BY
ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET,
NIGH THE ALBANY, LONDON.
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A LITTLE
FLEET
BY
JACK B. YEATS
PUBLISHED BY
ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET,
NIGH THE ALBANY, LONDON.
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A LITTLE FLEET
The following account of the Fleet, and of the various histories of the voyages of the vessels which compose it, has been written out by me at the request of the owners. I have also made for them the drawings and the chart which illustrate the account.
The owners of this small merchant fleet had nowhere else handy to float their vessels in than the small and winding Gara river and a very small pond; the vessels when upon the river drove along with the stream, their sails, when they had any, only being of use to get them out of bad places, except occasionally when the current ran slowly; then, with a fair wind, the Pasear and the Monte, at any rate, would walk along at a fine pace.
Long, light sticks were carried to steer the ships round dangerous corners, and through narrow and difficult channels like the Two Snags; and when I say she steered this way, or her skipper took such [Pg 8] a course, you will understand it is just put that way because it sounds better.
The two longest voyages were those of the Theodore and the Pasear, both of which vessels travelled about a mile along the river. The owners think that any other little boys who live near a stream sufficiently deep to float ships drawing so little water might like to follow their example and build a fleet, therefore I am to tell you how each vessel was built, as well as the story of its voyage.
The chart shows the winding river down which the clippers voyaged, and on it are marked the various snags, rapids, and other dangers.
JACK B. YEATS,
Gara River.
The owners and myself are indebted to the Fleet Poet for the verses through the book.
THE FLEET.
| The Monte | - Fore and Aft Schooner |
| The Moby Dick | - Paddle Steamboat |
| The Theodore | - Fireship |
| The Pasear | - Top-sail Schooner |
| The New Corinthian | - Brig |
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THE MONTE
The Monte was the first of our vessels, and was made out of a flat piece of wood about five inches long, shaped at one end for the bow. She had two masts of very thin wood, and was rigged as a fore and aft schooner with paper sails, which had holes in them so as to fasten them to the masts.
She had a stone underneath her to keep her upright, and a piece of string tied round her, amidships, to keep on the stone. In the picture the stone is shown through the water, so that you can see how it was fastened on, but it did not really show like that.
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THE MONTES VOYAGE
She started from No Name Strait with wind and tide; it was blowing a gale at the timeof course you will understand that it was not blowing a gale to us, but in proportion to the size of her, it must have been a gale to her.
She kept her course toward the land, going by the Round Channel, as we had not then discovered the passage through the Two Snags she then put her helm to port and bore away for mid-stream to avoid the nifty Snags that lie at the foot of the bluff called Pirates Leap, called that because a poet who had been a pirate, I expect, was thinking about a poem when he ought to have been shoving the vessel off the rocks, and so he fell in.
The Monte then put her head south-west by south, half south, a little southerly, sir, and tried to make the current called the Bully Bowline, but she kept too far to the westard, and so she got caught by the other current, the wrong one, called the Blackwall Hitch. The Montes skipper got excited then, [Pg 11] and tried to cross the middle of the river, but she dashed round in the current under the cliffs, and was only saved by very good steering from running straight into the very dangerous snags called the Bad Snags.
However, she weathered them and dashed on over the Marbley Shallows; we called them that because the stones under the water used to roll along like a lot of little marbles. She kept a fine course from that on, and went at a great pace, about fifteen knots; once she stuck her nose in the bank, but the sails swung her round, so on she went and ran beautifully into Safety Cove. But, like a silly, her skipper came out of it again before we could tell him not to, and hit against, oh! such a nasty rock; it heaved her on her beamends, and then she turned very slowly round until her masts and sails were underneath, and her stone keel on top. And that was the end of her.
This was what the Pirate Poet made about her:
And now by Gara rushes,
When stars are blinking white;
And sleep has stilled the thrushes,
[Pg 12] And sunset brings the night;
There, where the stones are gleamin,
A passer-by can hark
To the old drowned Monte seamen
A-singing through the dark.
There, where the gnats are pesky,
They sing like anything;
They sing like Jean de Reszke,
This is the song they sing:
Down in the pebbled ridges
Our old bones sing and shout;
We see the dancing midges,
We feel the skipping trout.
Our bones are green and weeded,
Our bones are old and wet;
But the noble deeds that we did
We never can forget.
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THE MOBY DICK
She sailed down Gara Valley,
She startled all the cows;
With touchwood in her galley,
And green paint round her bows.
The Moby Dick was supposed to be a Mississippi River steamboat; she was built out of a flat piece of board almost fourteen inches long and six inches broad; on top of that she had a cardboard box with cabin windows drawn on it, and she had cardboard paddle-boxes with her name painted on them with ink; she also had an eagle painted on her deck-house. Inside her deck-house there was a cocoa tin with a [Pg 14] cardboard funnel coming out of the top of it. The tin was there so that we could make a fire in it of paper and touchwood. At first, when we made our fire, it would not burn because there was no draught, so we made a large hole in front of the deck-house and another one abaft, also holes in the side of the cocoa tin; that made a draught, and then you should have seen the smoke coming out of her funnel!
THE FIRST VOYAGE OF THE MOBY DICK
She started from No Name Straits, but she had to put back again because her fire was not burning, so we stirred it up a bit and put in some more dry touchwood, then it smoked fine, and we let her go.
She was going the Round Channel when her Mate sung out to the Captain:
Shell go through the Two Snags!
Shell never do it! shouted the Captain.
Lets try her! yelled the Mate.
Go ahead! roared the Captain, and the Mate shoved the helm hard [Pg 15] up, and she slid through without touching anywhere.
And so the Moby Dick was the first to use the Two Snags Passage. Since then all our vessels have used it.
