sea-serpents, and survival of myths regarding the powers of the sea and air; but they are of no such distinct historic value as are the indications to be found in the more definite folk-lore in prose or verse, which have the element of dramatic interest and narrative. It is to be remembered that these chants, as we have said, were essentially improvisations, with a purpose different from ordinary song,—that is, to give the governing power of melody to united exertion,—and that whatever color and substance they have are extraneous, and not inherent. What is distinctively American can be determined only by local allusions or by definite knowledge of their origin: the first are of very little value, for an English chant, with its local allusions, might be very readily altered into an American one by the substitution of American names; and in regard to the second, as has been said, the songs were born, and passed from mouth to mouth, and from ship to ship, without any one's knowing or caring where they originated. Nevertheless, the American sailors, when there were American sailors, had as strong a national and provincial feeling as those of any other country; were capable of making their own chants, if not as much given to improvisation as those of the Latin races; and had a selection of local names as sonorous and as readily adapted to the needs of a rhythmical chorus as those of any English-speaking people. The Rio Grande and the Shenandoah were as mouth-filling and sonorous as the High Barbarie or any of the refrains of the English shanties, and the American sailor sheeted home his canvas with Virginia Ashore, or Baltimore, or Down to Mobile Bay in his remembrance as well as on his lips.

Premising that American shanties are not American sea songs in any definite sense of the term, and fulfill only the conditions to which they are subject as aids to labor and stimulants to exertion, we may take a specimen or two to show what they were like. It is needless to say that neither the words nor a musical notation would give any idea of their effect when sung with full-throated chorus to sea and sky, and that their peculiar melodious cadence and inflection can be caught only by hearing them. Like the chants of the negro slaves, which they resemble in many respects, musical notes would give only the skeleton of the melody, which depends for its execution upon an element which it defies the powers of art to symbolize. They have various forms,—a continued and unbroken melody, as when turning the capstan or pumping, or they show an emphatic accentuation at regular intervals, as when stretching out a bowline with renewed pulls; and such as they are, they are given precisely as sung, with a dependence upon the reader's imagination to supply in some degree the cadence and accentuation. The following are good specimens of the bowline chants.

Solo. I wish I was in Mobile Bay,

Chorus. Way-hay, knock a man down!

Solo. A-rolling cotton night and day,

Chorus. This is the time to knock a man down!

And so on ad infinitum, until the hoarse "Belay!" of the mate or the "bosun" ends it.

Oh, Shenandoah's a rolling river,

Hooray, you rolling river,

Oh, Shenandoah's a rolling river,

Ah-hah, I'm bound away to the wild Missouri!

Oh, Shenandoah's a packet sailor, etc.

My Tommy's gone, and I 'll go too,

Hurrah, you high-low!

For without Tommy I can't do,

My Tommy 's gone a high-low!

My Tommy's gone to the Eastern shore,

Chorus.

My Tommy's gone to Baltimore, etc.

A favorite and familiar pulling song is Whiskey for my Johnny:—

Whiskey is the life of man,

Whiskey-Johnny!

We 'll drink our whiskey while we can,

Whiskey for my Johnny!

I drink whiskey, and my wife drinks gin,

Chorus.

The way she drinks it is a sin,

Chorus.

I and my wife cannot agree,"

Chorus.

For she drinks whiskey in her tea,

Chorus.

I had a girl; her name was Lize,

Chorus.

And she put whiskey in her pies,

Chorus.

Whiskey's gone, and I 'll go too,

Chorus.

For without whiskey I can't do, etc.

A very enlivening windlass or pumping chant is I'm Bound for the Rio Grande:—

I'm bound away this very day,

Oh, you Rio!

I'm bound away this very day,

I'm bound for the Rio Grande!

And away, you Rio, oh, you Rio!

I'm bound away this ve-ry day,

I'm bound for the Rio Grande!

Another is Homeward Bound with a Roaring Breeze:—

We 're homeward bound with a roaring breeze,

Good-by, fare you well!

We 're homeward bound with a roaring breeze,

Hurrah, my boys! We 're homeward bound!

I wrote to Kitty, and she was well,

Good-by, fare you well!

She rooms at the Astor and dines at the Bell,

Hurrah, my boys! We 're homeward bound!

There were many, with slight American variants, which were undoubtedly of English origin, and have been heard on English merchant ships from time immemorial; some which relate especially to the operations of whaling; and some which had their origin on the river flatboats and in the choruses of the roustabouts on the Ohio and Mississippi, and have been only slightly changed for salt-water purposes, the quality being as little varied as the number is endless. Their essential quality was that of an improvised chant, and the dominant feeling was to be found in the intermingling of the words and the cadence, as in the apparently meaningless refrain of the old ballads. They expressed, through all their rudeness and uncouthness, and more through the melody than the words, the minor chords which distinguish all folk music, the underlying element in the human heart oppressed by the magnitude and solitude of nature, as well as the enlivening spirit of strong exertion; and no sensitive ear could ever call them really gay, however vigorous and lively they might be. The shanties are passing away with the substitution of iron cranks and pulleys for the muscles of men, and the clank of machinery has taken the place of the melodious chorus from human throats. It is not probable that they will ever entirely disappear so long as men go down to the sea in ships; but whatever life and flavor they had will fade away, and the first-class leading tenor among the "shanty men" will vanish with the need and appreciation of his skill. As for the old words, they will also be utterly lost, because they have no existence except in oral recitation and memory, and do not contain enough of the elements of pure poetry to secure their preservation in print, as the folk songs and ballads have been preserved. They are relics of custom rather than of literature; and although any poet or musician who deals with the sea will miss a source of very valuable inspiration if he does not possess himself of the spirit of their weird melody and the unconscious power of their vigorous rhythm, in themselves they are likely to be lost with the chants of the Phoenician sailors or the rowers of the galley of Ulysses, which they have succeeded, and some of whose melody they have perhaps reproduced.

The genuine sea songs differ from the shanties in that they had a definite poetical purpose to tell a story or express emotion, and were not merely words strung together to give voice to a rhythm of labor. It cannot be said that the genius of the American sailor has turned itself especially to expressing his emotions in song, any more than that of the English.