The Sailor's Word-Book Part 30

BIZE. A piercing cold wind from the frozen summits of the Pyrenees.

BLACKAMOOR. A thoroughly black negro.

BLACK-BIRD CATCHING. The slave-trade.

BLACK-BIRDS. A slang term on the coast of Africa for a cargo of slaves.

BLACK-BOOK OF THE ADMIRALTY. An imaginary record of offences. Also, a doc.u.ment of great authority in naval law, as it contains the ancient admiralty statutes and ordinances.

BLACK-FISH. A common name applied by sailors to many different species of cetaceans. The animal so called in the south seas belongs to the genus _Globiocephalus_. It is from 15 to 20 feet long, and occurs in countless shoals.

BLACK-FISHER. A water-poacher: one who kills salmon in close-time.

BLACK-FISHING. The illegally taking of salmon, under night, by means of torches and spears with barbed p.r.o.ngs.

BLACK-HEAD. The pewitt-gull (_Larus ridibundus_).

BLACK-HOLE. A place of solitary confinement for soldiers, and tried in some large ships.

BLACK-INDIES. Newcastle, Sunderland, and Shields.

BLACKING. For the ship's bends and yards. A good mixture is made of coal-tar, vegetable-tar, and salt-water, boiled together, and laid on hot.

BLACKING DOWN. The tarring and blacking of rigging; or the operation of blacking the ship's sides with tar or mineral blacking.

BLACK-JACK. The ensign of a pirate. Also, a capacious tin can for beer, which was formerly made of waxed leather. In 1630 Taylor wrote--

"Nor or of blacke-jacks at gentle b.u.t.try-bars, Whose liquor oftentimes breeds household wars."

BLACK-LIST. A record of misdemeanours impolitically kept by some officers for their private use--the very essence of private tyranny, now forbidden.

BLACK-LOCK. A trout thought to be peculiar to Lough Melvin, on the west of Ireland.

BLACK SHIPS. The name by which the English builders designate those constructed of teak in India.

BLACK SOUTH-EASTER. The well-known violent wind at the Cape of Good Hope, in which the vapoury clouds called the Devil's Table-cloth appear on Table Mountain.

BLACK SQUALL. This squall, although generally ascribed to the West Indies, as well as the white squall, may be princ.i.p.ally ascribed to a peculiar heated state of the atmosphere near land. As blackey, when interrogated about weather, generally observes, "Ma.s.sa, look to leeward," it may be easily understood that it is the condensed air repelled by a colder medium to leeward, and driven back with condensed electricity and danger. So it is sudden to Johnny Newcomes, who lose sails, spars, and ships, by capsizing.

BLACK'S THE WHITE OF MY EYE. When Jack avers that no one can say this or that of him. It is an indignant expression of innocence of a charge.

BLACK-STRAKE. The range of plank immediately above the wales in a ship's side; they are always covered with a mixture of tar and lamp-black, which not only preserves them from the heat of the sun and the weather, but forms an agreeable variety with the painted or varnished parts above them. Vessels with no ports have frequently two such strakes--one above, the other below the wales, the latter being also called the diminishing strake.

BLACK-STRAP. The dark country wines of the Mediterranean. Also, bad port, such as was served for the sick in former times.

BLACK-TANG. The sea-weed _Fucus vesicolosus_, or tangle.

BLACKWALL-HITCH. A sort of tackle-hook guy, made by putting the bight of a rope over the back of the hook, and there jamming it by the standing part. A mode of hooking on the bare end of a rope where no length remains to make a cat's-paw.

BLACK WHALE. The name by which the right whale of the south seas (_Balaena australis_) is often known to whalemen.

BLAD. A term on our northern coasts for a squall with rain.

BLADDER-FISH. A term for the tetraodon. (_See_ BALLOON-FISH.)

BLADE OF AN ANCHOR. That part of the arm prepared to receive the palm.

BLADE OR WASH OF AN OAR. Is the flat part of it which is plunged into the water in rowing. The force and effect in a great measure depends on the length of this part, when adequate force is applied. When long oars are used, the boat is generally single-banked, so that the fulcrum is removed further from the rower. Also, the motive part of the screw-propeller.

BLAE, OR BLEA. The alburnum or sap-wood of timber.

BLAKE. Yellow. North of England.

BLANK. Level line mark for cannon, as point-blank, equal to 800 yards.

It was also the term for the white mark in the centre of a b.u.t.t, at which the arrow was aimed.

BLANKET. The coat of fat or blubber under the skin of a whale.

BLARE, TO. To bellow or roar vehemently.--_Blare_, a mixture of hair and tar made into a kind of paste, used for tightening the seams of boats.

BLARNEY. Idle discourse; obsequious flattery.

BLASHY. Watery or dirty; applied to weather, as "a blashy day," a wet day. In parlance, trifling or flimsy.

BLAST. A sudden and violent gust of wind: it is generally of short duration, and succeeded by a fine breeze.--_To blast_, to blow up with gunpowder.

BLAST-ENGINE. A ventilating machine to draw off the foul air from the hold of a ship, and induce a current of fresh air into it.

BLATHER. Thin mud or puddle. Also, idle nonsense.

BLAY. A name of the bleak.

BLAZE, TO. To fire away as briskly as possible. To blaze away is to keep up a running discharge of fire-arms. Also, to spear salmon. Also, in the woods, to mark a tree by cutting away a portion of its outer surface, thus leaving a patch of whiter internal surface exposed, to call attention or mark a track.

BLAZERS. Applied to mortar or bomb vessels, from the great emission of flame to throw a 13-inch sh.e.l.l.

BLAZING STARS. The popular name of comets.

BLEAK. The _Leuciscus alburnus_ of naturalists, and the fresh-water sprat of Isaak Walton. The name of this fish is from the Anglo-Saxon _blican_, owing to its shining whiteness--its l.u.s.trous scales having long been used in the manufacture of false pearls.

BLEEDING THE MONKEY. The monkey is a tall pyramidal kid or bucket, which conveys the grog from the grog-tub to the mess--stealing from this _in transitu_ is so termed.

BLEED THE BUOYS. To let the water out.

BLENNY. A small acanthopterygious fish (_Blennius_).

BLETHER-HEAD. A blockhead.