23. his Gladstone: His suitcase.
THE MANNER OF MEN
First published in the London Magazine, September 1930; collected in Limits and Renewals (1932).
1. cinnabar-tinted: Coloured with red mercuric sulphate, used for dressing Roman sails (NRG).
2. verdigris in their dole-bread: The grain meant for distribution to the Roman people will be tainted by the copper ballast.
3. dressed African leathers on your private account: The captain is getting free transport for his private cargo of hides, used as bin-linings (NRG).
4. wings: Spaces between the grain-bins and the ship’s sides (NRG).
5. single-banker, eleven a side: A rowing-galley of twenty-two oars.
6. flesh-traffic: Slave trade.
7. Free Trader: Pirate.
8. Euxine: Black Sea.
9. a passenger, our last trip together, who wanted to see Caesar: The apostle Paul, whose shipwreck on his journey to Rome is related in Acts of the Apostles 27. Quabil’s account closely follows the Bible story.
10. sutlers: Sellers of provisions to the army.
11. Myra: Ancient port on the Lycian (Turkish) coast, now named Dembre: cf. Acts 27: 5.
12. Fairhaven: Acts 27: 8: ‘a place which is called the fair havens: nigh whereunto was the city of Lasea.’
13. bight: Loop of rope. Paul has things neatly sorted out.
14. lictor’s work … Jew scourgings: For Paul’s record of punishment, see 2 Corinthians 11: 24–5.
15. three-banker: Trireme galley.
16. the yelp of a bank being speeded up: Cries of oarsmen being whipped to row faster.
17. line his hold for a week in advance: Eat heartily while he still could.
18. pooped: Overwhelmed by a wave breaking over the poop (after-deck) from behind.
19. bo’sun-captain: One who has risen from seaman to captain.
20. kedge: Lightest ship’s anchor.
21. achatours: Purveyors.
22. under-Lebanon: Quabil’s home.
23. Thessalian jugglery with a snake: Acts 28: 3–6.
24. canvas I can cut: Paul was trained as a tent-maker (NRG).
*‘Not real. A trick.’
*Under coverture.
*Now first of the foemen of Boh Da Thone
Was Captain O’Neil of the Black Tyrone.
The Ballad of Boh Da Thone
*‘Get out, you dog.’
* Hop-picking
*‘The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat.’ A Diversity of Creatures.
*Officially it was on account of his good work in the Department of Co-ordinated Supervisals, but many true lovers of Literature knew the real reason, and told the papers so.
*Illa
alma
Mater
ecca
secum
afferens
me
acceptum
Nicolaus
Atrib.
*Quabil meant the coasters who worked their way by listening to the cocks crowing on the beaches they passed. The insult is nearly as old as sail.
The Man Who Would Be King: Selected Stories of Rudyard Kipling Page 81