The Man Who Would Be King: Selected Stories of Rudyard Kipling
Page 81
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.