John Nicol - the 1780's

from The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner, pages 65-66:

...We sailed in the month of October, and arrived safe at St. George’s Granada.... ...I wrought a great deal on shore and had a number of blacks under me. They are a thoughtless, merry race; in vain their cruel situation and sufferings act upon their buoyant minds. They have snatches of joy that their pale and sickly oppressors never know. It may appear strange, yet it is only in the West Indian islands that the pictures of Arcadia are in a faint manner realised once in the week. When their cruel situation allows their natural propensities to unfold themselves on the evenings of …   more >>
cite as

John Nicol, and Tim Flannery (ed.), The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner (2000), p. 65-66. https://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/entity/lexp/1394293251610 accessed: 29 March, 2024

Listeners

John Nicol
Sailor
1755-

Listening to

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folk music

Experience Information

Date/Time the 1780's
Medium live
Listening Environment in the company of others, outdoors

Notes

John Marriner, mariner, born 1755 in Currie near Edinburgh, recounted his travels over 25 years of seafaring to John Howell of Edinburgh in 1822. : The Benji is made of an old firkin [a small cask] with one end out, covered with shark skin, and beat upon with two pieces of wood. The rattles are made of a calabash shell, and a few small pebbles in it, fixed on a wooden handle; these they shake to the time of the Benji


Originally submitted by Ivan Hewett on Sat, 08 Mar 2014 15:40:51 +0000