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‘It is to be understood that the author is not a sailor, but merely a civil
engineer Shanghaied as one.’
The winter holiday season shouldn’t be all work, so I’ve decided to put up some cracking reading – the wonderful Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties, by Hiram P Bailey. I trust some of you find time to look at it, but if you don’t these pages will still be just as good in the coming year or any other time.
I don’t know whether the tale told here is exactly true, but it makes a wonderful romp. What’s more, the various scenes including the dead horse ceremony, crossing the equator and the return to San Francisco (including a splendid villainous melodeon player) have a real ring of truth about them – Hiram P had clearly either done a lot of research or had spent time on ship himself.
My particular copy clearly belonged to someone fascinated by sailing ships, as just about every blank page has a cutting from a Cornish newspaper about sailing ships pasted over it.
PS. Some of Mr Bailey’s biographical details can be found here.
Why not print these out so you can read them at your leisure?
For the rest of this series of posts:
Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 1
Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 2
Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 3
Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 4
Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 5
Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 6
Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 7
