William Dampier, a circa 1785 engraving by an unknown artist after a 1781 engraving by Charles Sherwin, which was in turn after a circa 1697 portrait by Thomas Murray.
USS Pawnee. View on deck, looking aft from the forecastle, circa 1863–64. An “Old Salt” is standing by the ship’s 100-pounder Parrott rifle, with the starboard battery of nine-inch Dahlgren shell guns visible beyond. From Civil War Times Illustrated magazine. US Naval Historical Center Photograph NH 61926.
Maipo, State Library of Queensland, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:StateLibQld_1_143171_Maipo_(ship).jpg.
James River, Va. Deck and turret of U.S.S. Monitor. Gibson, James F., photographer. United States. July 1862, printed between 1890 and 1910. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, loc.gov/item/2011647352 (accessed September 26, 2017).
The Brazilian Battleship Minas Geraes firing a broadside, 1909, during Minas Geraes’ sea trials. Brazilian Navy (public domain),
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABrazilian_battleship_Minas_Geraes_firing_a_broadside.jpg.
Endeavour Replica rigging detail, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Endeavour_IB.jpg.
Photo Credits
Sailor with pet cats sitting on hatch cover, Sydney, circa 1910: Image: Samuel Hood/Australian National Maritime Museum.
Decorative column at Jéronimos Monastery: Courtesy of Richard Sandall.
A seaman enticing the ship’s cat up one of the shrouds of Pommern. Circa 1931–32. © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.
The gun crew of HMAS Sydney’s port number 3 (P3) 6-inch gun: Australian War Memorial.
Crew with Simon: Courtesy of PDSA (People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals).
Ten “Old Salts”: US Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph NH 63033.
Tailors of USS New York: Edward H. Hart, photographer. Detroit Publishing Co., publisher. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, loc.gov/item/det1994014000/PP (accessed April 25, 2017).
Drawing of Nansen by cabin boy Johan Koren: from Frederick Cook, Through the First Antarctic Night, 1898–1899, 1900.
Six Bell Sleeper, mascot of USS Wyoming: Courtesy of Brian Buckberry.
North Sea. Some Crew Members of Battlecruiser HMAS Australia (I): Black and white, glass original half plate negative, Naval Historical Collection, Australian War Memorial.
The catering crew of SS Newcastle. Sydney, circa 1910–20: Image by Samuel Hood/Australian National Maritime Museum.
Stowaway Jim: Courtesy of Brian Buckberry.
USS Alabama: Ship’s Gunner and Gunner’s Mates, 1903: US Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph NH 57497.
USS Memphis Forecastle Log, June 3–6, 1916: US Naval History and Heritage Command.
USS Maine, Berth Deck Cooks, 1896: Edward H. Hart, photographer. Detroit Publishing Co., publisher. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, loc.gov/item/det1994010230/PP.
Tudor Collins photograph: National Museum of the Royal New Zealand Navy, Tudor Collins Collection.
Thomas Whiskers postcard: Courtesy of Brian Buckberry.
Atlantic Conference August 1941: Winston Churchill stops “Blackie,” ship’s cat of HMS Prince of Wales, crossing over to a US destroyer during the Atlantic Conference, August 1941. War Office Second World War Official Collection, Imperial War Museums. © IWM (H 12756).
Silkie Sandall: Courtesy of Philippa Sandall.
A cat sitting in the fairlead of the barque PAMIR (Sydney, Australia): Image by Samuel Hood/Australian National Maritime Museum.
A ship’s cat balances in a fairlead (opening in the ship’s side for cable) high up the topsides of the Pamir, one of the last commercial sailing ships on world routes.
Notes
Preface
“to sail southwards”: In Sonia E. Howe, In Quest of Spices (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1946), 90.
Embarking
“In seven houses there are seven cats”: In Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects (New York: Viking, 2011), 103.
“so that you may open treasuries”: Ibid., 107.
“the only speck of sentimental life”: Frederick Cook, Through the First Antarctic Night, 1898–1899: A Narrative of the Voyage of the “Belgica” Among Newly Discovered Lands and over an Unknown Sea About the South Pole (London: William Heinemann, 1900), 326.
“the most repulsive of all creatures”: Roald Amundsen, The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the “Fram,” 1910–1912, trans.
“Of all those [vermin] infesting ships”: Robert White Stevens,On the Stowage of Ships and Their Cargoes(Plymouth: Stevens, 1858), 157.
Mousers and More
“Tiger came aboard in Djibouti”: In Martyn Lewis,Cats in the News (London: Macdonald Illustrated, 1991), 95.
“Owls . . . are counted”: In Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “Mouser,” oed.com.
“He is the best Mouser that can be”: John Lawson,A New Voyage to Carolina: Containing the Exact Description and Natural History of that Country (London: n.p., 1709), 132.
“to spend 1d [1 penny] a day”: “Tale of Home Office Cat,” Metro, January 4, 2005, metro.co.uk/2005/01/04/tale-of-home-office-cat-259530.
Incident 1: Don’t Forget the Cat
“NOTE LVIII: If goods laden on board”: Roccus (Francesco Rocco), A Manual of Maritime Law: Consisting of a Treatise on Ships and Freight and a Treatise on Insurance, trans. Joseph Reed Ingersoll (Philadelphia: Hopkins and Earle, 1809), 56–57.
“Through charity alone, with much labour”: The Monthly Anthology and Boston Review, vol. 6 (Boston: Hastings, Etheridge and Bliss, 1809), 133.
“If the ship has had cats on board”: In John Weale, “If a Ship Is Lost to a Peril of the Sea, How Can You Say She Was Seaworthy?” (unpublished paper provided by the author).
“a doge and a cat with all other necessaryes”: In Dorothy Burwash, English Merchant Shipping 1460–1540 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1947), 40.
Incident 2: South Sea Adventures
“Heere we made also a survay”: Richard Hawkins, The Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins, Knt, in His Voyage into the South Sea in the Year 1593, ed. C. R. Drinkwater Bethune (London: Hakluyt Society, 1847), 134–35.
“to make a perfect discovery”: Ibid., 7.
“After going and taking the course”: Antonio Pigafetta, The First Voyage Around the World, by Magellan, trans. Lord Stanley of Alderley (London: Hakluyt Society, 1874), 57.
“The Sweet potatoes are set out”: James Cook, The Journals of Captain James Cook on His Voyages of Discovery, vol. 1, ed. J. C. Beaglehole (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society, 1968), 583–84.
“to attempt, with a ship, bark, and pinnace”: Mary W. S. Hawkins, Plymouth Armada Heroes: The Hawkins Family (Plymouth: William Brendon and Son, 1888), 117.
Incident 3: Survivor
“He [Alexander Selkirk] had with him”: Woodes Rogers, A Cruising Voyage Round the World (London: A. Bell, 1712), 126, 128.
“from a leaky Vessel”: Richard Steele, “Alexander Selkirk,” Englishman, at Alexander Selkirk (website), updated January 26, 2013, academic
.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_18c/defoe/selkirk
.html#steele.
“Fish, particularly Snappers and Rock-fish”: William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World, vol. 1 (London: James Knapton, 1699), 88.
“He might have had Fish enough”: Rogers, A Cruising Voyage Round the World, 126–27.
“This Indian lived here alone”: Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World, 84–85.
Incident 4: Sailing into History
“[1768—September] 28. Wind rather slackend”: Joseph Banks, The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks, August 1768–July 1771, Papers of Sir Joseph Banks, State Library of New South Wales, www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/banks/series_03/03_032.cfm.
“fine Library of Natural History”: In L. A. Gilbert, s.v. “Banks, Sir Joseph (1743–1820),” Australian Dicti
onary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/banks-sir-joseph-1737, published first in hard copy 1966.
“It was Banks who first recommended”: David Hunt, Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia, Volume 1 (Carlton, Victoria: Black Inc., 2013), 51.
Incident 5: Beating Scurvy’s Scourge
“[Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope] On the 11th”: John Rickman, A Journal of Captain Cook’s Last Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, on Discovery; Performed in the Years 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779 (London: E. Newbery, 1781), 18, 20–21.
“The Ship being a good [deal] pestered”: In “225 Years Ago: October–December 1777,” Captain Cook Society, captaincooksociety.com/home/detail/225-years-ago-october-december-1777, originally published in Cook’s Log 25, no. 4 (2002): 2011.
“their Superiors set a Value upon it”: In Egon H. Kodicek and Frank G. Young, “Captain Cook and Scurvy,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 24, no. 1 (June 1969), 47.
“We were all hearty seamen”: Ibid., 43.
Incident 6: Naming Rights
“Feb. 21 [1842]: The southerly gale continued”: James Clark Ross, A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions, During the Years 1839–43, vol. 2 (London: John Murray, 1847), 197–98.
“discovered a land of so extensive a coastline”: In “Erebus and Terror—The Antarctic Expedition 1839–1843, James Clark Ross,” Cool Antarctica, coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/History/antarctic_ships/erebus_terror_antarctica.php.
“as far to the east and west”: James Clark Ross, A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions, During the Years 1839–43, vol. 1 (London: John Murray, 1847), 232.
“Few people of the present day”: Amundsen, The South Pole, 12.
Incident 7: Collectomania
“July 25 [1879].—During the morning”: Morton MacMichael III, A Landlubber’s Log of His Voyage Around Cape Horn (Philadephia: J. B. Lippincott and Co., 1883), 19–20, 54, 73–75.
“If I only knew how many teeth”: In Julian Cribb, Surviving the 21st Century: Humanity’s Ten Great Challenges and How We Can Overcome Them (Canberra: Springer, 2016), 7.
“Wee saw land againe lying north west”: In Adrian Flanagan, The Cape Horners’ Club: Tales of Triumph and Disaster at the World’s Most Feared Cape (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), 97.
Incident 9: War on Rats
“We had a considerable collection”: Amundsen, The South Pole, 61.
“Chapter XVI: The Voyage of the ‘Fram’”: Ibid., 325–27.
Naturalist Desmond Morris: Desmond Morris, Catwatching: The Essential Guide to Cat Behaviour (London: Ebury Press, 2002), 55.
Ethologist Paul Leyhausen: Paul Leyhausen, Cat Behavior: The Predatory and Social Behavior of Domestic and Wild Cats, trans. Barbara A. Tonkin (New York: Taylor & Francis/Garland STPM Press, 1979).
Incident 10: Classic Catches
“1768 September 25. Wind continued”: Banks, The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks.
“To take to the air, a flying fish leaps”: Frank Fish, “On a Fin and a Prayer,” Scholars 3, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 1991–92): 5–6.
Incident 11: Firing Line to Fame
“Served on HMS Amethyst”: “PDSA Dickin Medal for Gallantry,” People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, pdsa.org.uk/what-we-do/animal-honours/the-dickin-medal.
“There were a large number of rats”: In Nick Cooper, “Simon of the Amethyst,” 625.org.uk/moggies/simon/simon.htm.
Mates
“If Maizie [the ship’s cat] hadn’t been with us”: “Maizie, the Seagoing Cat: Comforted 6 Seamen on Raft and Shared Their Rations,” Lookout 43, no. 9 (September 1943): 10.
“Whence the saw: ‘Messmate before a shipmate’”: William Henry Smyth, The Sailor’s Word-Book (London: Blackie and Son, 1867), 478.
Incident 12: Vital Victuals
“[Setting out from Cape Corrientes]”: William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1937, from Dampier, 1697), Project Gutenberg Australia eBook, gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0500461h.html.
“There was not any occasion to call men to victuals”: In Anton Gill, The Devil’s Mariner: A Life of William Dampier, Pirate and Explorer, 1651–1715 (London: Michael Joseph, 1997), 182.
“The 20th day of May”: Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World, Project Gutenberg Australia eBook.
“impelled to adopt the horrible expedient”: William Boys, An Account of the Loss of the Luxborough Galley, by Fire, on Her Voyage from Jamaica to London, quoted in Taylor Zajonc, “1727—Luxborough Galley,” Expedition Writer (blog), July 2, 2014, expeditionwriter.com/1727-luxborough-galley.
“All cultures go to considerable lengths”: Robin Fox, The Challenge of Anthropology: Old Encounters and New Excursions (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1995), 40.
“Wednesday, the twenty-eighth of November”: Pigafetta, The First Voyage Around the World, 64–65.
“The Diligent [La Diligence] was full of rats”: In Roy and Lesley Adkins, Jack Tar: The Extraordinary Lives of Ordinary Seamen in Nelson’s Navy (London: Abacus, 2009), 72.
“Our ship was full of rats”: James Anthony Gardner, Recollections of James Anthony Gardner, Commander R. N. (1775–1814), ed. R. Vesey Hamilton and John Knox Laughton (England: Navy Records Society, 1906), 244–45.
Incident 13: Away Up Aloft!
“The replacing a top-mast”: “Matthew Flinders’ Biographical Tribute to His Cat Trim,” The Flinders Papers, National Maritime Museum, flinders.rmg.co.uk/DisplayDocument0726.html?ID=92&CurrentPage=1&CurrentXMLPage=All.
“There is a tradition in Trinity”: In Lewis Campbell and William Garnet, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (London: Macmillan and Co., 1882), 499.
“the speed and agility with which a cat turns over”: Donald McDonald, “How Does a Cat Fall on Its Feet?” New Scientist, June 30, 1960: 1649.
Incident 14: Team Players
“he lectured to the men”: Clifford M. Drury, History of the Chaplain Corps, United States Navy, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Navy Personnel, 1948), 126.
Incident 15: All Aboard
“Monday, December 23, 1895”: Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World (New York: Doubleday and McClure Co., 1897), 331.
“In 1819 a favourite Tabby”: Charles H. Ross, The Book of Cats (London: Griffith and Farran, 1868), 126–27.
Incident 16: The Consolation of Pets
“June 26.—It is Sunday”: Frederick Cook, Through the First Antarctic Night, 1898–1899, 325–26.
“PORT TOWNSEND. Nov. 27.”: “Saved by a Cat from Drowning: Feline Pet Scratches the Face of a Sleeping Man on a Sinking Ship,” San Francisco Call 84, no. 181, November 28, 1898.
“The sailors, particularly those on board”: “Sailors’ Pets,” People’s Press (Winston-Salem, NC), July 14, 1892.
Incident 17: Vigilance
“Nine men of the crew”: “Cat Saves Lives of Nine,” Healdsburg Tribune (Healdsburg, CA), April 27, 1920.
Incident 18: Sleeping Quarters
“[Monday, October 17, 1910] The Admiral and his officers”: Edward Wilson, Diary of the Terra Nova Expedition to the Antarctic 1910–1912, ed. H. G. R. King (London: Blandford Press, 1972), 55.
“not feeling very well, owing to the number of moths”: Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: With Scott in Antarctica 1910–1913 (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2013), 32.
“a great many Indians in canoes”: Wikipedia, s.v. “Hammock,” last modified November 26, 2017, 15:08, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammock.
“Most people, I presume, know”: Basil Hall, Fragments of Voyages and Travels, Including Anecdotes of a Naval Life, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Robert Cadell, 1831), 248–49.
“The Indians sleep in a bed”: In “What Came to Be Called America,” 1492: An Ongoing Voyage, Library of Congress exhibition, 1992–93, loc.gov/exhibits/1492/america.html.
“woven out of bark from a hamack tree”: W
ikipedia, “Hammock.”
“The Magurie-Tree or Cabuya”: Hans Sloane, A Voyage to the Islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers and Jamaica, vol. 1 (London: B. M., 1707), 247.
Incident 19: Mateship
“a pigeon; a couple of canaries”: “Podcast 34: Animals in War,” Imperial War Museums, iwm.org.uk/history/podcasts/voices-of-the-first-world-war/podcast-34-animals-in-war.
Incident 20: Jobs for the Girls
“Her cabins are spacious”: In John Kennedy, The History of Steam Navigation (Liverpool: Charles Birchall, 1903), 14.
“Ladies will have a female steward”: Sari Mäenpää, “Comfort and Guidance for Female Passengers: The Origins of Women’s Employment on British Passenger Liners 1850–1914,” Journal for Maritime Research 6, no. 1 (2004): 148.
“When the ship is lying at any foreign port”: Ibid., 155.
“I am convinced that it is a very desirable thing”: Ibid., 152.
“[October 16, 1876] . . . Some of the girls”: Ibid., 153.
Incident 21: Able-Bodied Seafaring Cat Wanted
“there are few animals in whose faces”: Konrad Lorenz, Man Meets Dog (London: Penguin, 1964), 175–76.
Misadventures
“An extraordinary thing happened”: In Caroline Alexander, “Mrs. Chippy, R.I.P.,” The New York Times, November 21, 2004, nytimes.com.
Incident 22: Wreck Rights
“Concerning wreck of the sea”: Lawrence J. Lipka, “Abandoned Property at Sea: Who Owns the Salvage ‘Finds’?” William and Mary Law Review 12, no. 1 (1970): 99–100.
On just one day, December 5, 1388: In Tom Johnson, “Medieval Law and Materiality: Shipwrecks, Finders, and Property on the Suffolk Coast, ca. 1380–1410,” American Historical Review 120, no. 2 (April 1, 2015): 407–32.
“Trim was undisputed master of them all”: “Matthew Flinders’ Biographical Tribute to His Cat Trim.”
“A dog is the most obvious”: Basil Hall, Fragments of Voyages and Travels, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Robert Cadell, 1832), 112.
“I messed in the main hatchway berth on the lower deck”: Gardner, Recollections of James Anthony Gardner, 47.