Sailor and beachcomber Confessions of a life at sea, in Australia, and amid the islands of the Pacific

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Author: Safroni-Middleton Arnold

Title: Sailor and beachcomber Confessions of a life at sea, in Australia, and amid the islands of the Pacific

Release Date: 2019-01-06

Type book: Text

Date added: 27 March 2019

Count views: 19

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Transcriber’s Notes:
- MIDI and MP3 files have been provided for both music examples. Click on the links to the right of “Listen” to hear the music. Whether this works depends on your browser. If you don't hear the music, you will probably find the music file in your downloads folder. ePub and Kindle readers don't currently support embedded music.
- Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
- Typographical errors were silently corrected.
- Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book.

IMUSICAL COMPOSITIONS

By A. SAFRONI-MIDDLETON

March—

“Our Fleet” War March of the Allied Sailors and Soldiers. Dedicated byspecial permission of Lady Jellicoe to Admiral Sir John Jellicoe and the BritishFleet, 1915. Pianoforte and Military Band.

Entr’acte—

“The Monk’s Dream” (Full Military)

Romanza—

“Song of the Night” (Full Military)

Waltz—

“Firenze” (Military)

Regimental Marches—

	“By Order of the King”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“Imperial Echoes”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“The Colours”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“Salute the Standard”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“Under the Old Flag”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“Our Fleet”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“Sierra Leone”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“The Relief”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“The Night Riders”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“Rough Diamonds”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“The Stronghold”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“Half Seas Over”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“House of Hanover”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“Light of the Regiment”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“The Dashing British”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“The Scottish Chief”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“The Dandy Fifth”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“Cashmere”
	“The Long Bright Line”
	“Paramatta”
	“Carrara”
	“Old Castille”
	“Bohemia”
	“Il Cavaliere”
	“The Military Call”	Also Pianoforte Solo
	“The Boundary Riders”	Also Pianoforte Solo

Etc.

Songs—

“Samoan Love Song and Waltz”
“A Soldier’s Dream”
“By the Delawar”
“South Sea Melodies”
“Alabama Way”
Etc., etc.

Published by BOOSEY & Co., London, Aldershot and New York

Played by Military Regimental Bands throughout the World

Lieutenant J. Ord Hume, L. F., the distinguished Composer,Bandmaster and Contest Adjudicator of the British Empire, says: “Iconsider Safroni-Middleton’s rousing Military Marches the finest ofrecent years, and unique productions, coming as they do from the penof a sailor.”

SAILOR AND BEACHCOMBER

Tree Climbing

VISAILOR AND BEACHCOMBER

CONFESSIONS OF A LIFE AT SEA, IN AUSTRALIA

AND AMID THE ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC

A. SAFRONI-MIDDLETON

❦

WITH TWENTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON

GRANT RICHARDS LTD.

ST MARTIN’S STREET

LEICESTER SQUARE

MDCCCCXV

VIIPRINTED BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED

EDINBURGH

VIIII DEDICATE THIS BOOK

TO THE MEMORY OF

MY BROTHER

MORTIMER HUGH MIDDLETON

AGED SIXTEEN YEARS

Lost overboard in mid-ocean while serving

before the mast of a sailing

ship outbound for

Australia

ALSO TO THE MEMORY OF

CAPTAIN POPPY

Of the sailing ship Aristides, lost

with all hands

AND TO THE MEMORY OF

MY COMRADES

Of the Australian Bush and

the South Sea Islands

Old comrades, by my fire in dreams
Your hands I clasp to-night;
Heaven starlit o’er the forest gleams
As ’neath the blood-wood’s height
You lie with folded hands asleep
By shores of tumbling waves,
As I creep up each silent steep
To kiss forgotten graves.

IXThe soul of all the songs I sing,
Whatever sounds most true,
I dedicate each wild true ring,
Inspired, old chums, by you.
The world grieves not that you are dead—
Brave, reckless men who died,
Crept from their camp-fires back to bed
Along the wild hill-side.

But, comrades, ’neath the hills or waves,
Could one sad song of mine
Reveal dead souls of far-off graves,
’Twould be a song divine.
As pure and sweet as flowers that grow
Where once with wild delight
You sang, where bush-flowers, bursting, blow
Thro’ dead fire-ash to-night.

And so in dreams I take your hands,
In long-dead eyes I gaze,
And half in tears from other lands
Bring back the dear old days.
In other lands ’neath greyer skies
Wild rides again recall,
Your songs, your laughing, manly eyes—
The boy who loved you all.

Lies in my sea-chest ’neath my bed
The fiddle, stringless, still;
Old chums, since all of you are dead,
’Neath forest steep and hill,
I cannot play the songs you loved;
But with tired eyes and pen
I strive to tell the truth, who roved,
And found you—God’s best men.

PREFACE

In the following chapters, wherein I have endeavouredto write down my experiences at sea, inAustralia and on the South Sea Islands, I have notgone beyond the first four or five years of my lifeabroad, but later on I hope to do so, if I get thechance. I have made no attempt to moralise in mybook, and if I appear to have been guilty of doingso, be assured it was a spasm of the intellect andquite forgotten all about a few minutes after I hadwritten it down.

All I have attempted in this book is to endeavourto tell exactly my