HOROLOGIUM UNIVERSALE. An old brass nautical instrument, one of which was supplied to Martin Frobisher, at an expense of £2, 6s. 8d., when fitting out on his first voyage for the discovery of a north-west passage.

HORS DE COMBAT. A term adopted from the French, signifying so far disabled as to be incapable of taking farther share in the action.

HORSE. A foot-rope reaching from the opposite quarter of a yard to its arms or shoulders, and depending about two or three feet under the yard, for the sailors to tread on while they are loosing, reefing, or furling the sails, rigging out the studding-sail booms, &c. In order to keep the[391] horse more parallel to the yard, it is usually attached thereto at proper distances, by certain ropes called stirrups, which have an eye spliced into their lower ends, through which the horse passes. (See Stirrups and Foot-ropes. ) Also, a rope formerly fast to the fore-mast fore-shrouds, with a dead-eye to receive the spritsail-sheet-pendant, and keep the spritsail-sheets clear of the flukes of the anchor.

Also, the breast-rope which is made fast to the shrouds to protect the leadsman. Also, applied to any pendant and thimble through which running-rigging was led, now commonly called a lizard. Also, a thick rope, extending in a perpendicular direction near the fore or after side of a mast, for the purpose of hoisting some yard, or extending a sail thereon; when before the mast, it is used for the square-sail, whose yard is attached to the horse by means of a traveller or bull's-eye, which slides up and down. When it is abaft the mast, it is intended for the trysail of a snow; but is seldom used in this position, except in those sloops of war which occasionally assume the appearance of snows to deceive the enemy. Also, the name of the sawyer's frame or trestle.

Also, the round iron bar formerly fixed to the main-rail at the head with stanchions; a fir rail is now used, and the head berthed up. Also, in cutters or schooners, one horse is a stout iron bar, with a large thimble, which spans the vessel from side to side close to the deck before the fore-mast. To this the forestaysail-sheet is hauled, and traverses. The other horse is a similar bar abaft, on which the main-boom sheet traverses. Also, cross-pieces on the tops of standards, on which the booms or spare-spars or boats are lashed between the fore and main masts.

Horses are also termed jack-stays, on which sails are hauled out, as gaff-sails. Horse is a term of derision where an officer assumes the grandioso, demanding honour where honour is not his due. Also, a strict disciplinarian, in nautical parlance. Also, tough salt beef—salt horse. —Flemish horse is the horse which has an iron thimble in one end, which goes over the iron point of the yard-arm before the studding-sail boom-iron is put on; in the other, a lashing eye, which is secured near the head earing of the top-sail.

It is intended for the men at the earing in reefing, or when setting the top-gallant-studding-sails.

HORSE-ARTILLERY. A branch of field artillery specially equipped to manœuvre with cavalry, having lighter guns, and all its gunners mounted on horseback. Its service demands a rare combination of soldierly qualities.

HORSE-BUCKETS. Covered buckets for carrying spirits or water in.

HORSE-BUCKLE. The great whelk.

HOUSE-COCKLE. See Gawky.

HORSE-FOOT. A name of the Limulus polyphemus of the shores of America, where from its shape it is called the horse-shoe or lantern crab.

HORSE-LATITUDES. A space between the westerly winds of higher latitudes and the trade-winds, notorious for tedious calms. The name arose from our old navigators often throwing the horses overboard which they were transporting to America and the West Indies.[392]

HORSE-MACKEREL. A large and coarse member of the Scomber family, remarkably greedy, and therefore easily taken, but unwholesome.

HORSE-MARINE. An awkward lubberly person. One out of place.

HORSE-MUSSEL. See Duck-mussel.

HORSE-POTATOES. The old word for yams.

HORSE-POWER. A comparative estimate of the capacity of steam-engines, by assuming a certain average effective pressure of steam, and a certain average linear velocity of the piston. The pressure multiplied by the velocity gives the effective force of the engine exerted through a given number of feet per minute; and since the force called a horse-power means 33,000 lbs. acting thus one foot per minute, it follows that the nominal power of the engine will be found by dividing the effective force exerted by the piston, multiplied by the number of feet per minute through which it acts by 33,000.

HORSES. Blocks in whalers for cutting blubber on. (See White-horse.)

HORSE-SHOE. In old fortification, a low work of this plan sometimes thrown up in ditches.

HORSE-SHOE CLAMP. The iron or copper straps so shaped, used as the fastenings which connect the gripe with the fore-foot at the scarph of the keel and stem.

HORSE-SHOE HINGES. Those by which side-scuttles or ventilators to the cabins are hung.

HORSE-SHOE RACK. A sweep curving from the bitt-heads abaft the main-mast carrying a set of nine-pin swivel-blocks as the fair leaders of the light running gear, staysail, halliards, &c.

HORSE-TONGUE. A name applied to a kind of sole.

HORSE-UP. See Horsing-iron.

HORSING-IRON. An iron fixed in a withy handle, sometimes only lashed to a stick or tree-nail, and used with a beetle by caulkers.—To horse-up, or harden in the oakum of a vessel's seams.

HOSE (for watering, &c.) An elastic pipe.

HOSE-FISH. A name for a kind of cuttle-fish.

HOSPITAL. A place appointed for the reception of sick and wounded men, with a regular medical establishment. (See Naval Hospitals.)

HOSPITAL-SHIP. A vessel fitted to receive the sick, either remaining in port, or accompanying a fleet, as circumstance demands. She carries the chief surgeons, &c. The Dreadnought, off Greenwich, is a free hospital-ship for seamen of all nations.

HOSTAGE. A person given up to an enemy as a pledge or security for the performance of the articles of a treaty.

HOSTILE CHARACTER is legally constituted by having landed in an enemy's territory, and by residing there, temporary absence being immaterial; by permanent trade with an enemy; and by sailing under an enemy's flag.

HOST-MEN. An ancient guild or fraternity at Newcastle, to whom we are indebted for the valuable sea-coal trade. (See Hoastmen.)[393]

HOT COPPERS. Dry fauces; morning thirst, but generally applied to those who were drinking hard over-night.

HOT-PRESS. When the press-gangs were instructed, on imminent emergency, to impress seamen, regardless of the protections.

HOT-SHOT. Balls made red-hot in a furnace. Amongst the savages in Bergou, the women are in the rear of the combatants, and they heat the heads of the spears, exchanging them for such as are cooled in the fight.

HOT-WELL. In a steamer, a reservoir from whence to feed the boiler with the warm water received out of the condenser; it also forms part of the discharge passage from the air-pump into the sea.

HOUND-FISH. The old Anglo-Saxon term for dog-fish—húnd-fisc.

HOUNDS. Those projections at the mast-head serving as supports for the trestle-trees of large and rigging of smaller masts to rest upon. With lower masts they are termed cheeks.

HOUNSID. A rope bound round with service.

HOUR-ANGLE. The angular distance of a heavenly body east or west of the meridian.

HOUR-GLASS. The sand-glass: a measure of the hour.

HOUSE, To. To enter within board. To house a topgallant-mast, is to lower it so as to prevent the rigging resting or chafing on the cap, and securing its heel to the mast below it. This admits of double-reefed top-sails being set beneath.

HOUSE-BOAT. One with a cabin; a coche d'eau.

HOUSED. The situation of the great guns upon the lower gun-decks when they are run in clear of the port, and secured. The breech being let down, the muzzle rests against the side above the port; they are then secured by their tackles, muzzle-lashings, and breechings. Over the muzzle of every gun are two strong eye-bolts for the muzzle-lashings, which are 31⁄2-inch rope. When this operation is well performed, no accident is feared, as every act is one of mechanical skill.

A gun is sometimes housed fore and aft to make room, as in the cabin, &c. Ships in ordinary, not in commission, are housed over by a substantial roofing.

HOUSEHOLD TROOPS. A designation of the horse and foot guards, who enjoy many immunities and privileges for attending the sovereign.

HOUSEWIFE. See Huz-zif.

HOUSING, or House-line. A small line formed of three fine strands, smaller than rope yarn; principally used for seizings of the block-strops, fastening the clues of sails to their bolt-ropes, and other purposes. (See Marline, Twine.)

HOUSING-IN. After a ship in building is past the breadth of her bearing, and that she is brought in too narrow to her upper works, she is said to be housed in, or pinched. (See Tumbling Home.)

HOUSING OF A LOWER MAST. That part of a mast which is below deck to the step in the kelson; of a bowsprit, the portion within the knight-heads.

HOUSING-RINGS. Ring-bolts over the lower deck-ports, through the[394] beam-clamps, to which the muzzle-lashings of the guns are passed when housed.

HOUVARI. A strong land wind of the West Indies, accompanied with rain, thunder, and lightning.

HOUZING. A northern term for lading water.

HOVE DOWN, properly hove out or careened. The situation of a ship when heeled or placed thus for repairs.—Hove off, when removed from the ground.—Hove up, when brought into the slips or docks by cradles on the gridiron, &c.

HOVE-IN-SIGHT. The anchor in view. Also, a sail just discovered.

HOVE-IN-STAYS. The position of a ship in the act of going about.

HOVE KEEL OUT. Hove so completely over the beam-ends that the keel is above the water.

HOVELLERS. A Cinque-Port term for pilots and their boatmen; but colloquially, it is also applied to sturdy vagrants who infest the sea-coast in bad weather, in expectation of wreck and plunder.

HOVERING, and Hovering Acts. Said of smugglers of old.

HOVE-SHORT. The ship with her cable hove taut towards her anchor, when the sails are usually loosed and braced for canting; sheeted home.—Hove well short, the position of the ship when she is drawn by the capstan nearly over her anchor.

HOVE-TO. From the act of heaving-to; the motion of the ship stopped. It is curious to observe that seamen have retained an old word which has otherwise been long disused. It occurs in Grafton's Chronicle, where the mayor and aldermen of London, in 1256, understanding that Henry III. was coming to Westminster from Windsor, went to Knightsbridge, "and hoved there to salute the king."

HOW. An ancient term for the carina or hold of a ship.

HOWE, Hoe, or Hoo. A knoll, mound, or elevated hillock.

HOW FARE YE? Are you all hearty? are you working together? a good old sea phrase not yet lost.

HOWITZER. A piece of ordnance specially designed for the horizontal firing of shells, being shorter and much lighter than any gun of the same calibre. The rifled gun, however, throwing a shell of the same capacity from a smaller bore, and with much greater power, is superseding it for general purposes.

HOWKER. See Hooker.

HOWLE. An old English word for the hold of a ship. When the foot-hooks or futtocks of a ship are scarphed into the ground-timbers and bolted, and the plank laid up to the orlop-deck, then they say, "the ship begins to howle."

HOY. A call to a man. Also, a small vessel, usually rigged as a sloop, and employed in carrying passengers and goods, particularly in short distances on the sea-coast; it acquired its name from stopping when called to from the shore, to take up goods or passengers. In Holland the hoy has two masts, in England but one, where the main-sail is sometimes extended[395] by a boom, and sometimes without it. In the naval service there are gun-hoy, powder-hoy, provision-hoy, anchor-hoy, all rigged sloop-fashion.