BITE. Is said of the anchor when it holds fast in the ground on reaching it. Also, the hold which the short end of a lever has upon the thing to be lifted. Also, to bite off the top of small-arm cartridges.

BITTER. Any turn of a cable about the bitts is called a bitter. Hence a ship is "brought up to a bitter" when the cable is allowed to run out to that stop.

BITTER-BUMP. A north-country name for the bittern.

BITTER-END. That part of the cable which is abaft the bitts, and therefore within board when the ship rides at anchor. They say, "Bend to the bitter-end" when they would have that end bent to the anchor, and when a chain or rope is paid out to the bitter-end, no more remains to be let go. The bitter-end is the clinching end—sometimes that end is bent to the anchor, because it has never been used, and is more trustworthy. The first 40 fathoms of a cable of 115 fathoms is generally worn out when the inner end is comparatively new.

BITT-HEADS. The upright pieces of oak-timber let in and bolted to the beams of two decks at least, and to which the cross-pieces are let on and bolted. (See Bitts.)

BITT-PINS. Similar to belaying-pins, but larger. Used to prevent the cable from slipping off the cross-piece of the bitts, also to confine the cable and messenger there, in heaving in the cable.

BITTS. A frame composed of two strong pieces of straight oak timber, fixed upright in the fore-part of a ship, and bolted securely to the beams, whereon to fasten the cables as she rides at anchor; in ships[104] of war there are usually two pairs of cable-bitts, and when they are both used at once the cable is said to be double-bitted. Since the introduction of chain-cables, bitts are coated with iron, and vary in their shapes. There are several other smaller bitts; as, the topsail-sheet bitts, paul-bitts, carrick-bitts, windlass-bitts, winch-bitts, jear-bitts, riding-bitts, gallows-bitts, and fore-brace bitts.

BITT-STOPPER. One rove through the knee of the bitts, which nips the cable on the bight: it consists of four or five fathoms of rope tailed out nipper fashion at one end, and clench-knotted at the other. The old bitt-stopper, by its running loop on a standing end, bound the cable down in a bight abaft the bitts—the tail twisted round the fore part helped to draw it still closer. It is now disused—chain cables having superseded hemp.

BITT THE CABLE, To. To put it round the bitts, in order to fasten it, or slacken it out gradually, which last is called veering away.

BIVOUAC. The resting for the night in the open-air by an armed party, instead of encamping.

BIZE. A piercing cold wind from the frozen summits of the Pyrénées.

BLACKAMOOR. A thoroughly black negro.

BLACK-BIRD CATCHING. The slave-trade.

BLACK-BIRDS. A slang term on the coast of Africa for a cargo of slaves.

BLACK-BOOK of the Admiralty. An imaginary record of offences. Also, a document of great authority in naval law, as it contains the ancient admiralty statutes and ordinances.

BLACK-FISH. A common name applied by sailors to many different species of cetaceans. The animal so called in the south seas belongs to the genus Globiocephalus. It is from 15 to 20 feet long, and occurs in countless shoals.

BLACK-FISHER. A water-poacher: one who kills salmon in close-time.

BLACK-FISHING. The illegally taking of salmon, under night, by means of torches and spears with barbed prongs.

BLACK-HEAD. The pewitt-gull (Larus ridibundus).

BLACK-HOLE. A place of solitary confinement for soldiers, and tried in some large ships.

BLACK-INDIES. Newcastle, Sunderland, and Shields.

BLACKING. For the ship's bends and yards. A good mixture is made of coal-tar, vegetable-tar, and salt-water, boiled together, and laid on hot.

BLACKING DOWN. The tarring and blacking of rigging; or the operation of blacking the ship's sides with tar or mineral blacking.

BLACK-JACK. The ensign of a pirate. Also, a capacious tin can for[105] beer, which was formerly made of waxed leather. In 1630 Taylor wrote—

BLACK-LIST. A record of misdemeanours impolitically kept by some officers for their private use—the very essence of private tyranny, now forbidden.

BLACK-LOCK. A trout thought to be peculiar to Lough Melvin, on the west of Ireland.

BLACK SHIPS. The name by which the English builders designate those constructed of teak in India.

BLACK SOUTH-EASTER. The well-known violent wind at the Cape of Good Hope, in which the vapoury clouds called the Devil's Table-cloth appear on Table Mountain.

BLACK SQUALL. This squall, although generally ascribed to the West Indies, as well as the white squall, may be principally ascribed to a peculiar heated state of the atmosphere near land. As blackey, when interrogated about weather, generally observes, "Massa, look to leeward," it may be easily understood that it is the condensed air repelled by a colder medium to leeward, and driven back with condensed electricity and danger. So it is sudden to Johnny Newcomes, who lose sails, spars, and ships, by capsizing.

BLACK'S THE WHITE OF MY EYE. When Jack avers that no one can say this or that of him. It is an indignant expression of innocence of a charge.

BLACK-STRAKE. The range of plank immediately above the wales in a ship's side; they are always covered with a mixture of tar and lamp-black, which not only preserves them from the heat of the sun and the weather, but forms an agreeable variety with the painted or varnished parts above them. Vessels with no ports have frequently two such strakes—one above, the other below the wales, the latter being also called the diminishing strake.

BLACK-STRAP. The dark country wines of the Mediterranean. Also, bad port, such as was served for the sick in former times.

BLACK-TANG. The sea-weed Fucus vesicolosus, or tangle.

BLACKWALL-HITCH. A sort of tackle-hook guy, made by putting the bight of a rope over the back of the hook, and there jamming it by the standing part. A mode of hooking on the bare end of a rope where no length remains to make a cat's-paw.

BLACK WHALE. The name by which the right whale of the south seas (Balæna australis) is often known to whalemen.

BLAD. A term on our northern coasts for a squall with rain.

BLADDER-FISH. A term for the tetraodon. (See Balloon-fish.)[106]

BLADE OF AN ANCHOR. That part of the arm prepared to receive the palm.

BLADE OR WASH OF AN OAR. Is the flat part of it which is plunged into the water in rowing. The force and effect in a great measure depends on the length of this part, when adequate force is applied. When long oars are used, the boat is generally single-banked, so that the fulcrum is removed further from the rower. Also, the motive part of the screw-propeller.

BLAE, or Blea. The alburnum or sap-wood of timber.

BLAKE. Yellow. North of England.

BLANK. Level line mark for cannon, as point-blank, equal to 800 yards. It was also the term for the white mark in the centre of a butt, at which the arrow was aimed.

BLANKET. The coat of fat or blubber under the skin of a whale.

BLARE, To. To bellow or roar vehemently.—Blare, a mixture of hair and tar made into a kind of paste, used for tightening the seams of boats.

BLARNEY. Idle discourse; obsequious flattery.

BLASHY. Watery or dirty; applied to weather, as "a blashy day," a wet day. In parlance, trifling or flimsy.

BLAST. A sudden and violent gust of wind: it is generally of short duration, and succeeded by a fine breeze.—To blast, to blow up with gunpowder.

BLAST-ENGINE. A ventilating machine to draw off the foul air from the hold of a ship, and induce a current of fresh air into it.

BLATHER. Thin mud or puddle. Also, idle nonsense.

BLAY. A name of the bleak.

BLAZE, To. To fire away as briskly as possible. To blaze away is to keep up a running discharge of fire-arms. Also, to spear salmon. Also, in the woods, to mark a tree by cutting away a portion of its outer surface, thus leaving a patch of whiter internal surface exposed, to call attention or mark a track.

BLAZERS. Applied to mortar or bomb vessels, from the great emission of flame to throw a 13-inch shell.

BLAZING STARS. The popular name of comets.

BLEAK. The Leuciscus alburnus of naturalists, and the fresh-water sprat of Isaak Walton. The name of this fish is from the Anglo-Saxon blican, owing to its shining whiteness—its lustrous scales having long been used in the manufacture of false pearls.

BLEEDING THE MONKEY. The monkey is a tall pyramidal kid or bucket, which conveys the grog from the grog-tub to the mess—stealing from this in transitu is so termed.

BLEED THE BUOYS. To let the water out.[107]

BLENNY. A small acanthopterygious fish (Blennius).

BLETHER-HEAD. A blockhead.

BLETHERING. Talking idle nonsense; insolent prate.

BLIND. A name on the west coast of Scotland for the pogge, or miller's thumb (Cottus cataphractus).

BLIND. Everything that covers besiegers from the enemy. (See Orillon.)

BLINDAGE. A temporary wooden shelter faced with earth, both in siege works and in fortified places, against splinters of shells and the like.

BLIND-BUCKLERS. Those fitted for the hawse-holes, which have no aperture for the cable, and therefore used at sea to prevent the water coming in.

BLIND-HARBOUR. One, the entrance of which is so shut in as not readily to be perceived.

BLIND-ROCK. One lying just under the surface of the water, so as not to be visible in calms.

BLIND-SHELL. One which, from accident or bad fuze, has fallen without exploding, or one purposely filled with lead, as at the siege of Cadiz. Also used at night filled with fuze composition, and enlarged fuze-hole, to indicate the range.

BLIND-STAKES. A sort of river-weir.

BLINK OF THE ICE. A bright appearance or looming (the iceberg reflected in the atmosphere above it), often assuming an arched form; so called by the Greenlanders, and by which reflection they always know when they are approaching ice long before they see it. In Greenland blink means iceberg.

BLIRT. A gust of wind and rain.

BLOAT, To. To dry by smoke; a method latterly applied almost exclusively to cure herrings or bloaters.—Bloated is also applied to any half-dried fish.

BLOCCO. Paper and hair used in paying a vessel's bottom.

BLOCK. (In mechanics termed a pulley. ) Blocks are flattish oval pieces of wood, with sheaves in them, for all the running ropes to run in. They are used for various purposes in a ship, either to increase the mechanical power of the ropes, or to arrange the ends of them in certain places on the deck, that they may be readily found when wanted; they are consequently of various sizes and powers, and obtain various names, according to their form or situation, thus:—A single block contains only one sheave or wheel. A double block has two sheaves.

A treble or threefold block, three, and so on. A long-tackle or fiddle-block has two sheaves—one below the other, like a fiddle. Cistern or sister block for top-sail lifts and reef tackles. Every[108] block is composed of three, and generally four, parts:—(1. ) The shell, or outside wooden part.

(2. ) The sheave, or wheel, on which the rope runs. (3. ) The pin, or axle, on which the sheave turns. (4.

) The strop, or part by which the block is made fast to any particular station, and is usually made either of rope or of iron. Blocks are named and distinguished by the ropes which they carry, and the uses they serve for, as bowlines, braces, clue-lines, halliards, &c. &c. They are either made or morticed (which see).

BLOCK. The large piece of elm out of which the figure is carved at the head of the ship.