SAMBUCCO. A pinnace common among the Arabs on the east coast of Africa, as at Mombaze, Melinda, &c. The name is remarkable, as Athenæus describes the musical instrument sambuca as resembling a ship with a ladder placed over it.

SAMPAAN, or Sampan. A neatly-adjusted kind of hatch-boat, used by the Chinese for passengers, and also as a dwelling for Tartar families, with a comfortable cabin.

SAMPHIRE. Crithmum maritimum, a plant found on sea-shores and salt marshes, which forms an excellent anti-scorbutic pickle.

SAMS-CHOO. A Chinese spirit distilled from rice; it is fiery, fetid, and very injurious to European health.

SAMSON'S POST. A movable pillar which rests on its upper shoulder against a beam, with the lower tenons into the deck, and standing at an angle of 15° forward. To this post, at 4 feet above the deck, a leading or snatch-block is hooked, and any fore-and-aft purchase is led by it across the deck to one similar, so that, from the starboard bow to the starboard aft Samson-post, across to the port-post and forward, the whole crew can apply their force for catting and fishing the anchor, or hoisting in or out boats; top-tackle falls, &c., are usually so treated.

SANDAL. A long narrow Barbary boat, of from 15 to 50 tons; open, and fitted with two masts.

SAND-BAGS. Small square cushions made of canvas and painted, for boats' ballast. Also, bags containing about a cubical foot of earth or sand, used for raising a parapet in haste, and making temporary loop-holes for musketry; also, to repair any part beaten down or damaged by the enemy's fire.

SAND AND CORAL BANK. An accumulation of sand and fragments of coral above the surface of the sea, without any vegetation; when it becomes verdant it is called a key (which see).

SAND-DRIFTS. Hillocks of shifting sands, as on the deserts of Sahara, &c.

SANDERLING. A small wading bird, Calidris arenaria.

SAND-HILLS. Mounds of sand thrown up on the sea-shore by winds and eddies. They are mostly destitute of verdure.

SAND-HOPPER. A small creature (Talitra), resembling a shrimp, which abounds on some beaches.

SAND-LAUNCE. Ammodytes tobianus, a small eel-like fish, which buries itself in the sand.

SAND-PIPER. A name applied to many species of small wading birds found on the sea-shore and banks of lakes and rivers, feeding on insects, crustaceans, and worms.

SAND-SHOT. Those cast in moulds of sand, when economy is of more importance than form or hardness; the small balls used in case, grape, &c., are thus produced.[593]

SAND-STRAKE. A name sometimes given to the garboard-strake.

SAND-WARPT. Left by the tide on a shoal. Also, striking on a shoal at half-flood.

SANGAREE. A well known beverage in both the Indies, composed of port or madeira, water, lime-juice, sugar, and nutmeg, with an occasional corrective of spirits. The name is derived from its being blood-red. Also, arrack-punch.

SANGIAC. A Turkish governor; the name is also applied to the banner which he is authorized to display, and has been mistaken for St. Jacques.

SAP. That peculiar method by which a besieger's zig-zag approaches are continuously advanced in spite of the musketry of the defenders; gabions are successively placed in position, filled, and covered with earth, by men working from behind the last completed portion of the trench, the head of which is protected by a moving defence called a sap-roller. Its progress is necessarily slow and arduous. There is also the flying sap, used at greater distances, and by night, when a line of gabions is planted and filled by a line of men working simultaneously; and the double sap, used when zig-zags are no longer efficient, consisting of two contiguous single saps, back to back, carried direct towards the place, with frequent returns, which form traverses against enfilade; the half-double sap has its reverse side less complete than the last.

SARABAND. A forecastle dance, borrowed from the Moors of Africa.

SARACEN. A term applied in the middle ages indiscriminately to all Pagans and Mahometans.

SARDINE. Engraulis meletta, a fish closely allied to the anchovy; found in the Mediterranean and Atlantic.

SARGASSO. Fucus natans, or gulf-weed, the sea-weed always to be found floating in large quantities in that part of the Atlantic south of the Azores, which is not subject to currents, and which is called the Sargasso Sea.

SARKELLUS. An unlawful net or engine for destroying fish. (Inquisit. Justic. anno 1254.)

SAROS. See Cycle of Eclipses.

SARRAZINE. A rough portcullis.

SARRE. An early name for a long gun, but of smaller dimensions than a bombard.

SASH. A useful mark of distinction worn by infantry and marine officers; it is made of crimson silk, and intended as a waist-band, but latterly thrown over the left shoulder and across the body. Also, now worn by the naval equerries to the queen. Serjeants of infantry wear it of the same colour in cotton.

SASSE. A kind of weir with flood-gate, or a navigable sluice.

SATELLITES. Secondary planets or moons, which revolve about some of the primary planets. The moon is a satellite to the earth.

SATURN. One of the ancient superior planets remarkable for the luminous rings with which his globe is surrounded, and for his being accompanied by no fewer than eight moons.[594]

SAUCER, or Spindle of the Capstan. A socket of iron let into a wooden stock or standard, called the step, resting upon, and bolted to, the beams. Its use is to receive the spindle or foot on which the capstan rests and turns round.

SAUCER-HEADED BOLTS. Those with very flat heads.

SAUCISSON, or Saucisse. A word formerly used for the powder-hose, a linen tube containing the train of powder to a mine or fire-ship, the slow match being attached to the extremity to afford time for the parties to reach positions of safety.

SAUCISSONS. Faggots, differing from fascines only in that they are longer, and made of stouter branches of trees or underwood.

SAUVE-TETE. See Splinter-netting.

SAVANNAH [Sp. Sabana]. A name given to the wonderfully fertile natural meadows of tropical America; the vast plains clear of wood, and covered in general with waving herbage, in the interior of North America, are called prairies (which see).

SAVE-ALL, or Water-sail. A small sail sometimes set under the foot of a lower studding-sail.

SAW-BILL. A name for the goosander, Mergus merganser.

SAW-BONES. A sobriquet for the surgeon and his assistants.

SAW-FISH. A species of shark (Pristis antiquorum) with the bones of the face produced into a long flat rostrum, with a row of pointed teeth placed along each edge.

SAY-NAY. A Lancashire name for a lamprey.

SAYTH. A coal-fish in its third year.

SCAFFLING. A northern term for an eel.

SCALA. Ports and landing-places in the Levant, so named from the old custom of placing a ladder to a boat to land from. Gang-boards are now used for that purpose.

SCALDINGS! Notice to get out of the way; it is used when a man with a load wishes to pass, and would lead those in his way to think that he was carrying hot water.

SCALE. An old word for commercial emporium, derived from scala. Also, the graduated divisions by which the proportions of a chart or plan are regulated. Also, the common measures of the sheer-draught, &c. (See Gunter's Line.)

SCALENE TRIANGLE. That which has all three sides unequal.

SCALING. The act of cleaning the inside of a ship's cannon by the explosion of a reduced quantity of powder. Also, attacking a place by getting over its defences.

SCALING-LADDERS. Those made in lengths which may be carried easily, and quickly fitted together to any length required.

SCAMPAVIA. A fast rowing war boat of Naples and Sicily; in 1814-15 they ranged to 150 feet, pulled by forty sweeps or oars, each man having his bunk under his sweep. They were rigged with one huge lateen at one-third from the stem; no forward bulwark or stem above deck; a long[595] brass 6-pounder gun worked before the mast, only two feet above water; the jib, set on a gaff-like boom, veered abeam when firing the gun. Abaft a lateen mizen with top-sail, &c.

SCANT. A term applied to the wind when it heads a ship off, so that she will barely lay her course when the yards are very sharp up.

SCANTLING. The dimensions of a timber when reduced to its standard size.

SCAR. In hydrography applies to a cliff; whence are derived the names Scarborough, Scarnose, &c. Also, to rocks bare only at low water, as on the coasts of Lancashire. Also, beds of gravel or stone in estuaries.

SCARBRO' WARNING. Letting anything go by the run, without due notice. Heywood in his account of Stafford's surprise of Scarborough castle, in 1557, says:—

SCARFED. An old word for "decorated with flags."

SCARP. A precipitous steep; as either the escarp or counterscarp of a fort: but a bank or the face of a hill may also be scarped.

SCARPH, or Scarfing. Is the junction of wood or metal by sloping off the edges, and maintaining the same thickness throughout the joint. The stem and stern posts are scarfed to the keel.

SCARPHS OF THE KEEL. The joints, when a keel is made of several pieces. (See Scarph.)

SCARRAG. Manx or Erse for a skate or ray-fish.

SCAT. A west of England term for a passing shower.

SCAUR. See Scar.

SCAW. A promontory or isthmus.

SCAWBERK. An archaism for scabbard.

SCEITHMAN. An old statute term signifying pirate.

'SCENDING [from ascend]. The contrary motion to pitching. (See Send.)

SCENOGRAPHY. Representation of ships or forts in some kind of perspective.

SCHEDAR. The lucida of the ancient constellation Cassiopeia, and one of the nautical stars.

SCHEMER. One who has charge of the hold of a North Sea ship.

SCHNAPS. An ardent spirit, like Schiedam hollands, impregnated with narcotic ingredients; a destructive drink in common use along the shores of the northern seas.

SCHOCK. A commercial measure of 60 cask staves. (See Ring.)

SCHOOL. A term applied to a shoal of any of the cetacean animals.

SCHOONER. Strictly, a small craft with two masts and no tops, but the name is also applied to fore-and-aft vessels of various classes. There are two-topsail schooners both fore and aft, main-topsail schooners, with two square top-sails; fore-topsail schooners with one square top-sail. Ballahou[596] schooners, whose fore-mast rakes forward; and we also have three-masted vessels called schooners.

SCHOUT. A water-bailiff in many northern European ports, who superintends the police for seamen.

SCHRIVAN. An old term for a ship's clerk.

SCHULL. See School.

SCHUYT. A Dutch vessel, galliot rigged, used in the river trade of Holland.

SCIMETAR. An eastern sabre, with a broad, very re-curved blade.

SCOBS. The scoria made at the armourer's forge.

SCONCE. A petty fort. Also, the head; whence Shakspeare's pun in making Dromio talk of having his sconce ensconced. Also, the Anglo-Saxon for a dangerous candle-holder, made to let into the sides or posts in a ship's hold. Also, sconce of the magazine, a close safe lantern.

SCOODYN. An old word to express the burring which forms on vessels' bottoms, when foul.

SCOOP. A long spoon-shaped piece of wood to throw water, when washing a ship's sides in the morning. Scooping is the same as baling a boat.

SCOPE. The riding scope of a vessel's cable should be at least three times the depth of water under her, but it must vary with the amount of wind and nature of the bottom.

SCORE. Twenty; commercially, in the case of certain articles, six score went to the hundred—a usage thus regulated:

Also an angular piece cut out of a solid. Also, an account or reckoning.

SCORE OF A BLOCK, or of a Dead Eye. The groove round which the rope passes.

SCORPIO. The eighth sign of the zodiac, which the sun enters about the 22d of October. α Scorpii, Antares; a nautical star.

SCOT, or Shot. Anglo-Saxon sceat. A share of anything; a contribution in fair proportion.