Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/394

 —I will not say only—in ships of a type not likely to be replaced when they go to the bottom, or are sold for ice or coal hulks."

The affection entertained by the old salt for the figure-head of his ship, and which the modern scroll-work, like the Neptune's scarcely inspire, is well illustrated in the following letter, which friend Mr. Stacy Marks, R.A., has kindly allowed me to make public. Mr. Marks was at Lewes in 1879, the year in which he painted his picture of "Old Friends"—now in the National Gallery of Sydney, the subject being two old Greenwich pensioners in their quaint costume (now, alas! like the figure-heads, a thing of the past)—standing in a ship-breaker's yard, gazing at the effigy which had formerly adorned the stem of their old ship. While at Lewes, Mr. Marks met an old man-of-war's man, and, in the course of conversation, happened to describe his picture, and mentioned that one of the heads introduced was a Highlander. The old man thought the Highlander was from his own ship, the Edinburgh, and Mr. Marks, on his return home, sent him a copy of a photograph of the painting. The letter was in acknowledgment of the gift:—

Lewes Castle, Oct. 11/79.

—I am much obliged for sending me the figure-head of my old ship, the Edinburgh Sir i am confident its her head the more i look at it the more i reconise it. She was built in 1812 and i believe she fell into the hands of the ship breaker to break