The mode of reciting ballads in this island is singularly harsh. I
fell in with a curious man to-day beyond the east village, and we
wandered out on the rocks towards the sea. A wintry shower came on
while we were together, and we crouched down in the bracken, under a
loose wall. When we had gone through the usual topics he asked me if
I was fond of songs, and began singing to show what he could do.
The music was much like what I have heard before on the islands--a
monotonous chant with pauses on the high and low notes to mark the
rhythm; but the harsh nasal tone in which he sang was almost
intolerable. His performance reminded me in general effect of a
chant I once heard from a party of Orientals I was travelling with
in a third-class carriage from Paris to Dieppe, but the islander ran
his voice over a much wider range.
His pronunciation was lost in the rasping of his throat, and, though
he shrieked into my ear to make sure that I understood him above the
howling of the wind, I could only make out that it was an endless
ballad telling the fortune of a young man who went to sea, and had
many adventures. The English nautical terms were employed
continually in describing his life on the ship, but the man seemed
to feel that they were not in their place, and stopped short when
one of them occurred to give me a poke with his finger and explain
gib, topsail, and bowsprit, which were for me the most intelligible
features of the poem.
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