--Can some reader tell me if the verse or chorus of a
pirate's song, which Robert Louis Stevenson recites several times
in whole or in part in "Treasure Island," was original or quoted;
and, if there are other verses, where they may be found? The lines
as Stevenson gives them are:
Fifteen men on the dead man's chest,
Yo-ho-ha and a bottle of rum;
Drink and the devil had done for the rest,
Yo-ho-ha and a bottle of rum.
* * * * *
_September 20, 1914._
ANSWERS FROM READERS
W. L.--The verse about which Edward Alden inquired in your issue of
July 26. and which is quoted in Stevenson's "Treasure Island," is
the opening stanza of an old song or chantey of West Indian piracy,
which is believed to have originated from the wreck of an English
buccaneer on a cay in the Caribbean Sea known as "The Dead Man's
Chest." The cay was so named from its fancied resemblance to the
old sailors' sea chest which held his scanty belongings. The song
or chantey was familiar to deep-sea sailors many years ago. The
song is copied from a very old scrapbook, in which the author's
name was not given.
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