Despite the mutual contempt and hostility, the tensions on the Lady Campbell remained within the bounds of what might have been described, in the English of the day,…
Cadet Robert Ramsay's diary§ entry for January 4, 1825, describes further trouble on the Lady Campbell: “A lascar having struck the Serang was placed on the Poop; another…
What was the texture of daily life aboard a ship with a large complement of lascars? The library of Western nautical fiction, vast as it is, has little…
If a ship was a living thing for lascars, was it always conceived of in the feminine, as was the case with European sailors? It is impossible to…
The Laskari dialect was profoundly eclectic in its influences, as befits a language that was used by such a richly varied assortment of people. Consider the names…
By the time Lieutenant Thomas Roebuck compiled his lexicon of the Laskari language (An English And Hindostanee Naval Dictionary, first published in Calcutta in 1811) the dialect…
Sampan, Sundarbans, 2005 Sailing vessels are perhaps the most beautiful, most environmentally benign machines the world has ever known. …
The lives of lascars are of more interest today than ever before - "A crew of bemused Lascar sailors in London" (http://www.bookdrum.com) for the…
Liverpool Harbour (Peabody Essex Museum) In Redburn, his autobiographical novel about his first voyage, Herman Melville tells the story of how he met the lascars of…
So what then did the word ‘lascar’ mean in 19th century English? When placed beside a crew list like that of the William Stewart, the Oxford English Dictionary’s…
Amitav Ghosh
Chrestomather