Free Coast to Coast by Jan Morris Page B

whales’ teeth, into intricate patterns and objects. The museum has innumerable pretty specimens, from walking sticks with knobbly heads to dainty needle cases and birdcages. A favourite product was the ornamented busk used to support the front of a nineteenth-century corset. One of these is inscribed with the lines:
    Accept, dear girl, this busk from me;
    Carved by my humble hand.
    I took it from a Sparm Whale’s Jaw,
    One thousand miles from land!
    In many a gale
    Has been the Whale
    In which this bone did rest.
    His time is past
    His bone at last
    Must now support thy brest.
    I wanted to buy a model of a clipper ship, and asked my guides if they knew of any for sale on the island. They replied that, oddly enough, there lived on Nantucket a maker of ship models generally consideredto be the best in America, if not in the world; and they directed me to his home. His name is Charles Sayle, and he lives in a small house near the harbour. In the great days of Nantucket that low-lying area of the town was not much in demand among the wealthier sea-captains. Lately it has acquired favour, and there are a number of colourful small houses near the waterfront. Mr. Sayle’s is distinctive because in his garden there is an enormous iron anchor, rescued from a mudbank and carried there by a group of toiling friends. He is a former Gloucester fisherman, like the Yankee watchman, who sailed for many years in schooners and knows much about seamanship. He has a big black bushy beard, and wears sweaters and boots. His workshop is a jumble of half-finished ship models, plans, books, pictures and tools, and he sits on a high stool working with minute implements on infinitesimal pieces of material. When I visited him he was making a model of a fishing boat, four or five inches long, but several other uncompleted models were near at hand. One was a magnificent clipper ship, mastless yet, but already full of grace. He works on a ship when he feels inclined. Sometimes his mood directs him towards a little dory, sometimes to a majestic ocean vessel; and he builds them much as a shipyard builds a real ship. He works from shipbuilders’ plans and from published details of sailing ships (he found especially valuable some publications of the Maritime Museum at Greenwich), and he reckons that one of his models takes him as long to build as the original ship took at the shipyard. His prices are high, for much work goes into his exquisitely finished models, but he is booked up for months in advance, with orders from many parts of America and several places abroad. Mr. Sayle uses a wide variety of woods. The little model whales which he carves as household ornaments have all been made from supplies of ebony retrieved from the wreck of a ship off the island. The waters of Nantucket are treacherous, and there have been countless wrecks; those near the shore have mostly been emptied of their cargoes, but there are sure to be many farther out to sea that contain undiscovered treasures.
    There used to be a little railway on Nantucket (its rolling stock ended their days in the war, I believe, helping to serve the American Army at the port of Bordeaux). We followed the course of its track to the eastern extremity of the island, and stood on the shore to look out over the Atlantic. It is a proud boast of the Nantucketers that there is no land between Siasconset, on their eastern coast, and the distant shore of Spain. Indeed, my guides seemed quite moved by the fact, as we stood looking out to sea; partly, perhaps, because of the perpetual golden glitter of Spain, so magical to consider in unfriendly climates, and partlybecause no native of Nantucket seems able to look upon the sea without emotion. It plays so intimate a part in all their lives. The bank manager, if you chance to see him on the returning steamer, seems perfectly at home among the rigging as he discusses stock yields and bank-reserve requirements; and even the astronomer told me quite casually