Note 544 — Chapter XII
Reading edition
“Kenning” is a very ancient word in sea language. It means view, or course, “course by course,” and was employed when navigation was performed by views and by observation from one land to another, prior to the use of the compass. Admiral W. H. Smyth, in his “Sailor’s Word Book,” states that “it was a mode of increasing wages formerly, according to whaling law, by seeing how a man performed his duty.”