Cutty-sark (witch) about scantily-clad females. The popularity of this poem was such that the phrase "Well done, Cutty-sark!" entered the English language via Scots as an exclamation similar to "Bravo!" Literary allusions to the original Cutty-sark abound. In "Ulysses", James Joyce writes: "Laughing witches in red cutty sarks ride through the air on broom sticks" (p. 695). Cutty-sark (witch) "Cutty sark" is 18th-century Scots for "short chemise" or "short undergarment". Hyphenated, Cutty-sark was a nickname given to the witch Nannie Dee, a fictional character created by Robert Burns in his "Tam o' Shanter", after the garment she wore. The figurehead of the
Great Tea Race of 1866 between tea clippers to catch public attention was between "Thermopylae" and "Cutty Sark" in 1872. "Erl King" was the first ship to carry a cargo of tea through the Suez Canal, arriving in London on 4 August 1870 after a passage of 61 days. She later served on the route to Australia and then on transatlantic routes. She was lost off the coast of Florida on 16 Dec 1891. Captain MacKinnon of "Taeping" was taken ill with rheumatic fever on his next outward passage and was put ashore in South Africa. He died of complications whilst travelling home to Britain.