ck. Such a scrubbing and mopping!

I need scarcely explain that holystone is a large soft stone, used
with water, for scrubbing the dirt off the ship's decks. It rubs down
with sand; the sand is washed off by buckets of water thrown down, all
is well mopped, and the deck is then finished off with India-rubber
squilgees.

The poop is always kept most bright and clean. Soon after we left port
it assumed a greatly-improved appearance. The boards began to whiten
with the holystoning. Not a grease-mark or spot of dirt was to be
seen. All was polished off with hand-scrapers. On Sundays the ropes on
the poop were all neatly coiled, man-of-war fashion--not a bight out
of place. The brasswork was kept as bright as a gilt button.

By the time the passengers dressed and went on deck the cleaning
process was over, and the decks were dry. After half an hour's pacing
the poop the bell would ring for breakfast, the appetite for which
would depend very much upon the state of the weather and the lurching
of the ship. Between breakfast and lunch, more promenading on the
poop; the passengers sometimes, if the weather was fine, forming
themselves in groups on deck, cultivating each other's acquaintance.

During our first days at sea we had some difficulty in finding our sea
legs. The march of some up and down the poop was often very irregular,
and occasionally ended in disaster. Yet the passengers were not the
only learners; for, one day, we saw one of the cabin-boys, carrying a
heavy ham down the steps from a meat-safe on board, miss his footing
in a lurch of the ship, and away went our fine ham into the
lee-scuppers, spoilt and lost.

We lunched at twelve. From thence, until dinner at five, we mooned
about on deck as before, or visited sick passengers, or read in our
respective cabins, or passed the time in conversation; and thus the
day wore on. After dinner the passengers drew together in parties and
became social. In the pleasantly-lit saloon some of the elder subsided
into whist, while the juniors sought the middies in their cabin on the
main-deck, next door to the sheep-pen; there they entertained
themselves and each other with songs, accompanied by the concertina
and clouds of tobacco-smoke.

The progress of the ship was a subject of constant interest. It was
the first thing in the morning and the last at night; and all through
the day, the direction of the wind, the state of the sky and the
weather, and the rate we were goi