aptain Farmer himself inspected once a week, to make
certain that the chaplain, on his part, attended to his duty.

We got on very well with the Reverend Mr Smythe, who had all his
longshore starchiness knocked out of him by his long bout of
sea-sickness, the poor man having been confined to his bunk and
completely prostrate with the fell malady from the hour that we weighed
anchor at Plymouth until we "brought up" at Madeira. I should not,
perhaps, have made use of this term, as it savours of tautology, the
unfortunate chaplain having been industriously occupied in doing little
else save "bringing up" all the time; especially when we were pitching
and rolling in the Bay of Biscay!

Every day, too, at a quarter of an hour before noon, we had to muster on
the poop, where, under the tutelage of the master, Mr Quadrant, we
watched for the dip of the sun; and, as soon as the master reported that
it was twelve o'clock to the captain, who told him "to make it so," and
Eight Bells was struck on the ship's bell forwards, we would adjourn to
the gunroom below.

There we all worked out the reckoning, showing our respective
calculations or "fudgings" as the case might be, to Mr Quadrant; when
if these "passed muster," we entered the result in our log-books, along
with other observations and facts connected with the daily routine of
the ship and her progress towards her destination.

To ascertain this, in addition to taking the sun at noon and noting the
attitude of certain stars at night, the log was hove every hour; and
each of us learnt in turn to fix the pin in the "dead man," as the
log-ship is styled--the triangular piece of wood, with a long line
attached, by which the speed of the ship is ascertained.

The first piece of this cord is termed the "stray line," and is
generally of the same length as the ship, so as to allow for the eddy
and wash of the wake astern; and, at the end of this stray line, a piece
of bunting is inserted in the coil, from which a length of forty-seven
feet three inches is measured off and a disc of leather put on the line
to mark the termination of the first knot, or nautical mile. Two knots
are put at the end of another length of forty-seven feet three inches;
three knots at a third, and so on, until as much of the line has been
thus measured and marked off at equal distances as will test the utmost
sailing capacity of the ship--a single knot being placed midway, also,
between each of these d