it, and fairly get asleep; it maybe said that, every
other night, you have but three hours' sleep in your hammock. Having
then been on deck for twice four hours, at eight o'clock in the morning
your _watch-below_ comes round, and you are not liable to duty until
noon. Under like circumstances, a merchant seaman goes to his _bunk_,
and has the benefit of a good long sleep. But in a man-of-war you can
do no such thing; your hammock is very neatly stowed in the nettings,
and there it must remain till nightfall.

But perhaps there is a corner for you somewhere along the batteries on
the gun-deck, where you may enjoy a snug nap. But as no one is allowed
to recline on the larboard side of the gun-deck (which is reserved as a
corridor for the officers when they go forward to their smoking-room at
the _bridle-port_), the starboard side only is left to the seaman. But
most of this side, also, is occupied by the carpenters, sail-makers,
barbers, and coopers. In short, so few are the corners where you can
snatch a nap during daytime in a frigate, that not one in ten of the
watch, who have been on deck eight hours, can get a wink of sleep till
the following night. Repeatedly, after by good fortune securing a
corner, I have been roused from it by some functionary commissioned to
keep it clear.

Off Cape Horn, what before had been very uncomfortable became a serious
hardship. Drenched through and through by the spray of the sea at
night. I have sometimes slept standing on the spar-deck--and shuddered
as I slept--for the want of sufficient sleep in my hammock.

During three days of the stormiest weather, we were given the privilege
of the _berth-deck_ (at other times strictly interdicted), where we
were permitted to spread our jackets, and take a nap in the morning
after the eight hours' night exposure. But this privilege was but a
beggarly one, indeed. Not to speak of our jackets--used for
blankets--being soaking wet, the spray, coming down the hatchways, kept
the planks of the berth-deck itself constantly wet; whereas, had we
been permitted our hammocks, we might have swung dry over all this
deluge. But we endeavoured to make ourselves as warm and comfortable as
possible, chiefly by close stowing, so as to generate a little steam,
in the absence of any fire-side warmth. You have seen, perhaps, the way
in which they box up subjects intended to illustrate the winter
lectures of a professor of surgery. Just so we laid; heel and poin