r
Church on their persons. They would not fare as Protestant sailors
dying in Callao, who are shoved under the sands of St. Lorenzo, a
solitary, volcanic island in the harbour, overrun with rep-tiles, their
heretical bodies not being permitted to repose in the more genial loam
of Lima.

And many sailors not Catholics were anxious to have the crucifix
painted on them, owing to a curious superstition of theirs. They
affirm--some of them--that if you have that mark tattooed upon all four
limbs, you might fall overboard among seven hundred and seventy-five
thousand white sharks, all dinnerless, and not one of them would so
much as dare to smell at your little finger.

We had one fore-top-man on board, who, during the entire cruise, was
having an endless cable _pricked_ round and round his waist, so that,
when his frock was off, he looked like a capstan with a hawser coiled
round about it. This fore-top-man paid eighteen pence per link for the
cable, besides being on the smart the whole cruise, suffering the
effects of his repeated puncturings; so he paid very dear for his cable.

One other mode of passing time while in port was cleaning and polishing
your _bright-work_; for it must be known that, in men-of-war, every
sailor has some brass or steel of one kind or other to keep in high
order--like housemaids, whose business it is to keep well-polished the
knobs on the front door railing and the parlour-grates.

Excepting the ring-bolts, eye-bolts, and belaying-pins scattered about
the decks, this bright-work, as it is called, is principally about the
guns, embracing the "_monkey-tails_" of the carronades, the screws,
_prickers_, little irons, and other things.

The portion that fell to my own share I kept in superior order, quite
equal in polish to Rogers's best cutlery. I received the most
extravagant encomiums from the officers; one of whom offered to match
me against any brazier or brass-polisher in her British Majesty's Navy.
Indeed, I devoted myself to the work body and soul, and thought no
pains too painful, and no labour too laborious, to achieve the highest
attainable polish possible for us poor lost sons of Adam to reach.

Upon one occasion, even, when woollen rags were scarce, and no
burned-brick was to be had from the ship's Yeoman, I sacrificed the
corners of my woollen shirt, and used some dentrifice I had, as
substitutes for the rags and burned-brick. The dentrifice operated
delightfully, and made the thr