giving where I stood.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

A MAN-OF-WAR FOUNTAIN, AND OTHER THINGS.

Let us forget the scourge and the gangway a while, and jot down in our
memories a few little things pertaining to our man-of-war world. I let
nothing slip, however small; and feel myself actuated by the same
motive which has prompted many worthy old chroniclers, to set down the
merest trifles concerning things that are destined to pass away
entirely from the earth, and which, if not preserved in the nick of
time, must infallibly perish from the memories of man. Who knows that
this humble narrative may not hereafter prove the history of an
obsolete barbarism? Who knows that, when men-of-war shall be no more,
"White-Jacket" may not be quoted to show to the people in the
Millennium what a man-of-war was? God hasten the time! Lo! ye years,
escort it hither, and bless our eyes ere we die.

There is no part of a frigate where you will see more going and coming
of strangers, and overhear more greetings and gossipings of
acquaintances, than in the immediate vicinity of the scuttle-butt, just
forward of the main-hatchway, on the gun-deck.

The scuttle-butt is a goodly, round, painted cask, standing on end, and
with its upper head removed, showing a narrow, circular shelf within,
where rest a number of tin cups for the accommodation of drinkers.
Central, within the scuttle-butt itself, stands an iron pump, which,
connecting with the immense water-tanks in the hold, furnishes an
unfailing supply of the much-admired Pale Ale, first brewed in the
brooks of the garden of Eden, and stamped with the _brand_ of our old
father Adam, who never knew what wine was. We are indebted to the old
vintner Noah for that. The scuttle-butt is the only fountain in the
ship; and here alone can you drink, unless at your meals. Night and
day an armed sentry paces before it, bayonet in hand, to see that no
water is taken away, except according to law. I wonder that they
station no sentries at the port-holes, to see that no air is breathed,
except according to Navy regulations.

As five hundred men come to drink at this scuttle-butt; as it is often
surrounded by officers' servants drawing water for their masters to
wash; by the cooks of the range, who hither come to fill their
coffee-pots; and by the cooks of the ship's messes to procure water for
their _duffs_; the scuttle-butt may be denominated the town-pump of the
ship. And would that my fine countryman,