ge of a warrior.
Bonaparte's grenadiers were stout whiskerandoes; and perhaps, in a
charge, those fierce whiskers of theirs did as much to appall the foe
as the sheen of their bayonets. Most all fighting creatures sport
either whiskers or beards; it seems a law of Dame Nature. Witness the
boar, the tiger, the cougar, man, the leopard, the ram, the cat--all
warriors, and all whiskerandoes. Whereas, the peace-loving tribes have
mostly enameled chins.

CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

FLOGGING THROUGH THE FLEET.

The flogging of an old man like Ushant, most landsmen will probably
regard with abhorrence. But though, from peculiar circumstances, his
case occasioned a good deal of indignation among the people of the
Neversink, yet, upon its own proper grounds, they did not denounce it.
Man-of-war's-men are so habituated to what landsmen would deem
excessive cruelties, that they are almost reconciled to inferior
severities.

And here, though the subject of punishment in the Navy has been
canvassed in previous chapters, and though the thing is every way a
most unpleasant and grievous one to enlarge upon, and though I
painfully nerve myself to it while I write, a feeling of duty compels
me to enter upon a branch of the subject till now undiscussed. I would
not be like the man, who, seeing an outcast perishing by the roadside,
turned about to his friend, saying, "Let us cross the way; my soul so
sickens at this sight, that I cannot endure it."

There are certain enormities in this man-of-war world that often secure
impunity by their very excessiveness. Some ignorant people will refrain
from permanently removing the cause of a deadly malaria, for fear of
the temporary spread of its offensiveness. Let us not be of such. The
more repugnant and repelling, the greater the evil. Leaving our women
and children behind, let us freely enter this Golgotha.

Years ago there was a punishment inflicted in the English, and I
believe in the American Navy, called _keel-hauling_--a phrase still
employed by man-of-war's-men when they would express some signal
vengeance upon a personal foe. The practice still remains in the French
national marine, though it is by no means resorted to so frequently as
in times past. It consists of attaching tackles to the two extremities
of the main-yard, and passing the rope under the ship's bottom. To one
end of this rope the culprit is secured; his own shipmates are then
made to run him up and down, first on thi