ur sooner than usual, in order to make the
forenoon as long as possible. I should have mentioned that the
hammocks are always piped up at seven o'clock. If they have been slung
overnight, they are as white as any laundress could have made them;
and, of course, the hammock-stowers take more than ordinary care to
place them neatly in the nettings, with their bright numbers turned
inwards, all nicely lashed up with the regulated proportion of turns,
each hammock being of a uniform size from end to end.

While the people are at breakfast, the word is passed to "clean for
muster," in any dress the commanding officer may think most suitable
to the climate or weather. Between the tropics, the order for rigging
in frocks and trousers is generally delivered in these words:--

"Do you hear, there! fore and aft! Clean for muster at five
bells--duck frocks and white trousers!"

In colder regions, it is "Blue jackets and trousers;" and in rainy,
cold, or blowing weather, the following order is sung out along the
lower deck, first by the husky-throated boatswain, and then in a still
rougher enunciation by his gruff satellites, the boatswain's mates:--

"D'ye hear, there! Clean shirt and a shave for muster at five bells!"

Twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays, the operation of shaving is
held to be necessary. These are called "clean-shirt days." Mondays and
Fridays are the days appointed for washing the clothes.

It is usual to give the men three quarters, instead of half-an-hour to
breakfast on Sundays, that they may have time to rig themselves in
proper trim before coming on deck. The watch, therefore, is called at
a quarter-past eight, or it may be one bell, which is half-past. The
forenoon watch bring their clothes-bags up with them, in order that
they may not be again required to leave the deck before muster. The
bags are piled in neat pyramids, or in other forms, sometimes on the
booms before the boats, and sometimes in a square mass on the after
part of the quarter-deck of a frigate. It strikes my recollection that
in most ships there is a sort of difficulty in finding a good place on
which to stow the bags.

As soon as the forenoon watch is called, the between decks, on which
the men live, is carefully cleaned, generally by what is called dry
holy-stoning. This is done by rubbing the deck with small smooth
pieces of freestone, after a layer of well-dried sand has been
sprinkled over it. This operation throws up a good