y the
starboard watch; this routine continues day and night, except from four
until eight in the afternoon, when occur the dog watches, two of them,
two hours long each, stood by the port and starboard men respectively.
The dog watches are necessary to secure a change in the hours of duty
for each watch.

From now on we were given a taste of the actual work of the service.
Details were made up each morning and sent to the "Yankee" to assist in
getting her in readiness for service. One of the first duties was to
carry on board and stow away in the hold one hundred kegs of mess pork.
As each keg contained one hundred pounds, the task was not easy for men
unaccustomed to manual labor. Still there was no complaint. In fact, the
only growling heard so far had come from some of the men who had seen
service in the regular navy. Burke, the fireman, declaimed loudly
against the "shoe leather an' de terrer-cotter hard-tack which they do
be tryin' to feed to honest workers. As for the slops they call coffee,
Oi wouldn't give it to an Orangeman's pig!"

The food served out on board the "New Hampshire"--being the usual
Government ration of salt-horse, coffee, and hard-tack--was vastly
different from that to which the majority of the boys were accustomed,
but it was accepted with the good grace displayed by the members of the
Reserve on every occasion. All these little discomforts are, as the
Navigator (a commissioned officer of the regular navy) remarked, "merely
incidental to the service."

As the time approached when we were to board the "Yankee" for good, the
ordinary watches were abandoned, and only anchor watches kept. An anchor
watch is a detail of five or six men, selected from the different parts
of the ship, who do duty, really, as watchmen, during the night. Two
days before the order arrived to leave the "New Hampshire," it was found
necessary to station several men, armed with guns and fixed bayonets, on
the dock near the ship, to stop men from taking the "hawser route"
ashore. The firemen and coal-passers had been refused shore leave, or
liberty, as it is called, because of their habit of getting
intoxicated, pawning their uniforms, and loitering ashore. Truth to
tell, the guns and bayonets had little effect, as the offenders were old
in the business.

The second night after the order was put in force it happened that
"Hod," who was rated as an able seaman, was on duty with gun and bayonet
on that end of the dock op