tewashed the geese!"'

"As Firebrand concluded, we had completed the inspection of the main
deck, and descended to the lower deck, where the men lived and messed,
and where a clean and trim blue-jacket--`cook of the mess' for the
day--stood at the head of each table. The tables and cans and tins
and platters and men were required to be as clean and bright as a new
pin. Then on we went to the berth of the warrant-officers, and after
that down still lower to the engine-room. There the chief engineer
came to the front and became responsible for the mighty cranks and
gigantic cylinders and awe-inspiring beams, and complicated mazes of
machinery, which raised him, in my mind, to little short of a
demigod--for you must know that I, like yourself, am full of
admiration and ignorance in regard to engineering forces. Next we
went to the lowest depths of all, among the boilers, which appeared to
me like an avenue--a positive street, sir--in Pandemonium. It was
here that the tremendous explosion occurred in July 1876, when upwards
of forty men were killed and many wounded, the captain himself (who
was in the engine-room at the time) having narrowly escaped
suffocation. Thereafter, the magazines of shot and shell were
visited, and, in short, every hole and corner of the ship, and thus in
an hour or so it was ascertained that the Nelsonian demand, and
England's expectation, had been fulfilled,--`every man' had done `his
duty,' and the great ironclad was pronounced to be in a healthy,
Sabbatic state of mind and body.

"In this satisfactory frame we finally went to the fore part of the
ship, where we found the crew assembled, and where, standing at the
capstan, the captain read the Church of England service, the responses
being effectively rendered by the stalwart crew. In regard to this
service I will only remark that I observed the introduction of a
prayer which was entirely new to me, namely, that for the blessing of
God on the ship, its crew, its duties, and its destination, to which I
could and did, with all heartiness, respond `Amen,' because as long as
God's blessing rests on the _Thunderer_ she will not be sent out to do
battle in an unrighteous cause.

"Next morning I had an opportunity of witnessing the big-gun turret
drill.

"It was an imposing spectacle, a fine display of the power of mind
over matter. Force, might, weight, appeared to ha