urs a day were the watches
I stood at sea, catching cat-naps when I might. Third, I was doctor.
And let me say right here that the doctor's job on the Snark at that time
was a man's job. All on board suffered from malaria--the real, tropical
malaria that can kill in three months. All on board suffered from
perforating ulcers and from the maddening itch of ngari-ngari. A
Japanese cook went insane from his too numerous afflictions. One of my
Polynesian sailors lay at death's door with blackwater fever. Oh, yes,
it was a full man's job, and I dosed and doctored, and pulled teeth, and
dragged my patients through mild little things like ptomaine poisoning.

Fourth, I was a writer. I sweated out my thousand words a day, every
day, except when the shock of fever smote me, or a couple of nasty
squalls smote the Snark, in the morning. Fifth, I was a traveller and a
writer, eager to see things and to gather material into my note-books.
And, sixth, I was master and owner of the craft that was visiting strange
places where visitors are rare and where visitors are made much of. So
here I had to hold up the social end, entertain on board, be entertained
ashore by planters, traders, governors, captains of war vessels,
kinky-headed cannibal kings, and prime ministers sometimes fortunate
enough to be clad in cotton shifts.

Of course I drank. I drank with my guests and hosts. Also, I drank by
myself. Doing the work of five men, I thought, entitled me to drink.
Alcohol was good for a man who over-worked. I noted its effect on my
small crew, when, breaking their backs and hearts at heaving up anchor in
forty fathoms, they knocked off gasping and trembling at the end of half
an hour and had new life put into them by stiff jolts of rum. They
caught their breaths, wiped their mouths, and went to it again with a
will. And when we careened the Snark and had to work in the water to our
necks between shocks of fever, I noted how raw trade rum helped the work
along.

And here again we come to another side of many-sided John Barleycorn. On
the face of it, he gives something for nothing. Where no strength
remains he finds new strength. The wearied one rises to greater effort.
For the time being there is an actual accession of strength. I remember
passing coal on an ocean steamer through eight days of hell, during which
time we coal-passers were kept to the job by being fed with whisky. We
toiled half drunk all the time. And w