ness and unknown depth of the
sea around you, and gives one a feeling of loneliness, of dread, and of
melancholy foreboding, which nothing else in nature can give. This
gradually passes away as the light grows brighter, and when the sun
comes up, the ordinary monotonous sea day begins.

From such reflections as these, I was aroused by the order from the
officer, "Forward there! rig the head-pump!" I found that no time was
allowed for day-dreaming, but that we must "turn-to" at the first
light. Having called up the "idlers," namely carpenter, cook, steward,
etc., and rigged the pump, we commenced washing down the decks. This
operation, which is performed every morning at sea, takes nearly two
hours; and I had hardly strength enough to get through it. After we
had finished, swabbed down, and coiled up the rigging, I sat down on
the spars, waiting for seven bells, which was the sign for breakfast.
The officer, seeing my lazy posture, ordered me to slush the main-mast,
from the royal-mast-head, down. The vessel was then rolling a little,
and I had taken no sustenance for three days, so that I felt tempted to
tell him that I had rather wait till after breakfast; but I knew that I
must "take the bull by the horns," and that if I showed any sign of
want of spirit or of backwardness, that I should be ruined at once. So
I took my bucket of grease and climbed up to the royal-mast-head. Here
the rocking of the vessel, which increases the higher you go from the
foot of the mast, which is the fulcrum of the lever, and the smell of
the grease, which offended my fastidious senses, upset my stomach
again, and I was not a little rejoiced when I got upon the comparative
terra firma of the deck. In a few minutes seven bells were struck, the
log hove, the watch called, and we went to breakfast. Here I cannot but
remember the advice of the cook, a simple-hearted African. "Now," says
he, "my lad, you are well cleaned out; you haven't got a drop of your
'long-shore swash aboard of you. You must begin on a new tack,--pitch
all your sweetmeats overboard, and turn-to upon good hearty salt beef
and sea bread, and I'll promise you, you'll have your ribs well
sheathed, and be as hearty as any of 'em, afore you are up to the
Horn." This would be good advice to give to passengers, when they
speak of the little niceties which they have laid in, in case of
sea-sickness.

I cannot describe the change which half a pound of cold salt beef and a