t. By this means they divide the twenty-four hours into seven
watches instead of six, and thus shift the hours every night. As the
dog watches come during twilight, after the day's work is done, and
before the night watch is set, they are the watches in which everybody
is on deck. The captain is up, walking on the weather side of the
quarter-deck, the chief mate is on the lee side, and the second mate
about the weather gangway. The steward has finished his work in the
cabin, and has come up to smoke his pipe with the cook in the galley.
The crew are sitting on the windlass or lying on the forecastle,
smoking, singing, or telling long yarns. At eight o'clock, eight bells
are struck, the log is hove, the watch set, the wheel relieved, the
galley shut up, and the other watch goes below.

The morning commences with the watch on deck's "turning-to" at
day-break and washing down, scrubbing, and swabbing the decks. This,
together with filling the "scuttled butt" with fresh water, and coiling
up the rigging, usually occupies the time until seven bells, (half
after seven,) when all hands get breakfast. At eight, the day's work
begins, and lasts until sun-down, with the exception of an hour for
dinner.

Before I end my explanations, it may be well to define a day's work,
and to correct a mistake prevalent among landsmen about a sailor's
life. Nothing is more common than to hear people say--"Are not sailors
very idle at sea?--what can they find to do?" This is a very natural
mistake, and being very frequently made, it is one which every sailor
feels interested in having corrected. In the first place, then, the
discipline of the ship requires every man to be at work upon something
when he is on deck, except at night and on Sundays. Except at these
times, you will never see a man, on board a well-ordered vessel,
standing idle on deck, sitting down, or leaning over the side. It is
the officers' duty to keep every one at work, even if there is nothing
to be done but to scrape the rust from the chain cables. In no state
prison are the convicts more regularly set to work, and more closely
watched. No conversation is allowed among the crew at their duty, and
though they frequently do talk when aloft, or when near one another,
yet they always stop when an officer is nigh.

With regard to the work upon which the men are put, it is a matter
which probably would not be understood by one who has not been at sea.
When I first left