wo horses. My dun was a peaceful beast, but the roan was a
by-word in the sub-division. When all was finished, and the horses fed
and watered, it would be near 12.30, which was the dinner-hour. Some
afternoons were free, but generally there would be more exercising and
stall-cleaning, followed by the afternoon feeds and watering. At six
came tea, and then all hands, including us stablemen, were free.

Hammocks were slung about seven, and it was one of the nightly
problems to secure a place. I generally found under the hatchway,
where it was airy, but in rainy weather moist. Then we were free to
talk and smoke on deck till any hour. Before going to bed, I used to
write my diary, down below, at a mess-table, where the lights shot dim
rays through vistas of serried hammocks, while overhead the horses
fidgeted and trampled in their stalls, making a distracting thunder on
the iron decks. It was often writing under difficulties, crouching
down with a hammock pressing on the top of one's head--the occupant
protesting at the head with no excess of civility; a quality which, by
the way, was very rare with us.

Soon after leaving the Bay, we had some rough weather. "Stables" used
to be a comical function. My diary for the first rough day
says:--"About six of us were there out of about thirty in my
sub-division; our sergeant, usually an awesome personage to me,
helpless as a babe, and white as a corpse, standing rigid. The
lieutenant feebly told me to report when all horses were watered and
feeds made up. It was a long job, and at the end I found him leaning
limply against a stall. 'Horses all watered, and feeds ready, sir.' He
turned on me a glazed eye, which saw nothing; then a glimmer of
recollection flickered, and the lips framed the word 'feed,' no doubt
through habit; but to pronounce that word at all under the
circumstances was an effort of heroism for which I respected him.
Rather a lonely day. My co-stableman curled in a pathetic ball all
day, among the hay, in our forage recess. My only view of the outer
world is from a big port in this recess, which frames a square of
heaving blue sea; but now and then one can get breathing-spaces on
deck. In the afternoon--the ship rolling heavily--I went, by an order
of the day before, to be vaccinated. Found the doctor on the saloon
deck, in a long chair, very still. Thought he was dead, but saluted,
and said what I had come for. With marvellous presence of mind, he
collected himse