The steward is the captain’s servant, and has charge of the pantry, from which everyone, including the mate, is excluded.  The cook is the patron of the crew, and those who are in his favour can get their wet mittens and stockings dried, or light their pipes at the galley in the night watch.  These two worthies, together with the carpenter and the sailmaker, if there be one, stand no watch, but, being employed all day, are allowed to “sleep in” at night, unless “all hands” are called.

The crew are divided into two watches.  Of these the chief mate commands the larboard, and the second mate the starboard, being on and off duty, or on deck and below, every other four hours.  The watch from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. is divided into two half, or dog, watches.  By this means they divide the twenty-four hours into seven instead of six, and thus shift the hours every night.

The morning commences with the watch on deck turning-to at daybreak, and washing-down, scrubbing, and swabbing the decks.  This, with filling the “scuttle 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 sundown, with the exception of an hour for dinner.  The discipline of the ship requires every man to be at work upon something when he is up on deck, except at night and on Sundays.  No conversation is allowed among the crew at their duty.

When I first left port, and found that we were kept regularly employed for a week or two, I supposed that we were getting the vessel into sea-trim, and that it would soon be over, and we should have nothing to do but to sail the ship; but I found that it continued so for two years, and at the end of two years there was as much to be done as ever.  If, after all the labour on sails, rigging, tarring, greasing, oiling, varnishing, painting, scraping, scrubbing, watching, steering, reefing, furling, bracing, making and setting sail, and pulling, hauling, and climbing in every direction, the merchants and captains think the sailors have not earned their twelve dollars a month, their salt beef and hard bread, they keep them picking oakum—­ad infinitum.  The Philadelphia catechism is

    Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thou art able,
    And on the seventh, holystone the decks and scrape the cable.

We crossed the Equator on October 1 and rounded Cape Horn early in November.  Monday, November 17, was a black day in our calendar.  At seven in the morning we were aroused from sleep by the cry of “All hands, ahoy!  A man overboard!” This unwonted cry sent a thrill through the heart of everyone, and hurrying on deck we found the vessel hove flat aback, with all her studding sails set; for the boy who was at the helm left it to throw something overboard, and the carpenter, who was an old sailor, knowing that the wind was light, put the helm down and hove her aback.  The watch on deck were lowering away the quarter-boat, and I got on deck just in time to heave myself into her as she was leaving the side.  But it was not until out on the wide Pacific in our little boat that I knew we had lost George Ballmer, a young English sailor, who was prized by the officers as an active and willing seaman, and by the crew as a lively, hearty fellow and a good shipmate.