small blame to the poor brutes.  It used to take our whole sub-division to shove my roan in.  Each driver has two 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 himself, and said:  ’I ordered six to come; it is waste of lymph to do one only:  get the other five.’  After a short absence, I was back, reporting the other five not in a condition to do anything, even to be vaccinated.  The ghost of a weary smile lit up the wan face.  I saluted and left.”