that the decks may be swabbed up and the ropes nicely flemished down before seven bells, at which time it is generally thought expedient to go to breakfast, though half-an-hour sooner than usual, in order to make the forenoon as long as possible.  I should have mentioned that the hammocks are always piped up at seven o’clock.  If they have been slung overnight, they are as white as any laundress could have made them; and, of course, the hammock-stowers take more than ordinary care to place them neatly in the nettings, with their bright numbers turned inwards, all nicely lashed up with the regulated proportion of turns, each hammock being of a uniform size from end to end.

While the people are at breakfast, the word is passed to “clean for muster,” in any dress the commanding officer may think most suitable to the climate or weather.  Between the tropics, the order for rigging in frocks and trousers is generally delivered in these words:—­

“Do you hear, there! fore and aft!  Clean for muster at five bells—­duck frocks and white trousers!”

In colder regions, it is “Blue jackets and trousers;” and in rainy, cold, or blowing weather, the following order is sung out along the lower deck, first by the husky-throated boatswain, and then in a still rougher enunciation by his gruff satellites, the boatswain’s mates:—­

“D’ye hear, there!  Clean shirt and a shave for muster at five bells!”

Twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays, the operation of shaving is held to be necessary.  These are called “clean-shirt days.”  Mondays and Fridays are the days appointed for washing the clothes.

It is usual to give the men three quarters, instead of half-an-hour to breakfast on Sundays, that they may have time to rig themselves in proper trim before coming on deck.  The watch, therefore, is called at a quarter-past eight, or it may be one bell, which is half-past.  The forenoon watch bring their clothes-bags up with them, in order that they may not be again required to leave the deck before muster.  The bags are piled in neat pyramids, or in other forms, sometimes on the booms before the boats, and sometimes in a square mass on the after part of the quarter-deck of a frigate.  It strikes my recollection that in most ships there is a sort of difficulty in finding a good place on which to stow the bags.

As soon as the forenoon watch is called, the between decks, on which the men live, is carefully cleaned, generally by what is called dry holy-stoning.  This is done by rubbing the deck with small smooth pieces of freestone, after a layer of well-dried sand has been sprinkled over it.  This operation throws up a good deal of dust; but it makes the deck white, which is the grand point aimed at.  The wings, the store-rooms, and the cockpits, undergo a similar dose of rubbing and scrubbing; in short, every hole and corner of the decks, both above and below stairs, as folks on shore would say, is swept, and swept, and swept again, on a Sunday morning, till the panting sweepers are half dead; indeed, the rest of the ship’s company are worried out of all patience, from eight o’clock to half-past ten, with the eternal cry of “Pipe the sweepers!” followed by a sharp, interrupted whistle, not unlike the note of a pet canary.