How utterly disgusted you get with one another!  Little peculiarities which would give a certain charm and variety to social intercourse under any other circumstances, become sources of absolute pain, and almost uncontrollable irritation, when you are shut up with them day and night.  One good friend and messmate of mine has a peculiar laugh, whose iteration on our last cruise nearly drove me insane.

There is no being alone in a ship.  Sailors are essentially gregarious animals, and don’t at all understand the necessity under which many people labour—­I among the rest—­of having a little solitary converse with oneself occasionally.

Then, to a landsman fresh from ordinary society and its peculiarly undemonstrative ways, there is something very wonderful about naval discipline.  I do not mean to say that the subordination kept up is more than is necessary, nor perhaps is it in reality greater than is to be found in a college, or a regiment, or a large mercantile house; but it is made so very obvious.  You not only feel the bit, but you see it; and your bridle is hung with bells to tell you of its presence.

Your captain is a very different person, in relation to his officers, from the colonel of a regiment; he is a demi-god, a Dalai lama, living in solitary state; sublime, unapproachable; and the radiation of his dignity stretches through all the other members of the nautical hierarchy; hence all sorts of petty intrigues, disputes, grumblings, and jealousies, which, to the irreverent eye of an “idler,” give to the whole little society the aspect of nothing so much as the court of Prinz Irenaeus in Kater Murr’s inestimable autobiography.

[Page 107 sq.: 

After describing the illusory promises of the Admiralty and their grudging spirit towards the scientific members of the expedition, he continues:—­]

These are the facilities and encouragement to science afforded by the Admiralty; and it cannot be wondered at if the same spirit runs through its subordinate officers.

Not that there is any active opposition—­quite the reverse.  But it is a curious fact, that if you want a boat for dredging, ten chances to one they are always actually or potentially otherwise disposed of; if you leave your towing-net trailing astern in search of new creatures, in some promising patch of discoloured water, it is, in all probability, found to have a wonderful effect in stopping the ship’s way, and is hauled in as soon as your back is turned; or a careful dissection waiting to be drawn may find its way overboard as a “mess.”

The singular disrespect with which the majority of naval officers regard everything that lies beyond the sphere of routine, tends to produce a tone of feeling very unfavourable to scientific exertions.  How can it be otherwise, in fact, with men who, from the age of thirteen, meet with no influence but that which teaches them that the “Queen’s regulations and instructions” are the law and the prophets, and something more?