lsom [keelson], while he is drawn
aft by a hauling line until he makes his appearance at the
rudder-chains, generally speaking quite out of breath, not at the
rapidity of his motion, but because, when so long under the water, he
has expended all the breath in his body, and is induced to take in salt
water _en lieu_. There is much merit in this invention; people are very
apt to be content with walking the deck of a man-of-war, and complain of
it as a hardship, but when once they have learnt, by experience, the
difference between being comfortable above board, and the number of
deprivations which they have to submit to when under board and overboard
at the same time, they find that there are worse situations than being
on the deck of a vessel--we say privations when under board, for they
really are very important:--you are deprived of the air to breathe,
which is not borne with patience even by a philosopher, and you are
obliged to drink salt water instead of fresh. In the days of
keel-hauling, the bottoms of vessels were not coppered, and in
consequence were well studded with a species of shell-fish which
attached themselves, called barnacles, and as these shells were all
open-mouthed and with sharp cutting points, those who underwent this
punishment (for they were made by the ropes at each side, fastened to
their arms, to hug the kelsom of the vessel) were cut and scored all
over their body, as if with so many lancets, generally coming up
bleeding in every part, and with their faces, especially their noses, as
if they had been gnawed by the rats; but this was considered rather
advantageous than otherwise, as the loss of blood restored the patient
if he was not quite drowned, and the consequence was, that one out of
three, it is said, have been known to recover after their submarine
excursion. The Dutch have the credit, and we will not attempt to take
from them their undoubted right, of having invented this very agreeable
description of punishment. They are considered a heavy, phlegmatic sort
of people, but on every point in which the art of ingeniously tormenting
is in request, it must be admitted that they have taken the lead of much
more vivacious and otherwise more inventive nations.

And now the reader will perceive why Corporal Van Spitter was in a
dilemma. With all the good-will in the world, with every anxiety to
fulfil his duty and to obey his superior officer, he was not a seaman,
and did not know how to c