calculations of
their owners. The only way the heavier work can be done at all is
by each man doing his utmost at the same moment. This is regulated
by the song. And here is the true singing of the deep sea. It is
not recreation; it is an essential part of the work. It mastheads
the topsail yards, on making sail; it starts the anchor from the
domestic or foreign mud; it 'rides down the main tack with a will;'
it breaks out and takes on board a cargo; it keeps the pumps (the
ship's, not the sailor's) going. A good voice and a new and
stirring chorus are worth an extra man. And there is plenty of need
of both.

'I remember well one black night in the mid-Atlantic, when we were
beating up against a stiff breeze, coming on deck near midnight,
just as the ship was put about. When a ship is tacking, the tacks
and sheets (ropes which confine the clews or lower corners of the
sails) are let run, in order that the yards may be swung round to
meet the altered position of the ship. They must then be hauled
taut again, and belayed, or secured, in order to keep the sails in
their place and to prevent them from shaking. When the ship's head
comes up in the wind, the sail is for a moment or two edgewise to
it, and then is the nice moment, as soon as the headsails fairly
fill, when the mainyard and the yards above it can be swung
readily, and the tacks and sheets hauled in. If the crew are too
few in number, or too slow at their work, and the sails get fairly
filled on the new tack, it is a fatiguing piece of work enough to
'board' the tacks and sheets, as it is called. You are pulling at
one end of the rope--but the gale is tugging at the other. The
advantages of lungs are all against you, and perhaps the only thing
to be done is to put the helm down a little, and set the sails
shaking again before they can be trimmed properly. It was just at
such a time that I came on deck, as above mentioned. Being near
eight bells, the watch on deck had been not over spry; and the
consequence was that our big maincourse was slatting and flying out
overhead with a might that shook the ship from stem to stern. The
flaps of the mad canvas were like successive thumps of a giant's
fist upon a mighty drum. The sheets were jerking at the belaying
pins, the blocks rattling in sh