nd piled near at hand to receive the wounded;
amputation-tables are ranged in the _cock-pit_ or in the _tiers_,
whereon to carve the bodies of the maimed. The yards are slung in
chains; fire-screens distributed here and there: hillocks of
cannon-balls piled between the guns; shot-plugs suspended within easy
reach from the beams; and solid masses of wads, big as Dutch cheeses,
braced to the cheeks of the gun-carriages.

No small difference, also, would be visible in the wardrobe of both
officers and men. The officers generally fight as dandies dance,
namely, in silk stockings; inasmuch as, in case of being wounded in the
leg, the silk-hose can be more easily drawn off by the Surgeon; cotton
sticks, and works into the wound. An economical captain, while taking
care to case his legs in silk, might yet see fit to save his best suit,
and fight in his old clothes. For, besides that an old garment might
much better be cut to pieces than a new one, it must be a mighty
disagreeable thing to die in a stiff, tight-breasted coat, not yet
worked easy under the arm-pits. At such times, a man should feel free,
unencumbered, and perfectly at his ease in point of straps and
suspenders. No ill-will concerning his tailor should intrude upon his
thoughts of eternity. Seneca understood this, when he chose to die
naked in a bath. And men-of-war's men understand it, also; for most of
them, in battle, strip to the waist-bands; wearing nothing but a pair
of duck trowsers, and a handkerchief round their head.

A captain combining a heedful patriotism with economy would probably
"bend" his old topsails before going into battle, instead of exposing
his best canvas to be riddled to pieces; for it is generally the case
that the enemy's shot flies high. Unless allowance is made for it in
pointing the tube, at long-gun distance, the slightest roll of the
ship, at the time of firing, would send a shot, meant for the hull,
high over the top-gallant yards.

But besides these differences between a sham-fight at _general
quarters_ and a real cannonading, the aspect of the ship, at the
beating of the retreat, would, in the latter case, be very dissimilar
to the neatness and uniformity in the former.

_Then_ our bulwarks might look like the walls of the houses in West
Broadway in New York, after being broken into and burned out by the
Negro Mob. Our stout masts and yards might be lying about decks, like
tree boughs after a tornado in a piece of woodland;