lly very similar
to that of the hands forward, Tom Jerrold and I in the port watch, and
Weeks and Matthews--who, although styled "third mate," had still to go
aloft and do the same sort of duties as all the rest of us--in the
starboard watch under the second mate, having to attend to everything
connected with the setting and taking in of sail on the mizzen-mast, as
well as having to keep the ship's time, one of us striking the bell
every half-hour throughout our spell on deck.

After the first few days at sea, too, I came to the conclusion that if
our work was like that of the sailors our food was not one whit the
better; albeit, one of the stipulations in the contract when my father
paid the premium demanded by the owners of the ship for me as a "first-
class apprentice," was that I should mess aft in the cabin.

I certainly did so, like Tom Jerrold and the two others; but all that
either they or I had of cabin fare throughout the entire voyage was an
occasional piece of "plum duff" and jam on Sundays--on which day, by the
way, we had no work to do save attending to the sails and washing decks
in the morning; while, in the afternoon, Captain Gillespie read prayers
on the poop, his congregation being mainly limited to ourselves and the
watch on deck, the crew spending their holiday, on this holy day, in
mending their clothes in the forecastle.

Yes, our rations were the same as those of the ordinary hands; namely,
salt junk and "hard tack," varied by pea-soup and sea-pie occasionally
for dinner, with rice and molasses as a treat on Saturdays. Our
breakfast and tea consisted of a straw-coloured decoction known on
board-ship as "water bewitched," accompanied by such modicums of our
dinner allowance as we were able to save conscientiously with our
appetites. This amounted to very little as a rule, for, being at sea
makes one fearfully hungry at all hours, and, fortunately, seems to
endow one, also, with the capacity for eating anything!

Really, if it had not been by currying favour with Ching Wang and
bribing the steward, Pedro Carvalho, between whom there were continual
rows occurring about the provisions, which it was the duty of the
Portuguese to serve out, we must have starved ere reaching the Equator;
for Captain Gillespie, in order to "turn an honest penny" and make his
Dundee venture prove a success, persuaded the men forward and ourselves
to give up a pound and a quarter of our meat ration for a pound tin of