Chapter III: Part 3

After dinner, all hands are on deck, and kept there till dark. In very large merchantmen, and all warships, this rule is departed from, and the watch is not so torturing--so true is it that the servants in small establishments, whether on sea or land, are always the worst treated. However, we suppose that the hands are on deck. The breeze has now almost died away, and the sea runs in long, low, slow swells; the ship gently rocking, and the sails occasionally collapsing with a crash against the creaking masts. Surely, thinks the landsman, there is now nothing for Jack to do but turn his quid, crack his joke, smoke his pipe, or overhaul his chest, and put the things to rights in the forecastle, after the 'hurrah's nest' created by the squall in the past night? Ah, friend, it is very evident that _you_ don't 'know the ropes!' When on deck, a sailor is never idle in the day-time; even if rain is pouring, something is found for him to do; and in fine weather, like the day we are describing, there is a superabundance of work. The carpenter has his bench out--for 'a ship is like a lady's watch, always out of repair;' the steward is polishing the brass-work of the quarter-deck; the cook is scouring his pots and pans; the sailmaker is stitching away in the waist; and the crew are, one and all, engaged in picking oakum, spinning yarns (not such yarns as those amiable gentlemen, the naval novelists, talk so much about, but rope-yarns, by the aid of spinning-winches), platting sinnet, preparing chafing-gear, bowsing slack rigging taut, painting boats and bulwarks, scraping yards and masts, fitting new running-rigging, overhauling the spare sails, and fifty other things--doing, in fact, everything but idling. And, mind, no conversation is allowed among the men--not a word more than necessary for the performance of their several duties. If they chat at all when on deck, it is 'on the sly,' and out of sight and hearing of the vigilant officers, who have eyes like the lynx, and ears as sharp as needles.

At 4 P.M. commences the dog-watch--that is, the ordinary watch of four hours divided into two watches of half that length; and the use of them is to shift the rotation of the night-watches. About 6 P.M. we get supper, and all hands are on deck till eight bells (8 P.M.), when the starboard-watch go below, and we, the larboard-watch, have the first night-watch--just as they had it last night, and will the next after. There is very probably plenty of work to do in shifting and trimming sails and rigging till eight bells again strike (12 P.M.), and then we summon the other watch with: 'Starbowlings, ahoy!' and go below in turn; and so ends our day.

We have given a fair enough specimen of the twenty-four hours of a sailor's life at sea; but of course he sometimes has an easier, and sometimes a much harder life of it--depending on the kind of ship, the nature of the voyage, the state of the weather, and the character of the captain. Some sea-captains are excellent, kind-hearted men, and make the unavoidably hard duties of their crew as easy as it is possible; but others--and very many we fear--are terrible salt-water tyrants. A captain is the absolute master of all on board--his government, as we have said, is a despotism; and this ever-present sense of his will being law while afloat, too often hardens and brutalises an originally kind heart.

Landsmen! do you now envy and begrudge a living to the poor blue-jackets, who risk limb and life to carry on your commerce with the uttermost ends of the earth, and who man the wooden walls that alone render Britain the invincible mistress of the world? Ladies! dear, tender-hearted ladies! do _you_ feel indifferent to the hard lot of the gallant fellows who sail the trackless ocean to supply you with silks and diamonds, with sugar and tea, and every conceivable luxury of dress and food? Be kind, we implore you, to Poor Jack, wherever you meet him, for he would shed the last drop of blood in his veins to defend you! Make every Christian allowance for his follies and his sins when ashore. Do all you can--and we think you might do much if you would--to ameliorate his physical condition, and you will improve his moral one at the same time. For ourselves, we can only say that we ever shall own Poor Jack as a messmate and a brother, and while we have a shot in the locker, he shall freely share it, God help him!

INFLUENCE OF EXAMPLE.

In a certain village in Switzerland, some years ago, there were heavy complaints among all who possessed trees, that no fruit was safe; that the children plundered it perpetually before it came to maturity; and not only that, but that the green saplings had no security against them. Another serious complaint was the barbarity of the children towards all living creatures in their power. The clergyman, teacher, and elders, often laid their heads together, to find some remedy for this inhuman spirit, by which every child in the place was more or less affected. They could not conceive why such a spirit should prevail so specially in _this_ village; but they could find neither cause nor remedy: all exhortations, all punishments, were in vain. The clergyman of the village was changed; and the new minister was a great friend to schools. His first walk was to the school-house. The vice of the scholars had been made known to him, and the failure of all preventive measures hitherto applied. But, determining within himself to watch the whole course of proceedings in school, he soon perceived that the teacher had a habit, and had acquired a singular dexterity in it, of knocking down and killing flies with his cane, to the end of which he had fastened a piece of leather. The windows were all on one side, and being exposed to the morning sun of summer, they were continually full of flies. The teacher's path lay along them, in front of his scholars; and while talking to the latter, he struck down the flies as they shewed themselves at the window. This manoeuvre amused the children infinitely more than his instruction did, and they followed his example. They were incessantly on the watch for flies that buzzed through the room, caught them in their hands, and shewed as great dexterity in this kind of chase as their teacher in his. But their amusement did not end here: they had learned to play with their captives, treat them with detestable cruelty, and seemed to find a wicked delight in observing the shivering of their victims.

On observing these curious and far from pleasing peculiarities of the school, the intelligent and humane clergyman easily accounted for the spirit of destructiveness among the children; and his first step was to induce the teacher to take his leather from the end of the cane; and next, to turn the desks so that the boys sat with their backs to the windows, and the teacher's path lay on the other side of the room. Then the minister went frequently into the school, and examined so severely, that both teacher and pupils had more to do than to give their attention to the flies. As this was not yet entirely satisfactory in its results, the minister took advantage of the hot summer weather, to have instruction given only in the afternoon, when the school was not so full of flies, and thus he gradually banished the insects from the thoughts of teacher and children. But he knew that it was of little avail solely to pull the weeds out of the young mind. He obtained an unoccupied piece of land fit for planting, and, not far from the school, laid out a school-garden. This pleased the teacher, and the children willingly took part in the task, for they had soon learned to like their new minister, who came and worked amongst them. The garden was surrounded by a hedge planted with trees and shrubs, and each child had a tree or shrub given him to take care of. A nursery was soon laid out, and provision made for plenty of larger gardens and orchards in the village. And, behold! the spirit of destructiveness among the children soon passed away; and every man's fruit and garden became safe, the youths even begging of their parents that trees might be planted in the fields for them to take care of. The new spirit was communicated from children to parents, till it spread throughout the entire village; every family had its pretty little garden; an emulation in cultivating flowers sprang into existence; idle and bad habits disappeared; and gradually the whole place was a scene of moral as well as of physical beauty.

This incident, the truth of which can be vouched for, has been communicated to us by a lady of rank, who happens to have lately become acquainted with the circumstances, and has thought that their publicity may be advantageous. We have no doubt of the fact, that the practice of amateur gardening is never associated with evil, but is always a token of advanced tastes and correct habits. Let every one, therefore, within his sphere, do what he can to promote this most desirable pursuit. We would further say, let every school, so far as it can conveniently be done, have its garden, not only for purposes of amusement, but as an important engine of education.

FACTS AS TO OYSTER-EATING.

The consumption of oysters in London is enormous. During the season of 1848-49, 130,000 bushels of oysters were sold in our metropolis. A million and a half of these shell-fish are consumed during each season in Edinburgh, being at the rate of more than 7300 a day. Fifty-two millions were taken from the French channel banks during the course of the year 1828; and now the number annually dredged is probably considerably greater, since the facilities of transport by rail greatly increase the inland consumption of these as of other marine luxuries. French naturalists report, that before an oyster is qualified to appear in Paris, he must undergo a course of education in discretion; for the artificial oyster-beds on the French coast, where the animals are stored to be carried away as required, are constructed between tide-marks; and their denizens, accustomed to pass the greater part of the twenty-four hours beneath the water, open their valves and gape when so situated, but close them firmly when they are exposed by the recession of the tide. Habituated to these alternations of immersion and exposure, the practice of opening and closing their valves at regular intervals becomes natural to them, and would be persisted in to their certain destruction, on their arrival in Paris, were they not ingeniously trained so as to avert the evil. Each batch of oysters intended to make the journey to the capital, is subjected to a preliminary exercise in keeping the shell closed at other hours than when the tide is out; until at length the shell-fish have learned by experience that it is necessary to do so whenever they are uncovered by sea-water. Thus they are enabled to enter the metropolis of France as polished oysters ought to do, not gaping like astounded rustics. A London oyster-man can tell the ages of his flock to a nicety. They are in perfection when from five to seven years old. The age of an oyster is not to be found out by looking into its mouth; it bears its years upon its back. Everybody who has handled an oyster-shell must have observed that it seemed as if composed of successive layers or plates overlapping each other. These are technically termed 'shoots,' and each of them marks a year's growth; so that, by counting them, we can determine at a glance the year when the creature came into the world. Up to the epoch of its maturity, the shoots are regular and successive; but after that time they become irregular, and are piled one over the other, so that the shell becomes more and more thickened and bulky. Judging from the great thickness to which some oyster-shells have attained, this mollusc is capable, if left to its natural changes and unmolested, of attaining a patriarchal longevity. Among fossil oysters, specimens are found occasionally of enormous thickness; and the amount of time that has passed between the deposition of the bed of rock in which such an example occurs, and that which overlies it, might be calculated from careful observation of the shape and number of layers of calcareous matter composing an extinct oyster-shell. In some ancient formations, stratum above stratum of extinguished oysters may be seen, each bed consisting of full-grown and aged individuals. Happy broods these pre-Adamite congregations must have been, born in an epoch when epicures were as yet unthought of, when neither Sweeting nor Lynn had come into existence, and when there were no workers in iron to fabricate oyster-knives! Geology, and all its wonders, makes known to us scarcely one more mysterious or inexplicable than the creation of oysters long before oyster-eaters and the formation of oyster-banks--ages before dredgers! What a lamentable heap of good nourishment must have been wasted during the primeval epochs! When we meditate upon this awful fact, can we be surprised that bishops will not believe in it, and, rather than assent to the possibility of so much good living having been created to no purpose, hold faith with Mattioli and Fallopio, who maintained fossils to be the fermentations of a _materia pinguis_; or Mercati, who saw in them stones bewitched by stars; or Olivi, who described them as the 'sports of nature;' or Dr Plot, who derived them from a latent plastic virtue?--_Westminster Review, Jan. 1852._

THE OASES OF LIBYA.

Nought wholly waste or wretched will appear
Through all the world of Nature or of mind;
Hope's tender beamings soften Sorrow's tear,
The homeless outcast happy hours will find:
To polar snows the Aurora-fires are given,
The voice of friendship cheers the groping blind;
The dreary night hath stars to deck the heaven;
One law prevails beneficently kind:
E'en not all darkness is the silent tomb,
Faith points to bowers of bliss beyond the gloom.

So, Libya, in thy wide and fiery waste,
Gladdening the traveller, plots of verdure lie,
As if, when demons thence all life had chased,
They dropped in beauty from the pitying sky.
How weary pilgrims, dragging o'er the plain,
When first green Siwah's valleys they espy,[1]
Cast off their faintness! swiftly on they strain,
Drinking sweet odours, as the breeze floats by:
They see the greenery of the swelling hills,
They hear, they hear the gush of bubbling rills!

Oh! beautiful that soul-enchanting scene!
The fresh leaves twinkling, and the wild-birds singing;
The rocks so mossy, and the grass so green,
From tree to tree the vine's young tendrils swinging:
Fruits of all hue--pomegranate, plum, and peach,
Tempting the eye, and thoughts luxurious bringing;
Flowers of all breath that each stray hand may reach,
The glittering bee among them blithely winging:
While skies more clear, more bluely seem to glow,
To match the bright and fairy scene below.

NICHOLAS MICHELL.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Siwah, the Ammonia of the ancients, the most fertile of the Oases of Libya, presenting a succession of undulating hills and green meadows, watered by many springs, and producing every description of fruit-bearing trees.

EVIL-SPEAKING.

The Rev. Mr Stewart advised three questions to be put to ourselves before speaking evil of any man: First, is it true? Second, is it kind? Third, is it necessary?--_Poynder's Literary Extracts_.

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End of Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431, by Various