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+Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
+
+
+
+
+Medical Life in the Navy
+By Gordon Stables
+Published by Robert Hardwicke, 192 Picadilly, London.
+This edition dated 1868.
+
+Medical Life in the Navy, by Gordon Stables.
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+MEDICAL LIFE IN THE NAVY, BY GORDON STABLES.
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+BY RAIL TO LONDON.  LITTLE MOONFACE.  EUSTON SQUARE.
+
+I chose the navy.  I am not at all certain what it was that determined
+my choice; probably this--I have a mole on my left arm, which my
+gossiping old nurse (rest the old lady's soul!) used to assert was a
+sure sign that I was born to be a rover.  Then I had been several
+voyages to the Arctic regions, and therefore knew what a sea-life meant,
+and what it didn't mean; that, no doubt, combined with an extensive
+acquaintance with the novels of Captain Marryat, had much to do with it.
+Be this as it may, I did choose that service, and have never yet
+repented doing so.
+
+Well, after a six weeks' preparatory read-up I packed my traps, taking
+care not to forget my class-tickets--to prove the number of lectures
+attended each course--a certificate of age and another of virtue, my
+degree in surgery (M.Ch.), and my M.D. or medical degree; and with a
+stick in my hand, and a porter at my side, I set out for the nearest
+railway station.  Previously, of course, I had bidden double adieus to
+all my friends, had a great many blessings hurled after me, and not a
+few old shoes; had kissed a whole family of pretty cousins, ingeniously
+commencing with the grandmother, although she happened to be as yellow
+as a withered dock-leaf, and wrinkled as a Malaga raisin; had composed
+innumerable verses, and burned them as soon as written.
+
+"Ticket for London, please," said I, after giving a final wipe to my
+eyes with the cuff of my coat.
+
+"Four, two, six," was the laconic reply from the Jack-in-the-box; and
+this I understood to mean 4 pounds 2 shillings 6 pence of the sterling
+money of the realm--for the young gentleman, like most of his class,
+talked as if he were merely a column in a ledger and had pound shilling
+penny written on his classic brow with indelible marking ink, an idea
+which railway directors ought to see carried out to prevent mistakes.
+
+I got on board the train, a porter banged-to the door so quickly that my
+coat-tails were embraced between the hinges; the guard said "all right,"
+though it wasn't all right; the whistle shrieked, the engine puffed, the
+wheels went round with a groan and a grunt, and presently we were
+rattling over the bridge that spans the romantic Dee, with the white
+walls of the Granite City glimmering in the moonlight far behind us.
+After extricating my imprisoned garment, I leant over the window, and
+began to feel very dull and sentimental.  I positively think I would
+have wept a little, had not the wind just then blown the smoke in my
+face, causing me to put up the window in disgust.  I had a whole
+first-class compartment to myself, so I determined to make the best of
+it.  Impressed with this idea, I exchanged my hat for a Glengarry, made
+a pillow of my rug, a blanket of my plaid, and laid me down to
+sleep--"perchance to dream."  Being rather melancholy, I endeavoured to
+lull myself to slumber by humming such cheering airs as `Kathleen:
+Mavourneen,' `Home, sweet home,' etc--"a vera judeecious arrangement,"
+had it continued.  Unfortunately for my peace of mind it did not; for,
+although the night train to London does not stop more than half-a-dozen
+times all the way, at the next station, and before my eyes had closed in
+sleep, the door of the compartment was opened, a lady was bundled in,
+the guard said "all right" again, though I could have sworn it wasn't,
+and the train, like the leg of the wonderful merchant of Rotterdam, "got
+up and went on as before."
+
+Now, I'm not in the habit of being alarmed at the presence of ladies--no
+British sailor is--still, on the present occasion, as I peered round the
+corner of my plaid, and beheld a creature of youth and beauty, I _did_
+feel a little squeamish; "for," I reasoned, "if she happens to be good,
+`all right,' as the guard said, but if not then all decidedly wrong; for
+why? she might take it into her head, between here and London, to swear
+that I had been guilty of manslaughter, or suicide, or goodness knows
+what, and then I feared my certificate of virtue, which I got from the
+best of aged Scottish divines, might not save me."  I looked again and
+again from below my Highland plaid.  "Well," thought I, "she seems mild
+enough, any how;" so I pretended to sleep, but then, gallantry forbade.
+"I may sleep in earnest," said I to myself, "and by George I don't like
+the idea of sleeping in the company of any strange lady."
+
+Presently, however, she relieved my mind entirely, for she showed a
+marriage-ring by drawing off a glove, and hauling out a baby--not out of
+the glove mind you, but out of her dress somewhere.  I gave a sigh of
+relief, for there was cause and effect at once--a marriage-ring and a
+baby.  I had in my own mind grievously wronged the virtuous lady, so I
+immediately elevated my prostrate form, rubbed my eyes, yawned,
+stretched myself, looked at my watch, and in fact behaved entirely like
+a gentleman just awakened from a pleasant nap.
+
+After I had benignly eyed her sleeping progeny for the space of half a
+minute, I remarked blandly, and with a soft smile, "Pretty baby, ma'am."
+(I thought it as ugly as sin.)
+
+"Yes, sir," said she, looking pleasedly at it with one eye (so have I
+seen a cock contemplate a bantam chick).  "It is so like its papa!"
+
+"Is it indeed, ma'am?  Well, now, do you know, I thought it just the
+very image of its mamma!"
+
+"So he thinks," replied the lady; "but he has only seen its
+carte-de-visite."
+
+"Unfortunate father!" thought I, "to have seen only the shadowy image of
+this his darling child--its carte-de-visite, too! wonder, now, if it
+makes a great many calls? shouldn't like the little cuss to visit me."
+
+"Going far, ma'am?" said I aloud.
+
+And now this queer specimen of femininity raised her head from the study
+of her sleeping babe, and looked me full in the face, as if she were
+only aware of my presence for the first time, and hadn't spoken to me at
+all.  I am proud to say I bore the scrutiny nobly, though it occupied
+several very long seconds, during which time I did not disgrace my
+certificate of virtue by the ghost of a blush, till, seeming satisfied,
+she replied, apparently in deep thought,--"To Lon--don."
+
+"So am I, ma'am."
+
+"I go on to Plymouth," she said.  "I expect to go there myself soon,"
+said I.
+
+"I am going abroad to join my husband."
+
+"Very strange!" said I, "and _I_ hope to go abroad soon to join my,"
+(she looked at me now, with parted lips, and the first rays of a rising
+smile lighting up her face, expecting me to add "wife")--"to join my
+ship;" and she only said "Oh!" rather disappointedly I thought, and
+recommenced the contemplation of the moonfaced babe.
+
+"Bah!" thought I, "there is nothing in you but babies and matrimony;"
+and I threw myself on the cushions, and soon slept in earnest, and
+dreamt that the Director-General, in a bob-wig and drab shorts, was
+dancing Jacky-tar on the quarter-deck of a seventy-four, on the occasion
+of my being promoted to the dignity of Honorary-Surgeon to the Queen--a
+thing that is sure to happen some of these days.
+
+When I awoke, cold and shivering, the sun had risen and was shining, as
+well as he could shine for the white mist that lay, like a veil of
+gauze, over all the wooded flats that skirt for many miles the great
+world of London.  My companion was still there, and baby had woken up,
+too, and begun to crow, probably in imitation of the many cocks that
+were hallooing to each other over all the country.  And now my attention
+was directed, in fact riveted, to a very curious pantomime which was
+being performed by the young lady; I had seen the like before, and often
+have since, but never could solve the mystery.  Her eyes were fixed on
+baby, whose eyes in turn were fastened on her, and she was bobbing her
+head up and down on the perpendicular, like a wax figure or automaton;
+every time that she elevated she pronounced the letter "a," and as her
+head again fell she remarked "gue," thus completing the word "ague,"
+much to the delight of little moonface, and no doubt to her own entire
+satisfaction.  "A-gue! a-gue!"
+
+Well, it certainly was a morning to give any one ague, so, pulling out
+my brandy-flask, I made bold to present it to her.  "You seem cold,
+ma'am," said I; "will you permit me to offer you a very little brandy?"
+
+"Oh dear, no! thanks," she answered quickly.
+
+"For baby's sake, ma'am," I pleaded; "I am a doctor."
+
+"Well, then," she replied, smiling, "just a tiny little drop.  Oh dear!
+not so much!"
+
+It seemed my ideas of "a tiny little drop," and hers, did not exactly
+coincide; however, she did me the honour to drink with me: after which I
+had a tiny little drop to myself, and never felt so much the better of
+anything.
+
+Euston Square Terminus at last; and the roar of great London came
+surging on my ears, like the noise and conflict of many waters, or the
+sound of a storm-tossed ocean breaking on a stony beach.  I leapt to the
+platform, forgetting at once lady and baby and all, for the following
+Tuesday was to be big with my fate, and my heart beat flurriedly as I
+thought "what if I were plucked, in spite of my M.D., in spite of my
+C.M., in spite even of my certificate of virtue itself?"
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+DOUBTS AND FEARS.  MY FIRST NIGHT IN COCKNEYDOM.
+
+What if I were plucked?  What should I do?  Go to the American war,
+embark for the gold-diggings, enlist in a regiment of Sepoys, or throw
+myself from the top of Saint Paul's?  This, and such like, were my
+thoughts, as I bargained with cabby, for a consideration, to drive me
+and my traps to a quiet second-rate hotel--for my purse by no means
+partook of the ponderosity of my heart.  Cabby did so.  The hotel at
+which I alighted was kept by a gentleman who, with his two daughters,
+had but lately migrated from the flowery lands of sunny Devon; so lately
+that he himself could still welcome his guests with an honest smile and
+hearty shake of hand, while the peach-like bloom had not as yet faded
+from the cheeks of his pretty buxom daughters.  So well pleased was I
+with my entertainment in every way at this hotel, that I really believed
+I had arrived in a city where both cabmen and innkeepers were honest and
+virtuous; but I have many a time and often since then had reason to
+alter my opinion.
+
+Now, there being only four days clear left me ere I should have to
+present myself before the august body of examiners at Somerset House, I
+thought it behoved me to make the best of my time.  Fain--oh, how
+fain!--would I have dashed care and my books, the one to the winds and
+the other to the wall, and floated away over the great ocean of London,
+with all its novelties, all its pleasures and its curiosities; but I was
+afraid--I dared not.  I felt like a butterfly just newly burst from the
+chrysalis, with a world of flowers and sunshine all around it, but with
+one leg unfortunately immersed in birdlime.  I felt like that gentleman,
+in Hades you know, with all sorts of good things at his lips, which he
+could neither touch nor taste of.  Nor could I of the joys of London
+life.  No, like Moses from the top of Mount Pisgah, I could but behold
+the promised land afar off; _he_ had the dark gates of death to pass
+before he might set foot therein, and I had to pass the gloomy portals
+of Somerset House, and its board of dread examiners.
+
+The landlord--honest man! little did he know the torture he was giving
+me--spread before me on the table more than a dozen orders for places of
+amusement,--to me, uninitiated, places of exceeding great joy--red
+orders, green orders, orange and blue orders, orders for concerts,
+orders for gardens, orders for theatres royal, and orders for the opera.
+
+Oh, reader, fancy at that moment my state of mind; fancy having the
+wonderful lamp of Aladdin offered you, and your hands tied behind your
+back I myself turned red, and green, and orange, and blue, even as the
+orders were, gasped a little, called for a glass of water,--not beer,
+mark me,--and rushed forth.  I looked not at the flaming placards on the
+walls, nor at the rows of seedy advertisement-board men.  I looked
+neither to the right hand nor to the left, but made my way straight to
+the British Museum, with the hopes of engaging in a little calm
+reflection.  I cannot say I found it however; for all the strange things
+I saw made me think of all the strange countries these strange things
+came from, and this set me a-thinking of all the beautiful countries I
+might see if I passed.
+
+"_If_, gracious heavens!" thought I.  "Are you mad, knocking about here
+like a magnetised mummy, and Tuesday the passing day?  Home, you devil
+you, and study!"
+
+Half an hour later, in imagination behold me seated before a table in my
+little room, with the sun's parting beams shemmering dustily in through
+my window, surrounded with books--books--books medical, books surgical,
+books botanical, books nautical, books what-not-ical; behold, too, the
+wet towel that begirts my thoughtful brow, my malar bones leaning on my
+hands, my forearms resting on the mahogany, while I am thinking, or
+trying to think, of, on, or about everything known, unknown, or guessed
+at.
+
+Mahogany, did I say?  "Mahogany," methinks I hear the examiner say,
+"hem! hem! upon what island, tell us, doctor, does the mahogany tree
+grow, exist, and flourish?  Give the botanical name of this tree, the
+natural family to which it belongs, the form of its leaves and flower,
+its uses in medicine and in art, the probable number of years it lives,
+the articles made from its bark, the parasites that inhabit it, the
+birds that build their nests therein, and the class of savage who finds
+shelter beneath its wide-spreading, _if_ wide-spreading, branches;
+entering minutely into the formation of animal structure in general, and
+describing the whole theory of cellular development, tracing the gradual
+rise of man from the sponge through the various forms of snail, oyster,
+salmon, lobster, lizard, rabbit, kangaroo, monkey, gorilla, <DW65>, and
+Irish Yahoo, up to the perfect Englishman; and state your ideas of the
+most probable form and amount of perfection at which you think the
+animal structure will arrive in the course of the next ten thousand
+years.  Is mahogany much superior to oak?  If so, why is it not used in
+building ships?  Give a short account of the history of shipbuilding,
+with diagrams illustrative of the internal economy of Noah's ark, the
+Great Eastern, and the Rob Roy canoe.  Describe the construction of the
+Armstrong gun, King Theodore's mortar, and Mons Meg.  Describe the
+different kinds of mortars used in building walls, and those used in
+throwing them down; insert here the composition of gunpowder tea, Fenian
+fire, and the last New Yankee drink?  In the mahogany country state the
+diseases most prevalent among the natives, and those which you would
+think yourself justified in telling the senior assistant-surgeon to
+request the surgeon to beg the first lieutenant to report to the
+commander, that he may call the attention of your captain to the
+necessity of ordering the crew to guard against."
+
+Then, most indulgent reader, behold me, with these and a thousand other
+such questions floating confusedly through my bewildered brain--behold
+me, I say, rise from the table slowly, and as one who doubteth whether
+he be not standing on his head; behold me kick aside the cane-bottomed
+chair, then clear the table with one wild sweep, state "Bosh!" with the
+air and emphasis of a pasha of three tails, throw myself on the sofa,
+and with a "Waitah, glass of gwog and cigaw, please," commence to read
+`Tom Cwingle's Log.'  This is how I spent my first day, and a good part
+of the night too, in London; and--moral--I should sincerely advise every
+medical aspirant, or candidate for a commission in the Royal Navy, to
+bring in his pocket some such novel as Roderick Random, or Harry
+Lorrequer, to read immediately before passing, and to leave every other
+book at home.
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+A FELINE ADVENTURE.  PASSED--HOORAY!  CONVERSATION OF (NOT WITH) TWO
+ISRAELITISH PARTIES.
+
+Next morning, while engaged at my toilet--not a limb of my body which I
+had not amputated that morning mentally, not one of my joints I had not
+exsected, or a capital operation I did not perform on my own person; I
+had, in fact, with imaginary surgical instruments, cut myself all into
+little pieces, dissected my every nerve, filled all my arteries with red
+wax and my veins with blue, traced out the origin and insertion of every
+muscle, and thought of what each one could and what each one could not
+do; and was just giving the final twirl to my delicate moustache, and
+the proper set to the bow of my necktie, when something occurred which
+caused me to start and turn quickly round.  It was a soft modest little
+knock--almost plaintive in its modesty and softness--at my door.  I
+heard no footfall nor sound of any sort, simply the "tapping as of some
+one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber-door; simply that and nothing
+more."
+
+"This," thought I, "is Sarah Jane with my boots: mindful girl is Sarah
+Jane."  Then giving voice to my thoughts, "Thank you, Sally," said I,
+"just leave them outside; I'll have Finnon haddocks and oatcake for
+breakfast."
+
+Then, a voice that wasn't Sally's, but ever so much softer and more
+kitten-like in tone, replied,--
+
+"Hem! ahem!" and presently added, "it is only _me_."  Then the door was
+pushed slightly open, while pressing one foot doubtfully against it I
+peeped out, and to my surprise perceived the half of a little yellow
+book and the whole of a little yellow face with whiskers at it, and an
+expression so very like that of a one-year-old lady cat, that I remained
+for a little in momentary expectation of hearing it purr.  But it
+didn't, merely smiling and repeating,--
+
+"It's only me."
+
+"So I see," said I, quite taken aback as it were.  "So I see."  Then
+"_Me_," slowly and gently overcame the resistance my right foot offered,
+and, pushing open the door, held out the yellow tract, which I took to
+be of a spiritual nature, and spoke to "I" as follows:--
+
+"We--that is, he! he! my father and me, he! he! you see--had heard of
+your going up to join the Navy."  At that moment it seemed to "I" the
+easiest thing in the world, short of spending money, to "join" the Royal
+Navy.  "And so," continued "_Me_", "you see, he! he! we thought of
+making you a call, all in business, you see, he! he! and offering you
+our estimate for your uniform."
+
+Uniform! grand name to my ear, I who had never worn anything more gay
+than a homespun coat of houden-grey and a Gordon tartan kilt.  I thought
+it was my turn to say, "Hem! hem!" and even add an inaudible "Ho! ho!"
+for I felt myself expanding inch by inch like a kidney bean.
+
+"In that little book," _Me_ went on, "there,"--pointing to the front
+page--"you will find the names of one hundred and fifty-seven officers
+and gentlemen who have honoured us with their custom."
+
+Then I exclaimed, "Dear me!" and Me added with animation, "You see: he!
+he!"
+
+Was it any wonder then, that I succumbed to such a flood of temptation,
+that even my native canniness disappeared or was swept away, and that I
+promised this gentleman of feline address that if I passed I would
+assuredly make his father a call?  Alas! unfortunate greenhorn that I
+was, I found out when too late that some on the list had certainly given
+him their custom, and like myself repented only once but for ever; while
+the custom of the majority was confined to a pair or two of duck
+inexpressibles, a uniform cap, a dozen of buttons, or a hank of sewing
+silk.
+
+"We can proudly refer you," Me continued, as I bowed him to the door,
+"to any of them, and if you do us the honour of calling you will be
+enabled to judge for yourself; but," added he, in a stage whisper, at
+the same time making a determined attempt, as I thought, to bite off my
+ear, "be aware of the Jews."
+
+"What," said I, "is your father not then a Jew? the name I thought--"
+
+"Oh-h-h!" he cried, "they may call us so; but--born in England--bred in
+London--neighbourhood of Bond Street, highly respectable locality.  Army
+and Navy outfitters, my father and me, you see, he! he!  We invite
+inspection, give satisfaction, and defy competition, you see, he! he!"
+And he glided silently down stairs, giving me scarcely time to observe
+that he was a young man with black hair, black eyes and whiskers, and
+wearing goloshes.
+
+I soon after went down to breakfast, wondering, as I well might, how my
+feline friend had found out all about my affairs; but it was not till I
+had eaten ninety and one breakfasts and a corresponding number of
+dinners that I discovered he belonged to a class of fellows who live by
+fleecing the poor victims they pretend to clothe.  Intending candidates,
+beware of the Jews!
+
+Tuesday came round at last, just as Tuesdays have always been in the
+habit of doing, and at eleven o'clock precisely I, with my heart playing
+a game of cricket, with my spine for the bat and my ribs for the wicket,
+"repaired"--a very different mode of progression from any other with
+which I am acquainted--to the medical department of Somerset House.  I
+do not remember ever having entered any place with feelings of greater
+solemnity.  I was astonished in no small degree at the people who passed
+along the Strand for appearing so disgustingly indifferent,--
+
+  "And I so weerie fu' o' care."
+
+Had I been going to stand my trial for manslaughter or cattle-lifting, I
+am certain I should have felt supremely happy in comparison.  I passed
+the frowning gateway, traversed the large square, and crossed the
+Rubicon by entering the great centre doorway and inquiring my way to the
+examination room.  I had previously, be it observed, sent in my medical
+and surgical degrees, with all my class tickets and certificates,
+including that for virtue.  I was now directed up a great many long
+stairs, along as many gloomy-looking corridors, in which I lost my way
+at least half a dozen times, and had to call at a corresponding number
+of green-baize-covered brass tacketed doors, in order to be put right,
+before I at length found myself in front of the proper one, at which I
+knocked once, twice, and even thrice, without in any way affecting or
+diminishing the buzz that was going on behind the door; so I pushed it
+open, and boldly entered.  I now found myself in the midst of a large
+and select assortment of clerks, whose tongues were hard at work if
+their pens were not, and who did not seem half so much astonished at
+seeing me there as I felt at finding myself.  The room itself looked
+like an hypertrophied law office, of which the principal features were
+papers and presses, three-legged stools, calf-bound folios, and cobwebs.
+I stood for a considerable time, observing but unobserved, wondering
+all the while what to say, how to say it, and whom to say it to, and
+resisting an inclination to put my finger in my mouth.  Moreover, at
+that moment a war was going on within me between pride and modesty, for
+I was not at all certain whether I ought to take off my hat; so being
+"canny" and a Scot, I adopted a middle course, and commenced to wipe
+imaginary perspiration from my brow, an operation which, of course,
+necessitated the removal of my head-dress.  Probably the cambric
+handkerchief caught the tail of the eye of a quieter-looking knight of
+the quill, who sat a little apart from the other drones of the pen; at
+any rate he quickly dismounted, and coming up to me politely asked my
+business.  I told him, and he civilly motioned me to a seat to await my
+turn for examination.  By-and-bye other candidates dropped in, each of
+whom I rejoiced to observe looked a little paler, decidedly more blue,
+and infinitely greener than I did myself!  This was some relief, so I
+sat by the dusty window which overlooked the Thames, watching the little
+skiffs gliding to and fro, the boats hastening hither and thither, and
+the big lazy-like barges that floated on the calm unruffled bosom of the
+great mysterious river, and thinking and wishing that it could but break
+its everlasting silence and tell its tale, and mention even a tithe of
+the scenes that had been acted on its breast or by its banks since it
+first rolled its infant waters to the sea, through a forest of trees
+instead of a forest of masts and spires, or tell of the many beings that
+had sought relief from a world of sin and suffering under its dark
+current.  So ran my thoughts, and as the river so did time glide by, and
+two hours passed away, then a third; and when at last my name was
+called, it was only to inform me that I must come back on the following
+day, there being too many to be examined at once.
+
+At the hour appointed I was immediately conducted into the presence of
+the august assembly of examiners, and this, is what I saw, or rather,
+this was the picture on my retina, for to see, in the usual acceptation
+of the term, was, under the circumstances, out of the question:--A table
+with a green cover, laid out for a feast--to me a ghastly feast--of
+reason and flow of soul.  My reason was to form the feast, my soul was
+to flow; the five pleasant-looking and gentlemanly men who sat around
+were to partake of the banquet.  I did not walk into the room, I seemed
+to glide as if in a dream, or as if I had been my own ghost.  Every
+person and every thing in the room appeared strangely contorted; and the
+whole formed a wonderful mirage, miraculously confused.  The fire hopped
+up on the table, the table consigned itself to the flames at one moment,
+and made an insane attempt to get up the chimney the next.  The roof
+bending down in one corner affectionately kissed the carpet, the carpet
+bobbing up at another returned the chaste salute.  Then the gentlemen
+smiled on me pleasantly, while I replied by a horrible grin.
+
+"Sit down, sir," said one, and his voice sounded far away, as if in
+another world, as I tottered to the chair, and with palsied arm helped
+myself to a glass of water, which had been placed on the table for my
+use.  The water revived me, and at the first task I was asked to
+perform--translate a small portion of Gregory's (not powder) Conspectus
+into English--my senses came back.  The scales fell from my eyes, the
+table and fire resumed their proper places, the roof and carpet ceased
+to dally, my scattered brains came all of a heap once more, and I was
+myself again as much as ever Richard was, or any other man.  I answered
+most of the questions, if not all.  I was tackled for ten minutes at a
+time by each of the examiners.  I performed mental operations on the
+limbs of beings who never existed, prescribed hypothetically for
+innumerable ailments, brought divers mythical children into the world,
+dissected muscles and nerves in imagination, talked of green trees,
+fruit, flowers, natural families, and far-away lands, as if I had been
+Linnaeus, Columbus, and Humboldt all in one, so that, in less than an
+hour, the august body leant their backs against their respective chairs,
+and looked knowingly in each other's faces for a period of several very
+long seconds.  They then nodded to one another, did this august body,
+looked at their tablets, and nodded again.  After this pantomime had
+come to a conclusion I was furnished with a sheet of foolscap and sent
+back to the room above the Thames to write a dissertation on fractures
+of the cranium, and shortly after sending it in I was recalled and
+informed that I had sustained the dread ordeal to their entire
+satisfaction, etc, and that I had better, before I left the house, pay
+an official visit to the Director-General.  I bowed, retired, heaved a
+monster sigh, made the visit of ceremony, and afterwards my exit.
+
+The first gentleman (?)  I met on coming out was a short, middle-aged
+Shylock, hook-nosed and raven-haired, and arrayed in a surtout of seedy
+black.  He approached me with much bowing and smiling, and holding below
+my nose a little green tract which he begged I would accept.
+
+"Exceedingly kind," thought I, and was about to comply with his request,
+when, greatly to my surprise and the discomposure of my toilet, an arm
+was hooked into mine, I was wheeled round as if on a pivot, and found
+myself face to face with another Israelite armed with a _red_ tract.
+
+"He is a Jew and a dog," said this latter, shaking a forefinger close to
+my face.
+
+"Is he?" said I.  The words had hardly escaped my lips when the other
+Jew whipped his arm through mine and quickly re-wheeled me towards him.
+
+"He is a liar and a cheat," hissed he, with the same motion of the
+forefinger as his rival had used.
+
+"Indeed!" said I, beginning to wonder what it all meant.  I had not,
+however, long time to wonder, being once more set spinning by the
+Israelite of the red tract.
+
+"Beware of the Jews?" he whispered, pointing to the other; and the
+conversation was continued in the following strain.  Although in the
+common sense of the word it really was no conversation, as each of them
+addressed himself to me only, and I could find no reply, still, taking
+the word in its literal meaning (from con, together, and _verto_, I
+turn), it was indeed a conversation, for they turned me together, each
+one, as he addressed me, hooking his arm in mine and whirling me round
+like the handle of an air-pump or a badly constructed teetotum, and
+shaking a forefinger in my face, as if I were a parrot and he wanted me
+to swear.
+
+_Shylock of the green tract_.--"He is a swine and a scoundrel."
+
+_Israelite of the red_.--"He's a liar and a thief."
+
+_Shylock of the green_.--"And he'll get round you some way."
+
+_Israelite of red_.--"Ahab and brothers cheat everybody they can."
+
+_Shylock of green_.--"He'll be lending you money."
+
+_Red_.--"Whole town know them--"
+
+_Green_.--"Charge you thirty per cent."
+
+Red--"They are swindlers and dogs."
+
+_Green_.--"Look at our estimate."
+
+_Red_.--"Look at _our_ estimate."
+
+_Green_.--"Peep at our charges."
+
+_Red_.--"Five years' credit."
+
+_Green_.--"Come with us, sir," tugging me to the right.
+
+_Red_.--"This way, master," pulling me to the left.
+
+_Green_.--"Be advised; he'll rob you."
+
+_Red_.--"If you go he'll murder you."
+
+"Damn you both!"  I roared; and letting fly both fists at the same time,
+I turned them both together on their backs and thus put an end to the
+conversation.  Only just in time, though, for the remaining ten tribes,
+or their representatives, were hurrying towards me, each one swaying
+aloft a gaudy- tract; and I saw no way of escaping but by fairly
+making a run for it, which I accordingly did, pursued by the ten tribes;
+and even had I been a centipede, I would have assuredly been torn limb
+from limb, had I not just then rushed into the arms of my feline friend
+from Bond Street.
+
+He purred, gave me a paw and many congratulations; was so glad I had
+passed,--but, to be sure, knew I would,--and so happy I had escaped the
+Jews; would I take a glass of beer?
+
+I said, "I didn't mind;" so we adjourned (the right word in the right
+place--adjourned) to a quiet adjoining hotel.
+
+"Now," said he, as he tendered the waiter a five-pound Bank of England
+note, "you must not take it amiss, Doctor, but--"
+
+"No smaller change, sir?" asked the waiter.
+
+"I'm afraid," said my friend (?), opening and turning over the contents
+of a well-lined pocket-book, "I've only got five--oh, here are sovs, he!
+he!"  Then turning to me: "I was going to observe," he continued, "that
+if you want a pound or two, he! he!--you know young fellows will be
+young fellows--only don't say a word to my father, he! he! he!--highly
+respectable man.  Another glass of beer?  No?  Well, we will go and see
+father!"
+
+"But," said I, "I really must go home first."
+
+"Oh dear no; don't think of such a thing."
+
+"I'm deuced hungry," continued I.
+
+"My dear sir, excuse me, but it is just our dinner hour; nice roast
+turkey, and boiled leg of mutton with--"
+
+"Any pickled pork?"
+
+"He! he! now you young _officers_ will have your jokes; but, he! he!
+though we don't just eat pork, you'll find us just as good as most
+Christians.  Some capital wine--very old brand; father got it from the
+Cape only the other day; in fact, though I should not mention these
+things, it was sent us by a grateful customer.  But come, you're hungry,
+we'll get a cab."
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+THE CITY OF ENCHANTMENT.  IN JOINING THE SERVICE!  FIND OUT WHAT A "GIG"
+MEANS.
+
+The fortnight immediately subsequent to my passing into the Royal Navy
+was spent by me in the great metropolis, in a perfect maze of pleasure
+and excitement.  For the first time for years I knew what it was to be
+free from care and trouble, independent, and quietly happy.  I went the
+round of the sights and the round of the theatres, and lingered
+entranced in the opera; but I went all alone, and unaccompanied, save by
+a small pocket guide-book, and I believe I enjoyed it all the more on
+that account.  No one cared for nor looked at the lonely stranger, and
+he at no one.  I roamed through the spacious streets, strolled
+delightedly in the handsome parks, lounged in picture galleries, or
+buried myself for hour's in the solemn halls and classical courts of
+that prince of public buildings the British Museum; and, when tired of
+rambling, I dined by myself in a quiet hotel.  Every sight was strange
+to me, every sound was new; it was as if some good fairy, by a touch of
+her magic wand, had transported me to an enchanted city; and when I
+closed my eyes at night, or even shut them by day, behold, there was the
+same moving panorama that I might gaze on till tired or asleep.
+
+But all this was too good to last long.  One morning, on coming down to
+breakfast, bright-hearted and beaming as ever, I found on my plate,
+instead of fried soles, a long blue official letter, "On her Majesty's
+Service."  It was my appointment to the `Victory,'--"additional for
+service at Haslar Hospital."  As soon as I read it the enchantment was
+dissolved, the spell was broken; and when I tried that day to find new
+pleasures, new sources of amusement, I utterly failed, and found with
+disgust that it was but a common work-a-day world after all, and that
+London was very like other places in that respect.  I lingered but a few
+more days in town, and then hastened by train to Portsmouth to take up
+my appointment--to join the service in reality.
+
+It was a cold raw morning, with a grey and cheerless sky, and a biting
+south-wester blowing up channel, and ruffling the water in the Solent.
+Alongside of the pier the boats and wherries were all in motion,
+scratching and otherwise damaging their gunwales against the stones, as
+they were lifted up and down at the pleasure of the wavelets.  The
+boatmen themselves were either drinking beer at adjacent bars, or
+stamping up and down the quay with the hopes of enticing a little warmth
+to their half-frozen toes, and rubbing the ends of their noses for a
+like purpose.  Suddenly there arose a great commotion among them, and
+they all rushed off to surround a gentleman in brand-new naval uniform,
+who was looking, with his mouth open, for a boat, in every place where a
+boat was most unlikely to be.  Knowing at a glance that he was a
+stranger, they very generously, each and all of them, offered their
+services, and wanted to row him somewhere--anywhere.  After a great deal
+of fighting and scrambling among themselves, during which the officer
+got tugged here and tugged there a good many times, he was at last
+bundled into a very dirty cobble, into which a rough-looking boatman
+bounded after him and at once shoved off.
+
+The naval officer was myself--the reader's obsequious slave.  As for the
+boatman, one thing must be said in his favour, he seemed to be a person
+of religious character--in one thing at least, for, on the Day of
+Judgment, I, for one, will not be able to turn round and say to him "I
+was a stranger and ye took me not in," for he did take me in.  In fact,
+Portsmouth, as a town, is rather particular on this point of
+Christianity: they do take strangers in.
+
+"Where away to?" asked the jolly waterman, leaning a moment on his oars.
+
+"H.M.S. `Victory,'" replied I.
+
+"Be going for to join, I dessay, sir?"
+
+"You are right," said I; "but have the goodness to pull so that I may
+not be wet through on both sides."
+
+"Can't help the weather, sir."
+
+"I'll pay here," said I, "before we go alongside."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Only three shillings, sir."
+
+"_Only_ three shillings!"  I repeated, and added "eh?"
+
+"That's all, sir--distance is short you know."
+
+"Do you mean to say," said I, "that you really mean to charge--"
+
+"Just three bob," interrupting me; "flag's up--can see for yourself,
+sir."
+
+"The flag, you see--I mean my good man--don't tell me about a flag, I'm
+too far north for you;" and I tried to look as northish as possible.
+
+"Flag, indeed! humph!"
+
+"Why, sir," said the man of oars, with a pitying expression of
+countenance and voice, "flag means double fare--anybody'll tell you
+that, sir."
+
+"Nonsense?" said I; "don't tell me that any one takes the trouble of
+hoisting a flag in order to fill your confounded pockets; there is half
+a crown, and not a penny more do you get from me."
+
+"Well, sir, o' condition you has me again, sir, you know, sir,--and my
+name's McDonald;" and he pocketed the money, which I afterwards
+discovered was a _leetle_ too much.  "McDonald," thought I--"my
+grandmother's name; the rascal thinks to come round me by calling
+himself a Scotchman--the idea of a McDonald being a waterman!"
+
+"Sir," said I, aloud, "it is my unbiassed opinion and firm conviction
+that you are--" I was going to add "a most unmitigated blackguard," but
+I noticed that he was a man of six feet two, with breadth in proportion,
+so I left the sentence unfinished.
+
+We were now within sight of the bristling sides of the old `Victory,' on
+the quarter-deck of which fell the great and gallant Nelson in the hour
+of battle and triumph; and I was a young officer about to join that
+service which can boast of so many brave and noble men, and brave and
+noble deeds; and one would naturally expect that I would indulge in a
+few dreams of chivalry and romance, picture to myself a bright and
+glorious future, pounds' weight of medals and crosses, including the
+Victoria, kiss the hilt of my sword, and all that sort of thing.  I did
+not.  I was too wretchedly cold for one reason, and the only feeling I
+had was one of shyness; as for duty, I knew I could and would do that,
+as most of my countrymen had done before me; so I left castle-building
+to the younger sons of noblemen or gentry, whose parents can afford to
+allow them two or three hundred pounds a year to eke out their pay and
+smooth the difficulties of the service.  Not having been fortunate
+enough to be born with even a horn spoon in my mouth, I had to be
+content with my education as my fortune, and my navy pay as my only
+income.
+
+"Stabird side, I dessay, sir?" said the waterman.
+
+"Certainly," said I, having a glimmering idea that it must be the proper
+side.
+
+A few minutes after--"The Admiral's gig is going there, sir,--better
+wait a bit."  I looked on shore and _did_ see a gig, and two horses
+attached to it.
+
+"No," said I, "decidedly not, he can't see us here, man.  I suppose you
+want to go sticking your dirty wet oars in the air, do you?"--(I had
+seen pictures of this performance).  "Drive on, I mean pull ahead, my
+hearty"--a phrase I had heard at the theatre, and considered highly
+nautical.
+
+The waterman obeyed, and here is what came of it.  We were just
+approaching the ladder, when I suddenly became sensible of a rushing
+noise.  I have a dim recollection of seeing a long, many-oared boat,
+carrying a large red flag, and with an old grey-haired officer sitting
+astern; of hearing a voice--it might have belonged to the old man of the
+sea, for anything I could have told to the contrary--float down the
+wind,--
+
+"Clear the way with that (something) bumboat!"  Then came a crash, my
+heels flew up--I had been sitting on the gunwale--and overboard I went
+with a splash, just as some one else in the long boat sang out.  "Way
+enough!"
+
+Way enough, indeed! there was a little too much way for me.  When I came
+to the surface of the water, I found myself several yards from the
+ladder, and at once struck out for it.  There was a great deal of noise
+and shouting, and a sailor held towards me the sharp end of a boathook;
+but I had no intention of being lugged out as if I were a pair of canvas
+trowsers, and, calling to the sailor to keep his pole to himself--did he
+want to knock my eye out?--I swam to the ladder and ascended.  Thus then
+I joined the service, and, having entered at the foot of the ladder, I
+trust some day to find myself at the top of it.
+
+And, talking of joining the service, I here beg to repudiate, as an
+utter fabrication, the anecdote--generally received as authentic in the
+service--of the Scotch doctor, who, going to report himself for the
+first time on board of the `Victory,' knocked at the door, and inquired
+(at a marine, I think), "Is this the Royal Nauvy?--'cause I'm come till
+jine."  The story bears "fib" on the face of it, for there is not a
+Scottish schoolboy but knows that one ship does not make a navy, any
+more than one swallow does a summer.
+
+But, dear intending candidate, if you wish to do the right thing, array
+yourself quietly in frock-coat, cap--not cocked hat, remember--and
+sword, and go on board your ship in any boat you please, only keep out
+of the way of gigs.  When you arrive on board, don't be expecting to see
+the admiral, because you'll be disappointed; but ask a sailor or marine
+to point you out the midshipman of the watch, and request the latter to
+show you the commander.  Make this request civilly, mind you; do not
+pull his ear, because, if big and hirsute, he might beat you, which
+would be a bad beginning.  When you meet the commander, don't rush up
+and shake him by the hand, and begin talking about the weather; walk
+respectfully up to him, and lift your cap as you would to a lady; upon
+which he will hurriedly point to his nose with his forefinger, by way of
+returning the salute, while at the same time you say--
+
+"_Come_ on board, sir--to _join_, sir."
+
+It is the custom of the Service to make this remark in a firm, bold,
+decided tone, placing the emphasis on the "_come_" to show clearly that
+you _did come_, and that no one kicked, or dragged, or otherwise brought
+you on board against your will.  The proper intonation of the remark may
+be learned from any polite waiter at a hotel, when he tells you,
+"Dinner's ready, sir, please;" or it may be heard in the "Now then,
+gents," of the railway guard of the period.
+
+Having reported yourself to the man of three stripes, you must not
+expect that he will shake hands, or embrace you, ask you on shore to
+tea, and introduce you to his wife.  No, if he is good-natured, and has
+not had a difference of opinion with the captain lately, he _may_
+condescend to show you your cabin and introduce you to your messmates;
+but if he is out of temper, he will merely ask your name, and, on your
+telling him, remark, "Humph!" then call the most minute midshipman to
+conduct you to your cabin, being at the same time almost certain to
+mispronounce your name.  Say your name is Struthers, he will call you
+Stutters.
+
+"Here, Mr Pigmy, conduct Mr Stutters to his cabin, and show him where
+the gunroom--ah!  I beg his pardon, the wardroom--lies."
+
+"Ay, ay, sir," says the middy, and skips off at a round trot, obliging
+you either to adopt the same ungraceful mode of progression, or lose
+sight of him altogether, and have to wander about, feeling very much
+from home, until some officer passing takes pity on you and leads you to
+the wardroom.
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+HASLAR HOSPITAL.  THE MEDICAL MESS.  DR GRUFF.
+
+It is a way they have in the service, or rather it is the custom of the
+present Director-General, not to appoint the newly-entered medical
+officer at once to a sea-going ship, but instead to one or other of the
+naval hospitals for a few weeks or even months, in order that he may be
+put up to the ropes, as the saying is, or duly initiated into the
+mysteries of service and routine of duty.  This is certainly a good
+idea, although it is a question whether it would not be better to adopt
+the plan they have at Netley, and thus put the navy and army on the same
+footing.
+
+Haslar Hospital at Portsmouth is a great rambling barrack-looking block
+of brick building, with a yard or square surrounded by high walls in
+front, and with two wings extending from behind, which, with the chapel
+between, form another and smaller square.
+
+There are seldom fewer than a thousand patients within, and, independent
+of a whole regiment of male and female nurses, sick-bay-men, servants,
+cooks, _et id genus omne_, there is a regular staff of officers,
+consisting of a captain--of what use I have yet to learn--two medical
+inspector-generals, generally three or four surgeons, the same number of
+regularly appointed assistant-surgeons, besides from ten to twenty
+acting assistant-surgeons [Note 1] waiting for appointments, and doing
+duty as supernumeraries.  Of this last class I myself was a member.
+
+Soon as the clock tolled the hour of eight in the morning, the
+staff-surgeon of our side of the hospital stalked into the duty cabin,
+where we, the assistants, were waiting to receive him.  Immediately
+after, we set out on the morning visit, each of us armed with a little
+board or palette to be used as a writing-desk, an excise inkstand slung
+in a buttonhole, and a quill behind the ear.  The large doors were
+thrown open, the beds neat and tidy, and the nurses "standing by."  Up
+each side of the long wards, from bed to bed, we journeyed; notifying
+the progress of each case, repeating the treatment here, altering or
+suspending it there, and performing small operations in another place;
+listening attentively to tales of aches and pains, and hopes and fears,
+and just in a sort of general way acting the part of good Samaritans.
+From one ward to another we went, up and down long staircases, along
+lengthy corridors, into wards in the attics, into wards on the basement,
+and into wards below ground,--fracture wards, Lazarus wards, erysipelas
+wards, men's wards, officers' wards; and thus we spent the time till a
+little past nine, by which time the relief of so much suffering had
+given us an appetite, and we hurried off to the messroom to breakfast.
+
+The medical mess at Haslar is one of the finest in the service.
+Attached to the room is a nice little apartment, fitted up with a
+bagatelle-table, and boxing gloves and foils _ad libitum_.  And, sure
+enough, you might walk many a weary mile, or sail many a knot, without
+meeting twenty such happy faces as every evening surrounded our
+dinner-table, without beholding twenty such bumper glasses raised at
+once to the toast of Her Majesty the Queen, and without hearing twenty
+such good songs, or five times twenty such yarns and original bons-mots,
+as you would at Haslar Medical Mess.  Yet I must confess we partook in
+but a small degree indeed of the solemn quietude of Wordsworth's--
+
+  "--Party in a parlour cramm'd,
+  Some sipping punch, some sipping tea,
+  But, as you by their faces see,
+  All silent--and all damned."
+
+I do not deny that we were a little noisy at times, and that on several
+occasions, having eaten and drunken till we were filled, we rose up to
+dance, and consequently received a _polite_ message from the inspector
+whose house was adjoining, requesting us to "stop our _confounded_ row;"
+but then the old man was married, and no doubt his wife was at the
+bottom of it.
+
+Duty was a thing that did not fall to the lot of us supers every day.
+We took it turn about, and hard enough work it used to be too.  As soon
+as breakfast was over, the medical officer on duty would hie him away to
+the receiving-room, and seat himself at the large desk; and by-and-bye
+the cases would begin to pour in.  First there would arrive, say three
+or four blue-jackets, with their bags under their arms, in charge of an
+assistant-surgeon, then a squad of marines, then more blue-jackets, then
+more red-coats, and so the game of _rouge-et-noir_ would go on during
+the day.  The officer on duty has first to judge whether or not the case
+is one that can be admitted,--that is, which cannot be conveniently
+treated on board; he has then to appoint the patient a bed in a proper
+ward, and prescribe for him, almost invariably a bath and a couple of
+pills.  Besides, he has to enter the previous history of the case,
+verbatim, into each patient's case-book, and if the cases are numerous,
+and the assistant-surgeon who brings them has written an elaborate
+account of each disease, the duty-officer will have had his work cut out
+for him till dinner-time at least.  Before the hour of the patient's
+dinner, this gentleman has also to glance into each ward, to see if
+everything is right, and if there are any complaints.  Even when ten or
+eleven o'clock at night brings sleep and repose to others, his work is
+not yet over; he has one other visit to pay any time during the night
+through all his wards.  Then with dark-lantern and slippers you may meet
+him, gliding ghost-like along the corridors or passages, lingering at
+ward doors, listening on the staircases, smelling and snuffing, peeping
+and keeking, and endeavouring by eye, or ear, or nose, to detect the
+slightest irregularity among the patients or nurses, such as burning
+lights without orders, gambling by the light of the fire, or smoking.
+This visit paid, he may return to his virtuous cabin, and sleep as
+soundly as he chooses.
+
+Very few of the old surgeons interfere with the duties of their
+assistants, but there _be_ men who seem to think you have merely come to
+the service to learn, not to practise your profession, and therefore
+they treat you as mere students, or at the best hobble-de-hoy doctors.
+Of this class was Dr Gruff, a man whom I would back against the whole
+profession for caudle, clyster, castor-oil, or linseed poultice; but
+who, I rather suspect, never prescribed a dose of chiretta, santonin, or
+lithia-water in his life.  He came to me one duty-day, in a great hurry,
+and so much excited that I judged he had received some grievous bodily
+ailment, or suffered some severe family bereavement.
+
+"Well, sir," he cried; "I hear, sir, you have put a case of ulcer into
+the erysipelas ward."
+
+This remark, not partaking of the nature of question, I thought required
+no answer.
+
+"Is it true, sir?--is it true?" he continued, getting blue and red.
+
+"It is, sir," was the reply.
+
+"And what do you mean by it, sir?  What do you mean by it?" he
+exclaimed, waxing more and more wroth.
+
+"I thought, sir--" I began.
+
+"You thought, sir!"
+
+"Yes, sir," continued I, my Highland blood getting uppermost, "I _did_
+think that, the case being one of ulcer of an _erysipelatous_ nature, I
+was--"
+
+"Erysipelatous ulcer!" interrupting me.  "Oh!" said he, "that alters the
+case.  Why did you not say so at first?  I beg your pardon;" and he
+trotted off again.
+
+"All right," thought I, "old Gruff.  I guess you are sorry you spoke."
+
+But although there are not wanting medical officers in the service who,
+on being promoted to staff-surgeon, appear to forget that ever they wore
+less than three stripes, and can keep company with no one under the rank
+of commander, I am happy to say they are few and far between, and every
+year getting more few and farther between.
+
+It is a fine thing to be appointed for, say three or four years to a
+home hospital; in fact, it is the assistant-surgeon's highest ambition.
+Next, in point of comfort, would be an appointment at the Naval Hospital
+of Malta, Cape of Good Hope, or China.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Note 1.  The acting assistant-surgeons are those who have not as yet
+served the probationary year, or been confirmed.  They are liable to be
+dismissed without a court-martial.
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+AFLOAT.  A STORM IN BISCAY BAY.  A WORD ON BASS'S BEER.
+
+For the space of six weeks I lived in clover at Haslar, and at the end
+of that time my appointment to a sea-going ship came.  It was the
+pleasure of their Lordships the Commissioners, that I should take my
+passage to the Cape of Good Hope in a frigate, which had lately been put
+in commission and was soon about to sail.  Arrived there, I was to be
+handed over to the flag-ship on that station for disposal, like so many
+stones of salt pork.  On first entering the service every medical
+officer is sent for one commission (three to five years) to a foreign
+station; and it is certainly very proper too that the youngest and
+strongest men, rather than the oldest, should do the rough work of the
+service, and go to the most unhealthy stations.
+
+The frigate in which I was ordered passage was to sail from Plymouth.
+To that town I was accordingly sent by train, and found the good ship in
+such a state of internal chaos--painters, carpenters, sail-makers, and
+sailors; armourers, blacksmiths, gunners, and tailors; every one engaged
+at his own trade, with such an utter disregard of order or regularity,
+while the decks were in such confusion, littered with tools, nails,
+shavings, ropes, and spars, among which I scrambled, and over which I
+tumbled, getting into everybody's way, and finding so little rest for
+the sole of my foot, that I was fain to beg a week's leave, and glad
+when I obtained it.  On going on board again at the end of that time, a
+very different appearance presented itself; everything was in its proper
+place, order and regularity were everywhere.  The decks were white and
+clean, the binnacles, the brass and mahogany work polished, the gear all
+taut, the ropes coiled, and the vessel herself sitting on the water
+saucy as the queen of ducks, with her pennant flying and her beautiful
+ensign floating gracefully astern.  The gallant ship was ready for sea,
+had been unmoored, had made her trial trips, and was now anchored in the
+Sound.  From early morning to busy noon, and from noon till night, boats
+glided backwards and forwards between the ship and the shore, filled
+with the friends of those on board, or laden with wardroom and gunroom
+stores.  Among these might have been seen a shore-boat, rowed by two
+sturdy watermen, and having on board a large sea-chest, with a naval
+officer on top of it, grasping firmly a Cremona in one hand and holding
+a hat-box in the other.  The boat was filled with any number of smaller
+packages, among which were two black portmanteaus, warranted to be the
+best of leather, and containing the gentleman's dress and undress
+uniforms; these, however, turned out to be mere painted pasteboard, and
+in a very few months the cockroaches--careless, merry-hearted
+creatures--after eating up every morsel of them, turned their attention
+to the contents, on which they dined and supped for many days, till the
+officer's dress-coat was like a meal-sieve, and his pantaloons might
+have been conveniently need for a landing-net.  This, however, was a
+matter of small consequence, for, contrary to the reiterated assurance
+of his feline friend, no one portion of this officer's uniform held out
+for a longer period than six months, the introduction of any part of his
+person into the corresponding portion of his raiment having become a
+matter of matutinal anxiety and distress, lest a solution of continuity
+in the garment might be the unfortunate result.
+
+About six o'clock on a beautiful Wednesday evening, early in the month
+of May, our gallant and saucy frigate turned her bows seaward and slowly
+steamed away from amidst the fleet of little boats that--crowded with
+the unhappy wives and sweethearts of the sailors--had hung around us all
+the afternoon.  Puffing and blowing a great deal, and apparently panting
+to be out and away at sea, the good ship nevertheless left her anchorage
+but slowly, and withal reluctantly, her tears falling thick and fast on
+the quarter-deck as she went.
+
+The band was playing a slow and mournful air, by way of keeping up our
+spirits.
+
+_I_ had no friends to say farewell to, there was no tear-bedimmed eye to
+gaze after me until I faded in distance; so I stood on the poop, leaning
+over the bulwarks, after the fashion of Vanderdecken, captain of the
+Flying Dutchman, and equally sad and sorrowful-looking.  And what did I
+see from my elevated situation?  A moving picture, a living panorama; a
+bright sky sprinkled with a few fleecy cloudlets, over a blue sea all in
+motion before a fresh breeze of wind; a fleet of little boats astern,
+filled with picturesquely dressed seamen and women waving handkerchiefs;
+the long breakwater lined with a dense crowd of sorrowing friends, each
+anxious to gain one last look of the dear face he may never see more.
+Yonder is the grey-haired father, yonder the widowed mother, the
+affectionate brother, the loving sister, the fond wife, the beloved
+sweetheart,--all are there; and not a sigh that is sighed, not a tear
+that is shed, not a prayer that is breathed, but finds a response in the
+bosom of some loved one on board.  To the right are green hills,
+people-clad likewise, while away in the distance the steeple of many a
+church "points the way to happier spheres," and on the flagstaff at the
+port-admiral's house is floating the signal "Fare thee well."
+
+The band has ceased to play, the sailors have given their last ringing
+cheer, even the echoes of which have died away, and faintly down the
+wind comes the sound of the evening bells.  The men are gathered in
+little groups on deck, and there is a tenderness in their landward gaze,
+and a pathos in their rough voices, that one would hardly expect to
+find.
+
+"Yonder's my Poll, Jack," says one.  "Look, see! the poor lass is
+crying; blowed if I think I'll ever see her more."
+
+"There," says another, "is _my_ old girl on the breakwater, beside the
+old cove in the red nightcap."
+
+"That's my father, Bill," answers a third.  "God bless the dear old
+chap?"
+
+"Good-bye, Jean; good-bye, lass.  Ah! she won't hear me.  Blessed if I
+don't feel as if I could make a big baby of myself and cry outright."
+
+"Oh!  Dick, Dick," exclaims an honest-looking tar; "I see'd my poor wife
+tumble down; she had wee Johnnie in her arms, and--and what will I do?"
+
+"Keep up your heart, to be sure," answers a tall, rough son of a gun.
+"There, she has righted again, only a bit of a swoon ye see.  I've got
+neither sister, wife, nor mother, so surely it's _me_ that ought to be
+making a noodle of myself; but where's the use?"
+
+An hour or two later we were steaming across channel, with nothing
+visible but the blue sea all before us, and the chalky cliffs of
+Cornwall far behind, with the rosy blush of the setting sun lingering on
+their summits.
+
+Then the light faded from the sky, the gloaming star shone out in the
+east, big waves began to tumble in, and the night breeze blew cold and
+chill from off the broad Atlantic Ocean.
+
+Tired and dull, weary and sad, I went below to the wardroom and seated
+myself on a rocking chair.  It was now that I began to feel the
+discomfort of not having a cabin.  Being merely a supernumerary or
+passenger, such a luxury was of course out of the question, even had I
+been an admiral.  I was to have a screen berth, or what a landsman would
+call a canvas tent, on the main or fighting deck, but as yet it was not
+rigged.  Had I never been to sea before, I would have now felt very
+wretched indeed; but having roughed it in Greenland and Davis Straits in
+small whaling brigs, I had got over the weakness of sea-sickness; yet
+notwithstanding I felt all the thorough prostration both of mind and
+body, which the first twenty-four hours at sea often produces in the
+oldest and best of sailors, so that I was only too happy when I at last
+found myself within canvas.
+
+By next morning the wind had freshened, and when I turned out I found
+that the steam had been turned off, and that we were bowling along
+before a ten-knot breeze.  All that day the wind blew strongly from the
+N.N.E., and increased as night came on to a regular gale of wind.  I had
+seen some wild weather in the Greenland Ocean, but never anything
+before, nor since, to equal the violence of the storm on that dreadful
+night, in the Bay of Biscay.  We were running dead before the wind at
+twelve o'clock, when the gale was at its worst, and when the order to
+light fires and get up steam had been given.  Just then we were making
+fourteen knots, with only a foresail, a fore-topsail, and main-topsail,
+the latter two close-reefed.  I was awakened by a terrific noise on
+deck, and I shall not soon forget that awakening.  The ship was leaking
+badly both at the ports and scupper-holes; so that the maindeck all
+around was flooded with water, which lifted my big chest every time the
+roll of the vessel allowed it to flow towards it.  To say the ship was
+rolling would express but poorly the indescribably disagreeable
+wallowing motion of the frigate, while men were staggering with anxious
+faces from gun to gun, seeing that the lashings were all secure; so
+great was the strain on the cable-like ropes that kept them in their
+places.  The shot had got loose from the racks, and were having a small
+cannonade on their own account, to the no small consternation of the men
+whose duty it was to re-secure them.  It was literally sea without and
+sea within, for the green waves were pouring down the main hatchway,
+adding to the amount of water already _below_, where the chairs and
+other articles of domestic utility were all afloat and making voyages of
+discovery from one officer's cabin to another.
+
+On the upper deck all was darkness, confusion, and danger, for both the
+fore and main-topsails had been carried away at the same time, reducing
+us to one sail--the foresail.  The noise and crackling of the riven
+canvas, mingling with the continuous roar of the storm, were at times
+increased by the rattle of thunder and the rush of rain-drops, while the
+lightning played continually around the slippery masts and cordage.
+About one o'clock, a large ship, apparently unmanageable, was dimly seen
+for one moment close aboard of us--had we come into collision the
+consequences must have been dreadful;--and thus for two long hours,
+_till steam was got up_, did we fly before the gale, after which the
+danger was comparatively small.
+
+Having spent its fury, having in fact blown itself out of breath, the
+wind next day retired to its cave, and the waves got smaller and
+beautifully less, till peace and quietness once more reigned around us.
+
+Going on deck one morning I found we were anchored under the very shadow
+of a steep rock, and not far from a pretty little town at the foot of a
+high mountain, which was itself covered to the top with trees and
+verdure, with the white walls of many a quaint-looking edifice peeping
+through the green--boats, laden with fruit and fish and turtle,
+surrounded the ship.  The island of Madeira and town, of Funchal.  As
+there was no pier, we had to land among the stones.  The principal
+amusement of English residents here seems to be lounging about, cheroot
+in mouth, beneath the rows of trees that droop over the pavements,
+getting carried about in portable hammocks, and walking or riding (I
+rode, and, not being able to get my horse to move at a suitable pace, I
+looked behind, and found the boy from whom I had hired him sticking like
+a leech to my animal's tail, nor would he be shaken off--nor could the
+horse be induced to kick him off; this is the custom of the Funchalites,
+and a funny one it is) to the top of the mountain, for the pleasure of
+coming down in a sleigh, a distance of two miles, in twice as many
+minutes, while the least deviation from the path would result in a
+terrible smash against the wall of either side, but I never heard of any
+such accident occurring.
+
+Three days at Madeira, and up anchor again; our next place of call being
+Saint Helena.  Every one has heard of the gentleman who wanted to
+conquer the world but couldn't, who tried to beat the British but
+didn't, who staked his last crown at a game of _loo_, and losing fled,
+and fleeing was chased, and being chased was caught and chained by the
+leg, like an obstreperous game-cock, to a rock somewhere in the middle
+of the sea, on which he stood night and day for years, with his arms
+folded across his chest, and his cocked hat wrong on, a warning to the
+unco-ambitious.  The rock was Saint Helena, and a very beautiful rock it
+is too, hill and dell and thriving town, its mountain-sides tilled and
+its straths and glens containing many a fertile little farm.  It is the
+duty of every one who touches the shores of this far-famed island to
+make a pilgrimage to Longwood, the burial-place of the "great man."  I
+have no intention of describing this pilgrimage, for this has been done
+by dozens before my time, or, if not, it ought to have been: I shall
+merely add a very noticeable fact, which others may not perchance have
+observed--_both sides_ of the road all the way to the tomb are strewn
+with _Bass's beer-bottles_, empty of course, and at the grave itself
+there are hogsheads of them; and the same is the case at every place
+which John Bull has visited, or where English foot has ever trodden.
+The rule holds good all over the world; and in the Indian Ocean,
+whenever I found an uninhabited island, or even reef which at some
+future day would be an island, if I did not likewise find an empty
+beer-bottle, I at once took possession in the name of Queen Victoria,
+giving three hips! and one hurrah! thrice, and singing "For he's a jolly
+good fellow," without any very distinct notion as to who _was_ the jolly
+fellow; also adding more decidedly "which nobody can deny"--there being
+no one on the island to deny it.
+
+England has in this way acquired much additional territory at my hands,
+without my having as yet received any very substantial recompense for my
+services.
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+THE MODERN RODERICK RANDOM.  HALF A SERVANT.  A PRETTY PICTURE.
+
+The duties of the assistant-surgeon--the modern Roderick Random--on
+board a line-of-battle ship are seldom very onerous in time of peace,
+and often not worth mentioning.  Suppose, for example, the reader is
+that officer.  At five bells--half-past six--in the morning, if you
+happen to be a light sleeper, you will be sensible of some one gliding
+silently into your cabin, rifling your pockets, and extracting your
+watch, your money, and other your trinkets; but do not jump out of bed,
+pray, with the intention of collaring him; it is no thief--only your
+servant.  Formerly this official used to be a marine, with whom on
+joining your ship you bargained in the following manner.
+
+The marine walked up to you and touched his front hair, saying at the
+same time,--
+
+"_I_ don't mind looking arter you, sir," or "I'll do for you, sir."  On
+which you would reply,--
+
+"All right! what's your name?" and he would answer "Cheeks," or whatever
+his name might be.  (Cheeks, that is the real Cheeks, being a sort of
+visionary soldier--a phantom marine--and very useful at times, answering
+in fact to the Nobody of higher quarters, who is to blame for so many
+things,--"Nobody is to blame," and "Cheeks is to blame," being
+synonymous sentences.)
+
+Now-a-days Government kindly allows each commissioned officer one half
+of a servant, or one whole one between two officers, which, at times, is
+found to be rather an awkward arrangement; as, for instance, you and,
+say, the lieutenant of marines, have each the half of the same servant,
+and you wish your half to go on shore with a message, and the lieutenant
+requires his half to remain on board: the question then comes to be one
+which only the wisdom of Solomon could solve, in the same way that
+Alexander the Great loosed the Gordian knot.
+
+Your servant, then, on entering your cabin in the morning, carefully and
+quietly deposits the contents of your pockets on your table, and, taking
+all your clothes and your boots in his arms, silently flits from view,
+and shortly after re-enters, having in the interval neatly folded and
+brushed them.  You are just turning round to go to sleep again, when--
+
+"Six bells, sir, please," remarks your man, laying his hand on your
+elbow, and giving you a gentle shake to insure your resuscitation, and
+which will generally have the effect of causing you to spring at once
+from your cot, perhaps in your hurry nearly upsetting the cup of
+delicious ship's cocoa which he has kindly saved to you from his own
+breakfast--a no small sacrifice either, if you bear in mind that his own
+allowance is by no means very large, and that his breakfast consists of
+cocoa and biscuits alone--these last too often containing more weevils
+than flour.  As you hurry into your bath, your servant coolly informs
+you--
+
+"Plenty of time, sir.  Doctor himself hain't turned out yet."
+
+"Then," you inquire, "it isn't six bells?"
+
+"Not a bit on it, sir," he replies; "wants the quarter."
+
+The rogue has lied to get you up.
+
+At seven o'clock exactly you make your way forward to the sick-bay, on
+the lower deck at the ship's bows.  Now, this making your way forward
+isn't by any means such an easy task as one might imagine; for at that
+hour the deck is swarming with the men at their toilet, stripped to the
+waist, every man at his tub, lathering, splashing, scrubbing and
+rubbing, talking, laughing, joking, singing, sweating, and swearing.
+Finding your way obstructed, you venture to touch one mildly on the bare
+back, as a hint to move aside and let you pass; the man immediately
+damns your eyes, then begs pardon, and says he thought it was Bill "at
+his lark again."  Another who is bending down over his tub you touch
+more firmly on the _os innominatum_, and ask him in a free and easy sort
+of tone to "slue round there."  He "slues round," very quickly too, but
+unfortunately in the wrong direction, and ten to one capsizes you in a
+tub of dirty soapsuds.  Having picked yourself up, you pursue your
+journey, and sing out as a general sort of warning--
+
+For the benefit of those happy individuals who never saw, or had to eat,
+weevils, I may here state that they are small beetles of the exact size
+and shape of the common woodlouse, and that the taste is rather insipid,
+with a slight flavour of boiled beans.  Never have tasted the woodlouse,
+but should think the flavour would be quite similar.
+
+"Gangway there, lads," which causes at least a dozen of these worthies
+to pass such ironical remarks to their companions as--
+
+"Out of the doctor's way there, Tom."
+
+"Let the gentleman pass, can't you, Jack?"
+
+"Port your helm, Mat; the doctor wants you to."
+
+"Round with your stern, Bill; the surgeon's _mate_ is a passing."
+
+"Kick that donkey Jones out of the doctor's road,"--while at the same
+time it is always the speaker himself who is in the way.
+
+At last, however, you reach the sick-bay in safety, and retire within
+the screen.  Here, if a strict service man, you will find the surgeon
+already seated; and presently the other assistant enters, and the work
+is begun.  There is a sick-bay man, or dispenser, and a sick-bay cook,
+attached to the medical department.  The surgeon generally does the
+brain-work, and the assistants the finger-work; and, to their shame be
+it spoken, there are some surgeons too proud to consult their younger
+brethren, whom they treat as assistant-drudges, not assistant-surgeons.
+
+At eight o'clock--before or after,--the work is over, and you are off to
+breakfast.
+
+At nine o'clock the drum beats, when every one, not otherwise engaged,
+is required to muster on the quarter-deck, every officer as he comes up
+lifting his cap, not to the captain, but to the Queen.  After inspection
+the parson reads prayers; you are then free to write, or read, or
+anything else in reason you choose; and, if in harbour, you may go on
+shore--boats leaving the ship at regular hours for the convenience of
+the officers--always premising that one medical man be left on board, in
+case of accident.  In most foreign ports where a ship may be lying,
+there is no want of both pleasure and excitement on shore.  Take for
+example the little town of Simon's, about twenty miles from Cape Town,
+with a population of not less than four thousand of Englishmen, Dutch,
+Malays, Caffres, and Hottentots.  The bay is large, and almost
+landlocked.  The little white town is built along the foot of a lofty
+mountain.  Beautiful walks can be had in every direction, along the hard
+sandy sea-beach, over the mountains and on to extensive table-lands, or
+away up into dark rocky dingles and heath-clad glens.  Nothing can
+surpass the beauty of the scenery, or the gorgeous loveliness of the
+wild heaths and geraniums everywhere abounding.  There is a good hotel
+and billiard-room; and you can shoot where, when, and what you please--
+monkeys, pigeons, rock rabbits, wild ducks, or cobra-di-capellas.  If
+you long for more society, or want to see life, get a day or two days'
+leave.  Rise at five o'clock; the morning will be lovely and clear, with
+the mist rising from its flowery bed on the mountain's brow, and the
+sun, large and red, entering on a sky to which nor pen nor pencil could
+do justice.  The cart is waiting for you at the hotel, with an awning
+spread above.  Jump in: crack goes the long Caffre whip; away with a
+plunge and a jerk go the three pairs of Caffre horses, and along the
+sea-shore you dash, with the cool sea-breeze in your face, and the
+water, green and clear, rippling up over the horses' feet; then, amid
+such scenery, with such exhilarating weather, in such a life-giving
+climate, if you don't feel a glow of pleasure that will send the blood
+tingling through your veins, from the points of your ten toes to the
+extreme end of your eyelashes, there must be something radically and
+constitutionally wrong with you, and the sooner you go on board and dose
+yourself with calomel and jalap the better.
+
+Arrived at Cape Town, a few introductions will simply throw the whole
+city at your command, and all it contains.
+
+I do not intend this as a complete sketch of your trip, or I would have
+mentioned some of the many beautiful spots and places of interest you
+pass on the road--Rathfeldas for example, a hotel halfway, a house
+buried in sweetness; and the country round about, with its dark waving
+forests, its fruitful fields and wide-spreading vineyards, where the
+grape seems to grow almost without cultivation; its comfortable
+farm-houses; and above all its people, kind, generous, and hospitable as
+the country is prolific.
+
+So you see, dear reader, a navy surgeon's life hath its pleasures.  Ah,
+indeed, it hath! and sorry I am to add, its sufferings too; for a few
+pages farther on the picture must change: if we get the lights we must
+needs take the shadows also.
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+A GOOD DINNER.  ENEMY ON THE PORT BOW.  MAN THE LIFE-BOAT.
+
+We will suppose that the reader still occupies the position of
+assistant-surgeon in a crack frigate or saucy line-of-battle ship.  If
+you go on shore for a walk in the forenoon you may return to lunch at
+twelve; or if you have extended your ramble far into the country, or
+gone to visit a friend or lady-love--though for the latter the gloaming
+hour is to be preferred--you will in all probability have succeeded in
+establishing an appetite by half-past five, when the officers'
+dinner-boat leaves the pier.
+
+Now, I believe there are few people in the world to whom a good dinner
+does not prove an attraction, and this is what in a large ship one is
+always pretty sure of, more especially on guest-nights, which are
+evenings set apart--one every week--for the entertainment of the
+officers' friends, one or more of whom any officer may invite, by
+previously letting the mess-caterer know of his intention.  The
+mess-caterer is the officer who has been elected to superintend the
+victualling, as the wine-caterer does the liquor department, and a
+by-no-means-enviable position it is, and consequently it is for ever
+changing hands.  Sailors are proverbial growlers, and, indeed, a certain
+amount of growling is, and ought to be, permitted in every mess; but it
+is scarcely fair for an officer, because his breakfast does not please
+him, or if he can't get butter to his cheese after dinner, to launch
+forth his indignation at the poor mess-caterer, who most likely is doing
+all he can to please.  These growlers too never speak right out or
+directly to the point.  It is all under-the-table stabbing.
+
+"Such and such a ship that I was in," says growler first, "and such and
+such a mess--"
+
+"Oh, by George!" says growler second, "_I_ knew that ship; that was a
+mess, and no mistake?"
+
+"Why, yes," replies number one, "the lunch we got there was better than
+the dinner we have in this old clothes-basket."
+
+On guest-nights your friend sits beside yourself, of course, and you
+attend to his corporeal wants.  One of the nicest things about the
+service, in my opinion, is the having the band every day at dinner; then
+too everything is so orderly; with our president and vice-president, it
+is quite like a pleasure party every evening; so that altogether the
+dinner, while in harbour, comes to be the great event of the day.  And
+after the cloth has been removed, and the president, with a preliminary
+rap on the table to draw attention, has given the only toast of the
+evening, the Queen, and due honour has been paid thereto, and the
+bandmaster, who has been keeking in at the door every minute for the
+last ten, that he might not make a mistake in the time, has played "God
+save the Queen," and returned again to waltzes, quadrilles, or
+selections from operas,--then it is very pleasant and delightful to loll
+over our walnuts and wine, and half-dream away the half-hour till coffee
+is served.  Then, to be sure, that little cigar in our canvas
+smoking-room outside the wardroom door, though the last, is by no means
+the least pleasant part of the _dejeuner_.  For my own part, I enjoy the
+succeeding hour or so as much as any: when, reclining in an easy chair,
+in a quiet corner, I can sip my tea, and enjoy my favourite author to my
+heart's content.  You must spare half an hour, however, to pay your last
+visit to the sick; but this will only tend to make you appreciate your
+ease all the more when you have done.  So the evening wears away, and by
+ten o'clock you will probably just be sufficiently tired to enjoy
+thoroughly your little swing-cot and your cool white sheets.
+
+At sea, luncheon, or tiffin, is dispensed with, and you dine at
+half-past two.  Not much difference in the quality of viands after all,
+for now-a-days everything worth eating can be procured, in hermetically
+sealed tins, capable of remaining fresh for any length of time.
+
+There is one little bit of the routine of the service, which at first
+one may consider a hardship.
+
+You are probably enjoying your deepest, sweetest sleep, rocked in the
+cradle of the deep, and gently swaying to and fro in your little cot;
+you had turned in with the delicious consciousness of safety, for well
+you knew that the ship was far away at sea, far from rock or reef or
+deadly shoal, and that the night was clear and collision very
+improbable, so you are slumbering like a babe on its mother's breast--as
+you are for that matter--for the second night-watch is half spent; when,
+mingling confusedly with your dreams, comes the roll of the drum; you
+start and listen.  There is a moment's pause, when birr-r-r-r it goes
+again, and as you spring from your couch you hear it the third time.
+And now you can distinguish the shouts of officers and petty officers,
+high over the din of the trampling of many feet, of the battening down
+of hatches, of the unmooring of great guns, and of heavy ropes and bars
+falling on the deck: then succeeds a dead silence, soon broken by the
+voice of the commander thundering, "Enemy on the port bow;" and then,
+and not till then, do you know it is no real engagement, but the monthly
+night-quarters.  And you can't help feeling sorry there isn't a real
+enemy on the port bow, or either bow, as you hurry away to the cockpit,
+with the guns rattling all the while overhead, as if a real live
+thunderstorm were being taken on board, and was objecting to be stowed
+away.  So you lay out your instruments, your sponges, your bottles of
+wine, and your buckets of water, and, seating yourself in the midst,
+begin to read `Midsummer Night's Dream,' ready at a moment's notice to
+amputate the leg of any man on board, whether captain, cook, or
+cabin-boy.
+
+Another nice little amusement the officer of the watch may give himself
+on fine clear nights is to set fire to and let go the lifebuoy, at the
+same time singing out at the top of his voice, "Man overboard."
+
+A boatswain's mate at once repeats the call, and vociferates down the
+main hatchway, "Life-boat's crew a-ho-oy!"
+
+In our navy a few short but expressive moments of silence ever precede
+the battle, that both officers and men may hold communion with their
+God.
+
+The men belonging to this boat, who have been lying here and there
+asleep but dressed, quickly tumble up the ladder pell-mell; there is a
+rattling of oars heard, and the creaking of pulleys, then a splash in
+the water alongside, the boat darts away from the ship like an arrow
+from a bow, and the crew, rowing towards the blazing buoy, save the life
+of the unhappy man, Cheeks the marine.
+
+And thus do British sailors rule the waves and keep old Neptune in his
+own place.
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+CONTAINING--IF NOT THE WHOLE--NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH.
+
+If the disposing, in the service, of even a ship-load of
+assistant-surgeons, is considered a matter of small moment, my disposal,
+after reaching the Cape of Good Hope, needs but small comment.  I was
+very soon appointed to take charge of a gunboat, in lieu of a gentleman
+who was sent to the Naval Hospital of Simon's Town, to fill a death
+vacancy--for the navy as well as nature abhors a vacuum.  I had seen the
+bright side of the service, I was now to have my turn of the dark; I had
+enjoyed life on board a crack frigate, I was now to rough it in a
+gunboat.
+
+The east coast of Africa was to be our cruising ground, and our ship a
+pigmy steamer, with plenty fore-and-aft about her, but nothing else; in
+fact, she was Euclid's definition of a line to a t, length without
+breadth, and small enough to have done "excellently well" as a Gravesend
+tug-boat.  Her teeth were five: namely, one gigantic cannon, a
+65-pounder, as front tooth; on each side a brass howitzer; and flanking
+these, two canine tusks in shape of a couple of 12-pounder Armstrongs.
+With this armament we were to lord it with a high hand over the Indian
+Ocean; carry fire and sword, or, failing sword, the cutlass, into the
+very heart of slavery's dominions; the Arabs should tremble at the roar
+of our guns and the thunder of our bursting shells, while the slaves
+should clank their chains in joyful anticipation of our coming; and best
+of all, we--the officers--should fill our pockets with prize-money to
+spend when we again reached the shores of merry England.  Unfortunately,
+this last premeditation was the only one which sustained disappointment,
+for, our little craft being tender to the flag-ship of the station, all
+our hard-earned prize-money had to be equally shared with her officers
+and crew, which reduced the shares to fewer pence each than they
+otherwise would have been pounds, and which was a burning shame.
+
+It was the Cape winter when I joined the gunboat.  The hills were
+covered with purple and green, the air was deliciously cool, and the
+far-away mountain-tops were clad in virgin snow.  It was twelve o'clock
+noon when I took my traps on board, and found my new messmates seated
+around the table at tiffin.  The gunroom, called the wardroom by
+courtesy--for the after cabin was occupied by the lieutenant
+commanding--was a little morsel of an apartment, which the table and
+five cane-bottomed chairs entirely filled.  The officers were five--
+namely, a little round-faced, dimple-cheeked, good-natured fellow, who
+was our second-master; a tall and rather awkward-looking young
+gentleman, our midshipman; a lean, pert, and withal diminutive youth,
+brimful of his own importance, our assistant-paymaster; a fair-haired,
+bright-eyed, laughing boy from Cornwall, our sub-lieutenant; and a "wee
+wee man," dapper, clean, and tidy, our engineer, admitted to this mess
+because he was so thorough an exception to his class, which is
+celebrated more for the unctuosity of its outer than for the smoothness
+of its inner man.
+
+"Come along, old fellow," said our navigator, addressing me as I entered
+the messroom, bobbing and bowing to evade fracture of the cranium by
+coming into collision with the transverse beams of the deck above--"come
+along and join us, we don't dine till four."
+
+"And precious little to dine upon," said the officer on his right.
+
+"Steward, let us have the rum," [Note 1] cried the first speaker.
+
+And thus addressed, the steward shuffled in, bearing in his hand a black
+bottle, and apparently in imminent danger of choking himself on a large
+mouthful of bread and butter.  This functionary's dress was remarkable
+rather for its simplicity than its purity, consisting merely of a pair
+of dirty canvas pants, a pair of purser's shoes--innocent as yet of
+blacking--and a greasy flannel shirt.  But, indeed, uniform seemed to be
+the exception, and not the rule, of the mess, for, while one wore a blue
+serge jacket, another was arrayed in white linen, and the rest had
+neither jacket nor vest.
+
+The table was guiltless of a cloth, and littered with beer-bottles,
+biscuits, onions, sardines, and pats of butter.
+
+"Look out there, Waddles!" exclaimed the sub-lieutenant; "that beggar
+Dawson is having his own whack o' grog and everybody else's."
+
+"Dang it!  I'll have _my_ tot to-day, I know," said the
+assistant-paymaster, snatching the bottle from Dawson, and helping
+himself to a very liberal allowance of the ruby fluid.
+
+"What a cheek the fellow's got!" cried the midshipman, snatching the
+glass from the table and bolting the contents at a gulp, adding, with a
+gasp of satisfaction as he put down the empty tumbler, "The chap thinks
+nobody's got a soul to be saved but himself."
+
+"Soul or no soul," replied the youthful man of money as he gazed
+disconsolately at the empty glass, "my _spirit's_ gone."
+
+"Blessed," said the engineer, shaking the black bottle, "if you devils
+have left me a drain! see if I don't look out for A1 to-morrow."
+
+"Where's the doctor's grog?" cried the sub-lieutenant.
+
+"Ay, where's the doctor's?" said another.
+
+"Where is the doctor's?" said a third.
+
+And they all said "Where is the doctor's?" and echo answered "Where?"
+
+"Steward!" said the middy.
+
+"Ay, ay, sir."
+
+"See if that beggarly bumboat-man is alongside, and get me another pat
+of butter and some soft tack; get the grub first, then tell him I'll pay
+to-morrow."
+
+These and such like scraps of conversation began to give me a little
+insight into the kind of mess I had joined and the character of my
+future messmates.  "Steward," said I, "show me my cabin."  He did so;
+indeed, he hadn't far to go.  It was the aftermost, and consequently the
+smallest, although I _ought_ to have had my choice.  It was the most
+miserable little box I ever reposed in.  Had I owned such a place on
+shore, I _might_ have been induced to keep rabbits in it, or
+guinea-pigs, but certainly not pigeons.  Its length was barely six feet,
+its width four above my cot and two below, and it was minus sufficient
+standing-room for any ordinary-sized sailor; it was, indeed, a cabin for
+a commodore--I mean Commodore Nutt--and was ventilated by a scuttle
+seven inches in diameter, which could only be removed in harbour, and
+below which, when we first went to sea, I was fain to hang a leather
+hat-box to catch the water; unfortunately the bottom rotted out, and I
+was then at the mercy of the waves.
+
+My cabin, or rather--to stick to the plain unvarnished truth--my burrow,
+was alive with scorpions, cockroaches, ants, and other "crawlin'
+ferlies."
+
+  "That e'en to name would be unlawfu'."
+
+My dispensary was off the steerage, and sister-cabin to the pantry.  To
+it I gained access by a species of crab-walking, squeezing myself past a
+large brass pump, and edging my body in sideways.  The sick came one by
+one to the dispensary door, and there I saw and treated each case as it
+arrived, dressed the wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, and
+bandaged the bad legs.  There was no sick-berth attendant; to be sure
+the lieutenant-in-command, at my request, told off "a little cabin-boy"
+for my especial use.  I had no cause for delectation on such an
+acquisition, by no means; he was not a model cabin-boy like what you see
+in theatres, and I believe will never become an admiral.  He managed at
+times to wash out the dispensary, or gather cockroaches, and make the
+poultices--only in doing the first he broke the bottles, and in
+performing the last duty he either let the poultice burn or put salt in
+it; and, finally, he smashed my pot, and I kicked him forward, and
+demanded another.  _He_ was slightly better, only he was seldom visible;
+and when I set him to do anything, he at once went off into a sweet
+slumber; so I kicked him forward too, and had in despair to become my
+own menial.  In both dispensary and burrow it was quite a difficult
+business to prevent everything going to speedy destruction.  The best
+portions of my uniform got eaten by cockroaches or moulded by damp,
+while my instruments required cleaning every morning, and even that did
+not keep rust at bay.
+
+Imagine yourself dear reader, in any of the following interesting
+positions:--
+
+Very thirsty, and nothing but boiling hot newly distilled water to
+drink; or wishing a cool bath of a morning, and finding the water in
+your can only a little short of 212 degrees Fahrenheit.
+
+To find, when you awake, a couple of cockroaches, two inches in length,
+busy picking your teeth.
+
+To find one in a state of decay in the mustard-pot.
+
+To have to arrange all the droppings and eggs of these interesting
+creatures on the edge of your plate, previous to eating your soup.
+
+To have to beat out the dust and weevils from every square inch of
+biscuit before putting it in your mouth.
+
+To be looking for a book and put your hand on a full-grown scaly
+scorpion.  Nice sensation--the animal twining round your finger, or
+running up your sleeve.  _Denouement_--cracking him under foot--
+full-flavoured bouquet--joy at escaping a sting.
+
+You are enjoying your dinner, but have been for some time sensible of a
+strange titillating feeling about the region of your ankle; you look down
+at last to find a centipede on your sock, with his fifty hind-legs--you
+thank God not his fore fifty--abutting on to your shin.  _Tableau_--
+green and red light from the eyes of the many-legged; horror of yourself
+as you wait till he thinks proper to "move on."
+
+To awake in the morning, and find a large and healthy-looking tarantula
+squatting on your pillow within ten inches of your nose, with his
+basilisk eyes fixed on yours, and apparently saying, "You're only just
+awake, are you?  I've been sitting here all the morning watching you."
+
+You know if you move he'll bite you, somewhere; and if he _does_ bite
+you, you'll go mad and dance _ad libitum_; so you twist your mouth in
+the opposite direction and ejaculate--
+
+"Steward!" but the steward does not come--in fact he is forward, seeing
+after the breakfast.  Meanwhile the gentleman on the pillow is moving
+his horizontal mandibles in a most threatening manner, and just as he
+makes a rush for your nose you tumble out of bed with a shriek; and, if
+a very nervous person, probably run on deck in your shirt.
+
+Or, to fall asleep under the following circumstances: The bulkheads, all
+around, black with cock-and-hen-roaches, a few of which are engaged
+cropping your toe-nails, or running off with little bits of the skin of
+your calves; bugs in the crevices of your cot, a flea tickling the sole
+of your foot, a troop of ants carrying a dead cockroach over your
+pillow, lively mosquitoes attacking you everywhere, hammer-legged flies
+occasionally settling on your nose, rats running in and rats running
+out, your lamp just going out, and the delicious certainty that an
+indefinite number of earwigs and scorpions, besides two centipedes and a
+tarantula, are hiding themselves somewhere in your cabin.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Note 1.  Officers, as well as men, are allowed one half-gill of rum
+daily, with this difference,--the former pay for theirs, while the
+latter do not.
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+ROUND THE CAPE AND UP THE 'BIQUE.  SLAVER-HUNTING.
+
+It was a dark-grey cloudy forenoon when we "up anchor" and sailed from
+Simon's Bay.  Frequent squalls whitened the water, and there was every
+indication of our being about to have dirty weather; and the tokens told
+no lies.  To our little craft, however, the foul weather that followed
+seemed to be a matter of very little moment; for, when the wind or waves
+were in any way high, she kept snugly below water, evidently thinking
+more of her own convenience than our comfort, for such a procedure on
+her part necessitated our leading a sort of amphibious existence, better
+suited to the tastes of frogs than human beings.  Our beds too, or
+matresses, became converted into gigantic poultices, in which we nightly
+steamed, like as many porkers newly shaven.  Judging from the amount of
+salt which got encrusted on our skins, there was little need to fear
+danger, we were well preserved--so much so indeed, that, but for the
+constant use of the matutinal freshwater bath, we would doubtless have
+shared the fate of Lot's wife and been turned into pillars of salt.
+
+After being a few days at sea the wind began to moderate, and finally
+died away; and instead thereof we had thunderstorms and waves, which, if
+not so big as mountains, would certainly have made pretty large hills.
+
+Many a night did we linger on deck till well nigh morning, entranced by
+the sublime beauty and terrible grandeur of those thunderstorms.  The
+roar and rattle of heaven's artillery; the incessant _floods_ of
+lightning--crimson, blue, or white; our little craft hanging by the bows
+to the crest of each huge inky billow, or next moment buried in the
+valley of the waves, with a wall of black waters on every side; the wet
+deck, the slippery shrouds, and the faces of the men holding on to the
+ropes and appearing so strangely pale in the electric light; I see the
+whole picture even now as I write--a picture, indeed, that can never,
+never fade from my memory.
+
+Our cruising "ground" lay between the island and town of Mozambique in
+the south, to about Magadoxa, some seven or eight degrees north of the
+Equator.
+
+Nearly the whole of the slave-trade is carried on by the Arabs, one or
+two Spaniards sometimes engaging in it likewise.  The slaves are brought
+from the far interior of South Africa, where they can be purchased for a
+small bag of rice each.  They are taken down in chained gangs to the
+coast, and there in some secluded bay the dhows lie, waiting to take
+them on board and convey them to the slave-mart at Zanzibar, to which
+place Arab merchants come from the most distant parts of Arabia and
+Persia to buy them.  Dhows are vessels with one or two masts, and a
+corresponding number of large sails, and of a very peculiar
+construction, being shaped somewhat like a short or Blucher boot, the
+high part of the boot representing the poop.  They have a thatched roof
+over the deck, the projecting eaves of which render boarding exceedingly
+difficult to an enemy.
+
+Sometimes, on rounding the corner of a lagoon island, we would quietly
+and unexpectedly steam into the midst of a fleet of thirty to forty of
+these queer-looking vessels, very much to our own satisfaction, and
+their intense consternation.  Imagine a cat popping down among as many
+mice, and you will be able to form some idea of the scramble that
+followed.  However, by dint of steaming here and there, and expending a
+great deal of shot and shell, we generally managed to keep them together
+as a dog would a flock of sheep, until we examined all their papers with
+the aid of our interpreter, and probably picked out a prize.
+
+I wish I could say the prizes were anything like numerous; for perhaps
+one-half of all the vessels we board are illicit slaveholders, and yet
+we cannot lay a finger on them.  One may well ask why?  It has been
+said, and it is generally believed in England, that our cruisers are
+sweeping the Indian Ocean of slavers, and stamping out the curse.  But
+the truth is very different, and all that we are doing, or able at
+present to do, is but to pull an occasional hair from the hoary locks of
+the fiend Slavery.  This can be proved from the return-sheets, which
+every cruiser sends home, of the number of vessels boarded, generally
+averaging one thousand yearly to each man-o'-war, of which the half at
+least have slaves or slave-irons on board; but only two, or at most
+three, of these will become prizes.  The reason of this will easily be
+understood, when the reader is informed, that the Sultan of Zanzibar has
+liberty to take any number of slaves from any one portion of his
+dominions to another: these are called household slaves; and, as his
+dominions stretch nearly all along the eastern shores of Africa, it is
+only necessary for the slave-dealer to get his sanction and seal to his
+papers in order to steer clear of British law.  This, in almost every
+case, can be accomplished by means of a bribe.  So slavery flourishes,
+the Sultan draws a good fat revenue from it, and the Portuguese--no
+great friends to us at any time--laugh and wink to see John Bull paying
+his thousands yearly for next to nothing.  Supposing we liberate even
+two thousand slaves a year, which I am not sure we do however, there are
+on the lowest estimate six hundred slaves bought and sold daily in
+Zanzibar mart; two hundred and nineteen thousand in a twelvemonth; and,
+of our two thousand that are set free in Zanzibar, most, if not all,
+by-and-bye, become bondsmen again.
+
+I am not an advocate for slavery, and would like to see a wholesale raid
+made against it, but I do not believe in the retail system; selling
+freedom in pennyworths, and spending millions in doing it, is very like
+burning a penny candle in seeking for a cent.  Yet I sincerely believe,
+that there is more good done to the spread of civilisation and religion
+in one year, by the slave-traffic, than all our missionaries can do in a
+hundred.  Don't open your eyes and smile incredulously, intelligent
+reader; we live in an age when every question is looked at on both
+sides, and why should not this?  What becomes of the hundreds of
+thousands of slaves that are taken from Africa?  They are sold to the
+Arabs--that wonderful race, who have been second only to Christians in
+the good they have done to civilisation; they are taken from a state of
+degradation, bestiality, and wretchedness, worse by far than that of the
+wild beasts, and from a part of the country too that is almost unfit to
+live in, and carried to more favoured lands, spread over the sunny
+shores of fertile Persia and Arabia, fed and clothed and cared for;
+after a few years of faithful service they are even called sons and feed
+at their master's table--taught all the trades and useful arts, besides
+the Mahommedan religion, which is certainly better than none--and, above
+all, have a better chance given them of one day hearing and learning the
+beautiful tenets of Christianity, the religion of love.
+
+I have met with few slaves who after a few years did not say, "Praised
+be Allah for the good day I was take from me coontry!" and whose only
+wish to return was, that they might bring away some aged parent, or
+beloved sister, from the dark cheerless home of their infancy.
+
+Means and measures much more energetic must be brought into action if
+the stronghold of slavedom is to be stormed, and, if not, it were better
+to leave it alone.  "If the work be of God ye cannot overthrow it; lest
+haply ye be found to fight even against God."
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+AN UNLUCKY SHIP.  THE DAYS WHEN WE WENT GIPSYING.  INAMBANE.  QUILP THE
+PILOT AND LAMOO.
+
+It might have been that our vessel was launched on a Friday, or sailed
+on a Friday; or whether it was owing to our carrying the devil on board
+of us in shape of a big jet-black cat, and for whom the lifebuoy was
+thrice let go, and boats lowered in order to save his infernal majesty
+from a watery grave; but whatever was the reason, she was certainly a
+most unlucky ship from first to last; for during a cruise of eighteen
+months, four times did we run aground on dangerous reefs, twice were we
+on fire--once having had to scuttle the decks--once we sprung a bad leak
+and were nearly foundering, several times we narrowly escaped the same
+speedy termination to our cruise by being taken aback, while, compared
+to our smaller dangers or lesser perils, Saint Paul's adventures--as a
+Yankee would express it--wern't a circumstance.
+
+On the other hand, we were amply repaid by the many beautiful spots we
+visited; the lovely wooded creeks where the slave-dhows played at hide
+and seek with us, and the natural harbours, at times surrounded by
+scenery so sweetly beautiful and so charmingly solitary, that, if
+fairies still linger on this earth, one must think they would choose
+just such places as these for their moonlight revels.  Then there were
+so many little towns--Portuguese settlements--to be visited, for the
+Portuguese have spread themselves, after the manner of wild
+strawberries, all round the coast of Africa, from Sierra Leone on the
+west to Zanzibar on the east.  There was as much sameness about these
+settlements as about our visits to them: a few houses--more like tents--
+built on the sand (it does seem funny to see sofas, chairs, and the
+piano itself standing among the deep soft sand); a fort, the guns of
+which, if fired, would bring down the walls; a few white-jacketed
+swarthy-looking soldiers; a very polite governor, brimful of hospitality
+and broken English; and a good dinner, winding up with punch of
+schnapps.
+
+Memorable too are the pleasant boating excursions we had on the calm
+bosom of the Indian Ocean.  Armed boats used to be detached to cruise
+for three or four weeks at a time in quest of prizes, at the end of
+which time they were picked up at some place of rendezvous.  By day we
+sailed about the coast and around the small wooded islets, where dhows
+might lurk, only landing in sheltered nooks to cook and eat our food.
+Our provisions were ship's, but at times we drove great bargains with
+the naked natives for fowls and eggs and goats; then would we make
+delicious soups, rich ragouts, and curries fit for the king of the
+Cannibal Islands.  Fruit too we had in plenty, and the best of oysters
+for the gathering, with iguana most succulent of lizards, occasionally
+fried flying-fish, or delicate morsels of shark, skip-jack, or devilled
+dolphin, with a glass of prime rum to wash the whole down, and three
+grains of quinine to charm away the fever.  There was, too, about these
+expeditions, an air of gipsying that was quite pleasant.  To be sure our
+beds were a little hard, but we did not mind that; while clad in our
+blanket-suits, and covered with a boat-sail, we could defy the dew.
+Sleep, or rather the want of sleep, we seldom had to complain of, for
+the blue star-lit sky above us, the gentle rising and falling of the
+anchored boat, the lip-lipping of the water, and the sighing sound of
+the wind through the great forest near us--all tended to woo us to
+sweetest slumber.
+
+Sometimes we would make long excursions up the rivers of Africa,
+combining business with pleasure, enjoying the trip, and at the same
+time gleaning some useful information regarding slave or slave-ship.
+The following sketch concerning one or two of these may tend to show,
+that a man does not take leave of all enjoyment, when his ship leaves
+the chalky cliffs of old England.
+
+Our anchor was dropped outside the bar of Inambane river; the grating
+noise of the chain as it rattled through the hawse-hole awoke me, and I
+soon after went on deck.  It was just six o'clock and a beautiful clear
+morning, with the sun rising red and rosy--like a portly gentleman
+getting up from his wine--and smiling over the sea in quite a pleasant
+sort of way.  So, as both Neptune and Sol seemed propitious, the
+commander, our second-master, and myself made up our minds to visit the
+little town and fort of Inambane, about forty--we thought fifteen--miles
+up the river.  But breakfast had to be prepared and eaten, the magazine
+and arms got into the boat, besides a day's provisions, with rum and
+quinine to be stowed away, so that the sun had got a good way up the
+sky, and now looked more like a portly gentleman whose dinner had
+disagreed, before we had got fairly under way and left the ship's side.
+Never was forenoon brighter or fairer, only one or two snowy banks of
+cloud interrupting the blue of the sky, while the river, miles broad,
+stole silently seaward, unruffled by wave or wavelet, so that the hearts
+of both men and officers were light as the air they breathed was pure.
+The men, bending cheerfully on their oars, sang snatches of Dibdin--
+Neptune's poet laureate; and we, tired of talking, reclined astern,
+gazing with half-shut eyes on the round undulating hills, that, covered
+with low mangrove-trees and large exotics, formed the banks of the
+river.  We passed numerous small wooded islands and elevated sandbanks,
+on the edges of which whole regiments of long-legged birds waded about
+in search of food, or, starting at our approach, flew over our heads in
+Indian file, their bright scarlet-and-white plumage showing prettily
+against the blue of the sky.  Shoals of turtle floated past, and
+hundreds of rainbow- jelly-fishes, while, farther off, many
+large black bodies--the backs of hippopotami--moved on the surface of
+the water, or anon disappeared with a sullen plash.  Saving these sounds
+and the dip of our own oars, all was still, the silence of the desert
+reigned around us, the quiet of a newly created world.
+
+The forenoon wore away, the river got narrower, but, though we could see
+a distance of ten miles before us, neither life nor sign of life could
+be perceived.  At one o'clock we landed among a few cocoa-nut trees to
+eat our meagre dinner, a little salt pork, raw, and a bit of biscuit.
+No sooner had we "shoved off" again than the sky became overcast; we
+were caught in, and had to pull against, a blinding white-squall that
+would have laid a line-of-battle on her beam ends.  The rain poured down
+as if from a water-spout, almost filling the boat and drenching us to
+the skin, and, not being able to see a yard ahead, our boat ran aground
+and stuck fast.  It took us a good hour after the squall was over to
+drag her into deep water; nor were our misfortunes then at an end, for
+squall succeeded squall, and, having a journey of uncertain length still
+before us, we began to feel very miserable indeed.
+
+It was long after four o'clock when, tired, wet, and hungry, we hailed
+with joy a large white house on a wooded promontory; it was the
+Governor's castle, and soon after we came in sight of the town itself.
+Situated so far in the interior of Africa, in a region so wild, few
+would have expected to find such a little paradise as we now beheld,--a
+colony of industrious Portuguese, a large fort and a company of
+soldiers, a governor and consulate, a town of nice little detached
+cottages, with rows of cocoa-nut, mango, and orange trees, and in fact
+all the necessaries, and luxuries of civilised life.  It was, indeed, an
+oasis in the desert, and, to us, the most pleasant of pleasant
+surprises.
+
+Leaving the men for a short time with the boat, we made our way to the
+house of the consul, a dapper little gentleman with a pretty wife and
+two beautiful daughters--flowers that had hitherto blushed unseen and
+wasted their sweetness in the desert air.
+
+Our welcome was most warm.  After making us swallow a glass of brandy
+each to keep off fever, he kindly led us to a room, and made us strip
+off our wet garments, while a servant brought bundle after bundle of
+clothes, and spread them out before us.  There were socks and shirts and
+slippers galore, with waistcoats, pantaloons, and head-dresses, and
+jackets, enough to have dressed an opera troupe.  The commander and I
+furnished ourselves with a red Turkish fez and dark-grey dressing-gown
+each, with cord and tassels to correspond, and, thus, arrayed, we
+considered ourselves of no small account.  Our kind entertainers were
+waiting for us in the next room, where they had, in the mean time, been
+preparing for us the most fragrant of brandy punch.  By-and-bye two
+officers and a tall Parsee dropped in, and for the next hour or so the
+conversation was of the most animated and lively description, although a
+bystander, had there been one, would not have been much edified, for the
+following reason: the younger daughter and myself were flirting in the
+ancient Latin language, with an occasional soft word in Spanish; our
+commander was talking in bad French to the consul's lady, who was
+replying in Portuguese; the second-master was maintaining a smart
+discussion in broken Italian with the elder daughter; the Parsee and
+officer of the fort chiming in, the former in English, the latter in
+Hindostanee; but as no one of the four could have had the slightest idea
+of the other's meaning, the amount of information given and received
+must have been very small,--in fact, merely nominal.  It must not,
+however, be supposed that our host or hostesses could speak _no_
+English, for the consul himself would frequently, and with a bow that
+was inimitable, push the bottle towards the commander, and say, as he
+shrugged his shoulders and turned his palms skywards, "Continue you, Sar
+Capitan, to wet your whistle;" and, more than once, the fair creature by
+my side would raise and did raise the glass to her lips, and say, as her
+eyes sought mine, "Good night, Sar Officeer," as if she meant me to be
+off to bed without a moment's delay, which I knew she did not.  Then,
+when I responded to the toast, and complimented her on her knowledge of
+the "universal language," she added, with a pretty shake of the head,
+"No, Sar Officeer, I no can have speak the mooch Englese."  A servant,--
+apparently newly out of prison, so closely was his hair cropped,--
+interrupted our pleasant confab, and removed the seat of our Babel to
+the dining-room, where as nicely-cooked-and-served a dinner as ever
+delighted the senses of hungry mortality awaited our attention.  No
+large clumsy joints, huge misshapen roasts or bulky boils, hampered the
+board; but dainty made-dishes, savoury stews, piquant curries, delicate
+fricassees whose bouquet tempted even as their taste and flavour
+stimulated the appetite, strange little fishes as graceful in shape as
+lovely in colour, vegetables that only the rich luxuriance of an African
+garden could supply, and numerous other nameless nothings, with
+delicious wines and costly liqueurs, neatness, attention, and kindness,
+combined to form our repast, and counteract a slight suspicion of
+crocodiles' tails and stewed lizard, for where ignorance is bliss a
+fellow is surely a fool if he is wise.
+
+We spent a most pleasant evening in asking questions, spinning yarns,
+singing songs, and making love.  The younger daughter--sweet child of
+the desert--sang `Amante de alguno;' her sister played a selection from
+`La Traviata;' next, the consul's lady favoured us with something
+pensive and sad, having reference, I think, to bright eyes, bleeding
+hearts, love, and slow death; then, the Parsee chanted a Persian hymn
+with an "Allalallala," instead of Fol-di-riddle-ido as a chorus, which
+elicited "Fra poco a me" from the Portuguese lieutenant; and this last
+caused our commander to seat himself at the piano, turn up the white of
+his eyes, and in very lugubrious tones question the probability of
+"Gentle Annie's" ever reappearing in any spring-time whatever; then,
+amid so much musical sentimentality and woe, it was not likely that I
+was to hold my peace, so I lifted up my voice and sang--
+
+  "Cauld kail in Aberdeen,
+  An' cas ticks in Strathbogie;
+  Ilka chiel maun hae a quean
+  Bit leeze me on ma cogie--"
+
+with a pathos that caused the tears to trickle over and adown the nose
+of the younger daughter--she was of the gushing temperament--and didn't
+leave a dry eye in the room.  The song brought down the house--so to
+speak--and I was the hero for the rest of the evening.  Before parting
+for the night we also sang `Auld lang syne,' copies of the words having
+been written out and distributed, to prevent mistakes; this was supposed
+by our hostess to be the English national anthem.
+
+It was with no small amount of regret that we parted from our friends
+next day; a fresh breeze carried us down stream, and, except our running
+aground once or twice, and being nearly drowned in crossing the bar, we
+arrived safely on board our saucy gunboat.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+"Afric's sunny fountains" have been engaged for such a length of time in
+the poetical employment of "rolling down their golden sands," that a
+bank or bar of that same bright material has been formed at the mouth of
+every river, which it is very difficult and often dangerous to cross
+even in canoes.  We had despatched boats before us to take soundings on
+the bar of Lamoo, and prepared to follow in the track thus marked out.
+Now, our little bark, although not warranted, like the Yankee boat, to
+float wherever there is a heavy dew, was nevertheless content with a
+very modest allowance of the aqueous element; in two and a half fathoms
+she was quite at home, and even in two--with the help of a few
+breakers--she never failed to bump it over a bar.  We approached the bar
+of Lamoo, therefore, with a certain degree of confidence till the keel
+rasped on the sand; this caused us to turn astern till we rasped again;
+then, being neither able to get back nor forward, we stopped ship, put
+our fingers in our wise mouths, and tried to consider what next was to
+be done.  Just then a small canoe was observed coming bobbing over the
+big waves that tumbled in on the bar; at one moment it was hidden behind
+a breaker, next moment mounting over another, and so, after a little
+game at bo-peep, it got alongside, and from it there scrambled on board
+a little, little man, answering entirely to Dickens's description of
+Quilp.
+
+"Quilp!" said the commander.
+
+"Quilp!! by George!" repeated our second-master.
+
+"Quilp!!!" added I, "by all that's small and ugly."
+
+"Your sarvant, sar," said Quilp himself.  "I am one pilot."  There
+certainly was not enough of him to make two.  He was rather darker in
+skin than the Quilp of Dickens, and his only garment was a coal-sack
+without sleeves--no coal-sack _has_ sleeves, however--begirt with a
+rope, in which a short knife was stuck; he had, besides, sandals on his
+feet, and his temples were begirt with a dirty dishclout by way of
+turban, and he repeated, "I am one pilot, sar."
+
+"Can you take us over the bar?" asked the commander.
+
+"How much water you?"
+
+"Three fathoms."
+
+"I do it, sar, plenty quick."
+
+"Twenty shillings if you do."
+
+"I do it, sar.  I do him," cried the little man, as he mounted the
+bridge; then cocking his head to one side, and spreading out his arms
+like a badly feathered duck, he added, "Suppose I no do him plenty
+proper, you catchee me and make shot."
+
+"If the vessel strikes, I'll hang you, sir."
+
+Quilp grinned--which was his way of smiling.
+
+"Up steam, sar!" he cried; the order was obeyed.
+
+"Go 'head.  Stabird a leetle."
+
+"And a half three," sung the man in the chains; then, "And a half four;"
+and by-and-bye, "And a half three" again; followed next moment by, "By
+the deep three."
+
+The commander was all in a fidget.  We were on the dreaded bar; on each
+side of us the big waves curled and broke with a sullen boom like
+far-off thunder; only, where we were, no waves broke.
+
+"Mind yourself now," cried the commander to Quilp; to which he in wrath
+replied--
+
+"What for you stand there make bobbery?  _I_ is de cap'n; suppose you is
+fear, go alow, sar."
+
+"And a quarter less three."
+
+"Steady!" and a large wave broke right aboard of us, almost sweeping us
+from the deck, and lifting the ship's head into the sky.  Another and
+another followed; but amid the wet and the spray, and the roar of the
+breakers, firmly stood the little pilot, coolly giving his orders, and
+never for an instant taking his eyes from the vessel's jib-boom and the
+distant shore, till we were safely through the surf and quietly steaming
+up the river.
+
+After proceeding some miles, native villages began to appear here and
+there on both shores, and the great number of dhows on the river, with
+boats and canoes of every description, told us we were nearing a large
+town.  Two hours afterwards we were anchored under the guns of the
+Sultan's palace, which were belching forth fire and smoke in return for
+the salute we had fired.  We found every creature and thing in Lamoo as
+entirely primitive, as absolutely foreign, as if it were a city in some
+other planet.  The most conspicuous building is the Sultan's lofty fort
+and palace, with its spacious steps, its fountains and marble halls.
+The streets are narrow and confused; the houses built in the Arab
+fashion, and in many cases connected by bridges at the top; the
+inhabitants about forty thousand, including Arabs, Persians, Hindoos,
+Somali Indians, and slaves.  The wells, exceedingly deep, are built in
+the centre of the street without any protection; and girls, carrying on
+their heads calabashes, are continually passing to and from them.
+Slaves, two and two, bearing their burdens of cowries and ivory on poles
+between, and keeping step to an impromptu chant; black girls weaving
+mats and grass-cloth; strange-looking tradesmen, with stranger tools, at
+every door; rich merchants borne along in gilded palanquins; people
+praying on housetops; and the Sultan's ferocious soldiery prowling
+about, with swords as tall, and guns nearly twice as tall, as
+themselves; a large shark-market; a fine bazaar, with gold-dust, ivory,
+and tiger-skins exposed for sale; sprightly horses with gaudy trappings;
+solemn-looking camels; dust and stench and a general aroma of savage
+life and customs pervading the atmosphere, but law and order
+nevertheless.  People of all religions agree like brothers.  No
+spirituous liquor of any sort is sold in the town; the Sultan's soldiers
+go about the streets at night, smelling the breath of the suspected, and
+the faintest odour of the accursed fire-water dooms the poor mortal to
+fifty strokes with a thick bamboo-cane next morning.  The sugar-cane
+grows wild in the fertile suburbs, amid a perfect forest of fine trees;
+farther out in the country the cottager dwells beneath his few cocoa-nut
+trees, which supply him with all the necessaries of life.  One tree for
+each member of his family is enough.  _He_ builds the house and fences
+with its large leaves; his wife prepares meat and drink, cloth and oil,
+from the nut; the space between the trees is cultivated for curry, and
+the spare nuts are sold to purchase luxuries, and the rent of twelve
+trees is only _sixpence_ of our money.  Happy country! no drunkenness,
+no debt, no religious strife, but peace and contentment everywhere!
+Reader, if you are in trouble, or your affairs are going "to pot," or if
+you are of opinion that this once favoured land is getting used up, I
+sincerely advise you to sell off your goods and be off to Lamoo.
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+PROS AND CONS.
+
+Of the "gentlemen of England who live at home at ease," very few can
+know how entirely dependent for happiness one is on his neighbours.  Man
+is out-and-out, or out-and-in, a gregarious animal, else `Robinson
+Crusoe' had never been written.  Now, I am sure that it is only correct
+to state that the majority of combatant [Note 1] officers are, in simple
+language, jolly nice fellows, and as a class gentlemen, having, in fact,
+that fine sense of honour, that good-heartedness, which loves to do as
+it would be done by, which hurteth not the feelings of the humble, which
+turneth aside from the worm in its path, and delighteth not in plucking
+the wings from the helpless fly.  To believe, however, that there are no
+exceptions to this rule would be to have faith in the speedy advent of
+the millennium, that happy period of lamb-and-lion-ism which we would
+all rather see than hear tell of; for human nature is by no means
+altered by bathing every morning in salt water, it is the same afloat as
+on shore.  And there are many officers in the navy, who--"dressed in a
+little brief authority," and wearing an additional stripe--love to lord
+it over their fellow worms.  Nor is this fault altogether absent from
+the medical profession itself!
+
+It is in small gunboats, commanded perhaps by a lieutenant, and carrying
+only an assistant-surgeon, where a young medical officer feels all the
+hardships and despotism of the service; for if the lieutenant in command
+happens to be at all frog-hearted, he has then a splendid opportunity of
+puffing himself up.
+
+In a large ship with from twenty to thirty officers in the mess, if you
+do not happen to meet with a kindred spirit at one end of the table, you
+can shift your chair to the other.  But in a gunboat on foreign service,
+with merely a clerk, a blatant middy, and a second-master who would fain
+be your senior, as your messmates, then, I say, God help you! unless you
+have the rare gift of doing anything for a quiet life.  It is all
+nonsense to say, "Write a letter on service about any grievance;" you
+can't write about ten out of a thousand of the petty annoyances which go
+to make your life miserable; and if you do, you will be but little
+better, if, indeed, your last state be not worse than your first.
+
+I have in my mind's eye even now a lieutenant who commanded a gunboat in
+which I served as medical officer in charge.  This little man was what
+is called a sea-lawyer--my naval readers well know what I mean; he knew
+all the Admiralty Instructions, was an amateur engineer, only needed the
+title of M.D. to make him a doctor, could quibble and quirk, and in fact
+could prove by the Queen's Regulations that your soul, to say nothing of
+your body, wasn't your own; that _you_ were a slave, and _he_ lord--god
+of all he surveyed.  Peace be with him! he has gone to his account; he
+will not require an advocate, he can speak for himself.  Not many such
+hath the service, I am happy to say.  He was continually changing his
+poor hard-worked sub-lieutenants, and driving his engineers to drink,
+previously to trying them by court-martial.  At first he and I got on
+very well; apparently he "loved me like a vera brither;" but we did not
+continue long "on the same platform," and, from the day we had the first
+difference of opinion, he was my foe, and a bitter one too.  I assure
+you, reader, it gave me a poor idea of the service, for it was my first
+year.  He was always on the outlook for faults, and his kindest words to
+me were "chaffing" me on my accent, or about my country.  To be able to
+meet him on his own ground I studied the Instructions day and night, and
+tried to stick by them.
+
+Malingering was common on board; one or two whom I caught I turned to
+duty: the men, knowing how matters stood between the commander and me,
+refused to work, and so I was had up and bullied on the quarter-deck for
+"neglect of duty" in not putting these fellows on the sick-list.  After
+this I had to put every one that asked on the sick-list.
+
+"Doctor," he would say to me on reporting the number sick, "this is
+_wondrous_ strange--_thirteen_ on the list, out of only ninety men.
+Why, sir, I've been in line-of-battle ships,--_line-of-battle_ ships,
+sir,--where they had not ten sick--_ten sick_, sir."  This of course
+implied an insult to me, but I was like a sheep before the shearers,
+dumb.
+
+On Sunday mornings I went with him the round of inspection; the sick who
+were able to be out of hammock were drawn up for review: had he been
+half as particular with the men under his own charge or with the ship in
+general as he was with the few sick, there would have been but little
+disease to treat.  Instead of questioning _me_ concerning their
+treatment, he interrogated the sick themselves, quarrelling with the
+medicine given, and pooh-pooh-ing my diagnosis.  Those in hammocks, who
+most needed gentleness and comfort, he bullied, blamed for being ill,
+and rendered generally uneasy.  Remonstrance on my part was either taken
+no notice of, or instantly checked.  If men were reported by me for
+being dirty, giving impudence, or disobeying orders, _he_ became their
+advocate--an able one too--and _I_ had to retire, sorry I had spoken.
+But I would not tell the tenth part of what I had to suffer, because
+such men as he are the _exception_, and because he is dead.  A little
+black baboon of a boy who attended on this lieutenant-commanding had one
+day incurred his displeasure: "Bo'swain's mate," cried he, "take my boy
+forward, hoist him on an ordinary seaman's back, and give him a
+rope's-ending; and," turning to me, "Doctor, you'll go and attend my
+boy's flogging."
+
+I dared not trust myself to reply.  With a face like crimson I rushed
+below to my cabin, and--how could I help it?--made a baby of myself for
+once; all my pent-up feelings found vent in a long fit of crying.
+
+True, I might in this case have written a letter to the service about my
+treatment; but, as it is not till after twelve months the
+assistant-surgeon is confirmed, the commander's word would have been
+taken before mine, and I probably dismissed without a court-martial.
+
+That probationary year I consider more than a grievance, it is a _cruel
+injustice_.
+
+Cabins?  There is a regulation--of late more strictly enforced by a
+circular--that every medical officer serving on board his own ship shall
+have a cabin, and the choice--by rank--of cabin, and he is a fool if he
+does not enforce it.  But it sometimes happens that a sub-lieutenant
+(who has no cabin) is promoted to lieutenant on a foreign station; he
+will then rank above the assistant-surgeon, and perhaps, if there is no
+spare cabin, the poor doctor will have to give up his, and take to a
+sea-chest and hammock, throwing all his curiosities, however valuable,
+overboard.  It would be the duty of the captain in such a case to build
+an additional cabin, and if he did not, or would not, a letter to the
+admiral would make him.
+
+Does the combatant officer treat the medical officer with respect?
+Certainly, unless one or other of the two be a snob: in the one case the
+respect is not worth having, in the other it can't be expected.
+
+In the military branch you shall find many officers belonging to the
+best English families: these I need hardly say are for the most part
+gentlemen, and gentle men.  However, it is allowed in most messes that
+
+  "The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
+  A man's man for a' that;"
+
+and I assure the candidate for a commission, that, if he is himself a
+gentleman, he will find no want of admirers in the navy.  But there are
+some young doctors who enter the service, knowing their profession to be
+sure, and how to hold a knife and fork--not a carving-fork though--but
+knowing little else; yet even these soon settle down, and, if they are
+not dismissed by court-martial for knocking some one down at cards, or
+on the quarter-deck, turn out good service-officers.  Indeed, after all,
+I question if it be good to know too much of fine-gentility on entering
+the service, for, although the navy officers one meets have much that is
+agreeable, honest, and true, there is through it all a vein of what can
+only be designated as the coarse.  The science of conversation, that
+beautiful science that says and lets say, that can listen as well as
+speak, is but little studied.  Mostly all the talk is "shop," or rather
+"ship."  There is a want of tone in the discourse, a lack of refinement.
+The delicious chit-chat on new books, authors, poetry, music, or the
+drama, interspersed with anecdote, incident, and adventure, and
+enlivened with the laughter-raising pun or happy bon-mot, is, alas! but
+too seldom heard: the rough joke, the tales of women, ships, and former
+ship-mates, and the old, old, stale "good things,"--these are more
+fashionable at our navy mess-board.  Those who would object to such
+conversation are in the minority, and prefer to let things hang as they
+grew.  Now, only one thing can ever alter this, and that is a good and
+perfect library in every ship, to enable officers, who spend most of
+their time out of society, to keep up with the times if possible.  But I
+fear I am drifting imperceptibly into the subject of navy-reform, which
+I prefer leaving to older and wiser heads.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Note 1.  Combatant (from combat, a battle), fighting officers,--as if
+the medical offices didn't fight likewise.  It would be better to take
+away the "combat," and leave the "ant"--ant-officers, as they do the
+work of the ship.
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+ODDS AND ENDS.
+
+There is one grievance which the medical officers, in common with their
+combatant brethren, have to complain of--I refer to _compulsory
+shaving_; neither is this by any means so insignificant a matter as it
+may seem.  It may appear a ridiculous statement, but it is nevertheless
+a true one, that this regulation has caused many a young surgeon to
+prefer the army to the navy.  "Mere dandies," the reader may say, "whom
+this grievance would affect;" but there is many a good man a dandy, and
+no one could surely respect a man who was careless of his personal
+appearance, or who would willingly, and without a sigh, disfigure his
+face by depriving it of what nature considers both ornate and useful--
+ornate, as the ladies and the looking-glass can prove; and useful, as
+the blistered chin and upper lip of the shaven sailor, in hot climates,
+points out.  From the earliest ages the moustache has been worn,--even
+the Arabs, who shave the head, leave untouched the upper lip.  What
+would the pictures of some of the great masters be without it?  Didn't
+the Roman youths dedicate the first few downy hairs of the coming
+moustache to the gods?  Does not the moustache give a manly appearance
+to the smallest and most effeminate?  Does it not even beget a certain
+amount of respect for the wearer?  What sort of guys would the razor
+make of Count Bismark, Dickens, the Sultan of Turkey, or Anthony
+Trollope?  Were the Emperor Napoleon deprived of his well-waxed
+moustache, it might lose him the throne of France.  Were Garibaldi to
+call on his barber, he might thereafter call in vain for volunteers, and
+English ladies would send him no more splints nor sticking-plaster.
+Shave Tennyson, and you may put him in petticoats as soon as you please.
+
+As to the moustache movement in the navy, it is a subject of talk--
+admitting of no discussion--in every mess in the service, and thousands
+are the advocates in favour of its adoption.  Indeed, the arguments in
+favour of it are so numerous, that it is a difficult matter to choose
+the best, while the reasons against it are few, foolish, and despotic.
+At the time when the Lords of the Admiralty gave orders that the navy
+should keep its upper lip, and three fingers' breadth of its royal chin,
+smooth and copper-kettlish, it was neither fashionable nor respectable
+to wear the moustache in good society.  Those were the days of
+cabbage-leaf cheeks, powdered wigs, and long queues; but those times are
+past and gone from every corner of England's possessions save the navy.
+Barberism has been hunted from polite circles, but has taken refuge
+under the trident of old Neptune; and, in these days of comparative
+peace, more blood in the Royal Navy is drawn by the razor than by the
+cutlass.
+
+In our little gunboat on the coast of Africa, we, both officers and men,
+used, under the rose, to cultivate moustache and whiskers, until we fell
+in with the ship of the commodore of the station.  Then, when the
+commander gave the order, "All hands to shave," never was such a
+hurlyburly seen, such racing hither and thither (for not a moment was to
+be lost), such sharpening of scissors and furbishing up of rusty razors.
+On one occasion I remember sending our steward, who was lathering his
+face with a blacking-brush, and trying to scrape with a carving-knife,
+to borrow the commander's razor; in the mean time the commander had
+despatched his soapy-faced servant to beg the loan of mine.  Both
+stewards met with a clash, nearly running each other through the body
+with their shaving gear.  I lent the commander a Syme's bistoury, with
+which he managed to pluck most of the hairs out by the root, as if he
+meant to transplant them again, while I myself shaved with an amputating
+knife.  The men forward stuck by the scissors; and when the commander,
+with bloody chin and watery eyes, asked why they did not shave,--"Why,
+sir," replied the bo'swain's mate, "the cockroaches have been and gone
+and eaten all our razors, they has, sir."
+
+Then, had you seen us reappear on deck after the terrible operation,
+with our white shaven lips and shivering chins, and a foolish grin on
+every face, you would, but for our uniform, have taken us for tailors on
+strike, so unlike were we to the brave-looking, manly dare-devils that
+trod the deck only an hour before.
+
+And if army officers and men have been graciously permitted to wear the
+moustache since the Crimean war, why are not we?  But perhaps the navy
+took no part in that gallant struggle.  But if we _must_ continue to do
+penance by shaving, why should it not be the crown of the head, or any
+other place, rather than the upper lip, which every one can see?
+
+One item of duty there is, which occasionally devolves on the medical
+officer, and for the most part goes greatly against the feelings of the
+_young_ surgeon; I refer to his compulsory attendance at floggings.  It
+is only fair to state that the majority of captains and commanders use
+the cat as seldom as possible, and that, too, only sparingly.  In some
+ships, however, flogging is nearly as frequent as prayers of a morning.
+Again, it is more common on foreign stations than at home, and boys of
+the first or second class, marines, and ordinary seamen, are for the
+most part the victims.
+
+I do not believe I shall ever forget the first exhibition of this sort I
+attended on board my own ship; not that the spectacle was in any way
+more revolting than scores I have since witnessed, but because the sight
+was new to me.
+
+I remember it wanted fully twenty minutes of seven in the morning, when
+my servant aroused me.
+
+"Why so early to-day?"  I inquired as I turned out.
+
+"A flaying match, you know, sir," said Jones.
+
+My heart gave an anxious "thud" against my ribs, as if I myself were to
+form the "ram for the sacrifice."  I hurried through with my bath, and,
+dressing myself as if for a holiday, in cocked hat, sword, and undress
+coat, I went on deck.  We were at anchor in Simon's Bay.  All the
+minutiae of the scene I remember as though it were but yesterday,
+morning was cool and clear, the hills clad in lilac and green, seabirds
+floating high in air, and the waters of the bay reflecting the line of
+the sky and the lofty mountain-sides, forming a picture almost dreamlike
+in its quietness and serenity.  The men were standing about in groups,
+dressed in their whitest of pantaloons, bluest of smocks, and neatest of
+black silk neckerchiefs.  By-and-bye the culprit was led aft by a file
+of marines, and I went below with him to make the preliminary
+examination, in order to report whether or not he might be fit for the
+punishment.
+
+He was as good a specimen of the British marine as one could wish to
+look upon, hardy, bold, and wiry.  His crime had been smuggling spirits
+on board.
+
+"Needn't examine me, Doctor," said he; "I ain't afeard of their four
+dozen; they can't hurt me, sir,--leastways my back you know--my breast
+though; hum-m!" and he shook his head, rather sadly I thought, as he
+bent down his eyes.
+
+"What," said I, "have you anything the matter with your chest?"
+
+"Nay, Doctor, nay; its my feelins they'll hurt.  I've a little girl at
+home that loves me, and--bless you, sir, I won't look her in the face
+again no-how."
+
+I felt his pulse.  No lack of strength there, no nervousness; the artery
+had the firm beat of health, the tendons felt like rods of iron beneath
+the finger, and his biceps stood out hard and round as the mainstay of
+an old seventy-four.
+
+I pitied the brave fellow, and--very wrong of me it was, but I could not
+help it--filled out and offered him a large glass of rum.
+
+"Ah! sir," he said, with a wistful eye on the ruby liquid, "don't tempt
+me, sir.  I can bear the bit o' flaying athout that: I wouldn't have my
+messmates smell Dutch courage on my breath, sir; thankee all the same,
+Doctor."  And he walked on deck and surrendered himself.
+
+All hands had already assembled, the men and boys on one side, and the
+officers, in cocked hats and swords, on the other.  A grating had been
+lashed against the bulwark, and another placed on deck beside it.  The
+culprit's shoulders and back were bared, and a strong belt fastened
+around the lower part of the loins for protection; he was then firmly
+tied by the hands to the upper, and by the feet to the lower grating; a
+little basin of cold water was placed at his feet; and all was now
+prepared.  The sentence was read, and orders given to proceed with the
+punishment.  The cat is a terrible instrument of torture; I would not
+use it on a bull unless in self-defence: the shaft is about a foot and a
+half long, and covered with green or red baize according to taste; the
+thongs are nine, about twenty-eight inches in length, of the thickness
+of a goose-quill, and with two knots tied on each.  Men describe the
+first blow as like a shower of molten lead.
+
+Combing out the thongs with his five fingers before each blow, firmly
+and determinedly was the first dozen delivered by the bo'swain's mate,
+and as unflinchingly received.
+
+Then, "One dozen, sir, please," he reported, saluting the commander.
+
+"Continue the punishment," was the calm reply.
+
+A new man and a new cat.  Another dozen reported; again, the same reply.
+Three dozen.  The flesh, like burning steel, had changed from red to
+purple, and blue, and white; and between the third and fourth dozen, the
+suffering wretch, pale enough now, and in all probability sick, begged a
+comrade to give him a mouthful of water.  There was a tear in the eye of
+the hardy sailor who obeyed him, whispering as he did so--
+
+"Keep up, Bill; it'll soon be over now."
+
+"Five, six," the corporal slowly counted--"seven, eight."  It is the
+last dozen, and how acute must be the torture!  "Nine, ten."  The blood
+comes now fast enough, and--yes, gentle reader, I _will_ spare your
+feelings.  The man was cast loose at last and put on the sick-list; he
+had borne his punishment without a groan and without moving a muscle.  A
+large pet monkey sat crunching nuts in the rigging, and grinning all the
+time; I have no doubt _he_ enjoyed the spectacle immensely, _for he was
+only an ape_.
+
+Tommie G--was a pretty, fair-skinned, blue-eyed boy, some sixteen
+summers old.  He was one of a class only too common in the service;
+having become enamoured of the sea, he had run away from his home and
+joined the service; and, poor little man! he found out, when too late,
+that the stern realities of a sailor's life did not at all accord with
+the golden notions he had formed of it.  Being fond of stowing himself
+away in corners with a book, instead of keeping his watch, Tommie very
+often got into disgrace, spent much of his time at the mast-head, and
+had many unpleasant palmar rencounters with the corporal's cane.  One
+day, his watch being over, he had retired to a corner with his little
+"ditty-box."
+
+Nobody ever knew one-half of the beloved nicknacks and valued nothings
+he kept in that wee box: it was in fact his private cabin, his sanctum
+sanctorum, to which he could retreat when anything vexed him; a sort of
+portable home, in which he could forget the toils of his weary watch,
+the giddy mast-head, or even the corporal's cane.  He had extracted, and
+was dreamily gazing on, the portrait of a very young lady, when the
+corporal came up and rudely seized it, and made a very rough and
+inelegant remark concerning the fair virgin.
+
+"That is my sister," cried Tommie, with tears in his eyes.
+
+"Your sister!" sneered the corporal; "she is a--" and he added a word
+that cannot be named.  There was the spirit of young England, however,
+in Tommie's breast; and the word had scarcely crossed the corporal's
+lips, when those lips, and his nose too, were dyed in the blood the
+boy's fist had drawn.  For that blow poor Tommie was condemned to
+receive four dozen lashes.  And the execution of the sentence was
+carried out with all the pomp and show usual on such occasions.  Arrayed
+in cooked-hats, epaulets, and swords, we all assembled to witness that
+helpless child in his agony.  One would have thought that even the rough
+bo'swain's mate would have hesitated to disfigure skin so white and
+tender, or that the frightened and imploring glance Tommie cast upward
+on the first descending lash would have unnerved his arm.  Did it?  No,
+reader; pity there doubtless was among us, but mercy--none.  Oh! we were
+a brave band.  And the poor boy writhed in his agony; his screams and
+cries were heartrending; and, God forgive us! we knew not till then he
+was an orphan, till we heard him beseech his mother in heaven to look
+down on her son, to pity and support him.  Ah! well, perhaps she did,
+for scarcely had the third dozen commenced when Tommie's cries were
+hushed, his head drooped on his shoulder like a little dead bird's, and
+for a while his sufferings were at an end.  I gladly took the
+opportunity to report further proceedings as dangerous, and he was
+carried away to his hammock.
+
+I will not shock the nerves and feelings of the reader by any further
+relation of the horrors of flogging, merely adding, that I consider
+corporal punishment, as applied to men, _cowardly, cruel_, and debasing
+to human nature; and as applied to boys, _brutal_, and sometimes even
+_fiendish_.  There is only one question I wish to ask of every
+true-hearted English lady who may read these lines--Be you sister, wife,
+or mother, could you in your heart have respected the commander who,
+with folded arms and grim smile, replied to poor Tommie's frantic
+appeals for mercy, "Continue the punishment"?
+
+The pay of medical officers is by no means high enough to entice young
+doctors, who can do anything like well on shore, to enter the service.
+Ten shillings a day, with an increase of half-a-crown after five years'
+service on full pay, is not a great temptation certainly.  To be sure
+the expenses of living are small, two shillings a day being all that is
+paid for messing; this of course not including the wine-bill, the size
+of which will depend on the "drouthiness" of the officer who contracts
+it.  Government provides all mess-traps, except silver forks and spoons.
+Then there is uniform to keep up, and shore-going clothes to be paid
+for, and occasionally a shilling or two for boat-hire.  However, with a
+moderate wine-bill, the assistant-surgeon may save about four shillings
+or more a day.
+
+Promotion to the rank of surgeon, unless to some fortunate individuals,
+comes but slowly; it may, however, be reckoned on after from eight to
+ten years.  A few gentlemen out of each "batch" who "pass" into the
+service, and who have distinguished themselves at the examination, are
+promoted sooner.
+
+It seems to be the policy of the present Director-General to deal as
+fairly as possible with every assistant-surgeon, after a certain
+routine.  On first joining he is sent for a short spell--too short,
+indeed--to a hospital.  He is then appointed to a sea-going ship for a
+commission--say three years--on a foreign station.  On coming home he is
+granted a few months' leave on full pay, and is afterwards appointed to
+a harbour-ship for about six months.  By the end of this time he is
+supposed to have fairly recruited from the fatigues of his commission
+abroad; he is accordingly sent out again to some other foreign station
+for three or four years.  On again returning to his native land, he
+might be justified in hoping for a pet appointment, say to a hospital,
+the marines, a harbour-ship, or, failing these, to the Channel fleet.
+On being promoted he is sent off abroad again, and so on; and thus he
+spends his useful life, and serves his Queen and country, and earns his
+pay, and generally spends that likewise.
+
+Pensions are granted to the widows of assistant-surgeons--from forty to
+seventy pounds a year, according to circumstances; and if he leaves no
+widow, a dependent mother, or even sister, may obtain the pension.  But
+I fear I must give, to assistant-surgeons about to many, Punch's advice,
+and say most emphatically, "Don't;" unless, indeed, the dear creature
+has money, and is able to purchase a practice for her darling doctor.
+
+With a little increase of pay ungrudgingly given, shorter commissions
+abroad, and less of the "bite and buffet" about favours granted, the
+navy would be a very good service for the medical officer.
+
+However, as it is, to a man who has neither wife nor riches, it is, I
+dare say, as good a way of spending life as any other; and I do think
+that there are but few old surgeons who, on looking back to the life
+they have led in the navy, would not say of that service,--"With all thy
+faults I love thee still."
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The End.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Medical Life in the Navy, by Gordon Stables
+
+*** 
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