Now, Owing To The Absence Of Proper Discipline, Our Sick, In Addition
To What They Took Medicinally, Often Came In
For their respective
"tots" convivially; and, added to all this, the evening of the last
day of the week was
Always celebrated by what is styled on board of
English vessels "The Saturday-night bottles." Two of these were sent
down into the forecastle, just after dark; one for the starboard
watch, and the other for the larboard.
By prescription, the oldest seaman in each claims the treat as his,
and, accordingly, pours out the good cheer and passes it round like a
lord doing the honours of his table. But the Saturday-night bottles
were not all. The carpenter and cooper, in sea parlance, Chips and
Bungs, who were the "Cods," or leaders of the forecastle, in some way
or other, managed to obtain an extra supply, which perpetually kept
them in fine after-dinner spirits, and, moreover, disposed them to
look favourably upon a state of affairs like the present.
But where were the sperm whales all this time? In good sooth, it made
little matter where they were, since we were in no condition to
capture them. About this time, indeed, the men came down from the
mast-heads, where, until now, they had kept up the form of relieving
each other every two hours. They swore they would go there no more.
Upon this, the mate carelessly observed that they would soon be where
look-outs were entirely unnecessary, the whales he had in his eye
(though Flash Jack said they were all in his) being so tame that they
made a practice of coming round ships, and scratching their backs
against them.
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