I should have mentioned before, that
as soon as the surgeon's ineffectual professional offices are at an end,
he walks to the quarter-deck, and reports to the officer of the watch
that one of his patients has just expired. At whatever hour of the day
or night this occurs, the captain is immediately made acquainted with
the circumstance.
"Next day, generally about eleven o'clock, the bell on which the
half-hours are struck, is tolled for the funeral, and all who choose
to be present, assemble on the gangways, booms, and round the mainmast,
while the forepart of the quarter-deck is occupied by the officers. In
some ships--and it ought perhaps to be so in all--it is made imperative
on the officers and crew to attend the ceremony. If such attendance be
a proper mark of respect to a professional brother--as it surely is--it
ought to be enforced, and not left to caprice. There may, indeed, be
times of great fatigue, when it would harass men and officers,
needlessly, to oblige them to come on deck for every funeral, and upon
such occasions the watch on deck may be sufficient. Or, when some dire
disease gets into a ship, and is cutting down her crew by its daily and
nightly, or it maybe hourly ravages, and when, two or three times in a
watch, the ceremony must be repeated, those only, whose turn it is to be
on deck, need be assembled.
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