) Alterations of sails and rigging, and
no end of small jobs, keep us hard at work till eight bells (noon)
once more strike, and we then get our luxurious dinner of a pound and
a half of salt junk, with biscuits. But junk is capital stuff for
sheathing material, when it _is_ good: unfortunately, however, it too
frequently is 'old horse;' and whatever its quality happens to be, all
the nice juicy pieces are invariably picked out for the cabin table.
Anything will do for poor Jack. His biscuits, too, are sometimes quite
alive with weevils, especially on a long voyage in hot latitudes.
After dinner, all hands are on deck, and kept there till dark. In very
large merchantmen, and all warships, this rule is departed from, and
the watch is not so torturing--so true is it that the servants in
small establishments, whether on sea or land, are always the worst
treated. However, we suppose that the hands are on deck. The breeze
has now almost died away, and the sea runs in long, low, slow swells;
the ship gently rocking, and the sails occasionally collapsing with a
crash against the creaking masts.
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