NIGHTS IN THE GALLEY. FIRST YARN. 



THE galley is the only place on board a man-of-war where smoking 

 is allowed : it is the custom for the men to occupy one side of the 

 deck and the officers the other. After supper is the time that Jack 

 likes his pipe, and he well knows about that time he will find lots of 

 sea-lawyers holding forth in the galley to a large and admiring 

 audience, all thunderstruck at any "feller" having such a "gift of 

 gab." Although these people are the worst sailors and the most lazy 

 rascals in the ship, and as such justly treated with contempt, when 

 doing duty, by their more honest though less loquacious shipmates ; 

 yet, when the duty is over, and they take their place in the galley, 

 they are looked up to as paragons of learning. 



Many a good yarn is told by some old weather-beaten fellow, and 

 listened to with the greatest attention by the younger sailors. There 

 is always something new to be heard here ; either a long yarn told 

 by some old forecastle-man, or a most amusing argument between 

 two sea-lawyers, who go on slaughtering the king's English without 

 the slightest remorse. 



I am fond of hearing these drolleries, and observing the unculti- 

 vated talents of these hardy sons of Neptune. It is for this reason 

 that I often go over the starboard side of the deck to smoke my 

 cigar in a snug corner, and listen to the humours of Jack in his mo- 

 ments of recreation. And strange tales I have heard at times : I 

 think I could form an amusing and not a very small volume with 

 " galley yarns." I shall relate one in character, as I think Jack's 

 " yarns " are always better rough as they come from the mine, than 

 when polished by (as Jack calls us) " quarter-deck gentry." 



" Give us a light, there, Tom, my ' bo'," said an old quarter- 

 master to the captain of the after-guard, who was sitting on a quarter- 

 tackle, waiting for the usual meeting. 



"There ye are, lad," said he ; "bring yourself to an anchor on 

 the truck of this gun." These were two famous fellows for spin- 

 ning yarns; and, having both doubled the Cape, were privileged to 

 make embellishments which would have done honour to any biogra- 

 pher or historian of the present day. 



The gun, that they had made their own by constantly being seen 

 there smoking their pipes after supper, was the general rendezvous 

 for talkers and listeners. Whether it was that the weather was too 

 hot on the lower-deck (we were then at Malta), or they did not 

 approve of " Phillimore," I cannot tell, but they were at their station 

 some time before most of their shipmates had finished their pint of 

 the " purser's best." To tell a~ yarn without listeners was quite out 

 of the question ; besides, they knew they would be called upon when 

 the top-men came up ; so they sat puffing out volumes of smoke in 

 a silence worthy a Dutch parliament. Seeing these two Solomons 

 seated, I took my station near them, and smoked my cigar in silence, 

 thinking silence would not last long ; nor was I mistaken. 



" Tom," said Will Gibbon, the quarter-master, " as I was at the 



M.M. No. 102. 4L 



