306 THE VOYAGE OF THE JEANXETTE. 



9.00 P. M. Open forecastle doors, and partly open 

 scuttle until morning. 



10.00 Lights out in forecastle ; noise and smok- 



ing to cease. 



B}^ this new routine we still have but two cooked 

 meals a day. The tea water for supper is boiled on the 

 fire in the stoves in the cabin and berth deck as hereto- 

 fore since November 1st. This arrangement will hold 

 good as long as we keep the stoves going. But as I 

 shall stop them as soon as we can safely (not comforta- 

 bly) do without them, in order to save every lump of 

 coal, some other way of boiling the tea water has to be 

 devised. While Melville and I were talking it over to- 

 night, we thought it would be possible to make a little 

 fire in the observatory stove down in the fire-room each 

 evening, which would boil all the tea water together. 

 But it suddenly flashed into his mind that as we should 

 be pumping by steam as long as the coal lasted we could 

 boil the tea water by steam also. And with him to 

 think being to act, the whole thing is tin fait accompli 

 If we can get along with pumping by the Baxter en- 

 gine alone, we ma}^ have a little trouble in thus boiling 

 the water by steam, because the steam-room is so shal- 

 low that salt spray is lifted and carried along with the 

 steam, and would mix with our tea water. If we are 

 using the steam-cutter's boiler continuously, there will 

 be no difficulty, for as it has a steam-drum on top of the 

 boiler all danger of lifting salt spray is eliminated. How 

 we may have to use it and the Baxter together, or only 

 one of them, will appear a little later. 



We took out the port forward bilge-pump to-day, and 

 put it down the fire-room hatch into the fire-room bilge, 

 cutting a hole on the after side of the hatch coaming on 

 the starboard side for the pump delivery. When it is 



