NIMROD OF THE SEA; OR, 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



Game-cock as a Time-keeper. Cockroaches in an Economical Point of 

 View. Medical Practice adapted to Working-men. Fancies, and Sick- 

 ness on Board. Cure for Scurvy. Captain Mathew's Story of Boiled 

 Eggs. Extravagant Use of Butter and Sugar. Etiquette of Meals. 

 Want of the Same on the Forecastle. Grub, and Manner of Serving. 

 Coral Island seen. Small Whale, and Stove Boat. Wash-day. An- 

 tonio as Washer- woman, and Chemical Experiments on him. Grand In- 

 cantation and Appearance of Satanus. We make Sail for the Islands. 

 Trade-winds. 



THE Spanish game-cock is a time-keeping phenomenon. 

 The usage of his kind, from the time of Peter the Great, 

 has been to crow at or about eight bells, or 4 A.M. an easy 

 thing at any fixed point, but it becomes an affair of adjust- 

 ment in a ship running east or west, and changing her me- 

 ridian constantly. Remember, that for every degree of lon- 

 gitude a ship runs, her time is changed four minutes. Now, 

 we took the cock on board at the Galapagos, long. 90 W., 

 and carried him to the Sandwich Islands, in long. 160 W., 

 a difference of seventy degrees, or a time difference of four 

 hours. Some days we made four degrees of longitude, and 

 set forward the watch sixteen minutes ; yet the cock would 

 keep the time, and crow at or about eight bells, or 4 A.M., 

 at the western, as he had at the eastern islands. Doubt- 

 less, one might circumnavigate the globe with one of these 

 birds, and his " shrill clarion " would wake the morn at his 

 accustomed hour, making or losing an entire day with the 

 ship. This is not accountable to the , appearances of the 

 coming day ; for the time will be kept in the high latitudes 



