48 THE SEA. 



is immediately rated midshipman ; while if he only obtains a Third Class certificate, he will 

 have to serve twelve months more on the sea-going ship, and pass another examination before 

 he can claim that rank.* 



The actual experiences of intelligent sailors, or voyagers, written by themselves, have, 

 of course, a greater practical value than the sea-stories of clever novelists, while the latter, 

 as a class, confine themselves very much to the quarter-deck. Dana's "Two Years Before 

 the Mast " is so well known that few of our readers need to be told that it is the story of an 

 American student, who had undermined his health by over-application, and who took a voyage, 

 via Cape Horn, to California in order to recover it. But the old brig Pilgrim, bound to the 

 northern Pacific coast for a cargo of hides, was hardly a fair example, in some respects, of an 

 ordinary merchant-vessel, to say nothing of a fine clipper or modern steam-ship. Dana's 

 experiences were of the roughest type, and may be read by boys, anxious to go to sea, with 

 advantage, if taken in conjunction with those of others ; many of them are common to all grades 

 of sea service. A little work by a " Sailor-boy,"f published some years ago, gives a very fair 

 idea of a seaman's lot in the Royal Navy, and the two stories in conjunction present a fair 

 average view of sea-life and its duties. 



Passing over the young sailor-boy's admission to the training-ship the " Guardho," as 

 he terms it we find his first days on board devoted to the mysteries of knots and hitch- 

 making, in learning to lash hammocks, and in rowing, and in acquiring the arts of 

 " feathering " and " tossing " an oar. Incidentally he gives us some information on the 

 etiquette observed in boats passing with an officer on board. " For a lieutenant, the coxswain 

 only gets up and takes his cap off; for a captain, the boat's crew lay on their oars, and 

 the coxswain takes his cap off; and for an admiral the oars are tossed (i.e., raised 

 perpendicularly, not thrown in the air !), and all caps go off." Who would not be an admiral ? 

 While in this " instruction " he received his sailor's clothes a pair of blue cloth 

 trousers, two pairs of white duck ditto, two blue serge and two white frocks, two pairs of white 

 " jumpers," two caps, two pairs of stockings, a knife, and a marking-type. As soon as he is 

 " made a sailor " by these means, he was ordered to the mast-head, and tells with glee how 

 he was able to go up outside by the futtock shrouds, and not through " lubber's hole." The 

 reader doubtless knows that the lubber's hole is an open space between the head of the lower 

 mast and the edge of the top ; it is so named from the supposition that a " land-lubber " would 

 prefer that route. The French call it the trou du chat the hole through which the cat would 

 climb. Next he commenced cutlass-drill, followed by rifle-drill, big-gun practice, instruction 

 in splicing, and all useful knots, and in using the compass and lead-line. He was afterwards- 

 sent on a brig for a short sea cruise. " Having," says he, " to run aloft without shoes was 

 a heavy trial to me, and my feet often were so sore and blistered that I have sat down in the 

 ' tops ' and cried with the pain ; yet up I had to go, and furl and loose my sails ; and up I did 

 go, blisters and all. Sometimes the pain was so bad I could not move smartly, and then th( 

 unmerited rebuke from a thoughtless officer was as gall and wormwood to me." 



Dana, in speaking of the incessant work on board any vessel, says, " A ship is like a lady's 



* Vide " The Queen's Regulations and the Admiralty Instructions for the Government of Her Majesty's Nava 

 Service ;" also G-lascock's " Naval Officer's Manual." 



f " A Sailor-Boy's Log-Book from Portsmouth to the Peiho," edited hy Walter White. 



