220 THE SEA. 



before they could recover from their surprise at the unexpected phenomenon. Observing 

 the Spanish colours still flying-, Lord Cochrane ordered one of his men to haul them 

 down, and the crew, without pausing to consider by whose orders they had been struck, 

 and naturally believing it to be the act of their own officers, gave in. The total English 

 loss was three men killed, and one officer and seventeen men wounded. The Gamo's loss 

 was the captain, boatswain, and thirteen seamen killed, with forty-one wounded. It 

 became a puzzle what to do with 263 unhurt prisoners, the Speedy having only forty-two 

 sound men left. Promptness was necessary ; so, driving the prisoners into the hold, with 

 their own guns pointed down the hatchway, and leaving thirty men on the prize, Cochrane 

 shaped the vessel's course to Port Mahon, which was reached safely. Some Barcelona 

 gun-boats, spectators of the action, did not venture to rescue the frigate. 



The doctor on board a man-of-war has, perhaps, on the whole, better opportunities 

 and, in times of peace, more leisure than the other officers for noting any circumstances 

 of interest that may occur. Dr. Stables, in his interesting little work,* describes his 

 cabin on board a small gun-boat as a miserable little box, such as at home he would have 

 kept rabbits or guinea-pigs in, but certainly not pigeons. He says that it might do for 

 a commodore Commodore Nutt. It was ventilated by a small scuttle, seven inches in 

 diameter, which could only be raised in harbour, and beneath which, when he first went 

 to sea, he was obliged to put a leather hat-box to catch the water; unfortunately, the 

 bottom rotted out, and he was at the mercy of the waves. This cabin was alive with 

 scorpions, cockroaches, and other "crawling ferlies," 



"That e'en to name would be unlawfu'. 1 ' 



His dispensary was off the steerage, and sister-cabin to the pantry. To it he gained access 

 by a species of crab-walking, squeezing himself past a large brass pump, edging in side- 

 ways. The sick would come one by one to the dispensary, and there he saw and treated 

 each case as it arrived, dressing wounds, bruises, and putrefying sores. There was no 

 sick berth attendant, but the lieutenant told off " a little cabin-boy " for his use. He was 

 not a model cabin-boy, like the youngster you see in the theatres. He certainly managed at 

 times to wash out the dispensary, in the intervals of catching cockroaches and making 

 poultices, but in doing the first he broke half the bottles, and making the latter either 

 let them burn or put salt into them. Finally, he smashed so much of the doctor's apparatus 

 that he was kicked out. In both dispensary and what Dr. Stables calls his "burrow," 

 it was difficult to prevent anything from going to utter destruction. The best portions 

 of his uniform got eaten by cockroaches or moulded by damp, while his instruments 

 required cleaning every morning, and even this did not keep the rust at bay. 



And then, those terrible cockroaches ! To find, when you awake, a couple, each 

 two inches in length, meandering over your face, or even in bed with you! to find one 

 in a state of decay in the mustard-pot ! to have to remove their droppings and eggs from 

 the edge of your plate previous to eating your soup ! and so on, ad nauseam. But on 

 small vessels stationed in the tropics as described by the doctor there were, and doubtless 

 sometimes are now, other unpleasantnesses. For instance, you are looking for a book, and 



* " Medical Life in the Navy." 



