200 AUSTRALIA AND HOMEWARD. 



have chains about their necks to which whistles are 

 attached ; and when one of these barefooted officials 

 has occasion to pipe up his men to lower or put up 

 a sail, he makes you feel the exalted dignity of his 

 position by the sublime way in which he blows his 

 whistle. If you are reading or writing or conversing, 

 you are often made to experience, with Dr. Franklin, 

 that " you have to pay dear for the whistle." 



Our watches at sea, as we pass from one degree of 

 longitude to another, are something like the clock of 

 that man who said of it, that when the hour hand 

 was at nine, and the minute hand at eleven, and it 

 struck four, then he knew it was exactly half -past 

 three. It is useless to try to set them right, when we 

 are steering east or west. One must learn to trust 

 entirely to the ship's bells, which toll out in half-hour 

 strokes the progress of the watches into which the 

 day and night are divided. 



Through the night it is pleasant to hear the men 

 on the watch cry out and respond to each other. I 

 suppose the rule is so made that the officer in 

 command, through that watch, may know that his 

 men are awake and on the look-out. When the bell 

 strikes, the watchman on the main bridge cries out 

 in a kind of chant, " Ky-ah dek-tah hai ?" (What 

 do you see ?) The man on the forward bridge 



