20 My Messmates. 



second mate (though entered as chief harpooneer), 

 an old and successful harpooneer, who had made 

 upwards of thirty voyages to Baffin's Bay; Andrew 

 Graham, our doctor, an enthusiastic admirer of 

 nature, and a medical student at the Edinburgh 

 University ; John, our engineer, an uncouth, rough 

 and unpolished black diamond ; Peter, the second 

 engineer and blacksmith ; and Jack, the steward. 

 Our meal hours are breakfast at eight, dinner at 

 twelve, and tea at five. In consequence of the 

 limited accommodation afforded in the cabin, we 

 are compelled to have a relay of each meal. Occa- 

 sionally the skipper, doctor, and myself sit down to 

 a supernumerary meal at about 10 P.m., consisting, 

 now the whelks have all disappeared, of lobsters, or 

 cheese and grog, or something equally unwhole- 

 some and indigestible, but over which the skipper 

 cracks his jokes, spins his endless yarns, and we 

 talk over the events of the day. 



It was with no little anxiety — a feeling which 

 has now subsided to one of interest and wonder — 

 that I watched the dexterous manner in which some 

 of my messmates would perform the apparently 

 impossible feat of eating eggs with a large knife. 

 Forks are decidedly at a discount, every one going 

 on the principle that fingers were made before those 

 useful articles. If we happen to have a joint on the 

 table with the smallest particle of a bone protrud- 

 ing, this is at once seized by the hand of the carver, 



