WHY WE DON'T DESERT 37 



deck. My own first experience on the royal 

 yard gave me an exciting fifteen minutes. The 

 ship seemed to be fighting me and devoting an 

 unpleasant amount of time and effort to it ; buck- 

 ing and tossing as if with a sentient determina- 

 tion to shake me off into the atmosphere. I es- 

 caped becoming a grease spot on the deck of the 

 brig only by hugging the yard as if it were a 

 sweetheart and hanging on for dear life. I be- 

 came in time quite an expert at furling the sail. 



Standing lookout was the one thing aboard a 

 green hand could do as well as an old sailor. The 

 lookout was posted on the forecastle-head in fair 

 weather and on the try-works in a storm. He 

 stood two hours at a stretch. He had to scan 

 the sea ahead closely and if a sail or anything 

 unusual appeared, he reported to the officer of 

 the watch. 



Learning to steer by the compass was com- 

 paratively easy. With the ship heading on a 

 course, it was not difficult by manipulating the 

 >vheel to keep the needle of the compass on a 

 given point. But to steer by the wind was hard 

 to learn and is sometimes a nice matter even for 



