LIFE ON BOABD. 
41 
partment. J. Y. Buchanan, M.A., acted as physicist 
and chemist, and J. J. Wild, as artist and secretary. 
This staff of specially selected scientists, each dis- 
tinguished for some particular attainment in his 
profession, completed the list. 
Life on board ship, the varied incidents at sea, all 
tend to rouse feelings and sensations which are re- 
served alone for those whose business is on the great 
waters. To those constituting the scientific staff, 
the routine, especially of a man-of-war, was entirely 
different from that they had hitherto enjoyed on 
shore ; and unfortunately their initiation to the ever 
varying scenes was under most unfavourable cir- 
cumstances as regards the weather. At first the 
etiquette and usages of naval every-day life seemed 
particularly vexatious and annoying ; but after a 
while, when fine weather again set in, and the sea- 
sickness had been got over, one and all perceived, to 
a certain extent, the necessity of order. Scrubbing, 
washing, and holystoning of the decks, cleaning 
brass and wood work, mustering at quarters and 
divisions, are all measures which tend to enforce 
the discipline so essential to good government. 
Existence in the limited space of a ship, which is 
frequently for months completely isolated from the 
outer world, is so peculiar and interesting to those 
unacquainted with the sea that I may be permitted 
to make a few remarks as to our daily doings. 
From the hour of four o’clock in the morning, as 
