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TABLE FURNITURE. 
juncture we cut plates out of every imaginable and 
rejected piece of tinware. Borden’s meat-biscuit canis¬ 
ters furnished us with a splendid dinner-service; and 
some rightly-feared tin jars, with ominous labels of Cor¬ 
rosive Sublimate and Arsenic, which once belonged to 
our department of Natural History, were emptied, 
scoured, and cut down into tea-cups. 
Recognising the importance of acting directly upon 
the men’s minds, my first step now was to issue a 
general order appointing a certain day, the 17th of 
May, for setting out. Every man had twenty-four 
hours given him to select and get ready his eight 
pounds of personal effects. After that, his time was to 
cease to be his own for any purpose. The long-indulged 
waywardness of our convalescents made them take this 
hardly. Some who were at work on articles of apparel 
that were really important to them threw them down 
unfinished, in a sick man’s pet. I had these in some 
cases picked up quietly and finished by others. But I 
showed myself inexorable. It was necessary to brace 
up and concentrate every man’s thoughts and energies 
upon the one great common object,—our departure from 
the vessel on the 17th, not to return. 
I tried my best also to fix and diffuse impressions 
that we were going home. But in this I was not 
always successful: I was displeased, indeed, with the 
moody indifference with which many went about the 
tasks to which I put them. The completeness of my 
preparations I know had its influence; but there 
were many doubters. Some were convinced that my 
