, and rigged the pump, we commenced washing down the
decks. This operation, which is performed every morning at sea,
takes nearly two hours; and I had hardly strength enough to get
through it. After we had finished, swabbed down, and coiled up the
rigging, I sat down on the spars, waiting for seven bells, which was
the sign for breakfast. The officer, seeing my lazy posture, ordered
me to slush the main-mast from the royal-mast-head, down. The vessel
was then rolling a little, and I had taken no sustenance for three
days, so that I felt tempted to tell him that I had rather wait till
after breakfast; but I knew that I must "take the bull by the
horns," and that if I showed any sign of want of spirit or of
backwardness, that I should be ruined at once. So I took my bucket
of grease and climbed up to the royal-mast-head. Here the rocking of
the vessel, which increases the higher you go from the foot of the
mast, which is the fulcrum of the lever, and the smell of the
grease, which offended my fastidious senses, upset my stomach again,
and I was not a little rejoiced when I got upon the comparative
terra firma of the deck.
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