These are all boiled down
together in the "coppers," and before serving it out, the mess is
stirred up with a stick, so as to give each man his fair share of
sweetening and tea-leaves. The tea for the cabin is, of course, made
in the usual way, in a tea-pot, and drank with sugar.
**I do not wish these remarks, so far as they relate to the saving
of expense in the outfit, to be applied to the owners of our ship, for
she was supplied with an abundance of stores, of the best kind that
are given to seamen; though the dispensing of them is necessarily left
to the captain. Indeed, so high was the reputation of "the employ"
among men and officers, for the character and outfit of their vessels,
and for their liberality in conducting their voyages, that when it was
known that they had a ship fitting out for a long voyage, and that
hands were to be shipped at a certain time,- a half hour before the
time, as one of the crew told me, numbers of sailors were steering
down the wharf, hopping over the barrels, like flocks of sheep.
But this is not doubling Cape Horn. Eight hours of the night, our
watch was on deck, and during the whole of that time we kept a
bright look-out: one man on each bow, another in the bunt of the
fore yard, the third mate on the scuttle, one on each quarter, and a
man always standing by the wheel.
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