They
never sleep longer than four hours at a time, and are seldom called
without being really in need of more rest. There is no one thing
that a sailor thinks more of as a luxury of life on shore, than a
whole night's sleep. Still, all these things must be left to be
gradually modified by circumstances. Whenever hard cases occur, they
should be made known, and masters and owners should be held
answerable, and will, no doubt, in time, be influenced in their
arrangements and discipline by the increased consideration in which
sailors are held by the public. It is perfectly proper that the men
should live in a different part of the vessel from the officers; and
if the forecastle is made large and comfortable, there is no reason
why the crew should not live there as well as in any other part. In
fact, sailors prefer the forecastle. It is their accustomed place, and
in it they are out of the sight and hearing of their officers.
*I am not sure that I have stated, in the course of my narrative,
the manner in which sailors eat, on board ship. There are neither
tables, knives, forks, nor plates, in a forecastle; but the kid (a
wooden tub, with iron hoops) is placed on the floor, and the crew
sit round it, and each man cuts for himself with the common jack-knife
or sheath-knife, that he carries about him.
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