Part 3

Let, then, the reader who knows what a "between-decks" is, step below with me, and there picture to himself a room forty feet long, not taking in the deep transom, by sixteen in breadth, having on either hand a range of inclosed state-rooms about eight feet square, each with its own door and window, of bird's-eye maple curiously inlaid with variously grained wood, polished as glass. The upper part of the door and the whole of the side window are latticed; so that on both being closed, the occupant is hidden, yet the air admitted freely.

Each of these state-rooms is furnished with a washhand stand, containing a double service, a chest of drawers, with handles of cut glass, a shelf or two for books, &c. and a brace of berths or bed-places of ample dimensions, well appointed with mattress and linen, white as ever lassie lifted off the sunny side of a brae, at whose foot brawled the burn to which her labour owed its freshness.

Now, although each room is fitted up for two insides, you may nevertheless conserve your individuality,--the which I recommend,--at the cost of an additional half-fare, or, in all, about fifty-five pounds sterling.

Being here installed, then, solus, you will be roused from your sound night's sleep in the morning at eight bells, or eight o'clock A.M., by the tinkling of a shrewish-sounding hand-bell, which says, as plainly as ever the chimes of Bow hailed Whittington lord mayor of London, "Arise, and shave, and make your toilet, and prepare to come forth; for the cow is milking, and the kettle is screeching, and the hot rolls beginning to get over-brown."

Upon this welcome summons, if you are not sea-sick, which Heaven forbid! or insensible to the goods here by the gods provided for you, you will bounce or creep out of your crib, according as the waves and your agility may determine; and popping your head out of window, loudly bawl "Thomas!" or plain "Tom!" or "Steward!" according to the terms of friendship and familiarity on which you may stand with this dignitary, who, by the way, has a vote on board worth canvassing for;--I say bawl out, because, firstly, your mincing and Clarendon-like lisp of "Waiter!" would not be heard by one used to listen to the rush of the tempest and the shriek of the scourged Atlantic; also, for that your stirring call may remind some wretched skulker of a circumstance which he is miserably dozing out of remembrance, viz. that breakfast is under weigh. "Yes, sir!" is the prompt response from the larboard corner of the cabin, where the steward and his gang are installed with all their appointment of glass and crockery ranged neatly within reach. Your next call will be, "Bring me a bottle of Saratoga water"--a chalybeate, cool and brisk on the palate as soda water, a commendable morning draught, and such a trumpet to appetite!--well, having swallowed of this, your pint or so, dress, mount the deck, and inquire "how she heads," and what she has done during the long hours of night whilst you lay sleeping like a sea-bird in your wave-borne nest.

You next take a look over the weather quarter, sweep the horizon knowingly with your best eye, and after, walk forward towards the galley or kitchen, pricking your ears at certain sputtering and hissing sounds, the which, backed up by sundry savoury sniffs caught under the tack of the main-sail, give you foretaste of broiled ham, spitch-cock, eggs, frizzled bacon, and mutton cutlets.

One by one your messmates tumble up the companion, or cabin-stair; some hungry and blooming as sound stomachs and clear consciences can make them, others showing a leetle blue and bilious-like; but each and all resolute to essay the onslaught, which the train of polished covers, making rapid transit from the caboose down the steward's hatchway, proclaim about to begin.

Tinkle, tinkle, ting! again sounds the steward's bell; and, without any pauses of ceremony, down dive the convives, turning en que the foot of the stair, some to windward, others to leeward, but all facing right aft--a double game of "follow my leader."

"Oh! 'tis a goodly sight to see," the show which here presents itself;--covers of all sizes glisten under the flickering rays of the morning sun, stealing in through the open deck-light, and dancing about to the heave of the ship over a well-laid cloth flanked by ready plates and the weapons of attack.

The signal is made, the covers drawn; and, appetite or no appetite, here is temptation for all. If the incipient voyager will benefit by my experience, as he might well have done by my example had we been happy enough to have possessed his amiable society on board the Europe, he will develope his main battle against the mutton chops au naturel; then gossip over a slice of broiled Virginy ham, with an egg or twain, whilst his souchong is getting pleasantly cool; then, having emptied his cup, flirt with a couple of delicate morsels raised from the thin part of a salted shad-fish, the which shad, for richness and flavour is surpassing.

To his second cup he will dedicate the upper crust of a well-baked roll with cold butter; and, after having duly paused a while, choose between Cognac and Schiedam for a chasse. If he will yet walk with me, I say unhesitatingly, try Schiedam, in the absence, reverently be it spoken, of Isla or Innishowen.

Now, my pupil, if this breakfast would, which it could not fail to do, raise the bastard appetite of your close-curtained, feather-bedded coal-smoked, snivelling in-dweller of the city, judge of the influence it must exercise over a child of ocean, who inhales the breath of heaven freshly as generated beneath the blue sky that vaults his watery world, pure, uncorrupted, untainted by touch of anything more earthly.

Why, man, it is worth a life of ordinary vegetation to be stirred but for once by the sensations, such a morning as I draw from, in such a place, create; and to those who sagely shake the head and doubt, if any such cavillers there be, I say, "Pay your just debts; make your tenants easy, that their prayers may be in your sails; forgive your enemies, kiss your wife, draw up and add in her favour a codicil to your testament; and your duties being thus fulfilled, with a clean heart, backed by forty-eight clean shirts, go and try; and if you 'fall not' of my advice before you again embrace your mother country, curse Fortune for a perverse wench, and set your humble servant down for false counsel."

Leaving you now, my pupil, to write, to read, to practise shooting with ball at a bottle swinging from some outstanding spar, or to follow whatever pursuit most engages your fancy, for the space of some four hours, we will just name an intermediate and somewhat tempting meal, ycleped luncheon, chiefly indeed for the purpose of advising you to eschew it as you value unimpaired digestion, and would appreciate a four o'clock dinner. If, however, you are obstinately self-willed, and choose to obey a villanous unappeasable appetite, in place of following my wholesome advice, I pray you, at least, not to sit down knife in hand, as I have noted "some shameless creatures do;" but lift a piece of pilot biscuit, request some kind soul to shave the under side of the corned round for you, then desiring the steward to follow with a tumbler of Guiness's porter, fly the place and seek the deck.

Shuffle-board, chess, and backgammon, with exercise and pleasant converse, will while away the intervening hours so quickly, that, if you do not keep a bright look-out, you will be surprised by the dinner-bell before you think of your toilet, which, if a luxury to you on shore, will be thrice welcome at sea, besides being a pleasant way of disposing of twenty minutes; not to mention the ladies, who, at all times sensibly alive to any neglect in us, become doubly so here, where there is so much to remind them that they are not ruling in their own pretty drawing-rooms, though, as the old song has it,

"Queens they be On the boundless sea,"

as indeed they are, and ought to be, everywhere.

Mem.--Do not trust your appetite to forewarn you of approaching dinner, since I have been more than once deceived by over-confidence in that quarter: truth is, you have the cry of "wolf" from that insatiable look-out so early and so often, that you learn after a time to treat the call as impertinent and troublesome, and so strive to cut it until the cutting moment really and unexpectedly comes upon you.

I have been so elaborate upon the head of breakfast, which meal, I freely confess to be my foible, that I feel as though any description of dinner would now come comparatively weak; besides, to speak verily, one might, with time and prudent choice, get as good a dinner, perhaps, a-shore in favoured countries: but for a breakfast, pho! the thing is beyond reach, away from the stores of a well-regulated Yankee packet. I challenge Europe, including Scotland, with all her Finnanhaddies, herrin's, cakes, and preserves, to back her.

Suffice it then to say, that here is a dinner of three courses, with pastry and various confitures which would not shame Gunter; and, for boisson, sherry, madeira, hock, and claret, with port for those who indulge in strong potations, and three or four times a week well-iced champagne.

A variety of dried fruits compose the dessert, since, although they sometimes raise small salad, I feel bound to admit that they have not yet attained to the comfort of a pinery on board: nor, let me add, did I see finger-glasses in use; and how persons get on who have never dined without them, I cannot guess, this not being my case, since luckily, even in England, I had sometimes roughed it in very good society without these necessaries. Once seated to dinner, there you remain, and imbibe until discretion bids you hold your hand, for other check have you none, cellar and servants remaining at your disposal.

After a walk on deck, and a cup of tea or coffee, you form your party for whist or some round game, or join the ladies in their boudoir, which I ought to have mentioned before as leading out of the great room forward, being a pretty square apartment, fitted up with sofas, mirrors, loo-table, and other little elegancies which ladies love to look upon and be surrounded by. Entre nous, between the lights this snuggery affords tolerable convenience for a little flirtation, if you are lucky enough to get one up;--this broken off, you play your play, and at the conclusion of your rubber of whist, or parti d'ecarte, you prepare for bed,--early hours forming here one of those sanitary laws which the wise feel little inclined to impinge.

Now I am quite well aware that on the head of night-caps every biped has his own fancy, and most of the genus I also know to be infernally pig-pated on this seemingly simple point; such incurables I abandon, to supper, porter, night-mare, and all the other nameless horrors that rouse them to avenge an ill-used stomach; but to the willing ear and ductile mind I whisper again, "try mine." Imprimis--one cigar, one tumbler of weak Hollands' grog, better named swizzle, all to be disposed of in pleasant company during some half-hour's walk on deck; when, if you should sometimes, as I hope you often may, fall in with a soft downy south-west breeze, a clear deep-blue sky over head, gemmed full with little stars, and fringed about, down into the watery round, by a broad border of jet-black cloud, against which each curling wave appears to break, and the goodly ship seems as though delving through a lake of quick-silver--when the track of the swift porpoises show like long furrows of dazzling flame, and over the whirling eddies of the keel's deep wake is seen to hover a strange unearthly light,--a thin bluish, devilish, vaporous haze, which, in the silent watch of night, maketh the lonely gazer's flesh to creep, and conjures through the brain every wild legend whispered of the "vasty deep," fascinating the eyes, and holding them with spell-like power, until--until what?--why, until a sharp twitch on the lip from the fire of the close-burned cigar we recommended awakens you to a due sense of such a "lame and most impotent conclusion."

Jump off the spare spar on which you have been perched whilst gazing so dreamily over the ship's quarter, give the last half of your grog to the old lad at the wheel, peep in on the compass, find she heads about west-north-west, and, well satisfied, descend the stair. The steward lights the waxen taper which fixes on a branch before your glass; when, having performed such ceremonies as you delight in, thank God and sleep: and thus ends the chapter of a day.

And, gentle pupil, if you would learn yet more especially to enjoy all this, which I have for your benefit somewhat lengthily detailed, give directions to the steward to rouse you at deck-washing; that is, about six A.M.; put on drawers and jacket of fine cotton, and, sunshine or cloud, calm or squall, run on deck, leave your robe de chambre in the round-house, and slide down into the lee gangway, where, according to previous contract, you see a grim-looking seven-foot seaman--pick out the tallest--waiting for you with a couple of buckets of sea-water, one held ready in his claw, with a half-grin upon his puckered phiz as he inwardly blesses the simplicity of the landsman who turns out of his hammock in the morning-watch to be soused like the captain's turtle in cold salt water; and i' faith! startlingly cold it gets when on the Banks, even in July, especially if within the influence of an ice-berg or twain: think not, however, of this, the infliction is light in comparison with the after enjoyment.

Being seated in the lee-scuppers, give the word; up goes the bucket, and wush! down pours the deluge on your oil-capped crown. "Hah!" you cry involuntarily, for the flesh will quiver, &c. You then compress your lips a little closer, whilst Jack's giggle expands into a broad grin, and in a steadier stream descends the second shower; which, having abided to the last drop, away you scurry along the wet deck, that is, always provided you avoid a fall or two by the way, into the round-house, on gown, and down to your little den; where a coarse towel, and a couple of flesh-brushes smartly applied for five minutes, will produce such a circulation throughout your inward man, that, like bold Waterton, you feel as though you could back an alligator, take the sea-serpent by the beard, or kick a noisy steamboat fairly out of water.

I have, since I am at confession, sometimes in very bad weather been tempted into bed after this ablution, when such an hour's nap awaits one! But this is a luxury Xerxes would have given a Satrapie to have tasted, and not to be indulged in over-often, lest it lead to effeminacy, which is as far removed from comfort as is sensuality from pleasure.

I have often heard objected to these fine ships the discomfort and difficulty attending toilet; but, for my own part, I did not discover these. Having a state-room, and possessed of the same appliances, with perhaps a little more trouble, a man may be as scrupulously nice as in any other dressing-room; provided always he be not prostrated by that unsparing nausea, sea-sickness; from the which I wish you, gentle reader, the full exemption I enjoy, and so commend you to repose.