The Studding-Sails Must Now Be Cleared Away, And Set Up In The
Tops, And On The Booms.
By the time this is done, and you are
looking out for a soft plank for a nap, - "Lay aft here, and square
in the head yards!" and the studding-sails are all set again on
the starboard side.
So it goes until it is eight bells, - call
the watch, - heave the log, - relieve the wheel, and go below
the larboard watch.
Sunday, May 22d. Lat. 5° 14' N., long. 166° 45' W. We were now
a fortnight out, and within five degrees of the line, to which two
days of good breeze would take us; but we had, for the most part,
what sailors call "an Irishman's hurricane, - right up and down."
This day it rained nearly all day, and being Sunday, and nothing
to do, we stopped up the scuppers and filled the decks with rain
water, and bringing all our clothes on deck, had a grand wash,
fore and aft. When this was through, we stripped to our drawers,
and taking pieces of soap and strips of canvas for towels,
we turned-to and soaped, washed, and scrubbed one another down,
to get off, as we said, the California dust; for the common wash
in salt water, which is all Jack can get, being on an allowance of
fresh, had little efficacy, and was more for taste than utility.
The captain was below all the afternoon, and we had something
nearer to a Saturnalia than anything we had yet seen; for the
mate came into the scuppers, with a couple of boys to scrub him,
and got into a battle with them in heaving water.
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