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Updated: July 25, 2025
Exhilarated by the thought of being homeward-bound, many of the seamen became joyous, and the discipline of the ship, if anything, became a little relaxed. Many pastimes served to while away the Dog-Watches in particular. Among other diversions at present licensed by authority in the Neversink, were those of single-stick, sparring, hammer-and-anvil, and head-bumping.
In the dog-watches, Rose-water and May-day were repeatedly summoned into the lee waist to tilt at each other, for the benefit of the Captain's health. May-day was a full-blooded "bull-negro," so the sailors called him, with a skull like an iron tea-kettle, wherefore May-day much fancied the sport. But Rose-water, he was a slender and rather handsome mulatto, and abhorred the pastime.
One day, my eyes were opened to their game. For weeks I noticed Blackie and Boston circulating among the men during the dog-watches. They were great whisperers, a secretive pair, and they never spoke their minds outright before the crowd. I paid them little attention, for I did not like them, and felt no interest in what I thought was their gossip.
However, lad, I will certainly do as you ask me, though I cannot think that, unless you have been at a nautical school, you can know anything about it. But come to me this evening during the dog-watches, and then I will see what you have learned about the subject.” That evening Will went on deck rather shyly with two or three of his books. The midshipman was standing at a quiet spot on the deck.
He's frightfully strong, and they say he licked the Japanese ju-jitsu man they had at the School of Physical Training. And, of course, there's old Beggs. You know, he was captain of England Rugger some years ago. He's broken his nose three times. . . ." "We all skylark together in the dog-watches," added another.
What is called the dog-watches occur between 4 and 8 P.M., this period being divided in the first dog-watch between 4 and 6, and the second dog-watch between 6 and 8. "Why should such peculiar times be taken, or the periods be divided up in that way?"
For me there was here no sitting on painted spars, or tarry hatch-covers, or rusty anchor-stocks, and listening to long, rambling 'yarns, or 'cuffers, in idle dog-watches or restful night-watches, when the southern Trades blew steadily, and the braces hung untouched upon their pins for a week on end.
And I held all afternoon, and through both dog-watches, my dinner served likewise on the deck. And that was all. Nothing happened. The galley-stove smoked three times, advertising the cooking of three meals. Shorty made faces at me as usual across the rim of the for'ard-house. The Maltese Cockney caught an albatross.
So continually broken was his rest through these means, that he led the life of having wagered to keep ten thousand dog-watches in ten thousand hours, and looked piteously upon himself as always getting up and yet never going to bed.
The place was the deck of the "Elijah Pogram," one of Carr & Co.'s celebrated Liverpool liners, and the time, the dog-watches of a gusty April night; the latitude and longitude, anywhere west of Greenwich and north of the line that is not inconsistent with blue water. The question was asked, not so much from a laudable desire of obtaining information as to set the captain talking.
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