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Updated: July 25, 2025
While one watch is on duty the other goes below to sleep, or take their meals, except when all hands are wanted on deck. Every hour a bell is struck to show how time goes. Every four hours the watch is changed, except in the evening, from four to eight o'clock, when there are two watches, called dog-watches, that is to say, from four to six, one; and from six to eight, another.
Annexed is a photograph taken from one I saw at a later stage of the voyage. The sails had been flapping, more or less, all day, and at the change of the dog-watches, at six o'clock, Tom ordered the men aft to stow the mizen. This they had scarcely begun to do when a light breeze sprang up, and in a few minutes increased to a strong one, before which we bowled along at the rate of nine knots.
The first watch is from 8:00 P. M. till midnight. The mid-watch, or "graveyard watch," is from midnight till 4:00 A. M.; the morning watch from 4:00 till 8:00 A. M.; the forenoon watch from 8:00 A. M. till mid-day; the afternoon watch from noon till 4:00 P. M.; and the dog-watches, each of which is but two hours long, are from 4:00 till 6:00 P. M. and from 6:00 till 8 P. M.
By this means they divide the twenty-four hours into seven watches instead of six, and thus shift the hours every night. As the dog-watches come during twilight, after the day's work is done, and before the night-watch is set, they are the watches in which everybody is on deck.
This ordinary watch consists of four hours, and the bell is struck every half-hour. As the first watch commences at eight, it was then eleven. There are two dog-watches from four to six and from six to eight p.m., in order that the same men may not be on duty at the same hours each day. "Hillo! who have we here?"
"Jones that comical fellow who used to play the violin on the forecastle during the dog-watches, and poor Tom Cotterel have both lost the number of their mess; and there are five more in their hammocks hurt more or less severely; though I believe O'Flaherty and yourself are the worst sufferers in that respect."
Jack still continued his forecastle conversation with Mesty; and the boatswain and purser's steward, probably from their respective ill-will towards our hero, had become great allies. Mr Easthupp now put on his best jacket to walk the dog-watches with Mr Biggs, and they took every opportunity to talk at our hero.
Besides the working-day songs, there are others for the forecastle and dog-watches, which have been already described. But they are seldom of the parlor pattern.
It was bright, like the twisted flare of lightning, and more full of surprises than the dark night. It made him safe, and the calm of its overpowering darkness was as precious as its restless and dangerous light. But in the evening, in the dog-watches, and even far into the first night-watch, a knot of men could always be seen congregated before Jimmy's cabin.
The crew was sadly frightened, and I sought in vain, in the two dog-watches, for Tom Spink, to ask him if he thought the carpenter, astern, had opened wide the bag- mouth and loosed all his tricks. For the first time I saw the steward apprehensive. "Too much," he told me, with ominous rolling head. "Too much sail, rotten bad damn all to hell. Bime-by, pretty quick, all finish. You see."
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