Nautical routine in its essential details is much the same in all
ships, whether naval, merchant, or whaling vessels. But while in
the ordinary merchantman there are decidedly "no more cats than
can catch mice," hardly, indeed, sufficient for all the mousing
that should be done, in men-of-war and whaleships the number of
hands carried, being far more than are wanted for everyday work,
must needs be kept at unnecessary duties in order that they may
not grow lazy and discontented.

For instance, in the CACHALOT we carried a crew of thirty-seven
all told, of which twenty-four were men before the mast, or
common seamen, our tonnage being under 400 tons. Many a splendid
clipper-ship carrying an enormous spread of canvas on four masts,
and not overloaded with 2500 tons of cargo on board, carries
twenty-eight or thirty all told, or even less than that. As far
as we were concerned, the result of this was that our landsmen
got so thoroughly drilled, that within a week of leaving port
they hardly knew themselves for the clumsy clodhoppers they at
first appeared to be.

We had now been eight days out, and in our leisurely way were
making fair progress across the Atlantic, having had nothing, so
far, but steady breezes and fine weather. As it was late autumn
the first week in October--I rather wondered at this, for even in
my brief experience I had learned to dread a "fall" voyage across
the "Western Ocean."

Gradually the face of the sky changed, and the feel of the air,
from balmy and genial, became raw and cheerless. The little wave
tops broke short off and blew backwards, apparently against the