---------+------+-----+-----+------+------+-----+-------+------+------ |BREAD.|BEEF.|PORK.|FLOUR.|PEASE.|TEA. |COFFEE.|SUGAR.|WATER. ---------+------+-----+-----+------+------+-----+-------+------+------ |Lb. |Lbs. |Lbs. | Lb. | Pt. |Oz. | Oz. | Ozs. | Qts. Sunday | 1 |1-1/2| | 1/2 | |1/8 | 1/2 | 2 | 3 Monday | 1 | |1-1/4| | 1/8 |1/8 | 1/2 | 2 | 3 Tuesday | 1 |1-1/2| | 1/2 | |1/8 | 1/2 | 2 | 3 Wednesday| 1 | |1-1/4| | 1/8 |1/8 | 1/2 | 2 | 3 Thursday | 1 |1-1/2| | 1/2 | |1/8 | 1/2 | 2 | 3 Friday | 1 | |1-1/4| | 1/8 |1/8 | 1/2 | 2 | 3 Saturday | 1 |1-1/2| | | |1/8 | 1/2 | 2 | 3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Then comes a list of substitutes, such as molasses for sugar, potatoes for pease, etc. Other nations also have provision scales, but they are adhered to; foreign schemes add oatmeal, but all sailors get too much meat; both captains and seamen say that. Our blue-water ships have a great name for fine “grub,” which they deserved forty years ago, but which most of them certainly do not now. A Yankee captain has the privilege from the owners to lay in whatever sort of stores he thinks fit (of course neither he nor the owner ever thinks of the law); if he is a generous man, the crew are lucky; if not, it’s a case of hunger and hustle for four or five months. As a sample of the manner in which the food has been given out here, the men consumed an entire barrel of molasses during the first seventeen days that we were at sea; since then they have had none. Other articles were scattered around in the same reckless manner, with the natural result that the “dainties” which ought to have lasted the whole voyage had vanished at the latitude of the Falklands; so that ever since the men have been on pretty hard rations, and Broadhead told me that when the old man made the show of putting all hands on government allowance it didn’t mean anything at all. Since the stabbing, though, all the food has been weighed out by the mate each day in full view of the sailors, eighteen pounds of bread (_i.e._, hard-tack), so many pounds of beef, etc., and the men themselves carry it to the cook, so that there can be no fault-finding. As to the water, three quarts per day amounts in all to fifty-four quarts, which is measured into a cask in the forecastle, and the men are at liberty to give any portion of it they choose to the cook in which to boil their beef and pork, or tea and coffee. These three quarts, by the way, are for all purposes, drinking, cooking, and washing, though most foremast hands are not much troubled with the latter, except when it rains hard. Each man probably does not have more than a quart and a half of drinking water a day, which is a truly scanty allowance for men who are painting on a blistering deck several