These are but a few of the tricks played off upon those who will not relieve the deck in proper time. I remember an incorrigible snooser, who had been called three or four times, but still gave no symptoms of any intention of ‘shewing a leg,’ the only allowable test of sincerity in the process called ‘turning out.’ About five o’clock, on a fine tropical morning, when the ship was cruising off the Mono Passage, in the West Indies; and just before the day began to dawn, it was resolved, in a full conclave of the middies of his own watch, assembled on the lee side of the quarter-deck, that an example should forthwith be made of the sleeper. A detachment, consisting of four stout hands, were sent to the hammock of the culprit. Two of them held the youth firmly down, while the others wrapped the bedclothes round him, and then lashed him up—that is, strapped him tightly in by means of the lashing—a long cord with which the hammocks are secured when brought upon deck in the day-time. No part of the unfortunate wight was left exposed except his face. When he was fairly tied in, the lanyards of his hammock were cast off, and the bundle, half midshipman half bedding, was dragged along, like a log of wood, to the square of the hatchway. Meanwhile the confederates on deck had thrown the end of the signal haulyards down the cock-pit wind-sail, a wide canvass-pipe, by which, in hot climates, air is sent to the lower parts of the ship. These signal haulyards, I must explain, are led through small sheeve-holes in the truck, a little turban-shaped, wooden cap, fitted on the royal mast-head. The ordinary purpose of the signal haulyards, as their name points out, is to display the flags necessary in communicating with other ships; but, upon this occasion, they were fastened to one of the grummets of the unhappy sleepy-headed reefer’s hammock. When all was secure, the word ‘haul up!’ was given from below, upon which the party on deck hoisted away. The sleeper awakened vanished from the cock-pit, only to make his appearance, in a few seconds, at the mouth of the wind-sail, half way between the quarter-deck and the mizen-stay. Of course, the boys watched their opportunity, when the officer of the watch had gone forward on the gangway, to see how the head-yards were trimmed; but long before he came aft again, their victim was lowered down, and the signal haulyards unbent. What to do with the wretch next was a great puzzle; till one of them said, “Oh! let us stick him up on his end, between two of the guns on the weather side of the deck, and perhaps the officer of the watch may take him for an Egyptian mummy, and have him sent to the British Museum as a present to the king.” This advice was instantly followed; and the enraged, mortified, and helpless youngster, being placed so that the first rays of the sun should fall on his countenance, there was no mistaking his identity.