Out of about a dozen, I think there was only one other besides myself who decided upon keeping watch. Most of this party had been a cruise or two at sea before, and knew that pacing up and down the deck for four hours in the night, over and above the tasks of the day, was no joke; and they rather chuckled at the prospect of being let off so easily. For my part, I was so grievously annoyed at the contemptuous official assurance of being of no use, that I never hesitated an instant, but caught eagerly at any opening which promised me the means of belying this disparaging assertion. Of course, I knew little or nothing of the duties which would be required; but I had a pretty distinct notion, that, provided any person has a specific course chalked out for him to follow, no matter how humble that path may be, there must be a better and a worse way of going over it; and, if so, that there will be a certain amount of distinction due to him who, in the first instance, resolves to do his business properly, and has afterwards perseverance enough to make good his pledge. To a lad who has health and spirits, keeping watch is rather agreeable than otherwise. I speak from about twelve years of almost uninterrupted experience of the practice, when I say that, upon the whole, its pleasures outweigh its annoyances. There is no opiate, that ever was devised, which gives such hearty relish to sleep, as a good four hours’ night-watch. Without refining or philosophising too deeply, every one, I am sure, who has tried the experiment, will recollect the sort of complete self-satisfaction with which he has ‘turned in,’ after having gone through his work, and stripped off his dripping clothes. Still less will he forget the delighted kind of hug, which he has bestowed upon himself, when fairly under the blankets. All the world is then forgotten; the gale may be rising; the ship in no great safety; the labours of the night just beginning—no matter, his watch is out—his task is done. “I’ll go to sleep,” he says; and, sure enough, a young middy, after the weary watch is out, lies down as perfect a personification of Shakspeare’s ship-boy as imagination could desire. Though not literally perched on the high and giddy mast, he is pretty nearly as soundly rocked; for, after being bagged up in a hammock, and hoisted close to the beams, in the cable tier, with only a foot and a half of space above, and not half a foot below him, he is banged, at every roll, against the stanchions, or driven by the motion of the ship against the deck overhead. In spite of all this, added to the loud creaking of the lower-deck guns, and the hundred-and-fifty other noises above and below him, he sleeps through all, and sleeps soundly; or, as the Spaniards say, ‘Rienda suelta,’—at full gallop.