[Illustration: THE ROCKET.] ON BOARD THE "ROCKET." BY ROBERT C. ADAMS. "----Ships are but boards, sailors but men: there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves." --_Merchant of Venice._ BOSTON: D. LOTHROP COMPANY, FRANKLIN ST., CORNER OF HAWLEY. COPYRIGHT BY Robert C. Adams, 1879. PREFACE. All the incidents of this book are facts, occurring in the writer's own experience. In a few cases names have been altered, in accordance with his desire, neither to give offence to the living, nor to cast discredit upon the dead. He makes no apology for its imperfections; for he issues it, not as a contribution to literature, but as a needed exposure of abuses on shipboard, which are too common, but too little known. He refers with diffidence to his own methods of discipline, believing that in the principles which prompted them, lie the means of promoting the interests and good repute of our Merchant Marine. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The _Rocket_--The Cargo--Shipping the Crew--The Start--Rolling--Discomfort--Quiet--Gale--Storm Music--Discipline--Northeast Trades--Aye! Aye!--Doldrums--Sharks--A Shark Story--South-east Trades. CHAPTER II. A Saucy Sailor--Sailors' Treatment--An Easy Ship--Three Kinds of Discipline--A Good Run--Proving the Reckoning--Sea birds. CHAPTER III. The Voyage of the "Dublin"--Capt. Streeter--A Darkey Crew--No Profanity--The Mates--A Bully--A Tobacco Cargo--Owner's Instructions--A Blower--No Sitting Down--Pomposity--Brass Knuckles--Flogging--The Third Mate--Reefing Topsails--Mr. Jones--A Smart Officer--The Brick-wall Theory--Reflections--Good Advice--Land, ho!--Porpoises--Mother Carey's Chickens--Captain and Mate--Land In Sight--Overheard--Gibraltar--Information--Where Christ was born--In the Mediterranean--Jake--Gulf of Lyons--Genoa Bay--Quarantine--Discharging Cargo. CHAPTER IV. The Voyage of the "Dublin" concluded--_Genova La Superba_--Leave of Absence--On Shore in Italy--Loading Marble--Mates' Opinions about Driving Sailors Ashore--Women in Ships--Anchor at Gibraltar--Through the Straits--Pumps Choked--How to Clinch Buntlines--Cleaning the Spittoon--A Sleepy Officer's Danger--Holystones--Beating a Boy--Officers' Ambition--Eternal Vigilance--Old Jenkings--A Breeze Aloft--The Pilot's Rebuff--Blood Tubs--Paying Off--Promotion--The Mate and the Owner. CHAPTER V. John Shephard--My Model Sailor--Christmas--Ode to the _Rocket_--Grub--Doubtful Islands--Becalmed off Java--Officers' Yarns--Off Java Head--Narrow Escape--A Floating Light. CHAPTER VI. Life in the East Indies--Carimata Passage--Singapore--Three Months' Extra Pay. CHAPTER VII.